Looking back at Alistair Cooke's "Letters from America"

by Nomad

A Letter from Home

Many many years ago, when I first came to Turkey, I lived in a small and very conservative town. Those first two years were not easy ones and I often felt as isolated and lonely as a space explorer. I was very likely not only the sole American in town, but the only foreigner.

Even though I never mentioned it to my kind hosts, I often craved the sound of a speaker without a Turkish accent. I had to travel two hours by train to Istanbul just to purchase an English book or a cassette of American music. Letters from my parent took two weeks - or more- to arrive.
As far as official news from home, a civil war could have broken out in the states and I would have been none the wiser.

Seeds of Republican Decline and the Myth of the Progressive Eisenhower

by Nomad

A quote from the Eisenhower era suggests, when it comes to social programs and taxes, the Republican party has drifted a long way toward the extreme right. That is, of course, true. However, a closer look at the source of that quote tells us that the problem with the GOP began early on.

Fast and Loose with the History of the Party

Republicans have always had an extremely selective memory when it comes to the historical facts of their party. You will hear, for example, that the GOP is the "Party of Lincoln" and the Democrats were the party of slavery, without much in the way of elaboration.

Why One Veteran Journalist Warns about Comparing Watergate to Trump's Scandal

by Nomad

As we all grope blindly in the slimy darkness of the Trump scandal, it is perhaps natural that we attempt to make comparisons to the past, for some sort of precedent. And when the topic of a president in trouble arises, the first name that comes to mind is, of course, Nixon in the Watergate debacle.

However, one journalist who witnessed first-hand the presidential contortions and the political chess game back in the 1970s warns that comparisons are misleading for a variety of critical reasons.

Witness to Watergate

Politico's Susan Glasser interviewed veteran journalist Elizabeth Drew, a Washington correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly from 1967 to 1973. Drew was at ground zero when President Nixon's met his Waterloo and kept a real time record of the event. In 1975, she published her account of the Watergate scandal in her book, Washington Journal: The Events of 1973-74.

Her book was reprinted back in 2014 before Trump appeared as a serious presidential candidate. That book, for obvious reasons, is now selling like hotcakes.

Presidential Pardons and the Question of Justice

by Nomad

As reported a couple of months ago, one of the last official acts of President Obama was to commute the remainder of Chelsea Manning's 35-year sentence.
On Wednesday, Manning walked out of the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, bringing to a conclusion, as the New York Times called, "one of the most extraordinary criminal cases in American history over the leaking of government secrets to the public."

Manning and Snowden

The other day I was reading an online discussion regarding the subject of presidential pardons. Specifically, the topic was whether President Obama was right in pardoning Chelsea Manning and not pardoning former National Security Agency contractor  Edward Snowden. 

Snowden, who currently lives in exile in Russia,  faces charges under the Espionage Act of 1918, a law the constitutionality of which has been contested ever since it was enacted. 

Among other things, that law makes it a crime to convey information with intent to interfere with the operation or success of the armed forces of the United States or to promote the success of its enemies during wartime.  

The campaign to pardon Snowden picked up momentum after Oliver Stone's film but sputtered and ran out of gas. Indeed, all members of  House Select Committee on Intelligence, (13 Republicans and nine Democrats, ) sent a letter to the White House urging against a pardon for Snowden.

Unitary Executive Theory: How the GOP in Congress is Destroying Cheney's Life Work

 by Nomad

Former vice president Cheney must be watching in dismay as the Republicans in Congress are tearing apart a doctrine that he has spent his whole life promoting.

The now-infamous letter of the 47 Senators  may not be treasonous although some on the Left may think so. The  unsolicited advice to the Iranians may not be a violation of the Logan Act and some lawyers might disagreed.

Nevertheless, in one aspect, there is something distinctly peculiar about what Congress did and has been doing since President Obama took office.

This new activism is a reversal of policy that has been the long standing hallmark of conservative principles. That principle is known as the Unitary Executive Theory and one of its chief promoters has always been former Vice president Dick Cheney.

According to this doctrine, all executive authority must be in the President’s hands, "without exception." The President and other members of the executive branch have special rights and privileges that come with the office. And the legislative branch, according to the proponents, has no authority to question presidential power. The president as the head of state and  that preeminence required Congress to recognize its lesser position.

A Look at the UK Tabloid Smear of Obama's Father

by Nomad

In true tabloid fashion, The Daily Mail in the UK attempts to discredit the president through his biological father- a man Obama met for only a few hours. Behind the tabloid story, there really is a much more interesting tale that deserves telling. 

Time to give credit where credit is due.
The UK tabloid, The Daily Mail, deserves a round of applause from the more bigoted hateful members of American society for its smear campaign against Obama. Not the President of the United States but his estranged long-deceased father. Barak Obama, Sr.
The Mail, amid all of its exposes on Simon Cowell’s sexual preferences and other celebrity non-stories, has taken it upon themselves to print several stories about the president’s father, namely, that he was, among other things, a “playboy” and “a serial womaniser." Here's a snippet from one of the articles:

A memo from a University of Hawaii foreign student adviser said that Obama senior had 'been running around with several girls since he first arrived here and last summer she cautioned him about his playboy ways. Subject replied that he would "try" to stay away from the girls.'

Hardly what one might call unusual behavior for a male university student. It has been suggested by at least one writer, that the actual message was more like a warning to stay away from the white girls. (If true, he didn't seem to obey that directive.)