We did not know why Miles was carrying am acetylene torch to the morning meeting, but things unfolded almost immediately. Vic produced a cartoon image that resembled our Section Leader in action.

“We need to turn up the heat on a few things. I want to ignore the Epstein noise. That is all a smokescreen about emails now 25 years old accusing the President of things the Minority Leader of the House and the President of Harvard University were doing after Epstein was convicted.”

“It is fun,” said Splash. “But I had to take a cab over to the VABC liquor store for the monthly re-supply and I got a Red Top cab with a driver whose English was a little thick. Red Top is a public service company, so I assume he had a Commercial Drivers License”

Melissa looked across the table and laughed. “CDL’s? Are you referring to the fact that California just revoked 17,000 CDL’s because the recipients were non-English speaking undocumented immigrants?”

“Not precisely,” said Splash over his mug. “The news this morning is that the problem is not just in the Golden State. Apparently the problem is national. A shortage in American drivers was fixed in the last Administration by operating Driver Mills to provide operators to fix a real shortage problem.”

“Wouldn’t that mean training unemployed Americans?” Holly looked hopeful.

“No, apparently this is part of something larger, which is to remedy the lowered birthrate by importing millions of new people who will eventually be something like US citizens even if they never filled out the paperwork or were approved for entry.” Miles adjusted the knob on his torch.

“So, this was major decision on immigration policy not made through Congress?” asked Rocket.

“Blue States have helped by curtailing Customs and Immigration from operating in their jurisdictions,” said splash gravely.

“Could that be a contributing factor on why we have 40,000 deaths in road incidents annually and 197,000 non-English speaking commercial drivers out there?”

There were grimaces arund the table. Vapor seemed startled, since he had been looking at Melissa intently. “I heard pedestrian deaths are up significantly here while they have been going down in most of the industrialized nations.”

“That’s what occurred to me on the trip to the liquor store. I had the boxes on the seat net to me in the back and noticed the light ahead was red.”

“Good thing you caught it,” said Melissa.

“Yeah,” said Splash. “I mentioned it as we went through the light. I hadn’t done that in my life. As a driver or a passenger.”

“Times are changing,” said Vapor, looking back to those at the table. “I am going to watch out in the crosswalk. And avoid anything that looks like a commercial truck.”

Copyright 2025 Vic Socotra