Category: Gummint

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.

Grinding Slowly

Government Thugs, Law and Order

As much as I feel like saying, “What took you so long?”, I must confess to some considerable satisfaction at this development:

FBI Director Kash Patel has purged his department of agents linked to the Biden administration’s efforts to jail the Democrat former president’s electoral foe, Donald Trump.

Patel forced out field office leaders and other senior agents connected to the two criminal investigations of Trump, including the special agent in charge in Atlanta, the acting assistant director in charge of the New York field office, and the former special agent in charge in New Orleans who had recently moved on to another job, MS Now reported and two senior administration officials confirmed to Breitbart News.

As many as six agents in Miami were forced out over their connection to the FBI’s raid of Mar-a-Lago, conducted by over 30 agents accompanied by CNN cameras.

And I don’t want to hear wailing from the Usual Suspects about “Oh noes, you’re politicizing the DOJ to go after political opponents”, because you assholes fucking started it and turned it into an art form.

As a form of legalized spite (the CNN cameras), it’s hard to top this one — not to mention that their overt goal was not only to humiliate the ex-President (rummaging in the First Lady’s lingerie drawers?) but to prevent him from running for office again.

More like this, Kash.  Lots, lots more.

Outrageous Travesty

Anti-Gun Nannies, Government Thugs

We’re all familiar with the “registration leads to confiscation” trope.  But that’s not the only way that a gun registration regime can fuck with you.

It all started with a Righteous Shooting:

Foehner collided with our criminal justice system in May 2023 when he went out for a pack of cigarettes in the early hours of the morning. Crime in his Kew Gardens neighborhood became a problem after a now-shuttered seedy hotel had opened up in 2017, so Foehner took a revolver with him as protection.

In an eerie twist, Foehner had complained to this very paper about the disorder in 2020.

“This isn’t our nice little neighborhood anymore,” he told The Post at that time, noting the brazen drug deals taking place.

But on that fateful night, he returned from buying smokes and saw an unhinged man banging on the door of his building. It was Cody Gonzalez, who then menacingly approached Foehner, demanding a cigarette and his phone.

“He kept coming closer and clearly he was going to attack me.” Foehner said he pulled out a gun and pointed it at the ground. But Gonzalez didn’t stop. He motioned toward Foehner’s neck with an object and his instincts kicked in. Foehner shot the man dead. The ordeal was caught on security camera.

“I didn’t want to hurt anyone. He left me no choice,” said Foehner.

He called 911 and cooperated with authorities.

Of course, the corpus delicti  was a charming choirboy:

Gonzalez had at least 15 priors dating back to 2004 and a history of mental illness.

In any American state, Our Hero would have been given a pat on the back and sent home to his wife.  But this happened in Noo Yawk fucken Siddy, so now it’s time for a Red Curtain Of Blood Warning:

He wasn’t charged in the death of Gonzalez, which was deemed justified, but the DA threw the book at him for criminal weapons possession.

And so Our Hero, age 67, is going to jail, for four years.  For owning a couple of “unlicensed” guns.

Read the whole disgusting thing to get the full flavor of life in the Big City.

And this, children, is why you should resist any government which wants to register your guns.

Uh… What About Us Folks?

Politics, Subsidies, Taxes and Theft

FFS, I’m getting sick of this kind of bullshit.

The Trump administration is ramping up its America First Global Health Strategy in its latest efforts to ditch the traditional USAID model by delivering billions in aid directly to several countries in Africa.

Under the new model so far, which bypasses the propping up of the “NGO industrial complex,” the United States has signed six memoranda of understanding (MOUs) with six African countries totaling over $4 billion in direct U.S. investment matched by over $1.6 billion from signatory countries.

I have a better idea.  Instead of “investing” $4 billion in Africa, how about sending that kind of support to, oh, I dunno, our failing healthcare system right here in the U.S. of A.?

And by “system”, I don’t mean pharmaceutical companies or hospitals, either.  I’m talking about pumping up Medicare or Medicaid — you know, people who may actually have voted for the current Administration in last year’s elections?

If you want me to be really blunt, here’s what I really mean.

Most American voters do not give a flying fuck about Africa, and Africa’s health problems.  We Americans pay taxes, and we expect to see some kind of return from our government on those taxes in the form of civic improvements right here in the United States, not in shithole African countries that hate us, support our enemies like China, Iran and Russia, and live in a squalor of their own making.

Did I already mention that aid to Africa is the equivalent of pouring (taxpayer) dollars into a bottomless pit where it ends up filling the bank accounts of corrupt government officials?  I did?  Oh yeah, and note the date on which I said it.

I don’t care that $4 billion dollars is going to be spent “more efficiently” or whatever:  I want that $4 billion to be spent in the United States, and not in fucking Africa.  To repeat:  it’s our money, taken from us at gunpoint, and if it’s going to be spent, we should be the beneficiaries and not some fly-bitten cesspit-dwellers in a hellhole of their own making.

Or — and here’s another thought — you (that is, the Trump Administration) can take less of our hard-earned money away from us, thus taking away our need for government “assistance” in the first place.

If I recall correctly, reducing our tax burden was one of the signature promises of the Republicans last year prior to the elections.  Well, so far I’ve seen precious little of that activity taking place;  and sending our tax money to Africa does not improve my mood any.

I know, it’s a lot more complicated than that, there are all sorts of policy implications and socio-political goals etc. etc. etc.

Here’s what I’ve learned.  It’s always less complicated than it’s made out to be, and there is always a simpler solution than the one proposed.

I’m always hearing from DOGE (remember them?) how much money they’re supposedly “saving” us.  Well, it doesn’t seem like all these spending cutbacks are doing us — the taxpayers — much good, because the average American is still living in a shit-show of financial uncertainty and hardship.

So instead of some high-falutin’ pronouncement of “America First Global Health Strategy”, allow me to suggest that you just drop the “Global” part.  “America First Health Strategy” has a far better ring to it.

Keep our tax money at home, and reduce the amounts we have to pay.  It really is that simple, you fucking thieves and morons.