Category: Politics

Recently, a report was released by the Commission on National Defense Strategy. This was a panel of eight Washington defense and intelligence experts, what me might call senior staffers, assigned by the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee and its senior Republican (Mike Rogers and Joe Wilson) and Democratic (Adam Smith and Joe Courtney) members. This group made an exhaustive review of public and confidential documentation and conducted extensive interviews across government and non-government sectors…

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Nova Scotia is a large sausage-shaped island that runs diagonally from the southwest to the northeast. Off the northeast coast by several hundred miles is Sable Island, a largely uninhabited sand bar (six people live there year round), that is mostly made famous in movies like The Perfect Storm, where it is referenced as the furthest most point of land before you go out to brave the Grand Banks on your way towards the bleak…

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The Year of the Debate For the second time in three months and for the first time in my life, I am anxiously awaiting another presidential debate. I guess for people who have followed politics for many years, this may not seem so very different form other election years. But for me, this is a strange feeling to be on tenterhooks over a debate. This has caused me to look up the work tenterhooks and…

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The Reagan Legacy Today we are going to see the new Dennis Quaid movie called Reagan. It chronicles the life and times of the 40th president of the United States. After the difficult transitional years with Jimmy Carter in the presidency, when so very little got done in what was, admittedly, a difficult moment in American history, it was not at all surprising that America wanted something different. It always does. I remember those times…

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Future v. Past We are rolling up to the big presidential debate on Tuesday night. I have never thought that this debate would happen. In fact, I have $10 riding on the notion that there would be no debate because Trump would no-show. At this point I think the odds of that outcome have fallen to below 50%, but I wouldn’t throw away my bet ticket just yet. I have been watching what the various…

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The Art of Disparagement When you disparage someone, you are making false and injurious statements about something. Usually it refers to comments made about a business or product rather than a person directly. Directing such false and injurious comments against a person is called defamation and most often takes the form of libel (written or visual) or slander (spoken or audible). All of this specificity is intended to get to the bottom of the comments…

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