November 24, 2025

Tom Brokaw wrote a best-selling book titled, “The Greatest Generation.” In the book, Brokaw profiled Americans who came of age during the Great Depression and went on to fight in World War II. It turns out that my generation, the Baby Boom generation born between 1946 and 1964, is not quite as highly regarded by the generations that follow us. To be specific, I am referring to Gen X born between 1965 and 1980, Gen Y aka Millennials born between 1981 and 1996, and Gen Z born between 1997 and 2012. They share their distaste for their elders in a New York Times video posted October 17, 2025 titled, “Thanks a Lot, Boomers.” What did we do to deserve such approbation?

Younger Americans are struggling with the high cost of education, scarcity of affordable housing, and a diminished American dream. They have a 50% shot at being better off than their parents where the Boomers had an 80% chance. Communities are still divided by race, and burdened by debt. They say that we were handed cheap college, cheap housing, and abundant opportunities. We wound up wealthier than our parents, and not because we were smarter or worked harder. America was an “escalator.” There were more benefits for Boomers, more tax cuts, and the country borrowed to make up the difference. We added $30T to the national credit card. Public college costs today are four times what they were in 1970. Housing is twice as expensive. Boomers squashed new development to protect property values, which resulted in even more segregation in the public schools.

The first Boomer president was Bill Clinton. Hopefully, Trump is the last. The Bush years were peak Boomer. In 2001, we had a surplus, but we then passed a giant tax cut. In 2003, we passed another tax cut. In 2006, we passed a big increase in government spending for Medicare just as the Boomers were retiring. This all led to dramatic increases in the national debt. They will say that we were mortgaging their future. We preferred Walmart over factory jobs. We enjoyed the the deregulation of the banking industry, leaving the mess to future generations. We paid lip service to environmentalism. We never made the hard choices. Tree-hugging and recycling were feel good behaviors, but the planet just kept getting dirtier and hotter.

They say that they appreciate our efforts regarding civil rights and gender equality. Thanks, I guess. My gut reaction is to dismiss a lot of this as whining, and to tell them to get off my lawn. After all, Millennials and Gen X will be inheriting $90T in the Great Wealth Transfer. Unfortunately, they don’t want our china and silverware, but that is a different discussion. Maybe they should just say thank you.

However, my friends and I shouldn’t just dismiss their complaints out of hand because it isn’t convenient. We are experiencing today a concentration of wealth not seen since the Gilded Age, which should be a challenge for Liberals and Conservatives alike. According to an excerpt from economist John Kenneth Galbraith’s “Affluent Society”, “No other question in economic policy is ever so important as …. the distribution of income. The test of the good liberal is that he is never fooled, but he never yields on issues favoring the wealthy. Despite his efforts, the wealthy become wealthier and more powerful.”

We ignore and dismiss the Gen Z population at our peril. They are rapidly becoming a political force. By 2024, 40% of the electorate was Gen Z and Millennials. The Mayor-elect of New York City is thirty-four years old, and even the President welcomed him graciously into the Oval Office. According to surveys, in addition to affordability, their overarching concerns include the right of a woman to control her reproductive health; the right of all Americans to breathe clean air and clean water; the right of all voters to have unfettered access to the polls; and the right of younger people to feel safe from school shootings.

The Baby Boomers are not a monolith. They have seen much of the legislation that was enacted in 60’s undone by right wing extremists. The Dobbs decision undid the 1965 case, Griswold vs. Connecticut, which Boomers assumed would be Constitutionally-guaranteed abortion policy. The Clean Air Act was put into law in 1970 by Richard Nixon. The Voting Rights Act was signed into law by Lyndon Johnson in 1965.

When the historians that are produced by the generations that come after us write our history, it may not be flattering. Did we fall asleep at the wheel? Did we kick the can down the road? Were we blindly just feathering our own nests? They may blame us, fairly or not, for major shortfalls in housing and employment, inflation, income inequality, environmental degradation, an erosion of civil rights, and a lack of civility. They may call us the “The Greatest Degeneration.” I wholeheartedly disagree, but it is not up to me, is it?

November 8, 2025

I should be feeling great. I spent Halloween weekend attending, not participating in, the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade, and then attending, not participating in, the New York City Marathon. Rather than seeing and experiencing the hellscape that the current President describes as a pretext for sending in the Marines, the National Guard, the FBI and ICE, I saw hundreds of thousands of joyous citizens celebrating what it means to be a New Yorker. People were singing, dancing, playing instruments, and parading under the watchful eyes of New York’s finest, who could not have been any nicer, more courteous, and more helpful under challenging conditions. Even Mother Nature was on board. People were partying like it was 1999, not 1929.

Then, on the following Tuesday, the Democratic (not Democrat) Party pitched a shutout worthy of Red Sox pitcher and hopefully Cy Young Award winner, Garrett Crochet. Democrats swept New York City, New Jersey, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and California. It was like a pandemic that even had Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. looking for a vaccine. The two major issues were Trump and affordability. As it turns out, I am not the only one that has Trump Derangement Syndrome for which there is no vaccine. Nothing epitomized the tone deaf President more, other than “YMCA” by the Village People, was his Great Gatsby Party at Mar-a-Lago. How did the Roaring 20’s and “The Great Gatsby” wind up? His next party should have a King Louis XVI theme with a prize going to the best Marie Antoinette costume.

So why am I in a dark place? In the words of musician David Bromberg, “I must have someone else’s blues.” I just finished two books on the Great Depression. The first was “1929” by CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin, and the second was “The Great Crash of 1929” by economist John Kenneth Galbraith. Because I am a glutton for punishment, I downloaded and started reading “Too Big to Fail,” by Andrew Ross Sorkin, which is about the Great Recession of 2008. Just as I was climbing out of my abyss, William Birdthistle, former director of the Division of Investment Management at the Securities and Exchange Commission, wrote a New York Times guest essay titled, “Trump is Pushing Us Toward a Crash. It Could Be 1929 All Over Again.” It’s back to the abyss.

One of the themes that all of these writers touched upon was the cheerleading optimism that the best and brightest financial minds had at the time despite all of the evidence to the contrary. A financial newsletter that I get recently cited five financial risks that you should be aware of, and why you should remain bullish. It noted high stock prices and valuations, a possible AI bubble, global instability, inflation and interest rate uncertainty, and high levels of debt. So what other parallels can we draw between the crashes of 1929, and 2008, and where we are today almost a hundred years later?

In 1929, regulation was almost non-existent. Investors believed in the infallibility of capitalism and the “invisible hand.” Insider trading was considered a virtue, not a crime. The Securities and Exchange Commission did not exist. Today, Trump is doing everything in his power to deregulate the financial markets. He has been busy firing regulators and tearing down guardrails. Not coincidentally, his machinations have benefited his family immensely.

Speculation was rampant in 1929. Everyone was on margin. Legal Ponzi schemes were created where leveraged vehicles similar to mutual funds could invest in other leveraged vehicles. In 2008, we had subprime mortgages being sliced and diced into unfathomable Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDO’s). Today, we have a feeding frenzy over anything that starts with the letters AI. And again, there is the mania over bitcoins, which one day may look like tulips.

Both periods were characterized by low interest rates, which fueled the buying of stocks on margin. Consumer debt and defaults today are at perilously high levels, and the Christmas season is just starting. Trump continuously browbeats the Federal Reserve and its chairman, Jerome Powell, to lower interest rates.

Banks prior to The Great Depression engaged in both commercial banking and investment banking. Risks taken by the investment bank put the entire bank and economy at risk. The Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, which separated commercial banking from investment banking, was essentially overturned in 1999 so that there is now no prohibition from commercial banks conducting investment banking activities. This was one of the major causes of the financial meltdown of 2008.

Mark Twain said “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” There are many eerily similar things about today’s financial markets and economy that hearken back to an earlier day. Let’s hope that Trump and slump don’t rhyme.

October 16, 2025

I recently received a blast e-mail from fellow classmate, friend, lawyer, father, and former President of the Boston City Council, Larry DiCara. The subject line of the e-mail asked “Am I a Conservative?” This was a perplexing question from someone, who spent his whole life as a liberal, Kennedy Democrat. Larry was by no means a left-wing terrorist even though he might be categorized as one today. Larry leaned left about as much as the Leaning Tower of Pisa does, which is about four degrees. While most of us were trying to learn what made America great again by studying the great western philosophers, and trying to understand Trumpian politics by studying Machiavelli, Larry was working the crowd. When we were desperately trying to enjoy our Saturday nights, Larry would go party-to-party in a jacket and tie, shake hands, and add us to his Rolodex. He was not exactly a subversive. He was an old-fashioned pol.

He quoted a NY Times piece that said, “protectionism, industrial policy, and government ownership, all once conservative bogeymen, are now official doctrine.” Larry worried about the national debt, imbalanced budgets, manipulation of the Federal Reserve, government intrusion in corporate matters, the government taking ownership stakes in companies e.g. 10% of Intel, using the military as the state’s police, the chipping away of inalienable rights, and the infringement of personal rights and privacy by the Federal government. So this got me to thinking because I was recently called out for having a lack of personal awareness by a letter writer. Maybe I should do a little introspection? Maybe I am a Conservative as well?

I believe in a strong foreign policy where we support our friends, challenge our enemies, and know the difference between the two. I support NATO as a bulwark against Putin’s Communism, which doesn’t make me a Communist. I support Ukraine over Russia. I believe in projecting soft power through USAID.

I reject government interference in personal matters. Individual liberties should be protected. People, not states, should be able to make their own decisions regarding abortion, gay marriage, trans medical care, and the like. Government should take care of its own house before it invades mine.

Like Larry, I believe that the government should be fiscally responsible. Massive tax cuts for wealthy individuals and corporations are financially irresponsible and dangerous when the country is already running a large deficit, and adding to its massive national debt. Cutting interest rates when the economy is flush is also bad policy. When we do have a recession, and we will, we will not have financial flexibility to deal with it. Federal programs and entitlements should be evaluated on a regular basis, and changes should be made by our elected representatives when appropriate. Everyone should be taxed fairly, and taxes should be collected. I am a free-trader. Tariffs are anathema to my conservative instincts.

I support law enforcement. The men and women in blue are dedicated to the common welfare, and are trained as to how to do that. We don’t need a bunch of untrained cowboys and weekend warriors creating havoc in our cities. If you want better education, hire more teachers and pay them better. If you want safer streets, hire more policemen, and pay them better. It doesn’t seem all that complicated to me.

I can’t think of a more conservative principal than the respect of science. Science is what separates us from the apes (sorry Jane Goodall), and the twentieth century (sorry Donald Trump.) Science is the outward manifestation of the human spirit. It is what has always fought against tyranny and ignorance. It gave us the Scientific Revolution and The Enlightenment. It gave us the Industrial Revolution and the Technological Revolution. It gave us the cell phone and mRNA technology. It is not creationism and vaccine denial. That is not conservatism. That is religious zealotry masquerading as conservatism. I, like all true conservatives, respect religion. Organized religions are free to proselytize and prosper. Like a true conservative, however, I don’t want a state religion, and I don’t want religion mandated in schools and other venues.

I respect the rule of law. That does not strike me as a conservative opinion, but apparently it is. Our current felonious President is a serial law-breaker, but he calls himself a Conservative. The people that do his bidding call themselves true conservatives, but how conservative is it when you freely blow up boats and people without due process? How conservative is it when you regularly detain individuals without due cause, and deport them to foreign gulags? William Buckley is turning in his grave, and George Will is turning in his swivel chair.

In summary, to paraphrase Kirk Douglas in “Spartacus,” “I am Conservative.” I invite my fellow Conservatives to band together to fight authoritarianism, injustice, and socialist fiscal policies.

October 8, 2025

A recent article caught my eye so I thought I would take a timeout from the tawdry topic of today’s Trumpian politics. The article appeared in the Science & Tech section of the Harvard Gazette, dated September 22, 2025. It was titled “How AI Could Radically Change Schools by 2050.” It caught my eye for two reasons. My very first column for the Springfield Republican was about artificial intelligence. The headline was “AI tornado will shake us to our foundations.” It appeared on October 1, 2023, a little over two years ago. The tornado has not only not subsided, but has gotten bigger and stronger every day. The other reason the article caught my eye was because it featured an interview with psychologist and social scientist Howard Gardner. Howard and his wife, Judy, were Soc. Rel. tutors in Quincy House (Harvard) my sophomore year, and they lived directly below us. I took Gardener’s sophomore tutorial, which, I believe, included Bonnie Raitt.

Gardner is the originator of the theory of multiple intelligences. His first book on the subject came out in 1983, and is titled “Frames of Mind.” In the article, Gardner called AI as fundamental a change to education as the world has seen in the last 1,000 years, and may render obsolete many forms of the mind he is famous for describing. The frames of mind that Gardner refers to are bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, linguistic, mathematical, musical, naturalistic, and spatial. “Some of them will be done so well by large language machines and mechanisms that whether we do them as humans will be optional.” He says that AI could make most cognitive aspects of the mind optional for humans. By 2050, every child would need only a few years of schooling in the Three R’s plus a little bit of coding. Teachers would function more as coaches, and guide the students in what many call critical thinking. He acknowledges concerns that students might offload cognitive labor to AI, decreasing their critical reasoning skills.

I had the opportunity to discuss some of these issues with Professor Emeritus of Business from the University of Massachusetts’ Isenberg School, James Theroux. “JT” teaches an online class about new venture finance and how venture capitalists are investing in AI. He agrees that AI will move education from its traditional model of read, think, and write to one focusing on critical thinking. However, he finds that the term “critical thinking” gets thrown around loosely without any firm definition about what it is, and any ability to measure it. I recently asked a young person enrolled in an online MBA program what she was studying, and she mentioned critical thinking. When I asked her what that was, she did not have an answer. Regardless, Theroux shares Gardner’s concern that AI, if used improperly, could lead to the atrophying of problem-solving skills, critical thinking, and analytical thinking.

To combat the “atrophying” of its students, Deerfield Academy has blocked all sources of AI from student computers, which are school issued. Teachers take courses on how to spot AI, and are given tools to detect AI usage such as unusual typing patterns. Final essays have to be done the old-fashioned way by hand. There is still a suspicion, however, that students are figuring ways around the system. If they are caught, it could affect their status at school, and college admissibility.

The problems that AI present for educators are complex. I am only scratching the surface of what educators are dealing with every day. How do they keep students “honest” and challenged? How do they teach students to use AI as a tool, and not become tools themselves.” Theroux received his MBA from the Harvard Business School. HBS pioneered the case study method for business education. Students are required to read and analyze cases about real businesses dealing with real problems. Students don’t write their conclusions, but must be prepared to present their solutions to their fellow classmates in person, and defend their arguments. AI may be helpful in the analysis, but students are on their own in the classroom. Final exams are done in class with paper and pencil.

Educators may have to emphasize smaller classes and classroom discussion over large lectures, which today’s students tune out anyway. Students who can present and defend ideas in real time would be rewarded versus students who are good at composing ten-page papers, whose originality would always be in question. This is simplistic, I realize, and professional educators should be free to criticize. However, as Howard Gardner points out, we are headed for lion country i.e. if you know what the educational landscape is going to look like by 2050, you’re lyin’.

September 27, 2025

As I write, the United States Ryder Cup squad is on its way to an historic beat down by Europe. Worse than the embarrassment of getting beat on home soil will be having to read the endless articles produced by the golf media about what is wrong with the United States. Did Keegan Bradley screw up the pairings? Yes, but it would not have made a difference. You can’t hang this one on the dynamic duo of Colin Morikawa and Harris English. What happened to the home court advantage? What advantage? All of the Europeans live in the United States. After this debacle, the Americans may have to move to Europe, or enter the witness protection program also known as LIV. Maybe the New York crowd fired up the Euros with its obnoxious behavior? New Yorkers are guilty of a lot of things, but firing up a team is not one of them. May I offer you the Jets, the Giants, the Rangers, the Islanders, the Knicks, the Nets, the Mets, and the Yankees as evidence. Probably the best thing you could say about the U.S. is that their clothing wasn’t a distraction. It wasn’t an attraction either, but what do expect from an 85 year old fashion designer.

There will be other excuses for getting blown out. Do we need to go back to Paul Azinger’s Pod System, whatever that is? Maybe it was the time change going from Florida to New York? Was the team up all night partying in Manhattan? Did Donald Trump’s appearance and his ICE escapades distract them? None of these excuses masquerading as explanations hits the target. They are all lip outs like most of the Americans’ putts. The simple answer is that, under pressure, we are soft. Our mascot should be the manila folder.

Here is a thought experiment which is antithetical to golf. Is there a single player on the U.S. team that you would want watching your back in a bar fight? I know you are going to say Bryson DeChambeau, but, by the time he analyzed the situation and figured out there was nothing in it for him, you would be out cold. Would you rather have Scottie Scheffler backing you up or Tyrell Hatton? Scottie is the most like able guy on the PGA Tour, but Hatton looks crazy to me. Would you rather have Harris English, who would probably fight under the Marquess of Queensbery Rules, backing you up, or El Gran Senor, Jon Rahm. Sepp Straka could be a terminator in a bar fight like his fellow Austrian countryman, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Rasmus Hojgaard is 6’2” tall. Ludvig Aberg is 6’4” tall. I am guessing Robert McIntyre has a terrific left hook. I am talking fighting, not golf. And who probably knows more about drunken fights in a bar than the two Irishmen, Shane Lowery and Rory McIlroy? Bar fighting is their national pastime, not golf. You won’t be hearing anyone from our side saying “Come back, Shane.” And Rory might be the best hitter pound for pound since Sugar Ray Robinson. I would have taken former hockey player Cameron Young before he lost all his weight.

Tomorrow, we have to suffer through the singles matches, and listen to the broadcasters tell us why there is still a glimmer of hope if this happens or that happens. Fortunately, we have the New England Patriots to distract us for three hours from the inevitable as they try to prove if they are tough enough. Kudos to the Boston Red Sox for making the playoffs. Despite all of the injuries and the Devers fiasco, they proved their toughness. They weren’t soft when they could have been. They may not make it past the first round, but they showed us what they were made of. The U.S. Ryder Cup team showed us what they were made of as well.

September 20, 2025

Donald Trump tells us that America is going to hell in a hand basket. In his 2016 inaugural address, he called it “American carnage.” “If we don’t do something about it,” he says, “we won’t have a country anymore.” “It’s a national emergency,” he says. Some people might say that one of the root causes for our deteriorating cities was inner city residents being discriminated against i.e. red-lined when they tried to look for housing elsewhere. Who would do that? Regardless, let’s take him at his word because he has never lied to us before. Let’s agree for the sake of argument that America’s blue cities run by Democratic mayors have let crime run rampant. It’s not true, but humor me. In the words that Republicans use when faced with Democratic complaints, “What are ya goin’ to do about it?”

Trump’s response is clear. Send in the military, including the Marines. Send in the National Guard, and give them weapons. Divert the FBI from fighting white collar crime, and domestic terrorism, and have FBI agents issue fines for speeding and jaywalking. For good measure, add $10 billion to ICE’s budget, and recruit the worst of the worst. It seems to me there must be a better way. If the Democrats can get the policy and the messaging correct, crime could be a winning strategy for the midterms and beyond.

First step, hire more police. That seems simple enough because who knows more about local crime and law enforcement than the cop on the beat. We just need more of them. Staffing is specific to each community, but many U.S. departments are currently operating with significant deficits and facing recruitment and retention challenges. A study from NYU finds adding a new police officer to a city prevents between 0.06 and 0.1 homicides, which means that the average city would need to hire between 10 and 17 new police officers to save one life a year. That sounds like a good investment to me when you consider the statistical value of one life is $10,000,000. Let’s make it a national priority to have more police on the streets where we live. We are not going to defund the police. We are going to refund the police. Where is the money going to come from? We can reallocate funds from the military, the National Guard, the FBI, ICE, and any other Federal organization that has sent troops illegally to America’s cities. I hope you are listening, Kristi Noem. If Trump and his stooges really believe that crime is out of control and not just a political football to gin up their base, they should be all in.

Secondly, provide free job training for every able-bodied man and woman in America. It’s cheaper than putting people in prisons and detention camps although not as profitable for Trump’s friends in the prison business. A recent study conducted by Georgetown University’s Center on Education and Workforce concluded that we will be need over 5.25 million workers with post-secondary educations to fill the jobs that will be created by the year 2032. We will need 611,00 teachers, 402,000 truck drivers, 362,000 nurses, 210,000 engineers, and 200,000 construction workers among others. With immigration not an option in Trump’s universe, we will need to grow our own. Hillsdale College won’t be able to fill the gap all by itself. We need to get going on this right away. Democrats need to focus on training while Republicans are focused on detaining. Here’s a Trumpian slogan. “Don’t detain, train.”

Lastly, we should provide a good-paying job for anyone who wants one. I think even Republicans can get on board with this idea. After all, they do want all Medicaid recipients to work. Let’s give them something to do. We need to build a lot of stuff. Our infrastructure is lagging even with the Infrastructure and Jobs Act signed into law in 2021 by Joe Biden. Donald Trump believes so much in infrastructure that he has ordered his name be displayed at infrastructure projects initiated by the Biden administration. That is what New Yorkers would call chutzpah. Let’s create millions of good-paying jobs for people to fill potholes, build cell towers, clean up our streets, paint over graffiti, and so on.

The simple, crime-fighting message for the Democrats should be “Cops, Jobs, and Education” rather than the Republican philosophy of “ICE, Prison, and Liberty College for all.”

September 4, 2025

I walked into a bar (which sounds like the beginning of a joke,) and plopped down on a stool. I ordered my usual, Chivas Regal on the rocks, which I have been ordering for decades. It’s not a single malt, I know, but this was just another day. The gentleman next to me was drinking a Bud Light. By the way, why is drinking Bud Light like making love in a canoe? (My editor deleted the punch line.) I noticed that he had the letters T-R-U-M-P tattooed on his knuckles so I was trying to avoid any conversation. However, after two lip-loosening cocktails for me and four Bud Lights for him, we started talking.

“What’s up with the tattoos?”, I said. He responded, “They are there just to piss off guys like you.” “It’s working,” I said, “but why would you want to do that?” “It’s just a game I play, and you take the bait every time. Let me give you an example. After the recent mass shooting in Minneapolis, Pope Leo XIV called for an end to the “pandemic of arms, large and small.” I immediately blamed it on transgender, drug addicts. The “thoughts and prayers” and the “only a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun” slogans were getting tired. I know that mental illness is not the issue. I know that too many guns in the hands of too many people is the root cause of these mass shootings, but I love my guns, and I am not willing to give them up. Mass shootings are just collateral damage to my love affair with guns. It’s unfortunate, but, as the President said, it is what it is. Listen, I would rather give up my wife and my children than give up my guns. You might as well ask me to give up my dog.”

“I appreciate your candor,” I said. “Why don’t more MAGA types like you just come right out and say it.” He replied “We enjoy watching you guys spin yourselves into rhetorical knots trying to explain to us why we are wrong.

We know we are wrong. We just don’t care. Let me give you another example. Steven Miller says that the Democratic Party is a domestic, terror organization and that all Democrats are Communists. That’s crazy talk. No one believes that. No one believes that Mexicans are rapists. We know that crime in DC has actually gotten better, but you are missing the point. We are not fighting crime. We are fighting against people who don’t look like us. The fact of the matter is that I just don’t like black and brown people. This is a white, Christian nation, and that’s the way I like it. I don’t want these people voting; I don’t want them collecting Medicaid or SNAP benefits; I don’t want them practicing family planning; I don’t want them living where I live; and I don’t want to acknowledge their history. I don’t want them serving on the board of the Federal Reserve; I don’t want them in Congress; and I certainly don’t want them as Attorneys General and prosecutors. They are some of the worst mayors in the worst cities. God forbid another one becomes President. I think you get the point. If that makes me the “R” word, so be it.”

“Wow! That is really refreshing. You don’t mince words. Do other people like you feel the same way?” “They do,” he said. “When we get together, in private, we tell it like it is, but, when we are in public, we whitewash these arguments so we can claim plausible deniability. It’s a pain, but sometimes you have to do what you have to do.”

“Is there anything else I need to know?,” I said. “Well,” he replied, “of course you know that no one is above the law.” “Now there is something that we can both agree on,” I said. “You are so gullible,” he responded. “What we agree on is that the law applies to you. What we don’t agree on is that the law applies to me. We can do anything, and Trump will give us a get out of jail card, literally. Storm the Capitol, and try to overturn an election. No problem. Rig elections…kids stuff. FBI Director Kash Patel and Federal Housing Director Bill Pulte among others have used that line to justify launching investigations into Trump’s opponents. Have you heard enough?”

“Yes, more than enough, thank you. I have to say that you are the first, honest Republican I have met in years. Drinks are on me.”

August 25, 2025

A friend of mine recently gave me a book to read, “The South End Syndicate” by Anthony Arillotta as told to Joe Bradley. It is about how the author took over the Springfield arm of the Genovese crime family after the murder of Al Bruno. The author was famously charged with that murder. As I was reading the book, so much of what I was reading was reminiscent of what is going on today in Washington D.C.

Trump is not the head of a traditional organized crime syndicate, but there are striking similarities in style, rhetoric, and tactics that echo mob boss behavior. This is not to imply that he is doing anything illegal, but he is certainly pushing the envelope, and one has to ask what is going on here?

Mafia bosses demand absolute loyalty from their “soldiers” and punish betrayal harshly. Dissent or criticism often results in being labeled a “traitor,” a “RINO,” or an “enemy.” The home of former National Security Advisor, John Bolton, was raided by the FBI recently after he made negative comments about how Trump handled his talks with Putin. Who can forget the embarrassing exercise of Trump’s cabinet members and others sitting around a conference table, and, one by one, pledging fealty to the Dear Leader? Trump demands loyalty over expertise.

Mob leaders frame the world in terms of insiders (la cosa nostra,) and outsiders. In Trump’s case, the outsiders would be political rivals, the Deep State, Democrats, etc. The media, at least the ones he doesn’t like, are the “enemy of the people.” He has initiated financial shakedowns of ABC, CBS and Paramount, and threatened to pull the broadcast licenses of many other outlets.

Mafia bosses maintain power through fear and threats. Trump uses public humiliation, name-calling (Crooked Hillary, Little Marco, and Low Energy Jeb to name a few), lawsuits, and political retaliation to keep his allies in line and intimidate his critics.

The mafia often runs protection rackets. “Support us, or bad things might happen to you.” Last week, the Trump administration announced that the government was taking a ten percent interest in Intel. The Wall Street Journal reported that this was more of a protection racket than a business deal. The announcement came after the president demanded that Intel’s CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, resign over past business dealings with the Chinese military. The stake was “bought” with $8.9 billion already promised to Intel as grants under a 2022 law passed by Congress.

Mob families demand financial kickbacks or loyalty tributes from their associates. Trump’s business and political fundraising often blur the lines between personal enrichment and organizational support. His PAC’s have funneled large sums to his businesses or legal defenses, which is reminiscent of a boss expecting his soldiers to help cover “family costs.”

Mafia bosses speak in coded, transactional, and often menacing language. “I just want to find 11,780 votes.” “I would like you to do us a favor though.” Trump threatens revenge and retribution, but always leaves himself some wiggle room. He cultivates an image of toughness, dominance, and defiance of the law.

Mafia families keep power within the family. Trump has placed his children and in-laws in positions of major influence, treating politics as a family affair.

Mob bosses portray themselves as victims of unfair law enforcement, always claiming innocence. They are infallible like the Pope. Trump consistently casts legal investigations as “witch hunts,” portraying prosecutors as corrupt.

The mob usually has many operations going at the same time whether it be gambling, drugs, prostitution, protection, running numbers, etc. Trump, in a similar vein, is using his office to promote Cryptocurrency, NFT’s, watches, sneakers, bibles, club memberships, golf courses, a media outlet, and more.

In short, Trump resembles a mafia boss in style, worldview, and methods of maintaining power through loyalty demands, intimidation, transactional politics, family-centered control, and the framing of legal accountability as persecution.

It is bewildering to many of us how decent and reasonable Republicans can support such a person. Before the 1884 presidential election, Mark Twain abandoned the Republican Party, and joined the Mugwumps. The rift was provoked by Twain’s disdain for the Republican nominee, James G. Blaine, who, despite a reputation for corruption, had “very devoted followers within the party who would not believe any of the charges brought against him.” According to Ron Chernow in his book “Mark Twain,” “Twain was staggered that upright Republican friends prostituted themselves for such an unsavory candidate.” Twain said, “Isn’t human nature the most consummate sham and lie that was ever invented? Isn’t man a creature to be ashamed of in pretty much all his aspects?”

August 15, 2025

As we suffer through our fifth heat wave of the season, the issues of climate change and global warming have apparently not gone away unless you are a MAGA Republican. In the words of Buster Poindexter, it’s “Hot, Hot, Hot.”

Excerpt from “Abundance” by Ezra Klein. “You open your eyes at dawn and turn in the cool bedsheets. A few feet above your head, affixed to the top of the roof, a layer of solar panels blinks in the morning sun. Their power mixes with electricity pulled from several clean energy sources—towering wind turbines to the east, small nuclear power plants to the north, deep geothermal wells to the south. Forty years ago, your parents cooled their bedrooms with joules dredged out of coal mines and oil pits. They mined rocks and burned them, coating their lungs in the byproducts. They encased their world—your world—in a chemical heat trap. Today, that seems barbaric. You live in a cocoon of energy so clean it barely leaves a carbon trace and so cheap you can scarcely find it on your monthly bill. The year is 2050.”

According to a recent Washington Post editorial, “The U.S. economy desperately needs more electricity. Demand is projected to outstrip supply in the coming years, largely due to data centers powering artificial intelligence. That leaves the government no choice: To avoid an energy crisis, it needs to supersize the nation’s electrical grid.”

With the Inflation Reduction Act, the U.S. passed the largest clean energy bill in its history, with record investments in electric vehicles, batteries, solar and wind manufacturing. However, Donald Trump is intent on overturning all of the clean energy initiatives from the Biden and Obama administrations in the same way that Ronald Reagan undid Jimmy Carter’s energy-saving initiatives. Reagan famously removed solar panels from the roof of the White House, making room for Donald Trump’s grand ballroom. The Trump administration has long argued that climate change is a hoax. It has been busy erasing the studies done by the U.S. government that suggest that climate change is real. However, the facts are stubborn and irrefutable. According to the blog curated by Professor Emeritus from Mt. Holyoke, Vincent Ferraro, the position taken by the Trump Administration is clearly an outlier. The overwhelming evidence does not support the Trump position. According to Copernicus, the European climate agency, the data are straightforward:

◾ The global average was 1.3 degrees above the 1991-2020 global average and .21 degrees above 2023, the previous warmest year on record.

◾ The temperature was 2.9 degrees above the estimated temperature between 1850-1900, often referred to as the preindustrial era.

◾ Each of the past 10 years has been one of the warmest 10 on record.

◾ A new record-high daily global average temperature was reached on July 22, at 30.8 degrees.

◾ Every month since July 2023, except for July 2024, was above the 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 C) threshold

The Energy Department recently canceled a $4.9 billion loan guarantee for a major transmission project designed to deliver wind energy generated in Kansas to power more than three million homes in the region. Trump signed an executive order to stop offshore wind developments. The Interior Department is paralyzing solar and wind projects by drowning them in a tsunami of red tape. Congress, in its reconciliation package, restricted access to tax credits for wind and solar projects. Europe is far ahead of us in their embrace of alternative and renewable energy sources. China’s investments in solar and wind already put the U.S. to shame. And, after rolling back a slew of regulations aimed at reversing climate change, and pulling funding for the scientists who monitor it, the Trump administration is now taking its boldest action yet. It’s eliminating the scientific finding at the heart of the government’s ability to fight climate change in the first place.

Again, from Ezra Klein, “…we are stuck between a progressive movement that is too afraid of growth and a conservative movement that is allergic to government intervention.” Democrats need to reduce the bureaucratic impediments and overly restrictive regulations that prevent big things from getting done, and getting done quickly. Republicans need to recognize that government is a necessary partner, and not the enemy. They decry the government picking winners and losers, but that is exactly what they are doing now. They want to make solar and wind energy losers. That will not make America great again. It will just make us hotter and dirtier.

August 4, 2025

Donald Trump is seemingly at war with the very government he was elected to run. Most recently, he fired the administrator who had the audacity to report weak employment numbers. DOGE was created to reduce or eliminate programs that Congress had authorized. Goodbye, PBS. Trump has put people in place that make a mockery of the very departments they are tasked with running. His motivations are obvious. Project 2025 was designed as a playbook for wrecking government, and concentrating power in the hands of the chief executive. Trump wants to make America great again, and so it worth taking a look at what our government used to be, and its relationship with the private sector.

In the late 50’s and early 60’s, economist John Kenneth Galbraith developed theories about the role of government and the private sector. He was skeptical of unregulated capitalism, and believed it was the government’s job to balance the power of large corporations to ensure stability and social welfare. Large corporations had significant economic power that could distort markets. Labor unions, government regulation, and consumer organizations could level the playing field. He argued that public goods and services, like infrastructure, education, and health care, were underfunded, and that government needed to make greater investments in these areas to match the country’s economic capabilities. He was a strong advocate for government intervention in the economy. He believed that Keynesian concepts like deficit spending and sound fiscal policy were essential for managing demand and avoiding recession. He saw regulation and social spending as tools to protect the public from excesses of the market.

The key to the phenomenal economic growth of the 1960s was the willingness of private enterprise to allow itself to be taxed sufficiently so that things such as the interstate highway system could be built.  There was a sense in the country that the public good was worth paying for.  That changed in the 1980’s under Reagan, who famously declared that “government was the problem.” Republicans wanted to privatize everything, which culminated in George Bush’s attempt to privatize social security. This remains a stated goal of the current administration.

When the government and the private sector worked together, they could be effective partners, and great things could happen. These partnerships leveraged the government’s regulatory and funding power with the efficiency, innovation, and investment of the private sector. Infrastructure initiatives, like highways, are a good example. During the COVID crisis, the government partnered with private pharmaceutical companies to accelerate vaccine development and distribution. The government provides tax credits to developers to build affordable housing. Renewable energy projects developed by private firms have been made economically viable through government incentives and support. Google has worked with local governments to bring Wi-Fi to underserved communities. There are countless other examples demonstrating the ability of government and the private sector to work together in mutually beneficial arrangements. But, in the same way that MAGA wants to withdraw from the international community, MAGA also wants to withdraw from the government’s historic partnership with the private sector.

The federal government has always enjoyed a healthy relationship with our universities, and has worked with them on major R&D projects. Now Trump is aggressively attacking them, having initiated legal actions against Columbia, Harvard, Brown, and Duke among others. The federal government has created incentives for the private sector to pursue solar, wind, and other renewable energy options in pursuit of a cleaner and healthier environment. Not only is Trump unwinding this partnership, but he is also curtailing the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Environmental Protection Act. He is destroying the partnership between the National Oceanic Atmospheric and (NOAA) and private weather forecasting services. He wants to privatize the the NOAA. Trump doesn’t believe that the federal government has a role to play in education. I can’t think of any, major program that Trump has initiated that involves partnering with the private sector other than Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

History has shown us that government and the private sector do not need to be mortal enemies. Governments around the world frequently partner with the private sector to fund, build, or manage infrastructure, deliver public services, or spur innovation. The UK funded the construction and maintenance of hospitals with private capital, and leased them back to the NHS. Canada uses Private Public Partnerships to build roads, hospitals and transit. China partners with private companies to develop solar energy and electric vehicles. The Netherlands partners to build airports. Brazil partnered with private companies to build its transit system as did Australia.

Because of the distrust built into our politics, we seem to be incapable of projects that require the federal government and the private sector to work together. Hopefully, that productive relationship can return, but it is going to take patience, sacrifice, and an election.