A House Once Again Divided

With the resignation of Justice Kennedy, we come to the great separation between the wheat and the chaff, the sheep and the goats regarding what it is to be an American.

Americans who support Donald Trump BECAUSE of who he is are beyond recovery and must be "encouraged" to go back under their rock.

Americans who, based on legitimate grievances against the Powers That Be, support Donald Trump IN SPITE OF who he is must have their cause championed and their motivations changed from fear to a realistic hope for redress.

The fault line is not Republican vs. Democrat nor conservative vs. liberal but a collection of nativist, racists, isolationists, protectionists, ethno-centrists, and conspiracists vs. Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, liberals, and independents who recognize the hostile takeover of the Republican party for what it is: America's shadow self that, in difficult times, can be summoned by fear-mongering and lies to come out from under their rock to empower the narcissistic demagogues who use them.
America has been here before and while at no time in its history could anything be taken for granted, the track record is shows us muddling through in our own sweet time (see 10 Overturned Supreme Court Cases (How Stuff Works) )

"Roy Marcus Cohn (/koʊn/; February 20, 1927 – August 2, 1986) was an American attorney. During Senator Joseph McCarthy's investigations into Communist activity in the United States during the Second Red Scare, Cohn served as McCarthy's chief counsel and gained special prominence during the Army–McCarthy hearings.

"Cohn was also known for being a U.S. Department of Justice prosecutor at the espionage trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and later for representing President Donald J. Trump during his early business career. He was disbarred by the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court for unethical conduct in 1986.[2] He died less than two months later."

Roy Cohn (Wikipedia)

When they say "SPYGATE!," you say, "informant."

When they say "SPYGATE!," you say, "informant."

" The term informant means any individual who furnishes information to an intelligence agency in the course of a confidential relationship protecting the identity of such individual from public disclosure."
50 U.S.C. § 426 - Definitions

So, if I have a loose connection to the mob (say, I'm friends with a bartender and various regulars at a bar where mobsters tend to hang-out) and he overhears one of them indiscreetly and drunkenly claim to have whacked a rival and I call the FBI and give them that information with the understanding that they will keep my friend and my own identity confidential, I am an informant.

And if the FBI agrees to that and says they'd be most grateful for any further information I could get from my friend on the mob's activity, that does not mean I'm a spy and it doesn't mean my bartender friend or any of the regulars are targets of an investigation or even subjects of an investigation.

BECAUSE THE FBI WANTS TO COVERTLY INVESTIGATE THE MOB, NOT THE BARTENDER AND THE REGULARS.

Okay. Now substitute Stefan Halper (the FBI informant) for me, members of the Trump campaign for the bartender and regulars and Putin and Russian intelligence for the mob.

Why do we KNOW BEYOND ANY DOUBT that this is so?

Because the fact that the investigation into Russian attempts to contact the Trump campaign NEVER LEAKED.

Only Clinton was hurt by leaks, not Trump.

And, since I know Mike Talotta will not read my Stefan Halper link, I'll point out that Stefan Halper "was an assistant for three chiefs of staff, Alexander Haig, Donald Rumsfeld, and Dick Cheney," served as "National Policy Director for George H. W. Bush's Presidential campaign and then in 1980 he became Director of Policy Coordination for the Reagan- Bush Presidential campaign," and then "became Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs."

Also worth noting: "From 1984 to 1990 Halper was chairman and majority shareholder of the Palmer National Bank of Washington, D.C., the National Bank of Northern Virginia and the George Washington National Bank.[6] Palmer National Bank was used to transfer money to Swiss Bank Accounts controlled by White House aid Oliver North.[10] Halper later set up a legal defense fund for North."

So, no limp-wristed liberal he. 😃

So when they say, "SPYGATE!," you say, "informant," - or, better yet, "BENGHAZI! BENGHAZI!"

In any event, that's enough of THAT nonsense.

Stefan Halper (Wikipedia)

Addition, Rather Than Subtraction and Division

I'm not really worried about hostility expressed to Trump aides in public places galvanizing Trump supporters. I'm convinced that by the November elections Trump's base will consist of those who think separating kids from parents is an insufficient deterrent; they'd be okay with lining up the kids and shooting every fifth child. They're the people who are still riled that they had to live for 8 years under a disqualified black, Marxist president who was born in Kenya.

I think many of his other supporters will start getting a clue that America is worse off than it was two years ago and they were sold a bunch of hooey from a flim-flam man WHATEVER they make think about obstruction of justice or Mueller's investigation. Certainly the thought must be crossing the mind of any Harley-Davidson employees who voted him now that they're about to lose their jobs because of Trump's trade war.

What I'm worried about is what type of person do I want to be. When I escorted women at an abortion clinic publicly screaming abuse at women because, in their opinion. the women was committing murder, I SAW where this dementia leads first hand - ultimately culminating in the assassination of Dr. Tiller and two interviews I had with the FBI regarding threats against our lives.

I'm also reminded that Jesus horrified the righteous by extending table fellowship to prostitutes (who could be anything from prostitutes to chaste women living apart from acceptable male authority such as a husband or older brother) and tax collectors (who worked with the Romans, who had less regard for the rights of Jews under occupation than Trump has for Mexican immigrants - and that's saying something).

So my first objection is personal and moral and religious.

Which brings me to the "galvanizing Trump's base" argument, which is public and political.

On Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski acknowledge the force of the "an unprecedented presidency calls for an unprecedented response rather than politics as usual",  made a counter-argument.

Scarborough said that somewhere between 40 - 45 % or so of the voting public support Trump, for reasons that are not completely clear.

But he made the point that in politics one wins political arguments by addition rather than subtraction. You win by bringing people from the opposing camp to your camp.

And he can't see how screaming at Trump aides in public places and calling them racists, Nazis, or whatever is going to motivate anyone to move from supporting to someone better than Trump (i.e., almost any sentient human).

Like the old story of the Wind and the Sun arguing who was stronger. The Wind pointed to an old man taking a walk and bet the sun he could remove the man's coat faster than the sun. So he blew and blew and blew but the man just clung to his coat even more tenaciously.

When the Wind gave up, the Sun came out and, as it warmed up, the man took off his coat.

Okay, I've now expressed myself fully and completely on this.

The Daily 202: Liberal hostility toward Trump aides could galvanize the GOP base (Washington Post)

PUTIN RESPONDS TO TRUMP G-7 PERFORMANCE ART

MOSCOW, RU  June 9th, 2018 (BKN) - Intercepted back-channel communication

FROM: POR
TO: POTUS

СОВЕРШЕННО СЕКРЕТНО (кукольный мастер) (trans.)

I lost at love before 
Got mad and closed the door 
But you said child just once more 

I chose you for the one 
Now we're havin' so much fun 
You treated me so kind 
I'm about to lose my mind 

You made me so very happy 
I'm so glad you 
Came into my life 

The others were untrue 
But when it came to lovin' you 
I'd spend my whole life with you 

'Cause you came and you took control 
You touch my very soul 
You always show me that 
Lovin' you is where it's at 

You made me so very happy 
I'm so glad you 
Came into my life 

Thank you, baby

I love you so much you see
You're even in my dreams 
I can hear
Baby, I can hear you calling me
I'm so in love with you 
All I ever want to do is 
Thank you baby, thank you baby 

You made me so very happy 
I'm so glad you
Came into my life 

You made me so very happy 
You made me so, so very happy
I'm so glad you
Came into my life

Mmmm, I want to thank you, girl
Every day of my life
I wanna thank you 
You made me so very happy 
Oh, I wanna spend my life thanking you 
Thank you baby, thank you baby
Thank you baby thank you baby

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

Global information war preys on democracies (Letter to Morning Call)

America's problem is not President Trump. The problem is not Trump's supporters. The problem is global. Hungary and Poland have illiberal democracies, and France, Britain and Germany (and others) are feeling the pressure as well.

We are under asymmetric assault in what the military would call the information battle space.

The attack is originating from autocratic state actors (mostly Russia) who are deeply threatened by the ideals of the western liberal democratic alliance but who lack the conventional military capability to challenge us.

So the attack uses our own democratic pillars (majority rule, minority rights, limited government, separation of powers, checks and balances, federalism, and judicial review) to weaken those pillars, fracture the Western alliance, and set citizen against citizen.

This being the case, the solution is to strengthen these democratic pillars as well as democratic civil norms of tolerance, respect, fairness and restraint in order to narrow the gap between our democratic ideals and their imperfect realization, which will rob the aggressors of the conspiratorial thinking and feelings of victimization on the part of our fellow Americans that make us vulnerable to the infection of right-wing populism and the temptations of autocracy.

Bill Bekkenhuis
Bethlehem