John Scalzi’s Sage Voting Advice
Science fiction and fantasy writer John Scalzi weighed in on the 2026 midterm elections and who you should vote for in Ohio, where he resides. I think much of his advice applies to other states in 2026. Really, his final paragraph summarizes it all very well.
“And don’t vote for any Republicans. Let their manifest exile begin this year. Let it be compounded in 2028. Let them wander in the wilderness for a very long time. They deserve it.“
I urge you to read the rest of his post. It might make you smile.
Trump Double Standards
The political world had some fascinating headlines going this past weekend.
Five big reasons Republicans don’t deserve your midterm vote
Trump Tries to Trick Voters. They Treat Him to Pushback.
Trump cut funding for farmers — then unlocked billions for them before Election Day
That last headline is interesting. It highlights Trump’s patterns, IMO.
Trump likes to lie to win over voters (which some admire because he’s ‘telling it straight’ to them, in their mind). Then he makes solemn promises — over and over — about the great things he’ll do for people and the nation. Righteous declarations follow about who he is — a peace president who stopped eight wars, a unifier, a churchgoer who cares about everyone, a person who would never condone violence.
Then Trump broke many of his promises. Donald Trump often claimed that wasn’t what he said, that wasn’t what he meant, or that he was joking.
Next, Trump cut funding to programs and services. Some was done in secret, depending on the category of spending and how his ‘base’ feels about it. However and whyever Trump cuts, repercussions emerge. Experts often warn Trump and his supporters that those results will probably happen, but they ignore them, because TRUMP.
Then, lo, the results come in, almost as predicted. People become angry. If the angry people are part of Trump’s base, he slowly, belatedly, tries to fix things. Trump’s typical fix is usually a cash offer of dividends, subsidies, assistance. Those things sound terribly socialist, because such government handouts are branded as socialist by the right, but that’s okay; that’s Trump and his base.
That’s different.
It always is one standard for Trump and his supporters, and another for everyone else.
It’s the Trump Double Standard.
The debacle with the farmers can be traced across Trump’s second term.
Farmers’ problems began well before Trump came into office the second time as climate change, widespread heat, and drought changed weather patterns, and insurance costs skyrocketed. But I want to specifically address how Donald Trump’s actions actively worsened the situation for American farmers.
DOGE cut USAID funds because America First. As part of those cuts, the Food for Peace funds were cut. While the Food for Peace program fed people outside of the United States, Food for Peace bought billions of dollars of produce from American farmers. Just like that, that market was gone. Thank you, Donald Trump.
At the same time, funding for programs like the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) was frozen, leaving farmers who had already invested money into soil and water conservation projects completely in limbo regarding federal reimbursements. Thanks again, Donald Trump.
By this point, the financial strain from lost global markets, halted conservation rebates, and rising operational costs culminated in farm bankruptcies hitting a six-year high in 2026. Thank you again, Donald Trump.
Then, while farmers and most Americans were struggling to pay bills, Trump launched his war against Iran, immediately affecting global oil shipments and the international supply chain, resulting in higher prices for oil, diesel, and fertilizer for farmers. Thank you a fourth time, Donald Trump
Donald Trump’s solution for the problems he caused American farmers from the 2025 DOGE cuts, lost global markets, and higher prices from the 2026 Iran war was to throw money at it. Just days before the November 2026 midterms, the USDA scrambled to pledge $15 billion in emergency ad-hoc aid.
It’s too late for many farmers. They already declared insolvency. It’s also too late for those who are planning their fall purchases and next year’s crops. Not for the first time, Donald Trump, self-proclaimed expert in so many fields, failed to grasp the powerful negative impact of his decisions. And not for the first time, Donald Trump has No. Way. Out.
Thank you again, Donald Trump. Thank you for worsening the situation for farming in America. Thank you for raising the prices of food staples, oil, gas, diesel, and fertilizer. Thank you very damn much.
A change is needed. Vote blue.
Sunday’s Theme Music — Rolling on
Ashland, southern Oregon — November 1, 2026.
November has arrived, and it looks tired out there today. Dispirited. Like it’s beginning with a hangover. Limp with rain and moisture, many leaves have surrendered, leaving their trees almost naked. The remaining leaves appear dull, as if they’re just hanging on.
Fog and mists cut down the light and block the views. It’s warmer today, already 43 F, with a high of 53 possible.
Mom sent out a text to Gina (my sister) yesterday. Mom will give Gina $4K a month and apologize to Pat if she can come live with Gina.
The money aspect isn’t a concern for Gina. It’s always been about Mom’s accusations about Pat and her refusal to apologize to him for what she claimed he did to her. Mom claimed that Pat spied on her all the time, took and hid her remote, and used an ‘invisible device’ on her head to cause her pain.
I don’t know what will come of this. Texts exploded yesterday after Gina and Mom became angry again, with Gina threatening not to take Mom to her appointment or to vote next week.
With November here, the midterm elections are at last in reach. I’m feeling the anxiety that many others. One, a hope that there is a blue wave.
Two, a worry that there won’t be a blue wave.
Three, a worry that there is a blue wave and Trump reacts by inciting violence. There is infamous precedence for that.
Your Trump Quote of the Day:
Yes, that was Donald Trump — the ‘peace president’, the one who never condones violence — after he lost the 2020 election and the results were being certified. Yet, Trump has sanctioned and cheered the violence done in his name, and the GOP says little.
For whatever reasons, the Bachman-Turner Overdrive song, “Roll On Down the Highway”, is being cranked through my morning mental music stream.
The song was released in 1975. I was in my first year of service in the US Air Force and my wife was a senior in high school. She graduated and we married, and this was part of our soundtrack of the time.
Today, my mind is stuck on the chorus, “Let it roll, down the highway.” It’s a reflection for me that I’m ready for some changes. The dice are thrown. Let’s see how they roll.
I hope the dice roll breaks in your favor today and everyday. Have a peaceful and joyous Sunday.
Cheers
AI, Trump, and Deception
On some days, it’s hard to be in the coffee shop. I was writing away when a group of five males who are about my age arrived. I’ve seen them before but don’t know them. After ordering drinks, they took the table beside me and began discussing subjects I enjoy.
For instance, they mentioned “Klara and the Sun”. Terrific book. A short summary is given. They don’t know the author’s name.
Working on my manuscript, I refrained from informing them.
“Did you lose any money yesterday?” one asked another. “There was a big crypto crime. I can’t remember the name of the company.”
I know, I know, my brain shouted, but I kept typing, venturing deeper into the novel in progress.
My coffee-shop neighbors returned to an earlier topic, AI. One said, “I think they’ll need to start labeling things made with AI.”
“Oh, yes,” another confidently replied. “That’s a given.”
I laughed to myself. I don’t think anything involving large sums of money and corporations is a given. I think that’s especially so when profits and revenues are in direct competition with public health and safety. Thinking back, I easily recall several historic incidents that repudiate that idea.
- Way back when cigarette companies paid doctors to reassure people that cigarettes weren’t dangerous.
- Remember the exploding gastanks on Ford Pintos? Ford paid a lot of money to keep that quiet, figuring that it would be cheaper to pay off the lawsuits.
- How ‘bout that time that oil and energy companies found and hid the risks and dangers of climate change?
- Purdue, the Sacklers, and the opiod epidemic early this century?
- Or what about DuPont and 3M hiding the effects of forever chemicals, Johnsons & Johnsons and the talcum powder/asbestos scandal, Volkswagen and dieselgate, or Monsanto and Roundup?
I can imagine the campaigns already, based on what I’ve seen with GMO labeling battles and Oregon Connects’ astroturf efforts here in Oregon. AI companies will run emotional ads arguing that forced labels stifle local software developers, harm tech startups, and slow down life-saving medical AI innovations.
They’ll jump on the deliberate manufacturing of ignorance and doubt, tactics corporations successfully employed before. As we’ve seen with multiple issues and challenges, the fight over AI labeling won’t be fought with facts; it will be fought by trying to convince you that facts don’t exist yet, or that a consensus about the facts doesn’t exist. It’ll be fought by convincing you that there is doubt.
Which brings us to Trump. Trump loves AI, although he wants to rename it, of course. While in office, Trump will absolutely fight to keep AI labels from being applied. Donald Trump is all for making money and dismisses values like honesty, ethics, and integrity.
So Trump will instantly denigrate any efforts to label AI content. That, I think, to Trump seems a lot like ‘woke’. And if he does, it will malign the effort for years.
I think that because of the 2020 presidential election. Donald Trump claims that election was ‘stolen’ from him. No evidence of that has ever been produced. Trump often claims it’s because of voting by mail. 51% of Americans believe that election security is now a big problem in 2026. When it’s addressed by party, 83% of Republicans believe that voting by mail is now not safe.
We can argue that the polls now reflect a worry that Trump has taken steps to make voting less secure. I believe that he influences others with his lies and deceptions.
Which is the point. When someone like Donald Trump takes the stage and bellows a claim, it becomes part of our modern landscape, tainting truth, spreading doubt and confusion.
And that’s why I don’t think that we’ll ever be able to accurately label AI content.
Not till longer after Trump is gone.
Saturday’s Theme Music – Us and Them
Ashland, southern Oregon — October 31, 2026.
Another 30-degree night. White clouds overly the blue sky, creating a hazy white and blue sky. About 50 degrees high expected, I think.
Halloween has arrived in the US. At last. Decorations have been up for a while, and a casual topic of conversation, a filler. “So, do you have any fun plans for Halloween?” “Do you get many tricker or treaters?”
We have no fun Halloween plans. Going to a Day of the Dead party, but that’s on Monday. No, we don’t get any trick or treaters, and we’ve ceased buying treats because we ended up eating them all or freezing them forever.
I chuckled as a I dressed today. I’m wearing a sweater with a black tee shirt under it. I bought the sweater before moving from California to Oregon, so that’s over 21 years ago. But I recognized the tee shirt as one of the black cotton tee shirts with a chest pocket that I wore with my battle dress uniform in the Air Force over thirty years ago. I was in special ops for a while, and they required black tees. I still have three of them. Amazing how well they held up.
Trump says we’re getting richer. Economists say, um, no.
Gosh, if we’re getting richer, as Trump claims, I wonder what’s causing the soaring personal bankruptcies this year if we’re all ‘getting richer’? And if the US as a nation, why is our national debt so high and climbing, or that the budget deficit is getting worse?
I also wonder why so many people are complaining about the high costs of food, healthcare, and just about everything else. Besides increasing personal bankruptcies, personal savings are cratering in the US, and credit card debt keeps going up. Even farmers and ranchers, beneficiaries of Trump’s attempts to buy them off, are starting to say that Trump is a disaster.
Well, the truth to Donald Trump’s assertion is in his words. When Trump says “we’re getting richer”, he doesn’t mean We the People. Trump means Donald Trump and his family and peers like the wealthiest five percent of the nation are getting richer.
For Trump, it’s always about us and them. Trump managed to con a large portion of the population into thinking he included them when he said ‘us’, but they’re starting to understand that Donald Trump is a greedy, lying narcissist who is using his position to enrich himself.
‘Starting to’ is key to that. Many Trump supporters ‘sort of kind of maybe realize’ it but support Trump despite what it does to the nation because they like his brand of greed, hate, division, faux religion, and chaos. They approve of his ‘small government model’ because it means less regulation for business and more money and opportunity for them to get wealthier! “Everyone for themselves!” is their model, echoing the Founders’ intentions.
As everyone knows, it’s all part of the Declaration of Independence:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all white men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Christian God with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Getting Richer, Screwing Everyone Else, and Doing Everything to Hold onto Power.”
Every school child is taught that early in American schools, especially private, white Christian schools paid for by vouchers made possible by poor taxpayers.
For as the old maxim goes, “We are only as strong as our weakest link, so we need to break those links and replace them with links like us. For in conformity is strength.”
Today’s theme music is by Pink Floyd. “Us and Them” was part of the album, “Dark Side of the Moon”, which was released in 1973. The lyrics are perfect for the Trump era, as he’s constantly dividing the nation, world, and even his own party under terms which call out us and them.
Sample Lyrics
“Forward”, he cried from the rear
And the front rank died
The general sat and the lines on the map
Moved from side to side
Black and blue
And who knows which is which
And who is who
Up and down
And in the end
It’s only round and round, and round
“Haven’t you heard it’s a battle of words?”
The poster bearer cried
“Listen, son”, said the man with the gun
“There’s room for you inside”
They’re not gonna kill ya
So like, if you give ’em a quick short, sharp, shock, they won’t do it again
Dig it? I mean he got off lightly ’cause I would’ve given him a thrashing
I only hit him once
It was only a difference of right and wrong, innit?
But really, I mean good manners don’t cost nothing, do they, eh?
Down and out
It can’t be helped
But there’s a lot of it about
With, without
And who’ll deny
It’s what the fighting’s all about
I hope you and me, and all our friends and relatives, have very good days and comfortable nights.
Cheers
Friday’s Theme Music — Notorious
Ashland, southern Oregon – Friday, October 30, 2026.
Octobers is sliding home. On to November – highly anticipated, fraught with tension and holidays, November. Many think change is needed. Disagreement still fills debate about what change is required.
It was another cold night last night, 34 F. Today is bleakly sunny with faded, slanting sunshine and a high in the low 50s.
My wife and I are going to a movie tonight at the Varsity Theater. “Wicker” is finally out, a movie starring Olivia Colman, Peter Dinklage, and Alexander Skarsgård, my wife has been looking forward to it for months. Based on a short story, the movie is a romantasy comedy about a woman who commissions a basket weaver to make her a man made of wicker.
Mom and I talked on the phone for another 30 minutes today. Her voice doesn’t carry well and her thoughts seem to scatter. She’s free of her UTI for today, and her birthday went well as my other sister, Lisa, visited her. Gina went by today, dropping supplies off for Mom. Gina also will take Mom to her doctor appointment on Tuesday and take Mom to vote. Peace is at hand for a day.
Like many, I’m waiting to see what happens on election day next week. Mail slowdowns have been spotted so people have voted early in reaction. Trump’s Department of Injustice is already attempting to influence and challenge election results in several states. Whispers keep circulating about ICE being deployed to voting locations or other ‘strong man’ intimidation tactics. Trump insists without evidence that it’s needed because others will cheat. Well, we can smell that trumpshit, because we’ve smelled it before.
Trump is notorious for being indifferent to the law – or anything and anyone who isn’t him. When it comes to his welfare, wealth, image, and legacy, he’s very concerned. Not so much when it’s anyone else.
Donald Trump has failed in so many ways. Economy, healthcare, national debt, war, popularity, cell phone, crypto, tariffs, trade agreements. He even failed to win the Nobel Peace Prize and the Pulitzer Prize. He’s only won fake prizes created to appease him.
And his approval and popularity are getting lower and lower, especially compared to former President Obama. President Obama is filling places, getting cheers, and grabbing headlines. He’s very popular. People came away from President Obama’s speeches saying, “President Obama is so smart, and he looks so good. Wasn’t that another great speech?”
Trump is winning empty seats and crickets. He’s very unpopular. People come away from Trump’s erratic rants wondering, “What the hell was he saying? God, he looks so sick and unhealthy. I think he’s going to die soon.”
So, we’ll see what Trump. Tries. Next.
“Notorious” by Duran Duran is today’s theme music. Yes, The Neurons plugged it into the morning mental music stream after I used the word notorious while discussing Trump with my wife this morning.
Although it was released in 1986, the song has some lyrics which fit well with the Trump practice of making and blowing off promises.
Sample Lyrics
Girls will keep the secrets so alone the boys making noise
Fools run rings to break up something they’ll never destroy
Grand notorious slam (bam) and who really gives a damn for a flaky bandit
Don’t ask me to bleed about it I need this blood to survive
You own the money you control the witness I’ll leave you lonely
Don’t monkey with my business you’ve paid the profits to justify your reasons
I’ve heard you promise but I don’t believe it that’s why I done it again
No no notorious, notorious, notorious
I can see references to the Epstein files via ‘girls will keep secrets’ too. Ditto, ‘fools run rings to break something’. Damn, that pretty well summarizes the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025: let’s break everything so white rich people can rule and make more money!
I hope these final days of October of 2026 find you in good health and good spirits. May you keep both through the coming months and many years beyond.
Cheers
