A disappointing press corps

President Obama held a press conference at the White House on December 19, 2014 prior to his departure for a two week vacation in Hawaii for the holidays.   Watching the entire one hour press conference revealed yet again how fatuous the press has become. 

Two issues that were discussed – the hacking of Sony Corporation and the opening of diplomatic relations with Cuba – revealed that the press members the president selected to ask questions are reluctant, if not incapable, of asking difficult questions of the president.   Here are two questions that should have been asked but were not:

Reducing tragic police encounters

Amid the debate, protest, and violence that followed the recent grand jury decisions in Ferguson, Missouri and Staten Island, New York what can be learned?  Can the incidence of violent civilian-police contact be reduced and the outcomes of such contact mitigated?

Some have described the deaths as indicative of a broader pattern of rampant unjustified police violence by white officers motivated by racism against black men. They call for a national conversation on race and the overhaul of police departments.  Others question the linkage of the events with a broader pattern motivated by racism and increasingly reject demands for redress of past oppression. In the end, making race the focal point of discussion will generate a great deal of emotion, but may be ineffective and even counterproductive in reducing violent civilian-police contact.

The pathway to preventing such incidents for Americans of all races is through better policing and the transformation of a mindset, often concentrated in dangerous neighborhoods, that is hostile to acceptable social norms.

Thank you officer

Thank you officer for putting on the uniform every day and going out into the night to face danger on my behalf.

Thank you to your loved ones who must worry about you responding to danger each and every day.

Thank you to the 126 families of police officers killed in the line of duty in 2013 for the sacrifice your family has made on my behalf.

Thank you for the restraint you show every day as you confront the worst among us.

Invest in Gateway Cities: Thinking Out of the Box Car

In 1858 Oliver Wendell Holmes coined the phrase “The Hub” by referring to the Massachusetts State House as "The Hub of the Solar System.”   The moniker now refers more broadly to the entire city. It is time to reassess the title and place greater economic development emphasis on the Gateway Cities of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

The Commonwealth designates 26 municipalities as Gateway Cities that serve as regional economic centers.  Governor Deval Patrick and his Secretary of Housing and Economic Development Greg Bialecki deserve credit for initiatives that directed strategic investment in infrastructure, job creation, and affordable housing to these cities since 2008.

Economy disappoints voters

The stock market is at record highs and the unemployment rate dropped to 5.8 percent last month, but exit polls from the recent mid-term election indicate voters have a negative view of the condition of the economy and the direction of the country.  Nearly half think life will be worse for the next generation.

The dichotomy can be explained, at least in part, by the need for more anti-poverty entitlements, a decline in labor participation (those who have given up looking for work), the predominance of part-time work in the jobs that have been created since the Great Recession, and by a growing income gap and more pronounced wealth gap that began opening in 1989 and continues to the present.

Mid-Term Election Opportunties

Republicans won federal and state elections last evening in a landslide.   Control of the U.S. Senate will shift to the Republicans in January.  The Republican majority in the House of Representatives will expand by at least a dozen.  Thirty-one of fifty states will have Republican governors.

Even Massachusetts elected a Republican, Charlie Baker, as its governor. Though the bluest of blue states retained a 100% Democrat congressional delegation that will have little influence in the 114th Congress.

Vote for "Balance of Power"

In the next few weeks ballots will be cast to elect members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate.  This election is vitally important to the “balance of power” principle established at the founding of the nation.  This may seem alarmist to some, but there is clear and convincing evidence of a shift in power to the executive branch of the federal government in recent decades that has accelerated and broadened with each successive administration.

Executive power expansion is enabled by the failure of congress to assert its authority.  A modern shift in congressional loyalty from the institutions of the House of Representatives and Senate to political party has permitted an uncontested expansion of executive power.  In the past, the congress, in a bipartisan manner, rabidly defended its constitutional authority and prerogatives from encroachment by the executive branch.