Dispatches from Vilnius

"If I can take on 1000 protesters, I can do the same across the world." -- Scott Walker, CPAC 2015 Scott Walker just may end up with one of the shortest presidential campaigns ever.  Mark Salter called Walker "kind of a dumb ass" for equating his anti-union crusade in Wisconsin with his approach to ISIS.  Even Rick Perry thought Walker had crossed the line, noting that the union workers "are Americans."  This was criticism from within his ranks, imagine how well such sentiments will play across the nation. The governor of Wisconsin was one of many presidential wannabes trying to light a fire at what has become the Republican super event of the season, the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC for short.  It brings out the best and the worst in the Grand Old Party, vying for corporate sponsorship as well as the hearts and minds of the conservative electorate. Sean Hannity vowed to give every presidential hopeful access to his show,

After 16 years of giving us the best faux news in the business, Jon Stewart has decided to sign off .  It seems he has had it with the real news networks, Fox in particular, unleashing a torrent of less than truthful clips after Megyn Kelly questioned his "dishonest editing."  The funny thing is that Fox and other conservative outlets seem to be treating Stewart's imminent departure as a kind of victory, as if he was the only formidable opponent the liberal vanguard had in its assault on the conservative establishment's "fair and balanced" reporting. Of course, attacking Stewart for his "journalistic integrity" helps take some of the heat off Baba O'Reilly, who has been hit right and left on his reporting claims over the last 3 decades.  I was surprised to learn that Big Bill actually worked at CBS at one time, and reported from Argentina on the Falklands War way back in 1982.   He sure was a  handsome devil .   Baba stretched the truth

Between Emma Stone's crotch shot and Sean Penn's green card joke , there was the stuporous event we have come to call the Oscars.  Every year, the Academy deems it necessary to bore everyone with a 3+ hour award ceremony, but everyone who is anyone always shows up for the annual fashion show.  Neil Patrick Harris did his best to keep the show rolling.  He strolled out in his underwear, a la the title character of Birdman , to the amusement of everyone, and made the yearly poke at Oprah. Lady Gaga paid a tribute to The Sound of Music .  Why not Pink Martini, who teamed up with the Von Trapp family, and did a beautiful tribute album in Dream a Little Dream this year?  Anyway, I heard she put on a good show. John Legend and Common joined forces for a rousing rendition of Glory , from Selma .  The song won the only Oscar for the movie about Martin Luther King, Jr's key march during the Civil Rights movement.  It had to be the high point of this otherwise banal evenin

Or much ado about nothing OK, Lindsey, these are our talking points John McCain expressed his " shame " in the way Obama is leading the country, part of what appears to be the renewed Republican gambit that the President has failed America.  Lindsey Graham wouldn't go as far as Mackie and Rudy, but he too expressed his dismay with Obama's policies.  Mackie, being a tireless Cold Warrior, is mostly upset with the way things are playing out in Europe in the battle over Ukraine.  Lindsey is upset that not enough is being done to stem the great "Islamic" threat. Yep, it seems if you aren't leading this country into war with full battle armor then you are not a leader.  Mackie would have us do battle with Putin, or at least supply Ukraine with much needed military ordnance.  He condemns France and Germany for appeasing Russia, and Obama for sitting idly by while this is taking place.  However, it wasn't that long ago that we advocated carving

That is what his political opponents accused him of being when he ran for President in 1800.  Jefferson was accused of many other things as well, including miscegenation, in what was a highly contested election that saw him and Aaron Burr evenly split in electoral votes, which Burr could have challenged in Congress but chose not to. Jefferson's Qu'ran has gotten quite a bit of attention in recent years, notably when Keith Ellison chose to take his oath of office on the Qu'ran in 2007.  Of course many evangelicals were curious why Jefferson had a Qu'ran, so their resident historian, David Barton, came up with the specious claim that he bought one in the 1780s in an effort to better understand his enemy in the conflicts taking place off the Barbary Coast.  Barton has since been forced to amend his comments. Jefferson had purchased a Qu'ran back in 1765, the same year he passed his bar exam.  He was apparently curious if there was room for tolerance of Mus

We all have one of those aging uncles who spouts off whatever damn fool notion comes into his head, but we protect him because he is part of the family.  That seems to be the case with Uncle Rudy, who offered up one of his most  outrageous comments at a private GOP dinner in New York.   It is hard to believe that 8 short years ago, Rudy Giuliani was being seriously considered as a presidential candidate.  Eric Schultz, deputy press secretary for the White House, said Giuliani floated a similar statement back in 2007, but it pretty much went under the radar screen.  Not this time. It would be easy enough to excuse Uncle Rudy if he was in an old folks home, but he is still very much a part of the Republican establishment, called on to give speeches at fundraisers like this one.  For a brief moment, he was "America's mayor."   Health problems sidelined him from the US Senate race in 2000, but the attention he received following 911 made him a national celebrity.

The Anti-Madayln Majority Given all the anti-intellectualism on display in the Republican Party, you wouldn't think that Ted Cruz, Ben Sasse and a host of other Republicans under 50 have Ivy League educations.  Ben Sasse, the recently elected Senator from Nebraska, has a whole wall of degrees, including a Ph.D. in History from Yale.  His paper, The Anti-Madalyn Majority , won the Theron Rockwell Field award for best dissertation.  He predicates the Reagan Revolution in 1980 on the 1962 and 1963 Supreme Court decisions striking down public prayer and Bible reading in public schools, spearheaded by Madalyn Murray O'Hair, a renown atheist of the time. Obviously, Ben Sasse went to great pains to make his point and can make a persuasive argument in the ivy-shrouded halls of academia.  He achieved this milestone in 2004, having spent the better part of 15 years in one college or another.  Quite a contrast to Scott Walker, who dropped out of Marquette one semester shy of four

The Next Generation Public education now finds itself under a withering attack from the Right at all levels, with Scott Walker emerging as the "poster boy" of this latest round of anti-intellectualism.  Not surprising, since while enrolled at Marquette University, he seemed mostly interested in student government.  Classes were apparently a bit of a bore. Friends hailed the way he would go out of his way to help them, including one woman who said Walker drove her to the hospital on four occasions to deal with minor injuries.  However, his political rivals in the student council compared him to Niedermeyer from Animal House .  He barely got past French, found political science boring, and dropped out of college after suffering a humiliating defeat for student body president.   He apparently intended to return to college and finish his degree, but his political ambitions soon got the better of him, as he quickly ascended the ranks in the Wisconsin state legis

For those who thought William Bennett had retired to the Cayman Islands, he's back and as surly as ever, castigating Americans for their renewed fascination with pot.  The former drug czar has come out with a book, co-authored by Robert A. White, telling us of all the overlooked dangers of cannabis.   Going to Pot is not likely to become a bestseller, but I'm sure it will be referenced by Baba O'Reilly and others on Fox News, who have likewise spoken out strongly against the legalization of marijuana.  This review by Jacob Sullum is all you will probably want to read of the book, as it sounds loaded with the kind of specious data one has come to expect from right wing conservatives. The funny thing is that William and Robert find themselves outside the Libertarian strain of their own political party, which also calls for the legalization of pot.  Ron Paul crossed party lines back in 2011, co-authorizing a bill with Barney Frank that would have allowed states to i

It's that time in a president's tenure that his legacy starts to be evaluated.  New York magazine asked 53 prominent historians to weigh in on Barack Obama.  Gordon Wood called it a fool's errand and didn't participate, but most others did.  Obama generally got high marks, although a few questioned his legacy.  As of 2011, President Obama sat in the second quartile at #14.  No other formal survey has been done since then. One of the more pithy comments was by Samuel Moyn , who said, "the energies he conjured will not reappear soon and are less likely to do so because he summoned them for so ordinary and predictable a set of policies."  Those sentiments were echoed by Stephen Kinzer and others.   Jeffrey Tulis went so far as to say, "Obama has no public philosophy, save a commitment to pragmatism -- a kind of anti-public philosophy."  But, Stephen Walt saw this as a good thing, saying that Obama "helped put the presidency back on a hu

I found myself writing a paper on urban farming in Detroit and attempts to incorporate these initiatives into a comprehensive land-use plan.  What appears to have started out as good intentions is morphing into a land grab as a company that calls itself Hantz Farms recently acquired approximately 170 acres of former residential property for $500,000, ostensibly to create a tree farm. John Hantz is a Detroit resident who made his money off hedge funds and is now looking to invest some of that money back into the city.  He got a nice write-up in Fortune magazine about his long range vision for the city including elaborate urban farming centers.  He said he was willing to put down $30 million of his own money to attract investors, but it is going to take awhile for his "pilot project" to come to fruition . When Dave Bing became mayor in 2009, he promised to work with the people to bring back the city from one of the worst municipal fiscal crises in American history.  

The Lenten season is soon upon, which means there is one last chance to kick out the jams this Fat Tuesday, wherever you may be. In college, six of us got together and rented a motor home and drove to New Orleans for the big event.  Mardi Gras coincided with Spring Break so we had the whole week.  I had made some t-shirts to celebrate the occasion, bringing a dozen or so along to share with Kappa Sigs at the Tulane chapter house where we parked the Winnebago.  It was a week of debauchery highlighted by a night at Tipatina's listening to the Neville Brothers, with special guest the Rebirth Brass Band, eating crayfish etouffee between sets.  The Kappa Sigs weren't too interested in the shirts, but we found some lovely ladies who were, letting us enjoy a few cheap thrills.  Ah, those were the days! It is an odd celebration, especially with all those ghoulish Mardi Gras floats and the way mothers will claw each other's eyes out for the beads and other trinkets the kre

Maybe Fifty Shades of Grey is a sly reference to the perpetually gray skies of Seattle?  I don't know because I don't plan to read the book or see the movie, but was curious why a British writer decided to set her "bondage" romances in my hometown.   Seems the only reason is because she was attracted to the Twilight series, set in Forks, Washington, and had her characters take a ferry ride across the Puget Sound from the Olympic peninsula to the Emerald City. It was bad enough we had to endure the popular success of Sleepless in Seattle .  As a friend who worked at Starbucks once told me, "we aren't in the business of selling coffee, we sell milk."  That pretty much sums up books and movies like this. If nothing else, the "Grey Chronicles" testify to the perseverance of "print-on-demand writers" who fill your e-mail boxes with requests to review their novels in an effort to boost sales for their e-books on amazon, also loca

What's the world coming to when Little League baseball gets rocked by a "scandal" of this magnitude?   The Rev. Jesse Jackson has to step in to try to reverse a decision to strip Jackie Robinson West, representing the Great Lakes Region, of its national title?  It's enough to break your heart. Of course, President Obama gets dragged into it too, as last year he honored his hometown team at the White House.  He still stands behind the kids, although questions the adults who apparently recruited players outside the prescribed boundaries of the community. Jackie Robinson West is not the first Little League team to have its title stripped .  The LL has very explicit rules when it comes to a team's boundaries, not just the age limit. The state of Illinois had questioned the residency of some of the team's players last year, but the latest complaint was lodged by the Las Vegas chapter of the Little League, whose team, Mountain Ridge, is now the US champio

IS has come to resemble the Golden Horde, at least in the media imagination, as its marauding bands coalesce together under one banner.   More than one noted politician sees IS as a great threat to the United States, admonishing the President for not going "on the offensive against ISIS."  I suppose this is why the right wing took such offense to Obama drawing a comparison between the "Islamic State," as these masked marauders call themselves, and the Crusaders, which claimed to represent Christian values in their fight to reclaim the Holy Lands. Actually, there is a difference.  The Crusaders had the blessing of the Pope, whereas IS would be pretty hard pressed to find any support among Muslim nations and clerics, especially in the wake of their gruesome killing of a Jordanian pilot.  Even IS recognizes this as a serious PR blunder, as it appears to have united the Arab world against them. It wasn't that long ago that you would see Blacks lync

Brian Williams has recently come under fire for " misremembering " an event that he alleged took place 12 years ago.  In the past this would have been long enough not to encounter too much scrutiny.  After all, we all invent bits and pieces of ourselves to give our lives a little more substance.  But, claiming you came under fire while "embedded" in the Iraq War is a bit of a whopper, and one that you better be able to back up. The folks at Fox News are having a field day with the story, even though their reporting team has repeatedly come under fire for its own fabrications , but this is more a case of misleading the public with questionable news stories, substituting " truthiness " for actual fact.  Case in point, the recent claims by self-prescribed "terror experts" that large swathes of Paris and all of Manchester, England, are "no-go zones" for non-Muslims. To its credit, Fox apologized  for these misrepresentations, and Br

The Tea Party's newest act There's kind of a hangover after the Super Bowl that is hard to get past, especially when your favorite team is the one that came out on the short end of the stick.  I suppose that's what Democrats feel like as they watch the Republicans take over Congress and try to place their stamp on it.  If only we hadn't botched that last month leading up to the elections (moan), we could have at least held onto the Senate.  Instead, we have to deal with the likes of Thom Tillis, Joni Ernst, David Perdue and Shelly Moore Capito, all Teabaggers at heart, determined to undo everything the Democrats have done the past 6 years. Fortunately, it's not so easy to overturn legislation and challenge the President's executive orders, which has greatly frustrated Ted Cruz.  He felt the Republicans should have held Loretta Lynch hostage over the President's immigration reform, especially after she said she would support it.  But, Orrin Hatch f