Author: Kim du Toit

Once A Commie

Illegal immigrants, Unions

…always a Commie, even at the risk of sounding hypocritical:

American unions, once wary of — or even outright hostile — to immigration because of its threat towards American wages and bargaining power, are now at the forefront of the anti-ICE protests opposing the Trump administration’s immigration crackdowns.

Since President Donald Trump took office last year, several of America’s most prominent unions, like the Service Employees International Union, United Auto Workers, and others under the AFL-CIO umbrella, have opposed deportations of illegal immigrants and other ICE operations through general strikes, protests, and workplace training.

Oftentimes, these unions partner closely with radical leftist organizations to do so, such as the radical Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), the Marxist People’s Forum, the Revolutionary Communists of America, and local chapters of the Communist Party USA, as Just the News has previously documented. 

Unions under the AFL-CIO umbrella have been instrumental in organizing strikes across the country to protest Trump administration deportation operations. AFL-CIO even provides a tracking map for users to identify workers’ strikes organized by its affiliates.

So let’s see if I’ve got this right:  Trump’s major foreign policy initiatives have been directed towards “reshoring” manufacturing from Asia and back into the United States.  These initiatives, if successful, would create the construction of factories and the concomitant recruitment of labor forces here in the U.S., i.e. blue-collar jobs that labor unions are supposedly all about protecting.

But the unions are behind protests to send illegal immigrants — who have been instrumental in taking away blue-collar jobs from Americans and / or lowering the average wage for said jobs — back to Shitholia.

Does anyone else see the irony here?

Or should workers just start shooting their unions’ leadership?

About That Wood Thing

The Gun Thing

Last week I posted about putting the wood to an AR-15:

 

…whereupon Reader Butch B. sent me his treatment thereof, along similar lines:

Using Cerakote for the steel, and wood instead of plastic, he calls it his “Fudd-riffic AR-15” (right-click to embiggen).

I have to say, that looks rather fetching — kinda like a modern version of the venerable M1 Garand.  (Butch, can you send me the details of where you found that wood furniture?  I am really intrigued…)

Loss Leader?

Marketing / Advertising, The Gun Thing

Reader Brad_In_IL suggests that Palmetto State Armory has an overstock of the excellent S&W Model 686;  that, or they’re just using it as a loss leader — the retail term that is used to describe an advertising campaign which features a product at a ridiculously-low price to attract customers into the store, where they’ll buy not just the featured loss leader but (hopefully) other products at regular retail prices (which carry higher profit margins).

Here’s the aforementioned S&W 686 from PSA:

Phew.  Okay, that’s really tempting.  [checks bank account]

Shit.

Firing The Deadwood

Bureaucracy

This isn’t about campfires, oh no.  This is so much more satisfying than a roaring fire on a cold winter’s night:

Approximately 50,000 federal workers in “policy-influencing” positions will lose specific protections against firings and become more at-will employees in the next month, per a new Trump administration rule announced Thursday.

The new rule, published by the Office of Personnel Management, will move senior career civil servants in “confidential, policy-determining, policy-making or policy-advocating” positions into the Schedule Policy/Career category, formerly known as Schedule F.

Going forward, federal workers in those roles will lose their ability to appeal firings, suspensions or disciplinary action to an independent board.

Administration officials can dismiss those employees if they engage in “misconduct, poor performance or obstruct the democratic process by intentionally subverting Presidential directives.”

I think I speak for all my Readers when I say that while 50,000 is a nice round number, I’m thinking that 200,000 is a much nicer, rounder number.  But I’m open to other, more ambitious suggestions.

Of course, the response has been predictable:

The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union representing non-postal federal workers, said in a statement that the rule would “chill protected speech” and “weaken enforceable protections against retaliation.”

“This rule is a direct assault on a professional, nonpartisan, merit-based civil service and the government services the American people rely on every day,” AFGE President Everett Kelley said.

Two issues jump off the page.

Firstly, let’s just suggest that right off the bat, the very idea of a government-employee union is an abomination.  It’s time the AFGE was abolished.

Secondly, if the current crop of bureaucrats had actually behaved like a “professional, nonpartisan, merit-based civil service” over the past, oh, eighty years then this action wouldn’t have been necessary.  But they haven’t, so here we are.

The bitter joke is that the civil service has always been the structure whereby Democrat policy has been implemented regardless of which party is in the White House.  This new Executive Order from DJT is simply rectifying that attitude, and it’s about damn time, too.