Drain the Swamp

In the United States, filling or draining swamps was an accepted practice. Almost half of U.S. wetlands were destroyed before environmental protections were enacted during the 1970s. Most of the Everglades have been reclaimed as agricultural land, mostly sugar plantations. Draining swampland also created valuable real estate in the San Francisco Bay Area in California.

Federal and state authorities drained much of the wetlands at the delta of the Mississippi River in Louisiana as part of a massive system of river management. When Hurricane Katrina blew in from the Gulf of Mexico in 2005, the spongy swamp that traditionally protected the city of New Orleans from destructive weather patterns was diminished. The city was hit full force with a Category 3 hurricane.

Eradicating swampland also threatens economic activity. Two-thirds of the fish and shellfish that are commercially harvested worldwide are linked with wetlands. From Brazil's varzeas, or freshwater swamps surrounding the Amazon River, to saltwater swamps near the Florida Keys, commercially valuable fish species that depend on wetlands are threatened with extinction.

In the early 1970s, governments began enacting laws recognizing the enormous value of swamps and other wetlands. In some parts of the United States, it is now against the law to alter or destroy swamps. Through management plans and stricter laws, people are trying to protect remaining swamps and to re-create them in areas where they have been destroyed.

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Wragg Swamp was drained in the mid 1950’s in order to make way for new development westward from the city of Mobile in Alabama. This swamp served as a sponge soaking up all the runoff from higher elevations to the extreme west of the area. The destruction of the swamp has been the cause of higher turbidity, pollution and degradation in local creeks and streams.

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Hypoxia said:

Politically, this was originally a socialist phrase, calling for the need to drain the swamp of capitalism that was sucking-in and drowning so many poor folks.

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sr71plt said:

In the political sense in the United States, it really should be "redrain" the swamp. Washington, D.C., is built on what was a swamp, so it's already been drained once.

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Drain the swamp isn’t just a vivid conceit with a revolutionary flair: It also alludes to the stubborn myth that Washington, D.C., was built on a swamp, which, fatefully, had to be drained to accommodate the new seat of American democracy and power. As historians and scientists have noted, only a tiny fraction of the District, for all its humidity, was ever swampy enough to require any such drainage; the ecosystem is actually closer to a tidal marsh. (Manage the tidal marsh, while perhaps better characterizing the day-to-day slog of government work, doesn’t have the same ring to it.)

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At its bottom, drain the swamp is a metaphor: If you drain the swamp, you eliminate the mosquitoes (or snakes and alligators, in other iterations) that breed disease. But, ironically, the original disease the expression referred to was the very thing Trump has built his campaign on: big business. Etymologist Barry Popik has traced drain the swamp back to the socialist movement of the early 20th century. In a 1903 letter to the Daily Northwestern, Winfield R. Gaylord, state organizer of the Social Democratic Party, precursor to Eugene Debs’ Socialist Party of America, wrote: “Socialists are not satisfied with killing a few of the mosquitoes which come from the capittalist [sic] swamp; they want to drain the swamp.” Another Wisconsin socialist, Victor Berger, provides a textbook example in 1912: “It cannot be avoided any more than malaria in a swampy country. And the [financial] speculators are the mosquitos. We should have to drain the swamp—change the capitalist system—if we want to get rid of those mosquitos.” The following year, labor and community organizer Mary “Mother Jones” Harris (and magazine namesake) deployed the phrase: “The capitalist and striker—both men are all right—only they are sick; they need a remedy; they have been mosquito bitten. Let’s kill the virulent mosquito and then find and drain the swamp in which he breeds.” The mosquitoes, for Harris, were the deeper, industrial forces that pit labor against bosses.

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sr71plt said:

Swamp. Marsh. Meh. It was mushy, mosquito-infested ground right up to the foot of Capitol Hill.

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Notice, though, the #MAGA-capped amphibian in Garrison’s cartoon. It’s Pepe, a cartoon frog appropriated as a symbol of white supremacy and much memed in support of Trump’s candidacy. And frogs, well, live in swamps—not to mention that you can’t drain a swamp like you empty a bath. You have to build special ditches and canals that redirect the water. But knowing that would require doing a little bit of homework.

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Hypoxia said:

According to the metaphor, it still is. The debate is over the nature of the mosquitoes. Are they left-wing or right-wing or tail-wing or chicken-wing? Are they lobbyists (and their patrons) or career staff or journalists (and their sources) or protestors or all those goddam foreign diplos? Of course much of 'Washington' is across the river and scattered about. Should / can Langley and the Pentagon et al be drained too?

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Hypoxia said:

can Langley and the Pentagon et al be drained too?

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sr71plt said:

In the political sense in the United States, it really should be "redrain" the swamp. Washington, D.C., is built on what was a swamp, so it's already been drained once.

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Gov. Robert Bentley pleaded guilty to misdemeanor campaign finance charges and resigned Monday rather than face the possibility of more severe charges and impeachment by the Legislature, which was reviewing allegations linked to his alleged affair with a female aide.

Appearing sullen during a plea hearing and later proclaiming his love for the state during a farewell address, Bentley joined House Speaker Mike Hubbard and Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore on the sidelines of power after being forced from positions atop a branch of government in Montgomery.

Hubbard was convicted of felony ethics violations last June and is free on bond while appealing. Moore is suspended from his job as the head of the state's judiciary after being convicted in September of violating judicial ethics with an order against same-sex marriage.

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This is a big part of draining the swamp,” Mick Mulvaney, the White House budget director, said at a briefing on Tuesday afternoon. “This is a centerpiece to his campaign.”

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urguyscott said:

Only leftist can take a statement and twist it to complete foolishness. "Drain the Swamp" has nothing to do with really draining a swamp children. It is meant as a phrase to get rid of the old corrupt establishment that has control of our government.

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KingOrfeo said:

it exists because Wall Street and the 1% and the big corporations control both parties, and Trump has only made that problem worse (and now corruption is the right word for it).

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sharingfantasies said:

Not a big surprise. He seems to only want two types of people: those that know nothing about their position and department, and those that are vocally against their department's mission statement. So far he has spent a lot of time complaining about how the people he hired are doing their jobs and insisting that they be loyal to him, not their position, department or the country.

Yes, I know he has hired a few people that have a clue, but that seems to be a rarity.

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If you're trying to tamp down on allegations of sexual harassment, it's probably not a good idea to say the staffer making the claim was a "soul mate."

Yet that's exactly what Rep. Patrick Meehan, R-Pa., did in interviews with member station WHYY, the Philadelphia Inquirer and other local outlets just days after a New York Times report that he had settled a claim asserted by a much younger woman who worked in his office using taxpayer-funded money from his office fund.

Throughout the interview, Meehan seems to be trying to rationalize the way he pursued his staffer as somehow acceptable because they never had a sexual relationship and he felt a genuine connection with her. The married congressman and father of three denied any harassment on his part.

In an interview with WHYY's Dave Davies, Meehan insisted that he "never touched her" beyond hugging and "I never expressed any interest in doing so. I never asked for any kind of a relationship."

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White House aide Rob Porter quits as ex-wives allege abuse.

One of US President Donald Trump's top aides has resigned amid abuse claims from his two ex-wives.

The accusations were first reported in the Daily Mail and include accounts of physical and emotional abuse.

The White House would not comment on a report that Mr Porter, 40, failed to receive security clearance.

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phrodeau said:

The White House would not comment on a report that Mr Porter, 40, failed to receive security clearance.

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Lobbyists, headhunters and others involved in hiring processes told The Hill that phones have been ringing.

They have been hearing from Trump administration officials who are eyeing the exits, wondering how much they could earn in the private sector and what their next steps should be.

Some officials who have recently left the administration have also been seeking coffee meetings, these individuals said, declining to publicly reveal names because it could damage their relationships with those involved.

“There have only been a few high-profile people that have gotten out while the getting’s good. A great deal more very well may have committed professional suicide, at least in the short term, by serving in this administration,” said one person, who has been involved in high-profile hiring and asked for anonymity in order to speak freely. “I don’t think it’s potentially a long-term thing. The net of it is, this administration, in general, was not able to attract the A-team. No one’s asking [for] anyone from the Trump administration.”

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