Interesting events are occurring in local, state and national politics. On the local scene, Senator Carla Nelson informed me she is considering running for the First District Congressional seat that Representative Tim Walz will vacate to hopefully succeed Governor Dayton. Nelson said it is vital that the District be represented by an experienced, successfully elected Republican candidate in this era of divided government in Washington.

Nelson said she is not up for reelection until 2020 and knows of “several potential candidates in mind” to replace her in Senate District 26. Senator Nelson said she’ll announce her “plans soon. Stay tuned.”

On the national and international scene, it does appear that Russians hacked into America’s election process during the presidential campaigns of Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton and the victorious Republican standard-bearer, President Donald Trump.
Whether Russian computer geeks or Russian government officials accessed the election infrastructure of several U.S. states remains to be ascertained. The Russian subterfuge occurred in the administration of President Barack Obama.

There is no evidence that any vote counts were influenced. This threat to the integrity of the sanctity and security of elections must be thwarted, and punishments applied. More economic sanctions perhaps?

More compelling is the evidence being uncovered by Republican investigation, one headed up by the intrepid Senator Dick Grassley. The Iowa Republican is on the trail of Democrat Party and Democratic National Committee machinations with foreign operatives, including the Ukrainian Embassy in the United States. Let’s recall former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s accepting of foreign donations to the nefarious Clinton Foundation, and the sale of Uranium to the Russian government.

The refusal of the DNC to turn over requested computer information to the FBI. The shady Pakistani computer expert who worked for the DNC and Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz who had access to the computers of Democrat congress members.
More troubling, the “unmasking” of members of the Trump campaign and Trump administration by federal agencies, including the State Department under Samantha Powers, Obama’s Secretary of State. And John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign manager, and his family’s business deals with Russian interests.

More troubling, the alleged felonious violations of security and privacy laws by anti-Trump Deep State moles in the CIA and FBI, and the lies or, more kindly, erroneous statements and actions about these matters made by former FBI director James Comey and former National Intelligence Director James Clapper.

Recall that President Obama intervened and tried to influence elections in Britain (Brexit) and Israel where his minions did their best to thwart the reelection of Israel Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu.

Historical examples are appropriate to compare alleged accusations of the Trump campaign with foreign nations.

Recall the Democrat congressmen who tried to thwart President Ronald Reagan’s anti-Communist Latin American policies with their “Dear Commandante” letter to the leader of the Communist Sandinistas of Nicaragua. And Senator Ted Kennedy’s outreach to Soviet officials and the KGB secret police with ideas on how to defeat Reagan’s European foreign policy on missile defense.

Democrat President Franklin Roosevelt’s collusion with the brutal Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin on post-World War II control of Eastern Europe. And another Cold War disgrace: when New York Times Moscow bureau chief Walter Durante deliberately wrote stories that covered up Stalin’s genocidal and starvation policies in his land collectivization program.

We historians have a habit that irritates people with short memories, and those who think the past is irrelevant to today’s events. We remind people of what has occurred before the present to gives the comparative perspectives that inform contemporary understanding and policymaking.

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