How very un-American. So contrary to the ideals of freedom and equal, a democracy where we all answer to the law of the land.
I vaguely wondered and researched if there had ever been a precedence for this. I also wondered what Constitution originalists would have to say about it. They’re always touting what they think the founders were thinking when the government was established, talking about intentions. How will they reconcile this ‘deal’ with the founders’ intentions?
Trump is acting like a king, giving himself royal prerogatives about how the government will treat him and his crimes.
The reactions are about what we’d expect. MAGA supporters are pleased that Trump is beating the ‘deep state’. Sorry, but I’m not linking to any of those subjects.
These things are happening while Trump pretends to celebrate the 250-year anniversary of the nation he’s undermining and the policies and norms he’s betraying. It’s such a slap in the face to We the People. More troubling is that most of the Republican version of We the People are so willing to be complicit in this travesty.
A ‘modified’ Trump Quote of the Day for you:
Fascinating how the truth is encoded Trump when he projects as he does, isn’t it? It’s one of the few times he tells the truth.
Catsitter called to say all is well with Papi. He was sort of quizzical about his morning routine, looking around for us, not really ready to eat at first but then gave in and chowed down.
Yes, we’re still at the coast. Another day, another photo.
Temperature is 58 F for the record, not far off of the expected high of 63 F. Tide is out. It was waayyy low earlier this morning.
Other than thinking about Trump and growling about what he’s done so far, I’m not paying much attention to the news. Saw there was another shooting, along with the usual responses from the usual suspects.
It was striking to see how many police cars mobilized to the shooting site in San Diego. We could save so many lives and need far less resources like this if we’d take a sensible approach to gun ownership. Someday, someday, someday…
For music, The Neurons went with “Margaritaville.” This is a Jimmy Buffett song. The Neurons fed it to the morning mental music stream as I cruised the sand. The surf’s sound pounded my ears and the wave play was fantastic. Soooo refreshing. I had a cuppa coffee in my hand as I walked… Well, truth: I had a four shot Americano as I walked. Good stuff. *smile*
Hope you day goes as well as mine, and that our days together will grow brighter, better, and healthier.
Wet, chilly 44 degrees F. Clouds are throttling the sunshine. Rain fell overnight, a good short-term addition to keep the land wet, the plants green, and the reservoirs and cisterns full. Today’s high will be 64 F.
My news feed includes stories on an airline passenger biting a crew member, Trump threatening Boebert, and a car crashing into a crowd in California, killing people. The sad thing about these news pieces are how frequently things like this now fill my feed.
The complete Epstein files have not been released, despite Trump’s promise.
Trump’s disapproval ratings continue to climb. The NYTimes compiled a list of 826 poll results. I reviewed the first pages. Only one poll of 120 showed Trump to have a positive approval rating — +2, by a Republican pollster. All the preceding polls showed polling about Trump red with disapproval.
Project Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! remains in a quiet phase. Get ready for a breakout.
Crooks & Liars shared coverage about Trump and Vance and their financial paperwork.Setting the tone for Americans of all ages and backgrounds, Trump and Vance always diligently fill their paperwork accurately and on time.
No; that’s how it’s supposed to be. But in Trump’s Golden Age of Corruption, Trump and Vance keep failing to fill paperwork on time. Other presidents haven’t had this issue, but then, other presidents weren’t buying and selling stock as Trump does. The Trump White House countered, blind trust, but a rep said, “No, we have the paperwork with Trump’s signature.”
Lies, grift, and chaos are the hallmarks of a Trump operation.
Conover Kennard wrote the C&L post, “Rules Are for Little People”. I love her final paragraph because it summarizes the law-and-order hypocrisy of the Trump operations.
“I’m going to go out on a limb here to suggest that Trump isn’t being forthcoming. Shocking, I know. Last year, Trump publicly attacked Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri for collaborating with Democrats on legislation that would have prohibited the president and vice president from trading stocks. Imagine that.“
Yeah. Imagine that.
Your Trump Quote of the Day:
I’d be impressed if Trump began by making the White House crime free.
That’s not going to happen. Bolstered by the Roberts Court ruling that things Trump does as president is above the law, Trump has a different set of rules for himself. He has another set for wealthy friends and powerful people, a third set for his supporters, another set for everyone else except immigrants. Trump has a special set of rules for them, and it doesn’t include law or order, due process, or any of that other fancy US Constitution stuff.
Try to overturn the peaceful, fair, and legal elections
Threaten elected officials
Threaten and beat up law enforcement and destroy government property
Reward them for those crimes and behavior
That’s how upside-down Trump, the GOP, and the Roberts Court has turned the world.
Today feels like a bluesy Sunday. Sensing that, The Neurons hooked Gary Moore’s song, “Still Got the Blues (for You)” from the memory bank and began playing it in the morning mental music stream.
My hope for you is that the day works out for you with some semblance of peace, grace, and happiness. Stay strong.
From the beginning of Trump’s run for nomination, he’s made promises, and then broke them. Ignoring laws, experts, and history, he’s followed his own path. Experts warned about the consequences. History informed us about what had happened the last time the things he’s trying were tried. Laws were made to check power and ensure We the People were heard.
Trump ignored it all. The consequences are accelerating.
Trump began his term as 47 suggesting the United States should add a 51st state.
Puerto Rico? Washington, D.C.? Guam? All are natural choices, since their citizens are US citizens.
No. Trump scorned them. An advocate of states’ rights when it suits his agenda, Trump wants the Federal government to take over D.C. Says, “I think that we should run it strong, run it with law and order, make it absolutely flawlessly beautiful.” You know, like the USPS is doing under him. Or any of his bankrupted businesses.
Canada balked against the idea. Then they got pissed. Basically flipping the bird at Trump and the United States, Canada reacted to Trump and his threats and tariffs by withdrawing business from the US. Canada’s purchase of US alcohol has dropped 63%.
Using cell phone data, economic analysts are reporting that Canadian tourists boycotted coming to the United States for business and vacations more than is generally reported. When they did come, they stayed for less time and spent less money.
Then, deciding that law and order meant whatever he decided it meant, Trump used the US military to kidnap Venezuela’s President and his wife. Trump later suggested, maybe Venezuela should be our new 51st state, bringing WTF frowns to many people’s faces. Many frowns deepened when he’s shifted to talking about Panama as a 51st state.
The bottom line from Trump’s rash behavior is the US lost a valuable trading ally in Canada. Canadian tourists are staying away. That’s contributing to declines in tourism to the US. Most of the money being spent on travel in the US now is by US citizens.
Meanwhile, Trump’s military has been spending so much money that they now must save money. How will they do that? Why, by cutting training. Yes, sir, nothing works better to keep the nation’s military strong and ready then cutting training! How very Trumpy logic it is.
Part of the reason why the US military is cash strapped is Trump’s war with Iran. Trump had Iran attacked in June 2025 to stop their nuclear program. Trump declared that military operation was successful.
Yet, in February of 2026, Trump had Iran attacked again. To stop their nuclear program. In April, he declared that Iran’s military was ‘decimated’.
But here we are, more than two and a half months later, with Trump threatening to attack Iran again as Operation Sledgehammer because Iran is still fighting back.
As part of Trump’s war on fraud, waste, and abuse, he created DOGE. Headed by billionaire Elon Musk, DOGE trampled constitutional norms and arbitrarily decided what was waste, never mind what Congress had decided. That campaign led to over $100,000,000 in funding for 1,400 grants to the National Endowments for the Humanities (NEH) being cancelled or terminated.
A year later, a judge has ruled what many of us said a year ago: Trump lacks the authority to cancel these grants. The people he authorized to do so employed specious reasoning when they cancelled them. That Trump and Musk worked through two twenty-year-olds without experience in grants or the humanities, people who did not bother to review the applications or grants, was just another demonstration of the Trump administration arrogance, recklessness, and due process.
NEH is expected to restore the funding. We’re waiting to see if Trump’s DOJ will appeal.
Eric Trump, son of Donald Trump, was caught blatantly lying by Jen Psaki. Jen Psaki noted that Eric, a citizen entrusted with running the Trump business while his father is in the White House, went to China with Dad. Eric said it was because he was an adoring son. Psaki said it was because he was doing business with China and was on the board of Alt5. Eric denied having anything to do with Alt5 and threatened to sue Psaki and the network. Psaki pulled up the information about Eric Trump being introduced as a board member of Alt5 last year.
BTW, Eric Trump is cozying up to the Chinese to build Data Centers in the US with a Chinese chip manufacturer.
Eric, like Dozy Donnie, thought he could lie with impunity. He and Donnie both forget we’re in the information age. Fact checking is easily available if you have the time and interest.
Trump’s backward thinking is catching up with Trump and his family and supporters. It’s a slow-motion crash, but sooner or later, the tipping point will be reached and it’ll all fall over.
Many events are on the horizon which could cause the tipping point:
Climate change and forecasted super El Nino, with hot, dry weather extending the drought
The Trump Iran War, and its disruptions to the global supply change and rising prices
The accelerating national debt
More legal rulings against Trump, DOGE, Trump’s tariffs
A cratering economy
Rural healthcare hospital crises and rising insurance premiums and costs
Low tourism to the US with falling World Cup ticket prices and attendance
Trump’s worsening health and cognitive decline
Trump’s increasingly open corruption and grift
My question is, how bad will the fall be for the nation and its people?
Ashland, southern Oregon — Thursday, May 14, 2026.
It’s blue out there, full of sunshine. Clouds are absent. 50 F with a high in the mid 70s today.
Thunderstorms looked possible yesterday but it didn’t happen. Just as in the previous days of forecasted activity. After the winter snow drought, May is at 3% of its average rainfall.
Our snowpack is at about 7%. While the reservoirs are above 80%, without snowmelt to replenish them, it’ll be a hot, dry summer. Stack the El Nino predictions, many of us are bracing ourselves for a rough year ahead.
Mom’s state is not good. She wasn’t responding to my sister’s texts. Sis called the assisted living facility, Heritage Grove, to ask about Mom. They said Mom went to bed before dinner and had not felt well all day.
On the optimistic side of the board, two neighbors are reportedly interested in buying Mom’s house.
My wife and I had new tires installed. For the record, we replaced a set that we’d bought in 2019. Got 35,000 miles out of them. Not great, not bad.
We bought them at Costco and had them installed there, shopping while we waited. As we were in the Medford area, we decided to eat out and chose the Texas Roadhouse Restaurant. My wife likes the salmon they serve there.
We couldn’t eat there. The way was blocked by ambulances and firetrucks. Wondering what’s going on, we took to our phones to learn. Nothing at the fire department, alert system, social media, or local television stations could give us that info.
This duplicated a Tuesday incident, in my mind. Driving home from writing at the coffee shop, one lane of traffic was blocked off in front of an SOU building on Siskiyou Avenue. What happened? I searched for information after I got home and couldn’t find anything. 24 hours later, the answer came: a woman had driven across the median strip, up a walkway, and into a building, breaking a gas meter along the way.
Miserable headlines fill my feed. When will there be good news? I’m not sure what I mean by good news at this point. An end to wars would be nice, along with a return to normalcy. Normalcy to me is let’s take action against polluting our air and water. Action against climate change. But the cynic in me says that PINO Trump would take credit for whatever and enough brain-dead people would slurp that down and bray about how great Dozy Donnie is that I’d regurgitate everything taken in during the last three days.
But here’s the state of things in the United States nation in one sharp observation someone else made:
Your Trump Quote of the Day:
Paraphrasing, Trump lies, says this isn’t so bad, Biden! Because that worked well previously under Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL!
Enough people with brains are responding, screw you.
You started a war, Donald J “No new wars” Trump.
The economy is a mess, gas prices are rising, all the prices are rising, Donald J “We’ll cut prices on day 1” Trump, and the country is going in the wrong direction.
And you, DONALD J TRUMP, YOU ARE THE REASON WE’RE IN SIX MILLION MESSES WITH NO WAY OUT EXCEPT TO FIRST GET RID OF YOU AND YOUR CRONIES.
Now stop building the damn ballroom and release the damn Epstein files so we can feast on your political corpse.
The Neurons inserted “Mind Games” by John Lennon into my morning mental music stream. This actually came about from Papi’s state of mind this morning. I played with him and his favorite nemesis, the red dot. The play began abruptly. As soon as he engaged, I stopped for about a minute. He kept peeking left and right, waiting for it to reappear. Just as he started walking off, I blinked it back on. Off Papi went, chasing it across the room, then stalking it.
I hope your Thursday brings you some good news and fair winds, assuming you need winds to get somewhere. Like you drive a sail car and need to have wind to blow you along the Interstate.
With Trump in the Oval Office and his policies in place:
Food insecurity is a rising problem under Trump’s leadership.
Food banks across the nation are seeing rising demand and costs. New data and analyses confirm grocery prices for American households have begun rising due to the ongoing war with Iran.
Further increases are projected throughout 2026, thanks to higher fuel, fertilizer, and shipping costs. Food banks and food pantries are seeing 20% to 30% increases in traffic in the Phoenix (AZ), Midwest, North Carolina, and Southwest.
Measles are a rising threat. The states most affected by measles outbreaks in 2026 are all led by Republicans: South Carolina, Utah, Texas, Florida. The United States has seen 1,842 cases and 25 new outbreaks since the start of 2026.
Gas prices continue to create new records. My friends paid $6.79 per gallon for gas in California this last weekend.
Donnie “No new wars” Trump’s war with Iran has been going for two months and eleven days. Some estimates put the war’s financial cost for the US at $50,000,000,000 to date.
If you’re waiting on your Trump phone, there’s an update from Android Authority: ‘The update states that a preorder deposit “provides only a conditional opportunity if Trump Mobile later elects, in its sole discretion, to offer the Device for sale.” It also adds that a preorder deposit is “not a purchase.”’ The Trump phone was originally offered in June, 2025. It was supposed to be made in the USA.
The Epstein files still aren’t released.
We also have these gems:
The ballroom, which wasn’t going to cost US citizens anything, will cost $1,000,000,000 or more.
The $1.8 million dollars to ‘paint’ the Lincoln Memory Reflecting Pool cost $11,300,000.
Ashland, southern Oregon — Wednesday, May 5, 2026.
Today’s is a picturesque spring day, Ashland edition — sunshine, clouds, 56 F. They say we’re heading to the lower eighties. We cracked 80 at my place yesterday.
I caught up on some local news last night. A rural hospital crisis is affecting the United States. Been going on for years but getting worse.
Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill worsened the situation. By removing healthcare subsidies, healthcare premiums shot up. Many people had no choice but to severely cut back.
Asante is already reducing many services at Asante Ashland Community Hospital in my town. Now operating in other southern Oregon cities such as Medford and Grants Pass, they note that they’ve lost money in the first six months of this fiscal year and cut personnel. Part of the reason why they’re losing money is buried in a paragraph down in the story:
“Patients covered by private insurance are at the lowest percentage in Asante’s history at just over 14% of all patients so far in 2026.”
Oregon saw average premium hikes of nearly 10% for individuals after Trump’s OBBB took effect. Asante’s CEO noted that many local businesses are being priced out of offering health insurance due to these rising costs. Medicare and Medicaid barely cover the costs they say. It’s not a sustainable model.
Yet, with this crisis going on, Trump pretends to worry about the Iranians having nukes and attacks them.
Trump worries about his own security and image, naming things after himself, wrecking part of the White House to build that ridiculous Epstein ballroom, which went from ‘costing Americans nothing’ to $1,000,000,000.
Trump screams freedom! Security! Peace! Then he has the military attack and kill more people in boats.
So much for law and order.
Waiting to see what Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! brings today.
Your Trump Quotes of the Day.
He’s so consistently inconsistent!
Today’s song was another one inspired by Papi, my ginger furbrother. I was petting him after giving him his meds. He was purring like mad. But his personality requires that he be given space. I wouldn’t let him go, keeping hold of him until he gave me an annoyed look. Meanwhile, I laughed and sang the lines from “Magic” by The Cars:
I’ve got a hold on you I got a hold on you Got a hold on you
I’m off for my cystoscopy to see what’s going on in my bladder. It’s being done at Asante in Medford so I better do it before they close.
I hope the best possible day of grace, peace, and joy finds you and carries you on through life on a great wave.
Thunder is talking to us outside. It’s almost a three-D reproduction of yesterday: 56 F now, moving toward upper 70s. Cloudy, thin sunshine, thunderstorms.
Two headlines grabbed my attention today. One said that Delta airlines will stop serving food and beverages on flights under some mileage. I sort of shrugged at that, considering it, 1) part of the general enshittification trend of airline travel.
The other headline was about Trump’s Epstein Ballroom. Originally seized as an idea under Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL!, private donors were supposed to be paying for the ballroom. But NOTUS had this headline:
Remember when the ballroom was going to cost $300 million? Ah, good times. Prices are going up so fast these days.
Your Trump Quote of the Day:
Trump made these statements when he accepted the GOP nomination. It was part of his ‘law and order’ speech. Now he puts his personal agenda before the national good, leads an incompetent government, and fails We the People all the time.
I’m not surprised. That’s what I fully expected from Trump: failing upward, as he did all his life, by covering his mistakes with different personal variations of Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL!
Today’s song is by Steely Dan. I was thinking about pretzel logic. That happens to be the name of a Steely Dan album. I started thinking about that album, and Les Neurons brought “Any Major Dude” into the morning mental music stream.
It’s cloudy this morning but it’s not a solid mass. Sunshine washes through to warm us. It’s 55 F but we expect a high in the mid to upper 70s, and thunderstorms. We experienced a high of 80 yesterday before thunderstorms cooled us in the mid-afternoon hours.
Trump’s thin ego and weak position has been on display all weekend, beginning on Friday night. Heather Cox Richardson summarized Trump’s frenzied Friday night texts in her May 3, 2026, edition of “Letters from An American”.
This great uniter called Rep. Jeffries ‘low-IQ’ and a thug
Trump continued his pattern of spreading fake information, showing an AI-generated image of Jeffries holding a bat
Likewise, Trump showed an image of him and some of cabinet desecrating the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, a national monument
Trump added a text showing his worry about the mid-term elections; in his mind, they’re going to be stolen
Trump also makes the fake claim that Democrats destroyed the US after the 2020 elections. History shows otherwise. BTW, gas was a lot cheaper back in President Biden’s days, wasn’t it?
Trump was promising to release the Epstein files, and still hasn’t released them all.
And we also weren’t at war.
Your Trump Quotes of the Day:
Hope is my theme today, though. Last night, I watched a documentary on Netflix about the making of the song, “We Are the World”. The documentary came out two years ago. Here is the Wikipedia summary of the song:
It’s the hopeful nature of the endeavor that made me decide to play the song today. The song was made at a time when there was a lot of hand-wringing as people asked, “We can we do?” It reminds me of now, as so many watch Trump stagger through the world, destroying the nation, peace, and the environment. Come together, focus, and work against him and his reactionary, destructive policies.
The documentary was full of some fascinating moments. Diana Ross took her music to Daryl Hall and asked him to sign it for her because she was his biggest fan. Watching those singers cope with the notes, wording, and situation fired my amazement about how capable and accomplished they are. They were also often star struck by the others in the room.
One of the most hilarious pieces came from an anecdote related Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles talking together. Both are blind. Ray commented that he needed the restroom. Stevie said, “Oh, I’ll show you where it is.” Stevie then led Ray away, leading someone to crack, “The blind are really leading the blind here.”
Hope you have a great day. I’m off to do Food & Friends deliveries with my wife.
Clouds rule our valley this morning. It’s an almost unbroken sea of white and gray but thin enough to let sporadic sunshine sneak in and out. 59 F now, we’re anticipating a high of 77 today. Again.
Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! has recommenced. After Trump successfully grifted Republicans in Congress into believing that Trump’s Iran War is over, Trump has turned his sights to Cuba.
To recap:
Eastern Pacific/Caribbean – killed 181 to 186 people while destroying 40 ‘drug boats’
Venezuela: abducted the nation’s president and first lady
Greenland: threatened to take it in the name of peace
Iran bombed it twice
October 2025, to ‘obliterate’ its nuclear capability
February 2025 to now, because of its nuclear threat
“In a February 2016 interview with MSNBC, Trump said the wall would go “probably 35 or 40 feet up.” The height reduction was short-lived, however. Later in the same interview he said “And I heard [Mexican President Vicente Fox] said that we will not pay. Guess what? The wall just got higher.” At rallies in early 2016, Trump repeatedly said the wall gained 10 feet everytime Mexico rejected paying for it.
“At the Republican presidential debate in March he reverted to his earlier claim that “the wall’s 50 feet high.” Later that month at a MSNBC town hall he stated the wall would be “a good 35 feet. It’s getting higher all the time” and reiterated Mexico “will pay in one form or another.” At the same town hall the price of the wall jumped to $10 billion.”
Repeat after me: you can’t believe anything that Trump claims.
Now tell me, who is going to pay for the ballroom? And how much will it cost?
Today’s theme music came as I went about lazily doing things this morning. Papi had been fed and was outside, washing, being a cat. I was lost in thought about a dream and realized, damn, time! So I told myself, “Get it together. Let’s go. Move.”
Hearing that, The Neurons hooked up with a U2 song, and delivered it to my morning mental music stream: “Stuck In A Moment You Can’t Get Out Of”.
Sample Lyrics
You’ve got to get yourself together You’ve got stuck in a moment And you can’t get out of it
The song came out in 2001 — before 9/11. Yet it feels like a perfect summary of our political situation in the US since then, with war, Trump, the Great Recession, etc.
It feels like a moment we’re stuck in, and can’t get out.
I hope the end of today finds you better off than the start of the day, and that you can stack good days upon good days.
Michael Seidel, writer 