Trump’s second term so far: I guess this is what “draining the swamp” looks like
It may have been the most basic and early of Trump’s campaign promises, back when he was first running for president: to drain the swamp. Making illegal immigration less easy was another, of course, and the more general Make America Great Again, which seemed to me to primarily be referring to making the country economically more independent and prosperous, and making us more respected as a superpower abroad that meant what it said and said what it meant and was willing to back it up.
But draining the swamp was, as Trump would say, YUGE. And in his first term he lost that battle, YUGELY. In fact, the swamp came very close to draining him. Meanwhile, he had learned more of the perils of the swamp: where the quicksand is, where the most dangerous creatures dwell. And now he’s fighting them as best he can, with a group of capable people, many of whom have learned firsthand up close and personal how dangerous the swamp can be.
The swamp is bigger than he ever thought, but he has more help this time. The swamp, of course, is fighting back. So far his attack has been a blitzkreig type, very fast. But don’t underestimate the power of the swamp to regroup and fight back very very hard.
The USAID is an especially hidden area of the swamp, and shining a light in there has caused a great deal of turmoil among those who have benefited from its largesse. And the FBI and the DOJ have been attempted agents of Trump’s (and the J6ers) destruction – not everyone in those agencies by any means, but some portion of the higher-ups who decided to twist the law into a pretzel to get those on the right they perceived as enemies.
We on the right used to complain that there were no consequences for any of the wrongdoing we saw. Well, now the attempt is to bring those consequences at last.
I believe there only will be legal prosecution for a few, and that’s okay with me. There also will be many legal challenges from the swamp, and judges on the left (and perhaps even on the right, if the case is sound) may find for the plaintiffs. But nevertheless, an enormous and sweeping effort is being made and I believe a significant portion of it will be successful.
There’s so much going on that I can’t cover everything in depth. What I’ve been doing, and what I plan to keep doing, is concentrating on the efforts I find most interesting or important, and also providing overviews such as this one. And of course links such as these:
From Ace, “USAID and the CIA Funded Trump’s First Impeachment.”
At Legal Insurrection, “US State Department Recalls All USAID Staffers from Foreign Assignments.”
From The Federalist, “The Constitution Vindicates Trump’s Firing Of 17 Inspectors General.”
From The Federalist, “If Presidents Can’t Control Executive Agencies, Elections Are Fake.”
There’s much, much more.
It’s also one thing to make light of the reaction of the left, such as “heads are exploding.” But there’s really nothing light about this. The press and the left are labeling it a coup, a dictatorship, an illegal takeover. The grounds for believing that – even on the part of relatively moderate Democrats – have been prepared for many many years. This is an extremely volatile situation.
Interesting times.
Agree with it being a volatile situation. I’m pleased with the efforts so far, but I do have concerns about angering some people to the point where there is another assassination attempt on Trump himself, or on one of the other controversial figures he’s using to drain the swamp, like Elon Musk, RFK Jr., or Tulsi Gabbard.
“This is an extremely volatile situation.”
Thanks for pointing that out. As I’ve noted since the inauguration, average democratic people I’ve known for years are in a state of extreme anger and paranoia. If such people are that worked up, it won’t take much from the leadership to push them over the edge into violence.
What Trump et al are doing, in my view, is wonderful. But the 40% aren’t just going to sit by and watch it happen.
https://x.com/BehizyTweets/status/1887616112017481906
Shadow’s right. It’s not just the funding, it’s the entire apparatus that helps them win elections and keeps their staffers on ice and ready when campaigns spool up. They’re not just cornered, digging deeper + more public revelations might = the destruction of their party, and when it comes to whack jobs that lack compunction, they’ve got an ultra-deep bench.
One hopes CC™’ isn’t among the exploding heads.
I’ve noted that one journalist on The Telegraph’s Ukraine The Latest podcast hasn’t figured out the delta between President Trump’s style and his deeds; he’s in a panic, can’t fathom what the left has been up to since 2016. Anders Puck Nielson also seems to be buying the left’s portrait of the death of western civilization and freedom at the hands of President Trump. Consequences of eurosocialism.
The activist left “cut down all the laws”. The winds, they have begun to blow. May justice sweep the land clean, down to the very bedrock.
The torygraph seems take ben smith originally journolister at face value
I do not understand how a Fed Judge can stop the firings from happening. I can understand putting some limits to Musk’s Whiz Kids (but not stopping access). Some other Judges need to put a stop to the activist Judges. And I do not have any faith in Roberts
Great post, BTW!
Now might be a good time to turn their own words against them—for a change. Like the Left has been trying desperately to make saying certain ‘Thangs illegal – that such is dangerous for the country, individual privacy, etc. Is “The press” allowed to shout “Fire” in a crowed theater just because they are “The press”?
Coup, Dictatorship, and Illegal Takeover—without proof— certainly sounds more dangerous on a National Security scale than shouting “Fire” in a crowed theater.
Not for me. School Teachers promoting Crimes Against Humanity – like Child Grooming & Child Mutilations should not get a pass. News Media & Reporters shouldn’t get a pass for shouting Coup, Dictatorship, and Illegal Takeover to a national audience without proof. Rule of Law includes the use of Lawfare…start charging people with crimes and let them hire lawyers or start ratting – spilling the beans and such.
You can’t Drain a Swamp one drop at a time…
Transparency is a good thing. And Trump is providing it in spades. Amazing that he and DOGE have revealed so much that’s been hidden for many, many years.
The NGOs have become a Democrat army funded by we taxpayers. All this shadow government funding has been enabled by passing the omnibus spending bills. No one had time to read them or know what was in them. But it’s getting exposed now.
No more omnibus spending bills. No more funding of NGOs. Annual audits of all government agencies. Serious people as IGs for government agencies. These things are now possible to implement because of transparency.
Just heard that 140,000 government employees have accepted the buyout offer. Well, it’s a start.
https://x.com/MikeBenzCyber/status/1887573475562590596
Annual agency audits sounds like a Good Idea, to me.
USAID started out as a do-good foreign aid and pro-US propaganda outfit. In the mid-60’s (maybe earlier) the CIA started using it for more… direct… action. As a result, the black operations became very obfuscated – their description, their name and their budget. Once the resulting black infrastructure was in place, partisan democrats (95% of DC) took advantage of it to fund and control USAID projects, which amazingly turned out to be the leftist wishlist.
“Volatile situation” with Democrat activists and their LIV cannon fodder? So they set fire to SF, Denver, Chicago, etc?
Either [yawn] or [heh!]. Your choice.
It’s also one thing to make light of the reaction of the left, such as “heads are exploding.” But there’s really nothing light about this. The press and the left are labeling it a coup, a dictatorship, an illegal takeover. The grounds for believing that – even on the part of relatively moderate Democrats – have been prepared for many many years.
The “exploding heads” are kind of amazing to me. They say, Elon’s shadow gov. have their dirty mitts on our money and our databases. Clearly, they want us to believe that the word our refers to US taxpayers or citizens, but to me it sounds like they are admitting to the reality of these slush funds and databases being owned by the Democrat party. And attacking and draining these lucrative institutions (which are the real shadow government) built over decades is a 5-alarm fire for the Democrat party. Things will get much hotter soon.
This USAID scandal reinforces my impression that the Dems and Deep State are basically grifters intent on money and power, not ideology.
Their current alliance with the left is just business.
While it is primarily the Dems who benefited from this money, so has the GOPe, and not limited to the Usual Suspects either. One of them, Marco Rubio, is helping DOGE and Trump; since these folks don’t have much in the way of principle they can probably be counted on to help as long as Trump seems to be winning.
Well, thank goodness for Elon and his Musketeers. And AI, stand up and take a bow!
As I understand it, USAID was using 55,000 shell companies to hide its shenanigans. I imagine humans could crack that eventually, but not in two weeks.
huxley:
Do the lefty exploding heads see the irony of AI and Its Brave New Tech (world) rooting out their mischief (euphemism)?
Inconceivable, the irony.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Chesterton’s Fence. “Do not remove a fence until you know why it was put up in the first place.”
Trump/Musk just removed a fence, without understanding what it did. Yes, USAID ran a some stupid projects under Biden (trans comic books in Peru?); but throughout its history, USAID has also run big “soft power” humanitarian and pro-democracy projects… and was despised by anti-American regimes worldwide. Gee, wonder why?
That fence is now a smouldering ruin. Give it a few years. We’ll find out why that fence was there.
@Paul:Trump/Musk just removed a fence, without understanding what it did.
It looks to me like they understood quite well what USAID was doing; and I don’t see how sometimes doing good in foreign countries outweighs the harm they were doing here, by interfering in domestic politics.
This isn’t about “trans comic books in Peru”, though I’m sure Swamp Dwellers would like us to think it is. This is about using taxpayer money to interfere in US politics and lying about it, and refusing to obey when told to stop. This is about a bureaucracy deciding it is not accountable in any way to the electorate. This is about the Constitution: “The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.”
”This USAID scandal reinforces my impression that the Dems and Deep State are basically grifters intent on money and power, not ideology.”
No, it’s about power and ideology. Don’t get me wrong, the money’s nice too. But this is *how* they impose their ideology on us.
DataRepublican had it right. This is basically UBI for the foot soldiers of the left, keeping them available for tasks advancing the cause: men in this locker room, drag queens in that library, a riot in such and such a city. All in service of fundamentally transforming a country from within that would smash any army on earth attempting to do so from without.
DOGE is just getting started. USAID is only one such fund. The total rot runs well into 12 figures per year. Maybe 13.
Russell Vought was just confirmed for head of OMB. He is one of the authors of the project 2025 document. The Democrats filibustered the confirmation vote overnight and tried to disrupt the vote today, but did not work.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/russell-vought-confirmed-to-head-governments-leading-budget-office-after-dems-hold-30-hour-protest
@mkent:DataRepublican had it right. This is basically UBI for the foot soldiers of the left
She has also identified and named Republicans participating in the USAID grift, I linked to it before. Including Marco Rubio who is (for now) helping DOGE. For those who don’t click links:
Paul:
Apparently they are keeping some of it.
The DEMs & REPs both have filthy hands—tho neither side will admit it. Two Peas in same Pod…
The REPs have a ‘Party of Whites’ reputation that will never go away…one only needs to surf conservative message boards, blogs, social media, etc. to see it. Part of the REP DNA that trumps any denials.
Elon Musk’s top DOGE staffer Marko Elez quits over racist social media posts
‘Part of the REP DNA that trumps any denials’ – as in 50% of the REPs? Two picks and one ‘advocated repealing the Civil Rights Act and backed a ‘eugenic immigration policy”!?!?!?
@Neo
“Apparently they are keeping some of it.”
I hope so. But I read they were only retaining 300 out 10,000 employees. That’s 97% of the agency and its collective knowledge gone. It is, mathematically speaking, dead.
Thanks for running a great blog by the way. I don’t always agree with you, but enjoy your writing and perspective.
Guess ‘The Genie is out of the Bottle’ – the ‘Pendulum’s Swing returns’…
Melania and Ivanka’s close ties to USAID exposed as Trump goes scorched-earth on the ‘corrupt’ agency
Niketas Choniates has already pointed out that the GOP was also involved, giving Marco Rubio as an example.
The Queen of Hearts basically saw no little lies or just a white lie—all such were just plain ole’ Lies, with her response being ‘Off with their heads!’ 😉
@ Niketas
“This isn’t about “trans comic books in Peru”, though I’m sure Swamp Dwellers would like us to think it is.”
Actually, that was one of the justifications that President Donald J. Trump used to shut down USAID on Monday. Here’s the link: https://www.whitehouse.gov/uncategorized/2025/02/at-usaid-waste-and-abuse-runs-deep/
Not a Swamp Dweller’s justiciation. One of the President’s justifications.
“backed a eugenic immigration policy”
What does that even mean? It certainly sounds bad.
He is alleged to have tweeted “you could not pay me to marry outside my ethnicity”. Is that a firing offense?
He is accused of tweeting, “99% of Indian HIB’s will be replaced by slightly smarter LLM’s, they’re going back, don’t worry guys.”
Is advocating repealing the Civil Rights Act really a firing offense?
Interesting nexus– the journalist credited for revealing his deleted tweets, Katherine Long, “before matriculating to Columbia, I worked for the federal government managing USAID projects in Central Asia.”
Seems TCS may have blinded you a tad, Brian E. The actual quote was:
His meaning seemed rather obvious to me.
More quotes:
As I said at February 6, 2025 at 9:52 pm – ‘REPs have a ‘Party of Whites’ reputation that will never go away…one only needs to surf conservative message boards, blogs, social media, etc. to see it. Part of the REP DNA that trumps any denials.‘
Fired?
@Karmi, the racism card was maxed out sometime between 2008 and 2020. If it takes racists to root this crap out, won’t keep me up at night.
The Daily Mail’s “gotcha” isn’t too well thought out: it’s wrong now to “[promote] USAID’s national reading program, which was donating on Trump’s behalf 1.4 million textbooks to the more than 5,600 primary schools in the poverty-stricken nation”? Lol. It’s now wrong to fund “women’s business initiative and an associated antipoverty program.” Lol.
Their terms are acceptable.
“But I read they were only retaining 300 out 10,000 employees. That’s 97% of the agency and its collective knowledge gone.” – Paul
From what I read, that was a decision (or at least concurred by SoS Rubio). According to him the employees were insubordinate and refused to recognize their position in the government hierarchy.
I think most Americans don’t want American taxpayer dollars promoting woke/transgender ideology, especially when in most instances it undermines the prevailing culture of the country the aid is being provided to.
I have not doubt there are plenty of bureaucrats in the State Department that can take up the slack in providing US aid to worthy projects in deserving countries.
Karmi, since it’s clear to you, what did he say that is being cast as “a eugenic immigration policy”. And rather than a characterization, what did he actually say?
You do realize that is a characterization of what his positions were and not an actual quote.
What’s TCS?
Karmi, I think you’re old enough to remember stupid stuff you said when you were young. Even provocative stuff!
Interesting take:
Niketas Choniates – I best save that quote…
@Karmi:Niketas Choniates – I best save that quote…
For what, Karmi? Is that a threat?
Need another copy? If it takes racists to root this crap out, won’t keep me up at night.
The “racism” smear is done, my friend. Trump wouldn’t be President now if it still worked.
So my wife’s very, very liberal niece found a note on her Tesla– “please trade in that swasticar”. She of course was extremely upset, since it would be a financial hardship to get rid of it (and they like the car. Her husband bought a Kia EV, but it doesn’t have the range of the Tesla, so they’re stuck since she drives long distances in her work).
The best she could come up with is a bumper sticker that says “We bought the car before we found out how horrible he is.”
That, of course, makes it alright.
I’ve avoided any comment, since I don’t want to trigger her.
The last two weeks have been exhilarating, but I can’t shake the feeling that something is going to happen to make it come to a crashing halt. Events are moving so fast that it all seems very fragile. I hope I’m wrong, and I especially hope that if something does happen it’s not catastrophic, like another 9-11. Five years ago the Deep State came up with a “pandemic” that effectively took Trump down. I have to believe they are plotting something.
Agree that there will be few prosecutions. Trump saw how his own prosecution rallied his base behind him and made him more popular. He doesn’t need to create martyrs for the left. Exposure and firing are punishment enough.
Brian E
🙂 New word I came up with here the other day. Trump Cultist Syndrome (TCD)…explained in that post.
Have said that I was a ‘World Class Scoundrel‘ – so yes. However, there is no denying or excusing that Marko Elez was caught whilst Musk & President Trump were gleefully spreading the news about how bad the DEMs were.
GOP has a racist issue…have had it for a long time, and it ain’t going to go away.
Jimmy:
“Events are moving so fast that it all seems very fragile. I hope I’m wrong, and I especially hope that if something does happen it’s not catastrophic …”
All this discussion of the unitary executive does seem to fit within the constitutional langage, and the “energy” being exhibited is laudatory, but the Congress is described first in Article I for a reason, as the prime branch among equals, as it were. The body still “closest to the people”.
So whatever is being found and acted upon by Trump et al., is fragile until we have legislation clarifying the correct and preferred behavior within those agencies, possibly along with a few court rulings further cementing that paradigm in place. I suspect this will not be an 18 month or 4 year activity, but will require 8 to 12 years to fully implement an America made great and virtuous (and healthy) again. Hopefully the early successes allow us to reduce the GOPe et al., achieve a responsive and respondible Congress, and continue to a dynamic and prosperous (if not fully golden) age.
Perhaps minimizing the moral bankrupcy will allow us to find enough money and will to address the fiscal/debt bankrupcy that we are facing now. That is still the elephant in the room.
Karmi falls back into trolling Republicans, because Not Paying Attention voters are so much superior.
Trump Cult Syndrome or was it Trump Cult Disorder? How droll a troll.
@ J.J. & Scott > “Annual agency audits sounds like a Good Idea, to me.”
How long would the IRS let your company go without audits?
And yet the government agencies that handle billions of dollars annually don’t have them, or fail (e.g., DOD).
No wonder we are trillions of dollars in debt.
Thatcher’s quote actually applies to all bureaucracies, not just socialist ones.
“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”
@ Niketas >” One of them, Marco Rubio, is helping DOGE and Trump; since these folks don’t have much in the way of principle they can probably be counted on to help as long as Trump seems to be winning.”
Never gets stale:
“I do not believe that the solution to our problem is simply to elect the right people. The important thing is to establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing. Unless it is politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing, the right people will not do the right thing either, or it they try, they will shortly be out of office.”
— Milton Friedman
@Paul > “Trump/Musk just removed a fence, without understanding what it did.”
To me, it looks more like T/M surveyed their pasture of benign milk cows, noticed that a huge herd of mangy goats had knocked holes in the barbed wire and were monopolizing the grassland, ran them off, and mended the fences.
(No offence to goat herders, I like the animals themselves, but you gotta analogize to something.)
Re: Racism
All humans are racist.
We are hard-wired to like and trust humans who look more like we do. Rightly so in terms of survival.
We can compensate for that, and that’s a good thing, but it takes effort.
In re draining the swamp, the alligators are putting out blockades.
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/senate-democrats-delay-vote-on-kash-patel-fbi-director-nomination/
Seen on a Not The Bee headline forum:
Patel promises not to shutter the FBI if he can find ten righteous agents.
Matt Taibbi:
https://www.racket.news/p/nation-shrugs-as-godzilla-eats-washington
In case you missed the latest updates —
https://babylonbee.com/news/archaeologists-discover-sodom-and-gomorrah-was-funded-by-usaid
Another USAID partner — which just happened to start pushing “Woke Christianity” recently, as Not The Bee pointed out in the last couple of years, wondering where the ideological shift had come from.
https://notthebee.com/takes/christianity-today-received-18m-in-usaid-grants-in-2023
https://x.com/ZGroff/status/1887314629530960166
Zachary Groff ?@ZGroff
“The revelations about taxpayer dollars going to Russell Moore’s Christianity Today Magazine and St. Louis’s Revoice Conference (not to mention other recipients) suggests that America does have a real Christian Nationalism problem, and it’s on the political Left.”
I was watching a co-host on TIMCAST IRL. Tim Poole himself has become a likeable Trump supporting Republican-libertarian, I think, and it shows. First eh his praise of Trump and portions of his policies.
A few days back, a co-host chimed in with insight critical of doctrinaire Libertarians, and it raised a powerful point. While these are early innings , he commented that: in Trump, “We are living through the most libertarian Presidency in over 90 years….” Why not get on board?
This points possibly to early Herbert Hoover, but given his mixed record, most certainly to Calvin Coolidge of the 1920s.
President Reagan’s favorite President was Coolidge. Coolidge served as Vice President from 1921 until 1923, when he became President because of Hardings death. And re-elected as President for 1924-8.
His main policies were pro-business during the ‘Roaring ‘20s’, support for Women’s franchise, equality for the Indian and the black man, and vague objection to the Prohibition of alcohol.
This comparison is instructive, I think.
ChatGPT – What are the signs of an individual being a cult of personality follower?
Pretty long – so here are just quick snippets of the rest:
om:
Clearly wrote & linked Trump Cultist Syndrome, and then accidentally inserted “(TCD)”. Cult of Personality result/meaning with either Trump Cultist Syndrome (my Word) or “Trump Cult Syndrome” or “Trump Cult Disorder” tho.
TJ: Regarding Coolidge, I was unaware how big a deal it was at the time (and even bigger in retrospect) when he decided not to run for reelection in 1928. He was only 55 and apparently very popular. Had he run, he likely would have been reelected, and no doubt his response to the financial panic of 1929-1932 (if there even would have been one) would have been far superior to Hoover’s.
https://www.coolidgereview.com/articles/coolidge-do-not-choose-to-run
This piece makes an ill-advised allusion to Biden’s “decision” not to run, but then quotes Amity Shlaes:
@Jimmy:The continued success of the nation depended on the popular commitment to those principles and institutions, not to men.
As we’ve learned to our sorrow, it matters very much which men are in placed in those institutions. As a people, we took our eyes off the ball, and those institutions have been hollowed out and replaced by something else.
The popular commitment must be not to the institutions themselves, but to see to it that only those trusted to staff those institutions are those committed to the purpose those institutions serve, and willing to keep them accountable to the people.
Or you get what we have now.
“ChatGPT – What are the signs of an individual being a cult of personality follower?”
Sounds like the description of a Democrat. No wonder the Democrats are at their lowest popularity.
Why does it seem the Democrats are always projecting? What they accuse Trump of, they are actually guilty of.
GOP has a racist [sic] issue
And the Democrats don’t??
I guess it depends on what your definition of “racist” is.
“We are hard-wired to like and trust humans who look more like we do. Rightly so in terms of survival.” – huxley
I agree. An anecdote from my childhood. I was maybe three or four. The annual rodeo was being held in our small town. The sponsors brought a small group of Cheyenne Indians in to entertain folks with native dances.
I had never seen any Indians. To see these young men dressed in loin cloths, headdresses, war paint, and dancing to throbbing drums was very scary. Myu mother tried to assure me there was no danger, but I left as soon as I could. I avoided the rodeo for a few years.
A few years later, when I learned to read, I found a book about American Indians and their culture. I then became an admirer of them and their hunter-gatherer way of life. I then wanted to see them at the rodeo. In fact, I was willing to accept their invitations to dance with them. With education, I overcame my fear of them. Just a personal experience that aligns with your statement.
@J.J.With education, I overcame my fear of them.
What worked in your childhood might not have worked out so well in 1836 though, as Rachel Plummer’s educational experience showed:
Likewise there were folks on October 7 who learned a lot more about Gazans; and still quite a few who think Israelis should get over their fear with more education.
That fence is now a smouldering ruin. Give it a few years. We’ll find out why that fence was there.
==
It wasn’t a fence, actual or metaphorical. It was a source of grant money. Quite modest when measured next to legitimate federal expenditure, quite possibly contextually large when you consider the sums of money which would be devoted to political agitation in this country absent this laundry. Please note, ODA is not usually a contextually large source of gross national income abroad. Some places do get contextually large flows. Most do not.
Niketas C., I see little similarity in my experience and those of people living on the frontier during the time when the Indians were at war with the settlers. Most people who are at war have an innate fear of their enemies. That’s not racism, that’s self-preservation.
I was a child during WWII. Every movie I saw depicted the Japanese as brutes and killers. That was ingrained in my mind. Yet, in the 1950s when I spent time in Japan as a deployed sailor, I was shocked to find that the Japanese I encountered were quite civil and humane. And today, the Japanese ate our best ally in the Pacific, whereas during WWII we were allied with the Chinese. The conditions make a difference.
But I do agree that we are hardwired to fear those who aren’t like us. My childhood experience is an example.
But which ally was that? And how did they taste?
@J. J.:Most people who are at war have an innate fear of their enemies. That’s not racism, that’s self-preservation.
There are always people telling you that your enemies would not be your enemies if you just learned about them. There are always people who are your enemies, and aren’t at war with you, until they suddenly are.
A substantial fraction of the civil and humane Japanese you met in the 1950s were the same people as the ones who were brutes and killers in the 1940s. It wasn’t your education that made them different, it was their defeat at our hands. (Ask some Japanese-born Koreans what they experience from civil and humane Japanese.)
You said you’d found a book on Indians and their culture that made you an admirer of their way of life? Then that book left out a lot about what they were really like. They’re not much like that now, I grant you, but it’s not because we got educated about them.
@ Paul > “That fence is now a smouldering ruin. Give it a few years. We’ll find out why that fence was there.”
Foreign aid, even when legitimate (unlike the funding by USAID of outright graft and political influence), is not a fence.
Military forces are a fence.
The only ones taking that down were the Democrats.
I hope that President Trump can replace it before we all find out why it was there.
https://x.com/DavidSacks/status/1887920221811523766
How D.O.G.E has fun, leaping and splashing. Such joy, that.
From sdferr’s link – Geez…a heated saltwater swimming pool for dogs to use twice a week, plus therapy for older dogs.
Claude – how much does it cost to build a heated salt water pool?
This was an indoor pool, so the cost of the building. Then:
Mean ole’ Musk is going to force those poor dogs outta their weekly swims!?!
Fort Parker, built the same year, was attacked on May 19, 1836, by a large group of Indians, mainly Comanches. Five inhabitants of the fort were massacred, one was wounded, and five others were taken captive: Rachel and James Pratt Plummer, Cynthia Ann and John Parker, and Mrs. Elizabeth Kellogg. Cynthia Ann and John Parker were Rachel’s cousins, and Elizabeth Kellogg was her aunt. Soon after their abduction, the captives were separated.
–Niketas Choniates
True. Native American tribes comprised deeply different cultures from ours, often quite savage in our terms, and the Commanches were some of the most savage.
I make no excuses.
However the Parker story also includes that of Cynthia Ann Parker, who had a more benign fate from that of her cousin Rachel. Cynthia Ann was only 8 years-old and was integrated deeply into her tribal family.
She found favor with the tribal chief who adopted her as a replacement for his dead daughter. She was named Naduah and she became pure Commanche.
When she matured, she married a prominent warrior and had a son, who became Quanah Parker, the last chief of the Commanches. He fought the whites bitterly, then later on the basis of a peyote vision, arranged for the Commanches to find peace with whites. Quanah Parker even became a friend of Teddy Roosevelt.
This IMO is one of the great stories of American West.
Cynthia Ann was taken back into white society. She hated it. She stole a horse every time she could and tried to return to her Commanches.
Life is strange.
The stereotype of Republicans as “racist” is mostly a fabrication of the Democrat party purely for political electoral reasons. Perpetuated by the Democrat run media which are certainly not principled enough to have actual objectivity on the subject of “racism”. Are there “racist” Republicans? Yes there are. Are they a majority, a near majority, a minority, or a statistical anomaly measured in decimal fractions? I don’t know, but If I had to put a number on it, it would be measured in decimal fractions.
Are there “racist” Democrats? Yes. Historically, a majority. Today? Who knows.
I just know that Larry Elder ran for Governor of California, and was called “the Black face of White Supremacy” by Erika D. Smith of the LA Times in 2021. Erika is not White.
I also know Democrats blamed Kamala Harris’ loss on “racism” and “sexism”.
The fact that she was a word salad machine picked to be VP particularly because she was Black and a Woman seems a lot like identity politics, or what some might call “racism” and “sexism”.
Aesop Fan: “Patel promises not to shutter the FBI if he can find ten righteous agents.”
Now, that is a LOT to ask for.
J,J.
Agreement or disagreement with your first sentence constitutes a core difference between “liberals” and “conservatives.”
As a child who started high school the year the Civil Rights Bill was passed, I observed that the attitudes of many of my rural New England classmates about blacks were not as different from those of my Oklahoma grandmother as one might have thought. Which led me to believe that “us versus not us,” with regard to white versus black, was to be found in varying degrees in both North and South,
I also observed that “us versus not us” attitudes were not confined to white versus black. They extended to religion–my racially enlightened father had a certain dislike towards Roman Catholic practices and doctrines– but he also had Jewish friends. As a result, I once had a negative attitude towards a classmate for his serving as an altar boy. Fortunately, I kept my opinion to myself, and also changed my mind. I am reminded of the Italian-surnamed classmate, who served as a scapegoat for many, who got called a “wop” by another classmate, who also had an Italian surname. Oh well…..
I found myself on both sides of the rural not-as-educated/studious versus the less rural-more educated/studious divide between the two towns who sent students to the regional high school I attended.
One example of the inherent nature of “us-versus-not-us” was from a week in a hotel in South America, during my time off. The toddler son of the hotel manager started crying when he saw me from 20 feet away. I looked different– my eyeglasses were probably the big reason. After a week, he was comfortable in my presence. After he saw that his mother was comfortable with me, he changed his attitude.
Whereas many liberals believe that we inherently love each other–that prejudice/dislike has to be taught. South Pacific, anyone?
We can learn to love, even if love isn’t inherent. I am reminded of the principal of a high poverty, 98% minority school where I once taught and previously substituted. A reporter asked her what she thought about getting more black teachers in the school so that black students could more identify with their teachers and thus learn more. The principal’s reply—she was black—was that the content of the vessel was more important than the color of the vessel.