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A year of “draining the swamp”, by the 4d chess playing grandmaster of politics, has yielded, in over a year ... a memo. This is not surprising. Trump is getting his political butt handed to him, his supporters are too starry-eyed to hold his feet to the fire, and an almost unbelievably miraculous opportunity is being squandered. Oh, in addition to a 4-page memo, we have also gotten a number of snarky, albeit incoherent, tweets. And, possibly, Q, although that remains to be seen.

We are going to lose. Badly. And the fault lies squarely on the shoulders of Trump, and those who act as cheerleaders, and not true supporters (true supporters know that sometimes you have to speak up when the “leader” is making grievous mistakes — as Trump has done, in not seriously following through on his promise to drain the swamp).

The Expanse has to be included in your list.

I have learned more, today, than I did all of last year. I had absolutely no idea that pigs had so much utility. Until today, I thought bacon was pig’s greatest contribution to society.

And, admit it. We have all woken up next to a battle-pig (and sworn off alcohol forever). Lessons learned, and all that.

And there is such a thing as a “flaming pig”. While it was, no doubt, terrible for the pig, it is somehow awesome. Flaming pigs vs. elephants. Now that is how to conduct a war. Much better than the Olympics, if you ask me.

How often, historically, have pigs actually been thrown into battle? Is this a common occurrence?

There is no evidence that sleep interruptions make any difference. Some people thrive despite having a heavily segmented sleep, and other fare poorly on an uninterrupted 7 hours. We really understand very little, about sleep.

In terms of “gasping for air”? Yes, it is a problem. But the assumption (long-held) that CPAP is more than a band-aid is appearing shakier with each study that comes out. Apnea is potentially deadly. But what to do about it? That is the real question.

One thing that people should look at, seriously. Instead of the very invasive, and very serious, Stanford protocol surgery, a lot of people do very well with functional orthodontic work. But this whole “you have apnea, here is a cpap machine” is really very suspect.

I’ve been on cpap for a couple of years now, it has made a big difference.

You may want to look at recent studies. It appears that CPAP has no real effect on the *effects* of sleep apnea, although it can improve quality of life, in some cases. Unfortunately, we are still very early in the process of understanding sleep apnea, and dealing with it effectively. Contradictory and paradoxical studies abound.

I lost 50 pounds. The apnea went away. So did my sore back and knee. No secret here.

Because apnea was always associated (incorrectly, and as you have done) with obesity, most serious cases of apnea went undetected. Yes, there are some people who can deal with apnea through weight loss. They are the lucky ones. Everybody else isn't so lucky. That is the real "secret" -- non-obesity related apnea is much more common than once thought, and infinitely more difficult to treat.

See my prior post. UPPP (and all parts of UPPP) are really inadvisable. Find a sleep doctor who keeps up with the latest research. The *only* surgery a person should even consider is the advancement surgery, at least according to research I have done.

But, as far as CPAP goes: there was a big study that came out recently which confirmed what my cardiologist told me off-the-record. CPAP (and other positive airway devices) may reduce snoring, and reduce patient sleeplessness, they have no appreciable effect on any of the apnea-related issues, including cardiac issues.

Once again, find a doctor who really keeps up with this changing field. Many doctors will simply prescribe CPAP as a matter of course, but there is a real question as to whether this is really effective.

In extreme cases, a tracheotomy may be required.

I have never heard of this. As far as my research goes, the *only* surgical approach which really works is Maxillo Mandibular Advancement surgery (this is the surgery performed on then-Cleveland Indians 1st baseman Mike Napoli). Originally part of the so-called "Stanford Protocol" (the gold standard of surgical approaches to apnea), it has since become the gold-standard on its own, since the UPPP surgery (part of the Stanford Protocol) was found to be problematic, and unnecessary in any case). But a "tracheotomy"? I have never heard of this. Do you mean a UPPP? In which case, studies have been pretty definitive that even if there is a benefit, it is generally minor, and, unfortunately, goes away over time.

It will unfortunately come to that, my friends. It's going to be worse than any of us can now imagine.

I have become increasingly uncomfortable with the (unwarranted) confidence exuding from people who should know better. The left has spent the last 60 years amassing power, grabbing control over virtually every institution of influence in this country, and globally. The notion that they are simply going to give up this control, just because their corruption is laid bare, is preposterous. They are going to fight, tooth-and-nail, over everything. And the more they are backed into a corner, the more vicious, and the more underhanded, they will be. A lot of people are suffering from hero-worship with respect to President Trump, as though he is some political genius toying with inept comic-book villains. But, as brave as he is, and as honest as he is, he is going up against people who know what they are doing, have everything to lose, everything to gain, and absolutely no discernible ethics.

I agree with you. This is going to get a lot worse before it gets better (assuming it does indeed get better). Despite a booming economy, and several political victories, President Trump is politically treading water, and is, at least publicly, punching from his heels. Truth may win out, in the end, but in the meantime, we can expect that the public dialogue will never treat Obama (and his administration) as anything less than angelic and brilliant. And without a solid political base to work from, Trump and his allies have a tremendously difficult job in front of them in terms of changing the narrative of -- Trump is a racist dunce whereas Obama was perfection lent by heaven.

Upon reflection, there is slightly more I would add. I said that the only thing that deplorables can do is to hold Trump’s feet to the fire, on his promises to drain the swamp. But there is more that we can do, which addresses your point more directly.

Conservatism *used* to be the place where adults would debate issues based on reason, principle, and deep abstract evaluation. I remember plenty of vigorous debates, both publicly, and also in college, about issues such as drug legalization, universal basic income, gay marriage (then, it was arguments about the legal role of “partners”), and so on. Conservatives would discuss these issues as adults, whereas the left would act like intellectually stunted spoiled brats. Conservatives would often disagree with each other, but would do so without rancor or dismissal.

Today, conservatives are seen as closed-minded. And I don’t think that is an unfair characterization. It isn’t the conclusions that we reach that make us closed-minded, but the process. We dismiss, and make fun of, anything that does not meet our definition of “conservative”, but, to the rest of the public, this makes us seem unthinking and backwards. Without access to any kind of effective means of propagating a counter-narrative, that view becomes entrenched.

Conservatives need to do more than just reach out over water coolers and dinner tables. We need to embrace what we used to embrace — well thought out arguments, reason-based convictions, etc. We need to be willing to challenge our own preconceptions, and each other, in a way that makes use of the fact that, generally speaking, we are far more intelligent, and far wiser, than those who oppose us.

We should be the ones publicly debating the pros and cons of UBI (and other issues, but this is a big one among young people). You want to effect the marginal voter? In my opinion, this is how you do it. We cannot compete on the battlefield of propaganda. We cannot compete in public schools, universities, Washington DC, advertising, culture, high tech, the media, and so on. But we can go back to competing on, and dominating, the battlefield of ideas.

...otherwise we will face the "choice" of voting for little "r" swamp critters or (with all due respect) candidates not ready for prime-time like Moore.

Just a small point. Everytime, we hear the same story: x was not a ready-for prime-time candidate. We heard it in Delaware, Mississippi, Alabama, Alaska, Nevada. We are soon to hear it from Arizona, and probably Kentucky. Maybe some of these candidates were bad. But people run bad campaigns, all of the time, and win. The problem here is not the candidates. We could have carried any of those over the line (possibly excepting Delaware). The problem was 3-fold. 1) The Republican party is our enemy, not our friend; 2) The Republican party will play any trick, no matter how dirty, to win; and 3) Most importantly, we have no effective way to counter the swamp-produced narrative, no matter how absurd (a youthful dalliance with witch-craft does not make her a witch, in the exact opposite way that Byrd's dalliance with the KKK actually *did* reflect on his character, and Clinton's dalliance with violent rape, *did* reflect on his character -- but the narratives run completely unopposed).

So while Trump needs to do his bit, it is vital that we keep up our efforts to bring as many into the fold as possible, from all walks of life: tax collectors, Samaritans, patriotic yet lost Democrats, etc.

You make a number of good points, but none of this addresses the fundamental problem. The swamp derives most of its strength from the general ignorance of the voting population. Most people get their news, directly or indirectly, from left-wing activists (the main stream media, academia, cultural figures, etc.), and, to make matters worse, all news is filtered by an army of minor left-wing activists. Reaching people is more difficult, not less difficult, than it was for Reagan's time, when it took a man of his stature to successfully overcome the bias. Doing so now is a nearly impossible task. We (the non-swamp denizens, not necessarily conservative, but good people trying to live their lives in relative freedom) have no realistic chance of overcoming this wave of ignorance-inducing narratives, especially since we have ceded a once-ideologically balanced (relatively balanced) culture, academia, media, and political parties (there used to be unbiased reporters, conservative cultural figures, academia may have tilted left, but it wasn't the 95+% left-wing machine it is today, and so on).

This is why I am convinced the *only* way we can win is if Trump holds true on his promise to "drain the swamp". The only thing that would get through to the largely ignorant masses is if there was a constant stream of high-profile trials that displaced the current narratives, and highlighted the jaw-dropping scope of corruption that has existed for decades, by people they, generally, trusted. It is that, and only that, that could break through this thick wall.

Running around pretending that we are winning, when we aren't, helps nobody. The swamp has regrouped. They are now in a position to crush the insurgency. All of the happy talk about voting registration numbers sound good when one's head is in the sand, but doesn't amount to much when faced with the grim reality that if a minor 40-year old scandal, combined with a poor candidate and a poor campaign, could cause the Republicans to lose Alabama (it should have turned a 30-point win into a 20-point win, not a 30-point win into a loss).

And the only thing that the deplorable grass-roots can do is to hold Trump's feet to the fire on his promises to drain the swamp. Hillary *should* have been indicted by now. Everyday, by now, we should be hearing detail after detail on the Clinton Foundation. But we don't. This is not "patience". It is insanity. The ball is almost exclusively in Trump's court. It is he, and he alone, that can begin the process of draining, and exposing, the swamp. The only thing we can do is to put as much pressure as we can on him.

We are losing. Putting a happy face on it doesn't change that. One person said that my comments were "demoralizing". The left was demoralized. They were facing an existential threat in Donald Trump (with plenty of demoralizing events over the last 25 years -- 94, 02, 10, 14, etc.). They turned that demoralization into effective action, because they were forced to face their situation, in that they could no longer play a game of pretend. If Trump loses his reelection bid, the game is over. The swamp will win, and the swamp will never again allow someone like him to win. And the only way that Trump wins his reelection bid is if he publicly exposes the true nature of the swamp, in a manner that cannot be spun. And the only forum to do that is through the courts.

If we do not see trials begin, very soon, there is no road back for conservatives, believers in the constitution, and ordinary, middle America.

“Conservatism” *used* to be the place where adults would debate issues, based on principle. Simply dismissing ideas was the exclusive domain of the left. This has clearly changed, to, in my opinion, the detriment of all. Self-proclaimed conservatives are now as childish in their arguments as the left used to be.

One of the things that attracted me to conservatism was this issue, and the drug issue. I got an economics degree from a college that was decidedly liberal, but which had a conservative economics department. The *only* place at that school where I felt that real, honest, vigorous, intellectual debate occurred was the economics department. Whereas issues like drug legalization occurred throughout the college, in the economics department the argument was clearly not made out of self-interest (the desire to be able to buy drugs without consequence), but rather principled debates about the scope of government, personal liberty, and so on.

Same with the idea of universal income. Your evaluation that the idea is “kooky” would have been shared by one economics professor — the token left-wing professor who was nearly a full-blown socialist. Every other economics professor (both conservative, and non-aligned) were adamantly supportive of the idea. And they had very good reasons. Their arguments were quite persuasive and, quite frankly, I believe correct.

But the point here is that conservatism has changed. It has grown increasingly child-like, and seems to have forfeited the rich, intellectual tradition which used to define it. Whereas once, conservatives would be able to argue persuasively on issues like drug legalization and UBI, and were able to do so with well-reasoned, abstract arguments, today conservatism is reduced to casual dismissal and name-calling (not in your post, obviously, but frequently).

This is a shame, and it basically cedes the intellectual battleground to those who do not share the same fundamental beliefs that used to define conservatism.

This is very bad for the Deplorable Agenda. In Alabama, Dems have found a way to win....gin up the Black female population. Establishment Republicans have shown that they’d rather lose elections than have someone win who is opposed to them. I’m wondering if they’re planning to throw the next election in the US Senate just to keep control of the national agenda, along with their real allies, Democratic power brokers.

Unfortunately, you are right. The establishment Republicans have shown that they are not a weak opposition force, they are actually allied to the left. And your point about black females is right on the mark. They have learned how to get a very high turnout that provides absolute and unconditional support to anyone backed by the swamp. Trump supporters (of which I am one, btw) are whistling past the graveyard, here, and have completely stuck their heads in the sand. This was Alabama. A republican candidate could be caught with a dead girl, a live boy, and an assortment of farm animals, and still win by double digits. People saying that he lost because he didn't campaign in the last week, and because he ran a poor campaign, are kidding themselves. There is clearly something else going on.

The bottom line is that Trump won for one reason: a sizable block of voters despise DC, and believe that DC is completely out of control in terms of what they do to the citizenry, what they take from the citizenry, and their sense of entitlement. Trump, for all of his flaws, was seen as someone who sided, unequivocally, with ordinary people. He was, after all, the blue collar billionaire. He wasn't elected to give us a tax cut. He wasn't elected to fix health care. He wasn't even there to enforce the border (although this was, and is, very important). No. He was there to drain the swamp. That was the most important thing. People sense that something is fundamentally broken, and he was elected to fix it. And it has been a year. Preaching "patience" doesn't negate the bottom line. There have been no substantive arrests. Nobody is sitting in jail. There have not been widespread firings. We do not have ongoing trials. Nothing. Trump is fighting from his heels, and the swamp, quite frankly, is stronger than ever. Their control over both parties, the media, and governmental institutions has, at a minimum, not been harmed by Trump and, if anything, has grown stronger.

Republican voters are clearly discouraged. There is no way, on God's green earth, that a non-establishment Republican would have lost a state like Alabama otherwise. His "scandal" was a 40 year old, unproven allegation, that he dated younger women (compare this to the allegations against, say, Clinton, of rampant drug use, rape, and wholesale corruption). A minor allegation, and a lackluster campaign, does *not* translate into a loss in a state like Alabama, which does not have the sizable Democrat voting base of similar states like Mississippi, South Carolina, and Georgia. He should have won, handily, even though he was a weak candidate, a flawed candidate, and a strange little man. Something else is going on here, and it has to do with the Republican voters. Not the die-hard supporters preaching patience and "this is 4d chess, Trump is a master tactician" types. Ordinary Republican voters, who despise Washington, are discouraged, and the swamp is figuring out how to combat the political insurgency.

This movie is truly awful. Poorly acted, ridiculous choreographed fight scenes, and not even the slightest nod to realism. As bad as the Tarrantino Films were, or the Saw films, they are brilliant compared to this garbage film. Vince Vaughn has shown that he has no real range as an actor. He is the Dodgeball guy with a ridiculously fake accent, miscast as a tough guy, which he clearly isn’t, participating in fight scenes that are more choreographed than a West Side story brawl. And wait until you see the maximum security prison (if you can make it this far in the movie, without running away screaming): it is a cross between the dungeon of a middle ages castle, and a SJW vision of what the blackwater-run concentration camps would look like (assuming they were run out of a castle from 1100AD).

The two main questions I had during this movie were: 1) what in the world is Vince Vaughn’s accent supposed to be? and 2) is this a spoof? a black comedy? (please don’t tell me that it is neither)

That’s what they dont understand, basic economics.

I suppose you believe that Milton Friedman didn't understand basic economics, either? Since he was a big advocate of universal income, the father of conservative economic thought is also, in your opinion, an economic illiterate? How about William Buckley? Engels? All economic illiterates? What is sad is that so many who claim the mantle of conservatism reject the rich history of cutting edge intellectual pursuit in favor of ... what? What has conservatism become? Snarkiness?

Keep repeating the tulip bulb crap, it not a real comparison.

Let them have their moment in the sun. These are people who are rarely right, and they have built up a huge backlog of "I told you so"s.

Trump’s already taking care of the issue by investigating the people paying the women to make accusations.

Yeah, that will do it. Problem solved.

Losing your head now isn’t going to help anyone. All you’re doing is harming morale.

Much more than "morale" will be harmed if they successfully remove Trump. And I fail to see how artificially proclaiming confidence, when reason dictates otherwise, is helping anything.

I have no idea what we can do. But I do know that any successful defense of everything that is under assault has to begin with, at least, a recognition that it is under assault, and a realistic appraisal of the severity of the threat. You obviously think otherwise.