Commentary & Opinion

A while back, the city of Albany expanded its cart-based recycling program to include many more residences. Across the city, we now see the tall, blue, two-wheeled mega-carts that replace the little blue bins of old.

Last time we talked about how influencing our politicians to do the right thing can be fun. So this time let’s talk about some very serious issues with an eye toward enjoying the process of moving our politics to do the right things, even though the issues, like climate change, sometimes feel out of our control. But we do have power. We live in a democracy and can demand that our representatives deal with these problems first and foremost. Motivating them is our job. So let’s look and then return to our responsibility. Two issues involve the likely suicide of humanity: what has been termed the sixth mass extinction, this time of us.

This week we celebrate Earth Day.  Earth Day is an annual event that started in 1970 and is an important opportunity for our society to examine how well we are protecting the environment.  In a sense, Earth Day is the day we issue a “report card” on our stewardship of the planet’s natural resources.

You can hear it building: A movement growing from a quiet whisper to a full roar.

In West Virginia and Oklahoma --- and in Kentucky and Arizona – teachers are finding their voices. They are standing with their unions to use that collective voice to improve their lives and their communities.

Let me note that I have enormous concern for the suffering people of Syria, but ask do we have a strategy to assist them.

Some people tell me it’s hard to deal with global dangers and dangers to our health that aren’t fun to think about and that feel out of our control as well. How can we deal with it?

Air emissions from the combustion engine cause many health problems.  When it comes to the emissions of diesel powered engines, the impacts are serious and potentially deadly.

We’ve discussed how impeachment organizes the disparate issues surrounding Donald Trump. We’ve focused on the poor political prospects of presidents who faced impeachment and the poor prospects of those presidents’ parties. We’ve examined the history of the constitutional language, especially “high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” We found that a major purpose of the language was to enable Congress to stop corruption in its tracks. Corruption of public officials was a major target of impeachments in both England and America, leading to our constitutional text.

In a recent trip to Ottawa with Representative Elise Stefanik, along with Gary Douglas of the North Country Chamber of Commerce, Paul Grasso of The Development Corporation of Clinton County, Ron Kissen of the Franklin County Development Corporation, Jeremy Miller of the Franklin County IDA, Dave Zembeck of the Jefferson County Development Corporation, and Pat Kelly of the St. Lawrence County Development Corporation, we learned in a series of meetings the Canadian perspective on NAFTA. 

Last week, the Trump Administration moved to roll back the nation’s auto emission and fuel economy standards.  The current regulations are aimed at cutting tailpipe emissions of carbon dioxide, a major contributor to global warming.  The Trump Administration also demanded that California, which has its own state-based, more stringent auto emission standards, must follow the federal decision or face legal challenge. 

So the Department of Commerce has decided to add a question about citizenship to the Census short form. A number of states have either sued or threatened to sue arguing that this is in contradiction to the whole point of the census as stated explicitly in the Constitution.

Yesterday, Americans remembered the day fifty years ago, when our nation lost a prophet. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke of freedom and equality, with a dignity and persistence that caused him to be beloved, and the target of vile hatred and violence. It was the latter that led to his death from an assassin’s bullet in Memphis, Tenn. on April 4, 1968. He was just 39 years old. His young age stuns me. I have a son who is already 31 years old. He seems so young, and yet he is only 8 years from the age when King was lost to us. Martin’s youth belied a wisdom and grace that is timeless. His commitment to a better nation and world for all cannot be denied, even today, decades after his death.

In the midst of world changing events in Asia, Putin’s serial aggressions in Europe suggest the collapse of Western principles, specifically the defense of national interest. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson in the United Kingdom said it is “overwhelmingly likely” Putin personally ordered the nerve agent attack on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the English city of Salisbury. Hours before these revelations, Scotland Yard said it was treating the death of Nikolai Glushov, another Russian expatriate and an associate of Putin’s critic, as murder.

For the past two weeks we’ve talked about how impeachment changes the issues surrounding Donald Trump and the political impact of prior impeachments in America. Now we turn to the constitutional language: “The President … shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”[1]

Earlier this year I commented here that policymakers were missing the mark if they did not turn their focus to poverty. Which begs the question, if they did focus on poverty, what should they do about it?

After three months of discussions and posturing, Governor Cuomo and the legislature finalized a state budget late last week.  Lawmakers took their final votes in the hours after midnight Saturday morning and met the deadline for getting the budget completed on time.

Before the school year even started, I was convinced it was going to be uncomfortable. I didn’t know a lot about this guy I’d be living with, but I knew he was…different.

The ideological crack-up between Left and Right was readily apparent when thousands of students marched against guns – guns that killed 17 Florida students in a violence that would awaken passion in even the most cold blooded. What it means, however, is seemingly less significant than the symbolism. Educators and politicians who should know better encouraged students to engage in protests. Mayor De Blasio in New York said students would not be punished if they left their desks to participate in the rallies.

Last week I commented that the issue of impeachment refocuses the flood of presidential moves. The possibility of impeaching the president raises another critical political question – would impeachment so annoy the public that Democrats would be defeated for trying to impeach Trump? Or will the focus in the impeachment process on Trump’s misbehavior leave the public sufficiently disgusted that the next election would go to his opponents? There have been attempts to remove presidents by impeachment. They resulted in two trials in the Senate and one resignation to avoid impeachment. That’s too few cases to draw firm conclusions but they deserve a look.