Leadership
« Previous Entries Next Entries »A More Perfect Union
Thursday, February 9th, 2023It shouldn’t surprise you that some reporters, talk show hosts and columnists are lazy. They find a meme and then plug in a detail. The meme today is the phrase “Washington is broken.” This phrase allows the speaker to avoid taking responsibility for a judgment or prediction. It opens the door to the related meme, […]
Punish Illegal Employers
Thursday, December 1st, 2022Now that the election is over, conservative smoke and mirror politics is evaporating right before our eyes. Gas prices have dropped to $2.60 in North Texas. Fox News has stopped spamming crime stories. Retailers are slashing holiday prices and seeing record sales. Texas Governor Greg Abbott, however, has returned to inflammatory talk about the border. […]
Deceitful Donald
Thursday, November 17th, 2022At the beginning of the Second Gulf War, Vice President Dick Cheney confidently told us that American troops would be greeted as liberators. We know that was a lie. Like the Weapons of Mass Destruction lie, the Bush Administration told it to avoid facing reality. These lies were deadly and costly. When the last American […]
La même chose
Thursday, November 10th, 2022It is a truism that elections have consequences. No doubt this Tuesday election will also, but it will not change much. All across the country voters dug into familiar patterns rather than alter course. Nationally, President Joe Biden can lock in his legislative victories. Here to stay are the insulin price cap for seniors, lower […]
Snake Oil Fraud
Thursday, November 3rd, 2022Leadership requires correctly identifying problems and developing solutions. Demagogues often recognize when others are in pain, but they then exploit the pain for personal gain. This technique helps the politician gain, and solidify, power. Demagogues behave exactly like snake oil salesmen. Before the Pure Food and Drug Act (1906), capitalists crisscrossed the country offering a […]
Straw Man
Thursday, October 13th, 2022Boxers and soldiers often train fighting dummies. It is easy to understand why. Dummies don’t fight back. Eventually, however, a good fighters needs to train against another human as an opponent if they want to win a real fight. Debates work similarly with words. Some debaters only fight straw men; others, preferring a challenge, argue […]
I Wish I Were A Rich Man?
Thursday, October 6th, 2022I am always struck when I come to the end of the Good Samaritan parable in the gospel of Luke. The parable ends with the rich man begging Abraham to send Lazarus back from the dead to warn his brothers. Abraham ridicules the rich man. Abraham said “If they do not listen to Moses and […]
Solutions, Not Fear
Thursday, September 29th, 2022Conservatives politicians make two promises. They promise that government can’t work when they are elected. They promise to run government like their personal business. Why are we surprised when things turn out good for them and their friends but bad for us? Conservative politicians are on television complaining about everybody else except themselves. They have […]
Public Service vs. Private Profit
Thursday, September 15th, 2022Conservatives have been pretty clear about one aspect of their governing philosophy. They say that they will run government like a business. Liberals, however, see government as public services. The results are dramatically different. Liberal policies shaped American politics after the Great Depression. Franklin Delano Roosevelt provided a role model for creating government services. The […]
Team USA
Thursday, August 11th, 2022Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, it gets better. Since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the global recovery from Covid 19 stalled. Global traders panic, driving up prices and clogging supply chains. Market fears of a new, and wider, disruption never materialized, however. Energy supply remained strong, as Europeans carefully rebalanced their energy […]
« Previous Entries Next Entries »