“The Republican Congress should have been courageously advancing the Republican agenda and should not have been afraid of it. But they’re not playing to win; they’re playing not to lose.”
“God put the Republican Party on earth to cut taxes. If they don’t do that, they have no useful function.”
“It is up to the government to keep the government’s secrets.”
There’s a lot of interesting talk here at “The Devil’s Advocate”:
On Feb. 25, 1986, President Ferdinand Marcos fled the Philippines after 20 years of repressively ruling the nation and Corazon Aquino became the Philippines’ first woman president in a peaceful revolution sometimes called the “Yellow Revolution” because of the yellow ribbons used during street demonstrations.
“The powers of the legislature are defined, and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken, or forgotten, the Constitution is written. To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing, if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained?”
On Feb. 24, 1803, the Supreme Court decided the landmark case of William Marbury vs. James Madison, Secretary of State of the United States, confirming the legal principle of judicial review — the ability of the Supreme Court to limit congressional power by declaring legislation unconstitutional.
On Feb. 24, 1868, Andrew Johnson became the first President of the United States to be impeached by the United States House of Representatives. Later, he was acquitted by the Senate.
In Wednesday night’s GOP debate, Rick Santorum, the new frontrunner, found himself apologizing for much of his political record.
“Sure I had some votes. Look, I think we’ve all had votes that I look back on I — I wish I wouldn’t have voted — No Child Left Behind, you’re right,” Santorum stammered.
Unmoved by Santorum’s mea culpa, Rep. Ron Paul offered, “I find it really fascinating that, when people are running for office, they’re really fiscally conservative. When they’re in office, they do something different. And then when they explain themselves, they say, ‘Oh, I want to repeal that.’”
Santorum sought to explain a second time: “I supported No Child Left Behind. . . . I have to admit, I voted for that. It was against the principles I believed in, but, you know, when you’re part of the team, sometimes you take one for the team, for the leader, and I made a mistake.“
Former Sen. Santorum’s biggest stumble may have been acknowledging that he voted for federal funding of Planned Parenthood.
“I’ve always opposed Title X funding, but it’s included in a large appropriation bill that includes a whole host of other things,” Santorum began. “So while, yes, I — I admit I voted for large appropriation bills and there were things in there I didn’t like, things in there I did, but when it came to this issue, I proactively stepped forward and said that we need to do something at least to counterbalance it.”
Santorum’s counterbalancing act? Title 20 — yet more federal spending, this time for abstinence education.
How about abstinence on spending?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
When documents from Heartland Institute went public, showing strategy and funding for various climate-related research and advocacy projects, some folks immediately hailed it as a scandal to compare with the “Climate-gate” email embarrassment of sometime back. “Denier-gate” and even “Heartland-gate” were the hastily suffixed monikers for the news story.
But then it was discovered that the leak was the result of an inquiry made by a major climate-change activist, Peter Gleick, who had been slipped some allegedly damning documents and asked Heartland for more information . . . posing as a member of the group’s board of directors.
Even more discrediting to Gleick is the fact that he published the original anonymously supplied documents — some of which appear to be fabrications — along with documents he obtained from Heartland, as if they all had the same provenance.
Worse yet? His own defense. Saying that “rational public debate is desperately needed,” he confesses that his own “judgment was blinded by my frustration with the ongoing efforts — often anonymous, well-funded, and coordinated — to attack climate science and scientists and prevent this debate, and by the lack of transparency of the organizations involved.”
Absurd: Gleick’s opponents were not preventing debate, they were insisting on real debate rather than automatic, quasi-religious acceptance of “scientific findings.” Worries about who supports what may be interesting, especially in a political context, but are not relevant to the search for truth or to scientific debate. Relying on who supports what and whom commits the ad hominem fallacy.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
“The power of the ballot we need in sheer defense, else what shall save us from a second slavery?”
On Feb. 23, 1836, the Battle of the Alamo began with Mexican troops under President General Antonio López de Santa Anna launching an assault on the Alamo Mission near modern-day San Antonio, Texas. The siege lasted 13 days until Mexican forces overwhelmed the mission.
On Feb. 23, 1861, President-elect Abraham Lincoln arrived secretly in Washington, D.C., after dodging opposition mobs in Baltimore, Maryland.
On Feb. 23, 1903, Cuba leased Guantánamo Bay to the U.S. “in perpetuity.”
On Feb. 23, 1945, during the bloody Battle for Iwo Jima, U.S. Marines from the 3rd Platoon, E Company, 2nd Battalion, 28th Regiment of the 5th Division take the crest of Mount Suribachi, the island’s highest peak and most strategic position, and raise the U.S. flag.
On Feb. 22, 1943, Hans and Sophie Scholl and their friend, Christoph Probst, members of a close-knit group of University of Munich students calling themselves “The White Rose,” were executed after being caught distributing leaflets urging Germans to resist Hitler and the Nazis. [For more see today’s commentary.)
On Feb. 22, 1980, the U.S. hockey team defeated the four-time defending gold-medal-winning Soviet team 4-3 before a frenzied crowd of 10,000 spectators at the XIII Olympic Winter Games in Lake Placid, New York. The victory of the youthful American college players beating the Soviet squad, considered the best in the world, became known as “The Miracle on ice.”
On Feb. 22, 1732, George Washington, who would go on to become “first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen,” was born in Virginia.