Politics

The Limits of Presidential Power

Category: 

In my operational risk seminar this spring, students ranked and then restacked and ranked the top operational risks present in our world.  No one was especially pleased with the results, and the top three risks – cyber-threats, global uncertainty, and terrorism – seemed nearly interchangeable, depending upon the month. As we came to the end of the quarter – particularly with the terrorism acts in Manchester, London, and Tehran -- “global uncertainty” seemed to encapsulate the other two risks, particularly when the elections in France and Great Britain are taken into account along with the performance of the U.S. president on his first diplomatic trip abroad. 

read more..

Latest Posts in Politics

"All Rise!"

“All rise!” is what the clerk of court calls out when a judge enters a courtroom, at all levels of our legal system, from traffic court to the Supreme Court. We are asked to rise out of respect for the judge, who represents the judiciary branch of government, in which we place the even-handed enforcement of what we call the rule of law.


Reconsidering Risk

It is just a year ago that the London-based magazine, The Risk Universe, shut down its operation. I had written quarterly for the magazine for five years.  Looking back upon the articles, I could see that each was still relevant to any discussion of operational risk. I asked and received permission from publisher Mike Finlay to reprint the articles in a book, with head notes for each of the articles to discuss changes in risk exposure and governance, as well as the ever-changing role of regulators. I am finishing the book this summer. I am considering the addition of several of my columns from this newsletter where I have written on the breakdown of our usual governance processes and the increase in operational risk since January 21, 2017, when Donald Trump became president of the United States.


The Kidnapping of the Second Amendment

From Colorado

The Kidnapping of the Second Amendment

Even those of us who don’t know all the amendments in our constitution know the gist of  the Second Amendment, adopted in 1791: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” 

We know it because our Second Amendment has...


The Right to Keep and Bear Arms

Over 1.2 million people participated in the March for Our Lives events across the US on the weekend around March 24, 2018, the month anniversary of the event that inspired this movement, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida. This turnout stresses the urgency of addressing violence in America.


“He’s P.T. Barnum”: The Trouble is, Politics Ain’t Show Biz

“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” The quote in my title (above) is how Donald Trump was once characterized by his sister – a federal judge.   No kidding. Phineas Taylor Barnum was the nineteenth century self-described “showman” (he seems to have invented that job category) who made a fortune promoting celebrated hoaxes with gullible audiences.  Barnum himself marveled at how willingly the American public “submits to a clever humbug.”