Mercy Otis Warren not only wrote one of the first comprehensive histories of the American Revolution, she was also a leading Antifederalist thinker – and yet she is overlooked in most conventional histories of the era today. What makes her important and memorable? What can we learn from her today?
Join Dr. Cara Rogers Stevens this week as she discusses this important American Founder with Brenda Hafera, Senior Fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
I have been fortunate to travel to all seven continents and have visited many beautiful and amazing places in this world. The people who refuse to travel extensively because of the inconvenience miss much of the beauty of this strange planet. I will mention a few of the things I have seen.
I rafted down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon almost 20 years ago. Our large raft set out in the early afternoon and was in the mouth of the canyon when we camped for the night. The next morning we descended into the main canyon, except we didn’t actually descend. The huge, multicolored walls of the canyon rapidly rose up above us. Our guide let the raft slowly spin and drift as the panorama evolved. I wish someone had thought to start singing, “How Great Thou Art.”
July 26, 1775. The Continental Congress appointed Benjamin Franklin the first postmaster general of the United States.
Sending letters and printed matter between the American colonies was no easy task in the early years. At first each colony established its own postmaster and postal routes. The first such post office was established in 1639 in Boston when the Massachusetts General Court designated Richard Fairbanks’ tavern as the official repository for letters to be sent or received. Some even established routes between colonial capitals, but these were usually short-lived due to the cost. For example, in 1673 New York set up a monthly post between New York City and Boston. The route is now US 1, but that postal service did not last long. Other colonies set up similar arrangements.
According to Exod 18:21–24, in an encounter prior to Yahweh’s revelation of law at Horeb, Moses’s father-in-law, Jethro, recommended that Moses appoint judges to help him manage Israel’s disputes, and Moses did so. According to Deut 1:9–18, Moses appointed judges, but not at the recommendation of Jethro; moreover, D states that this judicial appointment occurred after Yahweh’s revelation at Horeb, not before. Similarly, according to Exod 20:24, Yahweh told Moses at Horeb that the Israelites may build as many altars as they would like in order to sacrifice to their god; by contrast, Deut 12 insists that Israel may build and sacrifice at only one altar. It also pejoratively characterizes the alternative as “each man doing what is right in his own eyes” (Deut 12:8). Finally, according to Exod 24:10, the elders saw the god of Israel at the mountain. Deuteronomy 4:12, however, insists that Israel saw no divine form on this occasion but instead only heard Yahweh’s voice.
Jeffrey Stackert, Deuteronomy and the Pentateuch, page 17
We are in day 28 of the Texas flood response, and I’ve observed a lot of things worth noting. Here they are, somewhat randomly presented.
The response was incredible. We had teams from our county on the ground in an hour. We are only one county away, but state strike teams were on the scene in a couple of hours. I’ve heard some complaining about FEMA being slow, but the next day we had copious amounts of resources, to the point that it was hard to put them into action.
Self-deployed assets were a mixed blessing. Some were great and tried to coordinate with local commands. Others got in the way and didn’t want to be integrated into the overall effort. Influencers were an absolute nightmare for everyone, as were some very pushy media groups.
Until the Hamas attack on Israel, Aussie society supposedly rested on the principles of a fair go, being easy-going, and mateship. Then, on October the 9th, 2023, a large mob demonstrated at the Sydney Opera House, ostensibly to support the Hamas invasion of Israel. Their chants included “[Redacted] the Jews” and, according to witnesses, “Gas the Jews,” but not “[Redacted] the Israelis” or “Gas the Zionists.” New South Wales Police have disputed “Gas the Jews,” claiming it was “Where’s the Jews,” but confirm “[Redacted] the Jews,” so it’s reasonable to conclude that the mob’s target included their Jewish fellow Australians. If so, mateship and a fair go are done, and Australia doesn’t have a unified society; we’ve gone tribal.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-02/nsw-police-opera-house-protest-video-analysis/103418582
As probably most of you are aware, Ricochet’s James Lileks was carjacked several weeks ago.
Now, I wanted to refresh my memory on what was written about the carjacking when it first happened, but search as I might using the Ricochet “search” feature, I couldn’t find anything. You would think with search words like “James Lileks” and “carjacked,” it would have been easy. But the results were a bunch of random, unrelated stuff going back years – and not even in chronological order.
Tom Lehrer has passed. I played his records until they were transparent and I could repeat every word. It taught me something essential about satire: it has to be funny. You laugh, then you think.
Please link to articles and such in the comments; I’m writing this on my phone and it’s too hard to try to do it myself. I will tell of the time I spoke to Tom Lehrer on the phone. It was 1973, and I was on the Artists and Lectures Series Committee at Eisenhower College, lining up talent. I decided to try for one of my favorites. No agency had him listed, so I looked in the Boston phone book, and there he was. I called and he answered. My first statement was, “Is this the Tom Lehrer who wrote The Vatican Rag?” He confirmed it, and we had a pleasant chat. He insisted that he was retired from performing, although the idea of coming to Eisenhower College appealed to him in a lot of ways. In the end, I thanked him profusely for many hours of entertainment and hung up.
Although we all might hope that this brand-new recommendation for peace has been designed for Gaza, it is actually for the West Bank. It’s important to underscore that the West Bank has also been problematic over the years. And perhaps resolving its issues will be an incentive for resolving the Gazan war.
So, what is this new plan? It was developed by Sheikh Wadee’ al-Jaabari, also known as Abu Sanda, the leader of a clan in the West Bank:
President Trump never rests. It may be Sunday, but “Never on Sunday” is not a Trump saying. Today, the European Union has reached an agreement on a trade deal with the United States. A lot of smart people who love our country are rightfully upset with the recent Big Beautiful Bill for spending too much money, especially with the huge debt our politicians have incurred. Trump looks at the problem and instinctively understands that cutting enough spending to lessen that debt would be used by Democrats and even some Republicans as a hammer to nail the next election.
But there is an alternative: If you want to spend a lot of money, you need to earn even more money, or you will go broke. Before Trump is finished with the trade negotiations, the USA will be earning almost two trillion dollars annually with tariffs, most certainly if one adds the promised investments from other countries into our economy. I call it a win, don’t you?
I know I’m gambling with my two dollars when I click the “Buy Now” button on a Kindle bargain, but most reads offer some benefit, despite defects that force me to abandon them–I won’t spurn an introduction to a historical concept or a shortcut to slumber. However, about every fourth book, I hit the jackpot with a solidly written historical narrative that plunges me into an era–or into multiple eras, if it’s a collection. This fortuitous find might be flawed, with uneven pacing or extraneous portions, but its mind-altering content and compelling accounts of past lives make it a winner. Still, since I do most of my reading at night, the story must be challenging enough syntax-wise to serve as a gentle bridge into a good night’s rest. Electrifying first-person narratives must be saved for plane trips.
Here are two transformative nonfiction narratives that meet my criteria:
Much has been written about the Battle of Britain. The first major campaign fought primarily with aircraft, it yielded a decisive British victory over Hitler’s Luftwaffe. Most books told the battle from a British viewpoint. Exceptions were largely memoirs by Luftwaffe participants.
Eagle Days: Life and Death for the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain, by Victoria Taylor, is a fresh retelling of the battle through the Luftwaffe’s perspective. Using newly translated material, it strips away much of the heroic mythology surrounding the battle. It reveals the Luftwaffe as a serious and formidable opponent handicapped by flawed strategies and tactics.
Taylor opens by presenting the Luftwaffe’s development in the years leading up to the Battle of Britain. She shows how Germany built the Luftwaffe. Its experiences in the Spanish Civil War shaped Luftwaffe tactics and doctrine. (One example: Luftwaffe fighters abandoned the three-fighter “Vic” formation, replacing it with the four-plane Schwarm.) She shows how they used this experience in Poland, Norway and the Battle of France.
That’s a snippet from a statement that Deputy Director of the FBI Bongino posted on his official X account page earlier today. Here it is in its entirety. (Note: when you read the segments I bolded, keep in mind that they come not from some naif who’s unfamiliar with how ugly things can get in the corridors of power, but from someone who spent 12 years in the Secret Service, including presidential protection duty for Bush43 and Obama):
“During my tenure here as the Deputy Director of the FBI, I have repeatedly relayed to you that things are happening that might not be immediately visible, but they are happening.
Trump withheld $6B of Department of Education funding starting on July 1. Squishes on both sides of the aisle screamed bloody murder, so eventually Trump relented and disbursed $1.3B for summer programs. How did kids survive the summer in the past without government money?
At the risk of sounding like an old fogey, I’ll tell you how. During summer my mom had my brother and me busy hoeing the garden, watering the trees and the lawn, picking and canning cherries and peaches, sweeping the garage floor, and mowing the lawn. When I was old enough to mow without supervision, she had me mowing neighbors’ lawns for pay. By the time I was done with all my chores, I was glad to have time to read a book, play in our dirt pile, or ride my bike. And I learned quickly not to say that I was bored because my mom immediately had a task for me to do.
An episode that was hermetically sealed and kept in a mayonnaise jar on the front porch of Funk & Wagnalls since noon today…
Almost from the beginning, I advocated a middle ground on the Covid vaccine. Data indicated that it was both safe and effective in preventing hospitalization and death among older folks and more or less useless for youngsters. New modeling by Stanford and Italian researchers backs that up.
We lead this week’s show with a few short news announcements, including new menu items from McDonalds to excite John, and the debut of a new podcast competitor: Hadley Arkes and his merry band at the James Wilson Institute have launched “The ‘Natural Law Moment’ Podcast,” surely goaded by our constant mangling of his central arguments. WE hope to have a crossover episode with Hadley at some early opportunity, if we can ever get our difficult schedules sorted out.
This round-robin format episode features a vigorous discussion of whether Obama and the Deep Staters (sounds like a bad bar-band, no?) are vulnerable to criminal charges for their obviously bad faith behavior in creating the Russia Hoax back in 2016, whether Obama is immune from prosecution because of the ruling last year of Trump v. US, and whether these actions properly rise to the level of “treason” as is alleged by DNI Tulsi Gabbard.
At 750 episodes, the Ricochet Podcast is ready to accept the responsibilities that come with joining the ranks of august institutions and fellow pillars of Western Civilization. To that end, our princely cast, the ever-charming James, Charles, and Steven, convene with Ellen Fantini of The European Conservative for a digital roundtable on her magazine’s unique efforts to restore the rites of the proud cultures on the other side of the Atlantic.
Plus, the gents discuss the revisited Russiagate scandal, the Colbert affair, and Hunter Biden’s…uh…transfixing effort to revive the family name.
I read a Not the Bee article today that really has me shaken.
The gist of the story is that a woman in California agreed to be a surrogate mother, apparently without realizing that these men were just renting her uterus, and without understanding that neither she nor the unborn child had any rights in this transaction. She developed breast cancer and wanted to deliver the healthy baby at 25 weeks so she could start chemo. The men did not want the burden of the possible medical complications of a preemie, and so they ordered her to let the baby die. She offered to adopt the baby, but all these monsters wanted was a death certificate for their property. The baby was delivered early and, without care, was allowed to die.
For years, we have heard claims that people can live in different information universes based on their news sources, and what those sources do or do not report. I have thought that was likely an exaggeration. But this morning I learned that really might be true.
I had seen an article claiming that CNN abruptly cut its feed during the White House press conference with Tulsi Gabbard (Wednesday, July 23) on the documents purporting to show former president Obama’s involvement in the development of the Russia collusion story. I considered that the article I was reading might be exaggerating. Now, I can’t recreate the live CNN feed, so I can’t verify the article’s claim, but I looked at the CNN website to see how they reported the issue (both the press conference and the underlying controversy and investigation). As of 8:00 am Central Time, Thursday (July 24), the only mention I could find on CNN’s website (main page, and U.S. and Politics tabs) of anything close to the Russia collusion story was a brief sidebar video of Sen. Lisa Murkowski “question[ing] whether Gabbard releasing the report on Obama is an effort to distract from Epstein fallout.” There are lots of CNN pixels (with center top positioning) on the Epstein files story and how that story is a catastrophe for the Trump administration. Lots of pixels also on the sentencing of the man convicted of murdering several students in Idaho.
Jazz flugelhorn and trumpet player, songwriter, arranger, and performer Chuck Mangione has died at age 84. I had several of his LPs and still listen to his music on Amazon Music. His music was once criticized by a friend of mine as entry-level jazz. Of course, it did seem to be more melodic and structured and didn’t meander and ramble endlessly in dissonance like other practitioners of the art form. I found it refreshing.
On episode two of the new The Libertarian podcast, Richard Epstein talks to Charles C. W. Cooke about executive power. What does the Constitution say about it? How has it evolved? What space is there for executive discretion? Can the president fire everyone in his branch for whatever reason? Has Congress abdicated its responsibility?
“I’m old and fat and a little scared I won’t be able to do the work. Can you still use me?” my wife asked.
