Tag: President Richard M. Nixon

Commentary: This Landmark Conservation Bill Has Been an Abject Failure for Fifty Years

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Richard Nixon

December 23, 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) by President Richard M. Nixon. The statute has put enormous power into the hands of bureaucrats at the two federal agencies that administer it – the Interior Department’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the Commerce Department’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). It has also been adroitly used by environmental groups who have sued the federal government under the ESA to stop projects not of their liking through the broadest possible designation of a “critical habitat” for a plant or animal said to be either threatened or endangered.

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Analysis: The First Gulf War Validated Five Major Weapon Systems, All-Volunteer Military

Neil W. McCabe

The First Gulf War, or Desert Shield and Desert Storm, which was a strategic failure, but an operational success came to an end Feb. 28, 1991 with President George H.W. Bush calling a halt to combat operations after the 100 hours of combined land and air offensive.

It was the culmination of months Desert Shield’s diplomacy and military build-up beginning Aug. 7, 1990, shortly after Iraq invaded and conquered its neighbor Kuwait. Desert Storm began Jan. 16, 1991 with a ferocious air campaign that prepared the battlefield for the last 100 hours.

It is important to record operations success in the ledger of a war whose memory has become awkward and difficult.

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Commentary: When Senate Tries Trump, Senate Republicans Are Also on Trial

Neil W. McCabe

When the Senate opens the second impeachment trial of President Donald J. Trump Tuesday there will be two defendants: Trump and the Senate Republicans.

Trump is charged with one count of inciting an insurrection against the United States, in connection with the Jan. 6 mob that surged the Capitol, while Congress was in a joint session to certify the results of the Electoral College: “Incited by President Trump, a mob unlawfully breached the Capitol, injured law enforcement personnel, menaced Members of Congress and the Vice President, interfered with the Joint Session’s solemn constitutional duty to certify the election results, and engaged in violent, deadly, destructive, and seditious acts.”

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Top 10 Reasons Americans Reelect President Donald J. Trump

Neil W. McCabe

President Donald J. Trump is on the verge of becoming the 16th man to be elected to the White House twice—but, everyone is telling you he is going to lose. Here are the Top 10 reasons why the polls are wrong and Trump gets four more years as the commander-in-chief. 10. Trump voters are not likely voters. Pollsters are making a big mistake when they change their screening of respondents for their turnout model from registered voters to so-called likely voters. Before Trump, this might have made sense because likely voters are, well, the people who are actually going to vote. The problem is that Trump voters are not likely at all. Pollsters ask voters if they voted in previous elections and or primaries to discern if they are likely to show up this time. The problem is that many Trump voters voted for the first time in a long time for Trump in 2016—and they have not voted since. Look for Trump voters to come out of the woodwork and the shadows giving him a huge push the polls completely missed. Go ahead and throw in all the millions of new voters the Republican National Committee has registered, including…

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Tennessee State Lawmakers Gave Up a Section of the State Constitution When They Quickly Ratified The U.S. Constitution’s 26th Amendment

Gregory Watson

Back in 1971, the Tennessee General Assembly quickly ratified the 26th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which lowered the voting age in all elections–federal, state and local– to 18 in every state. By doing so, they voluntarily give up a section of the Tennessee State Constitution. Here’s that story: During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Vietnam War — with which the United States was heavily involved — continued to rage overseas.  With so many American soldiers — several of them younger than 20 years of age — dying on the battlefields of a foreign land in this War, public opinion within the United States began to shift in terms of by what age a person should become eligible to vote.  At the time, an individual had to be at least 21 years of age in order to register to vote. But with the evolution in social sentiment occasioned at least in part by the Vietnam War, Congress began to take steps to lower that age from 21 down to 18.  A popular slogan of the day was “if you are old enough to fight for your country, then you are old enough to cast a…

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