Category: OP-ED

Ukraine: Time for a True Strategic Partnership

Posted on by LFontaine
By Ambassador Kurt Volker

The U.S. and Ukraine, and the West more broadly, need to get serious about putting the cards on the table that would deter Putin from any further military action.

Coming on the heels of Russia’s massive military build-up in and around Ukraine in April 2021, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Kyiv this week is a strong show of support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. It is also an opportunity to finally realize a genuine strategic partnership between the two countries.

Even in the best of times, Ukraine has often viewed the West as insufficiently supportive of Ukraine’s security and membership in Euro-Atlantic institutions, while the West has viewed Ukraine as insufficiently clear and committed to strengthening the rule of law and rooting out corruption.

The dynamic has not always been healthy. What Ukraine sees as legitimate aspirations (like NATO membership), the West has sometimes seen as unrealistic and pushy. And what the West sees as “tough love” in helping Ukraine on reforms and governance, the Ukrainians sometimes see as unrealistic and at times even unsympathetic interference in Ukrainian politics, which are complicated beyond belief.

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Biden should withdraw US troops from Afghanistan. Here’s why

Posted on by LFontaine

CNN OPINION

March 18, 2021

Opinion by Charles A. Kupchan and Douglas Lute

Charles A. Kupchan is a professor of international affairs at Georgetown University and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He served as special assistant to the President for national security affairs from 2014 to 2017 and is the author of “Isolationism: A History of America’s Efforts to Shield Itself from the World.” Douglas Lute, a retired lieutenant general, was the coordinator for Afghanistan at the National Security Council from 2007 to 2013 and the US ambassador to NATO from 2013 to 2017. He is currently Defense Chair and International Chair at the BGR Group.

As the Biden administration weighs whether to remove all US troops from Afghanistan by May 1 — upholding the Trump administration’s agreement with the Taliban — its discussions should focus on one main concern: preventing future terrorist attacks on the United States or its allies from Afghan territory. Since 9/11, this objective has guided US engagement across four presidencies.

Those who argue that we need to stay in Afghanistan to thwart attacks against the homeland are wrong. Biden should keep in mind the obvious: 2021 is not 2001. The terrorist threat from Afghanistan has been dramatically reduced in the last 20 years. The departure of US troops is not only possible, but desirable.

The United States and its coalition partners have devastated al Qaeda and crippled its ability to strike across borders. The terrorist group has not been able to carry out a major overseas attack since the bombings in London in 2005. Its leaders have been in hiding for years, although mostly not in Afghanistan, as became clear in the 2011 raid in Pakistan that killed Osama Bin Laden. The Taliban does maintain links to al Qaeda, including through family ties. Yet the several hundred remaining al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan and Pakistan pose a minor threat, especially compared with the group’s more dangerous branches in Yemen, Somalia, Syria and the Sahel.

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America Needs More Leaders Like Vernon Jordan

Posted on by LFontaine

By Governor Haley Barbour

March 8, 2021

Last week America lost a “wise man,” to quote The Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan.  I expect many more national leaders and chroniclers agree with that view of Vernon Jordan.

I first learned about Vernon Jordan and his distinguished career in 1980 when, as a civil rights leader, he was shot by a white supremacist. Little did I, a conservative Southern Republican in my early thirties, have any idea what a friend, role model and supporter he would be to me over the next forty years.

I admired and had the privilege to be in contact with Vernon from the time I served as Political Director of the Reagan White House. He gave me sage advice on issues and relationships. He was helpful to everybody, not just me.

Vernon didn’t have to tell anybody he was special. He lived it.  He was a liberal Democrat who enjoyed his Republican friends and led people of both parties to work together, to like each other, and to disagree agreeably.

He was a wonderful example of a time when Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives not only worked together; they got things done together. They even liked each other.

And perhaps most important, as my wife Marsha said when she learned of Vernon’s death, “He was such a gentleman – a true gentleman in every way.”

Paycheck Protection Program Saving Jobs, Keeping Futures Bright

Posted on by LFontaine

By Jennifer Larkin Lukawski

January 15, 2021

In 2017, Stephanie and Mark Cartier of Middletown, New Jersey were at a loss as to how to help their 21 year old daughter Katie, who has Down Syndrome, find a job after aging out of public school. After being inspired by a television news story about a restaurant in Texas that employed people with disabilities, the Cartiers decided to open their own business with a similar mission. They did this not only to provide a job for Katie, but also for other adults with intellectual disabilities in their community. After three years of intense planning and a lot of help from volunteers and local businesses, No Limits Café finally opened its doors. The Café offered a hearty lunch menu as well as a chance for 30 special needs adults to learn all aspects of the business and experience the pride and joy of employment. It represented real hope for the future of their current and future employees.

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BGR PR Principal Frank Ahrens on the Youth Movement in Korean Corporate Culture and Society

Posted on by LFontaine

A new generation of familial leadership is relaxing business culture.

Frank Ahrens

Foreign Policy 

There’s a change underway in South Korean corporate culture. It’s subtler than the country’s massive cultural hits like BTS, Blackpink, K-dramas, and the Oscar-winning Parasite—but in the long run it may be more important.

Young professionals are rattling the rigid, hierarchy-bound corporate systems that have become a core part of Korean working life. Unlike in the past, they are finding a sympathetic ear in C-suites across South Korea, which are increasingly filled with Generation X and even millennial executives. This confluence is already causing a massive shift in the way the country does business.

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BGR Expert: U.S. continues on economic road to recovery under Trump

Posted on by LFontaine

Boston Herald

September 22, 2020

BY JOSEPH LAI

In less than two months, Americans will choose a President for the next four years. If your vote is based on which candidate can rebuild our economy, the choice is clear: Donald J. Trump.

In fact, our economy is roaring back from the depths of the pandemic, because President Trump’s pro-growth economic agenda over the last four years laid the groundwork.

On September 4, the Department of Labor announced that 1.4 million jobs were created since April. The national unemployment rate fell to 8.4 percent, a 6.3 percent improvement during that period. These results exceeded the expectations of economists and even the most bullish Wall Street analysts. Reflecting confidence in the economy’s recovery, the stock markets have traded at record highs since the nationwide economic closures that began in March.

Under the leadership of President Trump, the Republican Senate and then Republican-controlled House passed the most comprehensive tax cuts and tax reform legislation in a generation. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 reduced taxes for businesses from 35 percent to 21 percent.

It also provided valuable incentives for manufacturers and small businesses – including restaurants – to hire more employees and allowed business owners to write off any investment in new equipment and tools for their businesses.

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A humble guide to the election – by BGR PR President Jeffery Birnbaum

Posted on by ironcore

The Hill

June 29, 2020
BY JEFFREY H. BIRNBAUM

Three words rarely uttered in Washington should become its new mantra. They are: “I don’t know.”

The 2016 presidential election and the timing of this year’s pandemic should have cured the nation’s capital of making predictions. Yet prognostication remains a staple of public discourse.

That’s a shame. When someone confidently projects who will win the presidential election this year, the appropriate response is to politely turn away and do something else. Nobody knows what’s going to happen.

At the same time, a few considerations grounded in past elections — but short of soothsaying — have a chance of holding up.

The first is: Whatever is important today won’t be as important five months from now.

The public’s attention is riveted by something new almost every week. But that changes all the time. Injustice against Blacks, the economy’s decline, and the need to defeat COVID-19 are challenges that won’t disappear. But significant new issues surely will emerge by November and, to repeat, we don’t know what they’ll be.

Second, watching the news is not a good way to guess who will win the election.

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What Does K-pop Have to Do With U.S. Politics? Plenty

Posted on by ironcore

Real Clear Politics

June 26, 2020
BY FRANK AHRENS

Maybe the first time you heard of K-pop fans, or maybe even K-pop music, was in the wake of President Trump’s campaign rally last weekend in Tulsa, Okla. But it will not be the last.

TikTokkers came up with the idea of ordering thousands of tickets to Trump’s rally with no intention of showing up, in hopes of making the arena embarrassingly empty. Whether the TikTokkers or COVID-19 was the reason for low turnout is up for debate. What is clear, however, is that K-pop fans took the TikTokkers’ idea and signal-boosted it across social media with lightning speed and algorithm-savvy tactics. It was only the most recent of a number of social media disruptions caused by K-pop fans, which I believe will increase, especially as the presidential election draws closer.

Loosely, K-pop is the term given to pop music created by artists from South Korea, typically by what are erroneously referred to as boy bands and girl bands. (These are grown men and women.) The songs’ lyrics are mostly in Korean with some English words. But that has proven no inhibitor to the genre’s worldwide growth. The beats and grooves are universally appealing, the artists’ choreography is spellbinding, and the artists themselves, by and large, tend to project an agreeable, even wholesome persona and are increasingly associated with charitable causes. Like any musical genre, the songs cover the range of emotions, but much of the music is positive and affirming. This is music you can dance to AND feel good about supporting, as opposed to wallowing in whiny emo rock or bloodying your head with nihilistic metal.

But you don’t really need to know about K-pop music. It’s the K-pop fans you need to worry about. If you’re involved in politics, government, advocacy or communications and you don’t know about K-pop fans, then you’re engaging in professional malpractice.

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Republican Governors Paved the Road to Recovery Before the Coronavirus Crisis Began

Posted on by ironcore

Newsweek

“By enacting sound fiscal management, pro-growth policies and common-sense conservative reforms in good times, Republican governors have put their states and citizens on a speedier pathway to renewed prosperity.”

May 12, 2020
BY GOVERNORS SCOTT WALKER, HALEY BARBOUR and SUSANA MARTINEZ

“No American living today has experienced a crisis quite like the threat posed by the coronavirus. This pandemic’s economic, public health and societal implications are unique in our history.

It is unsurprising to us that America’s governors immediately stepped up and tackled this challenge head-on. As governors continue their efforts to flatten the curve and chart a pathway back to the historic economic prosperity we were experiencing just a few short weeks ago, states with Republican governors who have implemented common-sense fiscal policies are best positioned for a swift and successful rebound.

Just as any individual or family is better able to cope with the financial impact of a sudden illness, job loss or property damage when they have spent responsibly and saved what they could, states that take these steps when times are good are far better positioned to stay solvent when a crisis hits.

This is not a partisan statement—this crisis is bigger than politics. It is simply what the data show us.

Looking back on the Great Recession of the last decade, states with low debt, solid credit ratings, sound budgeting practices and lower tax rates bounced back the fastest. States with high taxes, high spending levels, and large unfunded pension liabilities took the longest to recover.

The strong economic policies favored by Republican governors fall into the former category.

States that diligently squirreled away savings instead of yielding to the temptation to spend every penny have a massive advantage in addressing looming revenue shortfalls. Eighteen of the top 25 states with the healthiest rainy day funds have Republican governors, including 12 of the 18 states with funds equaling more than 10 percent of their total budget in the bank.

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