Last few months have given me gratitude for how I voted in 2024.
It’s quite easy to see why Democrats are angry are so angry about Maduro being captured and brought to the U.S.
He’s here legally.
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As I look around at the end of 2025 and beginning of 2026, I gotta say I’m enjoying a lot. Of course the fact El Presidente de ife Maduro is currently in federal prison awaiting trial for multiple charges is pleasing. It’s nice to see 3rd world dictators worried about the United States and our president, as opposed to having their asses kissed or paid off.
Another good item, the Veterans Administration just got 77 million dollars to help out service members. All it took was President Trump cancelling a contact for solar electric vehicle charging stations. I can see it now, dozens of parking spaces taken up by this waste of tax dollars. Knowing the oxygen thieves in the VA, they would put them closest to the hospital. If you haven’t had the pleasure, at major VA facilities parking is at a premium. The DeBakey Center in Houston is huge (118 acres), but parking is limited. Veterans with mobility issues often walk hundreds of yards to get to into a building, then walk all over the complex. Thank you Secretary Collins.
The Big Apple may have gotten a life line from the new moron, err mayor. Zohran Mamdani. The idiot who said, “We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.” His foolish worshipers got a taste of that future when his celebratory block party featured no facilities or concessions. Sounds like Collectivism 101.
Now the city cannot raise local income taxes or taxes on the “wealthy” without state approval, and Governor Kathy Hochul is opposed to that. She seems to realize you tax the “wealthy” too much, they will leave. No taxpayers, no tax dollars. I suggest the mayor remember the wisdom of a real leader, Margaret Thatcher. “The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people’s money.” Got it Zohran?
Now one thing I’ve been dreaming for years has begun. Going by an old memory (early Obama years), an article in a conservative magazine (National Review or American Spectator?). The author made the point Americans were suffering one downsize after another. Countless people not knowing if ACME Widgets would furlough them or require a move from family and friends to keep their job. Very unsettling, especially when you see the president and his family going on multiple taxpayer funded vacations with a let them eat cake attitude.
One place never felt that pain, our nation’s capital, Washington DC. The article pointed out how there is always expansion. More office space being built, new restaurants opening, one subdivision after another. Constant growth for the ever-expanding bureaucracy and the lobbyists who seek tax money for their clients. It is quite disgusting seven of the ten richest counties in the country are the suburbs of Washington. For a group of people who produce no useful goods and services, but only hinder those who do, this is quite revolting.
Looks like DC is having reality therapy. Finally, the value of real estate near our capital is dropping. Americans should be enjoying some serious schadenfreude.
D.C. region heads into 2026 with an economy teetering toward recession
The forces that once powered Washington’s economic growth are fading after Trump administration cuts, National Guard deployment and other factors.
Unemployment rose steadily through the summer, climbing above levels last seen in 2021 to reach nearly 7 percent by early fall. Heading into the new year, the nation’s capital is gripped by economic gloom that may permanently alter the shape of the city as the forces that long underpinned its growth weaken all at once.
Unemployment rose steadily through the summer, climbing above levels last seen in 2021 to reach nearly 7 percent by early fall, a reflection of the private sector struggling to absorb thousands of laid-off federal workers who fell victim to the Trump administration’s slashing of the bureaucracy. Consumer spending fell sharply in late summer after holding up earlier in the year. The longest government shutdown in history closed top sightseeing attractions, further fueling the woes of declining tourism…
…The D.C. region saw the largest increase in home sale listings of any major metro area, according to the Brookings Institution, raising concerns about people being pushed from their homes due to increased economic instability or lured to other parts of the country for stronger job prospects — or both.
By the second quarter of 2025, the District had come within a whisker of a recession, with three months of declining GDP followed by another three months of flat growth…
…Federal jobs are down 5.6 percent year over year, compared to a 3.1 percent decline nationwide…
…Meanwhile, private-sector job growth has slumped. While the country as a whole experience a decrease in unemployment rate, it is up by 0.65 percent in the D.C. region, with rates of unemployed workers growing the most in Virginia counties.
Commercial real estate experts said many companies are continuing to shed office space locally, extending a shift that began during the pandemic and driving up the vacancy rate.
Another change this year has been the pace at which office buildings are disappearing altogether. In 2025, 3.7 million square feet of office space was torn down in the D.C. region, up from 2.8 million the year before, said Melina Duggal, senior director of market analytics for the D.C. and Baltimore regions for CoStar Group which tracks commercial real estate trends.
I wonder if the bureaucrats hire cops to escort laid off workers out. I’ve been hired to do that from time to time. Not a pleasant duty, but a fact of life many in the bureaucracy have been shielded from in the past.
Ages ago I read the David McCullough biography Truman. I can’t remember the senator’s name, but a Democrat was looking forward to cutting over 25, 000 positions in the Office of Price Administration alone. Other than the Pentagon (actually the armed forces themselves, not the headquarters staff), politicians today don’t want to cut government employment. But it finally happening.
Last fall I wrote Make American Normal Again. One of the points is we are finally putting the bureaucracy on a diet. Not only DEI and multicultural affairs specialists, but other agencies that are irrelevant in today’s world. Do we really need tens of thousands of accountants and clerks to process tax returns? Most are done electronically and with the advent of AI, a computer can process them better than any human. Plus the computer does not get sick, need stress days, etc.
So yes US government bureaucrats, it’s time for you to justify your existence. Saying, “Well that’s the way we’ve always done it” doesn’t count anymore. You are finally going through what countless industries in America has had to face, obsolescence (too many bullwhip makers out there). If your job is not needed, it must be eliminated. Sorry, but we can’t afford an ever-bloated administration who’s only purpose is to tax the efforts of the productive class.
But don’t worry, you can always learn to code for God’s sake.
Michael A. Thiac is a retired Army intelligence officer, with over 23 years experience, including serving in the Republic of Korea, Japan, and the Middle East. He is also a retired police patrol sergeant, with over 22 years’ service, and over ten year’s experience in field training of newly assigned officers. He has been published at The American Thinker, PoliceOne.com, and on his personal blog, A Cop’s Watch.
Opinions expressed are his alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of current or former employers.
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