Friday, June 17, 2022

A look at the political scene with Barry Casselman, The Prairie Editor


Guest: Barry Casselman, The Prairie Editor...........Time is running out for Democrats.....Supreme Court......Hispanics and 2022....Physicians running in 2022........and other stories....

Friday's video: Biden 2024 plus CNN makeover & more


Friday's video: 
 Biden 2024 plus CNN makeover & more.....

P.S.  You can listen to my show.  If you like our posts, please look for ”Donate” on the right column of the blog page.


                                

Get ready for a lot of Watergate this week


 (My new American Thinker post)

If you are a Boomer then you remember Watergate, the last summer before disco, as a funny school friend used to say.  Nixon left and Travolta came in!     

If you are “a liberal baby boomer” you spend all of your time reliving the glory days of Watergate.   

It happened 50 years ago and get ready for everyone in the media to tell you how Woodward and Bernstein saved our democracy.  I guess that it's only a matter of time before some university decides to replace the Jefferson statue with one of Woodward.  

Watergate plus 50 means that we will hear a lot about it. Most of it is just reruns from back then and nothing new. The latest "Watergate" article is from Glenn Garvin who wrote this:   

Five decades later, despite 30,000 pages of declassified FBI investigative reports, 16,091 pages of Senate hearing transcripts, 740 pages of White House tape transcriptions, and scores of histories of the scandal and memoirs by its participants, we still know more about the cover-up than we do about the break-in.      

We do know, thanks to the revelations that followed, a litany of what Mitchell would himself call "White House horrors" -- not just the Watergate burglary and wiretapping, but blackmail, arson, forgery, kidnappings, hush money, and internal security measures that can, without the slightest hyperbole, be called fascist. The swirl of scandals also included events unconnected to the burglary and cover-up, from a coup in Chile to secret bombings in Cambodia.

Too many government-respecting liberals, in overrating both the uniqueness and the finality of these scandals, seemed to believe that by ousting Nixon and his minions, The Washington Post and Judge John Sirica and the Senate Watergate committee not only saved democracy but obliterated an entire epoch of war and corruption. But then how do we explain the Iran-Contra scandal that would follow 15 years later? Or the sexual and financial hijinx of the Clintons? Or, if we ever get it sorted out, whatever the hell was going on with the Russians and the Trump campaign or the Democrats and the FBI or maybe both during the past six years?

White House abuses of power didn't start with Watergate either, as Martin Luther King Jr. (targeted for blackmail by President Lyndon B. Johnson's FBI) or the Japanese citizens locked up by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt could tell you. 

"It didn't start with Watergate" as Victor Lasky wrote in 1977.  I wonder if I still have that paperback somewhere in my garage.   

My recollection of Watergate is that President Nixon did not react quickly enough. The breakin was stupid.  The President should have come out and fired everybody immediately.  Of course he didn't, and now the liberals have another anniversary to celebrate..

Nevertheless, Watergate sure looks like a G-rated movie compared to the Clinton campaign pushing a story, with a huge assist from friendly reporters, about the Trump campaign and collusion with the Russians.  Or the Obama IRS selectively going after tax returns.  Or the Biden DoJ throwing the book at parents showing up at school board meetings or investigating Border Patrol agents "whipping" people.

I'm not defending President Nixon. but it's time to move on and stop using "Nixonian" for everything that you don't like.   

One more thing. Watergate gave us Carter in '76 and Reagan in '80. So maybe it was not so bad after all looking at the big picture.

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Happy # 84 to Diego Segui

Image result for diego segui images
We say happy birthday to Diego Segui who was born in Holguin, Cuba, on this day in 1937.     He was another one of those who played in the old Cuban league and later in the US major leagues:  Segui won 92 games, saved 71 with a 3.81 ERA.  
Diego broke in with the Kansas City A’s (now Oakland A’s) in 1962 but left his mark in the city of Seattle.    
My guess is that young Diego of Holguin never heard of Seattle when he was dreaming of a baseball career in the island’s sandlots. 
Segui is the answer to a great baseball trivia question:   Who pitched on opening day for the old Seattle Pilots in 1969 and the current Seattle Mariners who started playing in 1977?    (By the way, the 1969 Seattle Pilots became the 1970 and current Milwaukee Brewers)  
Here is the story:     
“The city of Seattle (Washington) has been home to two Major League franchises.The Seattle Pilots, who were an American League team based in Seattle, Washington for one season, 1969, before being relocated to Milwaukee, Wisconsin.And the modern day Seattle Mariners, an American League team also based in Seattle, Washington, 1977 through today.Diego Segui is the only player in baseball history to play for both the Seattle Pilots (66 games pitched in 1969) and the Seattle Mariners (40 games pitched in 1977).Even more unique than that, Diego Segui played in both franchises Opening Day game, appearing in relief on April 8, 1969, the first game in franchise history for the Seattle Pilots, and was handed the loss on April 6, 1977, the first game in franchise history for the Seattle Mariners.”
Diego retired in 1977 after pitching with a few other teams.  Segui will be always be remembered in Seattle.   He is the only man who wore the Pilots and Mariners uniforms on their respective opening day games!   To my knowledge, no other major leaguer has ever done that. 
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Happy # 79 Newt Gingrich





We say happy birthday to New Gingrich who was born on this day in 1943.

This is a 2018 review of Newt Gingrich's new book about President Trump by Barry Casselman:

----------------------------------------------------

As a literary author and national journalist for many decades,

I have come to know many writers. Many of the books I read
and enjoy most are by these acquaintances and friends, and

this presents me with an obvious dilemma in writing about or

reviewing their books.

Book reviews are an art form in their own right, especially
those about works of fiction and poetry. Reviews of non-fiction
books can serve as a starting point or foundation for the
reviewer’s own views on a subject. And then there are those
books which are so necessary they merit a straightforward
alert to readers.

Newt Gingrich’s newest book Trump’s America is just such a 
work. 

In full disclosure, Newt Gingrich has been a friend and. on 
occasion, a collaborator, for more than three decades. I will 
let my readers decide if what I now say about his new book
is fair and useful.

The former speaker of the U.S. house, himself a serious
presidential candidate in 2012, was among the earliest figures
to see the eventual 2016 electoral success of candidate Donald
Trump. I know that is so because of conversations with him
long before I realized it.

He unambiguously predicted Trump’s nomination and
subsequently his victory over Hillary Clinton in the November 
election. Since President Trump took office, he has consistently
explained his actions and views in articles, TV appearances, 
and books. Although clearly and constantly favorable to Mr.
Trump, he has always exercised his right to be critical of the
president when he disagreed with him.

Some might characterize Gingrich as a cheerleader or advocate
for Donald Trump, and I think it would be fair to do so. But that
does not diminish the value of Gingrich’s writing on the subject
because the whole phenomenon of Donald Trump’s candidacy
and subsequent presidency is so unprecedented and so often
misunderstood that lucid analysis and explanation is vitally
important for both his partisans and his opponents.

As in his previous book Understanding Trump, Newt Gingrich 
continues to be the most incisive diagnostician of the Trump
phenomenon and the political environment which surrounds it.
Yes, his new Trump's America is a partisan account, but that
does not lessen its value, especially to the many Democrats,
and not a few Republicans, who dislike and/or disagree with
the president’s views and style.

For much of the Trump candidacy, and during all of his 
presidency, I have been urging my readers, whether they are for
or against Mr. Trump, to put aside their stereotypes of him as
well as the biased media conventional wisdom about him, and
try to understand the underlying reality of his appeal to voters,
and what the president is saying or doing. His Democratic Party
opponents especially need to do this if they are to successfully
provide n credible alternative to him.

So Trump’s America is not only a must-read for the president’s
supporters, but also for his opponents. Mr. Gingrich has become
the most articulate diagnostician of contemporary American 
politics. Unlike many of his colleagues on the right and the left,
he is open to new political and technological developments, and
bold enough to try to explain them.

You need not agree with Newt Gingrich, or with Donald Trump,
to gain much from reading Trump’s America. It is a necessary
and timely book.
------------------------------------

P.S.  You can listen to my show.  If you like our posts, please look for ”Donate” on the right column of the blog page.


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