But First – a Q1, Q2 Recap: Acclimating to Disruption

Greetings readers and fellow Flea Marketeers! What a wild ride the past six months on the second round of the Trump-adelic psycho circus has been! Unlike any other administration in my memory, for better or worse, Team Trump hit the ground running and ready to fk shit up. First it was the Q1 double whammy of Elon DOGE letting loose it’s corruption sniffing dogs on prime target, bloated government bureaucracies resulting in screams of, “WTF!, Trump admin over reach!!”, concurrent with the economic whiplash of Trump’s “now ya see a tariff, now ya don’t” fiscal policy threats and the global economic mind farts that especially panicked world markets and those not familiar with the cyclically and increasingly volatile nature of the financial markets in particular. Fun! Panic! “Say brother, can you spare a roll of toilet paper?”

Across Main Street and at the Southern California flea markets, I heard many swearing “The sky is falling! Trump’s gonna crash the economy!! Fk Trump!!” (Thom Hartmann, et all) only to have Mr Market reassert itself a few short months later, breaking it’s previous Dow and SPX highs. How have the So Cal flea markets fared? Did the disposable income demographic that we flea market vendors rely on stop spending money? No. For me, Q1 and early spring Q2 was a bit slower than normal, but June may have been my best gross month ever since I officially began doing the flea markets in 1996. How about that. As the smoke clears, positive sentiment appears to be replacing media generated fear sentiment. And it seems those SPX highs are still holding, which is quite the embarrassment for those prone to promoting endless panic in situations they don’t understand and/or hope we citizens don’t understand. Oops. 

Unknownst to many, Mr Market was way overdue for a correction before Trump was sworn in. That was a hot topic amongst investment people during much of the Biden administration. The uncertain effects of Trump’s tariff threats was a relief valve. Now it’s happened, and has since recovered much faster than many of those seasoned investment folks (not to be confused with more prone to bumbling “economists”) thought it would. Has anyone besides me noticed that this almost rapid rebound had nothing to do with another round of magic money, Quantitative Easing as it did post 2008 mortgage derivative’s crash and the post 2020 Covid Coup crash? Interesting to watch what happens as the speculation as to Trump’s fiscal policy uncertainty begins to settle and our acclimation to a new abnormal sets in. August’s tariff deadlines, if not postponed once again, may or may not kick off a less volatile round of market uncertainty and another phase of citizen sentiment acclimation. 

As for DOGE revelations, once again, Akashic Records perfect timing! During the Q1, Q2 hubbub, I was going thru unread editions of The Economist magazine from 2012 (social media meets Arab Spring Op) and came upon this opening quote from the article, “Book-Cooking Guide”: “One of the best things about being a government is that nobody audits your accounts”. Ha!! Fast forward, along comes the returning swamp sanitizing sheriff with faithful deputy Elon in tow and a right leaning congress to blow that long held “no audits”, moral hazard assumption right out of the room! Disruptive? Absolutely!! Will innocents be affected? Yes. Will institutionalized corruption be exposed? That seems to be the case. HHS, Social Security, and coming soon… the Pentagon?! 

The suspected swamp of bureaucratic corruption is finally being exposed and the swamp monsters in the administrative state who were gleefully spending our taxpayer dollars on dubious foreign “aid”, etc were having a fit for DOGE daring to expose their mischief. Heh heh heh, which is to be expected due to the possibility that some of these exposures could lead to federal prison sentences as the smoke clears. It also serves as blatant proof of just how badly our trusted government agencies waste our hard earned tax money and try to hide the fact that they are doing it! That’s money that could be spent in your local community on much needed infrastructure repair, fire/police services, schools, etc, and/or that you could be spending on soul satisfying, vintage flea market items!!! 

What’s desperately needed, and DOGE appears to be a long overdue first step, is a granular, detailed, publicly accessible  accounting of exactly how/where our tax dollars are being spent/mis-spent. DOGE, granted, a bit sloppy on initial roll out, is a double edged sword. Becoming skilled in the use of a double edged sword can be messy. Our government long ago pushed the limits of Parkinson’s Law of bloated bureaucracy (1955) to absolutely unimaginable levels (unless you’re a bureaucrat) getting us to the impossible to manage situation we now find ourselves in. Will DOGE’s cuts result in better transparency within our bloated bureaucracies? I’ll tell you this, the inklings of transparency we are now beginning to see would NEVER EVER have happened under a Harris/Walz administration and the spread of our stage four bureaucratic cancer would have only gotten worse. Parkinson would be appalled!

As for the biggest bullet seemingly dodged over the last six months that put the entire planet in a different sort of hypersonic crosshairs: how about that Nut&Yahoo/Hamas/Iran escalation that seemed to be spinning out of control only to be shut down cold (hmmmm) as it seemed a full blown World War Three was about to debut? Yeah, that one got my attention. Spent a bit of time listening to trusted Marine vet Scott Ritter’s play by play on that one. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall (shhh, with a teeny tiny tape recorder!) listening in on what must have been very intense, very heated conversations between abominable monster Nut&Yahoo and slightly less (?) mad man Trump. Most likely just a bit more robust than the hostile X-change between Trump and Springsteen a couple months ago. Ha! Weird as this may sound to many, was this public catfight between a political and an entertainment celebrity a kinda sorta demonstration as to what makes America great? Please to note, there’s only a hand full of countries where this kind of very public exchange could have happened with neither party being imprisoned or Khashoggied into bite size pieces. Despite all our challenges, it’s nice to be living in one of them.

Meantime, back on Q3 Main Street…

The impending MAGA Meltdown meets Trump’s Revenge Obsession. (Epstink? Memory Hole? Huh?)

In my previous post, “… Vaccine Mandates in Memory Hole”, waaaay back in January concerning a conscious effort by the powers that be to Memory Hole (a timely, social engineering, “no mention campaign” to make everyone forget with the passing of time) the fiasco that was the Trump-Biden-WHO/World Economic Forum Covid Coup, I was most curious as to why Trump never made it a rally talking point to address the disastrous Biden/Harris “vaccine” mandate mismanagement of the covid pandemic and the millions of lives that could have been saved had off label generic drugs been endorsed, as Trump originally advocated, instead of damned by the Biden administration, complicit with the FDA and CDC. Perhaps because parts of it would have reflected badly on his triumphant Operation Warp Speed, Big Beautiful Bill Gates Magic Vax (and the rainy day backdoors embedded within OWS)? Better to Memory Hole the mischief and hope fkrs like me eventually go away? Good luck with that! 

Now it appears that one of trumps biggest talking points at his election rally’s, the repeatedly promised release of everything in the infamous Epstein files, is being adamantly labeled a non-event, which suggests another Memory Hole campaign about to begin! WTF?! After all that build up and promises made to his MAGA base, all they get is, “Nothing to see here, MAGA! Quit wasting your time. Quit wasting my time. Let’s move on and talk about Big Beautiful A.I. and how I just fkd you and your families Medicaid benefits!” Oops. Just goes to show, once a compulsive, lying sack of toad turds, always a compulsive, lying sack of toad turds. Nice to see many Tea Party MAGA’s finally getting Red Pilled reality on poisonous Trump, the Toad Deceiver.  

Due to all the moving matrix pieces and uncertainty, back in January I knew it would be a while before enough smoke had settled to get a  better idea of where Q3 and Q4 may be headed and it’s ripple effects on Main Street and the Canary Coal Mine flea markets for a short term economic forecast. Now it seems our attention has been re-directed from DOGE/Elon and Nut&Yahoo/Iraq to Trump’s biggest MAGA fk, his Big Bad Bullshit Bill (Medicaid upheaval, tax breaks for rich, etc), his going 180 on promises of Epstink disclosures and now, Tulsi Gabbard’s recently announced investigation into – “The Crime of the Century! Trumps arch enemy… Obama”?! I thought Hillary and/or Biden and/or Clan Cheney was #1 on his shit list. Allegedly, Obama and Co conspired to handicap/smear president elect Trump with RussiaGate just before he took office in 2017 and got bunch of intell people to join the party and help with media propaganda and ducks alignment. Naughty naughty!

Via Taibbi/Racket, “The new Director of National Intelligence is targeting Obama’s legacy and maybe even his freedom, detailing a “treasonous conspiracy committed by officials at the highest level of our government,” announcing that everyone involved “must be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

Oh my! If the allegations are true (unlike mainstream corporate media, Matt Taibbi has earned his credibility!), I suspect Mr Obama will be in deeper toad poop, and more of a flight risk, than post first term “Citizen Trump, Fugitive Trump?” ever was. Don’t be surprised if Rubio’s State Dept suspends Obama’s passport. It will be very interesting to see how progressive (my former political affiliation) RussiaGate true believers Thom Hartmann, Any Goodman and “Background Briefing” Ian Masters, etc respond to Gabbard’s evidence in their attempts to spin it into “nonsense”. I’d imagine this is a wet dream cum true for Trump – “Finally! The long awaited revenge and vindication for dirty, sleazy, stinky personal and political deeds is within reach! Tulsi, Whack their Pee-Pee’s!!”  

For the record, I’m neither a supporter nor a hater of Trump. It seems that these days, that’s enough to get ya permanently cancelled by fair weather friends with little tolerance for those who are slow to condemn, let alone damn. That being said, I do find his habit of exaggerating and trying 24/7 to beat his previous record of lies per minute amusing. “Biden’s economy worse than the Great Depression!”? Hoo-Haww!! Not at the flea markets, it wasn’t. However, I can’t say I blame him for wanting to fk those who desperately wanted to fk him by any means necessary – Obama, Hillary, Biden, the DNC etc. – “Deplorable!” Even more amazing is that they must have been pretty confidant that they could pull this banana republic insult to democracy off. I suspect anyone in a similar situation at the highest level of politics would do the same, especially if public vindication and red handed exposure of attempts to dirty deed could be in reach. I know if I was in that position, I sure as hell would! By the way, have you ever noticed that the desire for juicy payback revenge escalates when failed assassination attempts are involved? 

Going forward, I strongly suspect Trump is going to be very tempted to spend much of the rest of his second term savoring and encouraging the “treasonous” revelations (and the prison terms associated) and a bit less time governing. Ha! That might be a good thing! His Big Bad Budget government debt increase has been signed into law and the downstream effects (cuts to Medicaid) are likely to sucker punch his MAGA’s hard by the end of the year. MAGA’s are slowly red pill realizing that Trump’s Make America Great Again was much less about restoring Main Street to greatness and much much more about insuring greatness for his Wall Street business and political elite buddies. Showdown in Trumpworld nails it: “the tragedy is that the less-educated working-class voters who flocked to Trump’s anti-elitist message will remain the losers”, as Trump sails off onto the golf course with this fellow elites, grooming JD for the 2028 republican, techno president nominee, while enjoying the fruits of his addition of $3.4 trillion in government debt/spending at we the pee-on, tax payers expense. And all within his first six months in office! Much of his remaining three and a half years, I imagine, will be spent on what appears to be justified, righteous indignation meets karmic retribution. No siree, there’s never a dull moment with this dude!

It also wouldn’t surprise me if the Obama Conspiracy allegations/revelations shed some light/suspicions on who was the power/$$$ behind Kid Crooks dirtiest deed attempt. Consequently, this latest hubbub will likely take some of the eyeball attention off the Epstein battle of the “Control Files” mischief. Hmmm, as intended?! I had no idea that Trump was such a frustrated aspiring artist that he’s gone as far as denying any artistic, let alone drawing abilities. “Happy Birthday Secrets, El Jeffery“?! Gonna be interesting to see how big this snowball gets. It might just take some of the slow simmering MUTINY out of MAGA as the focus gets re-directed to Obama, Hillary, Biden, FBI and Co. Either way, much more drama guaranteed!!

Part 2, the Main Street/Flea Market dismal economic indicators on my radar – labor “help desperately wanted” cuz trump/ICE deported labor added to existing vax disabled labor, SFH real estate meltdown on the horizon, a waning Main Street Wealth Effect, “and sooo much more!”

Copyright © Dismal David Lancon July 2025. All Rights Reserved.