Three generations of peace

A couple smaller items.

Jeff Stein, a reporter on policy and taxes at The Washington Post tweeted:

Sources: Government watchdog estimates IRS needs 12-18 months to recover from shutdown.

IRS faces:
-- 5 million unopened pieces of mail
-- Massive (precise #s unknown) flight of IT personnel to private sector
-- Need to hire 8K workers, train 2K more

Adriana Grande Strategy responded:

Losing over 100 IT workers (if lost at ~25/week) in any organization is a major problem. Losing over 100 IT workers in a federal agency, hampered by glacial hiring speeds, is a catastrophe.

Matthias Bergmann of Hamburg, Germany starts off a long Twitter thread talking about his grandparents. One grandfather stayed an avid Nazi until he died in the early 1990s. Another grandfather was broken by experiences on the Eastern Front. A grandmother’s apartment received a direct hit by bombs three times. His parents met protesting Nazis. He and his siblings were evacuated four times because of found WWII bombs. They were encouraged to see the world and his best friend is a Jew.

A united Europe is our legacy. The EU is a guarantee of peace and prosperity, not an economic project.

Seeing my father play with my nephew I am witnessing the first three consecutive generations of Germans living in uninterrupted peace. Ever. Nobody is going to endanger that unopposed.

In addition: when the Berlin Eall came down in 1989 my parents woke all the kids. We sat in front of the TV sipping our first Champagne and looking at our parents cry. My father told me that this is the day WWII truly ended. And our European friends made it possible.