“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” (George Santayana) Project 100,000 was the “brainchild” of Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense for Presidents Johnson and Kennedy, one of the “best and brightest” Kennedy recruited for his administration. But that description quickly proved to be a misnomer. By 1966, McNamara was […]
Category: Coffee Break
Who Said It?
“These are my principles and if you don’t like them…well, I have others.” Who said it (or should have said it)? Obama? Trump? Take a quick look at the presidential records of these two stalwart characters and hazard a guess before you look at the end of this piece and discover who really said it. […]
You’re Fired!
The civilian and military figures who toil away day after day in the vast recesses of the Executive Branch become famous when the president fires them — the more publicly the better. Trump’s abrupt ham-handed firing of FBI Director James Comey guarantees that Comey’s name will outlast his accomplishments. Other famous and not-so-famous officials have […]
Two Party Dilemma
What’s up with the US two-party system? Upton Sinclair, political activist, social reformer, and writer had the answer over a hundred years ago— “the two political parties are two wings of the same bird of prey. The people are allowed to choose between their candidates and both of them are controlled, and all their nominations are […]
The Empire Has No Clothes
What some famous and infamous Americans would have put on their twitter feeds if it had been invented. “the truth of the matter is when you look at our actions, as distinct from our loftily expressed self-conceptions, it is difficult to see much difference between our actions in Vietnam and the Russians in Afghanistan” ( […]
