Recent Responsibility Commentaries

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All the President’s Voter Fraud
At a campaign rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin last year, then-candidate Trump said, “Now remember, we’re competing in a rigged election. This is a rigged election, folks, okay?” An October 16, 2016 Trump tweet: “The election is absolutely being rigged by the dishonest and distorted media pushing Crooked Hillary – but also at many polling places – SAD.” Even on...
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April 14, 2017
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Sexual Harassment: the Silence That Continues
In a 2016 memoir, Settle for More, former Fox News Anchor Megyn Kelly explains why she didn’t come forward sooner about the sexual harassment she faced at the hands of former Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes. In an interview with ABC News journalist George Stephanopoulos (Nov. 15, 2016), “…Kelly said she did not come forward sooner… because it would have...
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April 12, 2017
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The O’Reilly Malefactor
The extent to which some individuals in powerful positions will force that power on others in the workplace, time and time again, is shocking. And the corporate culture that protects those individuals – typically due to an enhanced revenue stream – is  reprehensible. E.g.: Bill O’Reilly – Malefactor-in-Chief. “O’Reilly,” The New York Times reported (Apr. 1), “has been Fox News’s...
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April 10, 2017
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The Cost of a “Judgment Call”
In 2005, I was invited to speak on ethics at a prominent university. I was escorted to a site on campus where the room was packed with students, teachers and administrators. I take my place at a table down in front near the podium for a luncheon that preceded my talk. An official in the room leans over and tells...
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March 27, 2017
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Biiiiig Mistake!
Don’t do it! That’s my advice to Senate Democrats who seem to be ready, willing and very able to filibuster a confirmation vote on Supreme Court Nominee Neil Gorsuch. “While a parade of witnesses spoke in the committee room,” The New York Times writes (Mar. 23), “[Senate Minority Leader Chuck] Schumer went to the Senate floor and announced that he...
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March 24, 2017
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La La Land
No, this is not about the Academy Award-winning musical that takes place in a fabled land where fanciful dancers prance on a stalled Los Angeles freeway off-ramp. This is about a real place that’s becoming less articulate as the weeks pass, where fanciful “facts” are fabricated for the woefully and willfully ignorant. If the Trump presidency were a Hollywood movie,...
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March 1, 2017
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“…democracy versus a dictatorship.”
In an unprecedented move, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer last Friday, barred “journalists from the New York Times, CNN, Politico and BuzzFeed—which have been criticized by President Donald Trump and his administration for their reporting—from [an off-camera press briefing]. Reporters from the Associated Press and Time Magazine boycotted the event in protest,” The Wall Street Journal reported (Feb. 24)....
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February 27, 2017
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Sunlight
Milo Yiannopoulos is an obnoxious, loud-mouthed, hate-spewing – now, former editor of Breitbart “News” (quotations added because the organization is known to publish falsehoods and conspiracy theories, as well as intentionally misleading stories). In love with the First Amendment, Yiannopoulos firmly believes that his right to free speech trumps… anything else (well, almost), and that’s one reason why HBO comedian...
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February 24, 2017
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Long-Term Solution to Terrorism
While news stories about extremism and terrorism abound — infiltration, online radicalization, lone wolf attacks, etc. — these are symptoms. The real question is, how do we address the disease of terrorism itself? The answer to that question has seen little public attention. In his book, The Great War of Our Time, former deputy director of the CIA Michael Morell...
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February 22, 2017
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What Could be Bad About Tester’s Plan?
It’s getting harder and harder to keep politicians accountable, particularly when it comes to financial contributions. That’s where Montana Senator Jon Tester’s plan comes in. In a story researched and written by the Center for Public Integrity – a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative media organization in Washington, DC – earlier this month (Feb. 2), “Tester’s legislation… would require US Senate candidates...
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February 17, 2017