These are the times that try men’s souls

It seems to be a perennial condition for the United States, with our experiment in liberty, limited government, and equality before the law.  Times that try men’s souls, so evocatively described by Thomas Paine in 1776, recur with us.

These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.

I submit that this is not because America is worse than other countries, as the modern Left’s agenda would too often have it, but because our experiment is better.  When we say “liberty,” we really mean liberty.

The debate to nowhere

The first Republican candidates debate has come and gone.  It’s not particularly useful to comment on everyone; Ron DeSantis is the one who will survive to the primaries with realistic prospects for the nomination.  I thought DeSantis did well, although of course he could have made a greater impact if he’d been able to field more of the questions.  I did appreciate being informed of what time of day Governor Burgum of North Dakota used to shower as a young feller (night, not morning).  Some things you might have known you didn’t know if you thought about them, but I hadn’t thought about that.  So I was grateful to have that unknown-unknown knowledge void filled.

That said, my principal comment on the debate is that it ignored the mastodon in the room:  the state of American government in 2023, and how it’s heading for a great train wreck for the Republic.

The debate questions focused on some important issues.  But not one of them was as important to America’s future as the ones that went unaddressed.

One guitar announces itself to the world

OK, OK, I’ll write about the criticism of Oliver Anthony from National Review.

Next time, Oliver Anthony should consider singing about what makes America a great land — a land of opportunity, not of guaranteed success.

A land made for you and me. | @mawrightjr https://t.co/Yrx1LCVxeq

— National Review (@NRO) August 14, 2023

.@SohrabAhmari It's not "hunky-dory conservatism" to state the facts.

And it's not condescending to speak the truth.https://t.co/HIFVMJzKYF

— Mark Antonio Wright (@mawrightjr) August 15, 2023

I imagine readers all know who Oliver Anthony is.

TOC Ready Room 31 May 2023: B-1Bs do the Balkans; Fox suffers analysis fail; RR Shorts

We’ll try to get through the Ready Room grab-bag with dispatch today.  The starter topic is whatever it is going on in the Balkans, which if you don’t recall hearing much about it means you’re normal.  We’ve got B-1B Lancers tootling around Europe like a supersonic Bugs Bunny, and wouldn’t you know it, they’ve already had signal events over Bosnia-Herzegovina in the past week, right next to where NATO’s KFOR peacekeepers were attacked in Kosovo on 30 May.

But there’s more context, so let’s back it up a little.

It’s always the Balkans

Don’t worry:  we’ll only go this far back for one data point.  Readers may recall the odd incident in August 2022 in which Russians and a Ukrainian were detained in Albania

TOC Ready Room 2 May 2023: YU-UGE SCOTUS case; Another balloon (yes, we reacted); Tucker Carlson and Fox

Some brief drive-bys as we advance into May – if not slouching toward Jerusalem, at least schlumping toward East Bugsplat.

The first set of reflections is on a case that the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear, involving the power of regulatory agencies to basically – in a vernacular rendering – interpret federal regulatory statutes any old way they want to.

The federal courts’ friendliness to this principle is called “Chevron deference.”  It’s named for a 1980s case in which Chevron was a party, but Chevron has nothing to do with the contemporary case the court has agreed to hear.  Chevron is also not the party being deferred to in the “Chevron deference” shorthand; that role belongs to whatever federal agency is imposing mandates in the case, based on its interpretation of law.