The Fortnightly Rant

The Fortnightly Rant for September 9, 2011, from The New Hampshire Gazette, Volume 255, No. 25, posted on Monday, September 26, 2011. Let us begin by stating the all-too-obvious: the tenth anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001 is just two days away. Whatever our wishes might be, newspapers, magazines, and television all are determined to recreate that day for us. Anyone wanting to opt out should have retreated to a cave or remote island at least a week ago. Oh, dear — does our lack of enthusiasm show already? It is altogether fitting and proper to mourn those who were lost and honor …

Read moreIt Has Been Ten Years — It Just Seems Like a Hundred

The Fortnightly Rant for August 26, 2011, from The New Hampshire Gazette, Volume 255, No. 24, posted on Monday, September 26, 2011. The 2012 Presidential campaign has now begun in earnest. Or semi-earnest, anyway. And it’s about time, too. We have, at most, twelve more fortnights in which to catalog all the inanity, fatuousness, and deception coming our way.* The curtain for this quadrennial executive Gong Show rose on August 13th in Ames, Iowa. Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann won the Iowa Straw Poll with 4,823 votes. At the going rate of $30 per vote — seriously, that’s how they do it out there — her …

Read moreThe Battle of the (Last) Century

The Fortnightly Rant for August 12, 2011, from The New Hampshire Gazette, Volume 255, No. 23, posted on Monday, September 26, 2011. Well, we certainly have to hand it to Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH). We weren’t sure he could do it, but in the end, with hours to spare, he convinced his cadre of storm troopers to put down their political crack pipes and vote not to trigger their explosive vests on the floor of the House. What leadership! Before the deal passed, Boehner’s unruly mob had been threatening to destroy the economy in order to save it. “Wall Street hates uncertainty,” …

Read moreLet the Campaign Continue

The Fortnightly Rant for July 29, 2011, from The New Hampshire Gazette, Volume 255, No. 22, posted on Friday, August 12, 2011. Online journalist Josh Marshall made a point Tuesday morning that is overlooked far too easily and too often: “The centrality of debt holders in our constitutional order isn’t a bug, it’s a feature. Indeed, the national debt — created through the federal assumption of state war debts — was created to do precisely this: get the holders of bonds, necessarily wealthy and powerful people, to have a vested interest in the fixity and stability of the federal government.” So, for all the good …

Read moreHamilton’s Legacy

The Fortnightly Rant for July 15, 2011, from The New Hampshire Gazette, Volume 255, No. 21, posted on Thuesday, August 8, 2011. Barring the sudden discovery of a huge asteroid heading straight for us or a violent explosion of the Yellowstone Supervolcano, the top news story for the past week is sure to have been the interminable negotiations over, and the appalling theatrics around, the possible raising of the federal government’s debt ceiling.* The asteroid or the volcano could mean an end to life on Earth for all of us. A failure to raise the debt ceiling would mean an end to life for those …

Read moreThe Great [Compromise?] Capitulation

The Fortnightly Rant for July 1, 2011, from The New Hampshire Gazette, Volume 255, No. 20, posted on Tuesday, August 8, 2011. New Hampshire’s Republican Party, given an indisputable mandate last November by the voters, is returning that favor by doing its best to wreck the state completely. If they haven’t quite succeeded yet, it’s not for lack of trying. They are making great strides. Rather than run the risk of solving some real problems — inadequate school funding and ruinous property taxes immediately spring to mind — the state’s Republican leaders are focusing on non-problems, giving themselves the opportunity to proffer solutions which make …

Read moreHow Can We Not Help You?