Afghanistan AWOL in This Year’s Election
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on October 12th, 2010 4:32 am by HL
Afghanistan AWOL in This Year’s Election
Albert Hunt, Bloomberg
It’s a useful exercise to juxtapose Bob Woodward’s new book on the war in Afghanistan, “Obama’s Wars,” with the agenda discussed in elections across the country.There is a total disconnect: The Woodward book depicts Afghanistan as a quagmire-to-be with no clear and coherent strategy. There are almost 100,000 young American men and women deployed there at an annual cost of $119 billion — almost three times the ultimate cost to taxpayers of the entire Troubled Asset Relief Program to rescue the financial system — and with casualties rising.
The Founders, Wilson, & the Tea Party
Thomas West, New York Times
A growing body of scholars — including John Marini, Charles Kesler, R.J. Pestritto and my colleague Tiffany Miller — finds the origins of today’s liberalism in the Progressive era. Leading intellectuals of that day openly repudiated the principles of the American founding. In that group, Wilson is often highlighted because he was uniquely both a major politician and an academic.Here is Wilson’s description of the Founders’ view in his “New Freedom”: The ideal of government was for every man to be left alone and not interfered with,…
The Shadow Class of 2010
E.J. Dionne, Washington Post
The 2010 election is turning into a class war. The wealthy and the powerful started it. This is a strange development. President Obama, after all, has been working overtime to save capitalism. Wall Street is doing just fine and the rich are getting richer again. The financial reform bill passed by Congress was moderate, not radical.
Tea Party Wants to “Take U.S. Back.” To Where?
Gary Younge, Guardian
The city emerges from the Arizona desert like a sprawling conurbation in search of an environmental impact assessment. Over the last 20 years Tucson's population has grown by 27% as thousands came looking for land, work and retirement. The two major demographic forces here for more than a generation have been those who came to start their lives over and those who came to die.The surrounding desert became a blank canvas for new building. Coachloads of speculators were driven in from California to buy a piece of the real-estate action.