Recently, perhaps blissfully so, readers have been spared this contributor’s “screams” of frustration and disgust with the state and downward trajectory of our democracy.
Fortunately, contributors such as Hart, Deborah, Joe G. and others continue to carry the torch.
Finally, patriots much more powerful and eloquent than yours truly have continued to speak truth to power and to voice their grave concerns for the future of our nation.
Almost a year ago, more than 1,000 bipartisan former prosecutors signed a petition maintaining that if Trump weren’t president of the United States, he would have been indicted on multiple charges for obstruction of justice.
Only last week, more than 2,000 former Justice Department officials, Republicans and Democrats, signed a statement calling on Attorney General Bill Barr to resign for “doing the president’s bidding.”
Dozens of other former, high ranking administration and military officials are speaking out, albeit – as some may say — somewhat belatedly.
One patriot who has consistently and forcefully spoken truth to power did so once again last week in an Op-Ed at The Washington Post, titled “If good men like Joe Maguire can’t speak the truth, we should be deeply afraid.”
In it, retired Navy Admiral William H. McRaven, the commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command who oversaw the 2011 Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden, laments how “good men and women don’t last long” in the Trump administration. One of the latest victims of Trump’s corruption and vindictiveness is McRaven’s friend of over 40 years, Joe Maguire, the now-former acting director of national intelligence: “There is no better officer, no better man and no greater patriot,” McRaven writes.
Please read the Admiral’s entire forewarning of things to come here. We must in particular take to heart his concluding words:
As Americans, we should be frightened — deeply afraid for the future of the nation. When good men and women can’t speak the truth, when facts are inconvenient, when integrity and character no longer matter, when presidential ego and self-preservation are more important than national security — then there is nothing left to stop the triumph of evil.
