HEADLINE (BKN): NOBEL PRIZE FOR ALTHEIMER'S CURE!

STOCKHOLM, SW. November 15th, 2017 (BKN) - The Nobel Prize committee announced its that it is awarding the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to United States' independent Justice department, the intelligence and judiciary committees of its congress as well as its nation's constitutionally-protected free press for significant progress in the fight against early onset dementia among members of the Trump administration.

BeKkenhuisNewsNetwork
"Remember! You Re-Heard It HERE First!"

The Honorable Foe

""I would tell you that Robert E. Lee was an honorable man," Kelly said in an interview on Fox News on Monday evening. "He was a man that gave up his country to fight for his state, which 150 years ago was more important than country. It was always loyalty to state first back in those days. Now it's different today. But the lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War, and men and women of good faith on both sides made their stand where their conscience had them make their stand.""
John Kelly (General (Ret.))

Being white (Yankee, but white), I can agree at some level with Gen. Kelly: Robert E. Lee WAS a gentleman (within the standards of his time). And, until he joined the Confederacy, he was also a gentleman by act of Congress. :-)

And the Civil War WAS a failure of compromise.

Big states and little states, industrial states and agricultural states, northern states and southern states, had already come close to war a number of times post-revolution.

One caveat is that where Robert E. Lee was in many respects an admirable human being (as were many of his officers and soldiers), he gallantly fought for - as General Grant, who certainly respected him, said - the worst cause for which people have ever fought.

Such was the tragedy of the Civil War, which Abraham Lincoln came to see as God's judgment on a South with the institution of slavery AND A NORTH which trafficked in the slave trade.

And while there HAD been many compromises - often brilliant ones - from the writing of the Declaration of Independence to firing on Fort Sumter, in the end compromise on slavery was impossible and the Civil War, as I believe Churchill said, was the most sadly necessary war in history.


Trump's chief of staff calls Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee an 'honorable man' (6ABC)

HALLOWEEN 2017

HALLOWEEN 2017: Scary. Corker, Flake, Charlie Dent, and other right of center or even hard right legislators are desperately distancing themselves - not just from Trump, but from what the incumbent Republican party is about to become. They see what is about to happen, they can't prevent it, and they don't want to be sucked into the constitutional black hole that the Republican party is about to champion.
"...Trump is likely to adopt a self-defense based on huge assertions of arbitrary power. “A president cannot obstruct justice through the exercise of his constitutional and discretionary authority over executive-branch officials like Mr. Comey.” Those words appeared in a Wall Street Journal op-ed posted Sunday afternoon by two well-known Republican lawyers. They are about to become the official White House position—and when they do, you’ll find yourself with little maneuvering room to prevent them from becoming your position as well. "
Staying Silent May Backfire Spectacularly on Republican Lawmakers (The Atlantic)

Paul Manafort's Masseuse Indicted!

Kidding.

Yeah, I know. I'm a butthole. :-)

What's Trump's next move. Eat the turkey he's pardoned?

Nine or ten months ago I began visiting Congressman Dent's office in an attempt to prevent the loss of my (and a lot of other folks') health care. As the year progressed (if that's the right word) I became increasingly concerned about the broader consequences of a Trump presidency and the implications of Russian action against the democratic West.

Now that Trump has gone and - rather than letting Obamacare die on it's own (which it wasn't :-) ) - he decided to destroy the individual market.

Talked it over with my internist yesterday and she said that in the worse case (which may not happen, at least, not immediately) I'd have to forgo routine check-ups (from three times a year due to my various conditions to just one annual visit) and that she'd continue writing my prescriptions - which she believed I'd still be able to afford with the exception of my medication for Generalized Anxiety Disorder.

She said I'd have to re-adjust to living with the physical symptoms of anxiety WITHOUT resorting to self-medicating with alcohol again.

I've come to the conclusion that if effing Trump and my fellow Republicans in congress manage to bring about my death from lack of access to medical care THE YEAR BEFORE I'm eligible for Medicare, I can live with that. (So to speak. :-) )

And I'll consider it a moral victory over the madness of King Trump, if not a more substantive one, if I die sober.

But, at least while I'm on meds, I'm no longer worried about dying (from irony, among other things, the year before I'm eligible for Medicare) as a victim of Trump's and the Republicans' determined efforts to "reform" my healthcare. :-) 

But the meds aren't doing a DAMN thing regarding my anxiety about Trump and his enablers provoking, initiating, or blundering into a nuclear extinction event because Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell are willing to live with a nuclear-armed nutcase in the White House so long as that nutcase will sign their massive redistribution of wealth to the rich (which they ALSO, ironically, call tax "reform." :-) ).

Why should I worry about that if I'm not around?

Because I have family and friends and children and grandchildren of friends who will have to live in Trump's dystopian world until regime change occurs. And it will.

America's Most Dangerous Polarization

America's most dangerous polarization is not between left and right but between those who assert that facts are public and real and those who believe that facts are transient decorations for private mental events and emotion.

"“Journalistic integrity is dead,” he [Breitbart News Washington editor Matt Boyle] declared. “There is no such thing anymore. So everything is about weaponization of information.”"

What if the right-wing media wins? (Columbia Journalism Review)

Trump is a symptom.

Trump is a symptom. His "Fifth Ave" supporters are a symptom. The root of the problem is what is going on in society that is making 19th century, continental, Romantic nationalism - with its ethno-centric, authoritarian, and anti-Enlightenment irrationalism attractive to about 1/3 of Americans?

"Tinfoil Hat" Theology Revisited

General Revelation

1. We act as if our decisions and actions matter.
2. The meaning, value, and purpose of our experience is either apparent or real.
3. Naturalism explains our subjective human experience as a self-organizing "operating system" of a human machine which itself is the incidental end product of millennia of random mutations that caused increased survivability for these organisms in their environments.
4. If only apparent - as it appears to be within a purely naturalistic worldview - then all meaningful discussion ends as meaning, value, and purpose are simply random entities within a biological program.
5. If, on the other hand, our experienced belief that our decisions and actions really do matter - that they are real - then they must be supernatural and this, rather than some post-Enlightenment concern regarding whether revelation or miracle violates natural law, is the heart of Christian claims regarding the supernatural.
6. Naturalism can explain our experience but lacks to necessary concepts to validate that experience as real.
7. Whether or not a perceived or reported miracle (event) does or does not appear to stand in contradiction to standards of Enlightenment reason and evidence is of minor concern compared with the disclosure and discernment of ultimate meaning, purpose, and value in the event.

Special Revelation

1. Our life experience is meaningful, valuable, and purposeful.
2. That meaning, value, and purpose is unconditional.
3. That meaning, value, and purpose is ultimately resilient in confrontation with the intimidation, temptation, and aggression of death.

 The Bible and the Christian Tradition

1. The Bible is the authoritative witness to God’s revelation of meaning, purpose, and value in the life of Israel and the early church.
2. The broad, central, Christian tradition is the authoritative interpretation of that witness.
3. Contemporary revelation within and without Christian institutions in our private and public lives occurs in the context of that tradition: we recognize the gospel of God in Christ in our lives as we recognize it in the Bible and the Christian tradition.

The Gospel of God in Christ

1. The problem is human enthrallment to death and our destructive attempts to overcome, evade, or covenant with death.
2. The solution is God in Christ’s ironic victory over death through apparent defeat at its hands.
3. The new human possibility is genuine freedom in regards to death even and especially at those times when death seems ascendant over all human experience, whether private or public.
4. No longer seeking justification and salvation from death for our own lives, we are now free for both private and public efforts to be good stewards of Creation.

The Resistance of All People to the Gospel of God in Christ

All of us, Christian and non-Christian, resist the gospel because it is terrifying. It invites us to abandon our own personally and socially destructive means of securing relief from death and to instead, in our naked and terrible vulnerability, find God in Christ's salvation in the very midst of death's feigned rule. God in Christ has overcome death on a cross rather than a throne and calls us to do the same. And that is not the gospel we want to hear. So while the decision to accept the gospel may (or may not) come to a focus at one particularly significant point in our biography it is a decision that will be revisited as death continues to confront us every day of our lives even as we grow in confidence that God in Christ can be trusted onto death.

Democracy, Globalization, Nationalism... Pick two out of three?

"I have an "impossibility theorem" for the global economy that is like that. It says that democracy, national sovereignty and global economic integration are mutually incompatible: we can combine any two of the three, but never have all three simultaneously and in full."

The inescapable trilemma of the world economy (Dani Rodriks)

Rapid Social Change and Deviance

Trump must be removed from office, peacefully and constitutionally, as soon as possible. But that won't solve the problem.

The problem is that the folks who voted for him - and maybe more - will vote for a more accomplished, polished, politically-savvy Trump.

And the reason is not that they are bad people. (Some no doubt, like the rest of us, are - it would be miraculous if none were.)

The reason is that the processes of globalism, information technology, and - soon, robotics - are  dividing city folks from rural folks, globalists from nationalists, the rich from the poor (at the expense of the shrinking middle class) and causing the "losers" in those battles to feel their culture (that is, their world, their reality) is under siege and to feel  culturally, socially, and economically left behind and alienated.

FERTILE GROUND FOR FASCISM AND OTHER EXTREMIST IDEOLOGIES.

"Merton defines culture as an "organized set of normative values governing behavior which is common to members of a designated society or group". Social structures are the "organized set of social relationships in which members of the society or group are variously implicated".[18] Anomie, the state of normlessness, arises when there is "an acute disjunction between the cultural norms and goals and the socially structured capacities of members of the group to act in accord with them".[18] In his theory, Merton links anomie with deviance and argues that the discontinuity between culture and structure have the dysfunctional consequence of leading to deviance within society.[19]"

Robert K. Merton (Theory of Deviance)

CONFEDERNAZIS & THE ALT-RIGHT

The Alt-Right asserts a 19th century continental European nationalism of ethnic, racial, linguistic, cultural cohesion (along with Christendom's centuries-long anti-Semitism) that only later metastasized into full blown fascism.

But it took some specific ideologues to lead one strand of that nationalism into racial supremacy and purity on steroids combined with propaganda and violence as alternate paths to political power.

Nonetheless, it is an understanding of nationalism very different from the Enlightenment values of reason, liberty, progress, tolerance, constitutional government, and secularism that forms the basis of American nationalism as envisioned by the founders, the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.

Confedernazis are violent by definition. There ARE no pacifist Confedernazis who believe in democratic process and the rule of law. THIS IS THE DISTINCTION between them and social / economic conservatives, on the one hand, and Pat Buchanan Alt-Right nativists and racial or ethnic supremacists on the other.

All Confedernazis are alt-right. Not all alt-right are Confedernazis as they have not crossed the line to violence over democratic process (though some Confedernazis USE democratic process to their temporary pathway to power as did Mussolini and Hitler).

I would advise folks to not be so naïve as to think one is rallying to preserve history when the folks next to you are wearing hoods and militia uniforms (and weapons) and shouting slogans and carrying symbolism associated with the Klan and Nazi rallies.

THESE PEOPLE ARE IMPLICITLY AND EXPLICITLY THREATENING AND SOMETIMES INSTIGATING VIOLENCE. DON'T BE AN EFFING IDIOT.

ROBERT E. LEE ON WAR MONUMENTS

"Lexington, VA., August 5, 1869.

"Dear Sir--

"Absence from Lexington has prevented my receiving until to-day your letter of the 26th ult., inclosing an invitation from the Gettysburg Battle-field Memorial Association, to attend a meeting of the officers engaged in that battle at Gettysburg, for the purpose of marking upon the ground by enduring memorials of granite the positions and movements of the armies on the field.

"My engagements will not permit me to be present. I believe if there, I could not add anything material to the information existing on the subject. I think it wiser, moreover, not to keep open the sores of war but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, to commit to oblivion the feelings engendered.

"Very respectfully,
"Your obedient servant,
"R. E. Lee. "

Republican Vindicator, September 03, 1869

WHAT THIS MAY COME TO

I'm becoming convinced that in a true crisis he would be deposed by a military coup. It's the only thing that would be fast enough. A less drastic form (but more legal form) would be refusing to obey an illegal order. But Trump could, of course, always find someone who would obey it (the way Nixon kept firing people until he got to Robert Bork, who obeyed him, during the Saturday Night Massacre).

Per Seymour Hersh, such a coup was contemplated before Nixon resigned in August '74.

**************************************
[April '74] In April of 1974, Joseph Laitin, a public-affairs official who had served in the Johnson White House, telephoned Schlesinger. Although Laitin was a liberal Democrat, the two had become friends early in the Nixon Administration, after Laitin was reassigned as a press official in the Bureau of the Budget, where Schlesinger was in charge of analyzing defense and intelligence programs. They had remained close as Schlesinger moved up in the government—to chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission in 1971, director of the Central Intelligence Agency in February of 1973, and to the Pentagon in May. Laitin broached some of his fears: Was it possible for the President of the United States to authorize the use of nuclear weapons without his secretary of defense knowing it? What if Nixon, ordered by the Supreme Court to leave office, refused to leave and called for the military to surround the Washington area? Who was in charge then? Whose orders would be obeyed in a crisis? "If I were in your job," Laitin recalls telling Schlesinger, "I would want to know the location of the combat troops nearest to downtown Washington and the chain of command." Schlesinger said only, "Nice talking to you," and hung up.

*   *   *

[Late July '74] Bearing that in mind, and aware that Brown [Chairman of the Joint Chiefs - Bill B] had taken an oath of office that made him responsible to Nixon as Commander-in-Chief, Schlesinger trod delicately during their talk. His goal was to express his concerns about the White House and somehow to get Brown to reach the same conclusion that he himself had already reached. In essence, Schlesinger asked Brown for a commitment that neither he nor any of the other chiefs would respond to an order from the White House calling for the use of military force without immediately informing Schlesinger.

The Pardon (The Atlantic)

Experience with violence

I've read (but cannot currently find) articles asserting that a primary precursor of whether or not an extremist (whether Islamic or white supremacist) crosses the threshold to violence correlates more with a past history of violent experience (whether as a victim, perpetrator, or witness) than ideology.

Looking back over the last few years it seems as if most perpetrators either had backgrounds in violence or in other criminal activity and often very tenuous connections with the associated ideology.

Simply having extreme views is generally not enough to predict violent action on those views. Many folks have extreme views.

"James Alex Fields Jr. was barely a teenager in 2010 when his mother — who uses a wheelchair — locked herself in a bathroom, called 911 and said her son had struck her head and put his hands over her mouth when she told him to stop playing a video game, according to police records. On another occasion, records show, he brandished a 12-inch knife. Once, he spit in her face."

‘Very threatening’: Mother of Charlottesville suspect James A. Fields called 911 twice (Washington Post)

America Between Scylia and Charybdis

AMERICA & THE WORLD needs an alternative to today's Scylia and Charybdis: an unthinkable and unnecessary conventional / nuclear holocaust and an unthinkable and necessary American military coup to prevent that holocaust.

Because neither impeachment nor the 25th Amendment may be fast enough.

May God save America and America's constitutional form of government AND a suffering world from two nuclear-armed madmen.

Between Scylla and Charybdis

No wonder the elite mock them!

JUST WHILE I WAS REPENTING of my elitist ways after hearing Congressman Dent tell us these coal miners and assembly line Trump supporters just want to be respected AND having finished "The Retreat of Western Liberalism" by Edward Luce in which he says much the same thing, I FIND THIS NONSENSE POSTED BY ONE SUCH. (He works at a call center, not a factory, but call centers ARE the new factories.)

TRUMP SUPPORTERS - You want respect? Don't say such effing IGNORANT things as my friend (and he IS my friend) is saying.

I'll respect your hard work, your love of family, your ethical seriousness, the degree to which your livelihoods and paychecks have been diminished over the last 40 years (AS HAVE MINE)... but I CANNOT respect your belief in Breitbart, InfoWars, Russia Today, and other crackpot nonsense.

SLAP YOURSELVES!
For those on planet earth, feel free to cut and paste for YOUR Trump idiot friends.

And so it begins...

TRUMP DORK: you have plenty demonstrably false facts.

You accuse the president of colluding with Russia to beat Hillary without any evidence whatsoever up to this minute, none.

When you are ideologically driven apparently again facts, evidence, proof-- all those things don't matter.

This is why it's hard to take you seriously.

You're ready to impeach on a technicality.

You know that's a reflection of your weak philosophy don't you?

RESPONSE:

"You accuse the president of colluding with Russia"

I have never accused Trump of colluding with Russia.

I have accused him of LYING about his and his campaigns' CONNECTIONS to the Russian government (as in Don Jr's "oh, goody!" response to the Russian governments offer of dirt on Hillary), Jared Kushner's meeting with a sanctioned Russian bank that does not operate as a bank, has had one employee imprisioned as a Russian spy and whose top guy - the guy Kushner met with - was hand-picked by Putin after the guy graduated from Russian spy school. Also, Trump's odd good fortune when it comes to killer real estate deals with Russian oligarchs, and his campaign manager (Manafort) and erstwhile National Security Advisor (Flynn) being on the payroll of foreign governments (the pro-Putin Ukrainian president, Turkey) promoting the interests of Russian oligarchs.

As usual you have no clue as to what is going on. Every one of the clauses above have been verified BY Don Jr., real estate transactions records, Kushner, Manafort and Flynn.

Now we're going to see if any of that - and, I suspect, MUCH, MUCH, more - rises to the level of collusion in the expert opinion of the Special Prosecutor, his highly capable attorneys with specialties in RICO and money laundering and the all-powerful DC grand jury they have assembled.

Oh. And obstruction of justice. Of COURSE I fired Comey because of Russia, he says, to NBC news and Russian diplomats IN THE OVAL OFFICE.

Again, demonstrably true per NBC's video and the White House read-out on the Oval Office meeting.

But do go on about my "demonstrably false facts."

How about refuting some of them? :-) :-) :-)

I AGREE WITH PAUL RYAN.

I AGREE WITH PAUL RYAN. Damn. Did I say that out loud, or just think it? :-)

A leak can mean I'm party to an off-the-record lunch with Trump but then anonymously leak what was said. Impolite and grounds for termination if an employee. But not illegal.

The leaks that count are leaks from classified information that comes into one's possession through one's professional employment. Leaks that endanger the means and methods by which the government acquired the information (such "means and methods" possibly including an individual whose life has just been put at risk).

If that employee determines, for whatever reason, to leak that information to the journalist it is fair game for the media outlet to make that public... AFTER confirming the information with the government and making whatever reasonable redactions the government requests... then that is on the leaker and the press HAS NO RESPONSIBILITY to give up their source to the government.

Now, if the journalist IN ANY WAY encourages or enables or assists the leaker in leaking, then they share - morally and legally - the guilt of the leaker.

If the individual who leaked the contents of Flynn's intercepted (presumably by the NSA, CIA, or FBI) call to the Russian ambassador at the end of December is caught, their career is ruined and they'll probably go to jail. And, legally, they should.

However, had they not leaked that, we would still have a foreign agent as National Security Advisor, James Comey would still be head of the FBI, and we would not have a Special Prosecutor who - I am convinced - WILL get to the bottom of who did what in the election.

So, legally, guilty. Morally, God knows. Historical legacy?

They may yet be naming elementary schools after him or her.

"Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) defended journalists Friday, saying that while intelligence leaks compromise national security, it's "the problem of the leaker, not the journalist."  

""Leaks are concerning because leaks can often compromise national security, but that’s the problem of the leaker not the journalist," Ryan said at an event in Muskego, Wis., on Friday afternoon."

Paul Ryan: Intel leaks 'the problem of the leaker, not the journalist' (The Hill)

"Recruitment in Moscow" - Could this have happened to Donald Trump?

"So you think Trump was colluding back in 2013 and 2008?

"And it came to fruition in 2016? "

Yes, Mike. Because that's how it works. Here's a case study.

You won't read this but others might. And, now that I've spent time on it, I will post it to my wall.

Note that during the recruitment of the KGB asset, Birgitta, she was first contacted by the KGB in '62, gently persuaded to do a few incriminating acts in '64, and - at the time the Swedish government investigated her and removed her access to sensitive information - it was 1966.

And, ALL THAT TIME... she never knew... and refused to believe... she was working for the KGB.

"The Swedish security service described Birgitta as a 52 year old woman who looks about 6(? years old, but who believes she has the charm and beauty of a young girl. She told one of the representatives of the service that she was like a young woman of 25, and she believes it. She is easily attracted to men and falls in love with anyone who flatters her or gives her attention. She told one interviewer that she was still in love with Oleg and refused to believe he was an agent of the KGB. She asked that this be proved to her, and said that she would leave for Switzerland on a moment's notice to meet him if she knew he was there. The fact that Oleg is 16 years her junior does not appear to her to be unreasonable or cause for concern."

*   *   *

"Birgitta's handling by Andre reflected a shrewd knowledge of her character. He catered to her love for fine things, presented her with gifts of "new icons" described to her as antiques, exploited her fondness for gourmet meals, resplendent furnishings and good manners."
Tell me... how effing hard would it be for Russian intelligence, under Putin's direction, to get Trump to incriminate himself without even KNOWING he was the target of a Russian intelligence operation?

I think there's a lot of dirt on Trump. But treason? I think he was very deeply entrapped before that dawned on him... if it ever dawned on him at all.

Recruitment in Moscow (CIA)

The Reformed Republican

A Call for a Repentant, Fact-Based, and Sadder-But-Wiser Republican Party

I have previously posted my beliefs as a Reformed Republican.

I believe government derives its legitimacy through the direct or implied consent of the majority with minority rights protected through the separation of powers and the Bill of Rights. 

I support liberal ideals of individual freedom and equal opportunity that is nonetheless mindful of its responsibility to conserve our common, inherited traditions of civic virtue, the support of families, and identification with a common American culture based on the ideals of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution rather than on race, ethnicity, or religion.

As a centrist, I possess both left-wing and right-wing tendencies and am unashamed of either. In a media environment that favors and amplifies dramatic conflict we should speak and act in ways that favor and amplifies the new “silent majority”: the non-extremist middle.

I support incremental social reform both as a moral responsibility to our fellow citizens as well as a means of preventing (if possible) a violent, revolutionary reaction that may or may not bring about reform. 

I now add this…

I support the radical reformation of the current Republican party to completely separate itself from the current political tactics to which it is addicted and that hold its representatives in captivity including:

• Ideological extremism
• Aiding and Abetting Racism
• Aiding and Abetting the Manufacture of Conspiratorial Delusions
• Aiding and Abetting the Delegitimization of Institutions of Public Facts Including the Press, the Civil Service, Scientific Consensus, and the Judiciary.
• Demonization of Opponents
• Demonization of the Federal Government to the Extent of Advocating for Shutting Down the Government and Defaulting on America’s National Debt

I support a reformed Republican of fact-based, inclusive, principled but pragmatic conservatism.

America's Most Serious Polarization

I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.
-Donald Trump, Iowa Rally (January 23rd, 2016)

After a year of denials it turns out that Trump associates – including his son - had repeated contact with individuals related to the Kremlin. Several have been forced to correct official forms and potentially perjured testimony under oath. Since Trump was elected he has attacked American allies, NATO, the EU, the media, his own executive branch intelligence community, the judiciary, and alleged voter fraud in the very election he won, all of which furthers Putin's plan of "strategic deterrence" to weaken the Western Alliance. He has been scrupulous not to attack Putin or Russia in any serious way, refusing to accept that Russia attacked our election and endeavoring to weaken existing sanctions. And the list goes on…

And, in the end, in the next several months or years, Special Counsel Robert Mueller may, in the end, do what the Justice Department (as announced by the FBI) decided to do with Clinton's email server issue: talk about appalling judgment, lack of transparency, etc., but determine there is insufficient evidence to seek an indictment.

If, at the end of the day, it is determined by the Special Prosecutor that nothing illegal was done by any of Trump's people and that nothing they did could be traced back to Donald Trump himself, I will be absolutely astonished.

I'd be downright flabbergasted, in fact.

But I would accept it.

But if Robert Mueller indicts any of Trump's folks, or submits a report to congress that results in Trump's impeachment or resignation from office, the 35% – 42% or so who still support Trump despite (or maybe because of) all the media coverage of everything we've found out about his campaign, his transition, and his administration, will never, never, believe he did anything wrong and that, in the end, the jailed are innocent martyrs and Trump was overthrown in a "soft coup."

Those of us old enough to remember are – or should be – sobered by the fact that, "By the end of his presidency, Nixon’s approval rating had tumbled to 24 percent."

In other words, even after…

July 24, 1974: United States v. Nixon decided: Nixon is ordered to give up tapes to investigators.

Congress moves to impeach Nixon.

• July 27 to July 30, 1974: House Judiciary Committee passes Articles of Impeachment.
• Early August 1974: A previously unknown tape from June 23, 1972 (recorded a few days after the break-in) documenting Nixon and Haldeman formulating a plan to block investigations is released. This recording later became known as the "Smoking Gun".
• Key Republican Senators tell Nixon that enough votes exist to convict him.

Timeline of the Watergate scandal (Wikipedia)

…one in four Americans still supported his presidency.

And that's what those of us not living in Alt-America are dealing with.

It's not about the facts anymore… if it ever was.

And, as one pundit put it, Republican congressional representatives are torn between their duty to defend the US Constitution and the fact that, as of April of this year, 88% of those who voted for Trump still support him.

I will, as my evangelical, pro-Trump friends tell me, pray for Donald Trump.

But I will also pray for those Republican representatives in Congress who are trapped in a vicious double bind to verbally distance themselves from the president, or take action to remove him from office.

Their political careers and legacy, the future of the Republican party and our nation, and the realization that whichever course they choose will complicate the American situation (presuming that's still possible) and further polarize their constituencies puts them in the most unenviable of situations.

A Republican in the Age of Trump: Meditation on the Fourth of July

(Note: all italicized text taken verbatim from Wikipedia) 

I believe government derives its legitimacy through the direct or implied consent of the majority with minority rights protected through the separation of powers and the Bill of Rights.

But within those constraints, the minority has a right to be heard and the majority has the right to decide even if I don’t like the result in one case or another.

Republic: A republic (Latin: res publica) is a form of government in which the country is considered a "public matter" – not the private concern or property of the rulers – and where offices of state are elected or appointed, rather than inherited.

Popular sovereignty: Popular sovereignty or the sovereignty of the people's rule, is the principle that the authority of a state and its government is created and sustained by the consent of its people, through their elected representatives (Rule by the People), who are the source of all political power.

I support liberal ideals of individual freedom and equal opportunity that is nonetheless mindful of its responsibility to conserve our common, inherited traditions of civic virtue, the support of families, and identification with a common American culture based on the ideals of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution rather than on race, ethnicity, or religion.

I reject ideas of either unrestricted individualism or totalitarian statism in favor of a pragmatic realism recognizing that the individual and their society are codependent entities. It takes a village to raise a child, but it takes mature adult individuals and families to maintain a village.

Individualism makes the individual its focus[1] and so starts "with the fundamental premise that the human individual is of primary importance in the struggle for liberation."[6] Classical liberalism, existentialism, and anarchism are examples of movements that take the human individual as a central unit of analysis.[6] Individualism thus involves "the right of the individual to freedom and self-realization".[7]

Civic virtue is the cultivation of habits of personal living that are claimed to be important for the success of the community. Closely linked to the concept of citizenship, civic virtue is often conceived as the dedication of citizens to the common welfare of their community even at the cost of their individual interests.

As a centrist, I possess both left-wing and right-wing tendencies and am unashamed of either. In a media environment that favors and amplifies dramatic conflict we should speak and act in ways that favor and amplifies the new “silent majority”: the non-extremist middle.

While the former’s focus on the clash of ideas is educational and makes great TV, it is the comparative silence of the middle which is making government difficult at the state level and all but impossible at the federal level.

Left-wing politics supports social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy and social inequality.

Liberalism is a political philosophy or worldview founded on ideas of liberty and equality.

Right-wing politics hold that certain social orders and hierarchies are inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable,[1][2][3] typically supporting this position on the basis of natural law, economics or tradition.

Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes retaining traditional social institutions in the context of culture and civilization.

According to Quintin Hogg, the chairman of the British Conservative Party in 1959, "Conservatism is not so much a philosophy as an attitude, a constant force, performing a timeless function in the development of a free society, and corresponding to a deep and permanent requirement of human nature itself".

I support incremental social reform both as a moral responsibility to our fellow citizens as well as a means of preventing (if possible) a violent, revolutionary reaction that may or may not bring about reform.

Violent revolutionary reform is hard to rule out considering America was founded on such a reform, but the situation should be at least as dire as that faced by the Founders. Simply failing to convince the majority of the wisdom of one’s ideas or the majority being politically outmaneuvered by a minority over this issue or that issue is not sufficient reason to bring about a bloodbath.

Social equality and egalitarianism are uncomfortable allies with liberal individualism. Realism demands that we recognize that people are not born equal, do not have equal opportunity, nor have equal ideas as to what constitutes “the pursuit of happiness.”

While recognizing this reality, society should still endeavor to develop “a more perfect union,” improve opportunity for the less fortunate through the provision of a sufficient safety net for the survival and dignity of those who face catastrophes beyond their control.

To the extent this can be constitutionally addressed at the state and local level, it should be. To the extent that the constitutional scope of federal authority and power can better address the issue as a whole, it should do so - using the “best practices” uncovered through state, local, and private efforts.

Progressivism is the support for or advocacy of social reform.

Pragmatism "emphasizes the practical application of ideas by acting on them to actually test them in human experiences".[4] Pragmatism focuses on a "changing universe rather than an unchanging one as the Idealists, Realists and Thomists had claimed".[4]

Incrementalism is the method of change by which many small policy changes are enacted over time in order to create a larger broad based policy change.

Reformism is a political position that posits that gradual changes within existing institutions can eventually change a society's fundamental aspects, such as its economic system and political structures.

Donald Trump as President IS America's Central Crisis

Republicans MUST invoke the 25th Amendment, initiate impeachment proceedings, or make him sufficiently unhappy that he resigns his office.

Earlier this week I indicated that Trump's tweets were his way of distracting us from the Russia attack, possible collusion, awful (and failed) healthcare legislation, and obstruction of justice.

I've changed my mind. All of those are desperately important but those problems have either been caused or made worse by Donald Trump PARTICULARLY by denying the American people necessary information - mostly, at this point, by attacking a free and professional press corp.

Donald Trump IS our crisis because, until that is solved, none of the rest can be addressed.

Political Glossary

Political Glossary

For those still interested in the meaning of words in an Age of Trump.

Stolen in total from Wikipedia entries of the same name.

Democracy

Democracy (Greek: δημοκρατία, Dēmoskrátos literally "rule of the people"), in modern usage, is a system of government in which the citizens exercise power directly or elect representatives from among themselves to form a governing body, such as a parliament.[1] Democracy is sometimes referred to as "rule of the majority".[2] Democracy is a system of processing conflicts in which outcomes depend on what participants do but no single force controls what occurs and its outcomes. The uncertainty of outcomes is inherent in democracy, which makes all forces struggle repeatedly for the realization of their interests, being the devolution of power from a group of people to a set of rules.[3] Western democracy, as distinct from that which existed in pre-modern societies, is generally considered to have originated in city states such as Classical Athens and the Roman Republic, where various schemes and degrees of enfranchisement of the free male population were observed before the form disappeared in the West at the beginning of late antiquity. The English word dates to the 16th century, from the older Middle French and Middle Latin equivalents.

According to political scientist Larry Diamond, democracy consists of four key elements: (a) A political system for choosing and replacing the government through free and fair elections; (b) The active participation of the people, as citizens, in politics and civic life; (c) Protection of the human rights of all citizens, and (d) A rule of law, in which the laws and procedures apply equally to all citizens.[4]

Republicanism

Republicanism is an ideology of being a citizen in a state as a republic under which the people hold popular sovereignty.

Anti-monarchism: Criticism of monarchy can be targeted against the general form of government—monarchy—or more specifically, to particular monarchical governments as controlled by hereditary royal families.

Popular sovereignty: Popular sovereignty or the sovereignty of the people's rule, is the principle that the authority of a state and its government is created and sustained by the consent of its people, through their elected representatives (Rule by the People), who are the source of all political power. It is closely associated with social contract philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Popular sovereignty expresses a concept and does not necessarily reflect or describe a political reality.[a] The people have the final say in government decisions. Benjamin Franklin expressed the concept when he wrote, "In free governments, the rulers are the servants and the people their superiors and sovereigns".[1]

Republic: A republic (Latin: res publica) is a form of government in which the country is considered a "public matter" – not the private concern or property of the rulers – and where offices of state are elected or appointed, rather than inherited. It is a government where the head of state is not a monarch.[1][2][3]

In American English, the definition of a republic can also refer specifically to a government in which elected individuals represent the citizen body, known elsewhere as a representative democracy (a democratic republic),[4] and exercise power according to the rule of law (a constitutional republic).[5][6][2]

Res publica: Res publica is a Latin phrase, loosely meaning 'public affair'. It is the root of the word 'republic', and the word 'commonwealth' has traditionally been used as a synonym for it; however translations vary widely according to the context. 'Res' is a nominative singular Latin noun for a substantive or concrete thing – as opposed to 'spes', which means something unreal or ethereal – and 'publica' is an attributive adjective meaning 'of and/or pertaining to the state or the public'. Hence a literal translation is, 'the public thing/affair'.[1]

Social contract: In both moral and political philosophy, the social contract or political contract is a theory or model, originating during the Age of Enlightenment, that typically addresses the questions of the origin of society and the legitimacy of the authority of the state over the individual.[1] Social contract arguments typically posit that individuals have consented, either explicitly or tacitly, to surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the ruler or magistrate (or to the decision of a majority), in exchange for protection of their remaining rights. The question of the relation between natural and legal rights, therefore, is often an aspect of social contract theory. The term takes its name from The Social Contract (Du contrat social ou Principes du droit politique), a 1762 book by Jean-Jacques Rousseau that discussed this concept.

Although the antecedents of social contract theory are found in antiquity, in Greek and Stoic philosophy and Roman and Canon Law, the heyday of the social contract was the mid-17th to early 19th centuries, when it emerged as the leading doctrine of political legitimacy. The starting point for most social contract theories is an examination of the human condition absent any political order that Thomas Hobbes termed the "state of nature".[2] In this condition, individuals' actions are bound only by their personal power and conscience. From this shared starting point, social contract theorists seek to demonstrate, in different ways, why a rational individual would voluntarily consent to give up their natural freedom to obtain the benefits of political order.

Civic virtue

Civic virtue is the cultivation of habits of personal living that are claimed to be important for the success of the community. Closely linked to the concept of citizenship, civic virtue is often conceived as the dedication of citizens to the common welfare of their community even at the cost of their individual interests. The identification of the character traits that constitute civic virtue has been a major concern of political philosophy. The term civility refers to behavior between persons and groups that conforms to a social mode (that is, in accordance with the civil society), as itself being a foundational principle of society and law.

Federalism

Federalism is the mixed or compound mode of government, combining a general government (the central or 'federal' government) with regional governments (provincial, state, cantonal, territorial or other sub-unit governments) in a single political system. Its distinctive feature, exemplified in the founding example of modern federalism of the United States of America under the Constitution of 1787, is a relationship of parity between the two levels of government established.[1] It can thus be defined as a form of government in which there is a division of powers between two levels of government of equal status.[2]

Federalism differs from confederalism, in which the general level of government is subordinate to the regional level, and from devolution within a unitary state, in which the regional level of government is subordinate to the general level.[3] It represents the central form in the pathway of regional integration or separation,[4] bounded on the less integrated side by confederalism and on the more integrated side by devolution within a unitary state.[5]

Liberalism

Liberalism is a political philosophy or worldview founded on ideas of liberty and equality.[1][2][3] Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally they support ideas and programmes such as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, free markets, civil rights, democratic societies, secular governments, gender equality, and international cooperation.

Conservatism

Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes retaining traditional social institutions in the context of culture and civilization. By some definitions, conservatives have variously sought to preserve institutions including religion, monarchy, parliamentary government, property rights and the social hierarchy, emphasizing stability and continuity, while the more extreme elements called reactionaries oppose modernism and seek a return to "the way things were".[1][2] The first established use of the term in a political context originated with François-René de Chateaubriand in 1818,[3] during the period of Bourbon restoration that sought to roll back the policies of the French Revolution. The term, historically associated with right-wing politics, has since been used to describe a wide range of views.

There is no single set of policies that are universally regarded as conservative, because the meaning of conservatism depends on what is considered traditional in a given place and time. Thus conservatives from different parts of the world—each upholding their respective traditions—may disagree on a wide range of issues. Edmund Burke, an 18th-century politician who opposed the French Revolution but supported the American Revolution, is credited as one of the main theorists of conservatism in Great Britain in the 1790s.[4] According to Quintin Hogg, the chairman of the British Conservative Party in 1959, "Conservatism is not so much a philosophy as an attitude, a constant force, performing a timeless function in the development of a free society, and corresponding to a deep and permanent requirement of human nature itself".[5] In contrast to the tradition-based definition of conservatism, political theorists such as Corey Robin define conservatism primarily in terms of a general defense of social and economic inequality. From this perspective conservatism is less an attempt to uphold traditional institutions and more "a meditation on—and theoretical rendition of—the felt experience of having power, seeing it threatened, and trying to win it back."[6][7]

Progressivism

Progressivism is the support for or advocacy of social reform.[1] As a philosophy, it is based on the Idea of Progress, which asserts that advancements in science, technology, economic development, and social organization are vital to the improvement of the human condition. Progressivism became highly significant during the Age of Enlightenment in Europe, out of the belief that Europe was demonstrating that societies could progress in civility from uncivilized conditions to civilization through strengthening the basis of empirical knowledge as the foundation of society.[2] Figures of the Enlightenment believed that progress had universal application to all societies and that these ideas would spread across the world from Europe.[2] The meanings of progressivism have varied over time and from different perspectives. The contemporary common political conception of progressivism in the culture of the Western world emerged from the vast social changes brought about by industrialization in the Western world in the late 19th century, particularly out of the view that progress was being stifled by vast economic inequality between the rich and the poor; minimally regulated laissez-faire capitalism with monopolistic corporations; and intense and often violent conflict between workers and capitalists, thus claiming that measures were needed to address these problems.[3]

Left-wing politics

Left-wing politics supports social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy and social inequality.[1][2][3][page needed][4] It typically involves a concern for those in society whom its adherents perceive as disadvantaged relative to others (prioritarianism), as well as a belief that there are unjustified inequalities that need to be reduced or abolished (by advocating for social justice).[1] The term left wing can also refer to "the radical, reforming, or socialist section of a political party or system".[5]

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According to author Barry Clark, "Leftists [...] claim that human development flourishes when individuals engage in cooperative, mutually respectful relations that can thrive only when excessive differences in status, power, and wealth are eliminated."[16]

Right-wing politics

Right-wing politics hold that certain social orders and hierarchies are inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable,[1][2][3] typically supporting this position on the basis of natural law, economics or tradition.[4](p693, 721)[5][6][7][8][9][page needed] Hierarchy and inequality may be viewed as natural results of traditional social differences[10][11] or the competition in market economies.[12][13] The term right-wing can generally refer to "the conservative or reactionary section of a political party or system."[14]

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From the 1830s to the 1880s, there was a shift in the Western world of social class structure and the economy, moving away from nobility and aristocracy towards capitalism.[22] This general economic shift toward capitalism affected centre right movements such as the British Conservative Party, which responded by becoming supportive of capitalism.[23] In the United States, the Right includes both economic and social conservatives.[24] In Europe, economic conservatives are usually considered liberal, and the Right includes nationalists, nativist opposition to immigration, religious conservatives, and historically a significant presence of right-wing movements with anti-capitalist sentiments including conservatives and fascists who opposed what they saw as the selfishness and excessive materialism inherent in contemporary capitalism.[25][26]