On Lin Wood in Georgia

The New Neo Posted on by

Andrea Widburg of American Thinker has done some research on what might be going on with Lin Wood and the Georgia runoff. Her piece is entitled, “Is Lin Wood trying to destroy Republican control over the Senate?”

Yesterday I wrote a post that was highly critical of the “don’t vote in Georgia” movement, of which Lin Wood is a part. I think it’s incredibly self-destructive, perhaps the most self-destructive thing I’ve ever seen from any political party, and I explain why in that post.

Here’s Widburg on Lin Wood:

Lin Wood, who seems to support Trump, is beginning to show all the signs of a loose cannon or even a spoiler. I’m really not sure what’s going on, so I thought I’d just give you a brief history of the man and what he’s been saying recently, so you can draw your own conclusions.

Widburg talks about Wood’s personal background as well as his long history of giving money to Democrats. Being a changer herself – as I am – she understands full well that a history like that doesn’t mean a person can’t be sincere in his support of the right. But Wood’s campaign contributions to Democrats are relatively recent (one in 2018, for example). Widburg also quotes this Breitbart article, which says:

Wood also has a long history of donating to top Democrats’ presidential, gubernatorial, senatorial, and congressional campaigns. While he did shift a little bit during the Trump era and made some donations to Trump and some congressional Republicans and to the Republican National Committee, per Federal Election Commission (FEC) records, Wood has long backed Democrats for federal office and especially for Georgia offices. Donations to Democrat Party politicians from Wood over a decade plus total more than $40,000, and span from as far back as 2004 through as recently as 2018…

…He also previously backed Perdue’s 2014 Democrat opponent Michelle Nunn, giving her $100 in Sept. 2014. He gave $500 to Georgia Democrat Senate candidate Jim Martin on Nov. 10, 2008, when Martin had forced a runoff with then-GOP Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) — meaning that there at least two other general elections than this one for U.S. Senate in Georgia where Wood has financially backed Democrats over Republicans.

Like Widburg, I don’t know what to make of it.

Wood’s tweets – quoted by Widburg – seem to indicate he’s saying that unless the Georgia legislature meets and fixes the fraud problems, he won’t vote. Neither Perdue nor Loeffler have control of that, however; Governor Kemp and his Secretary of State Raffensperger do. I’ve watched a few interviews with the rather tepid Kemp, who recently did call for a signature audit, which seems to be a step in the right direction. I don’t believe he’s ruled out calling the legislature back into session, although he certainly doesn’t seem at all eager to order them back.

However, George Secretary of State Raffensperger seems to be the more major sticking point, and as I mentioned in this comment, both Perdue and Loeffler have called for his resignation. As far as I know, it’s Raffensperger who has the authority to order a signature audit. I’m not sure how much more either Perdue or Loeffler can do to force the hand of those in charge, and I don’t think they (or America) should be punished for Kemp and Raffensperger’s failings.

Also, if you take a look at this article, Kemp’s argument about the special session goes like this:

[Kemp] He and Georgia’s two top legislative leaders – Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan and House Speaker David Ralston – released a joint statement that threw cold water on the idea that lawmakers could overhaul voting rules this close to the twin runoffs that could determine control of the Senate.

“Any changes to Georgia’s election laws made in a special session will not have any impact on an ongoing election and would only result in endless litigation,” the three Republicans said…

“We share the same concerns many Georgians have about the integrity of our elections. Therefore, we will follow the coming audit and recount closely and will work together to keep Georgia’s elections safe, accessible and fair.”

Is it true that it would be a futile gesture to call the legislature into session? I have no idea.

The problem is that the legislature never should have agreed to the changes in the first place. But I think they were cowed by COVID and accusations of racism from Stacey Abrams and her supporters. At any rate, we can’t go back in time and fix that. But sometimes it seems we can’t even go forward and fix anything, either.

All hail The Great Reset

The New Neo Posted on by

How important is liberty to people in the US today? It’s probably important to a higher percentage of them than in most countries – but still, a lower percentage than in previous times in the US. For example, we have the following quote which has been attributed to Benjamin Franklin:

“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

This sentence was much used in the Revolutionary period. It occurs even so early as November, 1755, in an answer by the Assembly of Pennsylvania to the Governor, and forms the motto of Franklin’s “Historical Review,” 1759, appearing also in the body of the work.—Frothingham: Rise of the Republic of the United States, p. 413.

Quite a few people today have opted for what they perceive as safety, and yet few of them are starving or especially threatened. What they seem to want is absolute safety or the closest thing to it, as so many people’s reaction to COVID has demonstrated.

The COVID pandemic was a big test of an approach called the Great Reset, and the reaction has let The Great Reset’s proponents know that they can go ahead. The Great Reset is no shadowy conspiracy theory; it’s right out there in the open. See this from the World Economic Forum, September 2020 (emphasis mine – and note some of the phrases with which we’re already familiar from the Obama years):

THE CONTEXT

The Covid-19 crisis, and the political, economic and social disruptions it has caused, is fundamentally changing the traditional context for decision-making. The inconsistencies, inadequacies and contradictions of multiple systems –from health and financial to energy and education – are more exposed than ever amidst a global context of concern for lives, livelihoods and the planet. Leaders find themselves at a historic crossroads, managing short-term pressures against medium- and long-term uncertainties.

Note also the emphasis on needing to replace those messy multiple systems with some sort of global approach.

More:

THE OPPORTUNITY

As we enter a unique window of opportunity to shape the recovery, this initiative will offer insights to help inform all those determining the future state of global relations, the direction of national economies, the priorities of societies, the nature of business models and the management of a global commons. Drawing from the vision and vast expertise of the leaders engaged across the Forum’s communities, the Great Reset initiative has a set of dimensions to build a new social contract that honours the dignity of every human being.

Beware the elites and their “vast expertise.” They never, never, never let a crisis go to waste. And if necessary, exaggerate, predict, and even invent a crisis:

COVID-19 lockdowns may be gradually easing, but anxiety about the world’s social and economic prospects is only intensifying. There is good reason to worry: a sharp economic downturn has already begun, and we could be facing the worst depression since the 1930s. But, while this outcome is likely, it is not unavoidable.

The downturn was caused by the COVID reactions of the world community, and now even if COVID wanes (or as a vaccine is distributed) they are poised to take advantage of the economic downturn (or fear of a downturn) that they helped cause.

This next part is so important that I’ve bolded nearly the entire thing. Basically, it’s a summary of the goal:

To achieve a better outcome, the world must act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions. Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed. In short, we need a “Great Reset” of capitalism.

If you had any lingering doubts about the leftist background to this, please leave those doubts behind.

More [emphasis and remarks in brackets mine]:

The level of cooperation and ambition this implies is unprecedented. But it is not some impossible dream. In fact, one silver lining of the pandemic [not of the pandemic, of course – it’s of the lockdowns these same people have pushed as a reaction to the pandemic] is that it has shown how quickly we can make radical changes to our lifestyles. Almost instantly, the crisis forced businesses and individuals to abandon practices long claimed to be essential, from frequent air travel to working in an office.

Likewise, populations have overwhelmingly shown a willingness to make sacrifices [that is, how easily they can be pushed around by fear, which was the group’s hope] for the sake of health-care and other essential workers and vulnerable populations, such as the elderly. And many companies have stepped up to support their workers, customers, and local communities, in a shift toward the kind of stakeholder capitalism to which they had previously paid lip service.

Clearly, the will to build a better society does exist. We must use it to secure the Great Reset that we so badly need. That will require stronger and more effective governments, though this does not imply an ideological push for bigger ones. And it will demand private-sector engagement every step of the way.

We have already seen the corporations march in lockstep. Make no mistake about it. This is a top-down “reset,” and those on top will get the spoils.

Trump must have been such a tremendous 4-year thorn in their sides. No wonder they hate him so much and would do virtually anything to be rid of him.

“The Great Reset” became a popular Google search after Justin Trudeau recently started talking about it and other leaders started using some of its terms, as well – among them Boris Johnson, and our own fearless president-sort-of-elect Joe Biden, “build back better” being one of the tells. Previously labeled a baseless conspiracy theory, it’s now obvious (if you look at that link) that this has been part of the plan with the leaders of many countries of the world for quite some time.

There have been warnings in the past, but they didn’t get much traction. For example, see this from Fox Business last July:

A radical movement called the Great Reset embraced by some Democrats poses a grave threat to liberty and free markets in the United States and around the world. While former Vice President Joe Biden hasn’t endorsed the movement, his ties to it are growing as he changes his long-held policy views to appease the far-left.

While it hasn’t gained widespread attention, the Great Reset is perhaps the biggest danger to capitalism and individual rights since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

What is the Great Reset? Simply put, it’s a growing movement backed by many of the world’s most powerful business leaders, government officials and left-wing activists that aims to “push the reset button” on the global economy. It would destroy the current capitalist system and replace it with progressive and modern socialist systems, with a special emphasis placed on eco-socialist policies like those contained in the Green New Deal.

The left is nothing if not coordinated, ruthless, and relentless. The right is full of rank amateurs in comparison.

And whether Joe himself is fully onboard, or whether it’s just his handlers, it really doesn’t matter. The effect is the same. Biden was very useful as a candidate, though, because he could convincingly adopt – convincing to some, anyway – the mantle of moderation while actually intending to cooperate with nothing of the sort.

[NOTE: Also please brush up on the message of The Grand Inquisitor.]

Trump’s tragic flaw – or maybe not

The New Neo Posted on by

Commenter “Mac” wrote this prior to the election:

…[A]t some point in the future Trump’s presidency may be seen as tragic, because he saw the need for a decisive change of direction, but his often petty belligerence not only inflamed his opponents to the point of madness but alienated many to whom his message might otherwise have appealed.

I understand Mac’s point in that last paragraph, but I don’t quite agree.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve noticed something about people that I didn’t understand when I was younger: some of their negative and positive traits are inextricably linked. Same thing with Trump in the political realm. His good traits – his ability to fight, his nose for hypocrisy, his incredible energy, his biting humor – are linked, I believe, to the traits people don’t like: sharpness, insults, exaggeration, and whatever else they profess to dislike. I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect that the first group can be separated from the second.

In addition, the left attacks all Republicans and/or conservatives and wants to destroy them. The fact that the Republican may have led an exemplary life doesn’t matter. If the offense isn’t there, they will manufacture it – look at what they did to Kavanaugh and Romney.

I think that the following quote – which I pulled from the comments to a YouTube video – hits the nail on the head:

[Trump opponents] created a massive cartoon version of Trump based on their vile dislike, based on their default dismissal of anything to their right, based on clumsy and lazy comparisons to very extreme historical figures and context, and then pointed to that cartoon as the devil. The elites and leftist extremists created the Trump they wanted to hate and teach their base to hate. They will never learn that they truly are the blind leading the blind.

A great many people I know see that cartoon version as reality. In their minds, it no longer has to be proven that this hateful Trump is the real Trump – it’s a “truth” they now see as self-evident and beyond discussion.

Idiots on the right: burn it down in Georgia

The New Neo Posted on by

The most useful idiots of all to the left are the useful idiots on the right, such as the ones saying to Republicans in Georgia: “Don’t vote for the GOP candidates for the Senate. That’ll show the lousy good-for-nothing GOP!”

Sure. It makes a lot of sense. Because you have your quarrels with the GOP – who doesn’t? – and because you’re angry at the GOP’s failure to stop election fraud in any effective way in certain states, punish the GOP by giving the left everything it needs to destroy the country.

When a few commenters appeared on this blog saying to punish the GOP by not voting in the Georgia runoffs, my first thought was “Trolls.” I’ve been at this blogging business for long enough to recognize the m.o. of trolls when I see it. I do think many of them are trolls, but not all. The argument – which I think is being heavily promoted by the left – has been picked up by many people who actually are on the right and who are very very very angry.

I’m angry too. But when I’m angry, I don’t think it makes a whole lot of sense to disembowel myself and hand my entrails to my enemies.

Yes, I know that the “logic” is that the election is rigged anyway, but there’s no logic whatsoever in handing US Senate over to the Democrats without fighting with every ounce of effort. That will just further the entrenchment of leftist tyranny, and extend it deeper and deeper into the judicial system as well. I don’t care what your beefs are with the GOP. I share many of those complaints but they pale and fade almost to nothingness in comparison to the perniciousness of the plans of the left. Give them the power and I don’t think they will ever relinquish it.

[NOTE: Take a look, for example, at the comments to this post at RedState. You can see person after person advocating the “don’t vote” idea. Now, I have no idea if these people are really into this or are trolls. I don’t know what their gig is. But it just might be the most destructive thing I’ve ever seen advocated by anyone who purports to be on the right.]

Democrat governors are the new royalty

The New Neo Posted on by

They believe they can tell us peasants what to do. Maybe “peasants” isn’t the right word; maybe it’s “kulaks.”

Power is intoxicating. Until the COVID lockdowns I was unaware of the fact that so many Democrat governors and mayors want to destroy the small entrepreneurs – especially restaurant owners – who give our cities so much of their energy and vigor. Who knew? Well, now we know.

People are fighting back. There are stories of defiance every day, such as this Staten Island protest, and also of sheriffs and police chiefs refusing to carry out their Kings’ governors’ orders. The latest is in Los Angeles:

California Governor Gavin Newsom recently announced the strictest lockdown orders yet, an announcement which caught the LA County Sheriff off-guard.

Sheriff Villanueva told local news that his department will not participate in enforcing stay at home orders saying that it’s the job of the health department and that he doesn’t want to make businesses who’ve worked hard to comply only to have the rug yanked from beneath them more “miserable.”

Good for him.

Suitcase-gate in Fulton County

The New Neo Posted on by

Some thoughts on the suitcases-of-ballots video, in no particular order.

(1) No, you don’t “debunk” a video like that by having the alleged perps (or their supervisors/managers/spokespeople) say things like, “We didn’t tell the observers to go home; they just went home on their own,” and “those aren’t suitcases; they are the receptacles in which we always store opened ballots prior to counting.”

The problem for the accused is that there are many affidavits that were filed prior to the discovery of the newly-acquired video and they dovetail very closely with what is revealed in the video. Those affidavits allege that the press and the observers were told to go home at a certain time because the counting was stopping for the evening because of a burst pipe. But there was no evidence of a burst pipe, and the video shows that the press and the observers did in fact leave more or less en masse at about the time the affidavits state they did.

(2) If you listen to the narrative by the witness in the video I posted yesterday – and which I will post again here at the end of this post – you will see that the people who left also included in their affidavits the fact that they returned a couple of hours later and discovered that a few workers had stayed behind counting, and in fact the surveillance video shows the observers’ returning at around the time they said. I repeat: these affidavits were filed before the video was discovered, and the videos support them.

(3) If you were going to add fake ballots or substitute fake ones for real ones, there’s no reason I’m aware of that you couldn’t put them in the proper receptacles. So whether the ballots under the table were in actual suitcases or in the proper receptacles seems somewhat irrelevant to me.

(4) It’s not as though the video shows other instances of ballots hidden under tables with cloths and then being dragged out for counting. Apparently it doesn’t, although I don’t know whether every single moment has been studied in great detail. Unless this is the usual protocol, it’s suspicious on the face of it. The narrator does say that the table had been placed there on the morning of election day.

(5) One of the many things that is suspicious not just about the video but about the entire night is that this was not the only place that evening where a stoppage and throwing out of observers occurred, followed by a continuation of the vote counting that resulted in a huge Biden tally. Something similar happened in at least three other large Democratic cities in key swing states where Trump was leading, and it happened at approximately the same time. Not only that, but such a thing has never happened before, to the best of my knowledge. So far, I don’t think any other videos from other cities have surfaced. I’m guessing that perhaps there is no video from the other venues, and that this video was not ordered taken by the election officials but by the arena itself as standard operating procedure there, and that the election workers were unaware of it. That’s just a guess, though; I hope we’ll find out more about that.

(6) There is no question in my mind that Democratic Party spokespeople, election officials in Georgia’s Fulton County, and the MSM will all be eager to say there’s nothing to see here and it has no meaning at all. There is literally nothing that would convince the anti-Trump-pro-Biden forces that fraud was committed by Democrats in this election, not even a confession. I am quite serious when I say that. They mean to win, and they mean to do it in any way possible.

More news here:

Kemp, a Republican, described the footage that was presented by President Donald Trump’s team at a Georgia State Legislature hearing Thursday as “concerning.” Earlier, he called on the secretary to conduct a signature audit in light of the video and allegations.

The signature audit is important, too, and I believe this is the first time Kemp has said it would be a good idea.

More:

…[S]tate Republican Party Chair David Shafer…wrote Thursday that the notion observers were there and watching is “untrue, as the video shows. Our position is unchanged. Ballots were counted unlawfully and in secret.”

“Even had state monitors been present, the law still requires that ballot counting be open to partisan monitors and the public. But state monitors were not present, as the @GaSecofState now acknowledges and the video shows,” Shafer wrote.

Another issue left unaddressed was why Fulton County officials said a pipe burst caused a two-hour delay to vote counting in a room where absentee ballots were tabulated at the State Farm Arena.

A local attorney who filed a records request about the burst pipe only received a brief text message exchange about the incident describing it as “highly exaggerated”…

And here’s the video again:

Snakes and snails

The New Neo Posted on by

You may have noticed I haven’t written a post about Biden’s foot that supposedly was broken while he was playing with his dog. That’s because the subject barely interests me, and that includes whether he actually injured it while playing with a dog or in some other more embarrassing way.

I don’t need Biden’s broken foot to tell me that Biden is frail and old and subject to breakdown. I can see that with my own eyes. Plus, since I’m close to “a certain age” myself, as are many of my friends and relatives, I know about – and have some natural sympathy with – some of the vagaries of getting older.

I think that Biden is way too frail in mind and body to be president, but if that was my only or even my major objection to a Biden presidency, I’d consider us to be fortunate. His (or his handlers’) plans for the country are my real worry.

That said, this is the story Biden tells about his foot:

“What happened was I got out of the shower. I got a dog and anybody who’s been around my house knows — dropped, little pup dropped a ball in front of me. And for me to grab the ball,” Biden told CNN journalist Jake Tapper in his first post-election joint interview with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.

“And I’m walking through this little alleyway to get to the bedroom. And I grabbed the ball like this and he ran. And I’m joking, running after him and grab his tail. And what happened was that he slid on a throw rug. And I tripped on the rug he slid on. That’s what happened. Oh man, not a very exciting story.”

On the contrary, it sounds if not exciting than at least rather interesting in the visual and conceptual sense. Was Biden dressed, for example? Did he actually grab the dog’s tail, something that’s a no-no? Why does he have hazardous throw rugs in the house that don’t have non-slip backs? I almost wrote “in the hallway” rather than “in the house,” but Biden described what I can only assume is his hallway as a “little alleyway,” which is a very odd phrase to use.

But the reason I’m writing about this – the only reason – is that for me his statement conjured up something I hadn’t thought about in – well, in a dog’s age, actually in several dogs’ ages – and that’s a pair of nursery rhymes from my youth.

The first one goes like this:

What are little boys made of?
What are little boys made of?
Snakes and snails
And puppy-dogs’ tails
That’s what little boys are made of.

Apparently there are variations of the rhyme in which instead of “snakes” we have “snips” or “slugs” or a few other rather icky creatures, but “snakes” is the version I learned. Can you imagine teaching a child that today? You’d be hauled off for child abuse.

I recalled that there was also a girls’ version but couldn’t remember it till I looked it up, and then it came back to me:

What are little girls made of?
What are little girls made of?
Sugar and spice
And everything nice
That’s what little girls are made of.

I have a vague recollection of my mother reciting that one to me rather hopefully, and my thinking it wasn’t something I was going to be able to live up to. It’s not that I was mean; I just wasn’t sugar and spice and everything nice and I knew that it would be too much of a stretch to try to get there.

Fulton County and the secret counting

The New Neo Posted on by

Fulton County, Georgia encompasses most of the city of Atlanta:

As of 2019 estimates, the population was 1,063,937, making it the state’s most-populous county and its only one with over 1 million inhabitants. Its county seat is Atlanta, the state capital. Approximately 90% of the City of Atlanta is within Fulton County; the other 10% lies within DeKalb County.

Fulton Country is about half white and half black, but it is overwhelmingly Democrat. In fact:

Fulton County is one of the most reliably Democratic counties in the entire nation. It has voted Democratic in every presidential election since 1876, except that of 1928 and again in 1972, when George McGovern could not win a single county in Georgia.

You may recall that it was in Fulton County that the supposed burst water pipe occurred on November 3, 2020, reportedly causing observers to be sent home in the late evening – and then, somehow, the vote counts shifted heavily in Biden’s favor. Well, today a surveillance video from those hours in Fulton County surfaced, and it’s jaw-dropping (and I don’t use expressions like that lightly):

A woman who identified herself as Jackie Pick, a lawyer who is assisting with their legal case, said the [Trump legal team received video footage from State Farm Arena’s vote-tabulation center in Fulton County, Georgia. The team said that GOP poll watchers were not allowed to watch the counting process in the poll center.

But, according to Pick, an unusual occurrence took place later in the evening at around 10 p.m. ET. A woman—described as a blonde woman with braids—told workers to stop counting and told everyone to go home.

“Everyone clears out, including the Republican observers and the press, but four people stay behind and continue counting and tabulating well into the night,” Pick said. They counted unobserved until about 1 a.m….

At 11 p.m., once everyone is gone, the workers are seen “pulling ballots out from underneath a table.” She asked if it’s normal to “store suitcases of ballots under a table cloth?” Pick said after reviewing footage that it’s not a normal procedure.

Here’s the footage:

The Carter Page lawsuit: a summary

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve often looked for a summary of Russiagate/Spygate to send to friends or family who might be interested. That idea was sparked by a conversation I had with a very intelligent person in which I referred to “the FISA violations” and the person responded, “What’s FISA? What are you talking about?”

That was one of many reminders that those who are relatively busy and who also get their information from the MSM and similar sources don’t even know what those of us on the right are talking about. So without the same basic knowledge of the events in question, it’s hard to even have a discussion until the backstory is filled in.

This podcast by “Viva Frei,” a Canadian lawyer who is a YouTube regular, contains a good summary of the FBI/DOJ excesses against Carter Page involving Russiagate and the FISA applications and is also a good source for those who might not ever have heard the tale before:

This is somewhat related; it features Frei and lawyer Robert Barnes, who often speak together on legal/political subjects. They speak of Page but also about the election fraud issue:

Three Blind Mice no more?

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s another promising development, although once again it’s been tested only in mice:

Researchers have restored vision in old mice and in mice with damaged retinal nerves by resetting some of the thousands of chemical marks that accumulate on DNA as cells age. The work, published on 2 December in Nature1, suggests a new approach to reversing age-related decline, by reprogramming some cells to a ‘younger’ state in which they are better able to repair or replace damaged tissue.

“It is a major landmark,” says Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, a developmental biologist at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, who was not involved in the study. “These results clearly show that tissue regeneration in mammals can be enhanced.”

But researchers also caution that the work has so far has been carried out only in mice, and it remains to be seen whether the approach will translate to people, or to other tissues and organs that are ravaged by time.

“It remains to be seen” – pun intended?

It does seem that a lot of work is being done on the aging front, doesn’t it?

It was always obvious that any first term of Biden would be Obama’s third

The New Neo Posted on by

Last May, a recording was “leaked” (purposely, that is) of Obama on a call rallying the troops. In it, he said this:

So I am hoping that all of you feel the same sense of urgency that I do. Whenever I campaign, I’ve always said, “Ah, this is the most important election.” Especially obviously when I was on the ballot, that always feels like it’s the most important election. This one — I’m not on the ballot — but I am pretty darn invested. We got to make this [a Democratic victory] happen.

To me, “pretty darn invested” meant running the show from behind the scenes. Unlike other ex-presidents, who absented themselves, Mr. Fundamental Tramsformation himself was still organizing ye old American community into the community he envisioned. At a certain point during the 2020 campaign, Obama realized that Bernie Sanders was in danger of scaring off enough voters that it would be hard to engineer a Democrat win by any means, and that strangely enough of the remaining group it was Biden who would be positioned best as a supposed “moderate” to get the job done.

As I wrote in early May:

“Pretty darn invested” – well, that’s certainly an understatement. He’s “pretty darn invested” indeed; seeking not just to protect his legacy, to be able to tell President Joe Biden what to do, to have Biden choose as aides and cabinet members the old Obama crew and implementing the old Obama agenda (only carrying it further than Obama ever had time for), but also to protect himself from further revelations at the hands of Barr and Trump.

Not rocket science.