Abraham Lincoln understood, perhaps better than anyone, how personal liberty and self-reliance are at the heart of the American experience. But he also knew there are certain things we can only do together. Read more in my essay for @inpursuitusa.bsky.social:

The killing of Alex Pretti is a heartbreaking tragedy. It should also be a wake-up call to every American, regardless of party, that many of our core values as a nation are increasingly under assault.

Four generations of my family have served our country. Service is in my blood. The President wouldn’t know anything about that.

Today the Pentagon censured Senator Mark Kelly and moved to strip part of his earned military retirement benefits for stating the truth. This administration is trying to convince Americans that truth is whatever it says it is—even when the evidence is plainly in front of us.

This Date in History: January 1, 1863: Abraham Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation Or, as Trump supporters now refer to it, "Where it all went wrong..."

“The task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen – but to think what nobody has yet thought, about that which everybody sees.” Erwin Schrödinger

Spending a peaceful Sunday celebrating books and the importance of reading and writing. In this regard, I'm sharing a favourite passage from Sagan's Cosmos. ✨Books are indeed proof that humans work magic.✨ #Booksky #WritingCommunity #Booklovers 💙📚🪐

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Every machine in a Hospital that diagnoses your body without cutting you open is based on a principle of Physics, discovered by a Physicist who had no interest in Medicine. If you think the world doesn’t need Basic Science, or that somehow Science has failed you, think again. #sciencematters

Well Said Lt. General Hertling......

For what it’s worth, as a commander and officer it was my duty, moral obligation, and legal requirement to first question and then to not obey any illegal order I was given. The same is true for everyone who swear their oath. Hope that clears things up.

"Our Sun is a second- or third-generation star. All of the rocky and metallic material we stand on, the iron in our blood, the calcium in our teeth, the carbon in our genes were produced billions of years ago in the interior of a red giant star. We are made of star-stuff." -Carl Sagan

"The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas." -Carl Sagan

"In any case, we do not advance the human cause by refusing to consider ideas that make us frightened." -Carl Sagan, Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science

"I promise to question everything my leaders tell me. I promise to use my critical faculties. I promise to develop my independence of thought. I promise to educate myself so I can make my own judgements." -Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

"Thomas Jefferson taught that a democracy was impractical unless the people were educated." -Carl Sagan, Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life & Death at the Brink of the Millennium

Trump and the art of the deal www.youtube.com/shorts/8UjNZ...

After the earth dies, some 5 billion years from now, after it's burned to a crisp, or even swallowed by the Sun, there will be other worlds and stars and galaxies coming into being -- and they will know nothing of a place once called Earth. ― Carl Sagan

Worth listening. www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9YO...

"Advertising teaches people not to trust their judgment. Advertising teaches people to be stupid." -Carl Sagan, Contact

"Many religions have attempted to make statues of their gods very large, and the idea, I suppose, is to make us feel small. But if that's their purpose, they can keep their paltry icons. We need only look up if we wish to feel small." -Carl Sagan, The Varieties of Scientific Experience.

"What does seventy million years mean to beings who live only one-millionth as long? We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever." -Carl Sagan, Cosmos

"We must understand the Cosmos as it is and not confuse how it is with how we wish it to be." -Carl Sagan, Cosmos

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As a new Democrat, I was thinking today that if I run for President in 2028, I’d tell voters that one of the 1st things I’d do as Prez will be to bulldoze Trump’s gross ballroom. A monstrosity that’ll destroy the character of the people’s house. I’d pledge to bulldoze that fucking ballroom on day 1.

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Any book worth banning is a book worth reading" — Isaac Asimov

This is beautiful.

“Most people would experience the least circadian burden under permanent Standard Time, which prioritizes morning light.” #DitchDST #SaveStandardTime

"Every kid starts out as a natural-born scientist, and then we beat it out of them. A few trickle through the system with their wonder and enthusiasm for science intact." -Carl Sagan

Katherine Johnson August 26, 1918 - February 24, 2020 #KatherineJohnson #NASA #blackhistory

"Science is based on experiment, on a willingness to challenge old dogma, on an openness to see the universe as it really is. Accordingly, science sometimes requires courage - at the very least the courage to question the conventional wisdom." -Carl Sagan

"Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves." -Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

The First Amendment is not optional. Censoring artists and cancelling shows is an attack on American values. We will fight for the truth, and we will not yield.

You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe.

Under the First Amendment, the president doesn’t get to censor comedians, TV networks or political speech. Americans and our Constitution reject Kings, dictators and speech Commissars.

"There are naive questions, tedious questions, ill-phrased questions, questions put after inadequate self-criticism. But every question is a cry to understand the world. There is no such thing as a dumb question." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

Our democracy is not self-executing. It depends on us all as citizens, regardless of our political affiliations, to stand up and fight for the core values that have made this country the envy of the world.

Integrity

“Get it all on record now. Get the films. Get the witnesses. Because somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened.” Dwight D. Eisenhower

Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth.

"You go talk to kindergartners or first-grade kids, you find a class full of science enthusiasts... You go talk to 12th graders and there's none of that. They've become incurious. Something terrible has happened between kindergarten and 12th grade."

Trump was impeached, twice. Considering posting this every day until the Smithsonian corrects its exhibit. Feel free to join me.