Khajiit's ranting and raving.

Tyler Matthew Johns, 22 years old. Not Hispanic, Latino, or black. An inbred-looking, white All-American man who fired his gun into another car because he couldn't control his road rage. His victim was an 11 year old little boy, shot in the head while riding in the backseat of his stepfather's car on his way to school.

Remember this face the next time someone tells you that it's the minorities who are responsible for all the crime in this country.

I go to get myself some leftovers and all that's left is noodles and veggies. My kid had ate both her share of the chicken and mine.

And what does she say in regards to eating ALL of the chicken?

In my search, I came across this record of a newspaper article from Nov. 26, 1862, describing the draft for the Civil War at the time and in particular the Belgian immigrants' response to being drafted.

It goes on to list the names of those who were drafted and in that list is the name of my Grandfather's great-grandfather.

Zoom in to read.

Presidential reorganization authority is a term used to refer to a major statutory power that has sometimes been temporarily extended by the United States Congress to the President of the United States. It permits the president to divide, consolidate, abolish, or create agencies of the U.S. federal government by presidential directive, subject to limited legislative oversight. First granted in 1932, presidential reorganization authority has been extended to nine presidents on 16 separate occasions. As of 2024, it was most recently granted to Ronald Reagan.

Customarily, it is Congress that creates, divides, consolidates, or abolishes government agencies, including choosing who heads these agencies.

In 2018 however, there was introduced, but never passed, the Reforming Government Act which would have began "the legislative process for the Trump administration to implement the proposals the White House unveiled [that] summer in its reorganization plan, which included 32 distinct recommendations for reshaping an array of federal agencies."

However, this act was really just the presidential reorganization authority with extra steps as it wouldn't grant the White House carte blanche to start implementing Trump's proposed reforms. Instead, everything would have had to go through Congress for consideration and would require bipartisan support. Since Trump lost the 2020 election, this proposed act was forgotten about.

But why am I bringing all of this up?

DOGE was created by reorganizing and renaming an entity of the Executive Office of the President, the US Digital Service. This was all done by executive order, completely skipping over Congress.

Now Trump has created, in the Executive Office of the President, the White House Faith Office. Again, skipping over Congress by issuing an executive order and hand picking his choice to lead the office.

But he hasn't been granted presidential reorganization authority. So, what power does he have to reorganize departments, appoint department heads, and create entirely new offices without the approval of Congress?

Executive Order? If Obama had done this, Congress would have blocked him within the hour. Any attempts to call him out on his abuse of power are quickly quieted.

But the job I went to wasn't much better. On the surface, it was good. Pay was good. But the boss was taking advantage of their workers and breaking labor laws. They claimed we were independent contractors, but I couldn't set my own pay or my own hours. When I took the job, I agreed to a certain pay amount, but I didn't make close to that amount. There were weeks I worked 70+ hours, but they never paid me a cent of overtime.

So, onto my next job. Less stress, but I had a 90-day probationary period. I took this before the start of the holidays, but they listed it on Indeed as a full-time job. A week before my probationary period would be over, and they'd have to give me my pay raise, they call me into the office. I'm not a good fit for the company, and they are letting me go.

Now, I'm back to working retail, this time as a merchandiser/vendor. It's not full-time hours, but there's plenty of opportunity for overtime, travel expenses, and per diem pay. I can offset the hours with gig work if need be or pick up a second job.

The Trump Administration is also looking at potentially taking land away from the Alaska Natives.

From section 16 of Unleashing Alaska's Extraordinary Resource Potential EO

immediately review all Department of the Interior guidance regarding the taking of Alaska Native lands into trust and all Public Land Orders withdrawing lands for selection by Alaska Native Corporations to determine if any such agency action should be revoked to ensure the Department of the Interior’s actions are consistent with the Alaska Statehood Act of 1958

The bait: It's full-time, with little to no experience needed, no special licenses or certifications needed. Will train and pay for certifications (CPR, First Aid) after hiring.

First red flag: The same day you have your first and only interview, you are asked to sign the new hire documents and go through orientation. You're hired on the spot.

Second red flag: The training is supposed to be 4 days of you driving/riding around with the trainer. It gets shrunk down to 2. The training boils down to the trainer, showing you how to push buttons in an app on a tablet and watching you drive for a day and a half.

Third red flag: All the other stuff you were supposed to be trained on; they ghost you on. It never happens. No CPR or first aid training ever takes place. They never approach you about it, and every time you ask about it, they dodge the question.

The Switch: Your 90 days is coming to an end, and they'll soon have to give you the raise you are owed.

Suddenly, they call you into the office a week before your 90 days is up, and they have a list of grievances against you; complaints from customers about your attitude and your driving. You're just not a good fit for the company, and they are going to have to let you go.

But they never once brought these concerns up to you over the past two and a half months. Every time you poked your head in the office to ask if they needed anything from you, they never bothered to mention these grievances then. But a week before your 90 days is up, there's this stack of complaints against you that just suddenly appeared, and none are specific. They're all generic; bad driving, bad attitude.

It's almost as if they just needed someone to fill in during the holidays while their regular drivers took their vacations and now that the holidays are over they no longer need you and want to issue you a termination letter while you're still within your 90 "probationary" period.

I've come to realize they did this because they knew if they listed the job as temporary, they would be less likely to receive applicants.

The worst part of the entire experience, though, has been how they have tried to twist this around to make it seem like it was my fault. My driving skills were to blame, and my attitude was to blame. Never mind that I consistently went above and beyond what a normal driver would do for the customers. From throwing down traction sand to make it safer for the customers to walk out of their own front doors, to helping them walk down their own steps. Never mind that I never once crashed or totaled the vehicles or caused damage to another person's property. Other drivers have more than once in the past two and a half months. Yet somehow, they worded it so that there was somehow fault with my driving and my attitude.

Yesterday, I was driving one of the older, more outdated vans that's slated to be retired in the near future. It's not the best, but it's a "will get you from A to B" type of shitbox. The check engine light is perpetually on, the interior lights are so dim you need to use a flashlight to see with at night, and the seat belts need to be tugged on at just the right angle or you can't get them to work.

We don't normally put it on the road unless something else happened to one of the other vehicles in the fleet, and currently, two are in the shop for repairs. But every time the company does need to use the shitbox I get assigned it, and I half suspect it's some form of punishment at this point.

Well, I had this sweet older lady in my vehicle, and I was taking her home for the day. She offered me candy, and we made a pitstop at a gas station so she could buy some cigarettes where she also offered to buy me a drink. "No, thank you ma'am, I already have one." I told her, indicating the can of Rockstar that serves to refuel my insomnia diminished energy levels.

She was the only one on board by the time we neared her house. She was chattering away about how the young man who picked her up had a hard time getting out of her driveway, how he had a hard time getting turned around in the usual spot, almost hit a tree, and had to back out. It was at that time that I recalled hearing something over the radio that morning about whoever dropped off this lady had to be in one of the newer AWD or 4WD vehicles to enter her long, narrow driveway or they risk crashing into a tree or the ditch.

I told her, "I'm sorry ma'am but I will not be able to drive down your driveway today. I can help you walk up to your door."

She seemed to think that was unacceptable. She insisted that I should be able to drive up her driveway. When I told her that the vehicle I was in was too old to risk it, especially if the driver who picked her up had a difficult time in 4WD, she went from sweet old lady to batshit crazy.

She stood up and opened the door of the van while it was still rolling!

I immediately stepped on the brakes and had to tell her never to open the door on a moving vehicle! I was thankfully only going like 5 mph. I was more than willing to help her walk up to her door. But she stubbornly refused, jumped out of the van, and stormed off on her own.

I work as a public transit driver in a rural area. We are a door to door service, but we aren't a cab service because we can pick up multiple passengers heading in the same direction.

A single driver can drive a minimum 200 miles a day. Because of this, each driver is assigned a walkie to stay in communication with dispatch. However, the walkies are pretty much hot mics, the passengers can also hear everything that is said over the walkies because we aren't given any ear pieces to keep the walkie discussions between driver and dispatch only. Ear pieces would also make communication a bit more hands-free, but what do I know, I'm just a driver, and that's not the real issue of this post.

Yesterday was a particularly long day. They had me on the road for 9 hours, and I was only allowed one 10-minute break. Needless to say, when it came time for me to pick up my last passenger, I was cranky and hangry.

Each vehicle is assigned a tablet, and on those tablets, we can see each passenger we have to pick up along with their form of payment. This last one said he was paying with a physical punch card. The company had moved away from the physical punch card system long ago in favor of electronic payments. I've picked this passenger up before, and each time dispatch would tell me to just give him a ride. Last time, his ride was a 20-mile ride. For free? Cause he didn't have a physical punch card on him, so that ride was free, right?

Well, this time, I walkied to dispatch that his ride was again put in as a physical punch card, and all they told me was, "Thank you for letting us know, proceed with the ride." I'm thinking, everyone else has to pay for their rides, people who make way less money has to pay for their rides, and if they put their ride in as a physical punch card dispatch accuses them of lying because they just didn't have enough money in their account. But this guy who quite literally lives in a mini mansion on a lake can just keep getting free rides?! So, I ask, "Are we just going to keep giving him free rides?"

Apparently, he has an "agency" account, and he chooses to schedule his rides in the app. Then they have to go behind him later and manually bill his agency account.

There is this guy at my job who seems determined to set the record for the world's longest adult child temper tantrum. Every time I hear him on the walkie, he's having a meltdown about something.

Now, I was out of work for a couple of days because I broke three ribs. When I walked into the garage today, there was a busted side mirror sitting on the work bench. What happened there?

The adult baby threw a tantrum yesterday because he was assigned the older RWD van and not the new AWD van. He wanted to drive the new AWD van. He threw such a tantrum until he was reassigned the new AWD van.

Then, while he was out driving it, he slid out in a customer's driveway, hit a tree, and completely knocked the driver side mirror off the van.

I work as a rural transit driver. It's a form of paratransit; we pick people up and take them to where they need to go.

Recently, it's been unseasonably warm and rainy for December, leading to extremely icy conditions on the side roads.

That was also the condition of the roads on Saturday morning when I arrived at an apartment building to pick up a passenger. The parking lot of this apartment building sloped down toward the street. The building owner/manager apparently hadn't seemed to bother with any kind of winter maintenance. Their negligence and the unseasonably rainly winter conditions created a sheer icy downward slope for their parking lot.

In my attempt to provide excellent customer service, I always back the van up as close to the door as I safely can. That morning, my passenger told me they couldn't get the van door open as they were afraid they might fall cause it was icy over there. I told them to wait and I would help them. However, as soon as I stepped out of the van, I slipped and fell. I hadn't seen the patch of ice below my driver door. But that's OK, cause we keep traction sand in the vans. I could just throw some down, and we could be on our way. But after I got to my feet and looked around a little more at the very dimly lit parking lot, I saw the extent of the building owner's negligence. I was parked in the middle of what amounted to half a parking lot of sheer ice. I couldn't get around to the other side of my van cause that would mean trying to walk up the icy slope. So, I had to get back in my van and try getting to our emergency supplies through the back. But as soon as I tried getting back into the van, I fell on the ice again, and I heard my ribs CRACK. For what felt like a good minute, all I could do was lay there on the ice in blinding pain.

My passenger was offering to call somebody but I told her to stay back. The last thing we needed was for her to fall, too. All I needed was to pull myself up into the driver seat and I could reach my walkie. That's what I did, too. After I willed myself to move through the pain, I pulled myself up into my driver seat. Forget the traction sand. I backed the van up onto the landlord's grass so my passenger could safely board from there, and we could be on our way.

If the landlord is too cheap for basic winter maintenance of his properties, he can deal with having tire tracks in his grass.