Alan K. Henderson's Weblog

Headline: Ted Cruz forces runoff against David Dewhurst in Texas Senate race

Another jab at the Divine Right of Incumbents.

Labels: Politics

(This is an annual Memorial Day post.)



Revolutionary War (1775-1783)
Wars on the Barbary Pirates (1801-1805, 1815)
War of 1812 (1812-1815)
War Between the States (1861-1865)
Mexican-American War(1846-1848)
Spanish-American War (1898)
China Relief Expedition (1900-1901)
Pacification of Nicaragua (1912-1913)
Interventions in Mexico (1914-1917)
World War I (1914-1918)
Pacification of Haiti and Dominican Republic (1915-1918)
Allied Intervention in Russian Civil War (1918-1920)
World War II (1939-1945)
Korean War (1950-1953)
Vietnam War (1964-1973)
Hostage rescue mission in Iran (1980)
Lebanon peacekeeping mission (1982-1984)
Counterinsurgency mission in El Salvador (1980-?)
Liberation of Grenada (1983)
Invasion of Panama (1989)
Iraq War (1990-1991, 2002-present)
Somalia peacekeeping mission (1992-1994)
Attack on USS Cole (2000)
Afghanistan War (2001-present)

The Veterans Museum has information on many of these conflicts. Information on Allied activity during the Bolshevik Revolution is here. See Wikipedia entry on Manuel Noriega for details on the Panama conflict. This site tells of American pilots who fought in the Battle of Britain.

Labels: Blog traditions, History

Will disses Romney's association with Donald Trump.

Trump is a guy who alienates grassroots Republicans and gives comedy fodder to the Left. And he doesn't have any ideas, except for the easiest idea anyone can come up with: to pay down the debt.

Labels: Culture, Politics

So, Obama once hung out with a a group of fellow pot smokers known as the Choom Gang.

Now he's got a new gang, getting stoked on high-stakes cronyism instead of the wacky weed. General Electric, Deutche Bank, and Caterpillar. Green energy. Big labor.

Let's call this cabal the CHOAM Gang, after the vast trade cartel in Frank Herbet's Dune series.

Labels: Culture, Politics

Part deaux.

Labels: History, Politics

Chuck Schumer and John Boehner want to impose a capital gains tax on people who leave this country. Guess who else passed such a tax?

The Reichsfluchsteuer, or Reich flight tax, that the Nazis imposed on Jews trying to flee in the 1930s was 25 percent; Mr. Schumer and his Senate colleague Bob Casey, Democrat of Pennsylvania, want 30 percent. Give Mr. Schumer some credit for creativity, Mr. Norquist; the New Yorker did not just translate, he also raised the rate.Whoa? What's with the Nazi reference? Do we really need to go there?

Yes. It wasn't the Nazis who started the  Reichsfluchsteuer:

Mr. Schumer would surely bridle at having his exit-tax policy compared to that of the Nazis, as would Mr. Boehner, so let me be clear: The Reichsfluchsteuer was originally imposed not by the Nazis, but, rather, on December 8, 1931, by the pre-Hitler, centrist government of Heinrich Brüning, who had a doctoral degree in economics.

As Howard Ellis wrote in Exchange Control In Central Europe, published in 1941 by Harvard University Press, “it is worth remarking that the National Socialists inherited it from Social Democrat supported coalition governments after nearly two years of elaboration.”Others have observed that it is not the only parallel that can be drawn between today’s era and the Weimar Republic, which featured high unemployment, deficits, and the threat of inflation.
Ellis writes that the exchange control policy remained in place “because it was an instrument par excellence of political power,” and concludes, “the political predecessors of Hitler nurtured an institution which paved the way for totalitarianism.” It doesn't take a regime as evil as the Nazis to come up with a tax like the Reichsfluchsteuer. It springs from government greed, and often from class envy. And it rejects a principle of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: It says, “Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own” and “No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.” What meaning does a right to leave have if the government is going to help itself to 30 percent of the migrant’s property on the way out?

Labels: History, Politics

Spies in teachers' unions.

Labels: Education

The Democrats are not the party of black civil rights.

(Link via Rand Simberg)

Labels: History, Politics

Flying barracuda.

Labels: Curiosities

The turncoat former Republican just endorsed Orrin Hatch in Utah's upcoming Republican primary on June 26. Hatch faces a challenger, Utah State Sen. Dan Liljenquist.

Specter suffers some kind of delusion that his endorsement offers some benefit to Hatch. In a sharply conservative state like Utah? Why would Utah republicans care what Specter says? The dude needs some serious psychoanalysis.

Labels: Politics

The story is more wilted than an Easter bouquet by now, but... Is it REALLY a good idea to pick on Romney for an alleged teenage hazing incident, while Congress certainly has a number of members who belong to college fraternities - institutions that carry on a long tradition of ADULT hazing???

Labels: Education, Politics

One of the chief reforms Douglas MacArthur brought about in postwar Japan was a new constitution, replacing the 1889 constitution, drafted during the Meiji era. One of its significant faults is how it handles the issue of civil rights, enumerated in Chapter II: Rights and Duties of Subjects. (That word "subjects" should be your first clue about the nature of this constitution.) Every one of the enumerated "rights" follows this structure: subjects have a right to X, unless the government rules otherwise. Here is that section in its entirety:
Article 18. The conditions necessary for being a Japanese subject shall be determined by law.
Article 19. Japanese subjects may, according to qualifications determined in laws or ordinances, be appointed to civil or military or any other public offices equally.
Article 20. Japanese subjects are amenable to service in the Army or Navy, according to the provisions of law.
Article 21. Japanese subjects are amenable to the duty of paying taxes, according to the provisions of law.
Article 22. Japanese subjects shall have the liberty of abode and of changing the same within the limits of the law.
Article 23. No Japanese subject shall be arrested, detained, tried or punished, unless according to law.
Article 24. No Japanese subject shall be deprived of his right of being tried by the judges determined by law.
Article 25. Except in the cases provided for in the law, the house of no Japanese subject shall be entered or searched without his consent.
Article 26. Except in the cases mentioned in the law, the secrecy of the letters of every Japanese subject shall remain inviolate.
Article 27. The right of property of every Japanese subject shall remain inviolate. (2) Measures necessary to be taken for the public benefit shall be any provided for by law.
Article 28. Japanese subjects shall, within limits not prejudicial to peace and order, and not antagonistic to their duties as subjects, enjoy freedom of religious belief.
Article 29. Japanese subjects shall, within the limits of law, enjoy the liberty of speech, writing, publication, public meetings and associations.
Article 30. Japanese subjects may present petitions, by observing the proper forms of respect, and by complying with the rules specially provided for the same.
Article 31. The provisions contained in the present Chapter shall not affect the exercises of the powers appertaining to the Emperor, in times of war or in cases of a national emergency.
Article 32. Each and every one of the provisions contained in the preceding Articles of the present Chapter, that are not in conflict with the laws or the rules and discipline of the Army and Navy, shall apply to the officers and men of the Army and of the Navy. Now, a Massachusetts representative wants to follow this lead (hat tip: VC): Now comes Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) with a comparable contribution to another debate, the one concerning government regulation of political speech. Joined by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), 26 other Democrats and one Republican, he proposes a constitutional amendment to radically contract First Amendment protections. His purpose is to vastly expand government’s power — i.e., the power of incumbent legislators — to write laws regulating, rationing or even proscribing speech in elections that determine the composition of the legislature and the rest of the government. McGovern’s proposal vindicates those who say that most campaign-finance “reforms” are incompatible with the First Amendment. Douglas MacArthur turns in his grave.

Labels: History, Politics

Socialists win in France.

Time to short stocks in French-owned corporations.

Labels: Europe, Politics

Russia announced that it is considering military reprisal if it cannot reach an agreement with NATO on proposed Europe/based missile defense.

Inspired by this post.

Labels: Humor

Neil Armstrong's Corvette is for sale.

Labels: Cool stuff

...was Victims of Communism Day. Volokh conspirator Ilya Somin has much to say.

Labels: History

Seriously.

Labels: Crime