Saturday, January 16, 2016

TRUMP MAY BE THE EFFECTIVE HEAD OF THE GOP SOON. THE BELTWAY MEDIA'S PLAN: JUST PRETEND HE ISN'T.

I keep telling you that there's absolutely no way Donald Trump is going to destroy the Republican Party, or even do serious, long-lasting damage to it, simply because the Beltway press won't allow that to happen -- the press has too much invested in the notion that both parties are equidistant from the political center and both are equally to blame for government dysfunction, so even if Trump wins the nomination and then crashes and burns in November, the press will give the GOP a mulligan soon after Election Day and declare the party's slate wiped clean.

This Ronald Brownstein article from National Journal is a few days old,COLOGNE, Germany — French and German officials celebrated the signing of a new defense export agreement last month as a watershed moment, but political and industrial mistrust remains a wild card for the Future Combat Air System program — an envisioned sixth-generation fighter jet.

The export pact, which entered into force in late October with the formal exchange of government notes, is meant to streamline a contentious process that has clouded bilateral defense cooperation for some time. Namely, the agreement dictates that joint government programs, like FCAS fighter jet, be free from interference by partner nations when it comes to eventual exports.

The clause is mainly aimed at Germany, where politicians and lawmakers tend to scrutinize weapons deliveries to countries with known or suspected human rights abuses more heavily than