If your goal is to drain the swamp, this is as good a place as any to start. This is the portion of the swamp where ideologues abound. Let them run off to France, and they can take their mostly junk science and grant seeking brethren with ’em.
“Perhaps no agency has been so public about its #Resistance to President Donald Trump and his efforts to drain the swamp and reduce regulations than the Environmental Protection Agency.
Perhaps, then, it is fitting that as we approach the 1-year anniversary of the Trump inauguration, the agency’s headquarters appears to be the epicenter of a draining swamp.”
———————–
“The drainage of employees is continuing as well, with over 700 bureaucrats resigning in the past year.
“According to agency documents and federal employment statistics, 770 EPA employees departed the agency between April and December, leaving employment levels close to Reagan-era levels of staffing,” ThinkProgress said. “According to the EPA’s contingency shutdown plan for December, the agency currently has 14,449 employees on board—a marked change from the April contingency plan, which showed a staff of 15,219.”
After months of crying at their desks over Trump’s election victory, bureaucrats are now “quitting in disgust.”
“There has been a drop of employees of 770 between April and December. While several hundred of those are buyouts, the rest of those are either people that are retiring or quitting in disgust,” Kyla Bennett, who works for a nonprofit for government environment works, told ThinkProgress. “Is that number higher than it would normally be? I think it is.”
Guess where are some of the climate change activist are headed! France!
Eighteen climate scientists, 13 of them based in the United States, were on Monday named the first beneficiaries of the research grants linked to French President Macron’s “Make Our Planet Great Again” project, which will see them relocate to France.
“The selected projects are of very high standards and deal with issues that are particularly important,” the jury said in a statement, noting its members had received a total of 1,822 applications, of which 1,123 came from the US. A second round of laureates will be announced “during the course of the spring of 2018”, it said.
Frankly, this kind of outsourcing I can get behind. It’s good that there are more spots open in France, too. The Trump goal is reducing the agency’s numbers by 20%!
The EPA, like the FBI, was once a respected and trusted institution. The self-righteous, eco-activists that have infested the agency have hurt the nation by altering its primary mission of real pollution prevention (e.g., focusing on lead and not life-essential carbon dioxide).
The government’s climate change warriors were allowed to to so because no politician dared to pull the plug and be deemed a “evil polluter”…until President Trump.”
“A Republican on the House Judiciary Committee said Saturday he’s gotten a commitment from Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) to subpoena top officials at the FBI and Justice Department in their ongoing inquiry into claims of bias against President Donald Trump.
Republicans have zeroed in on FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, top counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok, FBI attorney Lisa Page, and former Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr and his wife, Nellie, who reportedly worked for Fusion GPS, the firm that compiled opposition research on Trump in 2016.
“Chairman Goodlatte has told us he is going to subpoena those individuals,” said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), in an appearance on Fox News’ “Justice with Judge Jeanine.”
——————–
“Jordan said Pirro’s opening “was perfect.” He was joined on the show by Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), who also suggested he might pursue contempt citations for FBI Director Chris Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein if they fail to turn over more documents related to their inquiries.”
“President Trump ought to direct his Justice Department and FBI to provide the House Intelligence Committee with the FISA warrant application — any FISA warrant application — in which they relied on information from the Steele dossier in seeking court permission to spy on the Trump campaign. It may well be that they did not rely on the dossier. It is ridiculous, though, that we are still in the dark about this.”
—————————-
“While urging that we have disclosure (with all due care to protect intelligence methods and sources), I have presumed that the FBI and DOJ would never fraudulently present the FISA court with fanciful claims attributed to anonymous Russian sources as if they were a refined product of U.S. intelligence collection and analysis. This, after all, is a “dossier” that former FBI director James Comey dismissed as “salacious and unverified” in Senate testimony just six months ago.
When a court is asked for a warrant, the government must provide the judge with a basis to believe the information proffered is credible — by vouching that the source has been reliable in the past, by corroborating the information offered, or both. If Comey adjudged Steele’s information unverified in June 2017, it had to have been unverified ten months earlier. That’s when the FBI and Justice Department obtained a FISA warrant for Carter Page, who had been loosely described as a Trump campaign adviser.”
————————————
“So, when Steele brought this information to the FBI, was he pushing on an open door? Was this then-fresh information the rationale for the decision to seek the warrant? Were its allegations about Page incorporated in the warrant application?
These questions are pressing because it appears that Steele’s information about Page is not merely unverified but almost certainly false.
Page is an enigma. He is an Annapolis grad turned investor and think-tanker. (See this useful Washington Post profile.) The FBI was not without reasons to be suspicious of him. He had been on the bureau’s radar screen since 2013 when he happened into a counterintelligence investigation. This, however, was not so much because of anything Page did, but because a Russian spy was trying to recruit him and various other business people as sources. One could see why the Putin regime would approach Page: To the limited extent he had notoriety, it was as a Russia apologist. He was also an investor in Gazprom, Russia’s state-controlled (though ostensibly “private”) energy conglomerate. Yet, this former naval intelligence officer seems, in his peculiar way, to be a well-meaning if misguided American: He cooperated with the FBI’s investigation against Russian intelligence. His beliefs that close American-Russian relations are essential and that appeasement is the path to having them are wrong but seem to be held in good faith.”
There were necessary regulations to control pollution. Something needed to be done. And the EPS did it.’
Problem is, EPA is a regulatory agency.
And regulate they will.
There is no end to it. A necessary adjustment becomes a problem.
Still striving for solar powered cars?
“In 2014, cocaine was second only behind heroin in U.S. drug deaths.
A major player in the cocaine traffic into the U.S. was the Iranian-sponsored terrorist group Hezbollah. For year it has been known that Hezbollah has infiltrated criminal gangs in South America and set up its own billion-dollar international criminal enterprise to finance its terror activities. None of this was a secret.
U.S. law enforcement came up with an aggressive plan to take down the Hezbollah international network and its key individuals. But it never happened. We now know why.
Politico Magazine has an amazing expose on how the Obama White House derailed the plans to take down the Hezbollah network, and to allow Hezbollah to continue drug-running into the U.S., in order to avoid upsetting the Iran nuclear deal.
The Politico article is so long, so detailed, and so powerful, it’s impossible for me to give a brief summary, so read the whole thing, The secret backstory of how Obama let Hezbollah off the hoo. The subheadline tells the story:
An ambitious U.S. task force targeting Hezbollah’s billion-dollar criminal enterprise ran headlong into the White House’s desire for a nuclear deal with Iran.
The opening paragraph of the Politico article is stunning in revealing the Obama administrations callous disregard for Americans afflicted by the cocaine epidemic, fed in part by Hezbollah:
In its determination to secure a nuclear deal with Iran, the Obama administration derailed an ambitious law enforcement campaign targeting drug trafficking by the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah, even as it was funneling cocaine into the United States, according to a POLITICO investigation.
There is so much detail in the article, you really do need to read it (but I repeat myself). Here’s a short intro segment on the U.S. law enforcement plans that were scuttled by Obama:
The campaign, dubbed Project Cassandra, was launched in 2008 after the Drug Enforcement Administration amassed evidence that Hezbollah had transformed itself from a Middle East-focused military and political organization into an international crime syndicate that some investigators believed was collecting $1 billion a year from drug and weapons trafficking, money laundering and other criminal activities.
Over the next eight years, agents working out of a top-secret DEA facility in Chantilly, Virginia, used wiretaps, undercover operations and informants to map Hezbollah’s illicit networks, with the help of 30 U.S. and foreign security agencies….
And with the help of some key cooperating witnesses, the agents traced the conspiracy, they believed, to the innermost circle of Hezbollah and its state sponsors in Iran….
But then law enforcement ran headlong into Obama’s obsessive desire to strike a nuclear deal with Iran. That deal would fulfill Obama’s goal, exhibited since the earliest days of his administration, to keep the Mullahs in power and to establish Iran with regional hegemony, as I documented in Obama sweeps history toward the Mullahs.
In order to fulfill that goal, Obama and his communications assistant Ben Rhodes, deliberately deceived the American public into believing the nuclear deal negotiations were the result of a moderating Iranian leadership. In order to perpetuate that falsehood, Rhodes created an echo chamber of think tanks and pundits, and deceived reporters.”
———————————-
True believers are always easiest to deceive, and the press were true believers in Obama.
———————————–
I expect they will determine that the Amtrak accident was caused.
Probabilities that such an uncaused accident will happen at such a location are remote.
“Monday, Nikki Haley ripped into the United Nation Security Council members. The UNSC demanded the United States rescind recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
The U.S. vetoed the Egyptian-drafted resolution, making the vote 14-1.”
At this rate, maybe the 9th Circuit can salvage it’s reputation, thru Trump replacement picks. Of course that would require replacing them all, but dream big, right?
“What group of people is being deceived right now”
I’d say, the never-Trumpers. They’ve self-deceived themselves into thinking they’re opinion on Trump is still relevant. Wishful thinking, but it’s all they have left. 🙂
AJ, Actually, Republican Never Trumpers are the only people who know why our opinion on Trump is irrelevant. Our fear was always that he would do such damage to the Republican Party that a majority of the people would be Democrats or lean Democrat.
That is exactly where we are now. Trump support ranges from 32% to 42%. Opposition to Trump ranges from 52% to 60%. Trumpers better hope that a bunch of that opposition is made up of Republican Never Trumpers, but it is not.
In a country that is majority Democrat, the views of both Republican Never Trumpers and Trumpkins both will be irrelevant. What will matter will be the Democrat primaries.
In the past, conservative Republicans needed the support of Trumpkin types. In 2016, Trump needed the support of conservatives and he got just enough of them to win. In the future it will not matter if we support each other’s candidates.
But here is a difference. Bill Clinton and his defenders were accusing an investigator of being a power-mad prig. Some of Trump’s defenders are claiming, in effect, that the FBI is engaged in a “coup d’etat” (the words of Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz) — a politically motivated attempt to reverse the results of the 2016 election. Their evidence? That some senior investigators donated to Democrats, supported Hillary Clinton and called Trump an “idiot.”
If that last charge were considered a disqualification, we would have the political equivalent of the Rapture (including, apparently, some of the Cabinet). But the larger point is this: Trump Republicans are willing to smear a man of genuine integrity, and undermine confidence in federal law enforcement, for reasons they must know are thin to the point of transparency. This is beyond cynicism. It is institutional arson. This is the profoundly anti-conservative strategy of Trump supporters against any institution (the courts, the media, law enforcement) that exposes the administration’s deception and corruption: Burn, baby, burn.
It’s strange, but I find that I have nothing much to say these days—and I’m ok with that. I’m just watching and waiting to see what will happen next. Really. What I see happening is amazing to me and I am content to just be still and watch as the clay feet of cultural powers or high places erode right out from under them. One after the other. The destruction, though not exactly negative, is kind of terrifying in its scope.
The entertainment industry (aka propaganda industry) is shaken to the core. Theatre revenues have crashed about 20% year over year and it has been suggested that they will never recover. And now, the players in that media are self-destructing as one after the other is outed as a molester or predator or both. At the same time, the NFL has managed to make itself obnoxious to a large swath of ticket holders, leaving grandstands half-filled. If they’re not careful, people are going to start reading books and thinking instead of passively plugging in to the mindless enterprises that purport to entertain us.
Media and Government are also being shaken especially hard with public confidence shockingly low. And Government in particular has been emptying itself of the usual suspects over the past year as party elites self-deport from DC. Even the judiciary is not immune, and just today it was announced that Fed Judge Alex Kozinski, of the Ninth Circuit, is retiring amid harassment claims.
Education has been in a decline for some time now. Educational institutions have been slowly suffocating as many private colleges continue go under due to unwise real estate investments, an increased availability of online learning, and the unwillingness of prospective students to indebt themselves for life in exchange for shaky job opportunities.
Vast changes are afoot. Some are happening rapidly, some more slowly. Much to pray about. :–)
Wandering Views 
If your goal is to drain the swamp, this is as good a place as any to start. This is the portion of the swamp where ideologues abound. Let them run off to France, and they can take their mostly junk science and grant seeking brethren with ’em.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2017/12/epa-headquarters-epicenter-of-the-draining-swamp/#more-236203
“Perhaps no agency has been so public about its #Resistance to President Donald Trump and his efforts to drain the swamp and reduce regulations than the Environmental Protection Agency.
Perhaps, then, it is fitting that as we approach the 1-year anniversary of the Trump inauguration, the agency’s headquarters appears to be the epicenter of a draining swamp.”
———————–
“The drainage of employees is continuing as well, with over 700 bureaucrats resigning in the past year.
“According to agency documents and federal employment statistics, 770 EPA employees departed the agency between April and December, leaving employment levels close to Reagan-era levels of staffing,” ThinkProgress said. “According to the EPA’s contingency shutdown plan for December, the agency currently has 14,449 employees on board—a marked change from the April contingency plan, which showed a staff of 15,219.”
After months of crying at their desks over Trump’s election victory, bureaucrats are now “quitting in disgust.”
“There has been a drop of employees of 770 between April and December. While several hundred of those are buyouts, the rest of those are either people that are retiring or quitting in disgust,” Kyla Bennett, who works for a nonprofit for government environment works, told ThinkProgress. “Is that number higher than it would normally be? I think it is.”
Guess where are some of the climate change activist are headed! France!
Eighteen climate scientists, 13 of them based in the United States, were on Monday named the first beneficiaries of the research grants linked to French President Macron’s “Make Our Planet Great Again” project, which will see them relocate to France.
“The selected projects are of very high standards and deal with issues that are particularly important,” the jury said in a statement, noting its members had received a total of 1,822 applications, of which 1,123 came from the US. A second round of laureates will be announced “during the course of the spring of 2018”, it said.
Frankly, this kind of outsourcing I can get behind. It’s good that there are more spots open in France, too. The Trump goal is reducing the agency’s numbers by 20%!
The EPA, like the FBI, was once a respected and trusted institution. The self-righteous, eco-activists that have infested the agency have hurt the nation by altering its primary mission of real pollution prevention (e.g., focusing on lead and not life-essential carbon dioxide).
The government’s climate change warriors were allowed to to so because no politician dared to pull the plug and be deemed a “evil polluter”…until President Trump.”
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About time. Now let’s get to it. The EPA isn’t the only agency with entrenched Obamacrats mucking up the gears.
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/16/fbi-subpoenas-bob-goodlatte-jim-jordan-299578
“A Republican on the House Judiciary Committee said Saturday he’s gotten a commitment from Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) to subpoena top officials at the FBI and Justice Department in their ongoing inquiry into claims of bias against President Donald Trump.
Republicans have zeroed in on FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, top counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok, FBI attorney Lisa Page, and former Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr and his wife, Nellie, who reportedly worked for Fusion GPS, the firm that compiled opposition research on Trump in 2016.
“Chairman Goodlatte has told us he is going to subpoena those individuals,” said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), in an appearance on Fox News’ “Justice with Judge Jeanine.”
——————–
“Jordan said Pirro’s opening “was perfect.” He was joined on the show by Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), who also suggested he might pursue contempt citations for FBI Director Chris Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein if they fail to turn over more documents related to their inquiries.”
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And while they have them under oath, they can ask about this.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/454709/steele-dossier-source-fisa-warrant-against-trump-campaign
“President Trump ought to direct his Justice Department and FBI to provide the House Intelligence Committee with the FISA warrant application — any FISA warrant application — in which they relied on information from the Steele dossier in seeking court permission to spy on the Trump campaign. It may well be that they did not rely on the dossier. It is ridiculous, though, that we are still in the dark about this.”
—————————-
“While urging that we have disclosure (with all due care to protect intelligence methods and sources), I have presumed that the FBI and DOJ would never fraudulently present the FISA court with fanciful claims attributed to anonymous Russian sources as if they were a refined product of U.S. intelligence collection and analysis. This, after all, is a “dossier” that former FBI director James Comey dismissed as “salacious and unverified” in Senate testimony just six months ago.
When a court is asked for a warrant, the government must provide the judge with a basis to believe the information proffered is credible — by vouching that the source has been reliable in the past, by corroborating the information offered, or both. If Comey adjudged Steele’s information unverified in June 2017, it had to have been unverified ten months earlier. That’s when the FBI and Justice Department obtained a FISA warrant for Carter Page, who had been loosely described as a Trump campaign adviser.”
————————————
“So, when Steele brought this information to the FBI, was he pushing on an open door? Was this then-fresh information the rationale for the decision to seek the warrant? Were its allegations about Page incorporated in the warrant application?
These questions are pressing because it appears that Steele’s information about Page is not merely unverified but almost certainly false.
Page is an enigma. He is an Annapolis grad turned investor and think-tanker. (See this useful Washington Post profile.) The FBI was not without reasons to be suspicious of him. He had been on the bureau’s radar screen since 2013 when he happened into a counterintelligence investigation. This, however, was not so much because of anything Page did, but because a Russian spy was trying to recruit him and various other business people as sources. One could see why the Putin regime would approach Page: To the limited extent he had notoriety, it was as a Russia apologist. He was also an investor in Gazprom, Russia’s state-controlled (though ostensibly “private”) energy conglomerate. Yet, this former naval intelligence officer seems, in his peculiar way, to be a well-meaning if misguided American: He cooperated with the FBI’s investigation against Russian intelligence. His beliefs that close American-Russian relations are essential and that appeasement is the path to having them are wrong but seem to be held in good faith.”
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A bunch of famous writers have our normal discussion:
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This article from a very liberal site confirms Debra’s greatest fears and also makes interesting points about Bannon and Obama.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m with French.
LikeLiked by 1 person
There were necessary regulations to control pollution. Something needed to be done. And the EPS did it.’
Problem is, EPA is a regulatory agency.
And regulate they will.
There is no end to it. A necessary adjustment becomes a problem.
Still striving for solar powered cars?
LikeLike
Debra, No delivery on the wall, isolationism or protectionism, but your man promises that you will win our bet.
https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/942717030091943936
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hey look, turns out Obama was more like Reagan than we thought.
He too allowed South American drug lords to do illegal things to benefit the Iranians, just like Reagan! 🤨
But in this case, Americans likely died as a result, and they will obtain nukes instead of conventional weapons. 😦
https://legalinsurrection.com/2017/12/obama-allowed-hezbollah-cocaine-running-into-u-s-in-quest-for-iran-nuke-deal/
“In 2014, cocaine was second only behind heroin in U.S. drug deaths.
A major player in the cocaine traffic into the U.S. was the Iranian-sponsored terrorist group Hezbollah. For year it has been known that Hezbollah has infiltrated criminal gangs in South America and set up its own billion-dollar international criminal enterprise to finance its terror activities. None of this was a secret.
U.S. law enforcement came up with an aggressive plan to take down the Hezbollah international network and its key individuals. But it never happened. We now know why.
Politico Magazine has an amazing expose on how the Obama White House derailed the plans to take down the Hezbollah network, and to allow Hezbollah to continue drug-running into the U.S., in order to avoid upsetting the Iran nuclear deal.
The Politico article is so long, so detailed, and so powerful, it’s impossible for me to give a brief summary, so read the whole thing, The secret backstory of how Obama let Hezbollah off the hoo. The subheadline tells the story:
An ambitious U.S. task force targeting Hezbollah’s billion-dollar criminal enterprise ran headlong into the White House’s desire for a nuclear deal with Iran.
The opening paragraph of the Politico article is stunning in revealing the Obama administrations callous disregard for Americans afflicted by the cocaine epidemic, fed in part by Hezbollah:
In its determination to secure a nuclear deal with Iran, the Obama administration derailed an ambitious law enforcement campaign targeting drug trafficking by the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah, even as it was funneling cocaine into the United States, according to a POLITICO investigation.
There is so much detail in the article, you really do need to read it (but I repeat myself). Here’s a short intro segment on the U.S. law enforcement plans that were scuttled by Obama:
The campaign, dubbed Project Cassandra, was launched in 2008 after the Drug Enforcement Administration amassed evidence that Hezbollah had transformed itself from a Middle East-focused military and political organization into an international crime syndicate that some investigators believed was collecting $1 billion a year from drug and weapons trafficking, money laundering and other criminal activities.
Over the next eight years, agents working out of a top-secret DEA facility in Chantilly, Virginia, used wiretaps, undercover operations and informants to map Hezbollah’s illicit networks, with the help of 30 U.S. and foreign security agencies….
And with the help of some key cooperating witnesses, the agents traced the conspiracy, they believed, to the innermost circle of Hezbollah and its state sponsors in Iran….
But then law enforcement ran headlong into Obama’s obsessive desire to strike a nuclear deal with Iran. That deal would fulfill Obama’s goal, exhibited since the earliest days of his administration, to keep the Mullahs in power and to establish Iran with regional hegemony, as I documented in Obama sweeps history toward the Mullahs.
In order to fulfill that goal, Obama and his communications assistant Ben Rhodes, deliberately deceived the American public into believing the nuclear deal negotiations were the result of a moderating Iranian leadership. In order to perpetuate that falsehood, Rhodes created an echo chamber of think tanks and pundits, and deceived reporters.”
———————————-
True believers are always easiest to deceive, and the press were true believers in Obama.
———————————–
Here’s the Politico piece.
https://www.politico.com/interactives/2017/obama-hezbollah-drug-trafficking-investigation/
LikeLiked by 1 person
Let’s see. Hmm. What group of people is being deceived right now, to the complete amazement of everyone else in the country and the rest of the world?
Con men are easy to underestimate. Bernie Madoff ran his scam for years.
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I expect they will determine that the Amtrak accident was caused.
Probabilities that such an uncaused accident will happen at such a location are remote.
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See that, we can play the “one vote vetoes the whole thing” game at the UN that Russia and China are so fond of too.:)
🙂 Hehe.
Cue the muslim outrage machine.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2017/12/us-vetoes-security-council-resolution-attacking-trump-jerusalem-recognition/
“Monday, Nikki Haley ripped into the United Nation Security Council members. The UNSC demanded the United States rescind recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
The U.S. vetoed the Egyptian-drafted resolution, making the vote 14-1.”
LikeLiked by 2 people
At this rate, maybe the 9th Circuit can salvage it’s reputation, thru Trump replacement picks. Of course that would require replacing them all, but dream big, right?
https://legalinsurrection.com/2017/12/another-vacancy-on-9th-circuit-judge-alex-kozinski-retires-after-accusations-of-sexual-misconduct/
LikeLiked by 1 person
“What group of people is being deceived right now”
I’d say, the never-Trumpers. They’ve self-deceived themselves into thinking they’re opinion on Trump is still relevant. Wishful thinking, but it’s all they have left. 🙂
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AJ, Actually, Republican Never Trumpers are the only people who know why our opinion on Trump is irrelevant. Our fear was always that he would do such damage to the Republican Party that a majority of the people would be Democrats or lean Democrat.
That is exactly where we are now. Trump support ranges from 32% to 42%. Opposition to Trump ranges from 52% to 60%. Trumpers better hope that a bunch of that opposition is made up of Republican Never Trumpers, but it is not.
In a country that is majority Democrat, the views of both Republican Never Trumpers and Trumpkins both will be irrelevant. What will matter will be the Democrat primaries.
In the past, conservative Republicans needed the support of Trumpkin types. In 2016, Trump needed the support of conservatives and he got just enough of them to win. In the future it will not matter if we support each other’s candidates.
LikeLiked by 1 person
So who are those people that Trump has driven out of the Republican Party? Among others it would college-educated suburbanites, particularly women.
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/12/18/us/politics/house-control-2018-suburbs-trump-republicans-democrats.html?action=click&module=In%20Other%20News&pgtype=Homepage&action=click&module=News&pgtype=Homepage
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Here is another type of conversion:
https://twitter.com/kirstenpowers/status/942838990666792960
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Michael Gerson on Trump/Mueller:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-thrives-in-destructive-chaos/2017/12/18/f23fc176-e41d-11e7-ab50-621fe0588340_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-e%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.69c9e10f9654
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From the article:
But here is a difference. Bill Clinton and his defenders were accusing an investigator of being a power-mad prig. Some of Trump’s defenders are claiming, in effect, that the FBI is engaged in a “coup d’etat” (the words of Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz) — a politically motivated attempt to reverse the results of the 2016 election. Their evidence? That some senior investigators donated to Democrats, supported Hillary Clinton and called Trump an “idiot.”
If that last charge were considered a disqualification, we would have the political equivalent of the Rapture (including, apparently, some of the Cabinet). But the larger point is this: Trump Republicans are willing to smear a man of genuine integrity, and undermine confidence in federal law enforcement, for reasons they must know are thin to the point of transparency. This is beyond cynicism. It is institutional arson. This is the profoundly anti-conservative strategy of Trump supporters against any institution (the courts, the media, law enforcement) that exposes the administration’s deception and corruption: Burn, baby, burn.
LikeLike
It’s strange, but I find that I have nothing much to say these days—and I’m ok with that. I’m just watching and waiting to see what will happen next. Really. What I see happening is amazing to me and I am content to just be still and watch as the clay feet of cultural powers or high places erode right out from under them. One after the other. The destruction, though not exactly negative, is kind of terrifying in its scope.
The entertainment industry (aka propaganda industry) is shaken to the core. Theatre revenues have crashed about 20% year over year and it has been suggested that they will never recover. And now, the players in that media are self-destructing as one after the other is outed as a molester or predator or both. At the same time, the NFL has managed to make itself obnoxious to a large swath of ticket holders, leaving grandstands half-filled. If they’re not careful, people are going to start reading books and thinking instead of passively plugging in to the mindless enterprises that purport to entertain us.
Media and Government are also being shaken especially hard with public confidence shockingly low. And Government in particular has been emptying itself of the usual suspects over the past year as party elites self-deport from DC. Even the judiciary is not immune, and just today it was announced that Fed Judge Alex Kozinski, of the Ninth Circuit, is retiring amid harassment claims.
Education has been in a decline for some time now. Educational institutions have been slowly suffocating as many private colleges continue go under due to unwise real estate investments, an increased availability of online learning, and the unwillingness of prospective students to indebt themselves for life in exchange for shaky job opportunities.
Vast changes are afoot. Some are happening rapidly, some more slowly. Much to pray about. :–)
LikeLiked by 3 people
Another group that is abandoning the Trump Republican Party: Young orthodox Christians.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-republican-party-doesnt-own-christian-conservatives/
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