Thank you USA Today and Schoolhouse Rock It is rare that I sit down without a precise plan on what I am about to write. All I know is that the United States Congress has let the Nation down again. I don’t blame Donald Trump for the so called Big Beautiful Bill. I know who he is. He told me in his first term and throughout the campaign. He tells me every day. He is defined by his greed, his complete lack of empathy, and his cynicism about our country, our Constitution, and our

Not long ago, I came across a quote from the French author, philosopher, and playwright Albert Camus. A heroic member of the French Resistance in WWII, prolific writer, and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957, Camus battled poverty in his youth and tuberculosis in adulthood. Killed in a car accident in 1960, he was just 46 at the time of his death. With his star crossed life, the optimism of this quote spoke to me. My unswerving world view and the cowboy in the p

Allen David Carli, Jr. was a legend. A fraternity brother and friend of 55 years, Dave (Carli, Carlos, Los, etc, etc) was a successful salesman for Reynolds, lover of beautiful women, golf-aholic, and in retirement, the Starter, “Director of Happiness”, and jack-of-all-trades at Meadow Farms Golf Course in Orange County, VA. A graduate of Benedictine High School in Richmond and the College of William and Mary in Virginia, he “played through” on March 1, 2022, surrounded by hi

When I was Director of Government Relations and Public Affairs (GRPA or GrrrrPaw...lovely acronym, eh?) at the Legal Services Corporation (LSC), we had a special relationship with the Supreme Court. Our Board Chairman, John Levy, was the son of the late Attorney General Ed Levy, the Gerald Ford appointee credited with returning the Department of Justice to its noble principles after the wreckage of the Nixon Administration. His Vice Chair was Martha Minnow, at the time Dean o

Karl Christian Rove, or “Turd Blossom” as he was christened by George W. Bush, is probably the most well-known Republican political strategist of our time, but it was his expertise in direct mail marketing that put me in the same room with him for the first time in the late spring of 1993. My dear friend Mike Gillette had reached out to his acquaintance and fellow Texan for advice on building a base of public support for the National Archives. While we had a small core of ver

It is a country of lively music, bright colors, old cars, cigars, rum, clothes lines, horses, smiling faces, enthusiastic greetings, umbrellas on sunny days, and baseball. It is a country of soldiers, police, poverty, starving dogs, buzzards, potholes, and surly desk clerks. Cuba is a tapestry of contrasts which demand flexibility and tolerance from all who land on its shore. The first thing that strikes you as you emerge from the airport are the cars. Our Miami guide Julio c