Новости за 06.11.2018

Freddie Mercury was one of the greatest entertainers that ever lived. The British singer with that marvelous voice strutted across stages in his outrageous costumes as the lead singer of the rock band Queen, dazzling the whole world. Their hits, such as “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “We Are the Champions” and “Another One Bites the Dust” will live forever.

This book is an extremely detailed description of James Madison’s composition of his notes on the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, written largely during the period during and shortly after the Convention (1787-1789) and his minor, but extensive, revisions of the text over the next fifty years. 

In hindsight, the impeachment of Andrew Johnson appears to have been overly political. He was charged with violating the Tenure of Office Act, a hastily conceived federal law that may have been unconstitutional. Johnson’s opponents also accused him of bringing “into disgrace, ridicule, hatred, contempt, and reproach, the Congress of the United States.” Surely that last accusation was far too trivial to result in a president’s removal from office. 

Working for Richard Nixon

I did not know Ike’s vice president. The reason, I think, was that Eisenhower had a view of the vice presidency that is now at least a half century out of date. As Ike wrote in his memoirs, “The Vice President of the United States, with the constitutional duty of presiding over the Senate, is not legally a part of the Executive branch and is not subject to direction by the President.” He even included Nixon as part of a group coming to a White House meeting as coming... Читать дальше...

This week marks the 80th anniversary of the Kristallnacht pogrom in Nazi Germany. How is it that even after eight decades, some new museum exhibits, history websites, and biographies of President Franklin D. Roosevelt continue to misrepresent his response to the pogrom?

America has had 44 Presidents, and while all of them only came to know or be aware of a few Presidents in their lifetimes, an interesting concept is to wonder how every President in Donald Trump’s lifetime and a few others before his time, likely would react to him if they had met him (and some did).

Professor Benjamin Carter Hett (Photo by Signe Reibisch)

This history still stuns. In Germany, one of the most well educated and sophisticated societies in the world, the democratic Weimar Republic fell with dizzying speed. The overthrow was engineered by authoritarian conservatives and Adolf Hitler, a former German army private and fringe political agitator with little formal education or resources. He spoke out against minorities, immigrants, free trade, a free press, free speech, the rule of law... Читать дальше...

There's evidence this was Christianity's original creed: "There is no Jew or Greek; there is no slave or free; there is no male and female, for you are all one.”

“Terrorists, rapists, drug dealers and gang members at our southern border pose an imminent threat to America’s way of life.” While this could pass as a statement from President Donald Trump on the migrant caravan, it could just as easily have been part of the anti-migrant rhetoric of the 1850s. The fear of sinister foreigners on our southern doorstep has been rife for nearly 200 years. 

As Americans turn with unusual fervor and focus to the November 6 midterm elections, President Trump and the GOP seek to stoke fear by raising a series of concerns about immigrants and potential immigrants to our shores. Thousands of troops are rushed to our southern border to head off a caravan of refugees from Central America. Republican ads claim that Democrats are for “open borders.” Trump himself announces that he will issue an executive order to end the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of... Читать дальше...

Photo: Jerry Dalia, The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey

The more things change…

It is 1892 in staid, prim, proper, stiff upper lip England and two Oxford undergraduates, Jack and Charley, want to marry their girlfriends, Amy and Kitty. They are nervous and want a chaperone and, lo and behold, who do they discover is arriving by train that very day but Charley’s aunt from Brazil (“where all the nuts are” she always says), Donna Lucia D’Alvadorez. Perfect. She does not arrive, though and... Читать дальше...

Related Links

●  HNN Topic:  Antisemitism

● What historians are saying about the attack:  Their tweets and retweets

An eruv is normally a thin line of metal wire that stretches across the tops of telephone poles, barely visible to an observer who doesn’t expect it, looking scarcely different from the normal infrastructure that you would see in any large city – perhaps a line to bring cable television into homes. But the purpose of an eruv is different; rather it serves to encompass... Читать дальше...

After the American Nazi massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, we inevitably and rightly think of the genocidal antisemitism the Nazis preached and practiced. This makes perfect sense for three obvious reasons: This is a case of mass murder motivated by antisemitism, the perpetrator is an American Nazi, and he has struck in an atmosphere personally poisoned by a president (no less) who has deliberately resurrected the “America First” slogan of those Americans who were still ready... Читать дальше...

"This imbecile has us especially close to his heart. He makes no secret of his hateful feelings. He does not greet my wife at all and ignores me unless it's for official business," wrote Friedrich Kellner, courthouse administrator in the small German town of Laubach, on January 23, 1943. The "imbecile" was Heinrich Scherdt, the court constable, who had been directed by the local SS unit, a branch of the Gestapo office in Giessen, to report on the Kellners.

The Palestine Electric Company Ltd in the early 1920s.

On Sunday, King Abdullah II of Jordan canceled an annex of the 1994 Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty that gave Israeli farmers access to fields located on Jordanian territory. In doing so, Abdallah was responding to a groundswell of anti-Israel feeling brought on by a number of recent controversies, from the violence in Gaza to the shooting last year in Amman of two Jordanian citizens by an Israeli security guard.

Although the story has received extensive press coverage... Читать дальше...

Click inside the image below and scroll down to see tweets.

If you cannot see the tweet thread click here.

Something went terribly wrong on the night that rough, tough staff sergeant Donna Caine, a seasoned drill instructor, led her regiment of U.S. Marines on a march through a tidal swamp at Parris Island, South Carolina, to bring the discordant group a little discipline. Five of them, two men and three women, died. It was a tragedy covered by CNN and other networks, focused national attention on Caine and the Corps and damaged the defense Department’s program to further integrate women into the Corps. Читать дальше...

The Czechs are commemorating a number of events this year, including the founding of the National Museum (200 years ago), the Revolution of 1848 (170 years ago), the establishment of Czechoslovakia (100 years ago), the Munich Agreement (80 years ago), the beginning of the communist regime (70 years ago), and the Warsaw Pact invasion (50 years ago). Czechoslovakia’s centennial, on 28 October, is the most significant of these events and has received intense media coverage in the Czech Republic because of the republic’s founder... Читать дальше...

Statue of Hamilton by Giuseppe Ceracchi (Courtesy: Jerry L. Thompson for the Boston Athenæum)

When Halloween came around in 1960 John F. Kennedy, while campaigning for president, came across a unique trick or treat event. This ghoulish party was not about collecting candy but instead raising money for the UN agency fighting child hunger and disease-UNICEF. JFK loved it! Kennedy remarked at a shopping plaza in Willow Grove where the UNICEF party took place, "I think that is in the best tradition of this country’s humane and sympathetic effort." Kennedy continued speaking about fighting hunger and disease in his short speech. Читать дальше...

As Labor Day came and went last month, many no doubt gave thanks for the low unemployment rate. At the same time the Democratic Party Labor Day BBQ saw presidential candidates, elected officials and activists touting proposals for a job guarantee to ensure full employment. Why bother if the population out of work is at historic lows? 

“Never trust anyone over thirty.” These words, uttered by Jack Weinberg, an activist at the University of California at Berkeley, became a famous slogan of the 1960s student left. It was catchy, but also contributed to a lazy portrayal of the student movement as the political equivalent of a fraternity prank. It was easily mocked: Kirkpatrick Sale, in his landmark study of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) ironically noted that on April 4, 1970 Weinberg himself turned thirty.

That question was posed recently at a Patriot Week talk I gave commemorating the bicentennial of Douglass’s birth. Created in 2009, Patriot Week is the brainchild of Judge Michael Warren and his daughter Leah of Oakland County, Michigan. Now celebrated in ten states, it aims to further our appreciation and discussion of America’s first principles and culminates on September 17 in Constitution Day, a federally-mandated observance in educational institutions that receive federal assistance of any kind. Читать дальше...

There was, once upon a time, an extremely popular genre of American biographical literature, going back at least to Parson Weems’s hagiography of George Washington, written with the explicit purpose of inspiring young boys (and only boys) to emulate the example of great leaders and accomplish great things. That genre is now regarded with amused condescension if not contempt and state US history curriculum standards, often echoing the ideology of Howard Zinn, identify few if any praiseworthy individuals... Читать дальше...