Also on today’s menu:
Strengthening The US
New Problems For Trump
Final Report On State School
There is a lot of big news to discuss, but with the passing of Mikhail Gorbachev, it is useful to look back at how the Soviet leader helped to change the world. A good source of information is the retrospective in the Washington Post.
Gorbachev was a failed leader due to the circumstances of the day, yet his attempted reforms of the government led to the end of the Cold War and reversed the direction of the nuclear arms race. The Soviet state was already imperiled when he took power, and his efforts to embrace a form of democracy further weakened its hold on the other countries making up the Soviet bloc, leading to its collapse and the formation instead of the new Commonwealth of Independent States.
Gorbachev called attention to the dangers of nuclear war at a time when U.S. President Ronald Reagan was promoting his Strategic Defense Initiative aimed at extending the arms race to the skies, and proposed “radical reductions” in nuclear weapons. Talks between the two countries eventually led to the treaty eliminating an entire class of intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe.
He also opened up the country to public discussion and televised government proceedings. “He believed that open discussion was essential to the survival of socialism,” The Times reported. “He didn’t fear what people had to say. He believed in Vladimir Lenin’s ideals but concluded that leaders after Lenin had gone off track, and he wanted to set it right.” Yet it was largely Gorbachev’s openness to dissent that eventually led to his departure from the political scene. “The forces of freedom and openness he had unleashed began to overtake him, creating obstacles and open resistances.”
Vladimir Putin, of course, has reversed the democratic system that Gorbachev championed, re-establishing the one-party power structure, suppressing press freedoms, and choking off opposition. During his 80th birthday celebration in 2011, Gorbachev called out Putin for creating a sham democracy, saying, “We have everything — a parliament, courts, a president, prime minister, and so on, but it’s more of an imitation [of democracy].”
Strengthening The US
Today in the United States, there is open dissent on President Joe Biden’s initiatives, with the president being blamed for inflation that is a worldwide phenomenon in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Yet those initiatives are paying off in addressing some of the issues that led to the supply shortages driving inflationary pricing. The initiative toward a global minimum tax has reduced the incentives for American companies to flee to other countries, and passage of the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act spurred investment in technology here in the United States.
Most recently, Honda and LG Energy Solution announced a $4.4 billion investment in a new battery plant here. Other companies are building plants in Ohio, Michigan, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Indiana. The manufacture of solar panels, fiber optics, and computer chips also are being brought back to the United States.
While many of those plants will create new jobs, there is a strong likelihood that the companies will be automating production as much as possible to cut down on the number of employees they hire, so the job projections are not reliable. Still, for those of the America First frame of mind, and for those who appreciate having products made and available in the United States, the changes are good news.
New Problems For Trump
Not-so-good news for supporters of former president Donald Trump: The Department of Justice responded to Trump’s request for a special master to review the seized documents from Mar-A-Lago by outlining the history of its attempts to recover material that belongs in the National Archives. The first 15 boxes of documents included some that were “highly classified” which led to a grand jury subpoena for other documents they believed Trump had taken. A few more documents were turned over, with Trump’s attorneys saying that was all there was, but they did not allow agents to look inside other boxes in the storeroom. That is when the FBI got a search warrant and recovered more than 100 more boxes, in two locations, that also contained classified documents. One box contained files marked Secret, Top Secret, and Secret/SCI —the top level of security because it contains the names of U.S. operatives.
The Republican National Committee has been paying Trump’s legal fees since he left office, but it will not be paying the legal fees he incurs in defense of likely charges stemming from a national security breach.
Many Republican candidates seeking office are now removing references to Trump from their websites to avoid any backlash from their support of the former president who still maintains that he is the real president of the United States.
Final Report On State School
George Bald, chair of the Lakeshore Redevelopment Planning Commission, announced that the group will be going into “hibernation” after having submitted its final draft of its recommendations for the former Laconia State School property.
The study identifies the historic significance of the buildings on the property and suggests which ones should be preserved. Of the 35 buildings in the complex, 13 are strong candidates for preservation or rehabilitation. However, there are serious questions about the structural soundness of some buildings.
Bald said he still hopes the commission will have a role in the selection of a brokerage firm to market the property. While that role was part of the commission’s original charge, the state Department of Administrative Services has assumed the job of putting the property up for sale, and has chosen four finalists for consideration.
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Having worked at the state school back in my early 20’s it’s difficult to know which buildings they would want to preserve. A lot of difficult situations there. Back then, as a Psych Aid, (with no actual training), I was handing out Thorazine, and other psychotropic drugs. When I started it was common to still use straight jackets and padded solitary rooms.
As far as Gorbachev goes, it’s an amazing part of history. I was not a Regan fan, especially due to his administration throwing off a bunch of mentally ill disabled social security recipients, which then the courts put back on. Which was extremely painful for them, and a crazy time for people like myself who had to find them and get their benefits back. Breaking the unions, and other things. But, his administration did an amazing job working with Gorbachev to bring down the wall and help his citizens.