#realitywinner

But the stick for truth-telling can be ridiculously harsh. Just ask Reality Winner, the Air Force veteran and security contractor who was so outraged that the government was covering up the extent of Russian hacking into U.S. election-system computers that she decided to risk everything by leaking the proof to the media — and is paying with a harsh 63-month prison sentence, while banned by Trump administration wardens from even speaking to the press. A promise to reverse this injustice and issue a full pardon to Winner should be the price of admission for anyone seeking to become the 46th (or 47th) president. But as a nation, we really should address the much deeper ethical rot that turns our truth-tellers into pariahs but offers an elaborate system of rewards — social and economic — to keep quiet and not rock the boat. To be “good Americans” and just follow orders. To be a moral coward.