Dominoes
Trump’s broken promises have consequences.
The dominoes are falling over…
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.
- The Oregon Food Bank reports a 51% increase in the past two years.
- 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.
- More of Trump’s tariffs have been declared illegal. The problem with the tariffs and rulings is that companies pay the tariffs by passing them on to the consumer. Yet, there’s little sign that as tariffs are refunded to tariffs that consumers will receive refunds.
Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! is falling short of its goals of distracting voters from Trump’s failures and our losses.
Trump’s pattern is clear now.
Unfortunately, not all voters have caught on to Trump and his scams.
The midterms are coming soon.
Trump is panicking. Disapproval is rising. Failures are stacking up.
Get ready for some audacious Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL!
Sunday’s Theme Music – Days like this
Ashland, southern Oregon — Sunday, May 10, 2026.
Happy Mother’s Day to the mothers in the United States. Oh, what the heck, make it to the mothers of the world, no matter your religion, nationality, or species.
It’s 65 F in Ashland with light clouds mildly blocking the sunshine. Our high will hit the upper 70s, giving us pleasant holiday weather.
I’d written a post earlier. Edge crashed, taking the post with it. WordPress hadn’t ‘autosaved’ it, so there was nothing to show that I’d been typing and thinking. Foolishly, I hadn’t saved it myself.
After that, I decided, I’m taking a hiatus from thinking about the news today and commenting on it. Do a MDB: Mother’s Day Blackout.
That’s when the 1995 Van Morrison song entered the morning mental music stream. I retired from the US Air Force in ’95. I heard this song on the radio in one of the first few days of life after wearing a military uniform for twenty years.
I wasn’t employed for the first time since 1974. Wasn’t really looking yet, either; I had my retirement pension. My wife was getting antsy, though. Still, I’d decided to take time off for myself. There would be other days for work.
That happened in early November. By December, I was employed and was fortunate to remain employed for another twenty years.
Today has a similar vibe to my memory of that 1995 day. Look at how over thirty years have passed, and here I sit, feeling like I’m at another threshold. Then again, every day is another threshold.
Remembered Lyrics
When you don’t need to worry there’ll be days like this
When no one’s in a hurry there’ll be days like this
When you don’t get betrayed by that old Judas kiss
Oh my mama told me there’ll be days like this
When you don’t need an answer there’ll be days like this
When you don’t meet a chancer there’ll be days like this
When all the parts of the puzzle start to look like they fit
Then I must remember there’ll be days like this
Hope your Mother’s Day is a good day for you and yours, no matter your sex, gender, whatever. Just celebrate the day, rejoice in what is, and make something to build in.
Coffee is here. Cheers
The Chrome Car Dream
I had a dream which I can’t quite remember.
It involved a chrome sports car. The fragments I remember include a young me looking at the car. The car was very low and slick, chromium, more like a toy from Mattel’s Hot Wheels collection than a ‘real’ car.
In some scenes, I was designing it. Other times, I was making yet I also remember it being given to me, and I remember getting ready to drive it.
Throughout this, the background is dark, like a starless, moonless night.
Thursday’s Theme Music — Look! Roberts!
Ashland, southern Oregon — Thursday, May 7, 2026.
Blue, blue sky. 67 F that we now feel would’ve been the high a few days again. Now it’s a measurement as the thermometer sings toward 83 F. Higher is possible, I think.
Mom is settling into acceptance that the nursing facility will be home for a while. Although she looks and seems happy in photos and videos, she doesn’t like paying the money and doesn’t like having her independence curtailed.
I hear her. I can see myself feeling and doing the same. I wish something better was available for her.
Meanwhile, my sister is moving forward on selling Mom’s house and getting powers of attorney. Sis has been patient and persistent and gets a lot of points for that.
My sisters and I shared health texts yesterday. We older beings laughed as we compared our health issues. My younger siblings were agog with dismay. My older sister responded, “Getting old ain’t for sissies.”
Big news front that I’m seeing is Justice Roberts is upset.
Chief Justice laments perception of ‘political’ Supreme Court
I read that to my wife. She laughed. “Gosh, I wonder why.”
No kidding. The shadow docket has surged under Roberts once Trump came into power. The Brennan Center summarized exactly why we think the Roberts Court is politicized and favoring Trump:
“The Court has sided with the administration 80 percent of the time when making “emergency” rulings, often without revealing its reasoning.“
Your Trump Quote of the Day:
Despite Trump’s claim, made less than three months ago, Republicans are now asking for $1,000,000,000 for the ballroom. Trump also claims the Epstein ballroom is under budget, even though they’re now asking for five times the original amount to build it.
Trump can’t be trusted. Nor can the GOP. What’s your guess for how much the Epstein ballroom will end up costing?
Between the Epstein ballroom and Trump’s Iran War, Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! is becoming one of most expensive fiascos in history.
Today’s theme music is “Under My Wheels” by Alice Cooper. The song came out in 1971. It entered my morning mental music stream today after reading Jill Dennison’s blog. It featured the ELO song, “Telephone Line”. That was enough to inspire The Neurons to lift “Under My Wheels” out of my dusty folds of memory. See, the song begins, “The telephone is ringing,” and the line is repeated throughout the song.
Hope you enjoy it. Still sounds good to me, fifty years plus later. However, I don’t often play Alice Cooper these days; he’s a right-wing individual who trashes trans ‘as a fad’.
I hope this day finds you doing well in all ways that matter. May peace and grace carry you on no matter what adversity life might deliver.
On to my coffee. Cheers
The Truth
Watching blood
Come out of your
Pecker
Gauging
Its
Seriousness
Wondering
What’s
Next?
The Writing on the Page
I keep spying on the woman to my right.
Sounds quasi pervi, doesn’t it?
I just want to see her book, a small paperback. She flips through it, pen in hand, underlining passages.
I’m horrified and fascinated. Writing in books? I know others do this and it’s permitted under certain circumstances, but it’s something against my personal coda. Unless…is it a puzzle book?
What is this book she’s defiling? If only she’d put it down so that I can see it.
She left while I was busy writing. I never saw the book.
It’s another unsolved mystery.
Trump: Pretzel Logic
The war with Iran is not a war.
Trump reminded everyone we’re at war but also said he’s not going to use the word war because that would need approval. Also, the war that wasn’t a war stopped with the ceasefire in April, even though there’s shooting going on.
The really big question is, what do Dozing Donnie’s bones say about the war?
At the same time, Trump also told Axios there was “nothing left” to bomb in Iran. Trump also said, “Any time I want it to end, it will end.”
Trump later told supporters at a Kentucky rally that same day that Washington “won” in Iran and the conflict was “over.”
You follow that? We were at war, we were never at war, it’s a mini-war, the war is over, and it’ll be over whenever Trump says it’s over.
Fine, fine pretzel logic.
“We have a war right now, and we’re to what, six weeks? They said, ‘What’s taking so long!’ We were in Vietnam 19 years.” Donald Trump, April 21, 2026.
Technically, the US can’t blockade Iran because that’s an act of war and we’re not at war, although we might be in a ‘mini-war‘.
Lindsey Graham is getting into Trump’s pretzel logic: “If we can take back control of the Strait of Hormuz, it is checkmate. This thing is over.”
George Conway “Interesting. This must be a new kind of chess where you compete to put the pieces back where they were before you smacked them off the board.”
Meanwhile, smog is increasing in Utah and Arizona, but it’s not a problem. That bad air is from other places. Although it affects local citizens, Trump’s EPA ruled that the affected cities don’t need to do anything about them.
Did you hear, too, Trump says his economy is booming!
That’s what Trump told small businesses this week.
Small business bankruptcies surged 67% in the first quarter of 2026.
However, the stock market is doing well. Corporate profits are at record levels.
Not everyone is in the stock market. And even if corporations are making profits, not all employees will see much more money, except for in the C suite. People who aren’t in the stock market or a corporate exec paying $4.46 per gallon of gas in the US might not agree that the economy is booming.
Especially if that gas price goes to $7 per gallon, as some analysts suggest.
The U.S. average for regular gasoline was approximately $3.81 to $3.82 per gallon at that time.
What A Story!
Jill’s post, “Da ‘Toons Tell Da Story” sharply illustrate the foolhardiness of the Trump administration and his followers. I pulled a few favorites to share right here and now, but way more are on her page. Get thee over there to check ’em out!
My Five Favorites:
Michael Seidel, writer 