Drain the Swamp!

The unceasing flood of revelations of many Democrats' criminal political behavior during the waning days of the 2016 Presidential campaign gave Mr. Trump a new slogan: "Drain the swamp!"  If there's anything to learn from the FBI's many flip-flopping pronouncements and Wikileaks' ongoing revelations about Crooked Hillary Inc's misdeeds, it's that Mr. Trump is right - the swamp needs to be drained before we all drown in it.

As is ever the wont of the Republican establishment, the Wall Street Journal high-mindedly advised Mr. Trump to show "generosity in victory."

In Lincoln's Second Inaugural, in 1865, he appealed to his "fellow-countrymen" to work toward reconciliation and domestic peace, "with malice toward none, with charity for all." The 16th President always repays attention, but his words seem particularly rewarding after a long night like Tuesday.

Regarding Hillary:

Mr. Trump should go further and drop his campaign vow to investigate her [Hillary] and call off the Republicans in Congress. If she were charged with something, he should pardon her.

Another article said:

As to the post-Comey investigations of Hillary, drop it. She's finished. Move on.

Wanting to let her off is perfectly understandable: all the mainstream journalists writing these articles have met Hillary, who no doubt politely shook their hands, smiled at them, and uttered a kind word or two.  It's human nature to believe that a high-ranking person you've met cordially couldn't possibly be a criminal, but that doesn't make it true.

What's more, we believe that the Journal, like most of the media for many year now, has gravely underestimated the degree to which Trump voters rightly feel that their future was in deadly danger.  They have seen evidence far beyond the point of any doubt that the system is "rigged against them" because the rich and powerful don't have to follow the same rules they do, and they do not appreciate it one little bit.  To the extent that the American Dream is dead, it died because our elites rigged the system to favor themselves while locking us peasants out.

"Crooked Hillary" is a poster child for the belief, which we share, that our ruling elites don't believe that any laws apply to them.  We've pointed out that secrecy and immunity are the primary tools of tyranny.  Hillary tried to keep her dark dealings secret by having her own email server; then, when her wrongdoings came out, she demanded immunity.  FBI Director Comey duly complied, declaring "our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case."

We're sure that Mr. Trump can find a prosecutor who'd be happy to bring such a case, including perhaps a number of Democrats who were incredulous at Mr. Comey's reinterpretation of some pretty clear laws.

Why Lock Her Up?

Around 500 BC, Confucius declared that the Emperor's primary job was enforcing virtue in the executive branch by chopping heads off non-virtuous government employees.  Done loudly and publicly, each execution sent a message: "Don't do that!"  History shows that the word spread rapidly even without social media.

Due to JFK's paying a political debt, government employees are almost immune from being fired.  This gives them a license to steal, and many do.  Jailing Hillary would send the message that their immunity was more fragile than they had thought.

Mr. Trump might be reminded that government unions only exist because of an executive order signed by John F. Kennedy.  What an executive order can do, an executive order can undo, as Mr. Trump knows very well: he's planned to undo all of Mr. Obama's on his first day in office.

But that's only a start.  To truly drain the festering swamp of Washington, D.C., there are many other miscreants who deserve intense attention from whomever becomes Mr. Trump's new Attorney General.

Pleading the 5th

IRS director Lois Lerner pled the 5th Amendment instead of incriminating herself when asked about the unconstitutional delays and extra scrutiny her agency applied to conservative charities.  The head of the IRS later conspired to delete email evidence after a subpoena had been issued, which is a criminal matter.

More recently, Loretta Lynch, our current Attorney General, in effect pled the 5th when asked about Mr. Obama's illegal multi-million dollar, franc, and pound cash ransom payment to the government of Iran.

While government employees have every right to plead the 5th in connection with any actions they may take - they are American citizens, after all, and it's right there in the Constitution - they deserve intense scrutiny when they do.  If you refuse to testify because you might incriminate yourself, odds are there's other evidence of your criminal activities that needs to be dug up.  When investigation produces evidence that they were right about incriminating themselves, we should lock 'em up!

And even if evidence cannot be found to convict, nobody has a Constitutional right to a government job.  Mr. Trump should establish an executive order declaring that any government employee who pleads the Fifth when testifying before Congress will be fired immediately.

After all, Congress is the representatives of the people, and our Federal bureaucrats supposedly are the servants of the people.  What boss would tolerate employees who refuses to answer questions about what they've been up to on any grounds whatsoever?

Felony Murder

It's well known that Veteran's Administration employees falsified records to make it appear that that they had earned bonuses by shortening wait times at VA hospitals.  We're told that a number of veterans died while waiting for treatment.

Collecting government bonuses based on fraud is a felony.  If someone dies because you've committed a felony, that's called "felony murder," even if you never intended anybody to die and never personally committed an act of violence.  Felony murder is not first-degree murder, but the punishment is generally as severe as for 2nd degree murder. Lock 'em up!

Straw Purchases

Murder rates in Democrat-ruled cities have shot up since Mr. Obama and Mr. Holder started a race war between blacks and the police.  Democrats keep saying that this is because guns are readily available in other states even though they've done their best to forbid guns in their cities.

This is nonsense.  Current law forbids "straw purchases," which are when someone who can pass a background check buys a gun and gives it to someone who couldn't pass.  Recovered weapons in Democrat disaster cities like Chicago show that most of the guns were legally purchased by people, generally women, who had clean records.  Somehow they illegally ended up in the hands of criminals who were known to them, like their boyfriends.

Jailing "straw purchasers" is a very low priority in Democrat-ruled areas.  This seems to be because Democrats would rather use the death of people in their victim disarmament zones to stir up sentiment to pass laws that let guns be taken away from the law-abiding.  If that seems too cynical, we're reminded that Groucho Marx pointed out out that no matter how cynical he got, he could never keep up.

If Black lives actually mattered to Democrats, they'd be locking up straw purchasers as the law has required for decades, while letting law-abiding black citizens obtain the means to shoot back as the Constitution demands.  Clearly these lives don't matter to Democrats, but they do matter to Donald Trump.

There's nothing stopping his Justice Department from doing the job Democrats won't do and convicting straw purchasers.  Lock 'em up!

Go After Tax Cheats

Various newspapers have said that infamous bigot Al Sharpton personally owes hundreds of thousands in unpaid taxes.  That enrages those of us who know that the IRS would come after us unmercifully for $4 thousand or even $4 hundred in unpaid taxes.

We have no idea whether Mr. Sharpton owes that much, but nobody has denied the story.  If it's true, he should go to jail along with whomever else has cheated the government.

Many of us remember that the IRS sent Leona Helmsley to jail over far less money than we're told Mr. Sharpton owes.  She famously said, "Only little people pay taxes," which seems to be true.  Her mistake was not realizing that only Democrats can be big enough not to pay.

As odious as "Rev." Sharpton is, he's just the tip of the iceberg, from Rep. Charlie Rangel to George Soros to many, many more, with even the occasional Republican thrown in for spice.

Donald Trump is today President-Elect precisely because the voters of America are beyond livid at the impunity of the well-connected to break the law.  What better proof could there be of President Trump's good faith than by lowering the boom on these exalted criminals?  Lock 'em up!

Illegal Use of Private Email

The one accurate, though irrelevant, defense of Hillary's criminal actions surrounding her illegal email server was, "But everybody does it!"  We're told that employees of agencies such as the EPA do indeed use private email addresses, just as Hillary did, to avoid scrutiny as they manipulate their rule-making processes.

Mr. Trump would do well to absolutely forbid the use of private email for government business as well as demanding that government computers be used only for government business because to do otherwise is theft of resources.  He shouldn't need to do this as both of these activities are already against the law, but another executive order never hurts.

Then, after jailing a few top-level miscreants, he can declare, "I meant it when I said we'd drain the swamp.  If you 'fess up, you'll be treated more gently than if we have to find you, particularly if you rat out someone higher up," and go after 'em all.

He can put Google, Yahoo, AOL, and all the other email providers on notice that he expects them to turn over the email history of any government employee who seems to be doing government business via a private email address.  Since that is already a crime, it shouldn't be hard to obtain a wide-ranging search warrant for this.

By law, federal employees should be non-partisan so he can't be accused of a partisan vendetta - not that mere facts will stop the MSM from saying so, but then, they'll do that no matter what he does.  Let them fume: jailing government employees who commit crimes ought to urge survivors to behave better.

Not Just Government Employees

As Secretary of State, Hillary was a government employee when the worst of her crimes were committed.  The Washington Post reminds us that government employees aren't the only ones who abuse power, elected politicians do it too.

The once-powerful Republican majority leader of the New York State Senate was sentenced Thursday to five years in federal prison for pressuring companies that relied heavily on government contracts to give his son nominal but lucrative jobs, authorities said.

We need, "You're fired!" yelled all over the Beltway.  After we clean out the worst of the government employees, even NPR agrees that we should also go after corrupt politicians.

For two hundred years, America was great because we had a mostly great set of laws which were generally followed.  When our elites stopped following the law and started beating us over the head with rules and regulations instead, we stopped being great.

Mr. Trump will have to get us back on the path of being a nation of laws, not of men, once again in order to restore our greatness.  He seems to understand this and is treating it as the high priority it deserves.  Go get 'em, Donald!