On Monday afternoon, I clicked on Google News to see what was happening. I was looking for good news. Something other than news of a new school shooting, bickering on Capitol Hill, forest fires in California, or an uptick in COVID-19 deaths. Instead, the top news was all about President Biden. Well, not all of it directly about the president, but about the looming demise of the Biden Presidency.

The lead story, from Fox News, was that veteran journalist Al Hunt, questioned Biden’s competency. Another story, from Politico, explained how the White House blamed the president’s strikingly low approval ratings on the pandemic. Another story referenced the “Biden-Harris Train-Wreck.”

Biden is in trouble. And, so far, he and his team don’t seem to know what to do to right the ship. To the contrary, on two of the biggest challenges that the president faced in his first eight months, he is 0-2. He fumbled the Afghanistan exit and failed to address the crisis at the border. If you add to that the in-fighting between progressives and moderates within his own party, two words come to mind—failed leadership.

It’s OK, I think, to worry about the Biden presidency and still be glad he is in the White House. Biden is heading for a presidency that looks more like Jimmy Carter’s than FDR’s, but he did not try to foment an insurrection. And the word “Pinocchio” has largely disappeared from newspapers. I give credit to Biden for all that and more, but I expected more from him. I continue to wait for him to unify and inspire the country.

In reviewing Biden’s record to date, fairness requires that we keep the challenges he faces in mind. Biden is not to blame for the “delta variant” or for the mischief that Trump and most Republicans on Capitol Hill are causing. It’s hard to get anything done in Washington when the opposing party makes the failure of your presidency its top priority. Biden also cannot be blamed for Xi Jinping threatening Taiwan or for Putin remilitarizing Russia.

If you give Biden the benefit of the doubt, you can say that he has been an unlucky president. That doesn’t generate much sympathy from me. Lincoln, FDR, Hoover, and many other presidents have also inherited major crises or had their presidencies hijacked by wars, natural disasters, or, as one friend once told me in the case of Jimmy Carter, by “malaise.” (I choked on that one.)

So, what to make of Biden? Given that Mr. My Pillow’s prediction of Trump returning to office in August proved wrong, we are stuck with Biden for another three plus years. Does that mean that the next 39 months must look like the last eight months? I don’t think so.

Biden can step up his game with a reset. Here is my advice.

Stop finding excuses. Instead of lamenting how bad the pandemic is and how evil Trump is, start taking some dramatic actions. The top priority should be to do more on COVID-19. This means toughening vaccine requirements, expediting the availability of booster shots, and doing more to get things back to normal. Biden has taken steps in this direction. He needs to take more, quickly.

Develop and implement a humane, fair plan at the border. You cannot blame the current crisis at the border or the inhumane treatment of migrants on Trump. (Remember those videos of the border agents on horses keeping migrants from crossing the border?) Get the resources you need to process legal immigrants and have the courage to tell would-be illegal migrants that the U.S. will not tolerate uncontrolled illegal border crossings.

Start worrying about the possibility of a recession. This means rethinking the $3.5 trillion “human infrastructure bill” to reduce the risk of triggering more inflation. My suggestion would be to break it down into several focused bills. Securing Republican support for projects addressing climate change, better education, and improved access to healthcare is possible given the strong public support for these initiatives. My advice to Biden is to prioritize.

Discipline your own party. Bernie Sanders, AOC, and a host of other progressives have demonstrated their willingness to throw Biden and even Speaker Pelosi under the bus. It’s time for Biden to take control of his own party. If he doesn’t, the impasse of the last five months will continue.

Start planning for the next foreign crisis. Do we know what Biden will do if the Chinese attempt to “unify” Taiwan with China? I don’t. I hope detailed planning is taking place now on how to respond if the next wave of Chinese bombers heading for Taiwan is not a military exercise.

Have a serious chat with Vice President Harris. Fears that Harris wasn’t prepared to serve as VP are proving well-founded. Harris has made several gaffes, seems AWOL on her assignment to address the border crisis, and is getting lampooned in the press. All this would not be a huge problem if Biden were not 78 years old in the first year of his presidency. Biden needs to sit down with Harris and get her on the right track.

All the above will not necessarily save the Biden presidency but could end several consecutive months of declining approval ratings. I hope that happens.

Donald Trump, despite the hopes of many of us that he would fade into the sunset or otherwise go somewhere where the sun doesn’t shine, waits in the wings. Democrats have less than a year to sufficiently turn things around to have a chance at holding their slim House and Senate majorities. They have a little more than two years to have a chance to retain the presidency in 2024. It’s time for them to move to a higher gear. Our Democracy may depend on their doing so.

J.E. Dean of Oxford is a retired attorney and public affairs consultant writing on politics, government, birds, and occasionally goldendoodles.

 

Washington has done it again. This country has pressing needs, and our representatives in Washington have failed to pass legislation to address them. I’m talking about two key pieces of President Biden’s agenda: The $1.5 trillion infrastructure bill and the $3.5 trillion “human infrastructure bill.”  Both measures enjoy wide bipartisan support among voters. Why can’t the White House and our representatives in Washington get their act together and get them passed?

That’s the question I have been wrestling with the last several days.

Progressives refuse to pass the $1.5 trillion bill until an agreement is reached on the larger bill. So-called “moderate” Democrats disagree on linking the two bills. They believe the “roads and bridges” infrastructure bill should be passed on its own merits. Meanwhile, Speaker Pelosi and President Biden have tried, and thus far failed, to get the two groups to compromise with each other.

But is the fight really about progressives versus moderates? What about the Republicans? Are they really against both bills, or are they simply anxious to deny Biden and Democrats a “win” of any type? Put another way, are Republicans ready to let bridges collapse from disrepair to position themselves better for 2022 and 2024?

These are not easy questions. There are lots of moving parts. A book could, and most likely will, be written to explain what is happening and why. I will want to read it because the mess in Washington is starting to look like a crisis of institutions rather than a crisis of leadership. Has Congress become hopelessly and permanently dysfunctional? Good question.

I don’t have the answer, but to try to bring some clarity to the impasse it is worth looking at the major players, and what they are doing.  After that it’s easier to figure out who is part of the solution and who is part of the problem. 

Here’s my assessment:

Speaker Pelosi. Her job has been to force her party’s moderates and progressives to compromise. She’s making progress, but thus far has not succeeded. As a result, she is getting criticism from both groups. I’m sympathetic to her but wonder if she’s up to the task. 

House Republicans. I fault them for their blanket opposition to the Biden agenda, which they describe as “socialism.” If you view child hunger, failing schools, the absence of affordable healthcare, and a growing income gap between the rich and the poor a problem, you must disagree with House Republicans. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy deserves special criticism for focusing more on winning the next election than on governing.

House “progressives.”  Ever since AOC got elected to Congress, progressives have attempted to seize control of the Democratic party. To a degree, they have succeeded. With few exceptions, non-progressive Democrats are afraid to suggest that proposals to spend trillions of dollars are problematic. As a result, the progressives have felt little need to compromise. I fault them from playing chicken with the Biden agenda. There is a real possibility that both infrastructure bills will fail passage, not because of “Republican obstructionism” but because of the progressives’ “my way or the highway” mentality.

Bernie Sanders. The Socialist Senator from Vermont is the tail that wags the Democratic Senate dog. Even though he is technically not a Democrat, as chair of the Senate Budget Committee, he has pushed Democrats to resist compromise with Republicans. As a result, he has made Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell’s job easy. McConnell would like to characterize all Democrats as irresponsible tax and spend politicians. Thanks to Sanders (and his House counterparts), that’s been an easy task.

Senate Republicans. Even moderates who think the $3.5 trillion bill is too expensive are frustrated with McConnell and his fellow Republicans. McConnell is committed to make Biden a failed president. That is abdicating his responsibilities as a Senator. McConnell’s Republican Senate colleagues, the people who chose him as their leader, share the blame. 

Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV). Among progressives, Manchin is among the most hated people in Washington. Allegations that he is “in the pocket” of the coal industry and corrupt regularly circulate. I will leave it to others to determine whether Manchin has ethical issues. A better explanation of Manchin’s opposition to the Biden agenda is that he is representing his constituents. West Virginia is the most Republican state in the country. 

Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ). The Arizona Senator is also widely condemned for not supporting the full Biden agenda. Like Manchin, she is attempting to represent her constituents. Biden won Arizona in 2020, but not by much. Arizona remains a largely Republican state. Sinema believes her Republican constituents deserve to be represented.

Joe Biden. Remember when Biden promised to promote bipartisanship during the 2020 campaign? Since his inauguration, Biden appears to have fully adopted the progressive agenda. In so doing, Biden abandoned any attempt at bipartisanship. He deserves credit for putting his own presidency in jeopardy.  

Donald Trump. What analysis of political dysfunction is complete without considering Donald Trump?  What is his role?  I would describe it as poisoning the water.  First, while president, Trump promised to reduce the budget deficit.  Then he increased deficit spending and the national debt.  His dismal record has empowered progressives, who claim “Trump increased the national debt for tax cuts for the rich; we want to spend to help people.”  

Trump also has encouraged the “take no prisoners” attitude practiced by some Republicans.  As a result, it is more difficult than ever for Congress to find the common ground.  

Is it fair to assign Trump a role in the current impasse?  I would say yes, despite Trump’s limited understanding of the legislative branch, he has helped muck up the process despite his ignorance.  His goal hasn’t been to produce sound fiscal policy, it has been to promote his political comeback. 

So where does all that leave us? One response is “In a fog.”  For the time being, especially as raising the debt limit is debated over the next two weeks continues, we are waiting for a leader, or two, to figure out a way out of the woods.  My fingers are crossed. 

J.E. Dean is a retired attorney and public affairs consultant writing on politics, government, birds, and occasionally, golden doodles. 

It’s not likely that Donald Trump supporters are reading Peril, the new book by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa. That’s unfortunate. The book presents a compelling case that the U.S. was in grave peril as Trump’s presidency came to an end. The case is so strong that even hard-core Trumpers should rethink their support for the ex-president.

For several months in 2020 and ending only on January 20, 2021, a delusional, narcissistic, and ruthless man was in the White House. During this period, military leaders were afraid he would start a war. Trump attempted an insurrection. And Trump schemed to overturn the election through any means possible. Trump’s January 6 activities got him impeached, but even that has not been enough to cost him continuing support among most Republicans. 

I hope that Peril will help. The story told by Woodward and Costa is one that most of us have read before. We all know that Trump disputed (and continues to dispute) the election outcome. We know about his attempt to invoke the Insurrection Act to stop last summer’s BLM protests. We recall him standing in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Washington holding an upside-down bible. And this list should go on.

What Woodward and Costa contribute to the story are details. The book doesn’t just call Trump crazy. It describes in detail the ravings and actions of a demented president. We learn, for example, that General Milley immediately regretted being part of the Trump visit to St. John’s following the forceful clearing of Lafayette Square. The book details Milley ‘s realization that Trump had broken his oath to uphold the Constitution and sought to hold onto power through any means possible.  We also learn that Milley concluded that Trump was sufficiently dangerous to national security to necessitate taking steps to prevent Trump from starting a war as he raged about the election.

Trump’s desperate actions eclipsed any sense of duty to discharge the office of the President. The book describes a man who had ceased trying to be a competent president as his rage overcame him. He obsessively watched right-wing news and accepted commentary offered by Sean Hannity as truth. He also came to distrust many on his own staff. The image of Trump dropping a B-52’s load of F-bombs on aides at White House meetings should give pause to all of us, including those who liked Trump’s policies or who think that Biden is also a failed president.   

The behavior of Trump described in the book would get most corporate CEOs fired. Unfortunately, the Constitution makes removal of a president extremely difficult if not impossible. Well-run corporations have diligent boards of directors that represent the interests of shareholders. Our structure of government has no equivalent safeguard. The Constitution did not anticipate the election of a president who believed he had unlimited power.

Reading Peril not only leads you to conclude that we are fortunate that Trump is gone, but also that new safeguards are needed to prevent another Trump-like president. It should be easier to remove deranged presidents from office or, at a minimum, limit their authority in specific circumstances. The details of such legislation will have to be worked out, but action is urgent.

Despite everything that has happened in the last two years, Trump still has supporters and many of us expect him to run for president again in 2024. Could he win? Unfortunately, he could. A combination of a divided Democratic party, Democrats’ inability to select a credible alternative to Trump, a failing economy or some other sort of disaster blamed on Biden and/or the Democratic party could set the stage for Trump or a Trump clone comeback. The peril we faced in the last year could be less than that we face in the future.

So, here’s hoping that Trump supporters will not dismiss Peril as “more lies” and will read the book with an open mind. They should ask themselves, “Is the Trump described in Peril fit to be president?” You know my answer. 

J.E. Dean of Oxford is a retired attorney and public affairs consultant writing on politics, government, birds, and occasionally goldendoodles.

 

I start my mornings, before getting out of bed, with a quick glance a Google News. That’s where I first read the name Gabby Petito. Something about her disappearing. I didn’t read the details. I was more interested in other news, including the then-pending “J6 Justice” protest, hurricanes, Congress, migrants in Texas, and a few other things.

But Petito’s name kept showing up. That prompted me to read more. I now know that the story includes her disappearance while on a cross-country tour with her fiancé, domestic violence, some kind of mental health call to arms, a disappearing fiancé, and discovery of her body  The story is still developing, but it appears Petito was murdered by a violent fiancé, who is now a “person of interest” who could face murder charges and is claimed to be somewhere on some massive Florida nature preserve. We know Petito died tragically, but just don’t know the details, yet. 

Petito’s apparent murder is tragic, but why so much coverage?  To me, at least, there are several answers, not all of them reflecting well on our society.

First, Petito was a young white woman. I wonder if we would be reading dozens of stories about her if she had been poor and a person of color.  Dare I say that that the media is demonstrating racism by focusing on Petito’s disappearance while effectively ignoring murders and disappearances of dozens of other people?

Second, the Petito story reads like a murder mystery The media has focused on it because it is easy to understand.  If the fiancé is the “bad guy,” he is easy to hate. He was witnessed slapping Petito and has since disappeared. Stories like Petito’s get people’s attention much easier than things like the debate over the Biden infrastructure bill or the huge crowd of migrants living under a bridge in Texas.

Third, is domestic violence.  As a society, we are becoming less tolerant of it. The fact that the finance physically abused Petito gets our attention. Some of us relate more to domestic violence victims than to murder victims.  That has heightened interest in the story.  

None of the above makes light of the fact that a woman was apparently murdered. That alone should heighten our awareness of the problem of domestic violence. Did you know that 500,000 woman are physically assaulted or raped by an intimate partner in the U.S. each year?  A 2018 UN report found that worldwide 50,000 woman are killed each year by intimate partners.  

Do you recall seeing similar news coverage of any other domestic abuse/murder case this year?  I don’t.

So, what to make of the Gabby Petito case? First, we should all be saddened by her murder but should remember that she is but one of thousands of domestic violence victims. We need to take the problem of domestic violence more seriously and press government to do more to combat it.

Second, we should be angry that the press does not publicize all crimes equally.  Bias should not be tolerated. If Black lives matter, it should be reflected in what news we see.

Finally, the press must enhance coverage of “boring news” like politics and government.  One of the reasons things are not going well in Washington is because too few of us understand the nuances of current events. The media must step up its efforts to inform an educated citizenry with “just the facts”.  

J.E. Dean of Oxford is a retired attorney and public affairs consultant writing on politics, government, birds, and occasionally goldendoodles.

 

Did you enjoy Monday’s and Tuesday’s weather?  Aren’t we lucky to have temperatures in the middle 90s, accompanied by high humidity, in mid-September?

My answers are “no” and “no.”  I’m ready for cooler temperatures that are not accompanied by thunderstorms or remnants of one of this year’s many hurricanes. Eventually, I’ll get my wish, but that doesn’t mean I should stop thinking about why there is so much violent and extreme weather. My answer to the “why” is “climate change.”

If you ask friends and colleagues what the biggest problem facing the U.S. today is, some will say climate change, but they will be in the minority. I conducted my own informal, unscientific poll earlier this week. Among the answers I got were the pandemic, China, racism, greed, Republicans, Biden, and Trump.

Regular readers of my columns will be pleased to know that I don’t think Donald Trump is the biggest problem facing the U.S.  He’s done and will continue to do a lot of bad things, but I don’t think he will ever put the Eastern Shore underwater. He may be a climate change denier, but that’s as bad as it gets.

I’m worried about climate change. Polls show that most Americans agree with me. A 2020 poll conducted by the Pew Research Center found that 24 percent of us believe that climate change is affecting our local communities “a great deal.”  Another 39 percent answered “some.”  A full 65 percent told Pew that the federal government is not doing enough about climate change. 

With these levels of concern about climate change Congress should be rushing to pass legislation addressing the problem. Of course, it isn’t. The Republicans are blocking passage of bills that include billions to address various aspects of climate change. Democrats condemn them for doing so, but haven’t proposed a bill reflecting climate change as our greatest problem. The Democrats’ bills address climate change, but also all kinds of other problems.

At the risk of angering my Democratic friends, I think it’s unfortunate that the sense of crisis over climate change isn’t great enough to convince both parties to put together and pass a bill exclusively focused on that problem. The opportunity for a bipartisan climate change bill has been squandered.

Here on the Eastern Shore, worry over climate change should be greater than it is nationally. Temperatures might rise in most of the country, but we must worry about rising water and progressively more dangerous weather. Do our elected representatives agree?

Our two Senators are solid Democrats with good records on addressing climate change, but neither is recognized as the loudest voice on the subject in Congress. The Maryland House delegation also has strong ratings on supporting environmental legislation, with one exception. Anyone want to guess who the outlier is?  

One poll I recently read gave Bethesda’s Representative Jamie Raskin a 100 percent rating on environmental legislation. Andy Harris got a zero. Yes, a zero.  

Is Andy Harris a climate change denier?  Judge for yourself—here’s what he says on his website about his support for “the environment.”  Also note that Harris doesn’t even discuss climate change directly.

It appears that Harris avoids open admissions of his doubts about climate change, especially in the last few years, but believes any solution must be developed with “all stakeholders” at the table. That means balancing the interests of watermen, business, hunters, and others in crafting solutions rather than recognizing climate change as a crisis that demands immediate emergency action.  That may mean not negotiating with “all the stakeholders.”  FDR did not negotiate with stakeholders before asking Congress to declare war on Japan in 1941.

Do you agree that climate change is a crisis?  Should the Eastern Shore’s representative in the House of Representatives have a zero rating from the League of Conservation Voters?  If you answer “yes” to the first question and “no” to the second, you have a problem.  

Getting Andy Harris to take climate change seriously or getting him out of Congress is not the solution, but it would be part of one. 

J.E. Dean of Oxford is a retired attorney and public affairs consultant writing on politics, government, birds, and occasionally goldendoodles.

 

The House of Representatives is in session this week now that the August recess is over. Up first on its agenda is action on a budget reconciliation bill intended to permit the passage of the Biden “Human Infrastructure” bill.  Congressman Harris is expected to continue his opposition to this and most other Biden administration legislation.

We already know that Andy “Handgun” Harris doesn’t like spending, Joe Biden, all other Democrats, and a host of other things he dismisses as “left-wing.” But what most of us don’t know is what he’s been up to during the August Congressional recess. I checked his official website and other news sources in the hopes of finding reports that he was doing what we all expect our Congressional representatives do—represent us. I came up empty.

Here’s what I found:

On August 24, one of the few days the House was in session in August, Harris cast a vote against the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.”  The vote will help Harris maintain his stellar record with the right-wing “Heritage Act for America” group, which offers this description of the legislation Harris opposed:

H.R. 4, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, is yet another blatant effort by liberals to give left-wing activists new powers to undermine the integrity of our election laws. With H.R. 4, liberals will use the power of the federal government to overturn voter ID laws and prevent states from ensuring the integrity of their own elections. Essentially, the proposal hijacks the Voting Rights Act (VRA) by replacing the worthwhile goal of ending racial discrimination with the completely partisan goal of advancing liberal political candidates.

On August 27, Harris joined with fellow Republican Ralph Norman (SC) in introduce a resolution to impeach Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. Harris tells us:

The Biden Administration’s handling of Afghanistan has been an unmitigated catastrophe. This preventable tragedy rests solely on the shoulders of President Biden and his Administration, and in particular the Secretary of State. We are the most powerful nation on the planet, and we must make clear to the Taliban that we will stay to get our people out as long as that takes. Secretary Blinken’s complete and utter failure of managing this avoidable catastrophe makes him unfit for leadership, and I hope my colleagues will join me in pushing for his removal.

Harris has called for President Biden to resign as well. I suspect he would have also called for the vice president to resign but may have been reluctant to issue a press release reading, “Harris calls for Harris to resign.” 

On August 19, Harris attended the Dorchester County Board of Education Meeting to express his concerns with Critical Race Theory or CRT. According to the Star-Democrat, Harris called CRT a “Marxist Idea that divides the nation.” Harris told the meeting that “instead of teaching young students to be colorblind to others’ race and treating everyone similarly, critical race theory is emphasizing and basing everything on race.”  Harris’ bottom line is that CRT “teaches students to hate America because it’s systemically racist.”

Earlier in the month, Harris spoke at a fundraiser for gubernatorial candidate Dan Cox, a Republican described by Governor Hogan as a “QAnon conspiracy theorist.” Mr. Cox is a Trump loyalist, a champion of the Second Amendment, and an opponent of CRT. Harris said Cox was “a person who reminds me of myself.”

I don’t doubt Harris’ veracity on this last point. From everything known about Cox, he is out of sync with Maryland values and, in my view, human values.

Unfortunately for those of us on the Eastern Shore, Harris remains favored for reelection. The campaigns of Dave Harden and Heather Mizeur are underway. Either candidate would be a significant improvement over Andy “Handgun” Harris.  

Although election day is still over a year away, the retirement of Harris, a man who broke his term limits promise, is long overdue. All should be embarrassed by a representative more loyal to Donald Trump than to his constituents, who opposes voting rights, and who spends more time fighting Critical Race Theory than climate change. 

The Spy has done excellent introductory video interviews with both candidates Harden and Mizeur. You can access them by clicking on their names, above.

J.E. Dean of Oxford is a retired attorney and public affairs consultant writing on politics, government, birds, and occasionally goldendoodles.

 

 

 

 

 

Easton is on the cusp of change, but it is not entirely clear what that change is. The town is becoming more sophisticated, but at what cost?  As world-class restaurants, stores, and the arts begin to flourish, will Easton become just another resort town?  More simply put, should Easton become a Hamptons or Nantucket wanna-be? If so, is that a bad thing?

I am writing this column in Nantucket while looking out at Nantucket harbor. I have been taking daily walks through the historic town center. The streets are paved with cobblestones. The stores are a mixture of high-end clothing and middle-tier souvenir shops. Nantucket sweatshirts can be had for $60.  Hundreds of choices for Nantucket refrigerator magnets are available.

Frankly, the downtown is more reminiscent of an historic town than an actual historic town. Dozens of old buildings, some dating to the 18th century remain standing, but now house real estate offices, restaurants, or boutique shops. The whaling museum reminds me of one of the attractions included in a mega-shopping mall to give people something to do other than shop. It’s interesting and worth a visit, but it competes with opportunities to look at multi-million-dollar yachts in the harbor.

Mind you, I’m not complaining about Nantucket, but don’t go there for the history. If you enjoy shopping and mingling with rich people, Nantucket should be on your list. The restaurants are plentiful and high quality. 

The question for those of us in Talbot County, and, for that matter, the entire Eastern Shore, is whether we want to imitate the best-known east coast premier resort destinations.  Easton already has started down that path. Bluepoint Hospitality has converted old, sometimes vacant storefronts into establishments that are beautiful, well-run, and expensive. 

I confess to patronizing the “New Easton” and enjoying it. I am thrilled by the Prager Center for the Arts. And I’m glad that the Chesapeake Music Festival now has a home. I believe that these new establishments are good for Easton despite their representing change. They are part of a revitalization of Easton that, in my view, is good for everyone here, including those of us who are unlikely to buy anything from one of the new, premium-priced, businesses.

The remaking of Easton is part of a larger evolution of the Eastern Shore, which should be more than agriculture and beach towns. If Easton thrives because of this evolution, it means more and better jobs. It is also likely to result in better schools, improved healthcare facilities, and opportunities for growth in things like the Waterfowl Festival and other community activities to better engage us with each other.

Should there be limits on the degree to which Easton and other parts of the Eastern Shore “gentrify?”  I would say yes, but I’m not sure how these limits are set. Do we want to discourage new investments and job creation?  

Should Talbot County hold a special series of forums on what our future should look like?  Many forums on the county’s future, of course, already happen, but perhaps something focused on the rapid changes occurring in the town of Easton might be a good idea. Among many things, such a discussion should ensure that if a future other than the current “gradual gentrification” of Easton is to be chosen, the alternative future needs to be fully understood.

I also worry about what happens to Easton if the Bluepoint Hospitality investments don’t work out. If the high-end businesses now being established fail, what will Federal Street and the rest of Easton look like?  Will there be other entrepreneurs anxious to take over these businesses?  I’m not sure.  

What do you think?  Are you worried or excited about Easton’s future?  

J.E. Dean of Oxford is a retired attorney and public affairs consultant writing on politics, government, birds, and occasionally goldendoodles.

 

Talking to a friend last week about the twin crises of Afghanistan and the delta variant, I attempted something of a joke. “Biden’s honeymoon is over,” I said.  My friend responded, “That’s the understatement of the year.”  Then he added, “This sh*t has got to end.”

The “sh*t” referenced is not likely to go away anytime soon. It’s like the “heat cap” that gripped the Northwest. In our case it’s not heat. Rather it’s a blanket of doubts. America is losing confidence in President Biden; in our ability to conquer the coronavirus; and in America’s role in the world. We are also undergoing a valuable but painful national self-reexamination of our history that is shaking our foundation as we attempt to reconcile ourselves to centuries of racism and injustice.

Our blanket of doubt is giving us a dose of humility–perhaps punishment for hubris and stupidity. 

The botched Afghanistan exit continues to get headlines. Over the weekend, a firefight broke out at the Kabul airport. Questions remain on how many more people can be evacuated before August 31, the deadline originally announced by Biden, and one the Taliban refuses to renegotiate.

And then there is the chorus of naysayers, most, but not all, Republicans who appear to welcome an opportunity to kick Biden while he’s down. I’ve heard him called senile, incompetent, a puppet, and stupid. Disturbingly, some who want to defend him indicate he is not senile but only suffers from bad judgment.

Many Democrats hope that the most troubling images of the Kabul evacuation—a man falling off the landing gear of a C-17 transport plane in mid air is the most vivid example—will fade with time. I’m not so sure. That image will remind me for a long time that the logistics could and should have been handled better. An NBC poll released Tuesday shows that only 25 percent of Americans believe Biden handled the situation appropriately. 

Then there is the issue of what happens after the Americans are completely gone from Afghanistan. Will there be a horror show of women being stoned to death for not wearing burqas, schools closing, and “collaborators” being executed?  Is it possible that America will be blamed for letting these things happen?  If so, it will contribute to our national self-doubt, as well as to Biden’s woes.

We also are in the midst of a resurgence of the pandemic. More than 42,000 people have now died in Florida alone, and hospitals throughout the South are unable to handle more patients. Why did this happen?  Who is to blame for so many Americans refusing to get vaccinated?  Is there another variant of the virus waiting to emerge, perhaps one worse than the delta variant?

All those things challenge the image of an all-powerful America, a nation that never encountered a problem or an enemy that it couldn’t overcome. That belief, for some of us, is also being tested because of “Critical Race Theory,” sometimes referred to as “CRT.”  Simply put, CRT is a fresh, more accurate way to look at U.S. History, as well as how our laws were written and enforced.

Through the lens of CRT, America as a nation is re-examining our history and accepting that slavery and racism played much larger roles in getting us to where we are today than we might be ready to accept. That perception is progress. We should applaud it if it moves the country forward in terms of racial, social, and economic justice. But the process of getting there is difficult. CRT involves admitting that some of our national heroes weren’t so heroic. It also serves as yet another contributor to our blanket of doubt.

Other situations are also lowering our spirits. Evidence of climate change, as well as a realization of how hard it will be to address it, has prompted some of us to worry about whether we have the national will to do what is necessary to stop it. As my friend commented to me last week, “How many hurricanes, fires, and floods will it take?”

Lest anyone conclude that I view our national situation as hopeless, remember that the economy is improving; the FDA just approved the Pfizer vaccine (which should encourage more people to get vaccinated); and that the worst is hopefully behind us in Afghanistan. If all this is so, we can hope that the Biden presidency gets back on track; that Democrats and Republicans find a way to pass an infrastructure bill; and that this week’s heat wave is a short one.

With God’s help and with each of us making an honest effort to address these pressing issues, better days are ahead. 

J.E. Dean of Oxford is a retired attorney and public affairs consultant writing on politics, government, birds, and occasionally goldendoodles

 

The scenes were depressingly reminiscent of April 1975 when Saigon fell. American transport helicopters flew above a city descending into chaos as the enemy invaded, largely unopposed. Terrified nationals feared death from insurgents drunk with the excitement of victory. Smoke rose from the American embassy as documents and computers were burned.

It looked like Vietnam 2.0, a repeat of the embarrassing defeat for a country that once bragged that it had never lost a war. It looked like Vietnam because, in large measure, our assessment of what would happen when U.S. troops left was wrong. Depending on your perspective, the U.S. should never have left or should have figured out a way to evacuate without suffering humiliation, embarrassment and, more importantly, the loss of nationals who had aided in the now-abandoned U.S. mission.

The Kabul evacuation will be complete in a week or so, if not sooner. What will persist is something else that will take us back to the 1970s—self-doubt, finger pointing, and political accountability.  All those things in the 1970s, arguably made the U.S. stronger. Our national arrogance was blunted, and those responsible for expanding the war and lying about it were held accountable. Will the 2020s be similar?

Since President Biden’s announcement in May that he would withdraw all troops by September 11, many observers have suggested that the timetable was unrealistic. Reports also suggest that when the President accelerated the timetable, he did so against the advice of senior military advisors. That report appears to be accurate and, with time, will likely be verified.

So, is the story of the end of the 20-year war the story of a presidential mistake?  It’s not that simple.  Although, with the benefit of hindsight, Biden appears to have miscalculated the logistics of the evacuation, it is less clear that he deserves to be blamed for the whole debacle. Biden’s two predecessors, after all, also called for an end to American military involvement in the country, concluding, as Biden did, that the human and financial cost no longer justified staying.

Biden’s decision appears to reflect the need to move on from a war that, some would argue, was impossible to “win” from the day it started. History tells us that foreign invasions of Afghanistan have always failed. Ironically, America had the example of the Russian invasion of Afghanistan that began Christmas Eve 1979 and lasted a decade. The engagement was a disaster for the Soviets, who lost more than 15,000 soldiers.

In announcing the August 31 target for completing withdrawal, Biden offered his rationale:

After 20 years — a trillion dollars spent training and equipping hundreds of thousands of Afghan National Security and Defense Forces, 2,448 Americans killed, 20,722 more wounded, and untold thousands coming home with unseen trauma to their mental health — I will not send another generation of Americans to war in Afghanistan with no reasonable expectation of achieving a different outcome.

This rationale appears sound. I have yet to hear anyone present a credible alternative course of action. Republicans suggest the evacuation was “botched” and premature, but we haven’t heard how staying longer in Afghanistan would result in a complete defeat of the Taliban. As Biden explained on August 14:

One more year, or five more years, of U.S. military presence would not have made a difference if the Afghan military cannot or will not hold its own country. And an endless American presence in the middle of another country’s civil conflict was not acceptable to me.

We now know that another year, or five years, of engagement in Afghanistan would not have changed the outcome. In this sense, Biden was right to decide to withdraw.

The decision to withdraw from Afghanistan and that government’s ultimate defeat are now history. Who deserves the most blame?  Biden? Trump, who negotiated a “settlement” with the Taliban that strengthened their position in the country and pledged a complete U.S. withdrawal by May 2021; Obama, who kicked the can down the road; or George W. Bush, who started the war without thinking about how it would end?

The embarrassment America suffered this week will be less painful than the future that appears likely for many Afghan citizens. That future includes death and torture for Afghans who supported the U.S. mission and will now suffer retaliation. Inevitably, many will not make it successfully out of the country. 

Then there is the question of what type of regime will govern the country. Fears are rampant that girls and women will be banned from education and stripped of most civil liberties. A medieval system of justice may also return. Another final fear is that Afghanistan will become a haven and operating base for terrorism against the U.S. and western civilization.

The worst of the Afghanistan story may be yet to come.  

J.E. Dean of Oxford is a retired attorney and public affairs consultant writing on politics, government, birds, and occasionally goldendoodles. 

 

Did you skip most of the Olympic games over the last two weeks? Or were you even aware the games were taking place?

The Olympics are in trouble. The decline in interest in the Tokyo games can be explained by the one-year delay in the games because of the pandemic, but is more involved? Are the Olympics too expensive to hold?  In a world moving away from nationalism, are they an anachronism?  Can the games still be described as “a gathering of the world’s athletes?”

Is it time to rethink the Olympics to save them?

This year’s Olympics proved to be a financial disaster for Japan, the holder of the Olympic broadcast rights, NBC, and others. Japan spent $28 billion to host the games. First, the games were delayed a year. Then, because of the delta variant, fans were banned from attending events. Competitions were held in empty arenas. The final tally of financial losses is now being calculated and is likely to exceed $10 billion. 

Japan, of course, is not the first country to suffer massive economic losses from hosting these games. The problem is that the venues and housing for athletes are outrageously expensive. Venues have to be constructed for sports with no following in the host country. Other venues are close to impossible to “repurpose” after the games are over.

One “solution” that Japan and other recent hosts adopted is to create “temporary venues,” meaning that after the games (and after the Paralympic Games, which begin August 24), these venues will be torn down. Other venues are likely to become white elephants, much like the “bird’s nest” constructed for the Beijing games a few years back. Since the 2008 games, the venue has been largely unused. It costs $9 million annually to maintain. What a waste!

It would be nice if the only thing wrong with the games was the cost of holding them. That’s not the primary problem. The cost issue could be addressed through a variety of means, including, as some have suggested, by choosing a permanent site for the Olympics. Athens is most often mentioned.

But what about nationalism? Isn’t it great that the U.S. whipped China’s behind and won 25 more medals than the Reds did? And doesn’t our “winning” the games prove that the U.S. is the greatest nation on earth?

Sentiments such as these are nonsense. Did anyone expect the U.S. not to “win” the games?  The U.S. sends more well-trained and supported athletes to the Olympics than any other country. The U.S. also participates in dozens of sports where there is little or no competition. 

From some perspectives, you might say that the U.S. is cheating. America loves the Olympic Games because they usually “win” them. Our only real competition is China and Russia, a country that got itself banned because of state-sponsored use of performance-enhancing drugs but nonetheless came in third in this year’s games as it participated as the “Russian Olympic Committee.” 

Somewhere along the line, common sense and the “Olympic Spirit” parted company. The games still are about celebrating the achievements of individual athletes, but that is secondary to the competition among nations. That’s why the opening ceremony features the “parade of nations” and why winners are honored by having their national anthems played when they receive their medals.

The “wins” at the Olympics, if you tell the truth, are not true victories. Almost all potential competition from other countries doesn’t show up. Support for training is next to nonexistent in most countries. These countries are more focused on getting people fed, fighting disease, and a lot of other things. If there are potential Olympic champions living there, they never have a chance to compete.

If even a fraction of the potentially gifted athletes in these countries received the same training and support of athletes in the U.S., China, Russia, and a few other places, the list of winners would be much more diverse. Champions would be truer Olympic champions. 

These are just a few of the most serious problems with the Olympics. There are others. 

More than a few pundits have been thinking about how to reform the Olympics. I have not reviewed all suggestions, but here are a few of my ideas, prompted by this year’s Olympic disaster. I readily acknowledge that some of them are not original and that some of them would and perhaps should be condemned in some quarters as “destroying” the Olympics as we know them today.

The goal of reform should be to revive the true Olympic spirit by making the games a true competition among athletes rather than nations and making the games truly global by enabling as many athletes as possible from all nations to participate. 

First, unless the games are played at a single permanent site (or two single permanent sites–one for the summer games and the other for the winter games), the games themselves should be awarded to between four and eight nations. This would allow smaller countries to be awarded competitions and share in the games’ economic benefits. 

What if an African country could be awarded boxing, martial arts, weightlifting, and a few other sports while an Asian country was awarded tennis and gymnastics, and a European country was awarded golf, track and field, and a few others? You get the idea — bring the thrill of the games to locations that will never get to host under the current system.

Second, radically revise the Olympic business model. NBC paid $12 billion for the rights to broadcast the Olympics through 2032. Where does that money go? The International Olympic Committee says 90 percent of its revenues are spent on “promoting sports,” but that includes staging the over-produced summer and winter games. A full 10 percent of the revenues, over $100 million dollars, goes to support the Committee’s activities. 

What if there were a requirement to use most of the money to support athletes more directly –radically increasing funding for the development of sports programs in countries where support is nonexistent or inadequately supported? If this happened, you would likely see fiercer competition in many sports in as few as four years.

Third, start celebrating athletes rather than supporting nationalism. Do away with the antiquated emphasis on nations and replace it with the concept of a world at peace where athletes compete to be the world’s best. Obviously, U.S. fans would still follow U.S. athletes, but enthusiasm for athletic excellence would increase over time. Americans would feel comfortable celebrating the victory of a Japanese athlete because their focus would be on performance, rather than country.

Fourth, rethink the proliferation of sports. Did I really see a rock wall climbing contest this year?  Do surfing, air pistol shooting, and “BMX freestyle” belong in the same Olympic games as track and field? In my mind, the answer is no. Why not eliminate some of these sports? That would make it less costly to stage the games, make it easier for athletes from all countries to become more competitive, and save some of us time in front of the TV.

Those are just a few ideas. To be considered properly, any proposal for major changes to the Olympics requires careful study. Would financial support for less nationalistic Olympics decline? Is the establishment of quality sports training programs in “underserved” countries possible? And, most importantly, is the world ready to start thinking globally?

J.E. Dean of Oxford is a retired attorney and public affairs consultant writing on politics, government, birds, and occasionally goldendoodles