The Garage Caucus

The Garage Caucus �Veteran | Florida Dad - �Projects, Policy & Practical Politics �Bourbon, Ci**rs, & Common Sense

08/16/2026

Parenting siblings close in age is basically unpaid refereeing with no instant replay. Half the job is settling disputes over snacks, personal space, and the word “poop.” The fights are loud, but the bond underneath it is what really matters.

08/16/2026

How do you fling a 50,000-pound fighter jet off a boat and get it from zero to airborne in about two seconds? Turns out there are two ways, steam and magnets, and the Navy is right now in a genuine fight over which one is actually better. The wild part: the President just ordered them to rip out the high-tech magnet system and go BACK to old-school steam, except we haven’t built a steam catapult in 20 years, so “going backwards” might cost billions and take longer than moving forward. I’m not telling you who’s right, because the people who’ve actually launched off these decks can’t agree either.

08/16/2026

I spent the last few days at a camp in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania that Vietnam veterans built with their own hands, capturing the story of a man everyone called Pigsty. This was a generation that came home to a country that spit on them, and Pigsty came back to a dark place a lot of men never climb out of. But every person I interviewed told me the same thing about who he became: the guy you could rely on, the rock, the one who always showed up. He found his way back by finding another way to serve, and that’s the lesson so many of us GWOT veterans still haven’t learned. We put on the uniform because we wanted to serve, then took it off and forgot who we were.

08/15/2026

Very rarely is free ever actually free. This is especially true with free apps. As the old line goes, if you’re not buying the product that means you are the product. Your data is incredibly valuable.

08/15/2026

France just tried something a lot of parents have secretly dreamed about: a law banning social media for every kid under 15. Their top court just struck it down, and honestly, part of me gets the appeal, because we all know what these apps are doing to our kids. But here’s where I land as a dad: as much as I hate what these platforms do, protecting my kids from them is MY job, not the government’s. Nobody’s coming to do it for me, and in my house, that answer has to be me.

08/14/2026

I’m in Mechanicsburg this week, one of roughly ten thousand Pennsylvania towns that end in “burg,” so naturally I ran the numbers on what it costs to live here. Here’s the twist: Pennsylvanians earn a little BELOW the national average, but housing costs less too, the income tax is a simple flat rate, and overall the state lands just under the national cost of living. The catch is property taxes, which are no joke and quietly eat into the win. But here’s what matters most: a normal person on a normal paycheck can still afford a normal home here, and that’s getting rare in America.

08/14/2026

The USS Abraham Lincoln is all over the news right now, out on a brutally long deployment. I’m not here to litigate the specifics or the politics of it, that’s not mine to sort out. But as a veteran, I know what a long time away does to a person, and it’s a weight most people never see. If you’ve got someone deployed, on that ship or any other, send the message today. They need to know somebody’s still counting the days.

08/14/2026

I’ve had terrible luck lately flying home. Had to get diverted to Daytona on my way to Orlando. So we are talking about airline prices tonight.

08/13/2026

A top NATO general just said the quiet part out loud: hybrid attacks like drone incursions and sabotage are now hitting the alliance basically every single day, and somebody is watching exactly how each country reacts to each one. It’s a strategy called operating in the “gray zone,” staying just below the line that would trigger a real military response, while quietly mapping everyone’s weak spots. Each incident on its own is “just a drone,” which is exactly the point, because it never quite trips the wire. That’s not nothing on the news. That’s a move in a very patient game.

08/13/2026

Temporary, when it comes to fees or taxes, is one of the greatest lies we are told. The thing it was meant to pay for eventually goes away but the tax stays.

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