Theo the Trump Employee Episode 10 Externality effects

                It is the final day of Passover and Jews are huddled at a Synagogue in beautiful San Diego, California.  One of the worshippers in attendance is Lori, who is on vacation from New Jersey.  Lori is fifty nine years old and stands at 5’5” with short light brown hair.  In the middle of the service, a man comes in with a semi-automatic weapon and opens fire.  Unfortunately, the way most religious institutions are set up, the attention is faced on the opposite side of the doors.  This means that almost everyone has their back to the door, which means you can’t see who’s coming in.  If they could, it would have given them a split second longer to get out.  Sometimes, that’s all you need.  Immediately most of the attendees rush to the door toward the front of the synagogue.  There is one man, however, who has turned to face the door for he’s running for a completely different reason.

                Oscar Stewart is an Iraq War veteran.  Although it has been a while since he was in basic training, the military does a very good job of instilling habits into you.  Stewart has the distinction of being in the army and the navy so he got it from two branches.  It’s these habits that caused this White dark brown haired with hints of grey bearded man to call for everyone to get down while he stands straight up.  He runs at the shooter and yells “I’m going to kill you, you motherfucker.”

                There are reports that someone in a neighboring church heard the yell it was so loud.  It had the desired effect as this coward who is holding a semi-automatic gun sees the charging Stewart and drops his gun and runs out the door to his car locking himself inside.  The news reports will later lie to you and say that the gun jammed but semi-automatic guns don’t jam, fully automatic ones do.  This stain on humankind was scared because he wanted to attack people he thought would be defenseless and one decided to fight back.  Someone in the parking lot sees what’s going on and pulls out his private gun and fires at the bottom of the car trying to immobilize it.  This may have saved Stewart’s life as the gunmen had another gun in his car and Stewart was punching the window trying to break it.  Instead, he drove his car off but not before Stewart and the good gunmen got the license plate and reported it.  All this caused the bully to turn himself in. 

 

                Lori is one of the people that fled out the synagogue while Stewart was doing what he was trained to do.    The next day, as scheduled, she flew back to Newark to return home to New Jersey.  She decides she’s going to take the three and half hour drive down to D.C. to visit her brother.   After her near-death experience, she wants to be with family.  She arrives and gives her brother a big hug.  She decompresses for the night and the next day, although she had been to DC before, she goes to the World War II memorial.  While there, she hears some people in their mid-20s talking about how the Russians colluded in the 2016 election.  She rolls her eyes.  Lori has never been one to hold back she turns to them and says, “Do you know how ridiculous you sound?”

                “What do you mean?” the two college students say in a shocked expression that someone eavesdropped on their conversation in public.

                “I won’t even go into the problems with the Mueller probe and all that.  Don’t you have a problem that Obama said it was impossible for anyone to collude in an American election and then all of a sudden Trump wins, and it’s not so impossible anymore?”

                “What are you talking about?  Obama didn’t say that.  It was his DOJ that has been investigating”

                “Exactly, look it up.  It was a speech he gave like a month before the election.  It was in response to Trump saying that if he didn’t win, it means someone messed with the election and it was voter fraud.”

                “That doesn’t sound right.” But now the millennials’ voice suddenly didn’t sound too confident.  They pulled out their phones and searched for it.  One said, “It’s right here, Obama tells Trump to stop whining.  October 18. 2016” They play the clip and even though it’s five minutes long, Lori and the two of them listen to the whole thing.  Obama says “No serious person would say that anyone could interfere in American election.  It’s too decentralized. That’s why it has never been done in American history and there’s no indication it could ever be done.”  It goes on to say, “Stop making excuses for losing before the game is over.  That’s not a trait of anyone fit for this office.  If you win, Hillary Clinton will concede graciously and I will walk him over to Capitol Hill despite the things he’s said about me and welcome him.  I will work with him to transition him to his presidency because that’s what Americans do.”

                The students look up stunned and Lori smiled at them condescendingly.  The one who didn’t pull it up on his phone said, “But wait, none of that happened.  I mean, Obama basically lied because he was for the Russian collusion investigation and Hillary and Obama weren’t gracious at all!”

                Lori said, “Well at least you remember that.”

                “But the media has been telling us all about it for two years”

                “Step back and look at the big picture.  If all this interfering was going on, why didn’t President Obama do anything about it?  He’s the most powerful man in the world, how did he nor his department of justice know?  Wouldn’t it fall on him that this all happened under his watch?”

                The two students looked at each other.  As college sports fans, they knew all about this logic that the blame always go to the top.  That’s what got Rick Pitino and Joe Paterno fired for things that nobody says they committed but that their subordinates did.  One student said, “Hey, I gotta go, it was nice talking to you” to Lori

                The other student looked at Lori thoughtfully and said to his friend, “You know what? You go ahead.” Then turned toward Lori, “Do you mind if we talk about this some more?”

                Lori was surprised at the receptiveness but said, “Yea,” and they found a bench to sit down. 

                The student said, “Maybe he should have known but do you think that Obama had anything to do with the investigation?  He’s kind of been hanging out in Hawaii and chilling after he left office.”

                “But what about before he left office?”

                “That’s my question.  Do you have any proof besides this video and the fact that if those working for you fuck up, then it’s on you?”

                “Do you know about the Peter Strzok and Lisa Page texts?”

                “Vaguely but talk as if I don’t”

                “Strzok was the lead investigator into Trump’s collusion with Russia.  Lisa Page is a lawyer.  Both work for the FBI.  There’s three texts that implicate Obama.  Remember the investigation was open on July 30, about a week later, Strzok texts Page ‘The White house is running this.” What do you think that meant?”

                “Well ‘this’ could be anything”

                “Could be, but why has nobody asked them?  No media outlets, Mueller didn’t, congress didn’t, why isn’t anyone interested in asking ‘what is this?”

                “That’s a good question and the White House is, well, the White house is a big place.  I guess they’d have to be talking about people high up since they’re running something that the FBI is interested in.  Otherwise, the FBI would just pull rank.”

                “Right.”

                “So whatever ‘this’ is, Obama probably knew if his upper echelon of people knew.”

                “Right and the person talking is the lead investigator in the recently opened case if Trump colluded with the Russians so that is probably what ‘this’ is”

                “Yea, okay, I’ll give you that but maybe the higher up person didn’t tell Obama so he could shield him from a scandal and going back on what he said.”

                “See, I don’t know why Trump didn’t tweet that video out every day.  It’s almost like he hinted at someone meddling with the election to bait Obama to say what he said. That way they couldn’t do exactly what they did the last two years.”

                “Right, he set them up beautifully and then didn’t execute.”

                “Back to your question though.  I admit, ‘White House’ could mean anyone in the White House and not necessarily the president.  Which brings me to a text a month later. This time it’s Page texting Strzok.  She says, “POTUS wants to know everything we’re doing.”

                “Well, there’s no interpretation of that.  POTUS is the President of the United States and there’s only one of those.”

                “Correct”

                “But it didn’t say, ‘everything about the investigation into Trump’”

                “You’re really grasping at straws”

                “I know, but I liked Obama, he was just so cool.”

                “Yea, that was the problem.  He was cool but horrible for America.  Anyway a month later, there was another text but given that you’re looking for a signed confession text, I don’t have that for you.  Andy MeCabe, the Director of the CIA at the time, texted Strzok that they were going to the White House with a meeting and stressed the Importance of speaking in one voice.”

                “So, the story is so big the CIA and FBI are working together.  You’ve given me a lot to think about it but I just don’t want to believe that Obama would be complicit in this.”

                “Well, it’s time to grow up.   Politicians aren’t to be trusted, that’s why government should be small.”

                They went their separate ways and Lori walked around the city visiting military areas almost as a thank you for the men and women like Stewart that saved her life. As evening came, she called her brother who was out of work.  She asked him for a low key bar that young people wouldn’t be at.  He told her one that was on a less trafficked street.  Lori went in and had a drink trying to get her thoughts in order.  All she could think of was she almost died in San Diego.

 

                Theo worked in the White House as an aide.  Standing at 6’ heavyset and bald, he was tall enough not to be considered short but not very tall either.  The TV is always on so people are informed about how the media is attacking their boss.  Kamala Harris is on TV saying she wants to ban right-to-work laws.  Theo stares at the TV and says, “Is she kidding? The Janice case just ended.”

                An intern said, “What was the Janice decision?”

                “The Supreme Court ruled that if you’re not in a Union, you don’t have to pay Union dues”

                “That seems obvious”

                “Well, that’s what Right-to-work laws is.  Harris wants to ban it and go back to having to pay for a union you’re not in.  But the Supreme Court will never allow that so she’s just posturing.”

                “What’s the argument?”

                “Unions push to give their trade higher wages.  Since the company pays higher wages for a skill, non-union workers are paid union wages so the Union argues that even if they’re not in the union, they benefit from it so they should pay.”

                “Alright, so they do have a coherent argument.”              

                “Not really, the non-union worker could undercut the union worker and work for less if he wants.  But, his work would have to be as good.  Besides, the argument in general is stupid because you can say that about anything.  In economics we call it an externality.  Say your next door neighbor puts a gate around his house and has a manicured lawn with a fountain then in the back they put a pool with a waterfall and it’s beautiful.  Now with a neighbor like that, maybe the property value of your house goes up because you get to live in a community with people rich enough to do that.  Now, you got more money because they extravagantly decorated their house.  If your neighbor came over and asked you to pay for some of the decorations, is that fair?”

                “No, because he wasn’t doing all that for me, he was doing it for himself.”

                “But you benefited”

                “So what, that wasn’t the intention.  He would have done it even if it didn’t help me.”  

                “Thank you for proving my point.”

                The intern thought about this and shook his head.  He sighed, “Okay, I get it.”

                “Is that why the firefighters union is supporting Biden?  Even though most firefighters love the President?”

                “Yes, that’s exactly it.”

                “So, you give money to an organization and they use your money to endorse a candidate you don’t like”

                “May be a reason to leave right?  But without right to work, you couldn’t.”  The intern gave Theo a condescending look.  Theo smiled back and said, “Remember, Democrats constantly contradict themselves.  They hate monopolies in big business but love them with labor unions.  They say we spend too much on healthcare, which is part the government problem, but they say they don’t spend enough on education.”

                “Well, our healthcare is good, our schools suck”

                “Education spending has gone up four times in the last 40 years.  We constantly pour money in for no results.”

                “Okay, so why do you think Democrats contradict themselves on that?” the intern said sarcastically

                “Well, you give money to healthcare, it goes to the free market and filters through the economy.  You give it to education and it goes to teachers, who have to pay into teacher unions who give money to Democrats, so they’re basically paying for their own campaign.”

                The intern chuckled, “I take it you’re not a fan of unions.”

                “No, I am not.  I do have friends that are steamfitters that love unions and if they like it, more power to them.  They give their money and they think it’s worth is.  I don’t but it’s their money, they can do whatever they want with it.  I’m a conservative, that’s how we operate, you do you but don’t ask me to pay for it and I won’t ask you to pay for me to do me.”

                They both got back to work and when work was over Theo went to get dinner.  Truth be told, Theo didn’t eat healthy.  He was extremely skinny growing up as his metabolism countered his unhealthy eating habits.  At 35, his metabolism slowed but the eating habits didn’t change.  He wasn’t self-conscious about it as he felt less like a boy and more like a man when he had a gut.  He heard people with a southern accent talking about the national debt.  A girl with a braided pony tail with her platinum blond hair and curvaceous body and pale skin said, “Yea and the booming economy hasn’t done squat.”

                Although Theo was raised in the Midwest and New England, he loved southerners.  He was born in Durham, North Carolina but had no memory of it given that he moved to Cleveland when he was three.  He always felt that when his brain was forming in the south, some things just stayed with him because he was always endeared to them.  One thing he knew about southerners that’s different from New Englanders is that they don’t mind if you start a conversation with them.  They are much less guarded.  He said, “Do you know where most of the government spending comes from?”

                The girl said, “Entitlement spending.”

                Theo nodded, “that’s right, Social Security, Medicare and that stuff.  Despite all that, it’s going broke.”

                “Yea, but what’s the solution?”

                “If you’re 55 or older right now, you get the benefits, if you’re not, you stop paying social security, get more money in your paycheck and use it as you see fit.  Basically, we’ll give you the money that we were going to steal from you. You probably should put it in a private retirement account”

                “That’s not fair, I paid into it.”

                “Right, but you look young. Cut your losses, it’s not going to be there when you retire, it’s going bankrupt.  If you’re under 55, there’s no way you’re going to get what you put in.  Better to lose what you’ve put in now rather than lose more later.”

                “So why hasn’t a politician said that.”

                “It would be very unpopular.  Look at your initial reaction.  You get a media to perpetuate that and they’d lose in a landslide.”

                “Yea but Trump doesn’t care what the media says.”

                “People do because they paid into it and they are getting screwed.  Again, didn’t you just say that?”

                “Yes sir, I did.  I don’t know, that just sucks”

                “I agree.”

                “Well Mister now that Trump is president, can’t he do something.”

                “He already has”

                “What do you mean sir?”

                “First off, call me “Theo” this whole sir and mister thing I’m not used to.  I know that it’s the Southern way but it’s also the southern way that if they get permission, they can stop.”

                “Wow, a Yankee that actually says something correct about the south.”

                Theo smiled, “Yes Ma’ame” he said a little mockingly.

                “Annie May”

                “Nice to meet you” he said as he put out his hand happy that she ignored the mocking tone. 

                “Now that that’s out of the way, you still haven’t told me how.”

                “Well, with the tax cuts and more strict regulations on what constitutes disability.  Less people are on disability.  The estimate on when it will go bankrupt has been moved back 20 years because of Trump’s economic policy.”

                “If we did that with Social Security then if you’re 35 or younger, you can get benefits.”

                “Yea, but social security has a lot more people, a lot less money and you need a lot more money to push it back.  But, the good news is the people that were on disability under Obama and now are working are paying taxes adding revenue.  But, spending is still exceeding revenue despite record high revenues so it is still a problem.”

                “What about this Medicare for All thing?”

                “Well the current Medicare Hospital Trust Fund will be broke in 2026”

                “What?  I thought Obama’s tax hike was supposed to pay for that”

                “Yea, he also said it would reduce the debt by trillions.  He was wrong or he lied, hard to tell which one.  Tax hikes never increase revenue, it’s just about power.  He increased the spending, decreased the revenue so added trillions to the debt. ”

                “Well more than half the people like ObamaCare now.”

                “Because President Trump got rid of the costs and individual mandate.  So now you get all the benefits with none of the costs.  Who wouldn’t like that?”

                “Yea, so Trump made it better.”

                “No, remember he wants to get rid of it completely because he’s smart.  He knows that if something has only costs and no revenue, it’s going to run out of money.  It’s like socialism, it works for a couple years because you have a lot of money but then the money runs out.  Look at how many lottery winners go broke.  They quit their jobs and spend like crazy.  It’s awesome for a while, then they file bankruptcy.  Once ObamaCare runs out of money, they’re going to be competing with the social security, Medicare, disability and all the other entitlements spending the government pays money on.  It’s not going to end well.”

                Annie May nodded her head, “Yea, that makes sense.  Guess we need to giddy up and get more Republicans in congress so we can overturn this before it gets bad.”

                Theo smiled, “My sentiments exactly.”

                Just then a woman ran into the bar screaming, “Somebody help, there’ a girl getting attacked”

 

                Lori had a couple drinks as she lost herself in her thoughts.  Now that she was done with three, she figured it was time to go back to her brother’s.  She walked out of the bar and saw a brown skinned man standing in front of a girl who was leaning against a wall.  The girl looked worried and Lori walked over and said, “Is everything alright here?”

                The guy turned to her with a large knife and said, “Just walk away; this is none of your business.”

                Lori backed away and said, “Sorry” and headed off toward the main road. 

The man turned to the girl and said, “See, nobody is coming to help you so you better give me what I want.”

Lori had no intention of leaving them alone.  She ran into the first restaurant she saw and yelled, “Somebody help, there’s a girl getting attacked.”

                Theo looked at the girl that gave him a knowing look.  Theo always carried a three inch pocket knife on him that President Trump had given him a permit to carry in a district that had the strictest weapons control in the country.  There were some benefits working for Trump.  Lori pointed to a woman and said, “You, call 911, whoever wants to man up and help, come with me”

                Lori knew that when there’s a group of people you always single someone out to make the 911 call if it can’t be you because if you say ‘somebody’ people assume someone else will do it and then nobody does it.  The woman listened and Theo and a couple other guys followed Lori.  When they got to the side street that Lori had been on, Lori didn’t see anyone at first.  She walked to where she last saw them.  Sure enough, behind the dumpster, the girl was face down on the ground and the guy’s hand was on her butt squeezing.  Her pants were lowered but her underwear was still on.  Theo yelled out, “Hey, get off her.”

                “The guy got up and slid his arm out holding the large blade that was against the girl’s throat a moment ago.  He brandished the blade at the group of three men and Lori and said, “Stay away”

                Theo had already unclipped his knife but he had it cupped against his right hand blocking the guy’s view.  He put his left hand palm up and moved it to focus the man’s attention on it.  He said calmly, “Look, we called the cops.  They’re on their way.  You don’t want to do this.  Just let her go man?”

                “She’s my girlfriend”

                “Hard to believe when you had that knife to her throat.  Miss, get up”

                The girl slowly got up and pulled her pants up.  The guy grabbed her and placed her in front of him with the knife at her throat.  The man repeated, “Stay back.”

                Theo knew he had to take the risk.  Once sirens were heard, he would get desperate.  Desperate people do stupid things.  Then again, Theo was kind of desperate now too.  The guy was taller than the girl so his head was exposed.  Theo clicked the trigger on his spring assisted blade to snap the knife in place.  He flipped it over in his hand and caught the blade, aimed and threw the knife toward them and then charged with a guttural yell.”

                The yell signaled the other men to run.  It is unknown if it was the yell or a knife that was sailing toward his head but the man dropped the knife and ducked behind her.  Theo aimed high and the knife would have sailed a few inches above the Middle-Eastern man even if he hadn’t ducked.  The knife was a decoy and it worked.  Soon Theo’s right hand was around the guy’s throat, one man was pulling on his arm that was around the girls neck and the other guy pulled on the girls arm to wrestle her away.  The girl easily broke free and hugged the man that was pulling her.  Theo and the other man wrestled the Middle Easterner to the ground and they held him down.  He struggled but they had him.  It didn’t take long for the police to show up and arrest him.  The girl decided to press charges and went down to the station with the police officers to file the report.

                After this, Lori was back in the bar but this time she had Theo keeping her company.  The other guys went back to the restaurant.  Lori said, “So, what do you do?”

                “I work at the White House”

                “Oh that’s cool.  Must be crazy with all these accusations.”

                “Yea, but it’s better now that the Mueller probe is over.  Now it’s our turn.  That is, if the President approves.  He seems hesitant sometimes.  He thinks he might alienate people if he goes after them kind of like how the Republicans suffered when they impeached Clinton.”

                “I don’t think they would”

                “I agree but who knows what people will do?  So many think Mueller is a good guy and he’s a piece of shit.”

                “Now you got Sally Yates saying she’s prosecuted for obstruction for much less.”

                “Which shows you how corrupt our deputy Attorney General was.  I mean, Trump told them to investigate, didn’t know there was an investigation and fully complied even though he didn’t have to.  It’s like the opposite of obstruction.  All they got is tweets that it’s a witch hunt.  A lot of people did that?  It’s not obstruction.  He’s the president, if he wanted to do worse than that, he can.”

                “Yea, she just hates Trump”

                “It’s more than that.”

                “What else?”

                “She’s involved in the scandal.  She recommended to the President during the transition to fire Mike Flynn for talking to the Russian ambassador as national security advisor.  You know, doing his job.  But they had transcripts and he didn’t remember everything they talked about when they interviewed him 33 days later.  Yates said that they could indict him under the Logan act for that.  The Logan Act hasn’t been prosecuted since the 1700s.  It would have been pretty shitty blackmail by the Russians!  She just made shit up and then had her cronies at the DOJ charge him.  They bankrupted him in legal fees and then went after his family forcing him to plead guilty for lying to the FBI even though the FBI agents that interviewed him wrote in their memo that they didn’t think he was being deceptive.  She’s one of the people that should go to jail for abuse of power and corruption.”

                Lori snickered and said, “Is that all?”

                “Oh no, she signed a FISA warrant.  She knows the information wasn’t verified.  She knows she lied to the FISA court.”

                “Okay, that actually is more of a crime than ‘abuse of power,’ which I’m not even sure is a real crime.”

                “I don’t care what they get her on as long as they get her.”

                “I agree”

                “How are you doing?”

                “I’m okay.  I was in San Diego for that San Diego shooting.”

                “Holy shit, are you okay?”

                “Yea, because of that guy Stewart.  He saved our lives because he attacked the gunmen.  Did it unarmed too.  I need to buy him a drink or something.”

                “And then you just saved a girl from being raped.”

                “Yea, I ran and yelled, I wouldn’t really call that heroic”

                “And Stewart didn’t say what he did was heroic.  He said he acted without thinking.  It was just on instinct.”

                “Well, you can say that Stewart saved the girl from being raped because if he didn’t do what he did, I could have gotten shot, and I never would have walked in on the girl being raped and never would have ran for help.”

                “So, you helped Stewart save the girl.”

                Lori Smiled, “I’ll accept that.”

                They finished their drink and went home.  As people kept calling for more gun control, Theo couldn’t help thinking that the gunmen in the parking lot is why there shouldn’t be gun control.  You need law abiding citizens to be able to carry guns as a deterrent for bad guys with guns.  If someone has no problem killing someone with a gun, he has no problem breaking the law to obtain a gun and carry it.  Only law abiding citizens are disarmed by gun control laws.  Hell, if he didn’t have the knife, he couldn’t have distracted the guy to allow him and the other two guys to charge.  He went back to work normally the next day and Lori headed back to New Jersey to get on with her life.