Mountain Views News, Sierra Madre Edition [Pasadena] Saturday, January 5, 2019

B3

OPINION

 Mountain Views News Saturday, January 5, 2019 


SUSAN HENDERSON

Editor/Publisher

WWYD?

Mountain Views

News

PUBLISHER/ EDITOR

Susan Henderson

PASADENA CITY 
EDITOR

Dean Lee 

EAST VALLEY EDITOR

Joan Schmidt

BUSINESS EDITOR

LaQuetta Shamblee

PRODUCTION

Richard Garcia

SALES

Patricia Colonello

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John Aveny 

DISTRIBUTION

Lancelot

CONTRIBUTORS

Mary Lou Caldwell

Kevin McGuire

Chris Leclerc

Bob Eklund

Howard Hays

Paul Carpenter

Kim Clymer-Kelley

Christopher Nyerges

Peter Dills 

Rich Johnson

Lori Ann Harris

Rev. James Snyder

Dr. Tina Paul

Katie Hopkins

Deanne Davis

Despina Arouzman

Jeff Brown

Marc Garlett

Keely Toten

Dan Golden

Rebecca Wright

Hail Hamilton


Welcome to 
2019! Now 
that the 
celebrations 
are over and 
most of us are 
getting back 
to our normal 
routines, 
many of the 
unfinished 
tasks and 
challenges 
that we failed 
to confront in 
2018 are in the forefront again, staring us 
in the face. 

 It’s true, the calendar change didn’t alter 
or erase the tasks that remain undone. To 
that end, I think that in my first column for 
the new year, I’m going to ask for your 
assistance with something that probably 
should have been taken care of last year.

To help, I need each of you to put on your 
‘thinking caps’ and ‘my shoes’ and walk 
through this pressing matter with me. I 
would like for you to answer the question, 
What Would YOU Do? (WWYD) under 
the circumstances:

I am a principal in an organization that has 
the ultimate goal of serving the community 
at large. The responsibility includes 
some fiscal, personnel and administrative 
management. Because of the size of 
the organization, there are numerous 
department heads who each manage their 
respective staff.

As one of the principals responsible for the 
operations, it is my responsibility to weigh 
in on the hiring of the CEO. My influence, 
although deemed to be insignificant 
to some, collectively with the other 
principals, is significant. As a result, I feel 
a great sense of personal responsibility for 
the person chosen to lead the group. And 
that is the basis for my consternation. I 
don’t know exactly what to do now.

1. The person we hired had a 
‘smoke and mirrors’ resume. There was a 
modicum of truth in it, but his presentation 
was full of exaggerations. Bottom line, he 
lacks the experience to handle the job. He 
has run off many valuable members of our 
team who don’t want to be sullied by his 
actions.
2. His experience managing people 
has become increasingly apparent by the 
many, many violations of basic human 
resource guidelines and the lack of 
common decency that he shows those who 
work for him. 
3. He wastes the organizations funds 
traveling all over without accomplishing 
any of his stated goals. His reports back 
to the stakeholders are false or overstated, 
something that he makes public first and 
we always discover, embarrassingly, after 
the fact.
4. He has destroyed all of 
the important relationships that the 
organization has built over the years, 
leaving us in a weakened position should 
a situation arise in which we need to call in 
favors from our friends.
5. His public association with persons 
of questionable character and background 
is not good for the organizations image.
6. He never tells the truth. He lies so 
much, unabashedly, that personally, when 
he states his name, I doubt the accuracy of 
the statement.
7. He defies every rule established 
that was designed to make certain no one 
individual could damage the organization. 
There appears to be no way of bringing this 
guy under control.
8. His attitude and behavior exude 
his distorted sense of self-worth and 
privilege.
9. Whenever asked to give account 
of his activities or justify his actions, 
he diverts the conversation to another 
unrelated conversation, never giving a 
straight or accurate answer on anything.
10. Our reputation and our credibility 
both have been damaged, maybe 
irreparably, by allowing him to continue to 
be the head of our organization. 


So I ask, if this guy worked for you, what 
would you do? What reason is there to 
let him continue on? Why the reticence 
in admitting that a mistake was made in 
allowing him to hold the position? Why 
can’t we do what is necessary to protect 
our organization, our legacy, our future 
from this person who is hell bent on 
destroying it?

We do have the power to change things, so 
why don’t we?

By now, you should have figured out that 
the organization is the United States and 
the ‘person’ is the man who currently holds 
the nation hostage, Donald J. Trump. The 
other ‘principals’ are every eligible voter.

When you just go through the list of 
troubling behaviors above in the context 
of an employee, with each noted behavior 
your response probably was, ‘why doesn’t 
she fire him?’ So now that you know who 
it is, and recognized that YOU are one of 
the principals responsible for his remaining 
in office, why haven’t you picked up 
a telephone, sent an email, posted on 
Facebook, Instagram or Twitter to let it be 
known that his behavior is not acceptable? 
If you voted for him, and recognize that it 
is not working, say so. Don’t be ashamed. 
No one could have imagined how bad it 
would get. And silence will only allow the 
situation to get worse.

So, to use a phrase used during his 
campaign, “What do they have to loose?” 
In this instance, the question becomes, 
“What Do WE Have To Loose?” The 
Answer: EVERYTHING! If we continue 
the next two years like the previous two, 
our democracy as we know it will be 
a thing of the past and we will have lost 
everything! We do have the power to 
change things!

Happy New Year!


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LEFT TURN/RIGHT TURN

TOM Purcell

MICHAEL Reagan

 
SON OF FLAKE

What’s with Mitt Romney, the newly minted Republican senator 
from the great red state of Utah?

 Mitt hadn’t even been sworn in yet and he put his name on a 
New Year’s Day op-ed column in the Washington Post bearing 
the headline “Mitt Romney: The president shapes the public 
character of the nation. Trump’s character falls short.”

 Then Mitt showed up on CNN to repeat his complaint that 
after two years the president of his party has “not risen to the 
mantle of the office.”

 Sorry he feels that way, but if moderate Mitt really cared about the GOP he would have put 
a leash on that super ego of his.

 Lots of us Republicans have criticized the president’s words and actions - justifiably.

But Mitt’s criticism - delivered publicly in two of the liberal media’s holiest places - was an 
ill-timed cheap shot aimed at reminding everyone in the Washington elite that he may be a 
loser, but compared to the president he’s still a morally superior being.

 Mitt knew his scathing criticism would immediately be spread far and wide by the Trump 
Hate Media, which it was.

 He also knew it would instantly earn the president’s ire, which Trump expressed in a series 
of counter-tweets.

 Even Mitt’s niece, Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National 
Committee, hit her uncle upside the head for his subversive selfishness.

 “POTUS is attacked and obstructed by the MSM media and Democrats 24/7. For an 
incoming Republican freshman senator to attack @realdonaldtrump as their first act feeds 
into what the Democrats and media want and is disappointing and unproductive.”

 Mitt’s attack on the president was more than a little hypocritical, given that he had 
unsuccessfully begged him for a cabinet position and had happily accepted his support last 
fall when he was running for Utah’s senate seat.

 There may be many Republicans who agree exactly with everything Romney said, but 
that’s not the point.

 It was stupid of him to write a column excoriating the president two days before he even 
took his Senate seat.

 He wants to be treated with respect in the Senate, and this is the way he starts?

He should have showed up in Washington, taken his Senate seat and said and done nothing.

 If he has complaints or comments about the president, he should have made them to 
Trump in private.

 Trump quickly put Mitt in his place with his tweets and now Senate Majority Leader Mitch 
McConnell will have to do it in the Senate. 

 For the next two years or so McConnell will have to remind Senator Mitt exactly who he 
is and isn’t:

 “Take your seat, Mr. Romney. You’re a junior member of the senate. You’re not our party 
spokesman. You have to earn the right to be a spokesman, the way Lindsay Graham has.”

 What Mitt did with his op-ed piece - beside pump up his deflated ego, hurt his own party, 
help the Democrats and give the liberal media free Republican ammo to fire at the president 
- was to really piss off his new boss McConnell.

 I don’t think McConnell will be calling on the rookie senator from Utah anytime soon to 
seek his advice on anything.

 Meanwhile, now that Nancy Pelosi and her leftist Democrat children have taken control of 
the House of Representatives, the next two years are going to be very rough for the president, 
the GOP and conservatives.

 The last thing they needed was another egotistical Republican flake running 
loose in the Senate, but it looks like that’s what the junior senator from Utah is 
going to be.

-

Copyright 2019 Michael Reagan. Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan, 
a political consultant, and the author of “Lessons My Father Taught Me: The Strength, 
Integrity, and Faith of Ronald Reagan.” He is the founder of the email service reagan.com and 
president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Visit his websites at www.reagan.com and www.
michaelereagan.com. Send comments to Reagan@caglecartoons.com. Follow @reaganworld on 
Twitter. Mike’s column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For 
info on using columns contact Sales at sales@cagle.com.

RESOLUTIONS OUR 
POLITICIANS WON’T KEEP

“Celebrating the holidays with friends and family the past few 
weeks was great, but I’m tired, bloated and crabby.”

 “The New Year is upon us! What a great opportunity to 
start fresh and resolve to do great things in 2019.”

 “How about I share some resolutions I hope our political 
leaders will keep. Here’s one: Federal government, please stop 
spending so much!”

 “Spending is certainly out of control. Federal debt is up nearly $1.4 trillion the past 
year. That’s nearly $11,000 in debt per American household - nearly $4,200 per person. 
And as interest rates rise, the payments on our debt are skyrocketing.”

 “I’ll tell you what else is skyrocketing: my family’s health insurance premiums. 
My deductibles are so high, we’ll end up in the poorhouse if any of us gets sick. Hey, 
Democrats and Republicans, can you resolve to come up with a bipartisan solution for 
the massive cost of health insurance?”

 “Regrettably, such reforms are not likely to occur. There is a growing chasm between 
Republicans and Democrats. As Republicans hope to undo Obamacare in the courts, 
more Democrats are supporting a single-payer government program. As more 
families suffer from high premiums and high deductibles, more Americans, according 
to Bloomberg, are warming to a ‘Medicare for All’ concept.”

 “They are?”

 “Bloomberg says a Kaiser Family Foundation survey found last March that 59 
percent of Americans favor the Medicare for All concept. Even when it was defined 
as a single-payer, federal program, 53 percent favored it. Some 75 percent favor a 
Medicare for All option if it lets people who have coverage keep their plans.”

 “The way Obamacare allowed people to keep their plans? OK, if it’s unrealistic for 
our political leaders to spend less and improve health care, can they at least resolve to 
improve our public discourse?”

 “Everyone has been hoping for that. Trump’s supporters wish he would cool it with 
some of his tweets and his opponents are throwing around some heated language, 
too. With divided government in 2019, it appears discourse is going to get worse, not 
better.”

 “Look, so much is at stake. We want our political leaders to work with each other 
to address our problems. We want them to end this silly government shutdown. 
Don’t all of us, Republicans and Democrats alike, want them to knock off the nasty 
politics and address our spending, health care, infrastructure and immigration 
reform challenges?”

 “I wish that were the case. USA Today reports that the only thing all Americans 
can agree upon is that our country is incredibly divided. Our politicians reflect our 
division. Again, look at health care. Republicans want market-based reforms that they 
hope will drive insurance premiums down. Democrats want the polar opposite: more 
government control. Or look at the Trump investigations. A majority of Republicans 
want them to end, but a majority of Democrats want the incoming House-majority 
Democrats to investigate more! Government gridlock, here we come!”

 “For goodness’ sake!” 

 “It’s a bit odd that so many Americans are so unhappy about so many things when a 
lot of things are going very well for our country. The economy is doing well. Wages are 
rising. Sure, we’ve got challenges, but it’s too bad we can’t count some of our blessings 
as we address them.”

 “Sure, we’re blessed, but after chatting with you I feel even more tired, bloated and 
crabby.”

-

Copyright 2019 Tom Purcell. Tom Purcell, author of “Misadventures of a 1970’s 
Childhood,” a humorous memoir available at amazon.com, is a Pittsburgh Tribune-
Review humor columnist and is nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons Inc. 
For info on using this column in your publication or website, contact Sales@cagle.com or 
call (805) 969-2829. Send comments to Tom at Tom@TomPurcell.com.

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