The Department of Government Efficiency and Elon Musk have kicked up a storm of commentary and speculation. Pair that uproar with the Trump administration’s plan to slash IRS staffing, and you get some of the most hysterical responses yet to the Trump/DOGE reforms.

Only in government does talk of doing more with less — of improving efficiency and productivity — trigger panic and outrage. In Washington, D.C., progress becomes a threat, not a goal.

Instead of whining about the DOGE’s proposed staffing cuts, politicians and pundits should demand the IRS do its actual job more efficiently. That requires systemic reform, not partisan noise.

According to multiple reports, the Trump administration plans to cut around 18,000 IRS jobs by mid-May — a 20% reduction in force expected to save taxpayers $1.4 billion in payroll and benefits next year. Of those cuts, 6,800 already came from terminated probationary employees. Another 4,700 took early retirement.

Critics didn’t wait for results. They declared it “historic,” “unprecedented,” and a sign of doom. The sun, they warned, might never rise again.

But we’ve seen this before. The world didn’t end. In fact, almost nothing changed at all.

In 2011, the IRS reported 94,709 full-time equivalent employees. By 2017 — after five years under the Obama administration — that number had dropped by more than 23%, to 72,803. The sun still rose. The sky didn’t fall.

Despite the staffing cuts, the IRS’ key performance metric — the voluntary compliance rate — barely budged. For decades, the VCR has served as the agency’s primary benchmark. It measures the percentage of taxes paid voluntarily and on time, compared to the total amount owed.

Commonly known as the “tax gap,” the VCR draws bipartisan attention. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle treat closing the gap as a fiscal priority — more compliance means more cash to spend.

Yet, through two decades of staffing shifts and budget battles, the VCR has remained remarkably stable — hovering around 84%, give or take a fraction.

Yes, adding more IRS agents might improve compliance on the margins. But staffing alone doesn’t guarantee better outcomes. What matters is how the agency sets its priorities and manages its workforce to deliver results that actually benefit taxpayers.

In 2012, the Government Accountability Office reviewed how the IRS could improve enforcement and shrink the tax gap. The GAO’s conclusion: The problem wasn’t a lack of staff. The IRS could significantly boost revenue simply by better targeting its enforcement resources.

That’s exactly what the DOGE is about: smarter management, better systems, and measurable results. The private sector achieves this through the pressure of competition. In government, such efficiency is about as rare as a unicorn.

Like every other agency the DOGE has examined, the IRS drifted from its core mission: collecting revenue and enforcing tax law. Instead of focusing on enforcement, the agency expanded into mission creep.

Trump plans to shut down the IRS Office of Civil Rights and Compliance — and for good reason. These bloated bureaucracies have become one of the most redundant features of Washington. The only thing more common than a civil rights office is a federally funded jobs training program.

And like rabbits, they just keep multiplying.

Then there is the Biden administration’s favorite: diversity, equity, and inclusion. Trump has rightly proposed shutting down DEI offices across the federal government. Hiring $200,000-a-year “senior diversity and inclusion specialists” at the IRS won’t close the tax gap — not by a long shot.

In the high-tech 21st century, the IRS still struggles with basic technology.

Just weeks ago, the Treasury Department’s inspector general released a report on the IRS’ Direct File pilot program. The IRS launched the program to help taxpayers file returns from February to April 2024 — and it flopped.

Despite existing free filing options from both the private sector and the IRS, Direct File was pushed forward as one of Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass.) latest policy “experiments.” According to the inspector general, the project cost taxpayers at least $33.4 million — far more than initially disclosed.

The results were underwhelming. Only 140,803 of the 423,450 people who created Direct File accounts — just 33% — successfully submitted returns. Many of those who did lost out. The report noted that Direct File didn’t even allow eligible filers to claim their education tax credits. That’s not a minor oversight — it’s a costly failure and needs to go. Trump last week indicated he will end the program.

In just four years, Joe Biden added more than 20,000 full-time employees to the IRS. Did anyone notice the agency working better? Didn’t think so.

Instead of whining about the DOGE’s proposed staffing cuts, politicians and pundits should demand the IRS do its actual job — collect revenue and enforce the law — more efficiently. That requires systemic reform, not partisan noise.

The Trump administration gets it. It’s time the rest of Washington caught up.

​Irs, Joe biden, Donald trump, Doge, Job cuts, Efficiency, Direct file, Taxes, Voluntary compliance, Big government, Administrative state, Taxpayers, Government waste, Diversity equity and inclusion, Elizabeth warren, Elon musk, Opinion & analysis 

“Narcissism” is a word that gets thrown around a lot. Usually by leftists trying to be morally righteous. “Did you hear about Elon Musk? He’s such a narcissist,” said the narcissist.

We should the consider the possibility that we rejected this harshly utilitarian view of children for another extreme.

But if we’re actually being serious about the clinical term known as “narcissism,” then the obvious answer is that we’re all narcissists. Narcissism is something every human being is born with. In biblical terms, it’s simply our natural fallen state.

If you can’t admit to yourself that you’re a narcissist, then you’re just in denial. It’s natural for us to be self-absorbed and even inconsiderate of others. We’re born sinners. To admit it truly is the first step to overcoming it.

Mini adults

A bigger problem is that narcissism has become the foundation of our culture. Why is that? In college I took a class called “Media and Children,” which explored how art has shaped and developed humanity’s perception of itself and how that perception gets redirected back in the way society operates.

A large part of the class dealt with the rise of Madonna and Child imagery in medieval and early Renaissance times. Prior to this, representations of children occurred mainly in paintings depicting peasants toiling in the fields. These images offer little differentiation between adults and children; the latter are simply smaller versions of the other workers.

This wasn’t just an artistic decision. It reflected how children were perceived in society: as laborers in training, future functionaries, or simply smaller humans not yet fully formed. There was no concept of “childhood” as a sacred, protected phase.

Divine reverence

The Madonna and Child changed this. The image of Mary and Jesus created a deeply emotional, almost divine reverence for both motherhood and childhood. Over time, this helped usher in a more sentimental, inward-facing culture: less about community utility and more about the sanctity of the individual.

The Madonna and Child shifted society’s focus from selfless and communal rural organization to an inward focus on individualism. The mother and child dyad began to be seen as a separate, almost holy entity, one that had to be protected, cherished, and nurtured.

We built entire systems around this idea. The standardized graded schooling system actually sprang out of this mode of thinking, as children were seen as too innocent to be given “forbidden” adult knowledge all at once, so it needed to be spoon-fed in gradual waves, lest the child be corrupted. No longer an apprentice or a tool in the economic machinery, the child needed to be eased into reality, slowly and carefully.

Born narcissists

This isn’t to say the earlier model of tossing kids into the fields at age five was ideal. But we should the consider the possibility that we rejected this harshly utilitarian view of children for another extreme: the child as a morally pure, emotionally fragile being whose wants and needs should take precedence at all times.

This, I think, is where narcissism crept in. As I said before, all humans are born narcissists. Just look at any baby or toddler. They act on base instinct. They cry when they’re uncomfortable, reach for whatever satisfies them, and have no concept of the needs or feelings of others. It’s not until a parent is there to correct their behavior and teach them the concepts of altruism and the consideration of others that the child learns to be less selfish.

But what happens when a culture turns that natural narcissism into a virtue? When mothers are encouraged to reinforce it instead of correct it? When children grow up being told they are special, sacred, and central to everything? You get a society that caters to emotion before reason. A culture where the self is the most important thing, where discomfort is oppression and challenge is violence.

Out of the picture

Liberalism, in this light, isn’t just a political theory. It’s an emotional framework built around the sacredness of the individual. And that framework, I would argue, finds its roots in the religious and cultural iconography of the Madonna and Child.

Notice who is missing from these “family pictures”: the father. In the archetypal Madonna and Child image, Joseph, if present at all, remains in the background. He’s often off to the side, passive, irrelevant. He’s eternally stuck in the old world, still out in the fields, still laboring, still part of that feudal model that we’ve supposedly “evolved” beyond.

The image of the father gets erased from the central narrative, and that erasure eventually spills out into real life. The father becomes secondary. The mother becomes the entire emotional and moral universe of the child. And from there, society slowly restructures itself around this new holy dyad: mother and child at the center, everything else in orbit.

Liberal democracy didn’t just evolve from Enlightenment rationalism and the French Revolution. It was primed much earlier by this cultural shift toward the sacralization of the individual mother and child.

And it’s not that we went from bad to good, or good to bad. We simply shifted. From a collectivist, utilitarian (and dare I say, monarchical) model to one that centers emotional connection and personal uniqueness. The problem is that when you start to worship the individual (especially the unformed, undisciplined, and coddled individual), you risk institutionalizing narcissism. And now we’re living with the consequences.

​Art, Art history, Madonna and child, Liberalism, Christianity, Narcissism, Culture 

U.S. civil-military relations rest on a fundamental contradiction. The United States operates as a liberal society — one designed to protect individual rights and liberty. Yet the military, which defends that society, cannot function under the same liberal principles.

To succeed, the military must maintain effectiveness, which demands a distinct and separate ethos. Liberal norms do not translate to battlefield realities.

Trust and cohesion — core elements of military success — cannot survive a system that prioritizes categories over character.

Civil society may tolerate — or even celebrate — behaviors the military must prohibit. The armed forces uphold virtues many civilians regard as harsh or barbaric, but those values serve a purpose. The military remains one of the few professions where issuing a direct order to “go die” is not only possible but sometimes necessary.

Transmutation ‘on steroids’

In his classic 1957 study, “The Soldier and the State,” Samuel Huntington defined a central tension in American civil-military relations: the clash between the military’s functional imperative — to fight and win wars — and the social imperative, the prevailing ideologies and institutions of civilian society.

Huntington broke down the societal imperative into two main components. First, the U.S. constitutional framework that governs politics and military oversight. Second, the dominant political ideology, which he called liberalism — “the gravest domestic threat to American military security” because of its deep anti-military bias.

Huntington warned that over time, the societal imperative would eclipse the functional one. Civilian ideology, not military necessity, would shape the armed forces, weakening the virtues essential for combat effectiveness.

He also identified two outcomes of this liberal pressure. In peacetime, liberalism pushed for “extirpation” — shrinking or abolishing military power altogether. In times of danger, it favored “transmutation” — reshaping the military in its own image by erasing the traits that make it distinctly martial.

Today, the ideology of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” has taken that process to an extreme. This isn’t just transmutation. It’s transmutation on steroids.

Identity politics destroys unity

The military began its embrace of DEI during Barack Obama’s administration, following the 2011 report “From Representation to Inclusion: Diversity Leadership for the 21st Century” by the Military Leadership Diversity Commission. That report shifted military priorities away from the functional imperative — effectiveness rooted in merit, performance, and mission — toward the societal imperative, with “diversity, equity, and inclusion” elevated as the new ideal.

In practice, the Department of Defense replaced equal opportunity with “equity,” enforcing outcome-based preferences that favor certain demographic groups over others. Military leaders declared “diversity a strategic goal,” sidelining effectiveness as the primary objective.

This shift has fractured the ranks. By treating race and sex as markers of justice instead of emphasizing individual excellence, DEI pushes identity politics into the chain of command. That approach divides more than it unites. Trust and cohesion — core elements of military success — cannot survive a system that prioritizes categories over character.

The military depends on unity to function. DEI erodes that unity. As a governing ethos, it has proven deeply destructive — undermining the very effectiveness the armed forces exist to deliver.

The rise of DEI has created a generation of senior officers who place ideological conformity above military effectiveness. Former Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley spoke openly about “white rage” and promoted critical race theory. His successor, Air Force Gen. CQ Brown, and former Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Lisa Franchetti followed the same script — championing diversity for its own sake while sidelining readiness and merit.

Restoring the mission

The Trump administration aims to reverse course and re-establish the military’s functional imperative as its central mission. It has issued executive orders with three clear goals: restore meritocracy and nondiscrimination in place of equity quotas; define sex in commonsense terms and respect biological differences; and eliminate divisive programs rooted in critical race theory.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth now carries the mandate to restore the military’s traditional ethos — and put war fighting, not social engineering, back at the heart of military policy.

Standing in opposition to a president elected to root out DEI from the military is a generation of flag and general officers molded by an era of “woke” liberalism. These leaders embraced the demand that the military mirror the politics and ideologies of civil society. Many now cling to the dangerous fiction that the military can remain professional and effective while operating under the dictates of identity politics.

Officers once defended the military’s traditional ethos against efforts to civilianize the chain of command. Today, many senior leaders treat DEI as essential to military identity — and believe they can ignore the lawful orders of the commander in chief. That isn’t leadership. It’s insubordination, plain and simple.

The Trump administration has made clear its intent: restore a professional, apolitical military ethos and rebuild public trust in an institution weakened by a decade of ideological drift. This return to principle marks the path toward healthier civil-military relations — where the armed forces serve their proper purpose: protecting and defending the United States.

​Opinion & analysis, Pentagon, Diversity equity inclusion, Military readiness, Pete hegseth, Donald trump, Mark milley, White rage, Critical race theory, Political correctness, Transgender agenda, Samuel huntington, Civil-military relations, Anti-military, National security, China, Dei, Woke military 

Democrats and others on the left melted down on Thursday after the official website for President Donald Trump began selling merchandise for a possible 2028 campaign.

The president is prohibited by the Constitution from being president more than two four-year terms because of the 22nd Amendment. Trump’s allies have hinted that his supporters may mount a campaign to undo the rule in order to allow him to serve for a third term.

‘Soft launching a fascist dictatorship is insane.’

One shirt reads “TRUMP 2028” with the text “(Rewrite the Rules)” and sells for $36. The president’s son Eric Trump posted a link to the store on his official social media account. A red 2028 hat sold for $50.

Democrats pounced on the news to criticize Trump.

“Trump’s organization is out here selling Trump 2028 hats like the Constitution is just a suggestion. Reminder: The 22nd Amendment exists. You can’t run for a third term,” responded Democrat Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas.

“Everyone will say Trump is just joking. Or that he is trolling. That may be true. But with each ‘joke’ it becomes more and more serious until we’re actually confronting a man that feels emboldened to try to run for a third term,” replied Jessica Tarlov, a liberal commentator on Fox News.

“So Americans are just gonna sit idly by and let a dictator take control? actual spineless country,” said another detractor.

“Soft launching a fascist dictatorship is insane,” read another critic’s missive.

Others countered that Democrats could renominate former President Barack Obama to run for a third term if Trump followed through on his threat.

“If Trump wants to run for a third term, President Obama should consider coming out of retirement and doing the same. Obama would win 50/50 states and completely humiliate the Trump family,” replied liberal activist Harry Sisson.

The president said in March that he was seriously looking into the possibility of a third term, but many believed he was merely trolling his opponents on the left. In January, a Republican congressman proposed an amendment to allow Trump a third term, despite his only being in office for four days at that time.

The two-term tradition was set by George Washington, the country’s first president, but was enshrined into law after Franklin Delano Roosevelt defied the custom and was elected to serve an unprecedented four terms, although his fourth term was cut short by his death.

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​Trump 2028 hat, Trump third term, Dems freak out at trump, 22nd amendment, Politics 

A mortuary director from north Austin is accused of performing ghastly experiments on corpses, according to Texas police.

50-year-old Adeline Ngan-Binh Bui was arrested on Friday by Austin police after an investigation into reports of the experiments involving embalming fluid on corpses, with and without formaldehyde.

The embalmer said that Bui injected the arms of corpses with embalming fluid to view the progress of decomposition.

An affidavit said the arrest stemmed from information given to police by an investigator with the Texas Funeral Services Commission, the agency charged with overseeing funeral directors, embalmers, funeral businesses, and crematories.

The TFSC investigator told Austin police on April 2 that they had received a complaint from an embalmer about Capital Mortuary Services, which also operates under the name Capital Austin Mortuary and Cremation.

The embalmer said that Bui, who was the funeral director at CMS, had improperly used the embalmer’s credentials without his consent, and also documented photograph and communications evidence about supposed “experiments” on corpses.

The embalmer said that Bui injected the arms of corpses with embalming fluid to view the progress of decomposition.

The report said that when Bui was done with the experiments, she would place the severed body parts in the “crematory retort, where the body parts in their dissected and disturbed state would be cremated.”

Police surmised that she was likely committing abuse of a corpse and obtained a search warrant on April 10.

Bui allegedly admitted to ordering her employees to conduct the experiments in order to study the effect of the embalming fluid. She said she performed the studies for a medical company, but they denied any agreement unrelated to “transportation and cremation services.”

The executive director of the medical company told police that CMS would not have been authorized to conduct experiments and added that it was “unlawful for a commercial embalming establishment to use a dead human body for research or education purposes.”

Bui is charged for abuse of corpse without legal authority, a felony, and second-degree felony tampering with government records. She was booked into the Travis County Jail on Friday and bailed out the next day.

She is scheduled to appear in court on May 9.

Scenes from the case can be viewed on the KXAN-TV news video on YouTube.

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​Mortuary director experiments, Experiments on corpses, Adeline ngan-binh bui, Austin abuse of corpse, Crime 

President Donald Trump has made the Tennessee Valley Authority a key front in his America First energy agenda. With the authority to appoint and remove TVA directors, Trump hasn’t hesitated to fire those who promote globalist “green” schemes that ignore the needs of the region’s residents.

This month, Trump ousted two Biden-appointed directors, including the board’s chairman. Their offense: trying to turn the TVA into a vehicle for the radical left’s anti-carbon agenda.

The future of reliable energy across the Tennessee Valley — and much of the South — still hangs in the balance.

Trump took similar action during his first term, firing several directors, including a previous chairman, after they approved outsourcing 146 American tech jobs to foreign workers on H-1B visas.

These firings are critical to ensuring that the Tennessee Valley Authority continues to produce abundant and reliable energy for the seven states it serves.

A call for reform

Last month, Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) published a joint letter voicing their concerns about the agency’s distracted leadership. They stressed the need for the energy provider to expand nuclear projects, especially small modular reactors, which utilize existing fission technology on a smaller, more deployable scale than the massive projects of decades past.

As to the incapable leadership of the existing Tennessee Valley Authority board, the senators wrote:

As it stands now, TVA and its leadership can’t carry the weight of this moment. The presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed TVA Board of Directors lacks the talent, experience, and gravitas to meet a challenge that clearly requires visionary industrial leaders. The group looks more like a collection of political operatives than visionary industrial leaders. The current TVA board focused on the diversity of its executives ahead of job creation for hungry workers in the region it is supposed to serve.

Shortly thereafter, Trump fired two of the agency’s six current directors.

A critical purge

Trump fired Michelle Moore on March 27, followed by TVA board Chairman Joe Ritch on April 1. Both were Biden-appointed green energy enthusiasts bent on turning the Tennessee Valley Authority into a utopian solar-and-battery experiment.

Had they succeeded, the consequences for the region’s energy reliability would have been disastrous.

Moore founded and runs Groundswell, a “sustainable energy” company whose mission statement boasts a “people-centric approach to developing community solar projects.” I’m not sure what that means — but I know I’d rather depend on coal, natural gas, or nuclear power than on some feel-good solar scheme when temperatures plunge below freezing.

Ritch, originally appointed to the TVA board by President Obama, returned under Biden’s nomination to serve as chairman. In his Senate confirmation statement, Ritch promoted transitioning the agency away from its current mix of coal, nuclear, hydro, and gas toward unreliable green alternatives — convinced, somehow, that it would help the environment and boost the economy.

A historic blunder

This utopian obsession with “sustainable energy” isn’t just naïve — it’s deadly. In December 2023, a hard freeze struck the Tennessee Valley Authority’s service area. The cold snap wasn’t historically extreme, but the consequences were.

For the first time in TVA history, the agency failed to produce enough electricity to meet demand. Rolling blackouts swept the region. Why? Because the TVA lacked enough baseline reliable energy. On those near-zero nights, solar energy produced exactly zero kilowatts.

That’s the future TVA customers would face under the fantasy energy plans pushed by climate zealots like Michelle Moore and Joe Ritch: blackouts in the dead of winter and no backup.

TVA leadership has failed in other ways too — most notably by outsourcing American jobs. In 2020, CEO Jeff Lyash tried to replace over 100 U.S. tech workers with foreign nationals on H-1B visas. While gutting working-class jobs, Lyash collected nearly $8 million a year, making him the highest-paid federal employee. One longtime worker said employees were expected to train their foreign replacements before being shown the door.

Trump responded immediately. While he couldn’t fire Lyash, he could — and did — remove board members who refused to act. When the board wouldn’t fire Lyash or cut his pay, Trump fired them instead.

Soon after, Lyash ended the outsourcing plan. Following Trump’s 2024 election win, Lyash saw the writing on the wall and resigned.

Protections are still needed

The Tennessee Valley Authority remains vital to the economic strength of the upper South. Trump’s removal of Obama-Biden-era appointees has played a key role in preserving the agency’s reliability and focus. But the threat isn’t gone.

The TVA’s service states — especially Tennessee — face a serious vulnerability: Any future Democrat president could again install green energy ideologues, fire current directors, and impose Green New Deal policies. The result? An energy-starved Tennessee Valley plagued by blackouts and foolish political experiments.

Trump’s stand against the radicalization of TVA energy policy deserves recognition. His pushback has protected millions of residents from rolling blackouts and economic self-sabotage. But the fight isn’t finished.

The future of reliable energy across the Tennessee Valley — and much of the South — still hangs in the balance. The region cannot afford to treat Trump’s changes as a lasting victory.

​Donald trump, Green new deal, Tennessee valley authority, Environmentalism, Fired, Michelle moore, Joe ritch, Groundswell, Sustainable energy, Winter, Freeze, H-1b visas, Immigration, Technology, Foreign workers, 2024 presidential election, Opinion & analysis, Jeff lyash