I want to thank Richard Stokes for his Jan. 6 Letter to the Editor (\u201cThe public \u2014 and the Empire \u2014 must be vigilant\u201d). He nudged me to sit down and actually write the letter I\u2019ve been composing in my head over the past couple of months since Hillary Clinton lost the Electoral College\u2019s votes to Donald Trump. It\u2019s still a bitter loss, and it had become even more painful now that the President-elect\u2019s mercurial persona is writ large. The frosting on this bitter cake is that we know that Russia\u2019s interference on behalf of Donald Trump was (in part) to get even with Hillary Clinton for dissing Vladimir Putin in 2011.<\/p>\n
This week, Trump is publicly criticizing the Central Intelligence Agency. This Saturday\u2019s headline in The New York Times was \u201cEx-CIA director: Trump\u2019s comments will lead to \u2018wave\u2019 of resignations.\u201d There is no need to recite all the downright weird and inflammatory things Trump is doing, but who on earth messes with the CIA?<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve always been an engaged citizen, but I had never heard of Breitbart News or the term \u201cAlt-Right\u201d in relation to the U.S. until Rachel Maddow started covering it. In a few weeks, the Alt-Right Breitbart\u2019s Steven Bannon and Kellyanne Conway will be two shining stars with offices in the White House. It\u2019s a twisted version of Trump\u2019s \u201cAmerica\u2019s Got Talent,\u201d but now his finalists are also \u201cThe Worst Possible Picks for Cabinet Positions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Richard Stokes wrote that \u201cthe public must be vigilant and Congress must do its job.\u201d His last sentence is, \u201cI write and ask them to use whatever authority and influence they have to curb abuses, to rein in the administration when necessary and to, in plain terms, do right and preserve our nation.\u201d Another headline in The New York Times was: \u201cTrump\u2019s Dangerous Anti-C.I.A. Crusade.\u201d Maybe that will finally get the full attention of Republicans in Congress, including Alaska\u2019s delegation. I join Richard Stokes in asking that the Juneau Empire run the editorials on Donald Trump of other newspapers across the country. Democracy demands an engaged public now more than ever.<\/p>\n
Barbara J. Belknap<\/strong><\/p>\n Juneau<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I want to thank Richard Stokes for his Jan. 6 Letter to the Editor (\u201cThe public \u2014 and the Empire \u2014 must be vigilant\u201d). He nudged me to sit down and actually write the letter I\u2019ve been composing in my head over the past couple of months since Hillary Clinton lost the Electoral College\u2019s votes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":14,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-21456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-letters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21456\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21456"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=21456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}