From Richard Nixon to the Israel lobby, the late Republican Congressman Paul Norton “Pete” McCloskey Jr. challenged the most powerful elements of the ruling class on the American people’s behalf. On September 29, 1927, McCloskey was born in San Bernardino, California....
History
TGIF: What Is Self-Determination?
by Sheldon Richman | May 10, 2024 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, History, Justice, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
People go on quite a bit about self-determination these days. Some decry the denial of self-determination to "the Palestinians." Others insist that only "the Jewish people" can have the right to self-determination between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea....
Zionism versus Judaism
by Sheldon Richman | May 8, 2024 | Blog, History
From the start, political Zionists identified their program with Judaism the religion (despite their secularism, even atheism). Also from the start, Jews -- including the most tradition-bound Jews -- vigorously disavowed that identification. They were shamed as...
It Was Gun Control: What Started the War for Independence
by Michael Boldin | Apr 22, 2024 | Featured Articles, History
The fighting at Lexington and Concord didn’t happen because the British army came to collect taxes. It was gun control. Of course, the government-run schools don’t teach this. What finally forced the patriots into a shooting war with the British Army at Lexington and...
History Last, Polemics First: A Critical Review of Jacob Heilbrunn’s ‘America Last’
by Brandan P. Buck | Apr 2, 2024 | Book Reviews, Featured Articles, History, Politics
The Western commentariat has spilled much ink and expended considerable effort attempting to explain our era of political malaise, particularly the disruptions underway within the Republican Party and the American Right. It is into that maelstrom that Jacob Heilbrunn...
Neocon Charlie Sykes’ Tortured Analogies, Past and Present
by Brandan P. Buck | Mar 21, 2024 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, History
There is a booming op-ed industry that peddles tortured World War II analogies. The latest offering from its tired assembly line was published by Politico and penned by unreconstructed neoconservative Charlie Sykes. As with other offerings in recent years (and indeed,...
Best of the Best, Worst of the Worst
by Joseph Solis-Mullen | Mar 4, 2024 | Featured Articles, History
The past few weeks have seen a predictable reaction to the release of (yet another) survey of “experts” regarding the proper ranking of United States presidents. Apart from the inherent problems any such attempted ranking poses, problems my colleague Hunter DeRensis...
Reevaluating Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston
by Hunter DeRensis | Jan 2, 2024 | Book Reviews, Featured Articles, History
The Iron Dice of Battle: Albert Sidney Johnston and the Civil War in the West by Timothy B. Smith (LSU Press: 2023), 248 pages "You were still reading that book when I walked by three hours ago. It must be a good one." Sitting outside the cafe, I looked up to see a...