Tag: Good News

Learn It Or Don’t Bother

Immigration, Trumpism

Oh boo-hoo-hoo.  In his latest oh-so-Hitler initiative, POTUS Trump has caused massive heartache to immigrants:

In keeping with his March 1 order making English the official language of the United States, the president has directed the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to cancel a contract with a translation service provider, according to Government Executive magazine.

The translation service was offered to migrants calling the department for information about their status under E-Verify and other government programs.

The administration is also now directing agency call center employees to terminate any call from a caller who can’t make his needs known in English.

Yup:  as in most countries, if you don’t speak the country’s official language, you’re screwed.

Here’s the real deal.  The article linked above talks about audio translation services.  What is not discussed is the paper (and processing) cost of providing documentation to would-be immigrants — in multiple languages.

It’s complete bollocks.  Nothing screams inefficiency like having to do everything twice — or more times — which in essence is what’s being ended here.

As I’ve said countless times before, if you’re going to move to a foreign country, learn to speak its fucking home language before embarking on the journey.  Nothing is more irritating than having to deal with people from another country who insist that you speak their language in dealing with them.  It’s nothing less than a divisive and arrogant attitude, coming from people who have no right to be so in their adopted country.

As an immigrant, you’re here on sufferance, not entitlement.  And the sooner the huddled masses learn that lesson, the easier it will be for them in the long term.  Fit in or fuck off.

By Any Other Name

Good Stuff, Trumpism

So your community was trashed by a storm, and you’re about to get all sorts of relief from the .dotfedgov.

However, because you’re a bunch of woke raacists and sexxists, your announcement concerning said relief contains the following little nugget:

“Within the Small Business Support Program, the City will prioritize assistance for Minority and Women Owned Businesses (MWBE) within the scoring criteria outlined within the policies and procedures.”

In the bad old days (say, the Obama/Biden Years), this would have got nods of approval from the issuing power.

But we no longer live in those dark times, so:

Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Scott Turner has decisively rejected Asheville, North Carolina’s outrageous $225 million disaster relief request.

HUD Secretary Turner condemned the city’s initial draft action plan for prioritizing assistance based on race and gender identity rather than need. “This draft action plan that the city of Asheville presented at first has elements of DEI, and that is not acceptable to HUD.
“It’s not acceptable to the President, according to his executive order to get rid of all DEI. We’re working with the city of Asheville.”

Yeah… and?

“They have been very responsive to make sure that their upcoming draft action plan is in compliance with HUD and how we give funds out according to HUD’s principles.”

HUD’s new (and proper) principles, and not the old DEI-spattered ones, that is.

MOAR like this, please.

Weather Vain

Lies and Untruths, Science!, Trumpism

Here’s a consequence of being entrusted to collect critical data, then using that data to peddle a false narrative:

The US government’s weather agency has been dismantled by the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) after it was accused of peddling “misinformation”.

Hundreds of weather forecasters at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) were fired last week as part of Donald Trump’s plans to slash the federal workforce.

In total, at least 800 civil servants are thought to have lost their jobs, including meteorologists, radar specialists and crews of hurricane hunters, who fly aircraft into storms to help forecasters, according to CBS.

Of course, out come the apocalyptic doomsayers:

The job cuts have triggered protests at the agency’s headquarters in Maryland, with some scientists and lawmakers warning that removing staff involved in predicting natural disasters will “endanger American lives going forward”.

No, they won’t — at least, no more than they ever did before.  There are several other avenues of getting such warnings — from private enterprise — and not from some Gummint malignancy.

But here’s the critical part, from someone who’s been doing the hard work of tracking this nonsense for a decade and a half:

Prof Roger Pielke, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who focuses on the politicization of science, said that the agency is “reaping the whirlwind” for “cutting corners on science”.

“By not upholding the highest standards of scientific integrity, we’ve opened the door to politicians meddling,” he said.

According to experts, studies and former NOAA officials, the chart proves little about the effects of climate change, and instead shows that disasters are becoming more expensive because Americans choose to build in hazard-prone areas.

“The problem is you can’t use economic data to say anything about climate change,” said Prof Pielke.

Quite right.  Collecting data to forewarn of disaster, then using that data incorrectly and unethically to further a boutique (and flawed) worldview — that would be Global Warming Climate Cooling Change©, of course — deserves censure of the second-highest order.  (“First-order” censure would be imprisonment and so on.)

So of course this little clique of taxpayer-funded climate alarmists deserves to be shut up and disbanded.

MOAR DOGE like this, please.

Augean Stables

Bureaucracy, Trumpism

From Jeff Tucker:

For more than a century, even dating back to 1883, the civil service has grown and grown without check from the elected branch, either the presidency or the legislature . The bureaucracies have ballooned from a few to 450 or so. The bloat and absurdities have grown too. Get this: no one has ever known what to do about it. Not Coolidge, not Hoover, not Nixon, not Reagan, not Clinton, no one. No president has been able to crack this nut.

The only reforms ever to have made it through are those that make the administrative state bigger, never smaller. Countless cabinet secretaries have come and gone, always with the intention of making a change but leaving saddened, demoralized, outwitted, outgunned, and ultimately devoured. No president has seriously taken on this problem because they simply did not know how. The unions are powerful, the intimidation from the deep institutional knowledge is overwhelming, the fear of the media as been powerful, and every single president comes to power vaguely feeling threatened by the intelligence agencies. The industries that have captured every single agency were also far too powerful to unseat or control.

This combination of institutional inertia has blocked serious reform for a full century. No one has dared. No one has even had a theory or strategy about what to do about this problem. It had become so terrible that most people in politics have simply surrendered, like homeowners who know there are rats in the basement and bats in the attic but long ago gave up trying to fix the issue.

All this time, the American people have felt themselves ever more oppressed, weighed upon, taxed and regulated, spied upon, brow beaten, and otherwise overwhelmed. Voting never made any difference because the politicians no longer controlled the system. The bureaucracies ruled all.

But now we have a chance.  It may be our last, because right now, in the paraphrased words of John Adams, we have men worthy of the time:  a president who has a burning desire to make the changes necessary, an associate of towering intellect and inherent power who may be able to execute that change, and the subordinates who are just as willing to make those changes with the necessary authority (in the shape of presidential appointees), and others (the twenty-something hackers and geeks) who have the knowledge, skills and the tools to be able to root out the corruption and deadweight of accumulated bureaucracy and perverted, un-American policy.

And About Damn Time

Language

I’ve gone on and on about this topic so many times I’m starting to bore myself, but this is indeed a welcome development:

You might have thought the United States had an official language, considering it was founded by British colonizers who were looking for religious freedom and wanted to distance themselves from the overbearing English monarchy. Virtually all official documents in our republic have been penned in the English language, from the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution on down, but for some reason, it has never been designated as our official national tongue.

That all changed on Saturday, as President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order mandating that we now have one unifying language tying us all together.

Nothing repeat nothing has the power to divide a society when we aren’t able to communicate with each other.  I speak here after having grown up in an officially bilingual country and seeing for myself how bitterly divisive that can be.

And I absolutely do not care if newcomers to this country are unable to understand what’s going on because they don’t understand English.  The English expression for that is “tough shit”, and that might as well be the first expression — and concept — that should be learnt when the huddled masses arrive here.

I’m not going to hold up other nations as examples — although try conducting any kind of official business in France without understanding French — and considering that our republic’s foundation was laid upon the English language, we have been foolish in not establishing that principle from the outset.

And frankly, Margaret, I don’t actually care if that seems cruel or uncaring to the newly-arrived.  If we choose to accommodate foreigners by posting signs that read “Itt magyarul beszélnek“  or whatever, it is purely an accommodation and not an obligation.

To quote POTUS:

From the founding of our Republic, English has been used as our national language.  Our Nation’s historic governing documents, including the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, have all been written in English.  It is therefore long past time that English is declared as the official language of the United States.  A nationally designated language is at the core of a unified and cohesive society, and the United States is strengthened by a citizenry that can freely exchange ideas in one shared language…

Accordingly, this order designates English as the official language of the United States.

More Wastage

Bureaucracy, Trumpism

Boy, the hits they just keep on coming:

All the above make various of my digits itch (and one specifically, guess which one), but the last item in particular makes me want to reach for the Mauser.

Fifty-two million tax dollars to the WEF? Don’t those assholes have enough of their own money?  (Never mind that I find their entire existence as an organization revolting.)

Don’t get me started on the rest, because as it is I feel the need for an extended range session coming on.