Tag: President Richard M. Nixon

Commentary: This Landmark Conservation Bill Has Been an Abject Failure for Fifty Years

Michigan Star Staff
Richard Nixon

December 23, 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) by President Richard M. Nixon. The statute has put enormous power into the hands of bureaucrats at the two federal agencies that administer it – the Interior Department’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the Commerce Department’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). It has also been adroitly used by environmental groups who have sued the federal government under the ESA to stop projects not of their liking through the broadest possible designation of a “critical habitat” for a plant or animal said to be either threatened or endangered.

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Analysis: The First Gulf War Validated Five Major Weapon Systems, All-Volunteer Military

Neil W. McCabe

The First Gulf War, or Desert Shield and Desert Storm, which was a strategic failure, but an operational success came to an end Feb. 28, 1991 with President George H.W. Bush calling a halt to combat operations after the 100 hours of combined land and air offensive.

It was the culmination of months Desert Shield’s diplomacy and military build-up beginning Aug. 7, 1990, shortly after Iraq invaded and conquered its neighbor Kuwait. Desert Storm began Jan. 16, 1991 with a ferocious air campaign that prepared the battlefield for the last 100 hours.

It is important to record operations success in the ledger of a war whose memory has become awkward and difficult.

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Commentary: When Senate Tries Trump, Senate Republicans Are Also on Trial

Neil W. McCabe

When the Senate opens the second impeachment trial of President Donald J. Trump Tuesday there will be two defendants: Trump and the Senate Republicans.

Trump is charged with one count of inciting an insurrection against the United States, in connection with the Jan. 6 mob that surged the Capitol, while Congress was in a joint session to certify the results of the Electoral College: “Incited by President Trump, a mob unlawfully breached the Capitol, injured law enforcement personnel, menaced Members of Congress and the Vice President, interfered with the Joint Session’s solemn constitutional duty to certify the election results, and engaged in violent, deadly, destructive, and seditious acts.”

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