The Akron Beacon Journal, Sept. 27
They laughed because President Trump said something laughable. He told the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday: “In less than two years, my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of the country.” The boast isn’t remotely close to true. In making the claim, the president left the impression of a cartoon character more than a statesman, let alone a leader protective of that essential quality of credibility.
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The president neglects how internationalism checks destructive nationalism. He does so at the country’s expense. For instance, he wants to pressure Iran into better behavior. That is more likely through collective action than the United States mostly on its own. The same goes for getting China to trade more fairly. America needs partners, yet the president picks unnecessary fights with Canada and European allies. There is only a global solution to the urgent problem of climate change.
The leaders of the Greatest Generation did not put somehow the country’s sovereignty at risk. They enhanced its standing and served its interests. They got the connection between globalism and patriotism.
Online: https://bit.ly/2y37MAo
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The Toledo Blade, Sept. 30
Flowing from Pittsburgh to Cairo, Illinois, the Ohio River flows through or along the border of six states. It is the largest tributary of the Mississippi River and it is the source of drinking water for more than 3 million people. But the health and safety of the water that flows through the Ohio River could be at risk if members of the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission, known as ORSANCO, go through with a vote to end the organization’s pollution control standards.
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Forcing each state to come up with its own set of standards would be costly, time-consuming and ineffective. In areas where the Ohio River connects two states — such as Pennsylvania and Ohio, for instance — there could be two sets of standards governing either side of the river. Conflicting rules would do nothing to protect the water or those who need it to live and work.
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Governors Tom Wolf and John Kasich, both widely believed to have political ambitions beyond their home states, would be wise to encourage their ORSANCO commissioners to vote with the vitality of the Ohio River in mind.
Online: https://bit.ly/2P6QOII
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The Columbus Dispatch, Sept. 29
Conservative Republicans celebrate the Trump administration’s vast rollback of regulation as a magic boost for the economy and thus a victory for ordinary Americans.
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There’s no better example of this than Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ dismantling of rules designed to protect people, often with low incomes and little education, who turn to for-profit colleges and universities to improve their prospects but end up instead far worse off.
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DeVos also has a formal proposal to eliminate the gainful-employment rule. That’s a travesty, because the rule was effective before it even was official. An education department report on programs and schools that led to small paychecks and high debt came out in January 2017, but schools already had made changes in anticipation.
Some had ended ineffective programs; others took programs that had been padded out to two-year-degree length and shortened them to a more appropriate, and less expensive, length.
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So when you hear about President Donald Trump’s “success” in wiping out regulations, think of the minimum-wage worker with $30,000 in private-college debt with nothing to show for it and consider that wholesale deregulation often isn’t a ticket to prosperity for anyone but those who need to be regulated.
Online: https://bit.ly/2RcHq7E
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The Courier, Sept. 27
It’s not surprising Gov. John Kasich is still lobbying to get some sort of gun control reform passed this year.
Kasich’s term, after all, ends in December, and the Republican-controlled Legislature has, at least to this point, failed to take up his “common sense” ideas to try to curb gun violence.
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On Monday he signed a pair of executive orders that require police agencies to submit information regarding protection orders in domestic-violence cases, and outstanding arrest warrants more quickly to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation. That information, in turn, would be forwarded by the state to the FBI.
Kasich’s action came after a panel, appointed by the governor to study possible gun reforms following the mass shootings in Las Vegas and Parkland, Florida, turned up reporting flaws related to how the state forwards information to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System used by federally licensed firearms dealers.
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Kasich will ask lawmakers to approve funding to help record clerks and others upgrade technology to speed up records transmission to BCI.
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The executive orders may be a small victory in what’s proven to be an uphill battle. But Kasich appears determined to go out fighting for common sense reform.
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Online: https://bit.ly/2zJCgt5
