Millions of people have been forced to close their businesses or not go to work. Some middle class folks are going to food banks. Meanwhile the insane administrative state has decided to place a puff piece touting the State Department, the part of government that most directly caused the outbreak by bringing infected people to the United States, for doing just that, and then hiring more people.

Words come to mind. Like, “Wait”, “Why”, and “What the Hell”.

We were critical — now the State Department deserves credit – The Hill

Critical in spreading the virus? Yes you were.

President Trump had been told that nobody with the coronavirus would be flown to America.

The State Department decided to do it anyway without telling him and only made the announcement shortly after the planes landed in the United States.

According to the Washington Post, as unfriendly an outlet to the administration as there is, “Trump has since had several calls with top White House officials to say he should have been told, that it should have been his decision and that he did not agree with the decision that was made.”

If that’s infuriating, wait until you read the Hill editorial. 

Public Service Recognition Week, celebrated this past week, marked the 36th year for this nod in the direction of those who choose to spend their careers serving the public rather than making a profit for themselves or others. 

Government employees don’t make money? The average salary at the State Department is $103,362 a year.

Thank you glorious public service heroes. Please go work at the fire department to perform an actual public service for a fraction of that salary.

So as we close it out, it is fitting to recognize the extraordinary lengths to which so many of our public servants have gone in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis. We wrote in early April about how scores of people aspiring to join the Foreign Service were promised employment in the State Department only to be told days before they were to report that their hiring was delayed indefinitely. 

After some involved bureaucratic gymnastics, they now have been informed that they can begin their careers as Foreign Service officers and specialists later this month. To do this will require them to have their oath of office administered virtually and their initial training begun online, neither of which has been done before. Overcoming the hurdles to make this possible required imagination and enormous effort at State, as well as new flexibilities granted by the Office of Personnel Management and the Office of Management and Budget. 

Behold the extraordinary lengths to which our public servants have gone to… to hire more public servants while bypassing their conventional training.

Some heroes wear capes. Other heroes with OPM figure out ways to virtually train people in the diplomatic corps so that they too can undermine our country.

This purple prose would be infuriating enough in a regular year, but a mostly useless and corrosive arm of the government applauding itself for expanding its own ranks at a time when so many people have been forced out of work because they were deemed non-essential is infuriating on levels previously reserved for pill bottles that can’t be opened.

In addition to those who soon will join the Foreign Service, the department has enabled a number of civil service employees to be brought onboard.

And they say that there are no more heroes.