I read an article in “The Independent” about World Cup fans’ American experience. This, though, contains a critical observation to me. I added some emphasis.
“Many landed expecting the politically fractured country frequently highlighted in global headlines. Instead, they found Uber drivers brimming with recommendations and locals willing to open their homes to strangers. Even as game attendees grappled with the sticker shock of ticket prices, some Americans they met didn’t even know the World Cup was happening, or simply didn’t care.“
Honestly, I knew the World Cup was going on. I see news stories about the games and tournaments. But I am one who doesn’t care about it. Yet, I’m not surprised that some Americans were unaware of the World Cup going on; some of them emerged to vote, unsure about what’s going, back in 2024.
Then there was this from the same article:
“That felt like a proper American experience in Dallas,” Reader said. “He had, I would call it like a proper American setup, like a TV outside, a beer fridge, massive fly zappers, and then massive fans as well.”
Damn, I haven’t been exposed to that proper American setup yet.
“I don’t understand how it’s possible that Iran has the capabilities to fight this way and continue to try to lash out at Gulf countries and U.S. military bases because the U.S. has obliterated Iran’s military, and the president continues to reiterate that,” Bartiromo said Sunday on Fox News.
Gosh, yes, it IS a mystery. How, how, how? Can it be that Trump, the person who told us prices would go down 100s to 1000s percent, Trump who claimed Mexico would pay for the wall, Trump, who was documented lying and is widely perceived as dishonest, is LYING?
The inanity of this Blue Sky post rocked me:
WTF? DEI Bike Lanes? SMFH.
Seriously, these are the idiots Trump selected to run his administration.
Ashland, southern Oregon — Wednesday, July 15, 2026.
Gonna be 95 F here again. 79 right now. Will drop tomorrow to 85, they say. We’ll see.
Happy birthday to my younger sister. A mother of two, grandmother of two, she just retired from a long and very successful career in banking, and continues to have a happy marriage after 48 years.
To the news.
Heather Cox Richardson’s letter for yesterday — July 14, 2026 — relates how the United States slowly created and built its national parks and monuments. Presidents from both parties embraced the idea of saving natural lands for people to enjoy.
Armed with Project 2025 ideas and declaring a national energy emergency, Trump has rolled back protections. Even though people love the parks and the parks bring income into the nation’s coffers and create jobs, Trump is more interested in what it can do for the timber, mining, and energy industries. Under him, the parks will be smaller and trashier than they’ve been since the 1890s.
“White House every day is looking more like a red neck garbage dump,” someone else blasted, with a fourth viewer weighing in, “Just because it’s gold doesn’t make it elegant. At some point, it starts looking less like a palace and more like a casino lobby.”
An article from TNR asked a question which many of us wonder:
Nice summation of the current mess in Trump’s war with Iran right here:
“The two New Jersey property managers Trump sent to negotiate his surrender produced a poorly written memorandum of understanding, or MOU, that captured the new power relations—Iran got nearly everything it demanded, including a $300 billion reconstruction fund, while the United States got vague promises of talks on all the issues Trump had started the war to resolve.”
Now Trump is back at it, launching attacks, still after the same objectives that he claimed to have achieved before, fighting the way he claimed to have won before.
Feels like just more Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! to me.
Your Trump Quote of the Day:
Classic Trump word weave. Little meaning, less truth, far less connection with reality.
I’m not an expert but based on experts’ opinions and history, I believe this policy will dramatically increase the costs of goods in the US, thereby increasing inflation, straining affordability and healthcare for many Americans.
Today, in honor of MAGA and Republicans, Les Neurons served up a song called “Love is Blindness”. U2 came out with it first. It was too mellow and chill for me. I prefer Jack White’s harder, more challenging edge.
Sample Lyrics:
A little death Without mourning No call And no warning Baby, a dangerous idea That almost makes sense
Love is drowning In a deep well All the secrets And no one to tell Take the money Honey Blindness
h/t to Bing.
May this day come with peace, grace, and joy for you, and gently carry you forward to the best times possible.
Ashland, southern Oregon — Tuesday, July 14, 2026.
Gonna be hot today, probably 96. Reached 96 yesterday, too. Today’s sky offers blue, blue, blue, and blue wherever you look. It’s a comfortable 74 degrees F right now with a mild breeze gracing us.
It’s the birthday for one of my younger cousins today, but she passed away from cancer several years ago. I remember her with fondness for who she was, sadness for her reduced life and the disease she endured.
Trump announced another blockade of the Strait of Hormuz in conjunction with his war on Iran. Then Trump said that he was going to charge ships a 20% fee to go through, something well-established as illegal.
Then Trump TACOed and rescinded that announcement.
I suspect it was just another Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! move. Keep us distracted from his many failures and setbacks, such as that other distraction, the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool fiasco, and that mess called the Epstein Ballroom, sartorially named after Trump’s good friend.
Your Trump Quote of the Day:
Judge Kathleen Williams blocked Trump’s sweeping IRS settlement. If you remember, Trump sued the IRS, demanding $10,000,000,000 in damages. The DOJ announced a settlement between the IRS and Treasury in which a victim fund of $1.47B was established to be paid out. It also said the IRS agreed never to audit Trump and his family and their businesses or tax returns.
Judge Williams found some problems with the settlement.
I read her 56-page ruling yesterday, skipping many of the footnotes and some of the legal precedents. Fun read, though.
The Federal judge said this is a case of Trump against Trump, with Trump controlling both sides. She cited Trump’s early Executive Orders when he took office for his second term, noting that he made it clear that he was in charge of the executive branch and all of its offices, personnel, and decisions. As the case pitted the Treasury against the IRS and both of them are part of the Executive Branch, and Trump controls both, it’s like arguing with yourself.
Judge Williams also went on to note the lack of evidence, documentation, and statements made by the defendants. All this pointed to a lack of adversity, so the two sides were not arguing about anything. There were also a few comments made about the lawyers, and things the lawyers said in testimony to Congress and public statements.
Along with all that, she found the fund they established as a ‘settlement’ made no sense, because it awarded money to be given to parties unrelated to the lawsuit, and it established no means for controlling it.
I like the way that Judge Williams put it after laying out her reasoning:
“The Parties used the existence of federal litigation as a means of conferring legitimacy upon a course of action that they were unwilling to subject to judicial review. The context of the “settlement,” the relationships of the people involved in negotiating and approving it, the ethical implications of their conduct, and the Parties’ swift efforts to dismiss this case after the Court raised fundamental jurisdictional questions all support this conclusion.”
Other news found the Trump Administration unfreezing money meant for blue states. Trump had the $10B HHS funds for the five states frozen, claiming that they were perpetuating fraud. Standard for Trump, he offered little evidence for his claim and made sweeping allegations.
The affected states sued. A federal judge blocked the freeze and mandated that Trump administration needed to explain why they’d frozen the money and justify their action. Rather than share their thinking, the money was unfrozen.
After all that, I was thinking about Trump and jail. The Neurons noticed and slotted a Thin Lizzy song into the morning mental music stream, “Jailbreak”. *smile*
I hope this day gives you many reasons to smile and be happy.
Ashland, southern Oregon — Saturday, July 11, 2026.
65 and cloudy, it feels like a comfortable 72 outside. The temperature will rise into the high 80s today in our valley.
It seems to me like Trump has been losing mojo. Just IMO. Gas prices are rising — again, after a brief reprieve while a ceasefire was in effect — and the recession vibe remains strong. People keep talking about it and they’re not pleased.
Although Republicans ‘support’ the war with Iran, it’s not very popular. His objectives are all over the place, as is the timetable. Only the triple impacts of death, destruction, and costs are clear.
Hustling to keep power, Trump is trying distraction after distraction under Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! This week, he rolled out the classic right-wing trope, ‘commies’.
Like many of Trump’s tactics, he’s going after emotional votes, and uses fear. Basic insights tell us that this shift is to attract anyone previously affected by communism, such as Cuban voters who escaped Castro. It’ll also speak directly to those cold war survivors who had the commie threat ingrained in them for decades.
Threat inflation, I believe it’s called, and it’s been used in politics forever, most recently when JD Vance and Trump made up stories about Haitians eating people’s pets.
Trump is hoping that the commie threat will distract us from the tangible and intangible expenses of his war with Iran. He also has his fingers crossed that it’ll be enough of a distraction to lower our concerns about the rising challenge of affordability in the US, extreme weather problems being fueled by climate change, his grifting, and the many other ways he’s broken promises and failed.
That emotional vibe is what keeps MAGAts riding the Trump bus.
Meanwhile, the rural hospital crises goes on. Measles outbreaks have already surpassed 2025’s total, and will get worse. Measles used to reflect the school-year cycle but now, as children attend summer camps, the spread of measles is no longer contained to the school systems as much as it was.
A new vision of Trumpland rises. The wealthy top five to ten percent enjoy life as poverty grows. People outside of the wealthy class increasingly struggle to keep up with needs — food, health, shelter, energy — or the house and health insurance to save them when things go wrong.
Emotional voters will vote for him because he says it like it is, because he speaks to their fears.Yes, that’s a little reductive; others will vote for him because ‘the Bible’ or ‘woke’. More will vote for him because ‘Merica, or ‘Republican’.
That’s what we face to bring sensible change back into the national conversation.
Today’s song came out in 1973. The ballad of the “Uneasy Rider” was by the Charlie Daniels Band — CDB. It tells the story of a long-haired person driving through the south back in the early 1970s when they have a flat tire.
While waiting for their tire to be fixed, the narrator takes refuge in a bar, where he hides his hair up under his hat. But circumstances arise when he must ‘tip his hat to a lady’. He does, revealing his long hippie hair.
Suddenly he’s nervous and in danger. In order to escape, he starts accusing one of the others of various things — playing on fears. Here’s the lyrics that tell the tale:
I bet you he’s even got a commie flag Tacked up on the wall inside of his garage” “He’s a snake in the grass, I tell you guys He may look dumb but that’s just a disguise He’s a mastermind in the ways of espionage”
