An Oval Office Orgy Averted?

 

The U.S. Constitution’s authors built in multiple provisions designed to prevent a sitting U.S. president from becoming a tyrant. Sounds good enough until we consider a musty, dusty Department of Justice legal precedent, which essentially said to all president tyrant wannabes, “More power to you!”

A few details: Back in 1973, the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel ruled that a criminal case brought against a sitting prez “would interfere with the President’s unique official duties, most of which cannot be performed by anyone else.”

To say the most: Just what we need… a mangy, bad-ass, scum of the Earth thug holed up in the Oval Office.

To say the least: That DOJ ruling does not translate out well within Trumpian Times.

Let’s scrutinize Donny’s “unique ‘official’ duties”…

∞ Vegging out, daily and nightly, in front of his TV… cheering on his sycophantic, ego stroking, talking head idols over at FOX.

∞ Constantly playing hooky / golf at the taxpayers’ expense (Air Force One flight crews / fuel AND Secret Service protection don’t [sic] come cheap).

Hmm… are these really, Really REALLY “duties” that “cannot be performed by anyone else”?

The only real up side to Donny’s avocations is how they interfere with his present-day vocation.

Considering his ongoing ♥ ♥ ♥ love affair ♥ ♥ ♥ with all things autocratic, GAWD HELP US ALL were this slacker to ever start applying himself.

Hell, there would be an Ideological Oval Office Orgy where he’d wind up effing America into Fascism.

 

 

 

 

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Wouldn’t Touch That With a 10-Foot Pole?

 

Nearly four decades ago, on a cold, grey, rainy, overcast day, I found myself pounding the pavement ISO employment totally irrelevant to my God given talents. If all went “well” I’d soon be punching retail world’s time clock and giving my all to some employer who’d be giving me next to nothing in return… paying me $2.65 per hour minimum wage. With unemployment being at a then all-time high, I was fully expecting to wind up “drowning” in the sea of applicant faces.

It was late that afternoon, while filling out my application (along with a couple of other wannabes) when, Diane, our prospective boss, came over to chat with us. She had a problem. As it turned out, the three of us comprised fifty percent of all who had shown up for the entire day! She was wondering if we could remember some of the specific details of her help wanted ad’s content.

While reaching into my suit coat’s inner pocket I cheerfully said, “I can do better than that,” adding, “How about all of the details?” as I produced the actual, neatly clipped out newspaper ad.

Long blog short, I got the job. Logically, I had attributed my “success” to the fact that so few people had applied… but that wasn’t really the case. Following the second run of my boss’s help wanted ad, applicant response had been far better.

Well, it wasn’t until about six months afterwards when I found out the real reason. On that day, as Diane and I chatted while unpacking and merchandising a new shipment of Levis™, she told me that she had considered my pre-interview, eager to help attitude (even without any guarantee that she’d be hiring me), the living embodiment of the excellent customer service I’d be providing on the selling floor. And I spent the next 20 years working for the same company… amply proving her assessment of my character had been spot-on.

My overall point being? Each and every day, without even consciously doing so, each and everyone of us winds up putting our true character on display… and the people we meet can and do evaluate us when we’re least expecting it.

Case in point? My 90-year-young next-door neighbors¹ have employed a professional groundskeeper. The man usually parks in front of my house and uses my lower driveway to enter their property perched atop his rider lawnmower.

Well, a few days ago, following an overnight, gusty rainstorm, a thin, 3 m / 10 ft. long branch… weighing a scant 0.9 kg / 2 lbs. (tops)… had fallen and blocked access to my driveway. This left that lawn care dude the following options:

1. Easily snap the branch in half and toss it onto his truck’s long empty trailer.
2. Quickly slide the branch onto my lawn to get it out of his way.
3. Totally avoid all the “extra work” and use his clients’ driveway instead.

Had our roles been reversed, at the very least, I would’ve opted for choice “2”.

Need I even say that he chose option “3”? True, I fully realize he was under no obligation to do any work for any non-paying customer… but he did demonstrate to me a level of pettiness, which is most unbecoming of any truly professional businessperson. Moreover, might such an attitude be a reflection of his overall work ethic? After all… don’t customer care and lawn care go hand in hand?

Now, just for the record, I’m neither a lazy man nor did I even come close to working up a sweat re the disposal of that downed branch.

Nonetheless, this incident did provide me an excellent study in human nature… and I did learn much. Needless to say, I was not impressed.

You see, there may come a time, as I get older, where I might need to hire someone to maintain my lawn. And I’m not entirely sure my neighbor’s groundskeeper would be my first choice anymore.

How that guy dealt with that 10 foot long branch begs the question… would I… would you… choose to “touch” such a petty lawn care service (or any other such business firm) with a 10 foot pole?

 

 

¹ I say “young” because upon meeting them, you’d judge them to be in their 60s.

 

 

Remembering Our First Job

 

Most of us can fondly recall the very first time we ever heard those magic words, “You’re hired!” In our younger days, when our résumés presented no appreciable work history, landing that first job depended more upon how well we had answered the interviewer’s questions… especially those queries specifically designed to help evaluate the level of each applicant’s work ethic, intellectual curiosity and personal integrity.

Indeed, to harbor such virtues was (hopefully still is) to earn each prospective boss’s trust… allay her/his legitimate concerns that we might be unable to meet the company’s expectations.

Of course, next came our very first day on the job… typically starting with the probationary phase where we’d remain under the constant, watchful gaze of superiors… where it’d be totally up to us to prove and improve our talents… to meet and exceed said expectations… in short… to earn our keep.

Well, nowadays, when it comes down to “hiring” / electing our representatives to government positions… well… long sigh… sad to say… it seems that expectations-wise, the bar has become set really, Really, REALLY low.

For proof, one need not look far. There’s an extraordinarily, inexperienced new hire punching the Oval Office time clock. If he, indeed, actually possesses even a minimally genuine work ethic, even a smattering of intellectual curiosity and one milligram of personal integrity… well… he’s certainly doing his very damnedest to totally deep six any evidence such virtues exist within his psyche. More to the point…

1. So far… he has taken an inordinate number of (golfing) breaks, which I suppose is not all bad. After all, it’s whenever he IS “on the job” that the real damage begins. His idea of “a job well done” is to mass-produce chaos. More specifically… his battle plan is to unleash economic and ecological devastation… belittle and browbeat society’s young, disabled, aged and ailing… taunt, demean, objectify and assault women… harass and dehumanize the LGBTQ community… ratchet up racial and religious intolerance… exploit and crush the working poor… promote and proliferate corrupt corporations and cronyism… inculcate, abroad, feelings of distrust, disgust and flat-out hatred towards America, which can only trigger more terrorist attacks, conventional warfare and perhaps even thermonuclear exchange / mutual assured destruction (MAD).
2. So far… his cocksure, Mr. Know-It-All bluster all but ensures the permanence of his closed minded, ignorance. Indeed, he exhibits an absolute unwillingness to learn one damned thing and possesses / is possessed by a resolve to fight off, tooth and nail, anyone even attempting to educate him.¹
3. So far… be it his improper upbringing / arrested development or his being a sociopath… he cannot even be trusted to know the difference between right and wrong… that amply proven by his own relentless attempts to quash FBI director James Comey’s investigation of the whole effing mess re Russia… and then firing said director for not knuckling under.

Remembering Our First Job, again, I now ask you, if any of us had ever, similarly, turned our workplaces upside down, don’t you think we’d have been called on the carpet? Maybe even heard the words, “You’re fired!”?

Oh, what a shame that there’s no such probationary period during which an utter failure of a prez could be pink-slipped. Oh, what a pity we cannot utter #45’s favorite “You’re Fired” catchphrase and then promptly show him the door.

Regrettably, impeachment and removal from office is a task left up to the U.S. Senate and House… both legislative bodies, at present, suffering from Republican majorities and inhabited with spineless, pathetic old men. Very few of them could ever be counted on to prioritize patriotism over petty partisanship AND may even share some (if not all) of #45’s deplorable character flaws. Needless to say, left unchecked, the so-called prez will continue hammering away at America and our world until there’s nothing left.

That means, Vladimir Putin permitting, our next opportunity to “drain the swamp” and elect new respectable, responsible legislators and a new, respectable, responsible president won’t arrive (respectively) until 2018 and 2020.

That’s when my blog title, Remembering Our First Job, will take on a far more significant connotation. What this must entail is our NEVER forgetting that, via the ballot box, WE are the bosses of our leaders… NEVER vice versa.

Citizens, not just in America, but also living in every freedom and democracy loving nation, worldwide, must ALWAYS actively participate in each and every new election cycle… view all candidates to be the job applicants they are and then interview and vet them… leaving no stone unturned. To not do so?

Well… as of my blog posting time, in the past, scant six months, we’ve already seen the massive damage done because too many fools had said, “You’re hired” to an entity who, indisputably, is devoid of a genuine work ethic… is sorely lacking an insatiable intellectual curiosity and… when it comes down to possessing a rock solid level of personal integrity… the bogus businessman is morally bankrupt.

Remembering Our First Job is also to fearlessly roar out, “NEVER AGAIN!”

 

 

¹The former head of the United Negro College Fund, Arthur Fletcher, had summed it up best when he coined the phrase to lament, “A mind is a terrible thing to waste!”