No Left Turns | Posts by Peter W. Schramm

Barone's Numbers

2010-03-19T01:31:34Z

Michael Barone does some House math--in mind-numbing detail--based on this afternoon's passage of the "deem to pass" roll call, or the "Slaughter resolution." While he admits he knows less than the Democratic leadership, it is still "This looks like the toughest challenge the House leadership has faced since Nancy Pelosi was elected Speaker in January 2007." Here are the details from CBS News.

Dems' self-execution

2010-03-17T12:41:57Z

Today's Wahington Post story on the Democrats' use of "deem and pass" or "self-executing rule" to get the health care bill through Congress (without actually voting on it!) is worth reading because it is clear about this weird process, as well as the mischief it is causing Democrats. I am now of the mind that this gambit will not be used. The uproar has been too great, even Jack Cafferty of CNN is outraged. Given the importance of the legislation, "deem and pass" is not defensible; it is actually and irresponsible political act. Should Nancy Pelosi and the Dems have their way in this--as of today she thinks it is necessary to get the thing passed--I predict a kind of electoral revolution in November that none of us have ever seen in our life time. I kind'a hope they do it. But I don't think it will happen. I think the outrage will be evident by Saturday and enough members will say no to "deems and pass" that they will have to vote on the Senate bill, and the vote will fail. The other possibility is that Pelosi will insist on using this gambit and even that vote will fail because enough Democratic House Members will remember that it is through elections that they are held accountable. And even the majority can't put off the elections in November.

Competence

2010-03-16T09:50:28Z

Robert D. Kaplan might be a bit too optimistic, yet this long piece from The Atlantic ("Man Versus Afghanistan") is worth a read because it reveals much about the way our military can adapt and learn, about the long view versus fate, and also ruminations on whether "civilization grows here like weeds" or not.

Mac Owens on Lincoln as a War President

2010-03-11T22:00:16Z

Here is Mac Owens on YouTube (this is big-time stuff, Mac!) talking about Lincoln as a war president. Probably some of the best stuff out there on the topic, yet, if any one of you decide to attack Mac (or Lincoln), I sure would like to see how your dogs of war fare against this Silver Starred Marine.

No Left Turns Mug Drawing for February

2010-03-09T15:45:26Z

Congratulations to this month's winners of a No Left Turns mug! The winners are as follows:

John Vaughn
K.W. Thompson
Clark Irwin
Christian Zwick
Marsha Brannan

Thanks to all who entered. An email has been sent to the winners. If you are listed as a winner and did not receive an email, contact Ben Kunkel. If you didn't win this month, enter March's drawing.

Manliness and Immaturity

2010-03-04T16:06:41Z

George Will reflects on men "defecting from the meritocracy." This is an ever present reality and theme among students, and not just the men. I do say--in defense of young manly men, gentlemen--that they are not yet gone, in fact, are conscious of the problem and have put their shoulders to it and are making themselves more visible. If it be man's work, they'll do it.

Ways and Means

2010-03-04T15:57:41Z

Rep. Sander Levin of Michigan will Chair Ways and Means, rather than Pete Stark of California. Good move I bet both Republicans and Democrats were in favor of the move.

Mitch Daniels

2010-03-01T14:36:49Z

Ross Douthat praises Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels. Good last paragraph: "For a Daniels candidacy to catch fire, what's left of the Republican establishment, currently (if reluctantly) coalescing around Mitt Romney, would have to decide that he's the better pick. That would mean gambling that the best way to defeat the most charismatic president of modern times is to nominate a balding, wonky Midwesterner who reminds voters of their accountant.Stranger things have happened."

You might want to listen to Gov. Daniels for a few minutes. He spoke last October to a meeting of the Philadelphia Society. We have invited him to speak at Ashbrook later this year.

Obama vs. Madison

2010-03-01T13:45:23Z

David Marion chastises president Obama's attack on the Supreme Court during his State of the Union Address and reminds us of what's at stake "in the on-going debates over such matters as governmental regulation of the economy, taxation and entitlement policies, and federal-state relations."

Michael Burlingame on Lincoln

2010-02-23T22:50:25Z

Here is Michael Burlingame's Colloquium on Lincoln from last Friday. You should, if you don't already, know about his comprehensive two-volume bio of Lincoln, which you can also now get on Kindle for only $81.00 (per word, not a bad price!).

George Washington

2010-02-22T16:10:17Z

Today is George Wahington's birthday! Here is his Letter to the Hebrew Congregation at Newport, to remind us the things for which we stand: civil and religious liberty. Allow me to bring this good book on Washington to your attention, A Sacred Union of Citizens.

Ashbrook Award at CPAC

2010-02-19T15:10:15Z

C-SPAN ran George Will's talk at CPAC last night (begins at about 14th minute) as well as the annual Ashbrook Award (begins at about 46th minute) to Roy Innis.

Resentment and Populism

2010-02-18T19:27:44Z

George Will is at his best with this column on Sarah Palin. Good paragraph:
"America, its luck exhausted, at last has a president from the academic culture, that grating blend of knowingness and unrealism. But the reaction against this must somewhat please him. That reaction is populism, a celebration of intellectual ordinariness. This is not a stance that will strengthen the Republican Party, which recently has become ruinously weak among highly educated whites. Besides, full-throated populism has not won a national election in 178 years, since Andrew Jackson was reelected in 1832."

Django Reinhardt

2010-02-18T16:42:05Z

Will Friedwald reminds us of a great jazz guitarist some of us still listen to. Here is J'attendrai Swing from 1939; you can not only hear him (and his band), but also see him playing.

Good Politics

2010-02-17T12:37:33Z

The news of the day and the week and the month is a dysfunctional Congress, a hyper-partisan Congress, a broken system without leadership, even brain-dead politics. John Podesta, a Democrat and an Obama man, said to a British paper that the health of US politics "sucks". Evan Bayh agrees. This, of course, is wrong. This WSJ Editorial is closer to the truth: We are in the middle of the fourth Liberal crackup and the so-called mess is not unprecedented in American politics.

Equally pregnant with meaning, a student said something interesting to me yesterday. He said he now understood why the first book we read as Freshmen is Xenophon's "Education of Cyrus"; the class is Understanding Politics. Other things aside, men are hard to govern, X begins. Then the student said that American men may be especially hard to govern. I said, yup, not bad, that's why you to try to understand the American mind and read the Constitution the second semester; the class is clalled Democracy in America. Our current politics isn't brain dead politics at all and the system isn't broken. It's working exactly as it should. It is supposed to be messy and inefficient; it's supposed to be difficult to form a majority and even once formed, it should be difficult to govern. That majority had better be a constitutional one, or the people will not be amused. The people prefer self-government to being pushed around by haughty lefties. Yet they are open to being persuaded, they are willing to have conversations about things; but they are unwilling to be called names, or to have "the system" decried.

Now--over the next year or two--we will find out if the Republicans can explain to folks why this is a good thing, and why politics is much more than "public policy" and "problem solving" as the progressives would have us think. If Republicans can do this--use these interesting times to make a powerful argument for limited constitutional government and why it is a fine thing--they will prosper, as will the American way of self-government. In the meantime, those Democrats who claim to be in the majority (and claim to be representing the interest of the people) but continue to whine about how they cannot get anything done will continue to suck pond water.