Time to Think

Thoughts on Thanksgiving (its not what you think) by Hank Silverberg   This week, millions of Americans will sit down at a table with family or friends for a Thanksgiving dinner.  Many will try NOT to  talk about politics to avoid arguing. Others will bring it up but divert to football when things get heated. And I am sorry to say, in some families, the current political climate might destroy their long time tradition.   For me though, Thanksgiving, which always falls near my birthday, will be a time to reflect a bit about the last year on things I am thankful for and frankly, things I am not.  First, let us look a little bit into the historical facts about the holiday. It was not a friendly group of Pilgrims getting together with a welcoming group of native Americans near Plymouth in 1621.  The "Pilgrims" did not come here for religious freedom as we were all taught in elementary school. They were actually a group ...

Is Journalism Broken? By Hank Silverberg For the last few years we have been hearing about the demise of journalistic standards or about the increased use of   “activists” posing as journalists on TV and elsewhere. The Presidents cry of “Fake News” every time he doesn’t like  a news story that gets printed or broadcast has added to the   nonsense.   But I knew that journalism educators were sticking to the tried and true practice and teaching their students about fair and balanced reporting—just the facts without slant, bias or opinion. It’s what they have consistently taught. So, I was a bit startled by what has taken place at Northwestern University, near Chicago, which has one of best journalism programs in the U.S. Jeff Sessions, the former Attorney General, who remains quite controversial, had been invited to speak by college Republicans. There was ,of course, protest from left leaning student organizations, but what should have been routine ...

The Trouble with Labels By Hank Silverberg It’s a question you hear a lot these days. Are you a Liberal or a Conservative?   My answer often confuses people because I am ----a Moderate. The next comment I usually get from both Liberals and Conservatives is: “You mean you have no principals, no ideology?”   And that is the problem with labels. A recent Gallup poll shows https://news.gallup.com/poll/245813/leans-conservative-liberals-keep-recent-gains.aspx   Americans are pretty well divided into three groups and that is not based on party. Liberals have been gaining some, now up to 26%. Conservatives have been steadily losing ground dropping to 35%.   Moderates   have also dropped slightly to 35% in the last few years. So, here’s a scenario for you, using some simple examples.     In general Conservatives believe in less government, free enterprise, individual responsibility and the nuclear family. Liberals believe in more gover...

Junk By Hank Silverberg It appears that America remains as divided as ever on Donald Trump and the effort to impeach him. And I almost didn’t write this angle because that’s really nothing new. The latest evidence of the continuing polarization came in a House vote this past week. All the Republicans voted against a resolution that set up the groundwork for public hearings and other proceedings in the impeachment process. All but two Democrats voted for the resolution.  It is only the fourth time in U.S. history that an impeachment inquiry has gone this far. (Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton were the other three.)  At the same time, several witnesses were giving depositions behind closed doors about that infamous call between Trump and the President of Ukraine. It's  testimony we have been told disputes President Trump’s description of the call, and the so-called transcript that the White House released. Two things strike ...

Borrowing from the Grandkids By Hank Silverberg $984 billion.   That's almost a TRILLION dollars and it's the federal deficit for fiscal 2019 alone.  It’s the highest yearly deficit in seven years and $205 billion more than 2018.  It does not bode well for the future.  Thanks to the Trump tax cut, defense spending and interest payments on the shortfall, it’s the widest gap between revenue collected by the federal government and federal government spending in almost a decade. It’s the first time ever that the deficit has skyrocketed at the same time unemployment is low, revenue from corporate taxes, trade and personal income are up and the economy is relatively good. During the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump said he would eliminate the federal deficit within eight years. Instead, the man who bankrupted six of his own companies over the years and owes money to scores of vendors and workers he's never paid, has taken it the other way.  ht...

No Time To Think By Hank Silverberg When I began writing this blog 20 months ago, my idea was to look at some events of a particular week, take some time to do some research and then provide some well thought out commentary on the week's news.  It hasn’t happened that way. Events are moving so fast, and there is little time to think about them before the next shell shock changes everything. This past week was a perfect example. Last weekend we got word that President Trump had made a cruel   and poorly thought out decision to pull U.S. troops out of northern Syria and abandon our long time allies, the Kurds.   It was an invitation for the erratic leader of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan,   to send troops into that area and chase out the Kurds, whose desire to create an independent Kurdistan has been a thorn in the side of the leaders of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran for decades  (see map).  The Kurds have been U.S. allies since the ...