02-21-2017 (Photo: Michael Flynn, Vladimir Putin, Jill Stein, 2015) http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/contact http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/schedules http://johnbatchelorshow.com/blog Twitter: @BatchelorShow

The Russian Enemies of Trump-Putin Détente. Stephen F. Cohen, @NYU @Princeton EastWestAccord.com

“…Where Russians saw hope with Trump’s election, they are now apparently yielding to disillusionment and despair. The question arises: If not toward better relations with Russia, where are we going with this bellicosity? Russia is not going to give up Crimea. Not only would Putin not do it, the Russian people would abandon him if he did. What then is the end goal of this bristling Beltway hostility to Putin and Russia, and the U.S.-NATO buildup in the Baltic and Black Sea regions? Is a Cold War II with Russia now an accepted and acceptable reality? Where are the voices among Trump’s advisers who will tell him to hold firm against the Russophobic tide and work out a deal with the Russian president? For a second cold war with Russia, its back up against a wall, may not end quite so happily as the first…”

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-21/trump-putin-detente-dead

WASHINGTON— ''Watch what we do, not what we say,'' Attorney General John Mitchell advised reporters at the start of the Nixon Administration. Coming from the law-and-order campaign manager with the visage of a bloodhound, that epigram was interpreted as the epitome of political deceptiveness. But his intent was to reassure blacks that, foot-dragging poses aside, the Nixon Justice Department would accomplish desegregation. John Mitchell knew that the appearance of a tilt toward white Southerners would ease the way for acceptance of steady civil rights progress for blacks, and sure enough, what he did in this area was much better than what he said. Many of the Nixon clan that gathered for the funeral of John Mitchell last weekend understood that abyss between the persona and the man. Dour, stern, taciturn, forbidding on the outside, and warm, loyal, staunch, steadfast on the inside; few public men have so deliberately cultivated the widespread misconceptions of themselves. Yes, this was ''the Big Enchilada,'' the first man tossed off the sled for the culmination at Watergate of the series of previous lawbreakings that he came to call ''the White House horrors.'' Nobody denies his transgression: The spying plan put forward by the Magruder-Liddy toadies and crazies, which John Mitchell reduced but ultimately approved, was plainly criminal, and the former Attorney General should have known it. However, the familiar faces of a short generation ago were gathered to salute the private John Mitchell. Ron Ziegler, Pat Buchanan, Len Garment, Dwight Chapin, Rose Woods were there, and we knew Richard Nixon would attend - he goes to the funerals that matter. Most of John's key Justice Department aides came, notably excepting Chief Justice William Rehnquist, whose record of self-serving abstention in re: Mitchell is now complete.

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/14/opinion/essay-watch-what-we-do.html