Category: Politics and Government

We Need a BIG Recovery- Here are 3 Pillars to Building Solutions

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Trying to Get Well from the Pandemic Offers a Golden Opportunity to Advance

 

This country is going to spend a lot of money trying to restart our economy. That is a given, a necessary action. Whether we do so intelligently or not is another question.

Infrastructure Investments, Wherefore Art Thou?

This feeds into our so far, fruitless national discussion about infrastructure. We are about $13 TRILLION behind in our infrastructure investments. That includes not doing new work or maintaining what we have. Remember collapsing bridge stories? We still have thousands of unsafe bridges all over this country.

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Leadership Right Under Our Noses, Just When We Need It

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Often Lost in Media Coverage in Normal Times, Governors Actually Run Things

Consider Governors

Several recent presidents have been governors: Carter, Reagan, Clinton, and Bush II. Even so, governors often get short shrift in media and in public attention. We tend to gravitate toward Washington personalities. This is an understandable, if oftentimes shortsighted, approach to picking our national leaders.

Washington personalities have the natural advantage of being in a global media capital. At some level, Washington based individuals also often deal in foreign policy and foreign crises. These yield valuable experience for a potential president.

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There is Another Deadly (but Curable) Virus Stalking the Land

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Here is its formula: I+AxIL/NC = -0

As terrible as the Corona virus is, there is another that is ravaging our country. It is bad enough in and of itself, but it actually makes the other virus, indeed all our national problems, worse.

I am referring to the mental and emotional profiles that make up the Trump administration. If this were a biological infection, its component formula might read something like the following:   I+AxIL/NC = -0

The Chemistry of Failure

I: Ignorance. Simple failure to know, to understand, to study a threat or a problem.

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A Singular Failure of Judicial Judgement

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What Happened in Wisconsin is a Call to Arms

 

This is Not an Especially Complicated Story

Wisconsin had a primary this week. The governor sought to maximize voting by mail. He considered postponing the primary, as have many other states in the midst of this pandemic.

No hyperbole here – people who had to vote in person put their lives – and those of poll workers – at very real risk. This is a no brainer, right? Not so fast.

The Republican legislature blocked any moves to improve safety while encouraging voting.

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This is the Close-in Fight Against Covid-19

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But It’s Not Too Soon to Capture Lessons Learned While We Fight

The Close-In Fight

Back in my days as a combat arms officer in the Army, we would refer to the “close-in fight.” This was when the fighting got really close and personal. Wherein you often saw the face of the opposing soldiers, knowing that at the end of battle one group would live to fight another day, and one would not.

At that point, not much beyond what was happening right around you mattered. This was when your planning, resourcing, strategy,

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How About Some Friday Leftovers?

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Let’s Chat for a Minute NOT about any Viruses or Politics

How does that sound for a change of pace? Neither topic will be gone for long, but let’s take a short break.

As usual, I have a ton of interesting points, articles, etc. that I enjoy sharing with you, but of late could not justify the use of space. Too much of importance going on. But that will be the case probably every day from now until – oh, let’s say November 3 (just to pick a random date, you know).

So much has been put into the leftover bin,

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Covid-19: Three Non-medical Problems to Solve

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We Have The Tools. Two Problems Could Be Solved Easily. The Last One – Not So Much

The  COVID-19 national crisis is one bad news story after another, as we all recognize. But the situation contains two problems that could be easily solved. We need only the will to do so.

Corruption Writ Large

The first of these is illustrated by the financial scandal around Senator Richard Burr and others. They apparently used insider information from official briefings for personal gain. They sold massive amounts of stock.

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All of the Bad News is Real. But There is Some Good News

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The Corona Virus Has Legions More News to Come. But Not All of It is Bad.

In the Age of the Corona Virus

By now, we are all feeling saturated with talk of the Corona virus. It seems to permeate everything, and we are just beginning to deal with this. We have some long days ahead. As with any major effect like this, there are side effects and spinoffs. Some of them are actually good things.

None of this outweighs the pain and misery of a pandemic. The slow start and remarkable missteps of the Trump administration are going to harvest a bitter fruit.

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Government’s Mission and a President’s Role in a Time of Crisis

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There are few fundamentals of what we expect from government and presidents.
The current team has failed them all.

Surprise!

I have written often that at some point a transformative crisis would hit the Trump administration. They would fail to meet it, with disastrous consequences. I felt that way from the first year of the administration and noted it early on at the start of this publication. I expected it would be something in national security that came calling. Perhaps a military conflict with China in the Pacific or a major terrorist incident. I did not see a virus as the precipitating event.

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A Quick Tour of Economic Issues We Should Watch Now

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In a Year of Elections and of the Corona Virus, We Should Pay Attention to These Issues

 

Elections always bring economic issues to the forefront. These are often the issues that most separate candidates and their voters. So it is this year. But we have a new shadow stalking us at present. That is, of course, the Corona virus. We still don’t even know what we don’t know about this menace, but we can already see economic factors that must be taken into account, even as they take shape.

Here are a few of the economic big-ticket items we should be focused on at this time,

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