In the first presidential election, in 1788–89, the Virginian, George Washington, received all 69 electoral votes and 43,782 popular votes from white male property owners over the age of 21. The census of 1790 reported that the total population of… Read More ›
National
Gobsmacked!
Kablang! Strobe Flash! SWAT assault? No, it’s a New York Times OpEd piece entitled “The Myth of Watergate Bipartisanship.” [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/13/opinion/watergate-republican-party.html] Occasionally, one comes across a revelation that produces the sensation of being gobsmacked, literally astounded, in Brit speak. Often, the experience… Read More ›
Blackwhite Bellyfeel Duckspeak Causes Unpersons
Published in 1949, George Orwell’s 1984 depicted a world in perpetual war with authoritarian regimes seeking to normalize populations through thought control, especially via language called Newspeak. Occasionally, even in 2018, one may experience the syntax of Newspeak, which was… Read More ›
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
Point/Counterpoint: IMPEACHMENT George Mason, 1787 v. Lindsay Graham, 1999 MASON: No point is of more importance than that the right of impeachment should be continued. Shall any man be above Justice? Above all shall that man be above it, who… Read More ›
Defectors, by Joseph Kanon
Reviewed by Jim McCarthy Occasionally, it’s a good thing for a blog that tends to be serious to reveal its lighter side and share its interest in fiction, especially police procedurals and spy tales. Defectors is set in Russia in… Read More ›
One Person, One Vote, in Congressional Elections
For a very brief two years, 1933–35, Virginia was gerrymander-free, as its nine congressional representatives were elected at large, i.e., by the entire voting population of the Commonwealth, not from particular districts. In addition, since passage of the 17th amendment in… Read More ›
Insuring Shooters?
Virtually everyone is familiar with the success of the National Rifle Association (NRA) in defeating gun control efforts and expanding gun ownership of firearms. This effort has been accompanied by the NRA’s relentless state-by-state activities to encourage legislatures to broaden… Read More ›
BOOK REVIEW: The Fifties, by David Halberstam
Reviewed by Jim McCarthy Readers should recall Halberstam’s seminal volume The Best and the Brightest,… Read More ›
On This Date in History . . .
August 20, 1968: Soviets invade Czechoslovakia August 22, 1950: Althea Gibson becomes first African-American on US tennis tour August 24, 1932: Amelia Earhart becomes first woman to fly nonstop across the US, from Los Angeles to Newark, in just over… Read More ›
Are Unions Making a Comeback?
In 2016, Virginia voters defeated a referendum, 53–47 percent, to amend the state’s constitution to include a right-to-work [RTW] provision. In Missouri last week, voters passed a referendum by a 2–1 margin overturning a similar law previously enacted by a… Read More ›