Friday, June 24, 2011

MItch McConnell explains why voting for divided government is always a good idea.

The left-o-sphere is all a-twitter about comments made by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast meeting this week. McConnell was explaining GOP support for cutting off funds on the Libya action by saying members are more likely to vote their principles if the President is not of the same party:


MCCONNELL: "The only thing I can tell you at this point is that there are differences. I’m not sure that these kind of differences might not have been there in a more latent form when you had a Republican president. But I do think there is more of a tendency to pull together when the guy in the White House is on your side. So I think some of these views were probably held by some of my members even in the previous administration, but party loyalty tended to mute them. So yeah, I think there are clearly differences and I think a lot of our members, not having a Republican in the White House, feel more free to express their reservations which might have been somewhat muted during the previous administration."
This comment is being trumpeted on the left as prima facie evidence of the venal, party-first, hypocritical nature of many congressional Republicans. This is, of course, completely true, as that is indeed their nature. The irony is that the Democrats making that point fail to note that many congressional Democrats are behaving exactly as McConnell notes on exactly the same issue.

Democrats are ignoring their principles to support a clearly unsupportable war authority assertion by the Democratic President. They are supporting the President in this claim for no other reason that he is "on the same side" making them equally venal and hypocritical. It seems to the Dividist that this should be painfully obvious to anyone. Except,of course, for the partisans obsessing about the speck in other partisan's eye and not noticing the plank in their own.

As the Dividist noted in a previous post, President Obama put us on a path to spend over a billion dollars deploying a carrier attack group, launching air strikes and cruise missile bombardments of military targets in a foreign country. Yet he is making the Orwellian claim that this action does not yet meet the definition of "hostilities" as a rationale for ignoring the War Powers Act. How many Democrats would have supported these actions if it was George W Bush making these claim?

Bush/Cheney may have misled the Congress and the country into the Iraq War, but they recognized the legal obligation to secure congressional approval. We now have a President who is asserting that it is completely within his authority to commit our military resources to strikes against another country, and never be required to request the authority of Congress. This is a claim of executive war power far beyond anything that was ever asserted in the Bush/Cheney administration. Regardless of whether you support our actions in Libya, all Americans should be concerned and outraged by this claim. It is nothing less than a subversion of the War Powers Act and the Constitution. Yet many Democrats (not all) are supporting him in this claim.

Ann Althouse asks the right question - "...does the need for a check on the President justify the pressure from whichever party happens to be the opposing party?" - but does not take it far enough. The need for a check on the President and t0 ensure that our constitutional checks and balances function as intended justifies a divided government voting heuristic - always voting to maintain a divided government state at the federal level. Always.

Stephen Slivinski and William Niskanen have made the statistical case that we are less likely to become embroiled in extended wars during periods of divided government. Mitch McConnnell simply explained why.

Divided and Balanced.™
Now that is fair.


Thursday, June 23, 2011

Obama Afghanistan Speech - Short Version

Short Version:

We won.

We are coming home.

BTW, we killed Bin Laden.

The Dividist is good with that.

Slightly Less Short Version:

We were right to surge the troops. We killed Bin Laden. We are declaring a modest victory. We also killed Bin Laden. We are bringing the troops home too slowly to satisfy the left wing and too quickly to satisfy the right wing. However, We did kill Bin Laden. I hope there is actually a centrist electorate out there. Did I mention that we killed Bin Laden?
Long version linked here.

More commentary from Memeorandum.

EDIT: Removed gratuitous, excessive, experimental memorandulingus link bait. It didn't work.

Divided and Balanced.™
Now that is fair.


Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Shocking CNBC Poll Result - 4% still think Ben Bernanke is doing a good job.


In anticipation of the Fed Open Market Committee meeting, CNBC used their daily "Squawk On the Street" poll to offer viewers a Confidence/ No Confidence vote on Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. With almost 20,000 votes cast, 96% voted "No Confidence". Now this is an unscientific poll - and - the wording begs the question why anyone, least of all the Fed Chairman, should be considered uniquely responsible for "handling the economy", but - scientific or not - the numbers are mind-blowing. Who would believe these results? I mean... really... who are those 4% of the respondents who think Bernanke is doing a good job???

Fed Chief Ben Bernanke held his second press conference and reinforced why the 96% have the opinion that they do. The headline of this AP story says it all:
Economic Trouble Puzzles Fed Chief, Too
"The economy's continuing struggles aren't just confounding ordinary Americans. They've also stumped the head of the Federal Reserve. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke told reporters Wednesday that the central bank had been caught off guard by recent signs of deterioration in the economy. And he said the troubles could continue into next year. "We don't have a precise read on why this slower pace of growth is persisting," Bernanke said. He said the weak housing market and problems in the banking system might be "more persistent than we thought."
Hard to understand why Bernanke would seem confused about the economy that he is "handling". After all, this was the same guy who said in June, 2007:
".. at this point, the troubles in the subprime sector seem unlikely to seriously spill over to the broader economy or the financial system."
In any case, we can rest assured that when it is time to implement an exit strategy for unwinding the most accommodating monetary policy in the history of the United States with an unprecedented currency annihilating hyper-inflation potential, Ben Bernanke is (as he said in a 60 Minutes interview last December) "100% certain" that he can raise rates in time to keep inflation under control.

Sleep well my fellow Americans. The economy is in good hands.

Divided and Balanced.™
Now that is fair.

Monday, June 20, 2011

Obama Takes Imperial Presidency Beyond Bush/Cheney's Wildest Dreams

Although I did not vote for Obama, I hoped he would live up to his campaign rhetoric and roll back some of the worst excesses of the expansive Bush/Cheney re-definition of the Unitary Executive. After the election I looked forward to the restoration of some of the civil liberties lost in the nation's post 9/11 fervor for an illusory level of security from terrorism and a re-balancing of the constitutional checks on the war-making authority of the executive branch. These hopes were dashed as time and again the Obama administration embraced and defended every single aspect of the Bush/Cheney power grab.

Now, having committed U.S. military forces and weaponry to striking military targets in the Libyan not-a-war, the President has chosen to ignore the legal advice of the top lawyers in the Pentagon and Justice department - claiming his actions are exempt from the War Powers Resolution:
"Jeh C. Johnson, the Pentagon general counsel, and Caroline D. Krass, the acting head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, had told the White House that they believed that the United States military’s activities in the NATO-led air war amounted to “hostilities.” Under the War Powers Resolution, that would have required Mr. Obama to terminate or scale back the mission after May 20. But Mr. Obama decided instead to adopt the legal analysis of several other senior members of his legal team — including the White House counsel, Robert Bauer, and the State Department legal adviser, Harold H. Koh — who argued that the United States military’s activities fell short of “hostilities.” Under that view, Mr. Obama needed no permission from Congress to continue the mission unchanged."
We are well on our way to spending over a billion dollars deploying carrier attack groups and launching air strikes and cruise missile bombardments of military targets in a foreign country, yet our President is making the Orwellian claim that this action does not yet meet the definition of "hostilities".

This is what it has come to - We now have a President who is asserting that it is completely within his authority to commit our military resources to strikes against another country, and never be required to request the authority of Congress. This is claim of executive war power far beyond anything that was ever asserted in the Bush/Cheney administration. Regardless of whether you support our actions in Libya, all Americans should be concerned and outraged by this claim. It is nothing less than a subversion of the law and the Constitution.

Sometimes, when a politician is criticized by both the right and left for a compromise policy decision, they will justifiably point to the criticism as a validation of a centrist policy. This is not such a case, as the President has staked out a war-making claim somewhere to the right of anything ever asserted by the Bush/Cheney administration.

Partisan hypocrisy can be easily seen in both Republicans and Democrats criticizing Obama while defending Bush or vice versa. The charges of hypocrisy are correct but irrelevant. The policy and administration claims are wrong and dangerous. It is important to understand the serious charges being levied from both wings of the political spectrum.

Criticism from the right:

Obama is flouting the War Powers Resolution
John Yoo & Robert Delahunty
"When an administration speaks to serious legal and constitutional issues, most of all perhaps in the national security area, it should not be such a spendthrift of its limited capital. And indeed, the failing here is a signature trait of this administration. Obama has an unhappy knack of making exactly the wrong kind of compromises. In this case, he might have made a robust and plausible claim that the WPR is unconstitutional. Alternatively, he might have read the statute fairly and followed it as written. Instead he is clearly flouting the law — but claiming that he isn’t. His performance here mirrors everything that has been wrong with his entire adventure in Libya. Obama’s attack has been too feeble to bring down Gaddafi, but big enough to discredit us for trying and failing; too wrapped up in U.N. legalities, but too little concern over national interests."
Criticism from the left:

Obama rejects top lawyers' legal views on Libya
Glenn Greenwald
"It should go without saying that even if the GOP had refused to support the war, that would not remotely be an excuse for violating the law and waging it without Congressional approval. Obviously, the law (and the Constitution) does not require Congressional approval for wars only where Congress favors the wars, but in all instances (it should also go without saying that a belief in the morality of this war is not an excuse for waging it illegally, any more than Bush followers' claims that warrantless eavesdropping and torture were beneficial excused their illegality). All that aside, what is undeniable is that Obama could have easily obtained Congressional approval for this war -- just as Bush could have for his warrantless eavesdropping program -- but consciously chose not to, even to the point of acting contrary to his own lawyers' conclusions about what is illegal. Other than the same hubris -- and a desire to establish his power to act without constraints -- it's very hard to see what motivated this behavior. Whatever the motives are, it's clear that he's waging an illegal war, as his own Attorney General, OLC Chief and DoD General Counsel have told him."
When an administration policy is criticized from the right, left, and academia as an illegal action, usurpation of congressional authority, and an erosion of constitutional checks and balances, it does not mean that the administration is striking a good compromise between the right and left.

In this case it means that U.S. participation in the hostilities in Libya are being conducted as an illegal action, usurpation of congressional authority, and an erosion of constitutional checks and balances.

Divided and Balanced.™
Now that is fair.


Sunday, June 19, 2011

NY Times offers two cheers for divided government.

The graphic is a little forced, but you've got to hand it to Peter Baker in the NY Times - he gets it. Our federal government is not dysfunctional. It works this way for the simple reason that this is exactly how it was designed and intended to work:


Hip, Hip — if Not Hooray — for a Standstill NationBy

"Is this any way to run a country? As it happens, yes. Ideal it is not. Inspiring, hardly at all. But the fractious, backbiting, finger-pointing, polarizing, partisan, kick-the-can-down-the-road brinkmanship of Washington politics these days is, let’s face it, the reality of American governance in the modern era. For all the hand-wringing about how the system is broken, this is the system as it was designed and is now adapted for the digital age. All the high-minded vows to put politics aside for the greater good ignore the fact that the system is built on politics, with the idea that politics, however ugly, eventually can produce a greater good, however imperfect...
 
Moreover, it’s useful to remember that the founders devised the system to be difficult, dividing power between states and the federal government, then further dividing the federal government into three branches, then further dividing the legislative branch into two houses. The idea, James Madison wrote, was to keep factions from gaining too much power, presuming that “a coalition of a majority of the whole society could seldom take place on any other principles than those of justice and the general good.”

And to be sure, gridlock is in the eye of the beholder. For those whose ox would get gored — for instance, those adamantly opposed to tax increases or to cuts in entitlement benefits — a little stalemate may not seem like a bad thing if it prevents what they consider a worse outcome. One person’s obstructionism is another’s principled opposition."
The Dividist is experiencing a bit of cognitive dissonance reading something this spot-on in the Times. The Dividist needs to sit down for a spell. The Dividist does not recall reading anything in the Times casting divided government in quite so favorable a light at any time prior to the 2010 election. You don't suppose the fact that avoiding one party rule in 2010 meant voting Republican and avoiding one party rule in 2012 means voting to re-elect President Obama has anything to do with it - do you? Nah. Certainly not.

In any case - the read is well worth consuming one of your 20 free NYT articles in June.


Divided and Balanced.™
Now that is fair.


Saturday, June 18, 2011

Keepin' it real with divided government.

Yeah, I've been a bit inattentive to politics and neglectful of the ol' blog over the last few weeks. This seems to happen whenever I find myself in close proximity of water and fishing gear. Time for my semi-annual resolution to pick up the pace and promise briefer, more succinct, on-topic posts on a more predictable and timely basis. Really. I mean it this time.

I did miss a few gems while drowning worms in the U.P. Among them a call for common sense from Tom Clark opining at CNN:
Get real about divided government.
"It is time that the hyper-partisans on both sides of the political aisle recognize the realities of the choice the voters have made. Having thrown the Republicans out of office in 2006 and 2008, they did not vote to embrace an agenda they had rejected in 2010. Instead they voted to balance government. Single-party rule in Washington failed for voters, but divided government doesn't have to meet the same fate. By recognizing the political realities of divided government and by working together we can make Washington work...

We know that we will be forced to raise the debt ceiling, but we also know that we cannot continue to spend money we simply do not have. The debt ceiling vote should give serious people on both sides of the ideological divide an opportunity to show that they understand the urgency of this problem. We can and should pass a debt ceiling increase that begins to cut spending, rather than simply writing more blank checks for Washington.

Additionally, the Simpson-Bowles commission provides an important bipartisan framework for tacking the growing problem of deficit spending. While not a panacea, the Simpson-Bowles commission does represent an important first step."
According to CNN, Tom is the "CEO of the Republican Main Street Partnership, a nonprofit organization of centrists in the GOP". Yeah, I had no idea such an organization existed either. I suspect that a meeting of "centrists in the GOP" is every bit as lonely as a meeting of "centrists in the Democratic Party". I just suspect there is not much of a there there. No matter. The point is that centrist policies do not emerge from single party control of the government, regardless of whether the Republicans or Democrats are in charge.

We get centrist policies when we have divided government. Not because divided government ushers in an era of political civility and and bipartisan cooperation. Quite the contrary. We get centrist policies in a divided government because nothing else can get over the partisan divide. If legislation is not sufficiently centrist to draw bipartisan support, nothing passes. Full stop. I'm good with that.

No legislation is better than bad legislation [See single party legislative abominations Porkulus and Obamacare - both passed on pure partisan votes]. This does not mean that centrist legislation passed in a divided government is always good legislation. Far from it. But you can rely on single party partisan legislation to almost always be bad. And when something does need to pass - like raising the debt ceiling - it will. But only after the usual Kabuki theater and partisan brinksmanship. As it must be to ensure both sides of the non-centrist aisle are equally unhappy.


Divided and Balanced.™
Now that is fair.


Friday, June 17, 2011

On China by Henry Kissinger - Review

One would be hard pressed to point to any relationship between two countries that will have greater global impact over the coming decades than the relationship between the United States and China. We would be equally hard pressed to find a better guide to understanding and explaining the historical foundation, current status and future prospects of that intricate, evolving and potentially brittle relationship than Henry Kissinger.

Intellectual, academic, author, consultant to private and public leaders in both countries, and most significantly, as National Security Adviser and Secretary of State to Presidents Nixon and Ford, Kissinger was arguably the primary actor whose performance on the international stage shaped the current state of Sino-American relations.

The name of Henry Kissinger's new book is "On China". A more accurate title might be "On Sino - American Relations - A Handbook for US and Chinese Diplomats and Leaders".

In the preface and prologue Kissinger is explicit about his intentions:
"This book is an effort... to explain the conceptual way the Chinese think about problems of peace and war and international order, and its relation to the more pragmatic, case-by-case American approach... American exceptionalism is missionary... Chinese exceptionalism is cultural... A primary focus of this book is the interaction between Chinese and American leaders since the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949."
Kissinger hits the mark. It is well written in an easily accessible style that does not require prerequisite knowledge of Chinese history or culture. Yet by simple virtue of its 530 page length, breadth and depth, the book requires a reader to make a commitment and bring a strong desire to understand the historic and cultural foundation on which current Sino-American relations are built.

It is only in the last chapter and epilogue that Kissinger explains why it is vitally important for Americans (and Chinese) to make the effort to understand the cultural and psychological differences in our respective approaches to foreign relations. These differences have in the past and may again in the future lead to misunderstandings, distrust, unintended consequences and tragedy.

I suggest that anyone wondering whether to commit to the effort required by this tome to read the epilogue first. It doesn't give anything away, but it does raise the stakes and correctly frames the context needed to appreciate the rest of the book. I'll revisit the epilogue later in the review.

"On China" is organized chronologically, beginning with the early history of China and ending with a look into her immediate future. Although it is structured as a historical timeline, it is not a conventional history nor does it pretend to be comprehensive. The history is offered as a framework for understanding the roots of the Chinese world view and (if we accept Kissinger's premise) as the keys to unlocking and understanding contemporary Chinese diplomatic approaches to managing US relations.

Kissinger cites ancient Chinese texts and thinkers like Sun-Tzu and Confucius to compare and contrast American and Chinese approaches to international diplomacy. Throughout the arc of post revolutionary Chinese history, Kissinger repeatedly applies these ancient texts and principles to explain the contemporaneous Chinese attitudes and actions. In this manner he illustrates recent historic and current events including the Korean War, the Mao/Nixon/Kissinger initiatives to restore relations, two Vietnam wars and even the current currency/trade negotiations.

Here I'll offer two of many examples:

In Chapter 1 - The Singularity of China Kissinger invokes a 14th Century Chinese novel:
"The famous opening of "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms", a fourteenth-century epic novel... evokes this continuous rhythm: "The empire long divided, must unite; long united must divide, thus it has eve been." Each period of disunity was viewed as an aberration... The fundamental precepts of Chinese culture endured, test by the strain of periodic calamity."
Having established this cultural perspective early in the book, Kissinger invites us to consider the outlook of contemporary Chinese leadership as still embracing this perspective. The rapid rise of contemporary China is thus considered by their leadership as simply a return to the natural order of things. Viewed through this prism, the relatively short multi-century period of foreign imperialism, civil war, disunity, and revolution becomes just another instance of a "temporary aberration". It is instructive to note that the time-frame of this most recent "temporary aberration" in the long arc of Chinese history is roughly comparable to the period of time comprising the entire history of the United States.

Then in Chapter 8 - The Road to Reconciliation Kissinger recounts Chinese strategists advising Chairman Mao by relying on lessons from the same 14th century novel as a basis for reopening relations with the US in the face of Sino-Soviet border skirmishes:
"Ye Jianying proposed a far older precedent from China's own Three Kingdoms period, when following the collapse of the Han Dynasty, the empire split into three state striving for dominance. The states' contests were recounted in a fourteenth-century epic novel, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, then banned in China. Ye cited the strategy pursued by one of its central characters as a template:'We can consult the example of Zhuge Liang's strategic guiding principle, where the three states of Wei, Shu, and Wu confronted each other. Ally with Wu in the east to oppose Wei in the north.'... The marshals went on to describe potential relations with the U.S. as a strategic asset."
Still in Chapter 1 - Kissinger explains the concept of "Shi" from the 2,000 year old writings of Sun Tzu:
"Hence the task of a strategist is less to analyze a particular situation than to determine its relationship to the context in which it occurs... The strategist must capture the direction of that evolution and make it serve his ends. Sun Tzu uses the word "shi" for that quality , a concept with no direct Western counterpart. In the military context, shi connotes the strategic thread and "potential energy" of a developing situation... To Sun Tzu, the strategist mastering shi is akin to water flowing downhill, automatically find the swiftest and easiest course... The Art of War articulates a doctrine less of territorial conquest than of psychological dominance; it was the way North Vietnam fought America."
Then in Chapter 18 - The New Millennium Kissinger show the concept of "Shi" being applied by current Chinese leadership to current events:
"The cultivation of harmony did not preclude the pursuit of strategic advantage. At a July 2009 conference of Chinese diplomats, Hu Jianto delivered a major speech assessing the new trends. He affirmed the first twenty years of the twenty-first century were still a "strategic opportunity period" for China. But in the wake of the financial crisis and other seismic shifts, Hu suggested that the shi was now in flux... If China guarded against potential pitfalls and managed its affairs diligently, the period of upheaval might be turned to its advantage."
Reading this section I cannot help but wonder at the complacency with which our current financial leadership (Fed Chairman Bernanke, Treasury Secretary Geithner) trivialize the financial control over our dollar and economy that we have ceded to China as a primary lender and holder of trillions of dollars our national debt. Nothing in Kissinger's book suggests that China will hesitate to use that leverage, even if it causes damage to their own economy, if they believe it necessary to protect their interest or simply gain advantage against the US in the years to come. Which, to my mind, makes it inevitable that it will indeed be used. But I digress.

Throughout On China Kissinger proceeds in this manner. First he outlines ancient texts including Confucian thoughts, Sun Tzu's Art of War, Ming Dynasty strategies for "using barbarians to check barbarians ", Han Dynasty tactics to use "five baits" to manage barbarians [foreigners], the game of "surrounding pieces" known as "Wei Qi" or "Go", and the pervasive perception afforded by millennia of Chinese cultural exceptionalism. Then he shows how these ideas and attitudes have been in the recent past and continue now to be practically applied by Chinese leadership to international relations in the modern era.

Kissinger concludes with a warning. The failure to understand the differences in strategy and tactics applied by China and the US in international relations can lead to misunderstandings with tragic consequences. In chapters 4 and 5, he contends this is exactly what happened in Korea:
"In China's conflicts with both the United States and the Soviet Union, Mao and his top associates conceived of the threat in them of a wei qi concept - that of preventing strategic encirclement. It was in precisely these most traditional aspects that the superpowers had the most difficulty comprehending Mao's strategic moves... Mao was determined to prevent encirclement by any power or combination of powers,regardless of ideology, that he perceived as securing too many wei qi "stones" surrounding China, by disrupting their calculations. This was the catalyst that led China into the Korean War..."

" ... When the Chinese view of preemption encounters the Western concept of deterrence, a vicious circle can result: acts conceived as defensive in China may be treated as aggressive by the outside world; deterrent moves by the West may be interpreted in China as encirclement. The United States and China wrested with this dilemma repeatedly during the Cold War; to some extent they have not found a way to transcend it."
Which brings us to the epilogue - where Kissinger turns his eyes from looking back to looking forward and applying the lessons learned. The epilogue may be the rasion d'etre for the book. Here Kissinger asks the question "Will History Repeat Itself?" - clearly fearing it might, and perhaps hoping his book points to a way of avoiding the future he fears.

The history that Kissinger hopes to avoid is not the recent Sino-American history that consumes his attention in the first 500 pages. Instead he invokes pre-World War I Europe where an emerging unified Germany challenged the preeminence of the dominant superpower of the age - the United Kingdom. He cites the "Crowe Memorandum" written in 1907 by a senior official in the British Foreign Office. In this memorandum (characterized by Kissinger as "brilliant") Crowe argues that future conflict is inherent in the relationship of the two powers.
Crowe concluded that it made no difference what goal Germany avowed. Whichever course Germany was pursuing, "Germany would clearly be wise to build as powerful a navy as she can afford." And once Germany achieved naval supremacy, Crowe assessed, this in itself - regardless of German intentions - would be an objective threat to Britain and "incompatible with the existence of the British Empire."
History would seem to judge him prescient. The obvious comparison is to a rising China building as powerful a military and economy as it can, and begs the question whether China similarly becomes an objective threat to the United States - "regardless of intentions".

Perhaps Kissinger sees this book as his own modern day "Crowe Memorandum". By calling attention to the potential dangers inherent in the relationship, he hopes to head off a similar catastrophic conflict. Certainly he finishes with suggestions to avoid such a fate, and strikes a hopeful (or wishful) note:
"I am aware that the cultural, historic, and strategic gaps in perception that I have described will pose formidable challenges for even the best intentioned and most far-sighted leadership on both sides. On the other had, were history confided the mechanical repetition of the past, no transformation would ever have occurred. Every great achievement was a vision before it became a reality. In that sense, it arose from commitment, not resignation to the inevitable."
Growing up in the shadow of the Vietnam war, I have mixed feelings about Henry Kissinger and in particular the role he played in the Nixon and Ford administrations. That said, I judge this book a success by the standards he set out in the preface, as well as by my own lofty expectations.

Reading it has changed the way I look at China, our historical relationship, and the issues confronting us today and in the future.

Recommended.


Thanks to Trish and TLC Book Tours for the opportunity to read the book and write this review. This is my second review for TLC (first here) and I received a free copy of On China (without preconditions on content) to write this review.

Check out the tour home page linked here. I was a little late, but made a point of not reading any blog or mainstream media reviews prior to completing this work. I am looking forward to comparing notes with other "On China" Virtual Tour Calendar and Reviews linked here:

Wednesday, May 11th: Man of La Book

Thursday, May 12th: Mark’s China Blog

Tuesday, May 17th: Inside-Out China

Wednesday, May 18th: Lisa Graas

Sunday, May 22nd: Rhapsody In Books

Tuesday, May 24th: Bookworm’s Dinner

Wednesday, May 25th: Pacific Rim Shots

Thursday, May 26th: Asia Unbound

Monday, May 30th: Hidden Harmonies China Blog

Tuesday, May 31st: Wordsmithonia

Wednesday, June 1st: Lit and Life

Thursday, June 2nd: ChinaGeeks

Wednesday, June 8th: Power and Control

Thursday, June 9th: Marathon Pundit

Friday, June 10th: Rundpinne

Monday, June 13th: Booker Rising

Friday, June 17th: Divided We Stand United We Fall

EDITS & UPDATES: - Fixing typos as I find them, and adding links to other reviews as they are completed.

Divided and Balanced.™
Now that is fair.