“I would say to the House as I said to those who have joined this government: I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering.
“You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory. Victory at all costs — Victory in spite of all terror — Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival.”
On May 13, 1846, in a blatant attempt to grab territory, the United States declared war on Mexico beginning the Mexican-American War.
On May 13, 1940, Germany invaded France as the German army crosses the Meuse and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill makes his “blood, toil, tears, and sweat” speech to the House of Commons.
On May 13, 1954, Chinese students demonstrated against the British government’s decision to make young men, ages 18 to 20, do part-time military service. The students were unwilling to defend a foreign government which, during World War II, deserted Singapore.
On May 13, 1960, hundreds of University of California at Berkeley students protested the campus visit by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Thirty-one students are arrested and the Free Speech Movement was born.
Brian Doherty, author of a new book on Ron Paul, talks about Ron Paul’s transpartisan political movement:
A very concise and yet broad view of what the congressman from Texas has been up to, what he believes, and his significance in contemporary political debate.
On May 12, 1780, Americans suffer their worst defeat of the revolution with the unconditional surrender of Major General Benjamin Lincoln to British Lieutenant General Sir Henry Clinton and his army of 10,000 at Charleston, South Carolina. Having suffered the humiliation of surrendering to the British at Charleston, Major General Lincoln was able to turn the tables and accept Cornwallis’ ceremonial surrender to General George Washington at Yorktown on October 20.
On May 12, 1949, the Soviet Union lifts its blockade of Berlin.
On May 12, 1963, Bob Dylan walked out on The Ed Sullivan Show, after being told he cannot sing, “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues,” a satirical talking-blues number poking at the ultra-conservative John Birch Society.
On May 12, 2003, fifty-nine Democratic lawmakers stop business in the Texas Legislature by going into hiding in a dispute over a Republican congressional redistricting plan.
How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they’re forever banned?
The answer my friend is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind.
Yes, how many years can a mountain exist
Before it’s washed to the sea?
Yes, how many years can some people exist
Before they’re allowed to be free?
Yes, how many times can a man turn his head
Pretending he just doesn’t see?
The answer my friend is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind.
“If you think you have seen gridlock, just wait and watch Goldwater’s final victory.” That’s how Mark Mardell, the North American editor of BBC News, snarkily concluded his column bemoaning Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock’s resounding defeat of 36-year incumbent U.S. Senator Dick Lugar in Tuesday’s Republican Primary.
Goldwater?
Noting that when Ronald Reagan captured the White House in 1980, George Will quipped, “It took 16 years to count the votes, and Goldwater won,” Mardell added that with Mourdock’s victory, “Goldwater has now won his campaign to purge his party of moderates; it has just taken him 48 years longer than he had hoped.”
Indeed, Goldwater helped define conservatism as favoring less government, and his 1964 presidential campaign led to a more pro-free market GOP. But Mardell’s implication is that those who want less government are inherently unreasonable, always and everywhere the cause of dreaded “gridlock” in Washington, while those who favor ever bigger government are just being reasonable.
Barry Goldwater, in his 1964 conservative presidential campaign, proclaimed, “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!”
“Bipartisanship has brought us to the brink of bankruptcy,” Republican Senate nominee Mourdock said during his campaign. “We don’t need bipartisanship, we need application of principle.”
Being serious and committed to restoring fiscal sanity to Washington is no vice.
And even the dread gridlock would be a welcome change over out-of-control spending and debt.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
On May 11, 1981, Bob Marley, the soul and international face of reggae music, died of cancer in a Miami, Florida, hospital. He was only 36 years old.
On May 11, 1973, charges against Daniel Ellsberg for his involvement in releasing the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times are dismissed, citing government misconduct.
On May 11, 1904, Salvador Dalí, the surrealistic Spanish painter, was born.
“I do not paint a portrait to look like the subject, rather does the person grow to look like his portrait.”
“To be one, to be united is a great thing. But to respect the right to be different is maybe even greater.”
On May 10, 1768, John Wilkes was imprisoned for writing an article for The North Briton severely criticizing King George III. This action provokes rioting in London.
On May 10, 1773, the Parliament of Great Britain passed the Tea Act, designed to save the British East India Company by granting it a monopoly on the North American tea trade. Resistance to the act led to the Boston Tea Party.
On May 10, 1775, a small Colonial militia led by Ethan Allen and Colonel Benedict Arnold captured Fort Ticonderoga from the British.
On May 10, 1872, Victoria Woodhull became the first woman nominated for President of the United States. As the nominee of the Equal Rights Party she received no electoral votes. The first woman to receive an electoral vote came 100 years later, when Tonie Nathan, the vice-presidential candidate of the Libertarian Party, received a single vote from Virginia.
On May 10, 1940, Winston Churchill became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, while the first German bombs of World War II were dropped on England at Chilham and Petham, in Kent, and Germany invaded Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.