Some document management advice for the White House

USA Today reports that in at least 5 instances, copies of Executive Orders published at whitehouse.gov do not match the official versions published in the Federal Register. This is a practical use case where the White House staff should invest in two IT staples — document management software and digital signature software.

Document management software allows for tracking history of changes and approvals to content such as Executive Orders. Microsoft’s widely deployed Sharepoint is just one solution that can be used for document management. Digital signatures are a feature of Public Key Infrastructure and document signing certificates are widely available. Microsoft Word and Libre Office both support document signing.

Mr. President, your Chief Information Officer should be able to quickly help you manage this mess. If he cannot, please find one who can.

On the current unrest

The liberal-left media, it seems to me, fails to understand the motivation behind all of the on-the-street in-your-face unrest by progressives against the new Washington Republican regime. Yes, folks are angry about the policies, but that is not why they are taking to the streets in the cold of winter. I believe the unrest to be about hypocrisy, self-dealing, and ultimately, the bad behavior of Donald Trump.

Policy differences we can discuss. But would you raise your son to emulate Donald Trump? Would you leave your daughter alone with Donald Trump?

Donald Trump may already be on his way to impeachment. He has not been transparent in his finances. We do know that there is clearly a conflict of interest in his lease for his new DC hotel. We don’t know the extent of his dealings with foreign regimes. We know for sure that he thinks he can put a stack folders on a table at a press conference to try to fool and impress us.

The right wing controlled Congress is willing to suspend long standing rules to get their way. That is bad for the nation no matter who is in power. The Republicans have the nerve to demand speedy acquiescence in the approval of unqualified Cabinet Secretaries as they disregard our fresh memory of how they ignored a moderate and eminently qualified Supreme Court nominee for 10 months.

Their President has invited white supremacists into the seat of decision making. He cannot seem to be civil to friendly leaders of other nations. He has appointed Cabinet members who either have no experience in the function that they are supposed to manage or want to abolish that function. He is so insensitive to our friends that his appointee as Ambassador to the European Union is known to be an advocate for the dismantling of the EU and the Euro currency.

Trump is a nasty, insecure, narcissistic, lying, crooked shell of a leader. He does not care that the First Amendment precedes the Second Amendment in the interest of a free press. He can’t control his Tweets nor his outbursts. He shrugs off societal norms of behavior as an unnecessary impediment on his crusade to smother dissent. He is a loser and the nation loses.

Then, there are those false Christians who endorse this behavior because, they believe, Trump will make America great (again). I believe he will lead us straight to hell.

Progressives, however, know that this country is (and has been) great, despite its many flaws. And they want to make it better. They certainly don’t want this petulant child to destroy progress that we’ve made toward economic and racial equality. We are reminded every time he opens his ignorant mouth to attack the “media”, or to start a tweet war with a celebrity or foreign leader, that he and his ilk menace our nation.

That is why the fight has been taken to the street.