The Right Stuff: Russian invasion of Ukraine a worldwide threat

By Jim McCully March 7, 2022

Adolf Hitler’s forces invaded and occupied Czechoslovakia on March 15, 1938. Britain Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and French Premier Edouard Daladier signed the Munich Pact on Sept. 30, 1938, which gave Hitler the Sudetenland. That gave the Nazis 66% of Czech coal, 70% of its iron and steel, and 70% of its electrical power.

Great Britain, the U.S. and Russia in the Budapest Memorandum in 1994 certified commitments to transfer nuclear weapons to Russia but more important were commitments to ensure the sovereignty of Ukraine. Those commitments were to: “refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, refrain from economic coercion, seek immediate United Nations Security Council (action) to provide assistance in the event of an act of aggression against Ukraine.” Vladimir Putin’s Russian forces invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. Ukraine is the largest country in Europe and has world-leading resources that include iron, manganese, titanium, zirconium ores, coal, neon for computer chip production, natural gas, uranium, gold reserves, the second-most mercury and graphite, hydropower resources of 44.7 billion kilowatt-hours annually, the third-most shale gas reserves in Europe, and fourth-most natural resource in value.[...read more]

The Right Stuff: Are we discouraged by our actions?

By Jim McCully Feb 28, 2022

Years ago, I saw an interview of the very successful entertainer and businesswoman Lucille Ball. She said something important: “One of the things I learned the hard way was that it doesn’t pay to get discouraged.” Over the years I have thought about her admonition. I have tried to follow her advice. However, more importantly, I thought about the great leaders we have had in America and their lives.

This past week we celebrated Presidents Day honoring Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

If there were ever two men who could have succumbed to discouragement, it was them. Each was thrust into crisis situations both personally dangerous and professionally difficult for them and world shaking for America. Both men were highly intelligent and determined in their beliefs. One arguably created America as a nation, becoming “The father of our country,” while the other held it together in time of great turmoil, becoming “The great emancipator.” Each was a man of his time and circumstance; one from a prominent colonial family, the other a humble, hardscrabble beginning.[...read more]

The Right Stuff: True intention of Jan. 6 crowd not what’s being said

By Earl Heal

February 14, 2022 | Posted in Local Opinion Columnists While the House Select Committee investigates and the news media pontificates on what 100,000 adults at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, had in their minds, let us logically evaluate the facts and compare them to opinions that many are espousing.

President Joe Biden promptly labeled the gathering an insurrection and some have applied that term to the entire crowd in an official House assembly. The media has widely employed a term, “Threat to democracy.”

The Insurrection Act of 1807 was enacted for suppression of civil disorder, insurrection or rebellion and has been invoked 27 times. It provides statutory exception to the Posse Comitatus Act, which limits federal military use for law enforcement. It requires the president to proclaim an order to the insurgents to disperse before invocation. Causes have included a slave rebellion, Civil War, suppression of the Ku Klux Klan, labor disputes, enforcement of desegregation in Alabama and Mississippi and five times for race riots in the 1960s. Alabama’s Democratic governor George Wallace – even when his actions defied the law – was not cast as an “insurrectionist.”[...read more]