A compendium of some of the weird, wacky and wonderful horticultural happenings from the past month
Here's what the Manafort indictment comes down to: It's not that he broke the law by repping for parties in foreign countries. It's not illegal to do that. And he wasn't acting as an agent of some sort of hostile power such that issues like treason would come into play. His business activities were legal, but he was supposed to fill out paperwork to register as a foreign agent. He allegedly didn't do that, so he was apparently in violation of the law.
In Washington D.C., people like power. They pretend they're in town to "serve" and "do the people's business" but really, they're there to line their pockets, enhance their post-office consulting fees, and savor the best scotch at all the right cocktail parties. There may be a few politicians (looking at you Paul, Cruz, and Amash) out there who actually vote their conscience and try to do the right thing but, by and large, pretty much all of them are in it for themselves.
Last week, departing Georgia Governor Nathan Deal paraphrased Mark 8:36 in another missive lobbed at the Republican candidates vying for his post. What good is it to preserve religious freedom, the Republican governor mused, if one thus forfeits the chance to attract an Amazon headquarters to the city?
I recently discovered an article by author Daniel Lang, an incredible piece brimming with optimism for us conservatives. This quote in his article sums up his argument: “I think that the political landscape in America is going to be drifting towards conservatism for the next 20-40 years.”
This is how the swamp works, and it's one of the reasons it's so difficult to do what most serious people understand needs to be done with the tax code. Loading up the code with special favors for certain constituencies makes no sense. Using the tax code to incentivize people to buy homes, or two live in high-tax states, is not what the code is sofr. It's for raising revenue to fund the government, period, and to do so in the least burdensome and most equitable way possible.
VANCOUVER—Canada’s aging population will put significant stress on government spending programs, which will result in large deficits and mounting debt in the future, finds a new study by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank.
Judge Jeanine Pirro was in rare form during the opening statement of her show last night. “Lock her up!” she said of Hillary Clinton. She added, “Starting Monday this has to happen, Special Counsel and former FBI Director Robert Mueller must be fired immediately” (along with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein). Pirro opined that former FBI Director James Comey “needs to be the target of a federal criminal investigation.”
"McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of subversion or treason without proper regard for evidence." -- [Wikipedia, "McCarthyism"]
According to criminal charges filed at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and made public earlier, today, Paul Manafort and Richard Gates face accusations of subversion and treason on behalf of the Government of Ukraine.
Much has been said about the politicization of the personal. Politics is no longer about Washington D.C. It's about the movies you watch, the brands you buy, who your friends are and where you live. Everything from your choice of shoes to the car you drive is political. And if it isn't political to you, it is very political to the college student next door or the political activist running for city council.
Britain’s Daily Mail is reporting that Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager left his home shortly after 8:00 a.m. this morning to turn himself in after having been ordered to do so by self-claimed authorities.
Manafort is the first domino forced to fall by special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, with many more to follow.
If you're like most political watchers, this morning's indictments are no real surprise. Pretty much everyone assumed this was coming. I saw someone over on Twitter describe former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort as the free center square on Robert Mueller's bingo card. That's an apt description, and Manafort's business partner, Rick Gates, is essentially in the same boat.
A grand jury convened by Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III has indicted an unidentified person on unspecified charges in Mueller’s off-the-rails investigation into the Trump campaign’s hypothesized electoral collusion with Russia, according to media reports.
The indictment could be unsealed as soon as today. Three congressional committees are also investigating the Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy theory.
I wonder if there's going to be anyone left in Hollywood in a week or two. Smells like opportunity to me, particularly on Netflix, which has no apparent appetite for association with Kevin Spacey after what we've learned in the past 48 hours:
Lest anyone has forgotten, the cause of the anthem-kneelers is the accusation that America is rampant with racist police officers killing and brutalizing black people without any reason. This is completely false, as all available data shows, but they're not interested in the truth. They're just interested in being woke. And in some cases, they're interested in being victims, which particularly helps when it turns out you're a criminal yourself.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Vice President Mike Pence announced a new policy at the In Defense of Christians annual summit in Washington, promising direct aid to persecuted Christians in the Middle East.