Happy 4th of July 2022!!

Stay Dedicated To The Task…
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
—     Abraham Lincoln
Excerpt from:  “The Gettysburg Address“
[The italics in the text / quote were added by me.    —    kmab]
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On This Day In:
2021	Happy 4th of July 2021!!
	Self-Control, Liberty And Law
2020	Happy 4th of July 2020!!
2019	Happy 4th of July 2019!!
2018	Happy 4th of July 2018!!
	People Got to Be Free
2017	Happy 4th of July 2017!!
2016	Red, White And Blue BBQ
	Happy 4th of July 2016
	IMF’d (Marathon / Binge)
2015	Happy 4th of July 2015!!
2014	Happy 4th of July 2014!!
2013	Patriot Act, Anyone?
2012	Five Lost Wars
2011	Worth Fighting For
2010	Still Learnin’ Hard…
	4th of July 2010

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Happy 4th of July 2021!!

It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.
—    Confucius
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
—     Abraham Lincoln
Excerpt from:  “The Gettysburg Address“
[The italics in the text / quote were added by me.    —    kmab]
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On This Day In:
2020	Happy 4th of July 2020!!
2019	Happy 4th of July 2019!!
2018	Happy 4th of July 2018!!
	People Got to Be Free
2017	Happy 4th of July 2017!!
2016	Red, White And Blue BBQ
	Happy 4th of July 2016
	IMF’d (Marathon / Binge)
2015	Happy 4th of July 2015!!
2014	Happy 4th of July 2014!!
2013	Patriot Act, Anyone?
2012	Five Lost Wars
2011	Worth Fighting For
2010	Still Learnin’ Hard…
	4th of July 2010

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Plant Roots For A Hundred Years

Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow.  The shadow is what we think of it;  the tree is the real thing.
—    Abraham Lincoln
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On This Day In:
2021	Table Talk
	No One Left To Blame
2020	Plant Roots For A Hundred Years
	That Seat Is Taken
2019	Shining In The Dark
2018	Sometimes Wisdom, Too
2017	What Do I Know…
	Not Much Magic Here
2016	Rare Competition
2015	Now Where Did I Put That Thing?
2014	Reckoning
	Orange October (VIII) – Giants Win Game 1 Of 2014 World Series!!
2013	Trying To Capture Serenity
2012	Above The Vaulted Sky
2011	Active Learning

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Weaker, Sicker And Poorer

Mourning In America
You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.
—    President Abraham Lincoln
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On This Day In:
2022	But Don’t Forget It Either
2021	Appreciating Intricacy
	I Read It In A Fairy Tale
2020	Insensitive To Silence
	Weaker, Sicker And Poorer
2019	Don’t Be Small
2018	Persistence
2017	Are You A Loser?
2016	Constitution And Conscience
2015	Separate, Fearful And Imprisoned
2014	Something Worth Making
2013	Absolutely
2012	Can Do
2011	Wise Criticism

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Public Ridicule For Office Holder

Why Trump Only Goes Out In Public To His Own Rallies
Last night (27 October 2019), President Trump attended Game 5 of the World Series in Washington, D.C. between the Washington Nationals and the Houston Astros.  When introduced, the President was first booed by the crowd and then while pointing in his direction, the crowd began chanting “Lock him up!” repeatedly.  While politicians getting booed at baseball games (and other sports events) is nothing particularly newsworthy, it is notable (and a bit saddening) that Trump has so shamed the office that a crowd would chant to have him incarcerated on a televised event being seen around the world.
We can draw a line from Reagan’s line:  “Government is the problem!” to Joe Wilson’s:  “You lie!” at President Obama’s 2009 State of the Union Speech to a crowd shouting to “lock up” a sitting President.  When the general public is encouraged to disrespect the government and our elected officials, “We the People” all become a little less civil and a little less secure in our own liberties.
While I personally believe candidate Trump did conspire / collude with the Russians to influence the 2016 election and while I believe President Trump has continued to commit crimes (obstruct justice) and violate his Oath of Office, I am more dismayed “the Office” has been brought down in public opinion this way and is now subject to ridicule in front of the world.  If Trump is not impeached and subsequently removed from Office between now and November 2020, I hope the next election provides our nation with a President who can both bring respect back for the Office and (more importantly) give us “a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.“
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On This Day In:
2021	Why We Have So Few Personal Favorites
	I Would Have Liked You Anyway
2020	Why We Must Vote #45 Out
	If You Believe
2019	Sometimes I Still Have Trouble Sleeping
	Public Ridicule For Office Holder
2018	And Flights Of Fancy
	Dodgers Lose 2nd Consecutive World Series!!
2017	By Their Acts Thy Shall Know Them
2016	Remembering
2015	One
2014	Sure Experiments And Demonstrated Arguments
2013	Irrational Complacency
2012	Why Criticize?
	Giants Sweep 2012 World Series With Game 4 Win (4 To 3)!!!
2011	Saying Just Enough
2010	Giants Win Game 2 Shutout of Rangers – 9 to 0!!!

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Dominoes Or Jenga?

The first of many?   …  Special Representative for Ukraine:  Kurt Volker resigns.
The starting list:
While I’m 99% positive an impeachment trial of #CriminalDonald will fail in the Senate (Thank You, “Moscow Mitch” McConnell), it will be interesting to see what effect the Republican cowardice in the face of Presidential criminal activity will have on the elections in November 2020.  And to think, there was once a time when I could admire (not support or agree with, but admire) a principled Republican (Barry Goldwater, Howard Baker, Everett Dirksen).   Dwight Eisenhower, Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt (Republicans and Presidents I could agree with) must be turning over in their graves.
I recall an image from my childhood (“Weeping Lincoln”  –  Bill Mauldin’s famous cartoon about the JFK assassination) and, somehow, it seems equally appropriate today:
A Criminal In The Oval Office:  Another Reason To Cry
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On This Day In:
2021	An Impossible Situation
	I Fear It Is (For Us If Not The Planet)
2020	#45 Never Shuts Up
	Walkin’ In The Rain With The One I Love
2019	Silly Pooh Bear
	Dominoes Or Jenga?
2018	Very Few
2017	Or The Candidate Who…
2016	The Happiest People
2015	Jumping Into The Dark
2014	I Would Be Sillier
2013	It Keeps Happening Anyway
2012	Take Time
2011	A Mother’s Lesson
2010	3rd Pair – Shoe Review (DOA and Final)

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Duration Unknown

[The subject for this interview was Retired General James Mattis (Gen. Mattis was also Secretary of Defense serving from January 20, 2017 to January 1, 2019).  The answers are regarding the racially motivated mass shooting in El Paso and his feelings about politics in America…    —     kmab]
About El Paso he said:  “You know, on that day we were all Hispanics.  That’s the way we have to think about this.  If it happens to any one of us, it happens to all of us.”
But about this treacherous political moment?
“You’ve got to avoid looking at what’s happening in isolation from everything else,” he said.  “We can’t hold what Trump is doing in isolation.  We’ve got to address the things that put him there in the first place.”  Mattis speaks often about affection:  the affection that commanders feel for their soldiers, and that soldiers ought to feel for one another  —  and the affection that Americans should feel for one another and for their country but often, these days, don’t.  “ ’With malice toward none, with charity for all,’ ” he said.  “Lincoln said that in the middle of a war.  In the middle of a war!  He could see beyond the hatred of the moment.”
I thought back to what he’d told me earlier in the summer, when I had asked him to describe something Trump could say or do that would trigger him to launch a frontal attack on the president.  He’d demurred, as I had expected.  But then he’d issued a caveat:  “There is a period in which I owe my silence.  It’s not eternal.  It’s not going to be forever.”
—     Jeffrey Goldberg
Excerpt from his article:  “The Man Who Couldn’t Take It Anymore“
The article appears in:  “The Atlantic Magazine”  https://www.theatlantic.com/
And the article is online at:  https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/10/james-mattis-trump/596665/
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On This Day In:
2021	A Little Forgetfulness
	Thoughts While Driving To Work
2020	Making Potential Come True
	Predating / Predicting Nerdhood
2019	Duration Unknown
	Day 6: Almost There
2018	Just Trying To Be Me
	Day 39: Half This Game Is 90% Mental
2017	A Letter To 45
	Some Small Place
2016	REDs
2015	Cities
2014	Still
2013	Dare = Hope
2012	Check My Math
2011	Just Asking

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#ContinueToResist

To sin by silence when they should protest, makes cowards of human beings.
—    Abraham Lincoln
[It is vitally important to continue resisting the programs of President Trump and the Republican Senate.  It is equally important to support the Democratic control of the House of Representatives.  Remember, if there is no clear election in the Electoral College in 2020, the decision of who will be the next President will fall to the House of Representatives.  I believe this is what the Republicans were actually hoping for when the “Anyone but Trump” Republican movement went silent.  They didn’t have to get Trump elected President in the popular vote.  The Republicans only had to tie up the Electoral College.  In which case, Paul Ryan most probably would have been “elected” President.  One:  he was the Republican VP nominee in the prior election (2012).  Normally, when the ticket fails, the VP choice is the next one in line to be put forward.  And, two:  Ryan was the Speaker of the House, which means he was already the “prime” person to be elevated from the House to the Oval Office.  When (in 2016) Florida went to the Republicans and the House was retained by the Republicans, they only needed one of the Rust Belt states and South Carolina to stop Clinton, irrespective of her national popular vote count.  The same conditions will be true in 2020, if the Republicans can somehow flip the House back to their control.
Added to that (final control of the Presidential election), the House also has primary responsibility for seat reapportionment after the 2020 census.  If Republicans flip control back (to themselves) they will use even more gerrymandering to reduce the value of the popular vote.  (Of course, this presumes the Republicans retain control of the majority of the State Houses, too.  Since they control 32 States to the Dems 14, it seems likely they will.)  Don’t misinterpret me.  The Democratic Party will also gerrymander, but they “generally” do so to increase the value of the popular vote.  They (the Democrats) “only” do this because the demographics of the future favor the the Democratic Party.  Basically, older (mostly white male) voters are dying and the younger voters (across all genders, ethnic breakdown, income and education levels) replacing them on the voting roles are trending to the Democratic Party.  And without newer ideas, the Conservative / Republican Party will continue to wither away.  IMHO:  It is only “Dark Money” and the Citizens United decision which have propped the Republican Party up this far.
A word to the wise should suffice…   Stay engaged locally.   #Resist   —    kmab]
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On This Day In:
2022	End The Filibuster
2021	Be Creative, Question Assumptions
	By No Means
2020	I’ll Eat To That (Gemütlichkeit)
	To The Front
2019	#ContinueToResist
	Except Willful Ignorance And Prideful Stupidity
2018	More Executive Time For #DumbDonald
2017	Watched The Inauguration
	Two Geniuses
2016	Come Dance And Laugh With Me
2015	Looks Good To Me
2014	Desire For The Sea
2013	The Fierce Urgency Of NOW
	Happy Inauguration Day!
2012	One Path
	Sorrow And Joy
	The Seven Year View
2011	Emergent Practicality

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#45: Whitewalkers Tremble, Treason Is Forever

Life is for one generation; a good name is forever.
—    Japanese Proverb
America will never be destroyed from the outside.  If we falter, and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
—    Abraham Lincoln
[A message to Donald Trump – who conspired with the Russians to defraud the American public and win the Presidency in the 2016 election:  A life of wealth and privilege which was granted to you by your father will soon be sacrificed on the altar of your ego, incompetence and criminal hubris.  You will be driven from office either by election or by impeachment.  And you will have to live with THAT and the judgement of history.
Mueller is coming…   He is carrying Valyrian steel (truth) and bringing Dragonglass (justice).   …And winter (your Administration) is almost over!    —    kmab]
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On This Day In:
2022	Living In The Big Lie With A Loser
2021	An Obligation To Condemn Is Not An Obligation To Ban
	Caught In The Rain
2020	Me Too
2019	#45: Whitewalkers Tremble, Treason Is Forever
2018	Light Or Darkness
2017	Doubtful Education
2016	Absolute
2015	Still The Best Teacher
2014	Inside The Soul
2013	A Toe In The River
2012	Believe It Or Not
2011	The Road To Recovery (And More Myths)

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My Religion

When I do good, I feel good.  When I do bad, I feel bad.  That’s my religion.
—      Abraham Lincoln
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On This Day In:
2017	Adrift In The Oval Office
	Regrets – The Donald Failed The Test
2016	Just Ask “The Donald”
2015	Did You Pass On It?
2014	Even When It Ain’t, It Is
2013	Still Happens
2012	Possessing Eternity
2011	I Thought We Were Talking About Afghanistan

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Mirror, Mirror

It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.
—    President Abraham Lincoln
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On This Day In:
2022	Full Of It
2021	I’m Still Learning To Play
	What Are You Looking For?
2020	All You Can
2019	No Wall And Not One Dollar
	‘Cause It Makes Me Scratch
2018	Mirror, Mirror
2017	Keep On Keeping On
2016	Reflections
2015	Is It Time Yet?
2014	Ask Any Follower
2013	Cornered Or Surrounded?
2012	Escape
2011	Achievement
	Not Unreasonable Enough

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Satisfied

I am satisfied that when the Almighty wants me to do or not do any particular thing, He finds a way of letting me know it.
—    Abraham Lincoln
[I call it “Faith”.    —    kmab]
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On This Day In:
2022	The Fight Continues…
2021	Short, Swift, Haste
	Another Friend’s Passing
2020	Can We At Least Set The Bar Higher Than An Incompetent Liar In The Oval Office?
2019	Uncertain Times
	And Government Shutdowns, Too
2018	Satisfied
2017	In The Mind
2016	Dreaming
2015	The Best Medicine Is Also Contagious
2014	Eyes Off
2013	The More Things Change…
2012	The Delicate Moment Of Giving
2011	Ready, Shoot, Aim!!

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Just Asking

Every tyrant who has lived has believed in freedom for himself.
—   Elbert Hubbard
[Despite almost 50 years history of Presidential candidates releasing their tax returns, President-elect Trump now says he won’t release his tax returns while he is under audit.   He has never offered proof he is under audit and the IRS is not allowed to discuss / confirm if he is under audit.  They are not allowed to do so for any person without the person’s permission.  Trump could authorize the IRS to confirm the audit and state which years are being audited.  He refuses to even do this.  Why not?  What is he hiding?  I’m not in the press, but I want to know…
Trump said he would completely set aside his business interests because he was (now) more interested in becoming President and helping this country become great again.  At one of the Republican debates, Trump said running his business was “peanuts” compared to the Presidency.  Now, he will not do this (divest his business interests).  His attorney states that no one should expect him to destroy the business he has spent his whole life building just because he is President.  Why is selling off his assets “destroying the business” if they are worth billions which would then be placed in a blind trust?  Since he is such a great negotiator, would he not get a great price for them?  Are they not worth billions?
Trump is “ceding” control of his company to his sons, but he retains the right to fire them if they don’t do a great job.  Of course there are those nasty little things called gift taxes, so he can’t “give” the assets to his kids without the assets being valued and taxed.  And we all know it’s “stupid” to pay taxes.  The key to a blind trust is that you don’t know what’s going on.  How is it “blind” if you must know what they’re doing in order to judge if they are doing a great job?
Trump is refusing to sell off assets which might lead to a conflict of interest.  Instead he proposes to “gift” to the U.S. Treasury any profits received from foreign governments for the use of his assets.  Of course, he hasn’t said how his company intends to determine “profit” or how it will be independently verified.  Since he is a pathological liar, why should we trust him?
President Kennedy got his brother Robert appointed Attorney General of the United States.  Congress subsequently passed a law to prevent future nepotism in high offices.  Trump wants to appoint his son-in-law as a senior counselor to the President.  If you want to talk to a family member and get his advice, why does the U.S. taxpayer have to pay for it?
Questions big and small…  Just asking?   —    kmab]
You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.
―    President Abraham Lincoln
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On This Day In:
2022	Do It
2021	The Honor Is To Serve…
	I Don’t Know That I Will
	Only So Long
2020	Each Meaning
2019	The Deep End
	Is Anyone ELSE Out There Listening?
2018	Defining Characteristic
2017	Just Asking
2016	Still A Burden
	15 And Counting
2015	All A Game
2014	Two Thoughts
2013	RIP – Dear Abby
	Half-Life Problems
2012	To The Soul…
2011	Reverted!!

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A Labor Day / Pre-Election Hope

We are not enemies, but friends.  We must not be enemies.  Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection.  The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
—     Abraham Lincoln
From his first inaugural address
Delivered on Monday, March 4, 1861
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On This Day In:
2021	Losing One’s Edge
	Can I Get An Up Front Seat?
2020	Are You Sure?
	Who Could It Be?
2019	Living Art
	Day 7: Week 1 – Mathematics
2018	Hey, #45: Are We Sick Of Winning, Yet?
	Day 40: Wrists
2017	Heart Vision
2016	A Labor Day / Pre-Election Hope
	Trust Me, Too
2015	Without Hope
	Things Known And Unknown
2014	A Wall Too High, A Bridge Too Far
2013	Glory = Danger
	Chicago Magic
	Feelin’ It
2012	How Did We Get Here?
2011	Labor Day Weekend Mishmash
	More, More, More

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Sometimes Even Kneeling Seems Insufficient

I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go.  My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day.
—   Abraham Lincoln
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On This Day In:
2021	You Really Are
	What You Want
2020	So Far The Only Burden Shifted Has Been The Cost
	Rockin’ The Hammond
2019	The Powers Of Mind
	Day 10: Into Double Digits
2018	Up For Progress
	Day 1.5: Done (For Now)
2017	And Second By Second
2016	Bakeries And Coffee Shops
2015	Spirit Not Form
2014	Sometimes Even Kneeling Seems Insufficient
2013	Hobgoblins
2012	Got Sleep?
2011	Not Another Barren Corner

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