Thursday’s Theme Music — Fantasy
Thursday, August 6, 2026. Ashland, southern Oregon.
Another hot one in store for us. Funny in an odd way but many sources show yesterday’s high for our town as 91 F. But my car registered 104. My home registered 101.5. Other friends had the same experience with their cars, phones, and homes.
Whatever yesterday’s true high was, today expects to clip 100. Smoke is streaking the blue sky, coloring it with gray.
The news from Trumpland continues along fantasy lines. Trump thinks everything is going great. He wants battleships built! And ice-breakers! The latter seems like a sweetheart deal for some other corrupt cohort. Wonder how much Trump will get as a kickback?
With Democrats winning, Trump is wringing his hands and worrying again about stolen elections. Never offers evidence, just claims.
“MY REAL POLL NUMBERS ARE THE HIGHEST THEY HAVE EVER BEEN” Trump claims.
Yet, all the evidence says, no it’s not, dude.
But that is the Trumpster. Is he fantasizing or does he live in a fantasy world? Perhaps he’s just trying to appease his tired, broken ego. Maybe — maybe — others are feeding him this to buoy his spirits. Based on Trump’s track record of making stupid statements and acting like an idiot, he may actually be dumb enough to believe that he’s very popular.
It’s also possible that Trump is making these claims as part of Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL!
His Iran war is not going well. The US — largest military in the world — needs to resupply itself because Trump and Hegseth have wasted so much. The Trump economy isn’t doing well, either, with growth down and prices up.
As election results rolled in from Michigan, there came a distinct response from Trump that shouted, oh no! Because he immediately began spinning tales from the election theft crypt.
Then there are also more FAFO stories like this one, with MAGAts who proudly voted for Trump now whining about what he’s doing.
The Neurons think that “Hey You” by Pink Floyd is right for this day. I assume that’s why they put it into the morning mental music stream. They specifically channeled these lines:
But it was only fantasy
The wall was too high, as you can see
No matter how he tried, he could not break free
And the worms ate into his brain
That’s pretty Trump, getting trapped in his own fantasies while something eats his brain. Our challenge it to keep his fantasy from doing more damage and then rebuilding to recover from it.
May your day progress on solid truth, moving you and yours toward a better place, where we will no longer deal with the madness of Trump.
Cheers
Wednesday’s Theme Music — Shadows
Ashland, southern Oregon. Wednesday — August 5, 2026.
We hit 101.5 at my house yesterday. That was outside. Inside, we stayed below 80. We’ve yet to run the A/C yet this year — knock wood — as the temperatures drop enough at night to cool the house and land down.
We’ll see if that holds today. Right now, it’s 83 F, on its way to 101 again.
The thing about yesterday’s weather is that it climbed slowly. At one mid-afternoon point, I thought, well, this isn’t bad. 91 then, I thought, maybe we won’t hit one hundred. Then I entered a store, came back out said to myself, holy shit, it’s hot as hell. What happened?
Today, though — hot early, hot fast.
Although there are more fires burning across the United States, we’re still fire-free — knock wood. The smoke isn’t bad, either. We’re fortunate in our neck of the woods; Oregon has topped 2,000,000 acres burned this year. Washington has several large fires going. Portland (OR) now has the worst air in the world, due to the wildfires.
Mom and my sister, Gina, continue their quiet war. Mom turned to her granddaughter, Gina’s daughter — Amy — as the go-between. Amy is rejecting the role. Although Mom helped raise Amy, Amy doesn’t deal well with the tension of being the go-between. Plus, Amy is in college, working on a Masters, and she works. So I help fill the gap.
As 2026 wears on, we’re seeing the shadows of Trump’s thinking, lying, fantasizing, playing out in real time now. It’s all catching up.
US has used ‘virtually all’ of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war, sources say
- Some of these are new weapon systems
- There’s a bottleneck on refilling them
- They’re expensive
- Experts estimate that it will take 1 to 4 years to replenish the supplies
- While Trump and his staff deny it, this is likely why Trump backed off on the Iran bombing campaigns
And what has the war achieved? Death and high prices. A more unstable Middle-East. And now, a more vulnerable US.
‘Delusional’: Donald Trump flunks reality with his ‘A+’ grade claim
Trump’s golden age reality check
Trump and his administration predicted 6% growth; it’s 1.5%
Trump’s solution to abuse in ICE facilities is pricey—and evil
Jeanine Pirro faces the choice many Trump officials confront at one point or another
Which reality do you choose?
“When Trump hits a brick wall now, as president, he just fashions an alternative reality. He can talk up tough financial data or a foreign policy hiccup as though he’s bigging up a tatty property in a real estate prospectus.“
Your Trump Quote(s) of the Day:
This is the same tired claim Trump made in January of this year:
Trump has made this claim dozens of times already. But reality does not back him up. As with many matters, Trump has a basic misunderstanding of how things work. If inflation cools, prices don’t ‘come down’; inflation is a measure of how much they’ll increase.
Trump’s claims about affordability and prices coming down, and being in a ‘golden age’ is just like his Iran War rhetoric. Trump has claimed victory again (April), again (June), and again (July). Yet the war goes on, in August. He keeps trying to distract us from the truth. Not happening, because we’re paying through the nose, and we’re feeling it.
Today’s music is “Shadowplay” by Joy Division. Seems right for today. I didn’t know the song when it came out, and discovered it when The Killers covered it for a movie. I like the original’s sonic approach to the gittar playin’. Good morning mental music stream occupant for these times as Trump’s shadow grows.
Sample Lyrics:
h/t to Genius.com
Never Trump
Hard to stomach reading today’s news. An opinion piece cited Trump’s tariffs as his biggest policy failure.
Opinion: Trump’s tariffs are his biggest policy failure
I disagree; I think the war with Iran is Trump’s biggest policy failure. It also completely undermines Trump’s whole philosophy.
Trump came in. Removed generals and military leadership. Then he hired sycophants such as Hegseth to shape military policy and develop strategy.
Screaming, “WOKE! DEI!, Hegseth bludgeoned the established military establishment. Took people who earned promotion off the list because of the color of their skin or their sex, or their political loyalties.
Trump did all of this while scoffing at the military. He declared himself smarter than generals and has repeatedly blasted them.
Trump blasted top military generals as ‘a bunch of dopes and babies’ according to new book
Yet, here we are, mired in a war that Trump started. Trump claimed to have won. Claimed it was already over. Claims it’s not a war.
Yet it’s draining us in multiple ways and exposing Trump and his arrogance. He and his chosen staff thought war was easy. Though it was just a matter of power: who has the biggest military and the most weapons.
And the war continues without a certain end in sight.
As in many other things, Trump was exposed as ignorant and wrong.
Both policies — tariffs and the Iran War — are policy failures, though.
Both are driving increased burdens to the economy and to our citizens. The war, though, also resulted in people being killed, maimed, and injured, and has devastating consequences on the people of another nation.
When I think of things that Trump boasts of as successes and triumphs, I realize that there is nothing that this administration has done that has impressed me. He’s exactly how terrible I thought he’d be, and then some. We as a nation stagger through increasing loops of disasters.
Take our healthcare issues. Rural hospitals are closing. Measles outbreaks are increasing. Healthcare premiums are rising. AI plants are being built, which will increase energy costs and use land, further driving up healthcare costs. Yet Trump pushes to build more AI centers, more data centers. Models say that will worsen the extreme heat problem as well as the water shortage. It’s like WTAF are people thinking?
Instead of real solutions, We the People are offered more political theater as another underqualified Trump nominee moves toward confirmation for a powerful Federal position.
We’re instead subjected to Trump crowing about himself winning a golf tournament. Venting at his staff about the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool fiasco.
Distracting us with AI-generated photos of himself as Elvis Presley.
While our nation is at war. While wildfires burn. While extreme heat and drought sweep the nation. While healthcare and affordability problems worsen.
That seems to be okay with MAGAts and the greater GOP, even if the rest of us are angry and disapprove of Trump. As long as Trump and his family keeps getting wealthier and speaking out for them — whatever the fuck that now means to them — they remain happy.
As far as those things falling apart and policy failures, that’s because of other people. It’s not because of Trump.
Never, in their eyes.
Never.
As for me, it will always remain, “Never Trump.”
Never.
