By Bruce Fein – – Monday, October 13, 2014 Wesley K. Clark, a retired U.S. Army general and former NATO supreme allied commander, has sallied forth with wildly naive or misplaced views about the United States and China in his new book, “Don’t Wait for the Next War: A Strategy for American Growth and Global…
DetailsBy Bruce Fein – – Sunday, October 12, 2014 Substitute “Muslim” for “Jew” in the following passage from Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice for a definitive repudiation of showman Bill Maher’s bigoted, reactionary equation all 1.6 billion Muslims to the grisly Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS): “Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a…
DetailsBy Bruce Fein – – Saturday, October 11, 2014 The Nobel Peace Prize committee is clueless about what diminishes war, i.e., architecting an equilibrium of separated powers that entrusts decisions about war to an authority that gains nothing by abandoning peace; and, cultivating the learned excitements of wisdom, integrity and moral courage — not the…
DetailsBy Bruce Fein – – Friday, October 10, 2014 The Department of Defense’s planned expurgated history of the Vietnam War to commemorate its 50th anniversary is like Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark. More by omission than commission, the Pentagon’s war narrative neglects key lessons: The executive chronically concocts or inflates danger from abroad to…
DetailsBy Bruce Fein – – Wednesday, October 8, 2014 Both the U.S. Constitution and experience dictate a monumental downsizing of the Office of the Presidency. It has grown from a tiny acorn into a towering oak since President George Washington. Taking a page from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, the Founding Fathers would ask today, “Upon what…
DetailsBy Bruce Fein – – Tuesday, October 7, 2014 Leon Panetta’s new book, “Worthy Fights,” confirms the adage that ignorance and arrogance are the parents of foreign policy hallucinations. According to the fact-resistant former secretary of defense and CIA director, Iraq and Syria today would be flourishing in peace and stability and the Islamic State…
DetailsA recent poll showed that almost 80% of Americans are in favor of getting rid of mandatory minimum sentencing for non-violent offenders. These are found in the federal government and a number of states, mostly for drug offenses. Perhaps the most famous of these mandatory minimum sentencing laws is California’s “Three Strikes” law that resulted in 25 years-to-life for stealing golf clubs and a slice of pizza, respectively.
DetailsBy Bruce Fein – – Monday, October 6, 2014 In Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Falstaff defends his cowardice by lecturing, “‘The better part of valour is discretion; in the which better part I have saved my life.” Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court correctly followed Falstaff’s instruction by avoiding a ruling on whether the Constitution…
DetailsBy Bruce Fein – – Monday, October 6, 2014 The Supreme Court of the United States is an Ursa Minor not an Ursa Major of constitutional law. Its jurisprudence more follows than opposes the election returns. As Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo lectured, “The greatest tides and currents which engulf the rest of men, do…
DetailsBy Bruce Fein – – Sunday, October 5, 2014 As Secretary of State and national security adviser, Henry Kissinger was a heartless and erring imperialist worthy of Rudyard Kipling’s “The White Man’s Burden.” Kipling’s famous poem fueled the 3-year Philippines-American war. More than 20,000 Filipino combatants were killed, and 200,000 civilians died from violence, famine…
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