I awoke this morning from an odd series of dreams. In one, the governor of Michigan had caused to be enacted a legislative package that conferred the power of government on corporations. The corporations would run cities—individual services or departments or entire cities themselves—without the inefficiency of voter input through elections. In another dream, government leaders in several states raced one another to sell off assets, built by the public with public capital raised from…

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Our election process was significantly damaged by one of the worst decisions in the history of the United States Supreme Court, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Procedurally, the decision was hypocritical, an act of judicial activism antithetical to the what generally is viewed as appropriate by Republicans. Substantively, it enables foreign shareholders to exercise the rights of American citizens through the corporations those shareholders come to own and…

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Our March 19, 2011, debate will consider whether Justice Clarence Thomas of the United States Supreme Court should be mpeached. I shall represent the negative on tis issue.

I was asked last night why the "left" finds the word "corporation" to be evil. I asked the person to clarify what he meant by the "left" and whether he used the word "evil in ecclesiastical context. So began that part of our conversation.

A corporation is not a living, breathing thing. It is created by statutes and consists of a piece of paper. A corporation has no national loyalties. Its loyalties are to its shareholders. A for-profit corporation’s morality is shaped by its reason…

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I was able to pull the first two segments of the debate Carols Lam and I had on March 5 concerning public funding of  Planned Parenthood. Those now are on the web site. 

On March 5, Carlos Lam was gracious enough to travel to my office and debate Resolved: Planned Parenthood should receive public funding. Carlos is a lawyer. His appearance on the show was not in connection with his employer and solely was a personal matter on his personal time. Through technical glitches—i.e., my ineptitude in the operation of transfer of taped images and audio from camera to computer—much of the debate was lost. For that I apologize, both to Carlos, who took time out…

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Someone posted on this site something that made little sense, given the content of the site. I e-mailed the person who posted the item and asked if the post was simply an adbot. An adbot is a creature of the computer world that seeks out new websites and enters a post that, in reality, is an advertisement. I received no response. I infer from the lack of response that my suspicions are a reality. I therefore deleted the matter. If I was wrong about the matter being an adbot, the person who… Continue

The recent brouhaha over budgets has been many-faceted. I did not think a debate on the budget as a whole could be easily accommodated on the show, given our time limits.  So I thought we could concentrate on one aspect of the national budget over which people have strong feelings. We will debate on Saturday at 1. I will try to upload the show that afternoon.

-We learn as we go. I had thought  debate on Ronald Reagan's presidency would draw at least a few people interested in defending the presidency of the 40th man to hold the office. I was mistaken. Fortunately, as previously announced on this blog, Curt Coonrod will debate the topic on March 12. That left us scrambling for a topic and guest for February 19. As luck would have it, Paul Ogden agreed to debate Resolved: originalism is an invalid means of interpreting the…

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I am proud and pleased as punch (as former Vice President Hubert Humphrey once would have said) to announce that Curtis Coonrod has accepted my invitation to debate Resolved: Ronald Reagan was a very bad president. Unfortunately, Mr. Coonrod's schedule is such that he is not available for the debate until March 12.  I first met Curt in 1970 when we were rookies in high school speech and debate. He was on Lafayette Jeff's team. My high school was a small, rural school in Howard County. He…

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I have yet to find anyone to debate in defense of Ronald Reagan on the proposed topic. I can be contacted at marksmall2001@yahoo.com

The background of this web site is not some weird hippie alteration of the flag of the United States but the flag of the Green Mountain Boys.

First formed in the 1760s, the Green Mountain Boys were a militia organization formed in Vermont. They took an active part in what we call the Revolutionary War and played a crucial role in the colonists’ victory in the battle of Ticonderoga. Today, the Vermont National Guard bears the name of the group.

In the 1970s, a friend of mine…

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This debate will focus on some of the misconceptions about a president elevated nearly to the level of icon. Our debate will focus on those misconceptions. I will argue the affirmative---that Ronald Reagan was a really bad president, popular belief notwithstanding.

This will be the topic of our next debate, Saturday, February 19, between Chris Spangle and me. I will take the affirmative. The debate should be on the site in the afternoon. I am new to this tecnology thing. My Freshman year at DePauw, the school's computer (singlular) filled a room I recall as being about 20' by 20'. SO I am late to this process.

The debate should be spirited. The point of the debates is to discuss matters in civil fashion but with disagreement; without…

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Budgetary matters

We have before the Congress a budget proposed by President Obama that makes few people happy. There is general consensus that we should cut spending. There is no such consensus about raising taxes. The Republicans want to preserve tax cuts for the rich. Some in the Democratic Party are willing to preserve those tax cuts.

So, like people everywhere who try to balance their checkbooks, let us see what we could do to right these matters.

1. Cut…

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Why this blog? Why this show?

"I’m mad as hell. And I’m not going to take it anymore!"

 

In Paddy Chayevsky’s 1976 movie "Network," news anchor Howard Beale breaks down on the air, calls for his viewer audience to get up, toss open a window, and yell, "I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore." join him in an expression of general anger with society, the world,…

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I will post in the morning about the rally today. Just got back. Initially I would estimate at least 200,000 people in attendance. I attended a rally on the Mall on July 4, 1976, attendance for which was estimate at 60,000. By 11:44 the crowd was at least twice the size of the crowd as I remember it that day nearly 35 years ago. People still were arriving today. The crowd was far bigger by 12:30.