Shoot First, Aim Later

www.timesonline.com/opinion/20180628/marc-a-thiessen-on-immigration-democrats-give-trump-upper-hand---again

I read this in our local paper today.  This guy is a bit of a Trump fan, so you might want to take it with a grain of salt but, if it's true, it looks like Trump isn't the only one shooting from the hip these days.  I suppose it doesn't matter because it will never pass, but it goes to show how people can screw themselves up when they go off the deep end without first testing the water. Speaking of Trump, a lot of guys would have built the detention facilities before they started arresting people.  I know that I didn't think of that till today myself, but I'm not the President of the United States.

I saw on the TV news this evening that Trump gets to appoint another judge.  I seem to remember that, during the campaign, some people were saying that we should vote for Trump for this, if for no other, reason.  Of course, when I say "we", I mean me and my ilk, not my esteemed colleagues at the Institute.  I suppose that "we" are "them" to youse guys, but no need to open that can of worms again, we've got more important matters on our agenda.

I remember when Reagan fired all those air traffic controllers.  I was a union steward at the time, and our international rep used that as an excuse for not doing anything for us until he retired years later.  The thing is, government employees are not allowed to go on strike.  It's a law, but it's a funny kind of law.  Every once in awhile you hear about government employees, usually teachers, going on strike, but nobody comes and hauls them away to a detention facility or anything like that.  What happens is the school board or the superintendent has to get a court order telling them to go back to work.  If they defy this order, they can be summarily fired from their jobs.  Usually they can't fire somebody for going on strike but, in this case, they can.  It doesn't always happen, often the management tries to settle the strike another way first to avoid stirring up hard feelings in the community and only goes to court a last resort.  I seem to remember that was what Reagan did, but I don't know that for an absolute fact.  I suppose that was about the time that union influence began to decline in this country, but I doubt it was the sole cause.  There were, and still are, other factors at work.

I heard MS-13 mentioned on the TV news the other day, and I looked it up on Wiki.  I was surprised to learn that it did indeed originate in the US, and that it had been around that long.  I had never heard of it before, but I'm beginning to suspect that there are lots of things that I don't know about.  Funny, I seem to remember that I knew everything that was worth knowing back in my younger days.