Before I get to my main topic, I have to note that on Saturday, CA Gov and featureless-plastic-crotch-having human-Ken-Doll Gavin Newsom (D)elinquent, declared a “state of emergency” for brush clearance due to wildfire danger.
Which came as a much-appreciated warning to the residents of Pacific Palisades…except that the brush around their houses has already been cleared.
By an enormous fire.
Which also consumed their houses.
Months ago.
Newsom would be a big hit in farm country, where I grew up. He could walk up to farmhouses and holler through the screen door. “Your horse escaped two days ago, and he’s just been seen three counties away. So close your barn door immediately! You’re welcome.”
And then he could try to make it off the property before the farmer or his wife could load the shotgun with rock salt.
As you may have noticed, I’ve been having some fun lately mocking many of the government workers who have been getting laid off or fired, and deservedly so, including the treacherous deep-state “resistance” types, and corrupt leadership in the FBI, the military and elsewhere.
In Friday’s column, I mocked the disordered pervs at the NSA who spent their work hours on message boards talking about their polycules (don’t ask), the joys of castration (please, don’t ask!) and how good it feels to have one’s an*s lasered (for the love of all that is holy, DON’T ASK!!)
But reader Jon Michael Watson – thanks for sharing the column, Jon – made a good point. He said that while it is “proper that these lost and fallen gov’t employees are no longer sucking up taxpayer dollars,” many government workers are good people doing good work, and are getting tarred with the same brush. (I paraphrased a bit, but I think I fairly summarized his meaning.)
Jon’s point is well taken, and worth remembering. We all know that our national debt is unsustainable, and deep spending cuts are going to have to be made to avert a future economic collapse. But those cuts are going to hurt some real people, and it’s a bad look to be gleeful about everybody losing their jobs.
“Martin,” you might be saying, “aren’t you being a hypocrite by saying that, especially after your world-class, hilarious send-up of the NSA kink ring last Friday, which should probably win a Nobel Prize for political humor, if only there were such a thing?”
First, who am I to fly in the face of public opinion on that second part?
But re: hypocrisy, I plead guilty to a lesser count. Is there such a thing as misdemeanor-level negligent hypocrisy?
At my sentencing, I would raise some extenuating circumstances to try to mitigate my sentence.
First, the corrupt legacy media has promoted a disgusting double standard about layoffs that enrages many of us normal folks. When Biden killed the Keystone pipeline and the border wall on his first day in office, over 50,000 blue-collar American workers lost their jobs, and the MSM wrote zero stories sympathizing with their plight.
When some workers vented about their lost jobs, the Dem talking heads and elitist j-school snobs told them to “learn to code.”
But now those same dishonest hacks are running one story after another about every fired government employee trudging into the parking lot carrying a cardboard box. And they’re casting every one of them as assiduous martyrs who were just about to find a cure for cancer, or else arranging for a parachute drop of food that would have saved starving orphan amputees in a Third World country that you couldn’t even find on a map, you ignorant capitalist pig!
Whereas I am at least trying to point out that there’s a difference between government employees doing legitimate work, and covens of polymorphously perverse loons who “work” from home.
If by “work” you mean “organize leagues to play rectal laser tag.”
By the way, that reminds me of Three Fundamental Life Rules that rank just below the 10 Commandments in their usefulness:
1. Never play pool for money with a guy who carries his own cue in a custom case.
2. Never try to scatter a loved one’s ashes into the sea if the wind is blowing toward you.
3. There are no winners in rectal laser tag.
Where was I? Oh yeah.
In all seriousness, I think the Trump team should be sympathetic to most people who lose their jobs because of the necessary cuts that are coming. They can still expose and troll all of the idiotic DEI boondoggles and corrupt waste, but if they look gleeful about normal workers getting fired, they’ll do unnecessary political damage to the cause.
I’ve seen a few early signs of this in my own life. About three weeks ago, my wife got an email saying that her job is being looked at as one that might be going away. She works with a regional team of health professionals focusing on treating and preventing the spread of TB; because her work is funded only partly by our state, and the rest by the CDC, some job losses may be in the offing.
In the big picture, this is almost certainly a good sign for our nation. Because while we hadn’t wiped out TB the way we had polio or smallpox, by around 50 years ago we’d contained it to a very small number of outbreaks and cases. The resurgence of TB in recent decades has been coincident with large numbers of illegals crossing our borders. If Trump is able to deport the lion’s share of illegals, the threat of TB will recede, and the feds will need to spend less on fighting it. Again: a good thing for the country.
But yes, it would be more convenient for us if my wife’s group continued to work to counter outbreaks until the deportation process succeeds, and her job is made (happily) unnecessary. She was already planning to retire in two years, by which time we would have paid off one of our rentals and the majority of another. If her job does end this year, she would lose the income of her two final, highest-earning years, which would be less than great.
But we both know we are very lucky. We have saved enough and are close enough to retirement that the loss of two years’ salary will cause a little pain, but nothing like the upheaval and stress that younger and less financially stable workers will experience.
Of course, we are happy Trump voters and love what he’s doing, but it’s also easier for us to support Trump and DOGE’s necessary efforts, because we see the big picture, and our sacrifices will be relatively minor ones. But we shouldn’t overlook the fact that the great, long-term benefits are going to produce some pain and disruption in the short term. And that it’s natural for even Trump supporters to sour when necessary job cuts hit them.
Because we in CO Nation are decent people – and also because we want to do well in the midterms and in 2028! – we should be careful not to let our joy over the downfall of DEI, deep-state bad actors, and biological males stomping girls in sports, bleed over into celebrating the collateral damage caused by our long-delayed need to cut our shamefully bloated federal government and national debt.
We should be as empathetic and kind to our fellow citizens who lose their government jobs as the leftists were callous and condescending to the pipeline and border wall workers who lost theirs.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get to work on this Wednesday’s column lambasting Hamas and sticking it to Jake Tapper.
Hamas delenda est!
Martin Simpson 