Why #DonTheCon Hates, Belittles And Fires Honest Government Employees

Hatred is the coward’s revenge for being intimidated.
―  George Bernard Shaw
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On This Day In:
2019	What Do You Want?
2018	Wakanda Forever
	I’d Be Happy With Another Score (Or So)
2017	In Defense Of A Free Press
2016	Lost Opportunity
2015	Are You Listening Ladies?
2014	Practice, Practice, Practice
2013	A Fist Full Of Confusion
2012	Teaching Faith
2011	The Heart Of Terror
	The Proportion Of Gravity And Probability

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Decide, Support, Vote

The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.
―  Ralph Waldo Emerson
[The only country we can ever become is the one we decide to support and then vote for.  —  KMAB]
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On This Day In:
2019	Aware Some
2018	Know Any Christians?
2017	The Only Thing I Can Give…
2016	Wiser But Less Cocksure
2015	Not Today
	Wicked
2014	…Am Too
2013	Credible?
2012	Both
2011	Risking Hidden Linkage

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Until November… Then Vote

Lighten up, just enjoy life, smile more, laugh more, and don’t get so worked up about things.
—  Kenneth Branagh
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On This Day In:
2019	Start With Health And Friends
	Iterum Vale Tres*
2018	Tweets From The Disrupter-In-Chief
2017	Do We Still Listen To Her Silent Lips?
	Not Now, Not Ever
2016	Why Do You Write/Blog?
2015	Can Your Repeat The Question, Please?
2014	On Faith
2013	My Name Is Charles Stein
2012	Faiths And Sorcery
	Made And Kept Free
2011	Multi-Source Learning

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A Steep Price Ahead

If you don’t figure out how to make things work from a broader societal perspective, you will pay a steep price for many years.
—  Brad Smith
President, Microsoft Corp.
As quoted by: Romesh Ratnesar
In his article: “Trust“
Appearing in Time Magazine,  dtd:  16 September 2019
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On This Day In:
2019	Eureka!
2018	Learning About My Humanity
2017	Laugh Or Shake Your Head
2016	The Expected Cure
2015	Of Two Minds
2014	Pride And Remembrance
2013	Repeating Bad Memories
2012	No Sooner
2011	Just Cheesy!
	Are You Illin’?

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A Simple Fact

It’s a simple fact that technology has been weaponized by private companies against democracy.  Corporations are not people.  They don’t have souls.  They’re institutions designed to make money.  And the way the government has always dealt with them is to regulate them to the point where they cease being dangerous to the public.
—  Barry C. Lynn
Executive Director
Open Markets Institute
As quoted by: Romesh Ratnesar
In his article: “Trust“
Appearing in Time Magazine,  dtd:  16 September 2019
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On This Day In:
2019	Does Terrible But Not Important Count?
2018	Have You Stretched Today?
	The Original
2017	Being Nice
2016	Zero To Some = Most
2015	Born More Obligated
2014	Rage And Fury
2013	Successful Children
2012	For God So Loved The World
2011	Go Cheeseheads!!
	Structured Mentality

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One Person (Republican) Can Make A Majority

5 February 2020
ROMNEY SPEECH (AS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY) REGARDING HIS VOTE TO CONFIRM THE IMPEACHMENT OF PRESIDENT TRUMP:
The Constitution is at the foundation of our Republic’s success, and we each strive not to lose sight of our promise to defend it.  The Constitution established the vehicle of impeachment that has occupied both houses of Congress for these many days.  We have labored to faithfully execute our responsibilities to it.  We have arrived at different judgments, but I hope we respect each other’s good faith.
The allegations made in the articles of impeachment are very serious.  As a Senator-juror, I swore an oath, before God, to exercise “impartial justice.”  I am a profoundly religious person.  I take an oath before God as enormously consequential.  I knew from the outset that being tasked with judging the President, the leader of my own party, would be the most difficult decision I have ever faced.  I was not wrong.
The House Managers presented evidence supporting their case; the White House counsel disputed that case.  In addition, the President’s team presented three defenses: first, that there can be no impeachment without a statutory crime; second, that the Bidens’ conduct justified the President’s actions; and third that the judgement of the President’s actions should be left to the voters. Let me first address each of those defenses.
The historic meaning of the words “high crimes and misdemeanors,” the writings of the Founders and my own reasoned judgement convince me that a president can indeed commit acts against the public trust that are so egregious that while they are not statutory crimes, they would demand removal from office.  To maintain that the lack of a codified and comprehensive list of all the outrageous acts that a president might conceivably commit renders Congress powerless to remove a president defies reason.
The President’s counsel noted that Vice President Biden appeared to have a conflict of interest when he undertook an effort to remove the Ukrainian Prosecutor General.  If he knew of the exorbitant compensation his son was receiving from a company actually under investigation, the Vice President should have recused himself.  While ignoring a conflict of interest is not a crime, it is surely very wrong.
With regards to Hunter Biden, taking excessive advantage of his father’s name is unsavory but also not a crime.  Given that in neither the case of the father nor the son was any evidence presented by the President’s counsel that a crime had been committed, the President’s insistence that they be investigated by the Ukrainians is hard to explain other than as a political pursuit.  There is no question in my mind that were their names not Biden, the President would never have done what he did.
The defense argues that the Senate should leave the impeachment decision to the voters.  While that logic is appealing to our democratic instincts, it is inconsistent with the Constitution’s requirement that the Senate, not the voters, try the president.  Hamilton explained that the Founders’ decision to invest senators with this obligation rather than leave it to voters was intended to minimize — to the extent possible — the partisan sentiments of the public.
This verdict is ours to render.  The people will judge us for how well and faithfully we fulfilled our duty.  The grave question the Constitution tasks senators to answer is whether the President committed an act so extreme and egregious that it rises to the level of a “high crime and misdemeanor.”
Yes, he did.
The President asked a foreign government to investigate his political rival.
The President withheld vital military funds from that government to press it to do so.
The President delayed funds for an American ally at war with Russian invaders.
The President’s purpose was personal and political.
Accordingly, the President is guilty of an appalling abuse of the public trust.
What he did was not “perfect” — No, it was a flagrant assault on our electoral rights, our national security interests, and our fundamental values.  Corrupting an election to keep oneself in office is perhaps the most abusive and destructive violation of one’s oath of office that I can imagine.
In the last several weeks, I have received numerous calls and texts.  Many demand that, in their words, “I stand with the team.”  I can assure you that that thought has been very much on my mind.  I support a great deal of what the President has done.  I have voted with him 80% of the time.  But my promise before God to apply impartial justice required that I put my personal feelings and biases aside.  Were I to ignore the evidence that has been presented, and disregard what I believe my oath and the Constitution demands of me for the sake of a partisan end, it would, I fear, expose my character to history’s rebuke and the censure of my own conscience.
I am aware that there are people in my party and in my state who will strenuously disapprove of my decision, and in some quarters, I will be vehemently denounced.  I am sure to hear abuse from the President and his supporters.  Does anyone seriously believe I would consent to these consequences other than from an inescapable conviction that my oath before God demanded it of me?
I sought to hear testimony from John Bolton not only because I believed he could add context to the charges, but also because I hoped that what he said might raise reasonable doubt and thus remove from me the awful obligation to vote for impeachment.
Like each member of this deliberative body, I love our country. I believe that our Constitution was inspired by Providence.  I am convinced that freedom itself is dependent on the strength and vitality of our national character.  As it is with each senator, my vote is an act of conviction.  We have come to different conclusions, fellow senators, but I trust we have all followed the dictates of our conscience.
I acknowledge that my verdict will not remove the President from office.  The results of this Senate Court will in fact be appealed to a higher court: the judgement of the American people.  Voters will make the final decision, just as the President’s lawyers have implored.  My vote will likely be in the minority in the Senate.  But irrespective of these things, with my vote, I will tell my children and their children that I did my duty to the best of my ability, believing that my country expected it of me.  I will only be one name among many, no more or less, to future generations of Americans who look at the record of this trial.  They will note merely that I was among the senators who determined that what the President did was wrong, grievously wrong.
We’re all footnotes at best in the annals of history.  But in the most powerful nation on earth, the nation conceived in liberty and justice, that is distinction enough for any citizen.
Senator Mitt Romney
(R) Utah
[I was torn between titling this post as “Profile In Courage” and / or “A Candle In The Wind“.  In the end, I chose to emphasize the individuality of the speech / act rather than the courage of the decision or the political precariousness of the position.  I believe history will judge Mitt Romney as more than just a “footnote” and somewhere there is a dad (George W. Romney) looking down on his son with pride.    —  KMAB]
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On This Day In:
2019	Hopefully, Closer To Noon
	Can You See The Bottom?
2018	Stock Market Sets Another Record Under #DumbDonald
	#LyingDonald: About That Special Prosecutor Testimony
2017	We Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet
2016	But You Have To Learn It Feels Good
2015	Never Stop
2014	Caution
2013	Treat Her Like A Lady
2012	Build New Worlds
2011	I Grok Elegance
	Standing Relish

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Morally Treasonable

Free speech, exercised both individually and through a free press, is a necessity in any country where the people are themselves free.  Our Government is the servant of the people, whereas in Germany it is the master of the people.  This is because the American people are free and the German people are not free.
The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants.  He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the nation as a whole.  Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly as necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right.  Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile.  To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.  Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else.  But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.
—  Republican President Theodore (“Teddy”) Roosevelt
[This is the third time I’ve posted a “version” (longer or shorter, NOT edited / modified) of this quote by President Roosevelt.  It strikes me as ironic that last time the post was titled “Unpatriotic And Servile“, but here I am again, complaining about Republicans.  One of the other two was ONLY about “Tea-Party”ers.  I guess it’s true that history repeats itself.  Particularly when the “Party” doesn’t learn – or even acknowledge – its lesson the first time around.  And, yes, the emphasis is mine and does not appear in the original.  —  KMAB]
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On This Day In:
2019	Lost Again Or Still?
2018	Why #LazyDonald Starts Work At 11AM
2017	At Least Most Of The Time
2016	But Doctor, I Never Learned How To Read
2015	Punch The Keys, For God’s Sake!
2014	Ouch!
2013	Revelations
2012	Movies And Juicing
	Brady Gets #4 (Prediction)
	Happy To Get Up
2011	What About Good Blogs?
2010	Slowly, Slowly…

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