Ashland, southern Oregon — Thursday, June 11, 2026.
It’s blue skies and warmer temperatures for us today. Like the weather has just awakened to the season and decided, alright, let’s go.
Tear it up, break it up, go for it. That’s Trump. He alone decides what ‘we’ the nation will do. This is true whether we’re going to war, escalating violence, tearing down the White House, remodeling it, building, modifying, or renaming monuments.
Trump ignores the law, goes around the requirements, skips past reviews. Then, as work begins and We the People protest, we go to court. While the issues are adjudicated, Trump keeps tearing and down and building. He’s been doing this with attacking Iran, building the Epstein ballroom — well, it’s a long list.
It’s also a giant middle finger at We the People, our political norms, checks and balances, laws, and Constitution.
The GOP is okay with it. Him. Speaker Johnson metaphorically shrugs. The media tiptoes around what he’s doing, because the other thing Trump does is threaten. His administration holds a bunch of keys. Everyone knows it. And Trump has demonstrated he has no concerns for anything and anyone but himself. Beyond his words, his policies reflect it. He thinks, oh, the war will end and prices will drop.
Really? Is that what happened when prices rose during COVID?
Your Trump Quote of the Day:
Trump was lying, of course. He always lies. He began acting like a dictator on day one, and still is.
That’s why protests are important. When Congress stands aside, SCOTUS enables, and the press backs away, We the People must stand up.
Show up again. Keep showing up, please. We don’t like the direction Trump is taking us and must change it.
Today’s morning mental music stream song is “Invisible Sun” by The Police. I was reflecting on my childhood and pictures of smoky, polluted skies we would see in the newspaper. By then, our skies were much clearer and cleaner. Now, Trump is turning it back in the name of making money.
Sample Lyrics
It’s dark all day and it glows all night Factory smoke and acetylene light I face the day with my head caved in Lookin’ like somethin’ that the cat brought in
My hopes for you are that the sun is warm, the air is fresh and clean, and your spirits are high.
Americans are irritated. Worried. Bothered. Inflation has pushed up the costs of new homes, home repairs, car insurance, healthcare, health insurance premiums, food, and energy.
Back when Trump started his war with Iran, he mentioned, “We’re not at war.” He often did it with a little sly week, instead referring to it variously as a conflict, operation, or excursion. Yet, he still used terms like dropping bombs and talked about destroying Iran.
MAGA, who loves Trump, immediately began parroting Trump’s language. So, the Iran ‘conflict’ is fine with them, because we’re not at war, and he didn’t break his promise, “No new wars.”
That’s why “I love inflation” makes sense now. They’ll hear Trump say that and begin using his phrase. They’ll get all gleeful and giddy about inflation — using Trump’s terminology, of course, about how inflation is good because we’re fighting Iran, and that’s some kind of good thing, in his head.
That makes it totally swell for MAGA.
For the rest of us in the real world, the inflation isn’t good and has serious repercussions on health, happiness, and the quality of life.
Also, making statements like, “I love inflation,” is part of Trump’s Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! distraction weave.
Look — I tore down the White House east wing! Building the biggest ballroom ever!
Look — I painted the Lincoln reflecting pool!
Look — I bombed Iran! Saved us all from nuclear annihilation!
Look — there’s election cheating going on in California!
Lightly rained off and on all day yesterday. We have a marbled sky today, gray and white against blue. Sunshine cuts through the clouds, darkening the mountain’s greenery with shadow islands. 56 F, our high will cut into the mid 70s. I don’t mind; give me this instead of the drought’s extreme dry and the blistering heat that usually strikes.
Gina is on the warpath, as we put it in my household growing up, a carryover from Mom and her generation and those before her. Mom called Gina with reports of theft and the lack of regular cleaning. Mom said that she’s been cleaning her own bathroom floors with wet wipes.
As the most confrontational of my family, Gina charged right in: this needs to be fixed. What’s the ‘or else’ implied? I’m not sure. It might be ‘more Gina’.
My wife got her latest ‘real ID’ yesterday. This one has the star. What will adorn them next?
Getting that for her required an appointment and a visit to the ‘big’ DMV in Medford. It was either go there or camp out at the Ashland DMV every morning and hope the Gods of Bureaucracy were kind.
She took in her birth certificate. Not the real thing, but a tattered, certified ‘photographic reproduction’ created in 1962. Much of the birth certificate’s entries were in cursive. The DMV agent, a very nice person, laughed about the struggles to read cursive, as she hasn’t had to in a while. That led to a sidebar about her children. They don’t know cursive and when she writes notes using cursive, they ask things like, “What language is that?”
That chased us into a conversation about signatures. The DMV agent said anything can be used and recognized as a ‘signature’. From further conversation, it appears that we’re basically going back to ‘making our mark’.
On the Trump side of things, my wife and I were talking about the food prices. My gosh, how they’ve gone up.
I did a search about Bessent’s claim and saw that he’s made that claim a few times the last several months. And as late as last November – 2025 – he was trying to blame Democrats for the prices. I know from Trump’s latest Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! pivot, aka the Trump Iran war, that Trump knows that prices are higher. He knows that the war is causing it.
*probably also knows his tariffs are causing them but won’t admit it because that would reveal he’s been wrong all along*
Trump, though, has pivoted. He’s not worried about high prices, affordability, or Americans’ finances, no; he’s saving us from Iranian nukes.
Ironically, of course, that was also the Bush-Cheney claim for the war against Iraq: WMD.
Yes, Trump and the GOP have dragged WMD back out of the closet. They’ve avoided using that phrase.That phrase — WMD — is loaded with baggage for US voters and the world.
It shows that in the end, Trump and the GOP only have three dimensions to their strategy: fear, distract, and cause dis-unity. For when facts, truth, and unity show up, Democrats win, and we move forward. Not evenly, and certainly not perfectly. But we move forward in our efforts against poverty, food deserts, climate change, and real challenges. Not fake challenges that are monsters only in unthinking minds.
The Epstein ballroom remains under construction. No new news on who is paying for it.
Trump’s approval continues its slow crash. Disapproval numbers show a sea of red. In a way, Trump is starting to live up to the vision he had of himself as a ‘unifying’ force; unity in disapproval of him and his policies is increasing.
My morning thoughts were about a dream that involved flying. The Neurons were snooping around, found out, and introduced “Aeroplane” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers into the morning mental music stream. Hope you enjoy it.
My hopes for everyone and everything is to go with peace and grace and make life better for all of us. Not just a privileged few.
It’s another cool June morning in Ashland’s valley. Also damp with light rain. I’ll take both over the dry, hot weather which had been predicted for us. Right now, it’s 53 degrees F with clouds and expected to reach 64.
My sister has continued reporting on emptying Mom’s house. The ‘metal guy’ came and hauled away metal shelves, chairs, tables, junk. As she lists the accumulation and where it was found — behind or in the shed, in the garage — it becomes a reflection on how we make plans and set things aside, then forget about them. I confess, there’s probably a chunk of stuff like that in my life.
Each time that I share a story like this with my wife, she responds, “Don’t you think your mother wishes she did a death clean?”
No; I don’t. Mom isn’t involved. The FAMILY might wish it so, but Mom is in many ways removed from the process.
Technically, it’s the trust run by Junior which refused to hand over the records. Don’t doubt that Junior didn’t ask Trump about it before saying that they’re not handing over the records.
If it was anyone else not handing over records, Trump would immediately be declaring, “So CROOKED AND DISGUSTING!!! WHAT ARE THEY HIDING!!!”
TDS — Trump Double Standards — are Trump’s only standard.
“He broke every record. He sleeps all the time, during the day, during the night, on the beach. The only guy could fall asleep on the beach with the press watching,” Trump said, seeming to reference a clip of Biden filmed while he was vacationing.
Trump added, “When you love your job, when you love your country, and when you’re in a position like we are, future king, highly respected, crown prince, and, in my case, president, you’re thinking about your country.”
Trump has been photographed multiple times sleeping in meetings recently. Using Trump’s logic, Trump must not love his country.
Today’s music is from Sammy Hagar. His song, “There’s Only One Way to Rock” was released in 1981. It’s in my morning mental music stream today due to one phrase: “It’s a fact and you know that it’s true.”
Trump’s war with Iran isn’t a war but a conflict. It’s not that long, even though it’s 100 days and longer than he said it would be.
It’s also true with Epstein’s ballroom. Trump made it all about the need for a ballroom and then flipped his reasoning when private financing stalled, and made it about ‘security’. But the facts are facts; they are documented.
And you know it’s true.
May peace and joy grace your day in all and every meaningful way.
“I didn’t guarantee no war. Why would I have built the strongest military in the world? I built our military.”
Trump’s claim that ‘I built our military’ barely stands up to any scrutiny. Most of the military hardware and personnel were part of the US military before Trump entered office in 2017. That is well documented.
His claim that he didn’t ‘guarantee’ no war is technically true: he didn’t ‘guarantee’ it. But he implied no new war by using the words no now war. His claim now goes against the vast Internet documentation of him promising “No new wars.”
Of course, in his mind, we’re not at war, even though he reminded everyone that we were at war, because he’s trying to gaslight us with one of his fabulous word weaves. Most of the world calls his word weaves ‘bullshit’ or early signs of cognitive issues, but to Trump, it’s genius.
Challenged about attacking Iran, Trump claimed, “If I didn’t go in there with the B-2 bombers, they would right now have a nuclear weapon, and it could be that half of the world would be eradicated already.”
Unfortunately for Trump, this was contrary to all evidence and facts, including his claims from June of 2025. Apparently becoming upset by having facts and evidence pressed on him, Trump declared, “I’ve had enough,” and stormed off the set. This could be why some have labeled him as TACO, for, “Trump Always Chickening Out”.
On the good news side of things, Trump managed to stay awake during “Meet the Press”.
There’s no confirmation that Trump had to leave because he felt a need to take a nap.
