Free Speech and Loyalty

   The president has revoked the security clearance of former CIA director John Brennan, apparently because Brennan has criticized the president's actions and behaviors.
   Typically, former government people in key positions retain their security clearances and are kept up to date on major issues, partly as a way to retain their advice and counsel relating to problems the country faces.
   But this president seems to believe any disagreement or criticism by anyone, anytime, in any fashion is a mark of disloyalty punishable by whatever means the president feels is appropriate. He has already revoked the security clearances of several other former senior officials -- most of them Democrats, and including some who no longer had security clearance -- but all who were critical of the president's talk and actions.

   Moreover, the president's staffers have been required to sign non-disclosure agreements prohibiting them from talking about anything relating to their White House jobs in any fashion, ever. And these documents specify that this include a non-disparagement clause, meaning they cannot say negative things about the president, his staff, the vice president, their families and others connected to the Big Man's operations.
   How this president's attitudes conform to the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech is another question.
   Clearly, they don't.
   
   It's one thing to be loyal to the nation, a political party, an individual, and to the principles that make America what it is. But it's quite another to sacrifice loyalty to principles on the altar of devotion to one who demands absolute obedience in all things under penalty of whatever that person deems appropriate.
   That's called tyranny, not democracy.

   By the way, Omarosa Manigault Newman did not sign a non-disclosure agreement with its non-disparagement clause, so presumably she is free to talk about her experiences at the White House, especially considering the right of free speech that is constitutionally guaranteed to everyone in America.

   There is also a report that the president issued a "signing statement" along with the military spending bill, listing several dozen parts of the bill that he has chosen not to follow. This under the claim of "executive privilege," despite the Constitution's requirement that the president faithfully execute the laws enacted by Congress.
   It's not up to him to choose which laws he will enforce and which he will ignore at whim.