A TRIFECTA

25 Mar. 2018

Dear Friends and Patriots,

            The news is so filled with fascinating things these days it’s hard to pick and choose. Do we discuss trade policies with China or Stormy Daniels? Is it worth our time to talk about the current diplomatic corps tit-for-tat of expulsions going on as a reaction to Russian assassination attempts in London, or should we be more interested in the hourly update on the FBI scandal?   Or are any of those really worth our time?   I decided to pick through the pile and highlight three topics I believe need a bit of discussion: the newly-passed federal budget, the so-called Deep State, and the Democratic Party’s emerging strategy to win back power in 2020.

            THE NEW BUDGET – President Trump signed the budget presented to him on Friday, then followed up with remarks which included, “No one’s actually read this thing,” and “I’ll never sign another one of these.”  

The President was right in his first comment. At well over 2,000 pages and only arriving a few days before the scheduled votes, the new budget wasn’t read by anyone. It was another grand example of our Congress not doing its constitutionally defined duty.   At least we weren’t insulted by Pelosi-like untruths that it had to pass before anyone could know what’s in it.   But, we were insulted by comments by Republicans to the effect that it was the best deal that could be had and it was the only way to get the defense budget our military needs.

When it comes to lard, the 2018 budget is equal to a whole herd of porkers. There’s everything in it for Democrats to like and little they’ll quibble over. As for the Republicans, one must wonder if they’ve completely lost their minds. As for their principles, we already know they don’t comprehend those. You can’t lose what you never had. In general it was only the Freedom Caucus members and a few odd holdouts who appeared to vote with any sense of principle.   The 2018 Omnibus budget should never have passed, and it should never have been signed into law.

One thing my own professional experience has taught me – when the military budgets are fat, trouble always follows.   Our biggest military procurement scandals always happen during times when the budgets are generous. More people go to jail in those times. More cockamamie projects are proposed, approved, and funded, only to later be scrapped. Our military does best when our budgets are a bit constrained; when the services actually work to justify their needs they pay attention. Whenever money is thrown at them they develop wasteful ways.   One thing you can take to the bank about our military is how efficient they are in getting rid of money. No other part of our government can make billions of dollars disappear faster than the Department of Defense. After all, they’re the only part of government that routinely buys things that cost billions each, then takes them in harm’s way.

It seems counterintuitive that Democrats would like a fat military budget, doesn’t it? It’s not, though. Remember, most major military development projects put money into Democrat-controlled districts, too. That’s all a matter of geographic dispersion that isn’t influenced much by politics. Our ship, aircraft, and tank builders get their building materials and parts from wherever they can find them, and politics plays almost no role in that process. Politicians do benefit from it, though. In the 2018 budget there are several ship acquisitions, airplanes and other articles that are sourced from Democrat-controlled congressional districts.   And, those Democrats are going to use this budget in their campaigns for re-election. They’ll be the same old “brought home the bacon” arguments, too. They won’t have a lot of actual truth to them, but what does the average voter know, anyway?

What I’m saying is the Democrats love new military acquisition projects. They’re high viz and lend themselves to being claimed as personal victories, when usually the truth is something else. You’ll hear that the fat DoD budget was the price Democrats had to pay to get all the social spending programs they really wanted. That’s just a convenient lie they believe they have to maintain. The truth is, they would have voted for a big military budget anyway.   It was yet another grand Republican Party miscalculation. So, if you wonder why Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer were so rapturously joyful on Friday – it was because the budget was a complete win for them, and a partial and pyrrhic victory at best for the Republicans. It may well be the worst thing Donald Trump has done yet.

To get a budget deal the Republicans traded something the Democrats would have voted for anyway for things their party’s principles are firmly against. The budget greatly increases the deficit and will add as much as $1T to the national debt. It funds Planned Parenthood to the tune of $500M. The money that’s in the bill for border security is for a few miles of new “see through fencing” (read as “chain link)” and repairs to existing fences. No wall. No hiring of more Border Patrol to tighten up down there. There’s nothing in the bill at all regarding the so-called “Dreamers.” There’s nothing much that touches immigration at all, other than funds for entitlement programs that new immigrants often subsist on. There appeared to be no sacred cows. It was a “money for all” budget, only there actually isn’t any money at all, and everyone in Congress knows it. If you know anything, know that this budget will spur a call for entitlement reform. The only entitlements that will be targeted for reform will be Social Security and Medicare – “entitlements” that we pay for our whole working lives. Wait for it!

I’m reminded of a fact of history. In most cases of national collapse, those failures are immediately preceded by wholesale robbery of national assets by the ruling class. The failing states were stolen blind by those who were entrusted with their care, guaranteeing collapse.   Is this what we’re watching? I hope not.

President Trump’s second comment was entirely gratuitous. He says outlandish things at times, but rarely anything truly dumb. This was one of those rarities. When anyone says “I did it, but I’ll never do it again” they full-well know they haven’t done the right and principled thing. In this case, not signing was the right and principled thing.   But for whatever reason, that’s not what he did. The progressive causes won, led by Democrats in Congress. Everyone else lost. Everyone includes us.

Onward!

THE DEEP STATE – What is it good for? Absolutely nothing! Okay, so I borrowed a bit from Edwin Star, but it’s the same thing, really. The Deep State is enormously harmful to our nation’s progress. But, what is the Deep State, anyway? How can it be dealt with? Can it be eliminated?

There are several elements to the Deep State, and each must be dealt with. Pay attention. I will be brief, for once.

The first and most obvious part of the Deep State are the many Obama administration hold-overs who still occupy seats in our government. The Trump people know who each one of them are, or at least they should. Those people constituted a constant, embedded threat against President Trump’s agenda. Each one of them should be shown the door, regardless of whether or not there’s an immediate replacement. It’s better to be short-staffed than to put up with subversives. Other new administrations understood all this. Why doesn’t this one?

The second part of the Deep State are people who started out as appointees, but managed to “disappear” into the ranks of civil service. Those are people who understood the protections of permanent employee status and who “arranged” their current positions so they could continue promoting progressive causes in any way possible. Most of those people can be easily identified. A few may not, but eventually all can be found and dealt with. Because they have civil service protections it’s not easy to get rid of them, but they can be moved into positions that make it hard, if not impossible to negatively affect the President’s agenda. If President Trump’s senior people in each agency haven’t done or aren’t doing this, they should. All the people in this group are senior managers who have the ability to slow down progress, if not stonewall it completely. We can’t afford our ship of state dragging anchors around. Those people need to be found and dealt with. Assuming none of them has committed any offense that could cause their dismissal, they have little ability to complain as long as they’re put into jobs at their current grade. Neutralize them!

The third part of the Deep State is truly difficult to deal with. This part is comprised of civil servants who are active ideologues. I seek to differentiate here because I’m a civil servant and an ideologue, but I’m not an active ideologue. I don’t do anything at work to promote political agendas. I never allowed my intense dislike of President Obama’s progressive agenda to creep into the manner in which I executed my official responsibilities. I never did or didn’t do anything at work due to my ideological bent. I think most civil servants are like me. We all have opinions of varying strengths, but we do our jobs to the best of our abilities regardless of who is President, and hope it all turns out okay. But, there are people among us who are so ideologically motivated they use their jobs to promote the agendas they agree with and to subvert those they don’t.

You all remember Lois Lerner at IRS. She was an embedded career civil servant and a progressive ideologue. She was part of a network of like-minded people who misused their offices to punish people they didn’t politically agree with. To varying degrees there are people just like Lois Lerner in all parts of our government.   The prudent thing for managers to do is to discipline active ideologues whenever they’re detected, regardless of their political leanings. They should be fired if their infractions are serious enough, as should all in their active network. To allow them to operate with impunity in government service is not in the best interest of the citizens.

The Deep State is simple to understand, at least to one who lives among its members.

THIS IS 20/20! – Remember the show Barbara Walters used to do on ABC? I used to watch it regularly, and most enjoyed the seeming puff pieces done there by John Stossel. But, I’m not talking about that 20/20. I’m actually going to discuss the Democratic Party strategy to win back power in the general election of 2020.

If you’re paying attention, you should already be seeing and understanding what I’m going to relate. In truth, I hope every single syllable of every word after this sentence is something you already understand. If that’s true, then it’s possible we can nullify the Democrats’ strategy and save our nation from incredible turmoil.

The elections of 2016 revealed something to Democrats they hadn’t counted on. Blue collar workers and union members voted for Donald Trump. Traditionally, those two voting blocs are taken for granted as Democrats. Now, it’s more likely those people are Independents who will lean right in an election. It’s the fault of the Democrats and their candidates.

Why would a West Virginia or Pennsylvania coal miner vote for a Democrat, when all they promise in addition to shutting down the industry that employs them is jobs re-training? What hubris leads a candidate to declare they’ll do everything they can to eliminate the traditional employment source for people in an area encompassing several states, then tell them “but, don’t worry, we’ll have some job training programs to help you get new employment”?   The picture in my mind was of a future where West Virginia is turned into one giant hillbilly theme park with all the former miners in costumes with stage names like Myrtle Mae, Bobby Joe, Ellie Sue, and Billy Mack; a whole state, filled with roller coasters, fast food stands, and unpainted shacks, all thanks to the progressive job training program. It would be that or retraining in electronics assembly tasks so they could take just-above-minimum wage jobs at some Chinese-owned company that makes components for cell phones and TVs.

With the defection of labor, the Democrats need new blood. It’s been conventional wisdom for a long time that role would be filled by immigrants. There have been several movements over past years to allow for resident-based voting, not citizen-based. If enough illegal aliens and green-carders are allowed to vote, the Democrats could win in 2018, 2020, and every election thereafter. But, because immigration is such a hot-button issue, there are no guarantees on that plan. Democrats love guarantees, and now it looks like they might be onto a couple.

Democrats have a pretty solid lock on the feminists already, and an even bigger one when they embrace the #MeToo movement.

Have you been wondering how the #MeToo movement fits in? It’s meant to cement a larger segment of women to the causes of radical feminism, and all to the progressive Democrat campaigns. It continues the progressive strategy of parsing large demographics into more manageable segments (segmentation strategy) then identifying their newly minted cause as one only the Democrats care about and support.

The newest and possibly best source of new Democratic Party voters is on the streets now.   It’s the “Never Again MSD/Enough is Enough” crowd of high school students. Have you wondered how so many students could be organized into mass protests in such short order? Have you wondered how their talking points could be scripted so well and how so many articulate young spokespeople could all of a sudden be on our TVs telling us all about their disgust with gun ownership, greedy corporations, and the scourge of war that results from support of the NRA and all gun groups? What’s that all about?

The facts of school gun violence are one thing, but progressives understand that emotion will beat facts almost every time. The natural human response to intense emotion is to try to make the hurt go away in any way possible. Logic and facts don’t cure pain. Evidently more laws and the elimination of freedom does. Today we’re watching millions of high school students being manipulated by those whose political ideology is completely progressive. We’re watching a set-piece right out of Saul Alinsky’s own playbook. And we’re watching more. We’re again watching the process used in the 1960’s that permanently radicalized millions of college students. These are 16, 17, and 18 year olds who will be voting in the 2020 elections.   The hope of progressive Democrats is these are the people who will guarantee they re-ascend to power.

If the two paragraphs above don’t strike some fear in your hearts, you need a reality check. These student demonstrations are 100% consistent with two dictums. The first dictum is Alinsky’s, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” The second dictum is the old communist/socialist/progressive one I cite all the time, “By any means necessary.”   While it may seem totally irresponsible, unethical, and reprehensible to manipulate teens for pure political advantage, progressives have zero qualms in doing so.

The obvious question now is, “What are we to do about it?” The equally obvious answer is to let your voices be heard.   We need to show up at schools where our children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews attend and let the school administration understand we won’t tolerate using our youth in this way. With only Fox and Newsmax out in the media telling the truth on-screen we need to mobilize, gather in public, and let our collective voices be heard. Even more, we need to engage in writing campaigns to inundate print media with our disgust that our nation’s teens are being used as pawns in a grand political game. Lastly, we need to get on radio talk shows and loudly protest.   What we cannot do is sit idly by and let progressives take advantage of a crisis that isn’t a crisis.   We cannot allow them to succeed.   If they ever get in power again, you can bet the farm – they will never allow it to be wrested from them again - by any means necessary!

I wish I had a happier note for you today, but the news has few important stories with happy themes. We have to work with what we’re given.

In Liberty,
Steve