The Smithian

May 23rd, 2013

President Obama raised the question of whether the long-term costs of drone strikes, including the reported killings of innocent civilians and declining image of America in many Muslim countries, may outweigh the short-term benefits of eliminating specific militants. The month after a drone strike killed the American-born terrorist leader Anwar al-Awlaki, another drone strike mistakenly killed his 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman, who had set off into the Yemeni desert in search of his father.

Shreeya Sinha, Digital Editor, Foreign Desk, the New York Times

May 21st, 2013

thesmithian

‘Too bad that Republicans don’t sing the praises of the First Amendment when the White House is held by the G.O.P. In fact, they do the exact opposite…’

…In fact, they did the exact opposite when the Republican administration does the exact same thing that is now at the center of the Obama scandal involving the Associated Press—that is, seizing phone records of reporters. (Please note: The issue here isn’t whether they are right or wrong. What I’m talking about is the utter hypocrisy of the G.O.P. on this matter.) Let’s take the most important disclosure of a classified program that occurred in my lifetime: the 2005 article in The New York Times that revealed the existence of the program to allow the government to wiretap Americans and others in the United States without a warrant if it was part of a national-security investigation. Somehow, I don’t remember Republicans banging the First Amendment drum when that story came out— instead, they were calling for reporters to be charged with treason, which could have led to them being executed.

bold, ours. more, here.

May 20th, 2013

thesmithian

'Americans moved to the suburbs after World War II to escape the problem of poverty in cities. Running away is no longer an option—the cities’ traditional woes are now in the suburbs, too.'

May 19th, 2013

thesmithian

+++++

art: mixed media drawings by Njideka Akunyili

May 19th, 2013

thesmithian

Zoom

Rohde calls for the United States to scale back its military ambitions and focus instead on supporting moderates and an impatient rising generation of Arabs and Muslims eager to engage with the world. Rohde characterizes his book as “an effort to describe a new, more pragmatic, and more effective American approach to the Islamic world.” Such an approach is sorely needed. But he struggles to carve out a unique set of recommendations on how to do so.

more.

Rohde calls for the United States to scale back its military ambitions and focus instead on supporting moderates and an impatient rising generation of Arabs and Muslims eager to engage with the world. Rohde characterizes his book as “an effort to describe a new, more pragmatic, and more effective American approach to the Islamic world.” Such an approach is sorely needed. But he struggles to carve out a unique set of recommendations on how to do so.

more.

May 18th, 2013

thesmithian

Zoom

The Roberts court has aggressively recalibrated the nation’s laws in the areas of race, guns and political speech—three of the four cases that form the core of…Coyle’s “The Roberts Court: The Struggle for the Constitution.”

more.

The Roberts court has aggressively recalibrated the nation’s laws in the areas of race, guns and political speech—three of the four cases that form the core of…Coyle’s “The Roberts Court: The Struggle for the Constitution.”

more.

May 17th, 2013

thesmithian

‘There is still no evidence that the White House manipulated the public discussion of the [Benghazi] attacks for preëlection political gain, or that anyone deliberately lied by portraying what happened as a spontaneous outgrowth of demonstrations going on in the Arab world at the time when they knew it was a planned terrorist attack…’

…And there is certainly no evidence of the…most outlandish conspiracy theory about Benghazi: that the Administration left Americans to die because they were worried that responding to the incident with the force needed to beat back the assault would undermine President Obama’s counterterrorism record. Instead, what is in those e-mails documents the ways in which things in Washington are affected not by the big names—Obama, Clinton, Petraeus—but by the people who work for them, and the manner in which those staffers jostle with each other to protect their turf and their bosses. There is also a reminder that this “Administration” thing we think of as a single, unified entity is in fact a collection of people competing with each other.

more.

May 16th, 2013

thesmithian

Zoom

…applications for building permits soared to a five-year high…

…applications for building permits soared to a five-year high…

May 15th, 2013

thesmithian

Takoma Park became the first city in the United States to lower its voting age—which was previously 18—to 16. The voting age amendment brought out young residents to an April 8…hearing where they cited their readiness and eagerness to participate in the city’s elections.

boom.

Takoma Park became the first city in the United States to lower its voting age—which was previously 18—to 16. The voting age amendment brought out young residents to an April 8…hearing where they cited their readiness and eagerness to participate in the city’s elections.

boom.

May 15th, 2013

thesmithian

…[some] may not remember what made Iran-Contra such an extraordinary scandal. The Reagan administration “raised money privately” by selling weapons to a sworn enemy of the United States. Why? Because it wanted to fund an illegal war in Nicaragua. And when I say “illegal war,” I mean that quite literally—Congress told the Reagan administration, in no uncertain terms, that Reagan could not send money to the Contras. Period. The Reagan administration, unrestrained by laws and the Constitution, did so anyway, and much of the president’s national security team ended up under indictment.

more.

…[some] may not remember what made Iran-Contra such an extraordinary scandal. The Reagan administration “raised money privately” by selling weapons to a sworn enemy of the United States. Why? Because it wanted to fund an illegal war in Nicaragua. And when I say “illegal war,” I mean that quite literally—Congress told the Reagan administration, in no uncertain terms, that Reagan could not send money to the Contras. Period. The Reagan administration, unrestrained by laws and the Constitution, did so anyway, and much of the president’s national security team ended up under indictment.

more.

May 12th, 2013

thesmithian

Zoom

[Martin] O’Malley, who is fifty and handsome in a Kennedy sort of way, has made a career out of all the politician stuff, chomping his way up the political food chain like a man hungry for more than a deli sandwich. After serving as a Baltimore city councilman in the 1990s, he was elected mayor of Baltimore in 1999 and then governor of Maryland seven years later, where he’ll remain until 2015. Because of term limits, he can’t run again. Every pundit in America has predicted he’s going to run for president in 2016, and O’Malley has done everything he can to encourage that speculation, short of outright admitting it’s true.

more.

[Martin] O’Malley, who is fifty and handsome in a Kennedy sort of way, has made a career out of all the politician stuff, chomping his way up the political food chain like a man hungry for more than a deli sandwich. After serving as a Baltimore city councilman in the 1990s, he was elected mayor of Baltimore in 1999 and then governor of Maryland seven years later, where he’ll remain until 2015. Because of term limits, he can’t run again. Every pundit in America has predicted he’s going to run for president in 2016, and O’Malley has done everything he can to encourage that speculation, short of outright admitting it’s true.

more.

May 11th, 2013

thesmithian

Zoom

“I think I’m ridiculously fortunate. I consider myself a Nigerian—that’s home, my sensibility is Nigerian. But I like America, and I like that I can spend time in America. But, you know, I look at the world through Nigerian eyes, and I am happiest when I am in Nigeria. I feel most—I question myself the least in Nigeria. You know, I don’t think of myself as anything like a ‘global citizen’ or anything of the sort. I am just a Nigerian who’s comfortable in other places.”

more from a conversation (audio and text) with the author, here.

“I think I’m ridiculously fortunate. I consider myself a Nigerian—that’s home, my sensibility is Nigerian. But I like America, and I like that I can spend time in America. But, you know, I look at the world through Nigerian eyes, and I am happiest when I am in Nigeria. I feel most—I question myself the least in Nigeria. You know, I don’t think of myself as anything like a ‘global citizen’ or anything of the sort. I am just a Nigerian who’s comfortable in other places.”

more from a conversation (audio and text) with the author, here.

May 11th, 2013

thesmithian

Zoom

The author has delivered a blow-by-blow account of the tawdry compromises, Republican intractability and factional fighting within the Democratic Party…Congress comes across as the nation’s grandfather: antiquated, inconsistent, as slow-moving as it is dull-witted.

more.

The author has delivered a blow-by-blow account of the tawdry compromises, Republican intractability and factional fighting within the Democratic Party…Congress comes across as the nation’s grandfather: antiquated, inconsistent, as slow-moving as it is dull-witted.

more.

May 10th, 2013

thesmithian

'The immigration reform measure the Senate began debating yesterday would create a national biometric database of virtually every adult in the U.S., in what privacy groups fear could be the first step to a ubiquitous national identification system. Buried in the more than 800 pages of the bipartisan legislation (.pdf) is language mandating the creation of the innocuously-named “photo tool,” a massive federal database administered by the Department of Homeland Security and containing names, ages, Social Security numbers and photographs of everyone in the country with a driver’s license or other state-issued photo ID. Employers would be obliged to look up every new hire in the database to verify that they match their photo.'

Civil rights advocates are worrying that [it’s] the first step toward a national identification system that would grow into a dossier on Americans and chronicle our most every move.

May 8th, 2013

thesmithian

To the Editor:

“Stories of Struggle and Creativity as Sequestration Cuts Hit Home” (front page, May 6) brought to mind the famous 1970s headline: “Ford to City: Drop Dead.” Now the same message is being sent to many Americans throughout the country.

PETER DIAMOND
Lexington, Mass., May 7, 2013

oh, and: