The Week that Was

Put two billionaires in a room and what do you get? Right, you get MONEY! Trump and Musk did not become billionaires by “spending” money because money is the real deal for them. And the ‘golden chainsaw’ given to Musk by the President of Argentina this week represented not merely his and President Trump’s unprecedented attack on the waste of government, it represented everything about what this country needs to survive. Cut, cut, cut and then rebuild with the wood you’ve acquired.

Channeling Milton Friedman. The great Nobel laureate, Milton Friedman, like the great Thomas Sowell, understood how real-life economics plays out. He famously said there are four ways to spend money: You can spend your own money on yourself, you can spend your own money on someone else, you can spend someone else’s money on yourself, and you can spend some other person’s money on somebody else. It does not take a genius to know what happens in the last category (the Government bureaucrats’ role)—spending other people’s money on other people. You get no controls, no limits, no measurement and no incentives for frugality. As Musk would say, “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know the outcome.”

This past week we started to get a real glimpse into just how wasteful the government has become. And we ought to marvel at the fact it took two billionaires to take on this governmental beast.

The Ghost of J. Edgar Hoover. Kash Patel was confirmed as the new leader of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. If you want to see what a golden chainsaw can do in earnest, watch Kash over the next several weeks. The once universally admired FBI has melted away and in its place is a politically driven monster. Ask the 1500+ J6 political prisoners. Ask the 20+ prayerful abortion protesters jailed for their religious fervor. Ask the school board mom’s threatened, the lawyers and business people destroyed by DOJ overreach and the millions of people to0 afraid to speak-out for fear the FBI would be at their door. Not to mention Russiagate, the trapping of General Flynn, the 240,000 violations (a real number) of Federal Court limitations on phone tapping–a constitutional violation so massive that it is hard to imagine.

It is indisputable that the FBI has been out-of-control. There was a significant, and now forgotten debate, at the birth of the FBI about whether it would become a corrupt national police force. The opposition was, we now know, prescient. Kash will make it right and bring pride back to an important American institution.

A Hillbilly Elegy. J.D. Vance schooled the Europeans this past week. Initially, he schooled them on Artificial Intelligence in Paris (https://arkansas1st.com/opinion/the-week-that-was/ ) and then he had the temerity to tell the truth in Munich. Free speech and free elections are the great pillars holding up the Western World, and if you remove those pillars, all we stand for collapses. That was the ringing message Vance delivered to the Europeans. It was a wake-up call.

One should not discount the courage it takes for a world leader, here Trump through his Vice President, to make such comments on a public stage in front of the very people you are criticizing. The audience, literally, was shocked—no applause, silence. This is diplomacy as it must be if we are to survive. Honest, plain speaking and clear, like those hillbillies JD Vance grew up with in his Kentucky home.

Winning. It is said that winning cures many ills. The U.S. Senate, rife with division for so many years, has healed—every cabinet appointment submitted, approved. The Border, seemingly forever in crisis, is finally closed.

Now, of course, the real work starts. Remember, everyone still has a chance to win the World Series during Spring Training, but come September, not so much. It is best to enjoy the moment we now have, but always know, the hard work lies ahead.

Judge Jim Troupis

Retired Wisconsin Circuit Court Judge. President Trump’s attorney in 2020. Speaker, columnist, talk radio guest, father, grandfather and fisherman.