Single Step

One might think at first that this was heartening news:

More than 65,000 federal workers have reportedly accepted the Trump administration’s buyout offer.

However:

“If you resign under this program, you will retain all pay and benefits regardless of your daily workload and will be exempted from all applicable in-person work requirements until September 30, 2025 (or earlier if you choose to accelerate your resignation for any reason),” the memo sent in January to roughly 2 million federal employees reads.

So:  65,000 down, leaving 1,935,000 still to go.  And:

A federal judge is expected to weigh in on the matter Monday.

A federal judge in Massachusetts.  The People’s Soviet of Massachusetts.  Any prizes for guessing how that will turn out?

Gah.  Still, I guess we should take heart in the 65,000 number — it’s better than nothing.

As long as Trump and Musk keep applying the screws…

Hold Off, Willya?

And now we are being treated to this little bagatelle:

President-elect Donald Trump told reporters at a press conference on Monday at Mar-a-Lago, Florida, that he would consider pardoning New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who was indicted on federal corruption charges in September.

If I may be blunt, Mr. Soon-To-Be-POTUS:  there’s way too much talk of “pardoning” going on for my liking.

Yeah, I know:  FJB pardoned his son (of a gun-related conviction, no less), and so on and so forth.  But that doesn’t mean that everyone — including you — should be throwing the stuff around like it’s confetti at a wedding.

Here’s my thought:  save the pardons for the people who are really worthy of a pardon, such as the Jan 6 tribe, and leave the wheels of justice to grind assholes like Hizzoner into the same kind of dust that we ordinary folks would be facing.  Now granted, these “corruption” charges were only brought by NYfC’s federal prosecutors after Adams give the Biden Administration the finger on border policy — in other words, said charges were of the same spiteful ilk that these shitheads brought to bear on Trump himself.

But why not just go after the federal prosecutors, who are surely as deserving of censure as anyone else?  All this pardon stuff is like handing out snakebite anti-venom kits instead of just chopping off the poisonous snake’s bitey head with a shovel.  (I know, decapitating government lawyers with a shovel may be problematic because of that Constitutional “krool & unyooshull” thing, but I think the point has been made.)

January 21, 2025 just cannot come quickly enough.

Quote Of The Day

Talking here about Canada’s assisted suicide program (okay, it’s not strictly suicide per se, but it’s certainly a helping hand thereto), in the Comments came an absolute gem:

“This is what happens when you bring in nationalized healthcare and the government realizes they can’t pay for it.”

On a related topic, Canuckistan’s death by assisted-suicide rate is higher than death by gunfire.  Knowing them, they’re going to say next that this is proof that gun control works.

About Those Duracell Cars

Seems like every day there’s something new to post about this nonsense.  Here’s the first:

Labour will bow to pressure from car manufacturers and rethink strict rules on the sales of electric vehicles.  Downing Street today confirmed ministers will launch a consultation on current plans following intense lobbying by firms.

Under an existing Government mandate, at least 22 per cent of new cars sold by every manufacturer in the UK this year must be zero-emission vehicles (ZEV).  The mandate is set to increase to 28 per cent next year and will rise each year over the next decade – reaching 80 per cent in 2030 and 100 per cent in 2035.  This is when there will be a ban on the sale of all new non-zero-emission cars as part of the Government’s Net Zero commitments. 

Carmakers are set to be fined £15,000 per polluting car sold above the limits.

But firms have been warning ministers that the ZEV mandate is putting jobs and investment at risk in the UK.

Government mandate, meet market reality.  Mind you, not that any kind of reality has ever been part of governmental wishful thinking (e.g. gun regulation).

And then there’s this:

Germany has joined a growing backlash against fining car makers who miss net zero targets – suggesting the firms should be allowed to keep the money to invest in cutting emissions.  Chancellor Olaf Scholz has hit out at the European Union’s zero emission vehicle plans, which require manufacturers to reduce the emissions from their new cars and vans by 15 per cent compared to 2021 levels by next year.

The quickest way for firms to do this is to reduce the production of petrol and diesel cars and encourage people to swap to electric vehicles – but firms say motorists aren’t biting and warn jobs could be at risk if UK and EU mandates aren’t eased.

However, it will be the car firms that face penalties if they fail to shift enough battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) to hit the 15 per cent target.

This grows to a 55 per cent reduction in car emissions and 50 per cent vans by 2030. EU autocrats then want a 100 per cent reduction – i.e. no purely fossil fuelled cars and vans sold at all – by 2035.

Germany has a vested interest in protecting car firms from fines: its car industry is solely responsible for an estimated five per cent of GDP, and is home to huge names including Audi, BMW, Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz.

Yeah, rules and fines are all very well, as long as there’s no economic damage — or so one would think.  Except, of course, that governments of the Leftist ilk seldom seem to care about consequences, because as we all know, Leftism requires only that policy is based on good intentions, and the consequences thereof are irrelevant.

At some point — and in this regard, for once, the U.S. seems to have tumbled to this before the others — voters are going to cry “Enough!” to this insanity.  And nowhere is this becoming more evident than in the auto industry.

Times are becoming more and more interesting, nicht wahr?

Burning Down The Climate Change Thicket

Here are some very constructive ideas about how to unlock and/or break the raft of stupid eco-fascist laws and regulations.  I especially like this one:

Obama joined Paris Climate Agreement by executive action. Trump exited by the same method. And Biden rejoined, again by executive action, right on January 20, 2021.

Trump could follow the previous method and just quit again. But my preferred suggestion would be to submit the Agreement to the Senate as a treaty. There is zero chance that the Senate would ratify. That would kill this thing much more securely than the other method.

And this would be the time to submit it, while the Stupid Party controls the Senate.

I know, the Paris Climate whatever is pretty much a paper tiger and waste of time.  Don’t care about it?  Then try this one:

“Regulations” are different from mere Executive Orders and actions, in that in order to be adopted they have gone through some complex and time-consuming processes prescribed by the Administrative Procedure Act. The processes are designed to give these “regulations” some purported legitimacy and heft, to make them hard to undo, and to distract the gullible public from the fact that they have not gone through the only process that counts under the Constitution for valid legislative action, namely passage by both houses of Congress and signature by the President. The result of all the procedural rigamarole is that — if you buy the legitimacy of enactment of massive substantive regulations by administrative agencies in the first place — then the processes to eliminate the regulations are the same complex and time-consuming mess that it previously took to adopt them.

Do the Trump people really need to go through the same labyrinth to rescind these Rules? Here’s an approach I would take: First, announce that the legal opinion of the administration is that the Rules are invalid under Supreme Court precedent (i.e., the “major questions doctrine” of West Virginia v. EPA), and therefore they will not be enforced. Next, announce that permitting on power plant and other fossil fuel projects will take place as if these Rules did not exist. Finally, switch sides in the litigation, and join the red states and other plaintiffs seeking to have the Rules invalidated.

Here’s what I really, really like about this initiative:  it would also nullify, ipso facto, all the horrible regulations foisted on us by other Gummint agencies — such as the fucking ATF, for starters, and [add your favorite agency’s name here].

So when you follow the link above to see all the other Good Ideas, don’t just look at those suggestions as part of the destruction of the “climate change” myth, good as they are;  apply those principles to all areas of our life that the bureaucracy have (un-Constitutionally and illegally) affected over the years.

Roll on January 2025.

That FDR Bullshit

One of the most stupid media tropes (among oh so many) is that incoming U.S. presidents should have a “100-day” report card on their performance.  It’s another hangover (among oh so many) from the detestable Franklin Roosevelt which should be taken out and shot in the back of the head.

Why one hundred?  Well, like any arbitrary number, it’s conveniently round but sheesh, it has no bearing in reality.

Some policies can be enacted immediately (e.g. re-opening the Keystone XL pipeline, mobilizing the Corps of Engineers to continue building the southern border wall) — which can safely be called a one-day report card;  others may require a little longer, in that the job cannot be done immediately, but can be safely implemented within a month or so (e.g. putting a budget proposal together, firing a large number of federal bureaucrats);  while still others may take several months, probably because they require the assistance of the tortoises in Congress (tax cuts, balancing the budget, cutting spending — as opposed to just cutting the growth of spending, which is what those assholes “call cutting”).

Of the immediate- to short-term initiatives, let’s just hope that Trump follows up on his promise to enlist the support of Elon Musk — especially when it comes to trimming the headcounts in various federal departments — to get things moving, in the manner of trailblazing ArgyPres Javier Milei.

And we don’t need any stupid polls like this one to tell Trump what to do about illegal immigration either.  As Commander-In-Chief, he can tell the military to start gassing up the C-130s on Day One, to be ready for takeoff by Day Seven.  (Why seven?  Because it should only take a week to start emptying out the existing detention centers and jails prior to transporting the illegals and criminals out of the country.)

Whatever these initiatives may entail, let’s please ignore the stupid “100-day” report card because like so many artificial deadlines, it’s totally meaningless.