Kind Words For Pruitt But
Both Carson and Mnuchin seem to have weathered their storms. But Pruitt may not. Trump still praises him publicly hes doing a great job, the president tweeted on Friday but such kind words are no guarantee of job security. According to news reports, chief of staff John Kelly advised Trump last week to fire Pruitt, though Trump wasn’t ready to let him go at that point. Friday morning, Trump and Pruitt met.
The dilemma for Trump is that, as head of the EPA, Pruitt is doing exactly what the president wants rolling back environmental regulations that he says have been holding back economic growth. Three Republican members of the House have called for Pruitts resignation. But prominent conservatives have defended him, including Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky.
Senator Paul tweeted Thursday that Pruitt is likely the bravest and most conservative member of Trumps cabinet and is needed to help Trump drain the regulatory swamp. Senator Cruz, in a , blamed Obama and his media cronies for wanting to drive Pruitt out.
Conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh opened his show Thursday with a full-throated defense of Pruitt, blaming the liberal deep state for attacking the embattled EPA administrator. Mr. Limbaugh, with millions of listeners, has broad power to influence public discourse among Trump supporters.
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The Friends Of Trump That Hit The Jackpot
Clay Lacy Aviation, a private jet company founded by a Trump campaign and Republican National Committee donor, received $27 million in government funding through the $2 trillion coronavirus package known as the CARES Act.
Phunware, a data firm that is doing work for the Trump re-election campaign, received $2.85 million from the Paycheck Protection Program the average loan distributed through this program is $206,000.
CloudCommerce, a company whose largest shareholder is Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale, received nearly a million dollars through the PPP.
Ronald Gidwitz is the presidents ambassador to Belgium and was the Trump campaign finance chair for Illinois. Gidwitzs family is the largest shareholder in a company called Continental Materials Corp. They were approved for a $5.5 million PPP loan.
Money That Should Be Going To Needy Americans Is Going To Trump’s Friends And Cronies If Anything The Swamp Is Bigger Than Ever
Whatever happened to drain the swamp one of the original promises from then-candidate Donald J. Trump? At the time, it was a powerful rhetorical refrain that harnessed a widespread sentiment that Washington had sold out the American people in favor of special interest influence. It was an effective rallying cry that created a tangible contrast between the outsider insurgency that was Donald Trump juxtaposed with the ultimate insider that was Hillary Clinton. And yet four years later, Trump has become the swampiest of swamp creatures, giving the Joe Biden campaign a very real opening to do to Trump what Trump did to Clinton.
If youre among the 36.5 million Americans who have filed for unemployment insurance since mid-March, you might be asking yourself, What happened to all of that money Congress passed to shore up the economy and keep small businesses afloat? The answer: Too often, it went to donors, supporters, allies and former aides of President Donald J. Trump, aka The Swamp.
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Surprise: Trumps Drain The Swamp Promise Was A Load Of Hot Garbage
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Lobbyists who have thrived under Donald Trumps administration continue to do so in the throes of a pandemic, according to a new report from watchdog group Public Citizen. At least 40 lobbyists with ties to Trumpthrough his campaign, his inaugural committee, his transition team, or his administrationhave either lobbied or registered to lobby on COVID-related issues, helping clients secure more than $10.5 billion in federal coronavirus aid in total. The crisis offered an especially lucrative opportunity for those lobbyists who enjoy close ties to President Donald Trump and his administrationand they seized it, noted Mike Tanglis and Taylor Lincoln, who wrote the report.
Ironically, Trump himself issued an executive order early-on in his administration that theoretically prevents former administration officials from lobbying the agency or office where they worked for a period of five years. Its also supposed to prohibit political appointees from lobbying the administration while Trump is in officeall part of his drain the swamp campaign promise. Shockingly, thats not quite how things have played out. Per the AP, at least five former members of the Trump administration are potentially in violation of the rule, including the wife of ex-White House counsel Don McGahn:
Vanity Fair
Trump Is Draining The Swamp And The Global Cabal
THOSE WHO DOUBTED PRESIDENT TRUMP WAS APPLYING THE ART OF WAR WILL SOON BE EATING THEIR WORDS!
The Cabal and their swamp creatures totally underestimated President Trump. They tried to bring him down. They tried to ruin his brand, his name, his commitment, his resolve, his love for We the People, yet, they could not touch him.
Years ago Trump did a test to see who was loyal to him and who was not. He was facing a tough time and fake news said he was now washed up, broke, and lost everything. During this time, he kept focused on his goals and as the entire world watched him, waiting to see him fail, he put on one heck of a come back show! In this process he found out who his real friends were and who were just there to ride the gravy train. He discovered who was just on board for the prestige, endorsements, and donations he had to offer and who was loyal. He even wrote a best selling book, The Art Of The Come Back.
When he had carried out his test of loyalty, he reemerged as the triumphant Trump Brand that sold billions and made billions more. He learned a lot about human character and ambition. He was able to discern the nature of his fellow man and he learned who had buttons that could be pushed and how they could be tweaked to be pushed to his liking or disliking. He learned how to say certain words to trigger immature responses from others and how to say things that projected the greatness within the common folk.
TRUMP LOVES TO GET EVEN!
Dianne
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Drain The Higher Ed Swamp That Produced The Hang Trump Prof
April 14, 2017 by Bruce Thornton
Bruce Thornton is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
The uproar over a Fresno State history lecturers tweets about assassinating President Trump is understandable, but in the end the outrage is pointless. Its doubtful the feds will charge the fellow, given how outlandish and obviously hyperbolic the tweets are. Nor is he likely to be fired. All the commotion has accomplished is to turn a nobody into a left-wing martyr persecuted for speaking truth to power.
The most important of these government-backed instruments is diversity. This vacuous concept was created ex nihilo by Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell in the 1979 Bakke vs. University of California decision as a way to protect admissions set asides for minorities without falling afoul of the laws prohibition of quotas. Since only a compelling state interest could justify exceptions to Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Acts ban on discrimination by race, which naked quotas obviously did, diversity, along with all its alleged social and educational boons, was by judicial fiat deemed a state interest. In 2003, Grutter vs. Bollinger, and again in the two Fisher vs. University of Texas cases , the Supreme Court confirmed Powells legerdemain in order to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body, as Republican-appointed Justice Sandra Day OConner said in the first Fisher case.
Trump: Dem Congresswoman Totally Fabricated What I Said To Soldiers Widow
Trump isnt the first president to denounce the influence of lobbyists on the campaign trail, only to welcome them into his administration. President Barack Obama pledged that the revolving door will be closed in the Obama White House during the 2008 campaign but ended up hiring former lobbyists by granting them waivers from his ethics rules.
Trump isnt even the first to vow to drain the swamp.
President Ronald Reaganreminded his Cabinet on the first anniversary of his inauguration that youre here to drain the swamp. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosiappropriated the phrase in 2006 as Democrats were running to regain control of the chamber.
Trump hassaid he was slow to embrace the phrase. I tell everyone, I hated it, Trumpsaid at a rally in Des Moines, Iowa, in December. Somebody said drain the swamp and I said, Oh, that is so hokey. That is so terrible.
Lobbyists say Trump has made it harder to influence the administration in some ways but not in the ways he claims.
Whats challenging is even now agencies have a lot fewer political appointees, said Elizabeth Gore, a top Democratic lobbyist, making it harder for lobbyists to secure meetings and get answers to questions. Theres a lot of empty chairs.
Some lawmakers still want to move forward on Trumps lobbying reforms.
Now that youve reminded me, were going to send it down again and ask if theyll endorse it, DeFazio said.
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The Swamp Grew Even Under President Donald Trump
In Pictures via Getty Images
Everyone from Ronald Reagan to Nancy Pelosi to Donald Trump issued calls to “drain the swamp.”
However, in a new oversight report by OpenTheBooks.com, Mapping The Swamp, A Study Of The Administrative State, we found that the federal agency payrolls continued to grow unabated.
President Trump was holding the headcount of the executive agencies roughly flat through at least 2018. Then, the pandemic driven spending caused a massive federal hiring spree in FY2020.
Key Facts
1. EXPENSIVE BUREAUCRACY: The federal disclosed workforce costs the American taxpayer $2.3 million per minute, $140 million per hour, and $1.1 billion per day.
In FY2020, the federal government disclosed 2.8 million employees including 1.4 million executive agency bureaucrats 698,547 DOD employees and 678,537 USPS employees for an estimated total compensation cost of $292 billion. .
2. THE SWAMP GETS BIGGER: 1.4 million disclosed employees in the executive agencies rose to a modern-day high up 3.7-percent from 1.35 million employees in FY2016. Veterans Affairs with 421,542 employees was the largest executive agency, and, since FY2016, headcount grew by 48,928 employees . Homeland Security with 210,253 employees, grew by 26,290 employees .
Growth of Federal Executive Agency Payroll Headcounts 2010-2020
OpenTheBooks.com
3. HIGHLY COMPENSATED BUREAUCRATS: 532,784 employees made $100,000+ in the 122 executive agencies from 406,960 employees in FY2016 .
Further reading
Trump Shattered His Promise To Drain The Swamp The Self
Drain the swamp was a signature promise of Donald Trumps first campaign: He would uproot corruption from the capital and install a government that served ordinary Americans, not the special interests. That pledge has not merely gone unmet, like most of his campaign promises. It has been shattered by a president and an administration unprecedented and unapologetic in their mingling of public and private interests. In an unfettered second term, the self-dealing would be epic.
Mr. Trump promised to completely isolate himself from his businesses. I may never see these places again, he famously said during a rally in August 2016. Because Im going to be working for you, Im not going to have time to go play golf.
The reality, as Noah Bookbinder, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington , points out, has proved to be quite the opposite, with his businesses a constant presence in his presidency. The president, who is exempt from government conflict-of-interest laws, refused to follow the practice of his predecessors in severing ties to his existing businesses or putting his assets in a blind trust. He retained ownership, ostensibly putting his two adult sons in charge while still enjoying the benefits of any profit.
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Is Trump Draining The Swamp Or Is The Water Rising
So far, the president’s efforts to ‘drain the swamp’ seem more focused on deregulation and shrinking the federal workforce than making sure his team adheres to the norms and rules of ethical behavior for government officials.
Donald Trump first uttered the rallying cry drain the swamp! just three weeks before the 2016 election. Promising to make our government honest once again, Candidate Trump unveiled a five-point proposal aimed at reining in the influence of lobbyists.
Drain the swamp! quickly became one of Mr. Trump’s central campaign promises and one of the most popular chants at his rallies.
Today, experts on government ethics say, President Trump is presiding over one of the most ethically challenged administrations in modern history, especially this early on. Scott Pruitt, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, is only the latest example of a cabinet member operating under a storm cloud. Most recently, Mr. Pruitt has been accused of an improper housing set-up connected to an energy lobbyist, unconventional pay raises to favored political appointees, and reassignment or demotion of senior staff who questioned his spending. His job reportedly hangs in the balance, amid mixed signals from Trump and his spokespeople.
All presidents deal to some extent with alleged wrongdoing by senior appointees, but I have never seen anything like this, says Scott Amey, general counsel for the Project on Government Oversight, a nonpartisan government watchdog group.
Trump Isn’t Draining The Swamp Hes Hiding It
WASHINGTON President Donald Trump promised during his campaign to drain the swamp in Washington by cracking down on lobbyists who move into government jobs and back again. But now Trumps White House has sought to block the governments top ethics official from getting certain information about ex-lobbyists working in his administration. That means the public doesnt know if all staffers are abiding by Trumps own ethics pledge or whether theyre working to enrich their previous clients.
Trump signed an executive order in January banning executive branch appointees from working on a particular matter they lobbied on within the two previous years. The ban lasts for two years from the employees appointment. The order also banned executive appointees from lobbying the agencies where they worked for five years after they leave office. But the Trump administration has broad power to grant exceptions, called waivers,to this rule, and Trumps team is trying to keep them secret.
The lobbying pledge may have led people to believe Trump was draining the swamp. But Trump doesnt seem to be doing that, a group of Democratic senators wrote to the president on April 20: It appears you have undermined by freely and secretly issuing waivers to allow former lobbyists to work on matters that could benefit their former clients.
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Has Trump Drained The Swamp In Washington
Draining the swamp is an abstract promise, and President Donald Trump has used phrase to lash out against seemingly every aspect of the Washington establishment. | Andrea Morales/Getty Images
10/19/2017 05:03 AM EDT
Shortly before Election Day last year, Donald Trump rolled out a package of ethics reforms that he promised to implement as president, using for the first time a now-famous phrase: drain the swamp.
A year later and nearly nine months into his presidency, Trump has failed to deliver on most of those reforms. Of a five-point list of proposals he unveiled to tighten the rules for Washington lobbying, only one has been fully implemented.
And rather than draining the swamp, many Washington lobbyists say business is better than ever. Spending on lobbying in Washington totaled almost $1.7 billion in the first half of the year, the highest since 2012,according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
I dont think that anythings really changed, said Brian Wild, a longtime Republican lobbyist and a former aide to House Speaker John Boehner. If anything, the lobbying business is booming right now.
Draining the swamp is an abstract promise, and Trump has used phrase to lash out against seemingly every aspect of the Washington establishment, fromthe press corps toSenate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
The White House declined to say whether Trump has taken any steps to advance ethics reforms in Congress or whether he planned to do so.
Did President Trump Drain The Swamp Nope
I am an American conservative. I do not buy the policies the Democratic party tries to sell me. When Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, I rejoiced. To say I dont like Hilary Clinton is an understatement. She smiles for the cameras but when the cameras are off she curses out and despises people she considers under her, even those who are working to protect her, Secret Service personnel!
And I did like Donald Trump. He offered the American public something they hadnt experienced before: An outsider to Washington who claimed he would drain the Swamp, meaning get rid of the people in the government who have their own vested interests in mind, people who are members of organizations that do NOT have the American publics best interests at heart.
Has President Trump drained the Swamp the past four years? I submit to you not only has he not drained the Swamp but he also appointed Swamp members into his cabinet and as his advisors!
What exactly is the Swamp? My research tells me that the Council on Foreign Relations and the Biderburgers comprise most of the Swamp if not all of it! Trump has not identified these people as the Swamp even though they are the Swamp!
Below is a list of Swamp members from Trumps Swamp List: His Advisors & Cabinet Who Are CFR & Bilderberg Attendees. He did fire some but appointed other Swamp members to take their place.
John P. Abizaid, Ambassador to Saudi Arabia
David R. Malpass, World Bank
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