Reform comes to the BLM, and the entrenched bureaucrats aren’t happy.
December 19, 2019
ITEM #1: It goes without saying that one of the most refreshing developments of the Trump administration has been a willingness to challenge the Washington conventional wisdom.
One of the best examples, as we’ve noted before, was the decision to decentralize the Department of the Interior by moving most of the Bureau of Land Management’s D.C. staff out West — closer to the people and places Bureau policy most directly affects. The move challenged the assumption that our central government needs to be physically, geographically centralized to be effective.
Not surprisingly, this move has elicited some howls out of those who had grown comfortable with the inefficient status quo. (Please accept our apologies, Democrats, for the use of a Latin phrase.)
The Associated Press reports that "Opponents of the Trump administration’s plan to break up the Washington, D.C., headquarters of the country’s public lands bureau are ... saying many staffers who are being reassigned are opting to quit rather than move out West."
The story quotes a number of people expressing concerns over this news, warning of “brain drain,” the imminent loss of some of the Bureau’s “most experienced employees” which will “cripple the bureau for a long time,” etc.
But these folks miss the point. The administration's move is a wise one from an efficiency standpoint, and if some federal workers quit over it, that'll just make the bureau even MORE efficient. We’ll keep the most dedicated employees, reduce costs and overhead, and do more with less.
Sounds like a big win for limited government.
Let’s just hope this restructured BLM will include some actual Westerners — those who truly understand the land issues facing this region of the country.
To its credit, the Trump administration is showing it won’t be bullied by the naysayers, as U.S. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt is defending the move. Good for him, and for the administration in general for daring to think outside the box.
ITEM #2: There’s been some big news from across the pond recently, with Boris Johnson and his Conservatives securing a historically massive victory in last week’s U.K. elections.
Writing at American Greatness, Conrad Black offers an incisive analysis of what was behind Johnson’s victory, and what it means going forward, both for Europe and for the U.S.-U.K. alliance. Black writes:
“[T]he substantial detachment of the United Kingdom from an integrated Europe so it may retain the primacy of the political institutions and the legal system it has developed over many centuries, and align itself, implicitly, more closely to its senior Commonwealth associates, Canada and Australia, as well as to its sometime senior partner in the modern world’s greatest crises, the United States, is a geostrategic development of the first importance. …
"In a word, the hackneyed nonsense of recent decades about the post-Reagan-Thatcher decline of the Anglo-Saxons … is shown, yet again in modern history to be bunk."
It’s well worth reading the full piece, available here.
ITEM #3: Former President Barack Obama said this week: “I'm absolutely confident that for two years if every nation on earth was run by women, you would see a significant improvement across the board on just about everything ... living standards and outcomes."
To which conservative talk-show host Larry Elder responded, with a healthy dose of sarcasm: “Which is why he stepped aside for Hillary in '08.”
ITEM #4: ABC’s Sam Donaldson, the fossil former fake news peddler who was as obnoxious and annoying back in Ronald Reagan’s day as CNN’s Jim Acosta is today, has some advice for the Republicans he detests:
“I hope the party is reconstituted as it once was.”
What he means is he hopes Republicans return to the “good ol’ days,” when Republicans lost consistently and went along to go along with their Democrat opponents — rather than win elections and then actually keep their promises to voters.
Thanks, Sam. We’ll get back to you.
ITEM #5: As the Democrat-run city of Los Angeles continues to suffer massive problems with crime, homelessness and failing schools, the city fathers are turning their attention to far more weighty problems.
We told you last week how the city has launched an effort to provide more shade in less-affluent neighborhoods. Now this from the Los Angeles Times…
“The city has launched a design contest for a new streetlight, one that places a premium on high design and great accessibility. Officials want a new design that better keeps with L.A.'s grand lighting past while also bringing such lights into a more diverse array of neighborhoods.”
Nero fiddled while Rome burned.
INSANITY IN AMERICA: Trump Derangement Syndrome knows no bounds … as Santa Claus himself recently found out.
According to columnist John Nolte, the Mall at Waycross Shopping Center in Georgia last week fired Santa Claus “for the sin of wearing a Trump hat when no children were around.”
“(Frank) Skinner, who has worked at this mall for 14 years and who says he has played Santa for going on 50 years now, said he put the hat on for a quick photo near the end of the evening when no children were around. He then posted the photo to his personal Facebook page.”
Somebody saw the post, pitched a fit, ratted Santa out — and the Mall axed him.
Guessing Santa’s gonna be carrying an extra load of coal in the sleigh this year.
NOTABLE QUOTE
“The stock market has been unstoppable under the influence of President Trump. The Dow Jones Industrial Average crossed 28,332.74 on Monday, meaning it has rallied 10,000 points, or more than 54 percent, since Trump’s election victory on November 8, 2016.” – FOX Business
“Congressman Jeff Van Drew is very popular in our great and very united Republican Party. It was a tribute to him that he was able to win his heavily Republican district as a Democrat. People like that are not easily replaceable!” – President Donald Trump