All Writings

Pittsburgh should enjoy the Draft, but taxpayers should not be asked to subsidize professional sports facilities. Stadiums are not economic development, and they do not create long-term regional resilience. If the public owns these assets, lease revenue should fully cover operations, maintenance, and capital needs. If that cannot happen, private owners, investors, sponsors, or philanthropies, not taxpayers, should close the gap.

The future of Western Pennsylvania will not be secured by pretending that every inherited structure is still well-matched to present reality. Nor will it be secured by stripping communities of their voice and identity. It will be secured by making a more mature distinction: local democracy should remain close to the people, but the operating systems underneath modern life must often become more coherent, more durable, and more intelligently shared.

Trump may declare victory in Iran. The harder question is what America actually won. If the result is a more unstable Gulf, a more resilient Iranian regime, and a weaker sense of U.S. strategic credibility, then this was not a demonstration of strength. It was spectacle mistaken for strategy.

Donald Trump wants Americans to believe that strength is measured in decibels. Raise the threat level. Escalate the rhetoric. Humiliate an ally. Drop a bomb. Declare victory. Move on. That is not statecraft or leadership. That is performance dressed up as power.

The most important question in public governance is not whether government can pay its bills this year. It is whether government is still strong enough, honest enough, and disciplined enough to avoid solving today by quietly spending tomorrow.

A municipality does not prove its independence by negotiating its own trash contract. It proves its value by governing well.

Democracy only works when power is tied to accountability. When those most insulated from consequences retain the greatest influence over rules, self-government begins to fail.

The crisis in political leadership didn’t start at the ballot box. It started when serving became something we mocked, punished, and made impossible to sustain.

The American order did not fail because it was obsolete. It failed because Congress chose not to defend it. By refusing to constrain an executive acting in ways corrosive to long term national interest, the Republican Congress has made itself directly responsible for the unraveling of America’s economic, military, and cultural primacy.

Trump governs not as an institution builder but as a developer. Attention is the asset. Disruption is the strategy. Process is a nuisance. Consequences are someone else’s problem. This approach creates spectacle and speed, but it does not create stability. Developers flip properties. They do not steward communities.