WHAT IF
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Published: Wednesday, January 01, 2020 12:56
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by John Campbell
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What if things were different three years ago? What would our country be today? Have you ever asked yourself that question? Just after Trump took office, a friend who happens to be a college professor and liberal, asked me what I thought of Trump and why. I told him that when I started college at Syracuse University I had a new group of friends. As I was from upstate New York and grew up in a farming region, I was shocked to meet and live with young men from the New York City area. They were rude and crude next to the way I was raised and expected to behave. I had forgotten about this first encounter until Trump started to campaign. I was meeting my college friends all over again. So I told my friend this and explained that most of Trump’s language was the same as I had experienced as a freshman in college—in your face, rude and crude. I added that as I got to know my new friends I found them to also be sincere and trusting and became close to many of them. So, what if Trump had come from upstate and had been a politician who owed his rise to the top to other politicians and lobbyists as most of those running for the highest office are? Would he have been more acceptable to his political foes and many in his own party? You will have to answer this as you read because it is hard to imagine.
IMPEACHMENT
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Published: Sunday, December 15, 2019 12:50
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by John Campbell
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Hits: 969
Last week an item on a Pittsburgh TV station news broadcast reported a school superintendent who was fired because of a DUI. I didn’t know the details, but he may have lost his job because he had a second glass of wine at dinner or maybe he just drank way too much before driving. Drinking and driving will be the subject of another blog, but that a person lost his job due to a single infraction where other remedies could have been made is the point that I want to make. Locally we have seen a police chief and a mayor lose their jobs due to minor infractions that many would not believe rose to the level of being fired. Some time ago, a friend of mine was fired from a local factory for not following a procedure correctly. He added a step that had been in the procedure before it was revised to speed up production. There was no harm to the product, the machinery or fellow workers. His supervisor did not like him, so he lost his job. The company lost twenty years of experience when they could have given him a written warning and retrained him. He made somebody irate and gave them a chance to get even for past grievances.
