Wednesday, August 23, 2017

Free Agent...

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Kaepernick refused to stand for the national anthem as a protest against........ and is now without a team.  The free agent once played in the Super Bowl but hasn't been signed by any football club.

Some critics say it's about his ability as a player. Others say he should have stood for the anthem.
The NAACP sent a letter to NFL commissioner about the situation, saying it's "no sheer coincidence" Kaepernick is unsigned.  

Protest anything you want, but not standing for the National anthem is not a protest.  

Realism...


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Donald Trump will declare an end to nation building if elected president, replacing it with what aides described as “foreign policy realism” focused on destroying the Islamic State group and other extremist organizations.

In Ohio, Trump will argue that the United States needs to work with anyone who shares that mission, regardless of other ideological and strategic disagreements. Any country that wants to work with the U.S. to defeat “radical Islamic terrorism” will be a U.S. ally, he is expected to say.

The Dream...*




Despite a deluge of warnings many Americans are still woefully unprepared to leave the workforce. A little more than a third don't have a savings strategy.
Half of households are not putting away enough to maintain their current lifestyle after retirement, according to the latest National Retirement Risk Index.

Deep down, we know we should be putting something in our 401(k)s, but the benefits are just so far out there, that it's not real to people."

People are living longer, so they need more. Rates of returns have fallen, so they need a bigger pile." The rise of self-directed plans such as 401(k)s, and worries about the future of Social Security, have also put more of the burden of saving on the consumer.

Cutting back gives you more room to save now, and can mean you'll need less income in retirement. Strategies might be big, such as downsizing to a smaller house, switching vehicles or right-sizing a smartphone plan.     Just a thought.

Resist...

The cartoonist's homepage, citizen-times.com/voices-views.

Can we resist starting a new....

Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Journey...

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As the special United States envoy for Afghanistan, Mr. James Dobbins was responsible for finding and installing a successor to the Taliban after they were toppled in 2001. During the 1990's, Mr. Dobbins hop-scotched from one trouble spot to another as he served as special envoy to Kosovo, Bosnia, Haiti and Somalia. 

But the Bush administration has such disdain for anything associated with former President Bill Clinton that it largely ignored useful lessons from recent United States peacekeeping operations.  
"Iraq in 2003 looks more like Yugoslavia in 1996 than Germany and Japan in 1945," Mr. Dobbins says. "What they have not done is look to the models worked out in the 1990's for sharing the burden and allowing others to participate in the management of the enterprise."

Bush, to his credit, admits as much in his memoir. 
“The task turned out to be even more daunting than I anticipated,” he writes.  Part of the difficulty lay simply in the massive complexity of the task. 

“Democracy is a journey that requires a nation to build governing institutions such as courts of law, security forces, an education system, a free press, and a vibrant civil society.” 

It is tempting to say that this should not have been a surprise to an Administration whose National Security Advisor had a PhD in Political Science, but the truth is that academics and practitioners have been captivated by a simplistic and naïve notion of how poor, oppressive countries become rich, free ones for decades-from the “modernization theory” of the 1950s to the “Washington Consensus” of the 1990s.
In addition to ignorance, there may also be disdain for poor people's desire.

Happened...


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A court in Finland has named the suspect in a stabbing rampage that killed two and wounded eight as 18-year-old Moroccan,... who is being treated in hospital after police shot him in the leg.....
According to court documents released, regional police have requested the detention of the suspect, a Moroccan asylum-seeker, on suspicion of murder, attempted murder, and terrorism crimes.
The regional court in Turku also said that four other Moroccans "are suspected of participation in the murders and attempted murders committed with a terrorist intent."
Police investigators said they are exploring possible links to last week's extremist attacks in Spain, where the main suspect at large is Moroccan, as were most of his known accomplices.