Category Archives: politics

Legalized Extortion

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Elon Musk says he’s been ordered/threatened/whathaveyou to “settle” an SEC beef, or else. The SEC’s capo, Gary Gensler, has told Musk he must agree within 48 hours to either accept a monetary payment or face charges on numerous counts.

This is the Federal government, which has no authority to do so, requiring a settlement be agreed. This is more than just an effort to stampede a defendant so an arm of government can avoid the embarrassment of taking a weak case to court and getting a public failure and a potful of opprobrium when it loses.

This is that arm of government demanding the defendant pay the vig or suffer damage to, if not destruction of, his business. Crime syndicate capi do that. It’s behavior that doesn’t belong in the government of a free people.

Gensler should face far sterner sanction than just loss of his job.

It Takes This Long?

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Our Federal government is just now (as I write on Sunday) starting to thinking about deploying a high-tech drone detection system to New York State.

…federal officials are finally preparing to deploy a high-tech drone detection system to New York State.
The drones that comprise the detection system will ostensibly help both state and local law enforcement figure out what has been going on over the past month or so….

Preparing to deploy. This, after weeks of National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby and Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh insulting our intelligence by feeding us utter BS about nothing to be seen here, we don’t know what these things are (maybe commercial aircraft!), but they’re not dangerous.

Sadly, dangerously, this long delay in getting around to deploying even the beginnings of a response isn’t only due to the incompetence of the Biden administration. It’s also from the shameful timidity of the Biden administration in its desperation to avoid even the appearance of offending one or another of our enemies, even before we know who the perpetrator is.

But—and this is the dangerous part—more than either of the above, this delay is from the glacially slow decision-making capability of the Pentagon bureaucracy that has supplanted the decision-making of serious, operational senior officers who are practiced in deciding and acting in fluid environments.

That last, far more important than any wasteful spending cuts (important as those are in their own right) must be the first and primary target of any reform moves, whether from DOGE or from in-government reformers. That bureaucracy, no matter how well intended, must be ripped out root and branch and surrounding dirt, and wholly replaced by those operational officers, men and women who’ve grown up in the combat and combat support branches.

So Long

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And no thanks for the memories.

Many government bureaucrats are leaving their jobs even before the Trump administration gets sworn in next month.

Government bureaucrats are abandoning ship ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House, anticipating either their termination or an intolerable upending of the status quo at their agencies.

Not merely leaving in consonance with the change of administration, but bailing out? Well, there is that bit about their Know Better agendas being deleted.

Some key government officials, including those whose posts are not necessarily tied to political appointments, have taken it upon themselves to exit government service in light of the initiative and Trump’s return.

For instance:

  • Christopher Wray is quitting as FBI director
  • FAA chief Michael Whitaker—even though he had widespread support and didn’t seem in line to be replaced before his term was up
  • Gary Gensler is quitting as SEC Chairman

Buh-bye, luv ya, mean it.

Cynicism of the Progressive-Democratic Party

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Former President and current President-elect Donald Trump (R) wants to deport, in phases, all the millions of illegal aliens that the Progressive-Democrat Biden administration has let flood across our borders. Included in that is the cancelation of the work permits that Biden and his syndicate have issued so many—potentially 3.3 million—of those illegal aliens.

The objections to that part of the broad deportation plan is illuminating.

Their removal from the workforce—which, because of the intricacies of federal immigration law, would take months or more to play out—would create fresh challenges for employers already struggling to fill open positions.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick American Immigration Council Senior Fellow:

It will have an enormous impact across the US in a wide range of industries, regardless of whether those people get deported or wind up leaving the US.

This has been Party’s and their Leftist supporters’ modus operandi from Obamacare to now: get folks hooked on the system while destroying alternatives (no, you can’t keep your doctor, no, you can’t keep your insurance plans, no you can’t have secure borders or sound immigration law or policy), leaving subsequent administrations hamstrung in efforts to stop the ongoing damage and undo the destructive systems.

It’s time to point out—loudly and often—the destructive nature of giving illegal aliens work permits and getting so many businesses across so many industries hooked on illegal aliens as cheap labor.

Then set about undoing those incentives for illegal aliens to continue flooding across our borders. It’ll be expensive and disruptive to do, but that price will only increase the longer we delay doing it. And it will lead to much better outcomes for our citizens, our society, and our culture on the other side.

The alternative to permits for illegal aliens? Making it easier to enter our nation legally, streamlining while making more thorough the vetting process for who we let in, raising or eliminating altogether visa quotas for those wanting to come in to work or to visit (while strictly enforcing the limits on visit duration).

How Can He Trust Them?

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Former President and current President-elect Donald Trump (R) is being inundated with visits from CEOs who in the past have castigated him, his policies, his character, his integrity, even censoring him outrageously (excuse the redundancy). Some are even throwing millions of dollars at him his inaugural fund.

Titans of the business world are rushing to make inroads with the president-elect, gambling that personal relationships with the next occupant of the Oval Office will help their bottom lines and spare them from Trump’s wrath.
In the weeks since the election, Trump and his advisers have been flooded with calls from C-suite executives who are eager to get face time with the President-elect and his team at Mar-a-Lago, the private Florida club where the transition team conducts much of its planning for the second term.

Even as they smile in his face, though, they’ve already shown their true colors with their prior attacks. They’re only mouthing words of approbation today in hopes of avoiding the consequences of their disingenuosity.

How can Trump trust them? He can’t. He can use them, but he should keep in mind an old maxim: keep his friends close and his enemies closer.

At bottom,

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