Republican cowards must stop Trump from destroying American democracy

Trump's attempts to overturn an election are criminal.

Echo opinion letter published in The Oklahoman newspaper:

Republicans must "Dump the tRump!"

It seems Donald Trump, his legal team and supporters are constantly beating on the First Amendment as a defense against his many criminal charges. 

HELLO? 

Yelling, "Fire!" in a crowded auditorium when there is no fire is not a First Amendment right. It is a crime❗🔥 

Trump's constant harassment of those who want him tried for crimes against the United States and the citizens of our country, is not leadership, it is bullying of the worst sort. Trump's attempts to overturn an election are criminal. And as J. Michael Luttig recently discussed in an interview on the "PBS News Hour," Republican leaders and elected officials, who have continued to discount his actions or suggest our justice system has been weaponized against him in some way, have betrayed the American people and are cowards.

Those Republican cowards include all of our elected U.S. representatives and U.S. senators from Oklahoma, these individuals should have quickly and clearly called out Donald Trump for the lies he has told and continues to tell about the 2020 election. So, as Donald Trump yells, "Fire❗" our democracy is being trampled by him and those who continue to either support him or remain silent about his crimes. 

From Penny Barber, Edmond, Oklahoma

COVID vaccines for the world

COVID virus spreads rapidly because it travels where people who are exposed to the infection will carry it, as they move around the earth. No place is exempt from exposure.  Therefore, if life on our planet is ever to return to what we remember as being "normal", it is essential to vaccinate the world, to prevent COVID's spread.

America has the capacity to provide healing vaccine to the world!

Dear President Biden:

The US must do more to vaccinate the world: echo published in The Oklahoman and Bloomberg News:

The Biden administration’s decision to begin sharing U.S.-authorized COVID-19 vaccines with the rest of the world is welcome news. 

Jan. 20, 2021 | Salisbury, England | Staff prepare to give the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to patients at a vaccination center set up inside Salisbury Cathedral.

Now coronavirus czar Jeff Zients*, who will lead U.S. efforts to fight the pandemic abroad, must swiftly craft a global vaccine strategy that’s as focused, ambitious and effective as the one that’s worked so well domestically.

Those who ask whether the U.S. ought to assume this burden should remember two things. First, progress at home will count for less if the pandemic rages unchecked abroad. Americans might be vulnerable to new variants. Trillions in output will be lost if trade and travel continue to be disrupted. And as the global death toll mounts, instability and resentment of the U.S. and other rich countries will grow.

Second, the U.S. is uniquely qualified to lead the effort. 

In fact, the US could soon have hundreds of millions of excess vaccine doses. It has the most influence with several of the key vaccine developers, and the most diplomatic clout. Having worked on the ground for years to combat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, it has expertise and longstanding relationships with public health officials in developing nations. More recently, it has begun to learn how to cope with vaccine hesitancy and misinformation.

Success, however, will require more than the administration’s current piecemeal efforts. Its recent pledge to share 20 million Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson doses by the end of June — in addition to 60 million AstraZeneca shots once they’re cleared by regulators — will meet only a very small fraction of global need.

The U.S. decision to support a patent waiver for COVID-19 vaccines will do little except fuel months of debate among trade officials.

An effective strategy needs a clear international schedule for sharing hundreds of millions of more doses before the end of the year.


Many vaccines should be donated to COVAX, the global facility for delivering vaccines to poor nations, which is short of supplies.


The US must do more to vaccinate the world- published in The Oklahoman newspaper and Bloomberg Opinion

Other doses could be earmarked for specific countries based on stated criteria — caseloads, fatality rates, distribution capacity and, most importantly, commitment to provide vaccinations to the highest-need groups, such as health care workers and people over age 60.


The U.S. also should help to get those shots into arms. It should work with fellow G-7 nations to fund efforts by the World Health Organization to improve delivery capacity in poorer nations. And American officials can help countries more directly by advising on logistics, distribution, and training of health workers, and by fighting vaccine misinformation.

Finally, the U.S. needs to rally its partners behind a massive effort to scale up global vaccine production. The U.S. should expand manufacturing capacity at home — in part by addressing shortages of critical inputs such as bioreactor bags and filters — and encourage companies to license their technology to new partners abroad.

Speed is essential. The G-7 countries should work together to set up and sustain supply chains, train staff, inspect facilities and pay for more doses. In the longer run, the U.S. should press for new regional networks for vaccine production, especially of the potent mRNA vaccines that are likely to be most valuable in future pandemics.

After 1945, open-handed help for capacity-building in countries in desperate need earned the U.S. decades of goodwill and geopolitical influence. The global pandemic demands the same kind of ambition.

Jan. 19, 2021 | Cachoeira do Piria, Brazil | Health professional Raimunda Nonata, 70, is inoculated with the Sinovac Biotech's CoronaVac vaccine against COVID-19, inside her house, becoming the first member of the Quilombo Marajupena community to be vaccinated.

*Jeffrey Dunston Zients (born November 12, 1966) is an American business executive and government official serving as the White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator since 2021, succeeding Deborah Birx.

Oklahoma calls for workforce ~ but the answer in on their borders

It's difficult to understand how the Editorial Board of The Oklahoman newspaper can publish this opinion, while ignoring at least a part of the solution to the state's workforce difficulties, sitting on the borders with Mexico, in Texas and other Southwestern states.

Oklahoma shares burden of not having enough labor to fill vacant position.  But, immigrant labor can help in the jobs described in this Oklahoma editorial, if employers would open their minds to welcoming those who are waiting to enter our US borders, through Texas and the Southwestern states.Tight job market underscores importance of labor

Shame on The Oklahoman (NewsOK) for publishing such a linear opinion without mentioning immigration as a path to help with a solution.  In fact, the labor market is facing a cliff because the US population is aging and not enough qualified workers are available to fill the professional and para-professional positions being left vacant.  Immigrants can help by providing workforce for jobs they are qualified to fill in the labor force.

OKLAHOMA'S jobless rate in February was 4 percent, down from 4.8 percent in the same month last year and a decrease from the 4.3 percent in January. That's good news, except that employers are having a devil of a time finding people to fill vacant positions.

In Oklahoma, as across the country, jobs are staying vacant because not enough qualified workers are applying. The Wall Street Journal used a recent Page 1 story to explore the trend, noting that particularly in many parts of the Midwest, “Employers, especially in more rural areas, are finding that there are just too few workers.”

The national unemployment rate in March remained at 4.1 percent for the sixth straight month. However, only 103,000 jobs were added, which is about half of what many analysts were expecting.

The business publication Barron's wrote recently that across the country, “it's becoming increasingly difficult to find good help” in industries ranging from trucking and construction to oil drilling and manufacturing. And that takes a toll.

“Oil and gas stay in the ground because there aren't enough workers to extract it,” the article said. “Homes aren't built because builders can't find enough laborers. In Maine this winter, the state couldn't find enough people to drive snowplows.”

A Fox Business story from January cited a report from the Associated General Contractors of America showing 75 percent of contractors want to expand in 2018, but half of them were struggling to fill positions for skilled and salaried workers. Barron's noted that Census Bureau projections show the overall U.S. population growing faster than the workforce through 2030 and perhaps later. In the next 10 years, says the head researcher at New York-based Fundstrat Global Advisors, the nation faces a shortage of 8.2 million workers.

Jennifer Monies, executive director of Oklahoma Achieves, an arm of the State Chamber that works to align the state's education system with workforce needs, said chamber members regularly note the dearth of available help.

“Whether it's at board meetings or other events, we ask all the time, ‘How many of you have empty jobs to fill right now that you would fill right away if possible?' and every hand goes up,” Monies said.

This points up the need for Oklahoma policymakers to continue to push not just for more college graduates from this state — that must always be a priority, particularly in the STEM fields — but also to encourage students to pursue careers that don't require a four-year degree.

The Oklahoma Office of Workforce Development has said that by 2025, 70 percent of the jobs in Oklahoma will require some post-secondary education and training. Gov. Mary Fallin's Oklahoma Works initiative, begun in 2015, has a goal of increasing degree and certificate completion via partnerships involving K-12 schools, higher ed, CareerTech and the business community. She also has advocated for more apprenticeships and internships.

These and other initiatives must continue apace. The bottom line is that a high school diploma, once a ticket to a good-paying job, is no longer enough.

“We need more college degrees, but we need more post-secondary," Monies said. "You have to have either industry certification, an associate's degree or some kind of credential.”

That's not just for in the years ahead, but for right now.

MaineWriter ~ Immigrants do not take away jobs, they improve the economy by contributing to productivity and paying taxes.