Odds & Ends

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The “mostly peaceful” protests are back.  The farm raids out in Camarillo, California once again gave us the opportunity to see these protesters at their finest…and to see the media giving them a pass when they are not.

Here’s a video of an ICE supporter being attacked while walking to his car.

This man was probably lucky that it did not get much worse.  There must be something in the criminal code in California that allows leftists the freedom to do things like this.  This kind of behavior is encouraged by those politicians who have a D or a C after their name.

Then there was the “peaceful protester” who aimed and fired a gun at federal agents during this immigration raid in Camarillo.

CNN of all places reports that June saw a surplus of $27 billion.  A surplus?  How unusual is that?  Well, the last surplus in June was in 2017 during Trump’s first term in office.  It seems that various initiatives by this administration are having an impact.  Increasing tariff collections are part of that impact.

How about jobs which are an always important part of any economy?  Fox reported, “The latest workforce data suggests that American workers have been the main beneficiaries in the labor market amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

“The Labor Department’s jobs report for the month of June showed that the number of foreign-born workers declined by 348,000 from May—while the number of foreign-born workers has declined by more than 543,000 jobs since January.

“By contrast, the number of U.S.-born workers increased by 830,000 from May to June, and is also over 2 million higher than when the second Trump administration began in January.”

Hmm.  It seems that there are Americans who will do the jobs that illegals have been doing.  This has another effect.  It means that the people getting jobs will leave the welfare rolls.  And we won’t have to house, feed and clothe invaders once they are deported.  Sounds like a win-win situation.

Another win for the Trump administration.  How many is that now?

The US Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Trump Administration to proceed with a plan to downsize, that is reduce in force, the Department of Education.

In March, President Trump signed an executive order to begin such downsizing.

In May, a federal judge in Massachusetts blocked this effort.  The lower court judge ruled the staff cuts were so drastic they would prevent the department from carrying out duties mandated by Congress.

Just exactly what are those duties?  When the Department of Education was created, US education was among the best in the world. Since then, there has been a steady decline in the ability of our kids to do basic skills.

Where does any judge get any authority whatsoever or even knowledge enough to be able to decide and direct the number of people required to carry out any duties in the executive branch anywhere anytime?

In a Supreme Court decision on Monday, the majority have blocked that lower court ruling that stopped the Trump administration Dept of Education from riffing that agency.

The justices apparently voted 6-3 to stay the lower court ruling with, as usual, the DEI justices (gay, Latina, black) dissenting.

Now, Trump cannot eliminate the Department of Education since it was created by Congress.  However, this decision reaffirmed that the power to run federal agencies lies within the Executive branch.

Affected employees received a notice of termination for August 1st.

I wonder…how will the children learn to worship the state without the Department of Education?

A side note to the above story.  It seems that all of this “chaos” is having an effect on the real estate market.  In the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD metro area, active listings for homes for sale spiked by 64% from June 2024 and by 107% from June 2023, according to data from realtor.com.  In some places prices have declined by some 20-25%.