Sarah Kendzior encourages us to document what matters to us, what we believe in – against the day that we may be tempted — or forced — to abandon those principles. In that vein, I believe …

  • … in honesty.
  • … everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and respect.
  • … the United States Constitution is the foundation of the republic.
  • … in the rule of law.
  • … not even the President is above the rule of law.
  • … the American people have a right to know to whom the President is indebted, with which foreign countries he conducts private business, where his wealth is invested, the extent to which he has shared their burden in paying income taxes (or not).
  • … disparaging someone for who they are – based on their skin color, their gender, their sexual identity, their age – is unacceptable.
  • … taking someone to task – with respect – for their choices, including who they support among elected officials, is appropriate.
  • … those who would call themselves my “seniors and betters” will be held to correspondingly higher standards of behavior.
  • … aiding and abetting our adversaries is treason.
  • … a President, nor his family, should profit directly from his role in the Presidency.
  • … it is unacceptable that a hostile foreign power interferes with free and fair elections in the US.
  • … the government is comprised of thousands of intelligent, committed civil servants who go to work every day trying to deliver good government to the people of this country. Those people deserve our respect. In our military services. In the Departments of Defense, Energy, Education, State. Who serve on the US Secret Service.
  • … it is unacceptable that the President of the United States maintain a private security force which is not accountable to the American people.
  • … that “President” is a 24/7/365 job.
  • … that the President governs over all the people in America, not just the small fraction of the population that voted for him.
  • … America’s allies deserve to know that we are good neighbors and that they can count on us.
  • … the press and the media serve as the eyes and ears of the people into the activities of the President and his administration; to deny them is to deny the American people the accountability we deserve.
  • … we should make it easier for people to vote rather than harder.
  • … that women are autonomous; a woman has the right to make decisions about her own life without the government interceding in decisions between her and her health care provider.
  • … that it’s important to reduce the number, cost and consequences of unintended pregnancies not by banning abortion, but by providing access to education, contraception and living wages – which have been shown to be effective in reducing the number of unintended pregnancies.
  • … climate change is real and accelerating and without sustained efforts to slow down our impact on the planet, we risk rapid degradation of the biosphere on a global level.
  • … ramming through unpopular legislation in closed, quickly convened sessions of a legislature (as in Texas and North Carolina) isn’t what American democracy should look like.
  • … cruelty – intentionally inflicting harm on others – is unacceptable.

President Elect

  • Not disclosing his tax returns. The American people still have no way to judge the degree to which his freedom of action may be compromised by his dealings with agents of foreign countries.
  • Ditching media, even the protective pool, who serve as the eyes and ears of the American people.
  • Threatening media for unfavorable coverage.
  • Requesting security clearances for his children.
  • Choosing to rely on his children for the operation of his business interests rather than establishing a truly blind trust.
  • Including his children as part of his transition team. This is especially problematic as he had said previously they would be responsible for overseeing his business interests while Mr. Trump is President.
  • Taking phone calls from foreign leaders without counsel from State Department, participation by State, or record of the phone calls.
  • Taking meetings with a foreign head of state, without conventional protocol or courtesy, leaving the Japanese Prime Minister wondering where and when the meeting would occur.
  • Allowing his daughter, Ivanka Trump, to attend meeting between Mr. Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
  • Settling a long standing lawsuit for Trump University fraud with an award of $25M to over 6000 victims.
  • Selecting a white nationalist as his Chief of Strategy.
  • Not condemning hundreds of acts of violence and vandalism that have been carried out in his name since the election.
  • Condemning American citizens for exercising their right to free speech under the First Amendment.
  • Inviting foreign diplomats to stay in his hotel in DC, with enticements, which directly profits him and his family.
  • Suing the federal government to lower his tax obligations on the Old Post Office Hotel in DC.
  • Either enticing or coercing representatives of foreign governments, e.g. Kuwait, to stay in his hotel(s).
  • Not divesting himself of investments that will pose a conflict of interest with serving in the office of President; the American people deserve to know that their President is acting in their best interests and not his financial self-interests.
  • Attacking American companies, media outlets, private citizens via twitter for actions he finds displeasing.

Transition Team

  • Not meeting with counterparts in US government agencies for over a week.

Candidate

  • Not disclosing his tax returns. The American people had no way to judge the degree to which his freedom of action may be compromised by his dealings with agents of foreign countries.
  • Calling for his followers, “Second Amendment people”, to act in the case of a Clinton win – a thinly veiled call for her to be assassinated.
  • Promising to build a wall between the United States and Mexico as a means to solve illegal immigration, and have the Mexicans pay for it.
  • Promising to ban entry of Muslims into the United States.
  • Promising to establish a registry of Muslim Americans.
  • Promising to deport several million undocumented immigrants immediately on taking office.
  • Mocking a disabled reporter.
  • Not condemning calls from his supporters to “Lock her Up” in reference to his opponent, Secretary Clinton.
  • Calling for Russia to hack the emails of an American citizen.
  • Not condemning acts of violence that were carried out in his name.
  • Bragging about sexually assaulting women.
  • Walking into the dressing room of a Teen USA pageant where young girls were not dressed.
  • Not reading any of the briefing books on policy or personnel prepared for him by his transition team.

Here below are references for helping make sense of what happened on November 8 and for what we can do to protect America from the damage of a Trump presidency. I intend to update this as I become aware of additional resources.

What To Do

Resistance

Authoritarianism and American Politics

Election Reform

Feminism and Other Forms of Activism

Freedom of the Press

Kleptocracy and the Blurred Lines Between Industry and Government

Privacy and Personal Security

Russia

Social Change

  • Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed; https://www.amazon.com/Please-Stop-Helping-Us-Liberals/dp/1594038414

Totalitariansim

Voting Rights and Voter Suppression

Over the last several weeks, I’ve learned that the press is annoyed with Secretary Clinton for not holding a press conference. It’s (no surprise) being held up as a failing of the presidential candidate.

Clinton_250x250It’s true I am a happy and enthusiastic Clinton supporter, but nonetheless, I have seen the candidate frequently on national news and am well acquainted with a variety of sources of information about her campaign, her positions on issues, and how her candidacy differs from that of Mr. Trump. I’ve frequently visited the library of thought-provoking ads produced as part of the excellent series, “The Briefing”. I’ve seen news articles, op eds from people I respect, videos, and guest appearances on shows like The Late Show with Steven Colbert. I belong to multiple Facebook groups that support her, follow circles on Google Plus focused on her candidacy, and my twitter timeline is about one quarter Clinton politics. So I see lots of information that allows me to judge her candidacy, compare hers to Trump’s, and decide for myself how the latest news affects my estimation of her as a candidate for President.

All the while, members of the press are whining about her not having a press conference, going so far as to keep a “No Press Conference” countdown clock.

Mrs. Clinton has suffered under the scrutiny of the press for her entire adult life. Despite having committed her life to public service, media coverage of her has been overwhelmingly negative. In this election season, she has received the most negative coverage of any candidate – and that’s in a field where the GOP candidate has repeatedly and enthusiastically attacked Americans based on their gender, race, religion, and disability. Clinton supporters on twitter started the hashtag #HillaryCoverageCrap to draw attention to the depths to which media were willing to go to generate traffic by negative reporting on Clinton. Considering how rarely she is portrayed positively or even fairly by the press, I am not sure how they can be surprised that she takes care to shape her interactions with the media.

Marshawn Lynch via Seahawks.comThis situation reminds me a lot of a similar situation over the last few years with another individual that I treasure and respect: Marshawn Lynch, Super Bowl champion, recently retired from the Seattle Seahawks. Mr. Lynch achieved notoriety for his disdain for talking to the press. After he was fined by the NFL for not talking, he answered every question in a locker room availability with a variation on “Thank you for asking”. He gave an entire interview at the Super Bowl that consisted of him answering every question with “I’m just here so I don’t get fined.”

I have not seen a statement by Lynch of why he was so resistant to press availability. My guess would be a combination of two factors: reaction to unfavorable press and anxiety. When I saw discussions of how Lynch was being disrespectful of the sports media by refusing to talk to them, I have to admit, I kept thinking if I was surrounded by a pack of reporters, my back against the wall, as they shoved cameras and microphones into my face, I’m pretty sure my reaction would have been to fight my way out. Members of the media are probably lucky that Marshawn chose the “flight” response and not the “fight” response. (Which incidentally reminds me of my favorite suggestion regarding Lynch giving interviews to the press – I always figured he should offer to give an exclusive to any member of the press who could tackle him. But I digress.) Lynch didn’t give press conferences to the liking of sports media, they whined, and Lynch got backed into a corner.

When making their case for Lynch to participate in press conferences, the media tried to argue that for him to talk to the press was important for the fans. Lynch knew better. He knew that the Seahawks 12s loved him for who he was, quirks and all. The 12s knew that in addition to his powerful contributions on the football field, he was a leader among his teammates, and he was a loyal and loving son of his hometown Oakland, California. And the fans could see what apparently the press or the NFL Commissioner could not: talking to the media caused him severe anxiety. The fans didn’t need to see press interviews, they knew he was “All about that action, boss!”

So here we are. Except this time it’s Secretary Clinton who’s under scrutiny. And it’s members of the national news media who are whining about her not giving interviews. Happily, Clinton doesn’t work for the NFL, doesn’t have to cajole the press, and she won’t get fined by the NFL Commissioner. And despite what precious members of the media think, we don’t need for her to hold a press conference to know she’s “All about that action, boss!”

I find it hard to believe I wrote the post “The Mask Comes Off: Corporate Implications When Your Senior Recruiter is a Bigot” over a month ago. There are a few relevant developments since then.

About the Corporate Implications of Having a Bigot as a Recruiter

In discussing the corporate implications of having a bigot on staff as a senior recruiter, I raised circumstances in which the organization may be aware of racist and sexist behavior, chooses to do nothing about it, and is essentially complicit in the behavior. A colleague who is familiar with the organization and the individual pointed out to me after I posted the article that among the bigot’s followers is his employer. While I expect the organization has tasked a junior staff member to maintain their social media account, it nonetheless makes it harder to argue that the organization was unaware of the behavior. That is, it strengthens the case that they are complicit in the bigotry. The organization employs so many people I respect and admire; that they are willing to allow this behavior by one of their senior HR staff is massively disappointing to me.

About Milo Yiannopoulus: His Latest Target and His Suspension from Twitter

I posted my exchange with the corporate bigot on July 19, and talked about the hateful influence of alt-right personality Milo Yiannopoulus. Yiannopoulus incites harassment of women, people of color, and other vulnerable individuals. On July 18, the alt-right had attacked a new target, Leslie Jones. A comedienne, Jones was one of four stars in the recent all-female remake of Ghostbusters. She is also the only black woman among the four. Yiannopoulus and his associates targeted her on twitter with vile sexist and racist abuse. All because she was funny in a movie they didn’t like. Surprisingly, in this case, the abuse got the attention of Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, who acknowledged the abuse was unacceptable and publicly committed to “do better”. Less than a day later, Twitter had suspended Yiannopoulus’ account, citing him specifically for violating Twitter’s rules prohibiting participating in or inciting targeted abuse of individuals.

Suspending Yiannopoulus was a step in the right direction from Twitter, but unfortunately the alt-right now blame the target of their abuse, Leslie Jones, for his banishment. They stepped up the attack – hacking her website, doxxing her by publicly posting her passport and driver’s license, posting nude photos, and posting racist content. The Department of Homeland Security is investigating the hack. One or more arrests as a result of the abuse would be welcome and reassuring, but the continuation and escalation of bigotry and hatred is discouraging.

Donald Trump and The Alt-Right

Milo Yiannopoulus works for Breitbart. With his candidacy failing, Donald Trump has reached out to Steve Bannon, head of Breitbart Media, to take over leadership of his campaign. When Sarah Posner of Mother Jones interviewed Bannon at the Republican National Convention in July, he told her “We’re the platform for the alt-right”. With this move, Trump is giving hatefulness and bigotry an unprecedented platform. For anyone who has observed what Yiannopoulus and his cohort have done for the last two years, the prospect of having people who feel as he does so close to the Presidency, to accessing classified, and to records of personal information on a massive scale – is terrifying.

ClintonSo Mike… I’m going to start by assuming that you respect me, based on our interactions together while working at PNNL. If not, well, then none of what follows will matter and you can probably just stop reading now.

You posted on my facebook page sentiments about Secretary Clinton that others have expressed as well – that they don’t feel they can trust her, that they believe that she had lied about things that are important to them, that they question her judgment.

You need to follow your own conscience, of course. But I wanted to share with you a different perspective, a different context.

Since you know me so well, I hope you also would say that I try always to be an honest person. That I try always to speak the truth. Again, if you don’t know or believe that of me, what follows won’t matter to you and you can stop reading.

Even though I think you know me to be a truthful person, I can share with you several occasions when people who heard me speak were easily convinced that I was lying; in fact, in some cases I was. In other cases, it was a matter of context. Here, let me give you some examples.

I led a research initiative at the lab in bio detection, consisting of seven or eight interdependent projects. In return for the lab investment, I was called on to provide status briefings for the initiative and it fell to me to advocate for more money as the initiative progressed. In status briefings, I would say with complete honesty that things were going well. In the briefings in which we were requesting additional funds, I described the areas in which the research fell short of our goals – areas where we needed continuing or additional funds. Now if you were someone who had some reason to dislike me or question me, when you heard those two briefings, you might be tempted to ask “Which is it? Were you lying when you said the projects were going well or when you said the projects needed more money?” I’ve faced people like that. But of course both things can be true, and depend on the context.

In another example, sometime after 9-11, I spoke at a conference of science writers. President Bush had just ordered troops back into Iraq with the understanding and expectation that President Hussein still had WMD. Based on what I knew of the previous Iraqi WMD program documented by the UN, my knowledge of bio production requirements, as well as confidential information that I had available to me as part of my job that I could not share publicly, I made the case with this group of science writers that the renewed efforts to search for and destroy Iraqi WMD were warranted. To say that they were the most hostile audience I’ve ever spoken in front of would be an understatement. I am sure that most of them thought that I was lying. When coalition troops found no additional stores of WMD, I’m sure they would be even more convinced that I was lying. But if I were in the same situation again, with the same knowledge and experience, I would make the same judgment. I might be wrong – again – but I was not lying. I gave them the very best information that I could at the time, under the circumstances.

As someone who has had a security clearance, you and I both know and have both faced occasions when someone might have questioned us about information we knew to be classified. We were obliged to respond without confirming or denying the information. To someone with hostile interests, of course, we would be considered to be lying.

So, when you say you’re unhappy that you know Secretary Clinton has lied – are you equally disapproving of me? Of yourself? I don’t consider myself, or you, or Secretary Clinton liars because to me, context matters.

I know some people are upset at what they believe to be a failing of Secretary Clinton regarding the handling of sensitive or classified information. This is another one where to me, my own experience handling sensitive and classified information requires me to give others the benefit of the doubt. I’ve unintentionally transmitted classified to others. As a derivative classifier, I had reviewed a document, and deemed it unclassified based on the classification guidance that was available to me. Once I reviewed it, I saved it onto an unclassified computer. I was not aware that there was additional guidance on the subject, and the document was in fact classified. In addition to this event happening to me, I’ve also had someone transmit classified information to me, when it was very clear it was not their intention to do so. Of course we don’t want classified information transmitted or compromised. But we operate in an imperfect world. Based on my own experience, I see the issues with Secretary Clinton’s email through a more forgiving lens than others who perhaps have not had experience dealing with classified information. Tell me – did you ever have a security infraction? If not, well done you! But I’m guessing there’s at least a chance you’ve had one.

There is another aspect of the handling of classified information that is unique to working in the State Department (which I have) and being involved in international negotiations (which I have been). I told my daughter not long ago that I had passed classified information to representatives of foreign governments myself. It was kind of fun watching her reaction before I explained. In negotiations, the Secretary of State, or the delegation at large, have prepared guidance in advance of the negotiations. That guidance is almost always classified. But the whole point of the guidance is to tell the Secretary or the delegation what they are allowed to say to the negotiating partners. So what was classified one minute before the negotiations begin can be unclassified one minute into negotiations. So as with handling sensitive information that may have been transmitted on the unclassified email system, I probably give wider berth to the concerns that others have about specifics of what was shared with whom, and when was it classified – if it was part of a negotiation.

So now I’ve given you multiple examples where I lied and where it could be said that I mishandled sensitive or classified information. I would be surprised if telling you this changes your opinion of me. If it does, then again, you can stop reading now. But if it doesn’t change your opinion of me, why not? Likely because you know me, you know my character, you’ve spoken to me. You know that in order to handle that information I have been fully and repeatedly vetted by OPM, FBI, DOE and others. I hope that when you first met me, you saw that I treated others with respect, tried always to do my best job, and hopefully was treated with respect by my colleagues. You may have seen that I was entrusted by our bosses and customers to execute projects that required the handling of sensitive or classified information. I hope that you trust me, my judgment, and have confidence that I would always do my very best to protect my country and the trust that it has placed in me.

I hope all that is true of you, and is why we are friends and respect each other. But we both also know that there are others in my professional environment with whom I did not always agree. As you know, sometimes I push back on co-workers, bosses and (gasp!) even customers. Happily, most of them knew me and trusted me, even if I annoyed them with my directness. You know as well, however, that there were some who didn’t trust me, who had no particular reason to trust me, and felt threatened by my questioning. I could name several people who seriously questioned my judgment or questioned my suitability for the job. Happily, I don’t think you are one of them, as I’ve said, I think we enjoy mutual respect.

So… what’s all this have to do with Secretary Clinton? It’s just a really long winded way of saying we have different context for what she has said, what has been said about her, how we would judge the decisions that she’s made. I am willing to give her the benefit of the doubt specifically because I’ve been in similar situations and because I see someone who has spent her life trying to make things better for others.

When I’ve heard others say they don’t trust her, that they think she’s a liar, that she’s a criminal – it makes me wonder what  more she has to do to persuade people to the contrary. I live an open life, but she makes me look like a mountain recluse in comparison when it comes to transparency and openness. As someone who filled out political appointment financial disclosure paperwork one year – and it was ugly – It matters to me that she has made her personal financial information available for the public to sift through in tiny, excruciating detail for over a decade. And that of her charitable foundation. That includes the executive level financial disclosures as well as making her tax returns public for longer than any other elected official that I know. It matters to me that she has had to get vetted for clearances just like we did with the endless SF86 forms; most people aren’t aware of the level of detail and transparency involved in those forms, with 127 pages before you even add the supplemental pages. Most people don’t know how many of your family and neighbors the investigators talk to, to ensure that you are, that she is trustworthy, or how far back in your history they go. I appreciate the work of the career civil servants in the ethics office at State and in the other agencies whose job it is to evaluate activities of senior governmental personnel to ensure that they are not involved in questionable or unethical activities. I’m pretty sure that the standard is the same there as it is within the lab – they are there to protect against not only actual conflicts of interest or impropriety but also the appearance of a conflict or impropriety. I respect them enough and trust them enough to do their jobs, that I’m not going to second guess that Secretary Clinton was doing anything illegal or unethical during her time as Secretary of State.

There are other experts that have persuaded me she is trustworthy as well. How many months did the GOP investigate the alleged scandal with Benghazi, how many millions of our taxpayer dollars did they spend only to conclude that Secretary Clinton did nothing wrong? And the same with the emails – I trust the FBI to have done their job. Were there problems? Yes. Could Secretary Clinton and others have made different choices? Yes. Was there a finding of illegal activity, despite the months of investigation and again countless tax dollars spent? No. Neither the Benghazi committees nor the FBI produced any substantial findings to justify the attacks on Secretary Clinton’s honesty, integrity and judgment.

So, I understand you and others are convinced — despite all evidence — of serious flaws in her character. I’m inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt, to trust her, to have confidence in the agencies in government whose job it is to ensure ethical behavior and lack of criminal activity. I understand those are not adequate for the anger toward her that others feel, but the lack of evidence of wrong doing makes me think that anger is based on something not related to her experience and history at all.

Finally, I listened to President Obama tonight. He talked about her experience as Secretary of State. About how he had the opportunity to see her in action, to see her work ethic and her character. President Obama made clear how much he trusted her then – and still trusts her. If I had any remaining doubt, it was erased when he said that however good of a president he or President Bill Clinton were, that Hillary Clinton was going to be a better president than both of them. You may not trust her. Even if I didn’t have enough reasons of my own to trust and respect her, my Commander in Chief does and that’s good enough for me.

 

The Mask Comes Off

On the evening of July 7, I was on Twitter following reports and discussion of the shooting in Dallas. One of my twitter friends responded “Jesus” to a post from someone else. My twitter friend is a black man who frequently engages on questions relating to race and social justice; in my experience he always engages thoughtfully and with respect. So when I saw his post, I looked at the tweet that prompted his reaction. It said “#BlackLivesMatter is officially a terrorist organization Cop killers”. The post was made at a time when nothing was known about the shooter(s). When I looked at the original tweet, I realized I knew the author. He is a senior recruiter for a company I used to work for. I was shocked and disappointed.

When I realized I knew the person, I responded to him asking by whose authority #BlackLivesMatter was “officially” a terrorist organization. I went on to tell him I thought it was irresponsible of him to fuel additional anger and hatred with his post.

His response to me was to say it was his opinion, an opinion shared by thousands of others. To support his claim, he retweeted a similar sentiment from a twitter user, Milo Yiannopoulos, who goes by the twitter username @Nero. As shocking as it was to see my former colleague tweeting such hatefulness in the aftermath of the Dallas shooting, it was even worse to me to see him citing Yiannopoulos as someone whose opinion he valued. Yiannopoulos is associated with the alt right: racists, anti-semites, homophobes, and misogynists. Over the last two years, I have seen Yiannopoulos and his cohort harass women in video games with dogpiling, sealioning, digging, doxxing and swatting. They have attacked both me and my daughter. Multiple women in the tech industry have been forced from their homes due to rape and death threats. Many of the targeted women eventually left their professional field and have sought work elsewhere, away from the incessant harassment and threats. Yiannopoulos’ followers have similarly attacked vulnerable trans people using the same tactics, going so far as to publish their dead names (names used before transitioning) in the process of doxxing them.

In a short series of twitter posts, I realized the tweet from my former colleague was not a one-off reaction on a night when much of the country was in shock and despair. This individual was consistent in expressing racist opinions and in expressing enthusiastic support for someone who goes out of his way to incite hatefulness against every possible marginalized group.

This individual was expressing his personal views on his personal social media account. Although he posted personal views from his personal twitter account, his affiliation to his employer was two clicks away: one click on his twitter bio, a second click to his profile on LinkedIn where his employer is featured prominently. And even if the link wasn’t there on his twitter bio, his name is unique and he is easily found by searching, along with his employer.

Corporate Implications When Your Senior Recruiter is a Bigot

If yours is the company whose senior recruiter is a bigot, what are the implications?

First, his posts raise the obvious question of whether he is able to be fair in screening candidates for positions if they are black, female, or any of the other classifications that are the target of so much of his hatefulness. Presumably, statistics on the candidates he had identified for the organization could help determine whether he is presenting female and minority candidates with fair representation, or not. My guess is “not”.

Second, even if you can give the recruiter the benefit of the doubt, that somehow he is able to detach his personal prejudices from his professional responsibilities, it doesn’t change how others may perceive him based on his social media presence. Candidates who are black, female, LGBT, or otherwise “othered” must surely look at his social media presence and question for themselves whether they would receive fair representation from him. As for me, if I were qualified to respond to an employment opportunity advertised by the company, I would nonetheless avoid interacting with him as a recruiter.

Third, based on his social media presence, as a potential employment candidate, I would question whether an organization that employs people who are openly racist and sexist was a place I would want to work. Faced with the prospect of working in an organization of bigots, I’d look for opportunities elsewhere before I’d pursue a job there.

Fourth, there’s a good chance that the organization is not aware of his bigoted posts. For a large tech company, if management is not aware of the online presence of its senior personnel, that would make me question whether they’re really all that high tech after all.

Fifth, the alternative to the company not knowing is that senior leadership in fact is aware and does nothing to stop the hatefulness. In this case, they would be complicit, essentially condoning the behavior.

Sixth, while it seems trivial in comparison to the damage done by expression of bigoted views, if the individual is using company resources to post his hatefulness, or posts on company time (which this person has done), it adds to the complicity on the part of the company.

And finally, if the company has a senior member of the HR staff who has demonstrated bigoted views, and the company has done nothing to mitigate the damage, there is one more implication. When employees bring suit against an employer for discrimination based on gender, race, or any of the other protected classes, the chances of them being successful in court is disappointingly small. The standards of evidence are notoriously difficult to achieve. In particular, it is difficult to demonstrate discrimination because rarely is it overt. Being able to demonstrate willful behavior, or a pattern of behavior, contributes to the strength of an argument that the company engages in and condones the behavior. Overtly bigoted behavior on the part of senior staff, particularly senior staff entrusted with recruiting and HR activities, unchecked by the company, makes a strong case for a pattern of willful behavior.

So, when the mask comes off and a company discovers that their senior recruiter is a bigot? The corporate implications are profound.

20160825 See Update

Every time I see someone post that my generation sold out the future, it makes me sad. Why do people think things were better when we were their age? College tuition quadrupled? Global warming? Housing market destroyed?
 
I just checked – my college costs within $1,000 now what it cost when I attended school, when adjusted for inflation. I paid for college the same way most students do now – a combination of scholarships, work study, and massive college loans that took me years to pay off. 

Read More

I owe a debt of gratitude to one of my twitter friends. He supports Sanders, I support Clinton. I asked him why he supported Sanders and why he doesn’t support Clinton. With the exception of my lovely neighbors at the Washington State Democratic caucus, this topic of discussion has generally not gone well. So my twitter friend has been brave to engage with me – and to his credit he has been thoroughly respectful. You know who you are – thank you!

So the reason I’m grateful is that he provided me very clear and thoughtful reasons why he does not endorse Secretary Clinton. He has also provided points of reference that align with his questions regarding what he believes to be unethical behavior by her. As a Clinton supporter, my first instinct is to dismiss his concerns as unfounded. Pouf! That was easy. But of course, it’s not that easy. Personal accountability is one of my core values. I cannot support someone to be President of the United States if she is unethical. So, I went digging for more information so that I could understand my friends concerns and decide for myself.

As a result of my search, I’m satisfied that Secretary Clinton’s financial dealings were not inappropriate. Furthermore, I’ve come to respect Secretary and President Clinton even more than before looking into the issue.  Read More

I think Seahawks fans have an opportunity — and responsibility — to do more to help the Seahawks be successful.

Have you ever seen Pete Carroll chewing out a player after a bad play? No. Or, at least rarely. Officials? Heck yes. Players? No. There’s a reason for that and it’s connected to why the Seahawks have been so successful. The reason has to do with player confidence. The subject of player confidence is a critical part of the Carroll philosophy. In his book, Win Forever, the word “confident” or “confidence” appears 68 times. That’s a lot. Read More

Social Network Integration by Acurax Social Media Branding Company