Wow! How about that storm yesterday and last night? We are on the mountain and it wasn’t too bad other than heavy rain and some gusts during the middle of the night. I’m hoping the beach house is okay after the high winds and rain there. My next door neighbor texted and said it was quite a storm with high winds and power out from late afternoon until early this morning. He walked around our house and, happily for me, didn’t see any visible damage. The missus has her first cataract surgery on Thursday and I have a post op appointment on Monday, so won’t get down to check things out until next week. Hope y’all survived without any damage to your homes and property.
The storm might be over here, but it’s gaining in strength elsewhere in the country, both weather wise and politically. We’ve gotta hang in there, though, because it’s about to get very interesting as the wheels are slowly starting to come off. Over the past two weeks we have seen the chaotic firing and then rehiring of federal workers from several agencies including National Park Service workers, National Nuclear Security Administration nuclear weapons experts, U.S. Department of Agriculture bird flu scientists, and Department of Veterans Affairs crisis line workers. Today 21 DOGE staffers resigned by sending a letter to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles saying, “we will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems, jeopardize Americans’ sensitive data, or dismantle critical public services. We will not lend our expertise to carry out or legitimize DOGE’s actions.” Also this morning , The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index for February was released. The Index marked the largest monthly decline since August 2021 and follows the same path as the consumer report released last Friday that I wrote about this weekend. Consumers aren’t feeling good about where this economy is and where they feel it’s going in the near future. Today Joann Fabrics announced they were closing all 800 of their stores across the country and going out of business. This really pissed the missus off being the quilter and crafter she is. This afternoon the House passed a Republican budget resolution that calls for $4.5 trillion in tax cuts and a $2 trillion reduction in federal spending over the next decade. This is referred to as Trump’s ‘big, beautiful ‘ budget bill and sets up some super duper infighting within the G.O.P for what programs to cut in order to fund the large tax cuts that will benefit the rich. I say, once the common man MAGA’s realize what this means for them and we all have to experience the ramifications of this budget bill, the town hall meetings are going to get much uglier, so hang on. If you’re not a vegetarian and you like to rip into a big, fat juicy steak now and then, you’ve probably seen the price of beef take a pretty good-sized jump recently. Projections are they will continue to follow the path of eggs. When Trump enacts his tariffs on Mexico and Canada, which he said this morning he was going to do, then there are going to be some very unhappy imbiders of Mexican tequila and beer, and Canadian whiskey. Canada has already said they won’t be importing American spirits if Trump follows through with his tariff war. So there you have it for today. The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, until someone screws things up so bad they fall off.
The missus and I went to Costco yesterday and look what we filled our cart with. We’re gettin’ ready for the wheels to come off and the show to begin.
I’m going to leave you with that for the evening. Sweet dreams. Ziggyman
Mountain Man Musings 