Well, we’re still busting our asses working to get a laundry trailer set up and utilities to all outbuildings. Hey, pull up a chair, grab something to drink, and let’s talk. Dinner will be Jager schnitzel, the booze is in the sliding pantry, the soda is under the settee, and the tip jar is at the link.
Well, as usual this time of year, the big news that has all the talking heads breathless is the Shutdown. Having been through several of these, let me assure you the hype is overblown. Although I will say that this one may be a little different. Normally this is something that the party not in power, does to the party in power, to get something that the majority of the people in the nation don’t really want. It’s axiomatic that if you’re not the party in power, you don’t control the agenda, and in general you’re the guys who have less support nationally for the stuff you want. Once a year you can throw a stick in the spokes of government, unless the other party has a supermajority.
It’s basically the kid in the family saying that he’s going to hold his breath until he gets his way, and if he winds up in the hospital or dies, everyone will blame you!
This sadly is more often true than not. The party in power gets blamed for everything that happens, even if it’s something sabotaged by the party out of power. In part, it’s because collectively, as an electorate, we have the memory of a goldfish. Chucky Schumer is betting that you won’t remember, come the mid term elections, that what he wanted in order to keep a government shut down from happening, is a trillion dollars to keep medical coverage for illegal aliens alive. One of the things that was killed in the “one big beautiful bill” was medical coverage for illegal aliens. But that’s a problem for the Democrats for some reason, and that’s the hill they’re willing to die on.
Of course it’s great campaign fodder, “we destroyed Trump’s signature legislation, so vote for us, if you don’t like Trump.” It seems that is about the only thing they have as a campaign platform, “Vote for us, because otherwise: TRUMP. Along with a lot of hate and fearmongering about what Trump is going to do to each and everyone of you.”
Again, they’re betting you won’t remember that part, just the part where Trump was unwilling to negotiate and allowed the government to shut down. They’re spinning the Republican offer as “a Republican only bill.” It’s literally “keep the same spending that we have now, that was voted in by Biden’s administration!” Somehow that’s now “a Republican bill.”
Negotiate in this case is a question begging term. It means “do what I want, or else.” Chucky says that “there weren’t any shutdowns when I was in charge.” Well, that’s true, as far as it goes, but then he was only in charge for two years. During his last stint as minority leader, we had the longest shutdown in US History, but of course he doesn’t want to mention that.
Just for fun, here’s the list of government shutdowns, see if you can see a pattern:
1976: Under President Gerald Ford. Lasted for 11 days.
1977: Under President Jimmy Carter. Lasted 12 days.
1977: Under Carter. Lasted eight days.
1977: Under Carter. Lasted eight days.
1978: Under Carter. Lasted 17 days.
1979: Under Carter. Lasted 11 days.
1981: Under President Ronald Reagan. Lasted two days.
1982: Under Reagan. Lasted one day.
1982: Under Reagan. Lasted three days.
1983: Under Reagan. Lasted three days.
1984: Under Reagan. Lasted two days.
1984: Under Reagan. Lasted one day.
1986: Under Reagan. Lasted one day.
1987: Under Reagan. Lasted one day.
1990: Under George H.W. Bush. Lasted four days.
1995: Under President Bill Clinton. Lasted five days.
1996: Under Clinton. Lasted 21 days.
2013: Under President Barack Obama. Lasted 17 days.
2018: Under President Donald Trump. Lasted three days.
2018: Under Trump. Lasted several hours.
2019: Under Trump. Lasted 35 days and cost the economy about $3 billion, equal to 0.02% of GDP, according to the Congressional Budget Office. This was when Chucky had the minority leadership.
21 times. Over half against Republican Presidents. Hell, Reagan got shut down eight times. Gosh, it seems like the more effective and popular a president you are, the more they do this temper tantrum stuff.
Chucky says that “the Republican bill was written without any consultation with our party, which is unprecedented.” He keeps using that word, unprecedented… It doesn’t mean what he thinks it means. He thinks it means “no one remembers the many times we froze out the Republicans and said, “elections have consequences, you lost, we get to chose how to spend the money, bitches.” Of course, he might be right in many cases that no one remembers… Except me, and those like me. I devoutly hope to have more of us at the end of the day, and before the mid-terms.
See that’s one of the things that might make this shutdown different than any previous ones. The electorate (that’s us, folks) have finally gotten wise to the Democrats stunts. They’re trying to couch this as “American healthcare is in crisis, and we’re just trying to fix it.” The reality of it, is the part they’re fixing is not for Americans. That’s the part that we’ve gotten wise to.
The other thing that might make this shutdown different, is that this time, there’s a president and a staff that is looking, for the first time in my memory, to CUT the federal government’s staffing.
See, every single one of these that I’ve lived through has been a show piece. We’re going to do a bunch of stuff to make the people as uncomfortable as possible, we’re going to lock up monuments, and not let you see them, (even though they’re unmanned, so it doesn’t cost anything for them to be open, and in point of fact it costs money to lock them up)
we’re going to refuse to process paperwork, and we’re going to make as big a scene as we can… that whole having a tantrum in public thing.
Once the shutdown goes over a certain time period (a week to two weeks as I remember) the paperwork for the suspension of all nonessential personnel gets started. The press starts bombarding you with stories of how little Juanita who is a secretary GS 3 at Health and Social Services is going to be laid off and her eight kids will starve to death, because the evil bad man in the White House won’t just agree to the most reasonable requests of the opposition party. (that’s if the Republicans are in office. If the Democrats are in office the spin is that IF the mean evil men, who are the minority anyway, would just understand that elections have consequences, and they should shut up and sit down, while the wise minorities run the government for a change, this would all be over.)
Meanwhile, if you are a federal employee, you’re told by the unions, and the management associations, that this will be a temporary thing, think of it as a free vacation. You can’t go far, because as soon as this logjam breaks, you’ll be recalled, and have to come to work the next day, so don’t be planning any trips to Bora Bora. But look chum, this has happened many times before, and they always vote to give you back pay as if you had actually been working… So don’t sweat it.
Of course I’ve never been one of those lucky stiffs that got to go home for a few weeks. I was always “essential personnel.” Those are the guys that have to go to work anyway, even though they’re not paying you right now. They are also assured that “once this all blows over, you’ll be paid.” The only difference between the two classes is that people deemed “non-essential” end up getting paid for staying at home, and playing with their kids (or themselves) and those deemed “essential” get to do all of their work, and all the work of the people that are not essential, and eventually get paid the same as those guys that did nothing.
This time, it’s a different story though. The President has stated that it would be worthwhile to use this opportunity to get rid of a bunch of those “non-essential” types, permanently.
Now I’ll tell you straight up, give me four hours to walk though a government office or building, and the freedom to talk to people and to observe what’s going on, and I promise you that I can come out of there, and identify at least 10% of the staff by name, that could be removed, and actually improve efficiency and effectiveness. Sometimes it will be a couple bosses, that have seconds who do all the work while they schmooze and fuckoff, sometimes it will be workers that don’t. Work, that is.
Almost all of these folks are protected by tenure. Once a person has passed their probationary period, short of an EEO charge, or a security violation (which includes things like not paying your debts, or being a problem gambler…) it’s almost impossible to fire someone. The paperwork and tracking alone is enormous, and then there’s the higher level, who usually doesn’t want to fire anyone that hasn’t touched the third rail of federal service (sexual or racial harassment. Touching it is an instant death sentence.)
See, having people fired out of your shop or code is perceived to be detrimental to your career, and by the time you’re a third level supervisor or better, your career means more to you than anything else, including the mission.
Instead the problem is shoved to another supervisor with the hopes that ‘he can bring the guy around.’ I’ve been on all three sides of this triangle. I’ve been the guy labeled as a problem, (I don’t suffer fools gladly, and it bit me in the butt.) I’ve been the supervisor who got handed a: “no one can reach this dude, and we will not fire him, so how about if you take a crack at getting him squared away.” A couple of those turned into two of my best instructors.
One of them I would gladly have pulled the trigger on in a firing squad. He got moved to another code, and they managed to shitcan him, because switching codes puts you back in probationary status.
The end result of all this is that there’s a lot of deadwood, and ROAD (Retired, On Active Duty) types, in any government office. Then there’s the ones that are there for all the wrong reasons. People with political agendas, people who are looking for federal welfare, instead of a job, and people who really should have retired long ago, but “as long as they keep paying me, I’ll keep coming to work.”
Trump apparently knows this. Running a large corporation would probably make this evident if you were paying attention, because I am sure that large corporations have the same ills as the federal government does. So he’s sharpening his axe. It may be the best opportunity he has to get rid of a lot of the swamp. Thanks Chucky!
In other news:
There seems to be a real problem in the Carolinas. You’ve heard about Iryna Zarutska. And you’ve heard about her murderer, who was in and out of custody 14 times. But she’s not the only one who’s been killed by someone who’s been in and out of the system so often the jailors know his name at 30 yards. Logan Federico 22 was shot and killed early this year, by Alexander Dickey in South Carolina after a home invasion robbery. Placed on her knees and told to beg for her life, before Dickey placed a bullet in her head. Dickey has been in and out of custody 39 times, 25 of those felony convictions. He’s thirty years old. Do that math.
He’s done a grand total of 600 days behind bars. Say their names Logan Federico, Iryna Zarutska, Rachel Morin, Laken Riley, and I don’t know how many more, that have been killed by ‘frequent fliers’ who our revolving door justice system has allowed to run free, until they kill someone.
Someone recently, I don’t recall who, said that, “at this point, if you’re a felon, you get one free murder. It takes actually killing someone before you get locked up to stay. This is the gift of prosecutors who don’t do their jobs, most of them sponsored by George Soros. If you want to destroy a culture, here’s a good way to do it. If you value our culture, you need to vote these bastards out of office.
Transportation Department takes emergency action on commercial driver’s licenses since various state governments aren’t taking action on aliens running 80,000 pound vehicles without a clue as to how, the federal government is giving them a hand. Go read it. Seriously.
Here’s a piece of fun stuff, The Virginia governor’s race pits Winsome Earle-Sears a black female, pro 2nd Amendment Combat vet, and the current LT Gov. against Abigail Spanberger a white female Democratic Congress woman, and former member of the CIA. Abigail’s campaign message? LET YOUR RAGE FUEL YOU. Well, that didn’t age well.
SCOTUS is being ignored. Trump V CASA ruled that nationwide injunctions were illegal and called out district courts for their abuses of power. After CASA, In 23 cases calling for large-scale relief examined by The Washington Times, only two judges limited their rulings because of CASA; 18 decisions delivered broad relief despite CASA. I know that Judges hate to make the sorts of decisions that get them in the history books, but: “Hey SCOTUS, Don’t leave those little shits alone. All in all you’re not even a brick in their wall.”
Finally, for anyone who doesn’t remember the late and unlamented “Quiet Skys” program by the TSA and Homeland, the one that followed the person who is now the head spook for the nation, and was a serving military officer, then a Republican Congresswoman from HI, because “we thought she might be a terrorist.” Well, documents have surfaced that Tulsi Gabbard wasn’t the only one who was in government, but a thorn in the side of the democrats, who fell afoul of Quiet Skys. Three other Republican CONGRESSMEN were also on the follow list. Apparently, one thing that would get you on the list was removing your mask during a flight. Yes, I’m serious. not-only-tulsi-three-members-of-congress The wife of a federal air marshal was on the list, because she was suspected of “association of traveling on the same itinerary as a KST,” (Known or Suspected Terrorist)
Your rage should not be at the concept that they were following and spying on congressmen, but that they were following and spying on American citizens, without a warrant, violating the fuck out of the Fourth Amendment. Go read the article.
Well, that’s all for this week, stay safe.
QOTD: “The wildly false accusations attacking this FBI for the politicization of law enforcement comes from the same bankrupt media that sold the world on Russia Gate — it’s hypocrisy on steroids. Their baseless objections tell us now, more than ever, that we are precisely over the target and will remain on mission until completion.” —FBI Director Kash Patel
Yours in Service,
William Lehman