Government

Don’t Shutdown Highways

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It’s obvious that tougher federal criminal penalities are needed against those who would intentionally shut down an interstate highway, railroad, or airport. The fact is illegal blockades of high-speed roads, railroads, and airports are dangerous both to motorists and blockaders, not to mention first responders and those who drive truck for a living.

Nobody doesn’t think people shouldn’t be allowed to protest. There are many public places that are available for protests, without putting human life at risk. Those places may not be as dramatic or get the news coverage sought out by protesters, but they protect the public safety.

I’m all for people getting out and expressing their views. Like most people, I have a problem with some of our president’s choices. But don’t cause innocent moms and dads who are just trying to get home to their children to be held up unnecessarily, don’t cause crashes, don’t block truckers just trying to feed their families, and don’t keep firefighters from getting to fires.

It’s just common decency.

William O. Douglas

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William O. Douglas

I hope Donald J. Trump nominates a judge in the model of William O. Douglas. As he once said, "The Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of the people ...."

What we actually lose when the USDA and EPA can’t talk to the public

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What we actually lose when the USDA and EPA can’t talk to the public

"The weather app on your phone that can sometimes tell you when it's going to rain with minute-by-minute precision—or warn you about an impending tornado—is underpinned by government science (in this case by the National Weather Service). You may roll your eyes at the importance of weather data that occasionally leaves you stuck in a downpour without an umbrella, but the predictions are right more often than not, and the information is incredibly important."

NAFTA and other trade deals have not gutted American manufacturing — period

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NAFTA and other trade deals have not gutted American manufacturing — period

A manufacturing job making things in a factory is no longer, in any sense, a typical job for Americans. A sector of the economy that provided three out of 10 nonfarm jobs at the start of the 1950s and one in four nonfarm jobs at the start of the 1970s now provides fewer than one in 11 nonfarm jobs today. Proportionally, the United States has shed almost two-thirds of relative manufacturing employment since 1971.