MGM Resorts International Sues Victims of Mass Shooting: Abuse of the Legal System Needs Confronted7/18/2018 Mass shootings have increasingly become a reoccurring theme in the news cycle. The motivations for these crimes are often very different. Some times, they are ideologically-motivated terrorists attacks and, other times, they are simply the acts of mad men. The devastation and heartache experienced is, however, always the same. Because massacres impact so many people, they tend to garner a great deal of attention and subsequent outpouring of sympathy. For business leaders, these kinds of events are typically seen as moments to demonstrate the socially responsible, community-oriented side of business. While pure capitalism demands the exploitation of vulnerable communities in distress, that business instinct is supplanted by an expectation of charity in times of mass tragedy. For businesses involved in mass tragedies, however, these events also represent massive liabilities.
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Helsinki Summit: Soured US-Russian Relations is About Holding Powerful Governments Accountable7/16/2018 Making peace appears to trump accountability for the Trump Administration when it comes to leaders who share the domineering personality traits Donald Trump admires most about himself. Trump seems compelled to appease those who he cannot dominate in order to court favor. The US President has demonstrated this through his willingness to embrace North Korea’s totalitarian leader Kim Jong-Un in an overly cordial manner. Through Trump’s ever tightening relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the US President has also shown how his personal feelings shape his public policy stances. While meeting with Putin at the so-called Helsinki Summit, Trump solidified his embrace of Putin by making renewed bilateral relations a top foreign policy priority and offering his complete faith in Putin’s honestly. The ability of the US to establish a working relationship with Russia was, however, never the problem. Ignoring the wrongs of governments out of convenience has also been easy, and detrimental, for the US government. Soured bilateral relations with Russia were the consequence of the US government doing the right thing and actually holding a world power accountable for its wrongdoing.
Increasing Productivity and Cutting Costs? When Critical Employees Cannot Afford to Work Their Jobs7/13/2018 Phrases like “income inequality” and “economic disparity” have grown in popularity as average people struggle to meet the increasing costs and growing number of expenses associated with their modern lifestyles. Even before the Great Recession finally hit in 2008, lower and average income people were already relying on debt to sustain their standards of living. Afterwards, they saw their incomes and wealth plummet. Businesses were forced to make due with less or face bankruptcy, which meant employees who retained their jobs had to do more and/or watch their incomes shrink. As the economy recovered, the wealth of those who still owned homes and investments began to skyrocket. Although business is booming, wage growth has remained moderate as employers perpetually seek productivity increases and payroll cuts, which means employees are still being asked to do more for less.
Donald Trump is defining his foreign policy, and Presidency, through confrontational initiatives. Just as civics experts are concerned about the impact of Trump’s controversial ways on civil engagement, foreign policy experts are concerned about the impact on America’s image and alliances. With Trump officials already unprepared and struggling to fight a global trade war as well as reunite migrant children, who were separated from their parents at the US-Mexican border after they were arrested for illegally entering the US, the last thing they need is a direct challenge to America’s most pivotal alliances via Trump’s demand for NATO countries to spend 4% of their GDP on the organization. Claiming Germany is controlled by Russia, even as the US President strengthens his own ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump’s obvious goals were to diffuse criticism against him and pressure European nations into accepting his demands while the obvious result was outrage.
US President Donald Trump has become hero to the far-Right of the Republican Party. Although he was always a radical choice for President, due to his controversial and provocative nature, he has used his tenure in the Oval Office to pursue an agenda that reflects the extremes of the Right-wing. It is an agenda that caters to the wealthy and influential. Having achieved victory in the 2016 Presidential by selling himself as the non-politician who would shake things up and defy the political agendas of influential special interest groups, he was destined to make enemies. As a Republican candidate, the Left was guaranteed to oppose him. His embrace of policies like regressive tax cuts and free trade have, however, steadily transformed him from the “America First,” common man’s candidate into the globalist, special interest President, thereby undermining support among those who voted against Hillary Clinton.
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April 2020
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