Articles by Grady Means

The “yellow vest” riots in Paris should alarm Democrats, especially the new progressive governors in blue states like California. As with the president of France, today’s liberals believe they have a mandate to solve the problems of the world, only to learn that all politics are local. The electorate, while entertaining ideas at the extremes, always gravitates toward the center and its own vested interests.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, and other liberal candidates for office this year are calling for “single-payer” health care, or “Medicare for all.” These proposals would be inefficient and explosively expensive, leading to a collapse of the U.S. health care system and the emergence of a two-tiered system with excellent, expensive health care for the rich and little or no health care for the poor and elderly.

The spreading scandals in the Roman Catholic Church provoke the question: could the church collapse? I worked as a management consultant to some of the largest companies and government entities in America for nearly 50 years, and served in the White House. I was a member of the church during that period and served on various church boards and councils. Bottom line: the institution of the U.S. church could collapse, suddenly and unexpectedly.

Politics since 1972 has seemed to harken back to the Edgar Allen Poe story, “The Pit and the Pendulum.” As with the narrator of the story, in the pit and tied to a table, Americans have been treated to watching politics as a razor-sharp pendulum that swings back and forth between two extremes, slowing getting closer and closer to slicing them and the country into pieces.

In Wonderland, Alice was heard to say: “I wonder if I shall fall right through the earth! How funny it’ll seem to come out among the people that walk with their heads downwards.” Wow, America is in Wonderland. Half the country sees the other half as upside down.

Recent articles (such as one in Vanity Fair) about Amazon’s multibillion-dollar contracts to use its massive data systems to host national security and defense data for the Department of Defense and U.S. intelligence agencies have raised some surprise and alarm among those who had the “Do No Evil” impression of Silicon Valley and related tech companies.

The death rattle of Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s presidential hopes, and possibly the Massachusetts Democrat’s political career, has suddenly emerged in her Accountable Capitalism Act, which would mandate that 40 percent of the directors of large companies be selected by the employees.

Here come the ghosts of Joe McCarthy and Roy Cohn. There is no longer room for reasoned debate in America. If you’re feeling uncomfortable and unable to defend your ideas, just censor all discussion with “I won’t listen to this because… ,” “You’re a Nazi,” “You’re racist,” or, most popular, “You’re a traitor/agent of Russia.”

Last week, I wrote an Open Forum defending President Trump’s foreign policies based on their objective results. Since then, there have been two major developments.

The conduct of foreign policy is often thought of as the primary responsibility of a U.S. president. Because of its existential importance to the security of our country, the disturbing Delphic utterances of President Trump in Helsinki and thereafter have sent spasms through the Western foreign policy and intelligence communities.