On Joe leaving the Republican Party--you say that the party is no longer the one you recognize and give a number of good reasons for that. But what you are leaving out is the thread that connects all Republican Presidents and Congresses for more than a century after Theodore Roosevelt--and we know how they rejected him.  Under the guise of small government and giving power back to the people, they have ALWAYS been for replacing government with unlimited power of corporations. The Trump administration has been more blatant than some, stocking the Cabinet with corporate executives and lobbyists, and removing protections ("regulations") of  air, water, land, worker safety, toxic substances and most of all our very survival in the face of climate change, with unbridled greed and no thought of the future. They are reversing 50 or more years of progress, but the theme and the plan hasn't changed.