Let me start off by saying that Reagan is the President of my youth, the President that as a child I trusted to keep the missiles from falling, who grieved the astronauts, and who – at the time, I thought – single-handedly defeated communism. You can solidly put me down in the “not a fan” column. Yet I still think he deserves a place on our currency.
Update: As expected, the Democrats caved, including local Representatives Pat Murphy and Joe Sestak. The roll call in the House can be found here, and the Senates tally forthcoming.
In the spring of 1987, the year of the 200th anniversary of the first Constitutional Convention, President Ronald Reagan began calling for another. Reagan had been frustrated by Congress’ failure to brovide him with a Balanced Budget Ammendment. Reagan’s solution was to call for a new Constitutional Convention, as described (but never tested) in Article V of the Constitution, where each state would get delegates to propose a balanced budget ammendment, and then pass it on to the individual state legislatures for approval. Reagan succeeded in getting agreement from 32 of the required 2/3 of the States, but was eventually blocked by an unlikely coalition of Constitutional defenders, fearful of the seismic changes [pdf] regarding preemptive federalism and the erosion of states’ rights.
I was reading about the flurry of US helicopter downings in Iraq, which echoes back to Afghanistan in an earlier time – namely the USSR occupation that preceeded the fall of the Soviet Union. I conducted a quick search, looking for US justification from the CIA, stating that by providing Stinger (shoulder-launched) anti-air missles, killing as many as ten soldiers per chopper (currently, about 5.5% of US fatalities are due to helicopter crashes, with only 91 of 172 (2.9%) due to hostile-fire, as sourced from iCasualties), and taking one of the most effective of the Soviets weapons, the Mi-24 Hind Attack Helicopter, out of the theater, would demoralize the Soviets and defeat them in Afghanistan. Instead, I found a tale that encompasses the CIA, the White Houses of Carter and Reagan, a Congressman, several nations, such as Pakistan, Italy, Israel, Saudi Arabia, among others, the Soviets, and the Afghan mujhahadeen.
