Matt Lewis is the author. He writes a reasonable column about a reasonable question, if the subject, Donald J. Trump, was a reasonable person with reasonable self-control.
But Trump has shown himself not to be a reasonable person. He’s revealed himself to be petty. He’s demonstrated that he lacks self-control. The governor on his mental processes seems seriously damaged.
And that’s why he should not be POTUS: because he can’t stop himself from instigating and pursuing petty fights. A petty person is not what we need as the leader of our nation.
As usual, deaf and oblivious to his own words, Trump blamed the Democrats, especially President Biden and Vice President Harris, using the same words that they used on him, “a threat to Democracy”…again.
It seems shortsighted for the entire nation to be surprised that political violence is taking place, that presidential nominees are being targeted.
This is a nation that frequently turns to violence when things go awry. Authorities often respond to violence with violence. Police showed up in military hardware. It’s not rare for them to kill after issuing a brief warning with no time left for anyone to react to their orders. Check out the newspaper articles and cop cam footage that exists. Citizens have armed themselves to ‘defend their homes’ and stand their ground, shooting innocents along the way, ending disagreements by killing someone.
Ah, Monday, September 16, 2024, a day of conflicting energy. We’re sleepwalking through summer’s last days in the nothern atmo, at least in Ashlandia’s tiny, tiny slice of it. Autumn is fast closing in, rendering the weather as a short season called sumumn.
As it’s Monday, people must endure the back-to-work energy and the commutes and setups and activities so associated with beginning a new work week. September has piqued and we’re slipping down its backside. The brings the month and the week different energies, but it’s also the last month of the third quarter, with yet other energies. And school has swung into gear, with its activities and demands. These all crash together like a restless sea.
Sumumn has brought his cool night temps. It’s ranging around 56 F at this moment. Clouds and blue skies are mixing it up. Rained last night, leaving us with wet foliage and earth. Angles, distance, and clouds force the sun to work harder to get some heat and light to us. Gonna peak in the upper sixties on the thermometer’s top end.
We’re all talking about the second assassination attempt on Trump. We wonder if the right wing’s continual threats of violence and their stated determination to take us back fifty years socially, blended with many on the right stating how much they hate Democrats, Liberals, and Progressives, could be triggering others to take action. Imagine the lasting infamy which would be attained for a bent individual if they could claim the title of The Man Who Shot Donald J. I don’t want Trump assassinated; don’t think it would be good for the world’s political dynamics. But I do wonder how much of his hateful rhetoric affects the situation. Then again, that reasoning irritates me as it reeks of ‘blame the victim’ mentality. Yes, I’m in a sore spot over it.
Trump will likely harvest a few sympathy votes from this latest attempt. Some will also christen him as tough and brave, and that’ll win their votes. I remain focused on the man’s character flaws, multiple lies, confused speechs, broken values, and lack of coherent, substantial policies to make my voting decisions.
Now, I admit that on the last, he seems to have a group backing him with very coherent and substantial policy ideas in the form of Project 2025. But Trump is trying to distance himself from that after the American people reacted to it like a load of crap-filled diapers. Which is probably why Trump lacks coherent and substantial policies; he can’t say they’re good ideas because most voters hate those idas and would vote against him. Trump is cunning enough to understand that.
Moving on.
Today’s song has been played here before. But, once The Neurons have made their play choice, they’re like a toddler, demanding to play it over and over again, making me feel a little nuts. So it is today that the theme music comes via John Fogerty and Creedence Clearwater Revival, aka CCR or C.C.R. Their 1971 song, “Have You Ever Seen the Rain” has a lock on the morning mental music stream (Trademark wet).
The song isn’t really about the weather, but about the depression and tension the group members were feeling even as the band achieved greater success. In a way, that metaphor about rain and weather can be applied to the U.S., that even as we taxed the rich and built our infrastructure, financed public education, and ensured everyone’s right to vote was realized and protected, forces within the nation were becoming dissillusioned and delusional, leading us to the polarizing facturing we now face. Will it break up the band (the nation)?
Be strong, stay positive, and vote blue in 2024. Vote against Project 2025. Vote against taking away people’s voting rights. Vote for protecting the environment and addressing climate change.
Here’s the music. Uintentionally ironically, it’s Fogerty playing it without CCR in 2005. Cheers
In other news that isn’t news, Donald Trump, the GOP nominee for the President of the United States, is upset.
I know, it’s not strong news. Donald J. is often upset. He’s frequently angry at judges, former allies, authors, journalists, prosecutors, the DOJ, media outlets, actors and actresses, women, his lawyers, his advisors, former members of his administration, generals, professional athletes, other billionaires, politicians — especially Democrats, or ‘Dems’ as he likes to say, but also RiNOs — and people who are suing him or serving as witnesses in one of his many trials. Donald J. is not one to shrug it off and sing, “Life is but a dream.” No, he is a serious, angry individual. Just look at his face. I’d share a photo of his face, but I can’t personally stand looking at his face. Sorry.
Aside, though. It used to be common to refer to the POTUS as ‘leader of the free world’. That appellation used to be more frequently used. Maybe it’s just that it’s not used in my silos of information. Could be that the expression is a cold-war relic and went out of popularity with the U.S.S.R.’s collapse and break up.
This was bigly news to Trump. Storming stormed around, throwing ketchup, tossing Big Mac wrappers, he swore, “Covfefe!” Aides and advisors familiar with his patterns got out of his way for their own safety and peace of mind.
“Where’s my phone, where’s my phone?” Trump shouted. “I need to text.”
All caps. The man was deadly furious. A dam on his emotions had broken.
Lips pursed in a manly scowl, he nodded in satisfaction. “That’ll show ’em. That’ll teach them to endorse other, other, other people. Nobody puts Donald J. Trump in a corner.” Waddling back to the table, he sat down and ordered a soft drink.
“Anyone know where my wife is?” He thought about it for a moment. Did he have a wife? Been so long since he’d seen her.
Trump smiled. No way was Biden going to win. Sleepy Joe. Ha. No way. Just wait. Just wait. He’d show ’em. He’d show ’em all.
Oh, no, it’s Friday, 9/13/2024. For some with paraskevidekatriaphobia, this is a scary day. For me, raised to beware of Friday the 13th and middle-class Protestant superstitions, reinforced by movies and memes, I’m on a mildly higher alert not to do anything stupid and exercise a skoosh more caution.
It’s 50 degrees F out in Ashlandia. One of those gorgeous blue skies that look bottomless. Not a cloud present to witness sunrise. The sun’s angle has changed. Beams no longer charge through the eastern windows. They make their appearance through a southern window and then shift to the east as the sun clears the mountains and trees. Gonna be 80 F today, a comfortable autumn day.
My wife declared that autumn has officially begun. How did she know? She grinned bigly: “My feet are cold when I go to bed, so I put socks on until they warm up. That’s how I know it’s fall.”
Ah, we all have our mysterious ways, don’t we?
I’ve been reading about Trump supporters and the comparison to Hitler’s supporters. Although there is a segment of Trump supporters who wave NAZI flags, I understand why many people don’t get the Hitler comparison. Hitler’s legend is steeped with history over rounding up and killing people, particularly Jews. A warmonger, he broke treaties and ruthlessly attacked other nations.
I read of people saying, “Trump is nothing like that. He’s not rounding anyone up. He’s not anything like Hitler, and we’re not anything like Germany. This is the United States! That can’t happen here.”
Yes, they’re looking at Hitler’s later years. Those who read and study what Hitler did in the early years can build a solid comparison between his growth and Trump’s popularity. They can point at the disenfranchised feeling pervading Germany after WW I and note how rural, white, and Christian voters experience something of the same, feeling ignored and left behind. They can address how Trump, like Hitler, made promises and accusations that gave these people hope.
Of course, in the United States, there is a swath of powerful white men and Evangelicals who expoit Trump and the right-wing disenfranchised. They’re wealthy, powerful, and want more. Besides that band, there are some who are attracted to the Trump brand of GOP reactionaryism because they are hateful, sexist, racist, and resentful, and a few who tag along because they don’t know what the hell is really going on.
You always see that last in these groups in later interviews. “I was just going along. I didn’t mean to kill anyone. Everyone was doing it. I just got caught up in it.” Or, the more commonly heard refrain later, “I was just following orders.”
As for it not being possible in the United States, consider how often Trump makes threats to prosecute or imprison political enemies, claiming in essence that if they don’t support him, they hate America. Consider how often he encourages his base not to trust the Democrats and liberals, how they’re responsible for everything terrible happening. Consider how he claims ‘the Left’ has weaonized the DOJ to go after him. And if they ‘go after him, they’ll go after you.’ Consider how often his supporters robustly cheer and amplify these messages. Consider how the majority of the GOP goes along with him, refusing to check his inflammatory rhetoric, and how they stacked the Supreme Court to support him.
Then tell me again how this can’t happen in the United States.
Moving on.
Today’s song is by Bakar. “Hell N Back” is out of 2019. Has a throwback mellow sound, slightly jazzy, but definitely chill. I enjoy the song but the question is, why did The Neurons plug it into the morning mental music stream (Trademark everything). This song is about being alone and realizing it later, looking back at how someone’s presence helped them, but also, how they used drugs to have a good time. But something about it cooks up my own sense of ‘being saved’ by my wife, how she helps me keep in check against my own worst assaults on myself and my sense of who I am. Why is it coming today? Is it just generated by a sense of change in the air, perhaps from the blue wave’s rising energy, or more merely the change of season, or from the great joy and satisfaction from my novel writing? Perhaps, and more likely, it’s a kick from all three combining in subtle ways to stimulate hormones that raise my elation and hopes. Perhaps some unknown stars and planets are aligning to make me feel strong and more hopeful.
Or maybe it’s just my imagination, or part of a regular cycle of hormones just being felt more acutely.
Be strong, and stay positive. Vote blue in 2024. Here’s the chill music. I’ll sip more coffee and listen. Cheers
“She still has to impress me,” said Ms. Ali, 19. As someone who recently moved into her own place off-campus and has had to buy groceries for the first time, Ms. Ali said she wanted to hear Ms. Harris speak more about housing costs and inflation. “I’m still deciding,” she said as the debate neared its end.
Seriously? And she heard something from Trump that reassured her?
Keilah Miller, 34, who lives in Milwaukee, grew intrigued by Ms. Harris too. Ms. Miller said she had voted Democratic in past presidential elections but decided to stop voting altogether about a year ago. Her own situation, and that of other Black women in Milwaukee, had not improved, she said.
On Tuesday, she felt nudged unexpectedly toward Mr. Trump.
“Trump’s pitch was a little more convincing than hers,” Ms. Miller said. “I guess I’m leaning more on his facts than her vision.”
Facts? Trump’s pitch? What facts, what pitch? Project 2025? The fake narrative that immigrants are eating pets in Ohio, or the false one about “abortion after birth being legal in six states”?
Mr. Henderson, who voted for President Barack Obama and then for Mr. Trump, allowed that Mr. Trump “came off as crazy,” but he was no different from his appearances at rallies and in interviews.
His answers on Ukraine were weak, he said, but Mr. Trump successfully attacked Ms. Harris on the border and immigration. While the vice president gave better answers on abortion and race, he said, she did not get into specifics about her tax plans for parents or small businesses.
As he watched post-debate commentary on cable news, Mr. Henderson said he bristled at the pundits who widely panned Mr. Trump’s performance. Had they watched the same debate, he wondered?
Yes, did this man, this undecided voter, watch the same debate as the rest of us? He acknowledged that Trump acted crazy but seems to be okay with a crazy president.
I just don’t get their logic. It seems like they’re trying hard to come across as thoughtful and impartial, but I end up seeing them as short-sighted, misguided, and uninformed. Fer instance, Mr. Henderson, did you know that a bi-partisan bill for the border had been worked out and that Trump ordered it nixed because he didn’t want Democrats to be successful?
It’s Tuesday, September 10, 2024. The national elections are 56 days away. Vice President Kamala Harris and felon Donald Trump will debate policies and positions tonight to sway undecided voters. I expect Donald Trump to lie…a lot. I expect him to act like a little and put on an entertaining act for his base. He is all low-style and little substance. I don’t expect him to say anything about Project 2025; if he does, he’ll probably deny having anything to do with it.
I expect Kamala Harris to be well-spoken, intelligent, and upbeat.
We’ll see what happens. Kinda holding my breath. The Harris – Walz campaign has demonstrated a lot of positive energy IMO. My wife and friends are also pretty stoked. But the media casts the race as being a dead heat. While we scratch our heads and ask WTF, we wonder what people are seeing and thinking in the nation’s other regions.
Second point to that, I thought President Biden was going to be strong at his debate with Trump. Instead, President Biden’s performance ended with him stepping aside for Veep Harris a few weeks. Not a bad move in the end, but the debate night performance undermined my confidence about my perceptions and thinking. So I’m leery about tonight.
It’s 62 degrees F outside of my Ashlandia home. Today’s high will be a comfortable 83 F. The air is fresher again today, with little hint of smoke. I’ve watched people walking — with and without dogs, alone and in pairs — and runners, taking advantage of the temperature and clean air. Airnow.gov pegs the air quality for Ashlandia overall at 52, just above ‘good’. Purpleair shows the air quality is 33 down the street and 75 up the street. We’ll see how it flows.
We’re pretty excited at my house. Rain is in the forecast for tomorrow. Rain, with a high in the 60s. Giddyup.
I’m anxious about the elections. I tell myself I need patience and to be positive. The Neurons responded this morning by springing the 1989 Guns N’ Roses “Patience” on the morning mental music stream (Trademark worn). Yes, a little patience to get through this is mo def needed for this era. I’m a person who struggles to be patient at times. That’s what led to me into taking transcendental meditation instructions in the Philippines in the mid 1970s. That helped a great deal, as does my continued meditation, but impatience still gets the better of me too often.
Gotta go close the windows. Smoke smells are curling in and congestion is rising in my nose and sinuses. Purpleair has the reading at 129 up the street.
Stay positive, be strong, and vote blue in 2024. Coffee is being sucked down. Here is the music video. Cheers
Saturday padded in on floof feet, bringing clouds. Not so chilly this morning, it’s already 73 but will climb to only 95 F today. That’s 10 degrees less than I saw at my house yesterday.
Quiet outside, the main news comes from the avian Karens known as scrubjays. They get involved in everything, flying around making loud announcements about what people and other birds and animals are doing. A small aircraft putters by hundreds of feet overhead, its putter a steady sound that gains volume and then falls into a distant hum.
Air quality is okay on Siskiyou Blvd., about a hundred yards down the hill from us, but quickly deteriorates into mid-triple digits as you travel up the mountain flanks. A burnt wood smell hangs in the air, leftovers from some fires, somewhere.
We did two jigsaw puzzles in August. A three-hundred-piece puzzle was done on the first night of vacation. Another was started there, and then transported home, where we finished it. We started a third one last week and finished it last night. This was another Wysocki puzzle, produced by Buffalo, one thousand pieces.
The Neurons have plugged “Notorious” by Duran Duran into the morning mental music stream (Trademark seedy). Don Old Trump’s latest round of speeches and proclamations set off the 1986 song in my head. Trump is just notorious for saying notorious crap.
“Donald Trump apparently doesn’t care whether or not he wins in November anymore.
At a Fox News town hall on Thursday, the Republican presidential nominee revealed that his 2024 campaign strategy excludes anyone who he doesn’t believe supported him in the last election cycles.
“One person who didn’t support me—he said, ‘I must admit I had the most successful four years of my life but I’m gonna vote for some—’ and now that person came back to me. I don’t want that person,” Trump said to muffled applause. “I don’t want that person.
“You know, they say you should take everybody, but that’s not the way I’m built. It’s one of those little problems,” he added.
All of this is probably depressing to those people who want him to talk about policies and be a serious politician. But he’s just too weird.
He said those things at a town hall meeting on Thursday. But on Wednesday, the day before in Pennsylvania, he was pleading for votes.
“Even if you don’t like me, you can sit there and say, ‘I can’t stand that guy, but there’s no way I’m gonna vote for her.’”
He also apparently forgot on Wednesday where he was, alluding to New Hampshire instead of Pennsylvania, and who he was running against.
“I can’t imagine New Hampshire voting for him. Anyone in New Hampshire who votes for Biden or Kamala…” he told the crowd.
Trump has become notorious for mental gaffes in 2024 as well as ducking responsibility and claiming he’s never said anything, or that he’s responsible for things. He’s claimed that he knew nothing about the photo at Arlington National Cemetery. He also claimed that Vice President Harris made it up. His campaign claimed there wasn’t a physical altercation with anyone as described.
Meanwhile, a Trump spokesperson wrote, “For a despicable individual to physically prevent President Trump’s team from accompanying him to this solemn event is a disgrace and does not deserve to represent the hollowed grounds of Arlington National Cemetery,” he said in a written statement, misspelling the word hallowed. “Whoever this individual is, spreading these lies are dishonoring the men and women of our armed forces.”
The person they’re referring to is the U.S. Army employee who works at Arlington National Cemetery.
That’s Trump and his campaign. Notorious for word salads, lies, and contradictions. Notorious for lacking principles or honor. Notorious for blaming others. Notorious for being a hot mess.
Stay positive, be strong, and vote blue in 2024. Here’s the music video. The smoke pollution is worsening. Gotta go close the windows and turn on the air purifier. Cheers
It’s a new month. September has arrived, on a Sunday, and on a holiday weekend. Seems weird that it’s Labor Day weekend. It’s too soon! Nobody around here seems prepared. I’ve barely seen any ads. Okay, turn the page.
It’s 76 F here in Ashlandia, where Labor Day is privately celebrated. The expected high will be 94 F, so it’s cooled off from the last two days. Saw 100 at my house yesterday. Besides being cooler, it’s cloudier. Will it rain? The Weather 8 Ball says ‘All signs point to no.’ Air quality is good but the pollen count is high, and I’m feeling that.
My wife sat up with a burst of outrage this morning. She read a headline aloud, “The one thing Kamala Harris said that shows she’s unfit to be president.” My wife fumed, “The one thing. The one thing! Show me one thing Donald Trump said that shows him fit to be president.” I received the Vote Vets Harris-Walz for President magnetic bumper sticker she ordered me yesterday and slapped it on my rear end. It immediately fell off because I’m flesh and blood and not very magnetic. I then put it on the car. Yes, some pre-coffee humor. Sorry.
My wife has also ordered a dozen bumper stickers to give out to friends, and two other magnetic bumper stickers for our car. She’s donated to the Harris-Walz campaign several times, but is outraged that they keep just asking her for more. I explain, “Honey, that’s the nature of political campaigns.” That just sets her off more.
Ima starting a new theme week this week. Starting today, I’ll provide a song that features night in the title. The Neurons immediately sprang up with “Whatever Gets You Through the Night.” The rocking 1974 John Lennon release is rolling through the morning mental music stream (Trademark dark).
Stay positive, be strong, and have a drink of something to get you through the moment. I’ve chosen coffee. Here’s the music. Don’t forget, Vote Blue. Cheers
We’re bounding into the last week of August, 2024. Today is Monday, the 26th. Looks like 71 days until the 2024 elections.
It’s 57 F degrees in Ashlandia today. We’re seeing mostly blue sky and sunshine. Pouting clouds lurk around the distant horizons. They act like they’re planning something. We hit 80 degrees yesterday. Today’s high will be a more normal 88 F.
I drifted through the news stories this morning. Feeling a little battered by the disasters, campaigns, rulings, deaths, and general information. The never-ending cycle starts feeling a little heavy.
I was able to help out friends yesterday. We’d stayed together on vacation last week. They then drove home to Ashlandia on Friday, as we did. They insisted that they’d lost their key fob. Must’ve left it back at the vacation place.
Well, wait; how did they drive and charge their EV if they lacked a key fob? They insisted they had. They looked everywhere for it. Didn’t find it, so they must have driven home without it.
I researched that, and like, no way did they drive and recharge their Hyundai Kona EV SUV without the key fob or any key. I went over and found it in about a minute, under their passenger seat against the transmission tunnel. They were absolutely flabbergasted but grateful.
After I was looking for it, they mentioned they’d lost a cell phone. I’d notice one in their car, in the center console compartment. Yes, that was their missing phone. We suggested they might need to rest.
We’re dealing with home insurance issues. After being with Connect, which is Costco’s insurance program with American Family Insurance, for over fifteen years while living here, they’re dropping us. They’re worried about what the cost of insuring us for fires might do to their profits. Homeowners see this sort of things from insurance companies all the time. They’re there and willing to take your money until your place is too large of a risk for their profit margins. It’s not just us but all over town, and not just Connect. I’m hearing the same thing from friends and relatives in other parts of the state.
We’ve seen this before. Earthquakes insurance premiums skyrocket, and then the company announces they won’t insure you any more because you’re in an earthquake zone. Our flood insurance one year went from $300 a year to over $3000, because the city said we’re in a 100-year-flood zone. After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, insurance companies bailed on paying for acts of terrorism. Of course, places that see regular tornado, hurricane, or flood damages already have felt the impact of insurance companies running away from them. That includes insurers leaving California and other states in droves after catastrophic wildfires. Capitalism at its finest. Yes, that is snark.
For us, our home insurance will go from $360 to $1140 a year. It will no longer be through Costco Connect, but to one of American Family Insurance’s feeder companies. Yes, we are looking for a new insurance company for home and auto. We don’t appreciate being passed around like a cheap bottle of wine.
And with extreme weather events happening more frequently as predicted by climate change models, expect more withdrawals by insurance companies. Soon, they’ll only be insuring the wealthy and powerful.
This week’s theme music concept remains time in the song title. There’s an abundance of such songs out there. Today, though, The Neurons pulled out one that they said is dedicated to Don Old Trump and his merry band of MAGAts. Yes, today The Neurons have the Guest Who song from 1969, “No Time”, thumping in the morning mental music stream (Trademark paused). The Canadian group’s opening line in this song is, “No time left for you.” Right on, Neurons. No time left for Trump. I like it.
Michael Seidel, writer 