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President Trump has fired the acting chairman and the general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board. This action reduces the five-member board to two members and prevents rulemaking and enforcement action until replacements are found.

The dismissal of General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo was expected. When Joe Biden was inaugurated, he demolished decades of tradition by immediately firing Trump-appointed General Counsel Peter Robb. So, #NewRules.

Abruzzo, who served as the NLRB's chief prosecutor, pushed an agenda that encouraged hyper-unionization. Her favorite theory was the "joint employer" rule, which would have, for example, made every McDonald's employee an employee of the parent corporation, not the franchisee, for labor law purposes. Fortunately, that rule was struck down by a federal court. //

Don't be shocked if, at some point, Trump relents and reappoints her. I think this action's purpose was to freeze the NLRB and prevent any of Biden's plans from going forward while giving him time to install his own chairman and majority. //

Once Independent
4 minutes ago
I would like to point out that the Supreme Court has time and time again stated that no LEGISLATIVE boundaries can prevent the President from carrying out EXECUTIVE actions.

Badgering Americans with the false claim that America was ‘founded’ by immigrants creates the idea that she is prohibited from protecting her sovereignty out of fear of being ‘un-American.’ //

On Sunday, CBS News’ Margaret Brennan tried to get one over on Vice President J.D. Vance, badgering him about immigration and claiming “this is a country founded by immigrants.” But this narrative isn’t just inaccurate, it’s a calculated lie intentionally pushed to justify radical open border policies that threaten to dismantle the very country our Founders built.

Vance held his own, refuting the baseless claim by noting the country was founded “by some immigrants and some settlers” and that such a founding is not a “get-out-of-jail” free card for having the “dumbest immigration policy in the world.”

And Vance is right.

Britain began establishing the 13 original colonies in the early 1600’s. Over the next century or so, hundreds of thousands of Brits moved to the British colonies that were established by settlers — not immigrants. There was no “nation” being immigrated to by the first settlers. //

“But what about the Native Americans? They were nations!” some may contend. But they were not. They were tribal clans. Clans are peoples, but not nations (and to boot, Native Americans are believed to have come from Asia before crossing the Bering land bridge and making their way to the present-day United States).

Yet the left will repeat the claim that America was “founded” by immigrants to serve one purpose: to erase the country’s unique identity and justify endless immigration. If we are truly a nation “founded” by immigrants, then logic would follow it would be wholly un-American to want to control mass immigration (both legal and illegal) since our inception was a result of such immigration.

But America was never just a multicultural experiment that began with and requires an endless influx of immigrants (both legal and illegal) to sustain itself. The settlers were not a hodge-podge of random cultures and religions and languages and customs. America was founded by Anglo Protestants who pulled ideas of liberty and independence from Anglo-liberalism, which grounded itself in the idea of equality, freedom, and government controlled by the people (it was most commonly associated with thinkers like John Locke). These settlers forged a new nation, instituted customs, traditions, and a national identity.

And our Founders understood the importance of a national identity, with Thomas Jefferson writing in 1776 that while he is “for extending the right of suffrage (or in other words the right of a citizen) to all who had a permanent intention of living in the country … Whoever intends to live in a country must wish that country well, and has a natural right of assisting in the preservation of it.”

In simpler terms, assimilation was a requirement of anyone coming to America. //

But if America is really just a “nation of immigrants,” then what does it mean to be “American?”

Well, nothing. If simply being born here or moving here qualifies someone as “American,” then “American” ceases to be a unique identity. It’s diluted to the point of meaninglessness.

Alexander Hamilton warned us in 1802 that “the safety of a republic depends essentially on the energy of a common National sentiment; on a uniformity of principles and habits; on the exception of the citizens from foreign bias, and prejudice …”

In other words, without a common identity, we’re toast. And the annual importation of millions of foreigners threatens that national identity, especially when we no longer demand complete and total assimilation.

So the short of it is: No, America was not “founded” by immigrants. But badgering Americans with the false claim that America was “founded” by immigrants (and is therefore responsible for endlessly welcoming immigrants) creates the idea that the country is prohibited from protecting its sovereignty out of fear of being “un-American.” The goal is simple: browbeat Americans into believing that America is merely an economic opportunity zone that is open to anyone from anywhere irrespective of the cost to our country.

In a Sunday night missive, the White House Office of Communications shared big news: the South American country of Colombia has succumbed to America’s demands and will not be subject to crippling sanctions unless it “fails to honor this agreement.”

Sometimes, you have to cry uncle, and it appears that Colombian President Gustavo Petro did just that after acting defiant earlier Sunday by saying his country would refuse to take back its citizens who were in America illegally.

The current president of the United States, however, is not named Joe Biden.

After realizing who he was dealing with, Petro apparently even retweeted the White House’s statement:

Yashar Ali 🐘 @yashar
·
The president of Colombia has retweeted White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s post.
Yashar Ali 🐘 @yashar
NEW

Statement from the White House on the situation in Colombia.

I do not believe we have heard from the Colombian side yet on this announcement.
10:37 PM · Jan 26, 2025

Leavitt said tariffs and financial sanctions will be paused, but visa sanctions against Colombian officials and stricter customs inspections of Colombian nationals and cargo ships ordered by Trump earlier Sunday will remain in effect “until the first planeload of Colombian deportees is successfully returned.” //

Cynical Publius @CynicalPublius
·
To fully understand just how remarkable today’s exchange with Colombia was, you need to understand how Washington DC has traditionally worked through these sorts of issues, and the different way it works now under Trump.

I’ll illustrate.

Traditional Approach:

1. Colombia announces it will not take our repatriation flights.
2. On Monday, the State Department convenes an interagency task force with DoD, NSC, DEA, INS, ICE, Commerce, Treasury and Homeland Security.
3. The task force meets for four days and develops a position paper.
4. The position paper is rejected by the Secretary of State, who is unhappy that insufficient equity considerations are built into the process.
5. The task force reconvenes a week later to redevelop three new, equity-centric courses of action and create a new position paper.
6. The process is delayed a week because Washington DC gets three inches of snow.
7. SecState approves the new position paper for interagency circulation, and considerable input is received from the heads of other departments so the task force must reconvene.
8. The original three proposed responsive courses of action are scrapped in favor of a new, fourth course of action that achieves the worst aspects of the three prior courses of action but satisfies the interagency.
9. Someone in State who disagrees leaks to the Washington Post, who writes a story about how ineffective the Presidential administration is.
10. The White House Chief of Staff sets up a session three days later to brief the President, who approves the new fourth course of action.
11. Over a month after the issue is first raised, the State Department Public Affairs Officer holds a press conference announcing that Colombia has agreed to try to send fewer criminals into the US and everyone declares victory.

Trump Approach:

1. Colombia announces it will not take our repatriation flights.
2. After a par-5 third hole where he goes one under par, Trump uses his iPhone to post on social media as to how the USA will destroy Colombia’s economy if they do not do what the USA demands.
3. By the time Trump gets to the par-4 sixth hole, Colombia’s President has agreed to repatriate all the illegal Colombians in his own plane, which he will pay for.
4. Trump finishes three under par and goes to the clubhouse for a Diet Coke where he posts a gangsta AI image of himself and the new FAFO Doctrine.
5. Winning.

See the difference? It’s called LEADERSHIP.
6:09 PM · Jan 26, 2025

anon-d9in
19 hours ago
The President of Columbia did not think through his resistance. Trump wrote The Art Of The Deal. He already planned in advance what he would if countries deny entry of their own criminals. The Columbian President's knee jerk reaction only proved he is no match for Trump and he is not a true leader. Doing his chest-pounding on X proved to be oh so embarassing. //

Bill Melugin @BillMelugin_
·
NEW: Per sources, Border Patrol recorded just 582 illegal crossings at the southern border yesterday, with not a single one of the nine sectors hitting 200.
I’ve never seen anything this low in all of my border coverage. The numbers were already flat/low in Biden’s final week,… The numbers were already flat/low in Biden’s final week, bouncing between 1,200-1,400 illegal crossings daily, but the numbers have been falling off a cliff since Trump took office.
6:03 PM · Jan 27, 2025

Bill Melugin @BillMelugin_
·
Replying to @oldmandierkop
Got to a point where we wouldn't even get the camera out for a group of 500 it was so routine.
11:53 PM · Jan 27, 2025

President Trump has ordered as many as 60 senior bureaucrats in the US Agency for International Development placed on indefinite leave for taking actions to evade his executive orders. A memo from acting USAID administrator Jason Gray says, "We have identified several actions within USAID that appear to be designed to circumvent the president’s executive orders and the mandate from the American people.“ As a result, we have placed a number of USAID employees on administrative leave with full pay and benefits until further notice while we complete our analysis of these actions.”

This action effectively shuts down most of USAID's $22.6 billion in program support. //

This review will be painful in some places, but that is a small price to pay for stamping out the "I know better" ethos so present in the senior executive and foreign service. //

Locked and Loaded
2 hours ago
“This is a huge morale hit,” said a former senior Trump administration official who was also told of the move. “This is the leadership of the agency. This is like taking out all the generals. I don't know what they hope to accomplish by it.”

And that's why you are a former Trump administration official. //

SC Patriot EzraTank
2 hours ago
Administrative Leave is the first step in firing for cause. If the investigation confirms willful disobedience of lawful directives from the President they'll be terminated for cause, meaning they can't be rehired elsewhere in the Federal Government and it isn't going to look good on their resume. Diligently following the administrative process steps for termination will ensure they cannot later file a wrongful termination lawsuit or claim an EEOC action, protecting the American taxpayer further.

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Trump's US Attorney for the District of Columbia quickly responded:

The Court entered an Order dated January 24, 2025 Amending Conditions of Release (ECF 940). The defendants, however, are no longer subject to the terms of supervised release and probation, as the Executive Order "commute(d) the sentences" of these defendants. As the terms of supervised release and probation are included in the "sentences" of the defendants, the Court may not modify the terms of supervised release; the term is no longer active by effect of the Executive Order. See United States v. Haymond, 588 U.S. 634, 648 (2019) (Supreme Court has acknowledged "that an accused's final sentence includes any supervised release sentence he may receive" and therefore "supervised release punishments arise from and are treat[ ed] as part of the penalty for the initial offense") (cleaned up)).

The United States hereby indicates that the Order must be vacated. //

It made clear that the executive branch did not agree with Mehta's interpretation and would not play any role in enforcing it.

This put Mehta in the embarrassing position of standing his ground and being made a laughing stock or backing down and trying to save a little bit of dignity. He chose the latter.

Lunar exploration is undergoing a renaissance. Dozens of missions, organized by multiple space agencies—and increasingly by commercial companies—are set to visit the Moon by the end of this decade. Most of these will involve small robotic spacecraft, but NASA’s ambitious Artemis program aims to return humans to the lunar surface by the middle of the decade.

There are various reasons for all this activity, including geopolitical posturing and the search for lunar resources, such as water-ice at the lunar poles, which can be extracted and turned into hydrogen and oxygen propellant for rockets. However, science is also sure to be a major beneficiary.

The Moon still has much to tell us about the origin and evolution of the Solar System. It also has scientific value as a platform for observational astronomy. //

Several types of astronomy would benefit. The most obvious is radio astronomy, which can be conducted from the side of the Moon that always faces away from Earth—the far side.

The lunar far side is permanently shielded from the radio signals generated by humans on Earth. During the lunar night, it is also protected from the Sun. These characteristics make it probably the most “radio-quiet” location in the whole solar system, as no other planet or moon has a side that permanently faces away from the Earth. It is, therefore, ideally suited for radio astronomy. //

At that time, most of the matter in the Universe, excluding the mysterious dark matter, was in the form of neutral hydrogen atoms. These emit and absorb radiation with a characteristic wavelength of 21 cm. Radio astronomers have been using this property to study hydrogen clouds in our own galaxy—the Milky Way—since the 1950s.

Because the Universe is constantly expanding, the 21 cm signal generated by hydrogen in the early Universe has been shifted to much longer wavelengths. As a result, hydrogen from the cosmic “dark ages” will appear to us with wavelengths greater than 10 m. The lunar far side may be the only place where we can study this. //

Moreover, there are craters at the lunar poles that receive no sunlight. Telescopes that observe the Universe at infrared wavelengths are very sensitive to heat and therefore have to operate at low temperatures. JWST, for example, needs a huge sun shield to protect it from the sun’s rays. On the Moon, a natural crater rim could provide this shielding for free. //

But there is also a tension here: human activities on the lunar far side may create unwanted radio interference, and plans to extract water-ice from shadowed craters might make it difficult for those same craters to be used for astronomy. As my colleagues and I recently argued, we will need to ensure that lunar locations that are uniquely valuable for astronomy are protected in this new age of lunar exploration.

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An ironclad law of economics regarding employment is this: To be retained, an employee must return value to the employer in excess of the cost of employment. Minimum wage laws place an artificial floor on the cost of employment; these laws not only price the entry-level job-seekers out of the market but they force employers to seek alternatives to hiring people.

Now, Chick-fil-A, while not citing any minimum wage laws as a reason for implementing this, has introduced the automated lemon squeezer for their vaunted lemonade prep. //

These burger bots and lemon squeezers will price the low-skilled worker out of a range of jobs. True, to some extent, the move to automation is inevitable; automation increases efficiency, which every business seeks. Even so, there was a time, not all that long ago, when many young people's introduction to the workplace as entry-level workers was a job in a fast-food joint. Increasingly, automation, in order-taking and food preparation, is taking over from those young people and depriving them of valuable experience. Minimum wage law accelerates the loss of these entry-level jobs.

This is why, whenever a minimum wage law is proposed, the question to ask is, "Do you want more burger bots? Because this is how you get more burger bots.". //

DarthCY
17 days ago
The minimum wage is there for unions to have something to raise their wages from. That is why Dims covet it so much. Anybody who thinks you need to raise it to be able to sustain yourself off of a single minimum wage job is economically illiterate. //

Steamfish jacktate82
17 days ago
Keypunch operators, highway toll takers, telephone operators, uniformed gas station attendants, and newspaper delivery boys have all joined the jobs you mentioned as positions filled by humans in my youth but vanishing or gone today. The rise of AI will undoubtably be adding to that list soon.

The wailing and gnashing of teeth happening from the left, even that from people like the weeping Selena Gomez, is all performative. None of these people said a word when women and girls were sold into sex slavery by the criminal element flooding across the border. None of them spoke a word while the fentanyl coming across the border with drug smugglers killed a quarter of a million Americans. They were all silent as women were raped and murdered like Laken Riley, or little girls like Jocelyn Nungary.

But only now that these repatriations have started do they feel the emotional weight of the moment? When their loved ones are sick, do they smile at the infection and curse and scream at the doctor when he administers a treatment to stop it? Our people are literally suffering and dying, and now that we're making the odds of comfort and survivability greater, they're angry?

Who is the cruel one in the room again?

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MACKIE: For me, Captain America represents a lot of different things & I don’t think the term, you know, "America" should be one of those representations. It’s about a man who keeps his word, who has honor, dignity, and integrity. Someone who is trustworthy and dependable.

I've never been much of a comic fan so far be it from me to offer a correction here, but I'm pretty sure that "Captain America" does represent America. I mean, that seems to be the entire point, from the character's backstory to, you know, his name. //

Now ask yourself if any of this is going to help dig Disney out of its massive hole. Mackie's commentary wasn't even ambiguous. He's clearly suggesting that America as a nation does not exhibit honor, dignity, and integrity. Whatever one may think about that in a modern context, "Captain America" as a character is literally a World War II super-soldier whose entire existence centers on representing America.

Disney desperately needs "Captain America: Brave New World" to be a success. Instead, this may ensure it's a box office failure.

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Our Birthright as Americans has always been known as the American Dream.

The American Dream: No matter what color you are, regardless of your social class, your level of education, or how much money you may or may not have, you can always improve your life if you work hard and keep at it. You can attain the level of success that you want. There are no limits. That's the American Dream. That's why people from all over the world want to come here and that's why they always have. The law treats us all the same, and society encourages our individuality as we try to rise out of our current situation to attain a better one. Maybe it would be more accurate if I said that is the Promise of the American Dream. That's what our founders sought to establish when they codified the values of a brand-new country.

I think MLK Jr saw this pretty clearly when he crafted his I Have a Dream speech:

When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men — yes, Black men as well as white men — would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today. //

And merit was usually at the center of many of these values. If you could perform, you could be rewarded by the natural outcomes of your actions. If you didn't perform, you kind of stayed where you were. Today's culture doesn't always reward merit. In fact, sometimes, it holds you back if you're competing in the job market. Or in academics. Identity carries more weight and often excludes one from advancement. Certain boxes that once required checking, like experience, accuracy, performance, and timeliness, have now frequently been replaced by race, sexuality, and political orientation. See Sam Brinton, see Kamala Harris, see Karine Jean-Pierre. //

How did we get like this in just a few short years? Today, you don't have to Google very far to find that values like merit or timeliness or individuality are now considered relics of whiteness and misogyny. This mindset exists in the corporate world now, which is sad, but it's also made significant headway into the military, which is dangerous and reckless. //

So again, how did we ever get to the point where presumably normal people would undermine the mission of their job to countermand it and replace it with the opposite? How did it become commonplace, if not very nearly mainstream, to undermine long-treasured American values of meritocracy (especially critical in the military) for the sake of a bunch of DEI/Utopian Unicorn Dust? And by extension, in other critical roles such as nuclear waste management or medical training or airline pilot proficiency? None of these make any practical sense. Who cares if your pilot is gay if he forgets to lower the flaps on takeoff or if your surgeon is black when he forgets which side your appendix is on? //

But I bring this up because it seems that popular culture has now become saturated with the message to the degree that it thinks this is the sum total of the American experience, and therefore, America is bad. Possibly, this has led to a general belief that we are a racist country now and beyond redemption. How did that get traction? Collective guilt, I suppose. Which, of course, when the glass gets full enough, leads to collective atonement. And when you hit that stage, you feel justified if not duty bound to usurp your once-held convictions that merit is good. Even racism can be good if pointed at the right people, and sometimes it is necessary to give up your birthright if it means adopting a new birthright where people are advanced because they are righteous in their color, sexuality, or politics and therefore oppressed.

I don't know. Maybe I have a point here, maybe not. But still, the question nags at me. How did we give up our core American values so quickly and so easily? I admit that I am still vexed.

Laocoön of Troy Steprock
3 hours ago
We've done this before...

From March 16, 1916, to February 14, 1917, an expeditionary force of more than fourteen thousand regular army troops under the command of Brig. Gen. John J. "Black Jack" Pershing operated in northern Mexico "in pursuit of Villa with the single objective of capturing him and putting a stop to his forays. Another 140,000 regular army and National Guard troops patrolled the vast border between Mexico and the United States to discourage further raids. //

anon-pkys Laocoön of Troy
36 minutes ago
Back in the 1840s the U.S. declared war on Mexico. We had two small armies that attacked, one from the north across the border, and one by sea from Vera Cruz. Our troops, although greatly out numbered kicked A$$ and took names in several battles with the Mexican Army. We conquered and held Mexico City in a battle in which we were outnumbered. Texas Rangers served as Scouts for the Army and as shock troops. They were hated and feared by the Mexicans. To this day the Mexican people have no love for the Texas Rangers. During the 1870s-80s the Texas Rangers guarded much of the border with Mexico. They were not afraid to go into Mexico after Mexican rustlers.