Commentary & Opinion

This week is the scheduled last week of the 2019 legislative session.  The session can be viewed as historic: Complete Democratic Party control of the state government has resulted in a slew of legislation passing, many of which had festered due to partisan gridlock – like narrowing the Limited Liability Company loophole that allowed real estate developers to make much bigger campaign contributions than other businesses –– and others that could dramatically alter state policies – like permanent extension of rent control.

POTUS again surprised us by withdrawing the threat of tariffs, at least temporarily, against Mexico on Friday evening, June 7. The puzzlement of the weekend, it was disclosed, that this agreement had been made many months ago, and raised questions about whether or not POTUS created a crisis in order to appear to have solved it.  It is highly unlikely that POTUS will be satisfied with whatever actions Mexico takes, so this will be an ongoing saga.  Speaking of the migrants, there are now reports that Central Americans are looking to Europe as it is both a safer trip and potentially more welcoming. 

The Baker administration recently announced a plan to double Massachusetts’ procurement of offshore wind. Given the mounting data about the severity climate crisis, the announcement is good news. Tapping into the potential of offshore wind is key to solving climate, especially in the Northeast. Just as important is the lesson about the scale of action needed.

The federal government is ballooning in size. Government grows itself by its very nature.

Last week we talked about ways to block appointments that could make this Court even worse. Is it worth it?

Like millions of others, I watched the final episode of HBO’s epic series, Game of Thrones. I found it – like the entire series – immensely entertaining, with the final scenes carrying a sense of hope and peace. After all the violence of the previous seasons, it was welcome.

Last week, a blockbuster story ran in the New York Times: “Warning of ‘Pig Zero’: One Drugmaker’s Push to Sell More Antibiotics.”  The investigative report examined how the pharmaceutical industry is pushing the overuse and misuse of antibiotics on farm animals – in the case of the Times story, pigs.

Mr. Trump announced before traveling to the United Kingdom for a state visit that Meghan Markle was nasty, although he subsequently denied having said it, unfortunately for POTUS there were tapes of it.  It must be that fake news again.  He also suggested to Mrs. May that Britain not pay the $50 billion fee to exit Brexit, and offered support for Boris Johnson.  If Mrs. May had made the same incursions into our affairs the tweets would have been viral and nasty.

In my last commentary delivered in March, I focused on critics of the Green New Deal.  I argued that the demonization of federal budget deficits was a red herring not to taken seriously when discussing the pros and cons of the series of proposals called the “Green New Deal.”

There comes a point in many young athletes' lives when they are forced to confront a difficult question. That is, am I afraid of getting hit by a baseball? I say this without even a hint of insult or derision, speaking as someone who personally is quite afraid of that very potential reality. I have two athletic boys, both who play team sports. My nine-year-old doesn’t seem to be afraid of getting hit – granted, he doesn’t seem to be afraid of anything, which I hope eventually changes. So he still plays. My oldest son decided after last season, after getting hit by a couple of pitches, that he’s done.

President Trump has had varying political positions over the past 30 years. In shifting his positions, Mr. Trump is not unique.  Times change; issues change as does public opinion. Emerson once said:  “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”

There's a lot going on this week. I've put on my blog some information about funding legal services for the asylum-seeking immigrants at the Mexican-American border and on the struggle for marijuana legalization in New York.

States in the northeast, including New York, are lucky to have access to an abundance of fresh water supplies. New York’s fresh water supplies were critical to the state’s earliest economic development – for example, access to the Great Lakes, the Hudson River, and the building of the Erie Canal. Since colonial times, those clean drinking water supplies helped make possible the rapid growth in the state’s population.

Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader in a speech on May 28, uttered one of the most hypocritical and cynical statements that have been made in recent memory.  Mr. McConnell made it clear that if a vacancy appeared in the Supreme Court in 2020, that he would move it through the Senate because there was a Republican President.  All of the nonsense which he spewed in 2016 about Judge Garland was a lie.  He wallows deep in the swamp. 

Ask any educator and they’ll tell you — it takes more than teachers to make a school run smoothly. It takes dedicated teaching aides and assistants, who provide help in everything from math, to reading, to science. It takes bus drivers, who safely transport students to school, and back home again. And it takes cafeteria workers, secretaries and custodians.

Confront an advocate for socialism with its dark history, and the deflection will typically be some variety of “What about Norway, Sweden, Finland, or Denmark?”

We’re suffering a worldwide attack on tolerance, the brotherhood and sisterhood of all peoples, and the principles of democracy and equality that make it possible to share the country and much of the globe in peace. The results, from Brexit to White Nationalism, the resurgence of Nazism in Europe, intolerance in India and China and ethnic warfare over the scraps of economic failure endanger us all. America, founded on tolerance, equality and democracy, should be leading the world out of this dangerous morass instead of smoothing the path to hell.

Economist, Judy Shelton, appears to be Mr. Trump’s next nominee to the Fed.  Ms. Shelton has sent mixed messages in terms of her agenda and priorities, but clearly does support positions that Mr. Trump has taken on the economy.  Her record as an economist clearly qualifies her for the Fed, whether you agree with her positions or not.  This is a person who should be confirmed to the Fed, in contrast to Mr. Trump’s previous unqualified nominees.

We’ve all been told the story of John Smith and Pocahontas, and pass it on with pride and pleasure. Although the actual events probably differed in some respects from the story we’re told, it speaks well of us that we remember her bravery and the love and marriage of Pocahontas and John Rolfe. They had a son, Thomas, who was brought up by English relatives after Pocahontas died there. I’ve often wondered how they described his heritage and hope they remembered his Native American mother with pride and pleasure. Children were born from similar marriages through much of the American frontier. I hope their descendants think of their native ancestors with the same warmth. In that vein, I was happy to discover that Senator Warren’s family took pleasure in knowing that a native union was blended into their family story, and that Senator Warren grew up thinking about it with pleasure. Some have pummeled her for it, but I think her attitude says more about her kindness and decency.

By now it’s been drummed into New Yorkers – after scores of controversies, scandals and prison sentences handed out from the actions of top public officials – the state is considered one of the most corrupt in the nation.  

It appears that much of the Canadian internet data is transmitted and stored in the United States.  This data is not accorded the same level of security as data which is generated and stored in Canada and it is not protected by the same privacy rights as those accorded to US domestic data and its owners.

My mother, Mary Kowal, passed away on April 2nd after 98 incredible years. She was born in 1920, when Woodrow Wilson was president. As many know, Wilson was an arch segregationist. But mom, who was born the year that women were first allowed to vote in the United States, lived long enough to vote for America’s first African American president – twice.