Author: photog

So, as I was describing it recently, I needed a crisis in my novel to provide some excitement.  I have a faction of the “good guys” go rogue and decide to take over Cheyenne and declare Wyoming a sovereign nation.  Some National Guard troops are called in to defend the State Capitol building.  The rebels surround them and then National Guard reinforcements with heavier weapons encircle the rebels.  Now, I want my protagonist to intercede and defuse the situation.  But how does he get in and how does he convince them?  Getting in is easy.  The siege circles are rudimentary positions within a city so a speeding bullet-proof vehicle is enough to make it plausible and an RPG or two chasing him will make it colorful.

But what can he possibly say to heavily armed mutineers who have lost friends and family and want to lash out at the federal government?  Now that’s the hard part.  I’ve been working something up.  Part of it will play on the fact that many of the rebels were soldiers who served in Iraq like the protagonist.  But that only gets me so far.  The hero is a plain-spoken man so I have to be careful that the words don’t come off too polished and that the persuasion fits the mindset of his audience.  Well, to be continued.

So now Kash Patel is not only the FBI Director but also the temporary head of ATF.  Temporary sounds interesting.  I wonder if Trump’s thinking of abolishing the ATF and passing along whatever functions he deems useful to another department, maybe the DOJ.  And I was amused to hear that Trump wants to visit Fort Knox to see if the gold is really there.  I wonder if he’ll try scraping it with a knife to make sure it’s not just lead covered in gold paint.  We’re definitely getting our money’s worth with Trump.

Now one thing I have been thinking about the last few days is exactly what happens to the economy if Trump does manage to cancel a trillion or more dollars from the federal budget.  That is a lot of money.  First of all, the unemployment rate will increase somewhat by the number of fired bureaucrats.  And a trillion dollars removed from the federal budget will decrease to some extent business activity.  Could it cause a mild recession?  Maybe.  But the truth is that might be exactly what’s needed to tamp down inflation.  And if we are to have recession then the earlier in Trump’s term it happens the better.  And if it is short and mild then the drop in inflation will more than counterbalance the bad news with good.  After all, these unemployed are not factory or corporate employees.  They’re bureaucrats that don’t really add to the GDP in a meaningful way.  They’re more like parasites.  Well, we’re sure to hear from the press how bad it is for the economy to lay off bureaucrats.  It’s almost as bad as laying off reporters and talking heads.

And speaking of the media, I’ve noticed that some of the left media shills are starting to wake up again.  They’re trumpeting that all the DOGE activity has angered the American people and like a sleeping giant they are awakening and demanding that USAID be allowed to waste the billions of dollars that Joe Biden earmarked for them.  Oh, well played.  Yes, the American people are incredibly strong advocates for voluntary medical male circumcision in Mozambique or mental health support for Venezuelan LGBTQ+ youth or “Safe Mobility Offices” for migrants in Latin America.  People are crying out to protect these critically important programs and the bureaucrats employed to spend these funds.

But the top news in the last few days are the various environmental slush funds that Joe Biden squirreled away just as he left office.  Ten billion dollars deposited in a commercial bank account for theft at a later date and two billion dollars in a PAC overseen by that legendary champion of environmental stewardship Stacey Abrams.  Now that’s world class robbery.

So, the hits keep coming and most conservatives say they’re not tired of winning yet.  Good.