I don’t know if you’re old enough to remember the musical Brigadoon. It was about a Scottish village that disappears in the mists and only reappears once every hundred years. The District of Columbia and its federal components often remind me of that. On a local level (perhaps a tradition from pre-air conditioning days), the place is somnolent for all practical purposes in the summer and even through much of the spring. Then, just before Thanksgiving, the courts suddenly schedule hearings on cases that have been moldering for months in the clerks’ offices, and Congress starts to hustle to get a continuing resolution -- to cover what should have been resolved months earlier -- before the Christmas recess. Past the miasma of the damp, hot weather, the city once again is animated.

One hundred years ago, Republican Calvin Coolidge was serving out his first term in office. He was known for being anti-corruption, a proponent of small government and racial equality, and held office during the “Roaring Twenties,” a period of vast economic growth.

One hundred years later, the nation overwhelmingly elected Donald J. Trump for a second term of office -- broken only by a suspicious election of Joe Biden, who has proved a disaster in every conceivable sense. Biden’s running mate sought the presidency upon Biden’s decision (was it really his?) not to seek a second term, and she was roundly beaten at the polls.

Like Coolidge, Trump campaigned on a marked reduction of the federal government and fiscal restraint. To aid him in reducing the size of the federal government and rein in unnecessary spending, he has tapped two very successful entrepreneurs -- Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk -- to create DOGE, a panel to examine government operations and recommend changes and needed cuts. This week, the same press that has consistently lied about Trump confected a split between the DOGE team and Trump. The issue is H-1B visas, temporary visas offered to those with needed skills. Those imagining a split say that Vivek and Elon’s support for the program conflicts with Trump’s America First policies. It doesn’t. Yes, their contentions rile the fringes -- the nativists who want no immigration and the open borders types who think it is elitist to give preference to skilled immigrants.

Perhaps because we are just emerging from a deep sleep where nonsensical arguments and policies were given wide credence, the debate is sloppy and uninformed. Let me try to clarify and show why, despite abuses of the program, the H-1B visa program is perfectly consistent with Trump’s stated policies.

The very best statement of the relevant facts and the opportunities that abound to resolve any questions about the program is by Kaizen D. Asiedu, who graduated with a degree in philosophy from Harvard when that still meant something and has won an Emmy, a man of many talents. He thoughtfully explains all this in a video, captioned for those like me who prefer reading to viewing.

If you haven’t the patience to watch, here he is in short form:

55% of billion dollar tech companies were started by........

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