Part II
When I was a senior in college, we had an issue with some people
on our swim team coming to practice late and partying a little too much during
the tough part of our season. Morale had
become a little low at practice and the coach called me into his office. Being a smart coach and leader he let me know
that, as a captain of the team, their actions were a reflection on me and I was
to take responsibility for the team’s issues.
“But, Coach, I haven’t had any issues myself and just assumed…” As soon as I said the word ‘assumed’, he
stopped me and raised his voice a bit to let me know what happens when someone ‘assumes’. His point got across and he taught me that,
as a leader, the buck stops with you. You
take responsibility, but at the same time deal with issues to bring up morale
and bring about success. With Coach
Denny’s leadership, we went on to win our conference championship.
Great leaders know this, at least innately. However, our current leader seems unable to
take any responsibility other than for his self-proclaimed successes or deal
with any issues in a manner that increases overall morale.
We all know someone who just can’t admit when they are wrong, makes
baseless claims and point fingers when angered, and who only surrounds
themselves by ‘yes men’ to feed their ego.
These are the people that, even if they rise to a certain level, quickly
lose credibility and eventually fail to even get good ideas accomplished because
of their attitude. Sadly, this is where
we find ourselves with this current administration.
While there are countless examples of
this already, we see it yet again this week when the president resorted to,
again, repeating a claim that has been shown to be very misleading at best
about Hillary Clinton selling uranium to Russia. While it’s possible that he’s using
psychology, knowing that for many people it doesn’t matter if it’s false because
with their underlying bias this will cause a pre-formed attitude that is
difficult to change, it’s seems more like an immature response to accusations
against him. This is a president who
rails against ‘fake news’ while getting himself in trouble more than once by
quoting and relying on actual fake
news – and amazingly still favors the group he quoted, Fox News, just proving
his childishness! I’m not defending
Clinton here because there are a few questions on her end as well, just stating
the fact that this is yet another story that the president continues to believe
based on a faulty source. It’s important
to know what’s right and wrong, so I’ll put the points about this particular
falsehood below this write up if you want the details.
Also, the president has pointed his
fingers in many different directions for the health care bill not passing, even
changing his mind on degrading and then praising the Freedom Caucus. He repeatedly and famously claimed that the
jobs numbers were false, then claims them to be ‘very real’ when he gets the
first set of jobs data. He railed on the
president’s occasional golf trips, but has had 13 golf outings already. The list goes on and on and he wonders why he’s
losing credibility around the world. He
refuses to ever say he was wrong, instead making obscene claims about how he
got the information he mentioned or ignoring it altogether. If he is to truly lead, he MUST change his
ways!
The Clinton-uranium claim/myth:
To make it simple here are a few facts
from vox and snopes.com: ‘Trump is referring to Russia’s nuclear power
agency purchasing a majority stake in a Toronto-based energy company between
2009 and 2013. The company had mines and land in a number of US states with
huge uranium production capacity — a move the US State Department signed
off on. The mines, mills, and land the
company holds in the US account for 20 percent of the US’s uranium production
capacity, not actual produced uranium.’ And, among other ‘ways these accusations stray
from the facts is in attributing a power of veto or approval to Secretary
Clinton that she simply did not have. Clinton was one of nine cabinet members
and department heads that sit on the CFIUS, and the secretary of the
treasury is its chairperson. CFIUS members are collectively charged with
evaluating the transaction for potential national security issues, then turning
their findings over to the president. By law, the committee
can’t veto a transaction; only the president can. According to The New York
Times, Clinton may not have even directly participated in the
Uranium One decision. Then-Assistant Secretary of State Jose Fernandez, whose
job it was to represent the State Dept. on CFIUS, said Clinton herself
“never intervened” in committee matters.’
Finally and crucially, the
main national security concern was not about nuclear weapons proliferation, as
Trump suggests, but actually ensuring the US doesn’t have to depend too much on
uranium sources from abroad, as the US only makes about 20 percent of the
uranium it needs. An advantage in making nuclear weapons wasn’t the main issue
because, as PolitiFact notes, “the United States and Russia had for years
cooperated on that front, with Russia sending enriched fuel from decommissioned
warheads to be used in American nuclear power plants in return for raw
uranium.” In addition, the
timing of the donations that is referenced don’t match with the conspiracy
theory.
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