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Jay Paterno

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    Leveraging big ideas

    Is America exceptional? Yes. Perfect? No.

    Jay Paterno
    July 05, 2022
    Statue of Liberty
    Gary Hershorn/Getty Images

    Paterno, a former quarterbacks coach for Penn State University, ran for lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania in 2014 and consults on a variety of issues.

    “I don’t know who my grandfather was; I am more concerned to know what his grandson will be.” – Abraham Lincoln

    Earlier this month I was onboard a ship returning to dock in Bayonne, N.J. As the sun was rising to the east the ship was heading into New York Harbor under the Verrazzano-Narrrows Bridge. To the west was Staten Island and beyond that New Jersey. To the east as Brooklyn passed, the harbor opened up to Manhattan’s soaring skyline.

    My mind wandered to moments long ago that reside in my very own DNA, and in the DNA of countless others in America. So many millions of us are descended from immigrants that came to the United States, from across the ocean and through New York.

    Their minds were both full of doubt, but also with the wonder of that era’s New York skyline. It was the first landmark of a nation that represented a place of promise where they believed tomorrow could be anything they wanted it to be.

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    Big Picture

    Our poisonous age of absolutism

    Jay Paterno
    June 24, 2022
    Abortion rights and anti-abortion protestors at the Supreme Court

    An anti-abortion protestor confronts abortion rights activists during dueling rallies in front of the Supreme Court on Thursday.

    Nathan Howard/Getty Images

    Paterno, a former quarterbacks coach for Penn State University, ran for lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania in 2014 and consults on a variety of issues.

    To a nation already drunk on the partisan pursuit of absolutist politics, it appears likely that the Supreme Court is about to uncork a 1973 vintage from Grapes of Wrath Vineyards called “Renverser Roe v. Wade.” The landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision was a controversial ruling then; it has remained so. Overturning it will unleash a new round of contentious politics.

    This column is not about the legal merits of either side, but how this case adds fuel to the fire in our current age of 50.1 percent Absolutism.

    A decision to overturn Roe v. Wade will set off a nationwide scramble to win elections and grab the reins of power at the state and federal levels. And for the most vocal and visible sides of the issue there can be no compromise. But these days that seems to be the case for every issue.

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