Recent Honesty Commentaries

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In Treatment
As Mr. Lichtman’s recovery specialist, he asked if I would I apprise his readers as to his health and welfare. As many of you who have followed Jim’s commentaries over the past eighteen months know, he has spent an ungodly amount of time examining and writing about President Trump. It became obvious, to both Jim and treatment specialists at The...
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July 30, 2018
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The Ethical Take: The Truth is Out There Edition
The words and actions of this unprecedented president, and his cronies continue to chip away at our most fundamental values. Carter Page – After the release of a 400-page FBI document, Page, a “campaign advisor” to the Trump campaign, declared that he was not an “informal advisor” to the Kremlin. According to the document, the FBI believed Page was “the...
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July 27, 2018
Featured image for “Who is Richard Painter and Why is He Saying All Those Terrible Things About President Trump?”
Who is Richard Painter and Why is He Saying All Those Terrible Things About President Trump?
Richard Painter served for two years as George W. Bush’s ethics counsel. Since Donald Trump took office however, he’s frequently spoken out about Trump’s ethical lapses on cable news shows. Painter, along with Norm Eisen, Obama’s ethics counsel, have made clear that this president is perhaps the most ethically conflicted of the past 100 years. Last Sunday’s (July 1), New...
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July 9, 2018
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Truth, Trust and the Media
Approximately 20 minutes into a one-on-one conversation with PBS NewsHour anchor Judy Woodruff last month, CBS 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl revealed something that Donald Trump told her in a pre-interview conversation. “At one point,” Stahl said, “he started to attack the press, and I said, ‘You know, that is getting tired. Why are you doing this? … You’ve won...
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June 25, 2018
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The Insider
Today, the news cycle is likely to be consumed by the summit meeting between President Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jung-un. To regular visitors to this site, you might be surprised to hear me say that I’m hoping things go well for both sides, truly. But, while Trump’s “crazy man” gambit may pay off, this commentary is about what Trump,...
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June 11, 2018
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When is an Apology an Apology?
On Tuesday’s Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Bill Clinton tried to explain his fumbled apology to Monica Lewinsky in response to a question by an NBC reporter the previous day. Colbert offers Clinton a “do-over.” “Here’s what I want to say: It wasn’t my finest hour, but the important thing is, that was a very painful thing, 20 years ago,...
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June 8, 2018
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Character and Commitment
During a 2008 presidential campaign town hall held for John McCain, a woman in the audience looked the senior senator from Arizona in the eye and said, ‘I can’t trust Obama. I have read about him, and he’s not, — he’s an Arab.” McCain respectfully took the microphone away from her, shook his head and responded, “No ma’am. He’s a...
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May 28, 2018
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The Truth Still Needs Allies
On December 4, 2017, 28-year old Edgar Maddison Welch, of Salisbury, N.C. was arrested after he terrorized customers of Comet Ping Pong, a pizza restaurant in Washington, DC. “When police arrived,” NBC News reported (Mar. 24), “Welch admitted driving to Washington with three loaded weapons, responding to a baseless internet conspiracy claim, known as ‘Pizzagate,’ that the …restaurant was involved...
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May 25, 2018
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How Does the Country Come Together? Conclusion
“What really makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other kind of dictatorship to rule is that the people are not informed. If everyone always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but that no one believes anything at all anymore.” German-born American political theorist and philosopher Hannah Arendt spoke those words in a...
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May 21, 2018
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How Does the Country Come Together?
The genesis for this series began when I read a Forbes article, Trump’s Support Is More About the Personal, Not the Ideological (May 6), authored by pollster and friend John Zogby. It led me to search for the answer to two questions: How do we reconcile the divisiveness of Trump with our values as Americans? How does the country come...
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May 16, 2018