Tag: Epstein Files

Sunday’s Theme Music – Way it is

Ashland, southern Oregon — Sunday, July 19, 2026.

We’re into the endurance stage of summer. Today will hit 97 degrees F. A maybe is attached, for it depends on the smoke’s thickness and sprawl.

80 right now, thin white clouds and strips of gray smoke force the sky into a hazy shade of blue.

That’s just how it is in the summer here.

This headline caught my attention this week:

Gas is nearly $4 again and diesel just topped $5. It’s not what you think

The story reminds us that Trump’s Iran war is affecting oil and gas prices. But they also note that much of the gas products refined in Trump’s America are going to other places.

US refineries processed their largest amount of crude in the second quarter since 2019.

But a record amount of American-produced fuel is heading overseas – in the form of jet fuel (for Europe) and diesel (for Asia and Australia) to help the world bridge the gap in fuel supplies.

That has sent US gasoline inventories to their lowest levels since 2012.

The CNN article then goes on to mention that US refineries are struggling to produce products due to extreme heat.

Meanwhile, Trump, whose administration has rolled air and water pollutions standards back, is complaining about Canada ‘invading the US’ with filthy air. Classic Trump Double Standards.

Trump denies climate change, deriding it as a hoax, as he does many things which he can’t comprehend or doesn’t want to address.

“This ‘climate change,’ it’s the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world, in my opinion,” Trump said. “All of these predictions made by the United Nations and many others, often for bad reasons, were wrong. They were made by stupid people that have cost their countries fortunes and given those same countries no chance for success. If you don’t get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail.”

Your Trump Quote(s) of the Day:

Trump has chosen to treat our friends in Canada with more tariffs. That’s just the way he is. Instead of working with others to solve problems, he attacks, mocks, and derides.

Trump is so tone deaf. He claims that America “are a people like no other” and then goes to war with Americans, for example, referring to Democrats as “Dumbocrats”, significantly restricting, cutting, and altering healthcare benefits, and nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ+ individuals, with a heavy emphasis on transgender Americans.

This is how Trump ‘honors’ the people like no other.

That’s just the way he is.

No surprise for me, The Neurons have “The Way It Is” in the morning mental music stream. Bruce Hornsby wrote the song and he and his band, the Range, performed it. America’s civil rights movement of the 1960s inspired him when he wrote it.

Lyrics

They say, “Hey, little boy, you can’t go where the others go
‘Cause you don’t look like they do”
Said, “Hey, old man, how can you stand to think that way?
Did you really think about it before you made the rules?”
He said, “Son

That’s just the way it is
Some things will never change
That’s just the way it is”
Ha, but don’t you believe them
Mmm, yeah

That’s just the way it is
That’s just the way it is

Well, they passed a law in ’64
To give those who ain’t got a little more
But it only goes so far
‘Cause the law don’t change another’s mind
When all it sees at the hiring time
Is the line on the color bar, ooh, no

h/t to AZLyrics.com

Bruce Hornsby is a liberal, something that came from his mother, according to him in this 2020 interview in “The Independent”:

“Narrow-minded attitudes prevailed in my small southern town,” he tells me. “But my mum, Lois, was from a more forward-thinking family of New Englanders who’d moved down to Richmond when her dad got a job there as a church organist. Liberal Lois, my mum, married a big old handsome country boy. Bob Hornsby was from a fishing village and he was cut from the local cloth. My parents’ votes cancelled each other out in elections from 1948 to 1976 when my mum persuaded my dad to vote for Jimmy Carter and he never looked back and he voted Democrat for the rest of his life.”

As Bruce’s mother, Liberal Lois, proves, it doesn’t have to be the way it is, if people are willing to keep trying to open narrow minds and change their values.

Not Trump, of course. From Epstein to corruption and dishonesty, that’s just the way he is.

I hope comes complete with safe times, good times, and happy memories.

Cheers

0

Saturday’s Theme Music — Honesty

Ashland, southern Oregon — Saturday, July 18, 2026.

It’s a sunny 68 F under blue skies in our valley. Hot again but not as, hitting only 86 F today.

The cooling effect comes from smoke. The East Evans Creek fire, north-northwest of Ashland, began on July 10, 2026 when a car hit a utility pole. It’s now 14,000 acres and about 8% contained. The air quality is unhealthy right now, better than yesterday, when we went purple. Smoke obscures the view to the west. Today’s wind forecast warns that we’re going to have a weekend of unhealthy air.

I read an interesting article this morning about an ICE traffic stop in Pennsylvania earlier this month. The article elaborates on 1) how poorly the ICE agents executed the stop and 2) how video evidence contradicts ICE’s public statements and claims.

ICE is always claiming vast criminal records for the people they stop. But ICE agents drive unmarked vehicles. They act aggressive, issue orders and make demands without properly identifying themselves, and are generally violently threatening. Reasonable people fearing for their lives try to get away. From the videos I’ve seen, I don’t blame the people. I blame ICE. They have a continuing pattern; without being punished or reprimanded for it, without accountability, they’ll just continue their ways. Now, after DHS said to suspend the traffic stops, Trump overruled them. So the continuing unreasonable violence against We the People will continue.

DHS is ordering that at least one agent on every stop will now wear a body cam. What good is to come of that? I believe that we’ll have a lot of incidents where agents ‘forgot’ to turn them on or the camera ‘failed to work properly’.

Let’s face a fact here: Trump lies. That’s well-documented.

And through his smirking ‘leadership’, so does his administration, and his spokespeople. I, along with most Americans, do not trust him or his administration to tell the truth. Thanks to Trump’s time on the world stage, it’s a global opinion that Trump is dishonest. Worse, Trump is dragging other nations’ opinion of the United States down with him.

Of course, here in ‘Merica, he’s broken marriage vows more than once, has multiple bankruptcies and failed businesses, and broken campaign promises. From lowering inflation to no new wars to attacking Iran — again and again — to releasing the Epstein files to a new healthcare program to the claim that the Epstein ballroom will be paid for by We the People, Trump lies and breaks promises.

No wonder Americans don’t trust ICE, a trend that is growing.

Today’s song is “Honesty” by Billy Joel.

I hope you have a safe and healthy Saturday and have good things to look back at when you call it a day.

Cheers

2

Thursday’s Theme Music – Brianstorming

Ashland, southern Oregon — July 16, 2026.

Cooler today as we move toward summer’s zenith in the valley, just mid to upper 80s F.

Today is my wife’s birthday, so happy birthday to her!

News came through late yesterday that the closing on Mom’s house has been moved out a week. Details are vague but seemed related to the buyer’s loan. Fingers crossed, knock on wood, it all goes through.

The rest of the world is pushing back against Trump and the US under him:

Europe and the Gulf just drew a legal red line on Hormuz — no permits, no tolls, no exceptions, for Iran or America

Trump will keep stewing about this. It’ll reinforce Trump’s ‘we’ll do it alone’ mantra, no matter how much it costs the US.

I laughed over this headline today:

White House teleprompter operator accused of making $100k off Trump speech bets

This is a classic Trump scam. Trump wasn’t the one doing it, though, so the teleprompter operator has been fired. If it was Trump, MAGAts would be whispering, “What a genius.” It’s classic Trump Double Standards (TDS).

Making another attempt at using Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! to distract and terrify Americans, Trump is making a prime-time address. I’ll be sure to avoid seeing it. Can’t stand his face, voice, smirk, ignorance, or lies. This one promises to have some of all of that.

Meanwhile, Trump is trying the old Red Scare stratagem. Hey, it worked for McCarthy in the fifties… That’s where many MAGAts still mentally reside.

What will Trump try next? “The red coats are coming! The red coats are coming!” Oh, I know — the old pre-war Domino Theory. Instead of countries, Trump will name blue states as falling under communism and scream, “They’re taking over everywhere!”

Or maybe he’ll just press harder on “Be afraid. Be very afraid.” Worked on weak minds when Trump invoked immigrants and ‘woke’.

I am more angry than afraid, contemptuous, even. MAGAts and even mainstream Republicans might quake from the Red Scare and other fear tactics, but the rest of us have learned.

Your Trump Quote of the Day:

The poorly educated put Trump into office, and they keep helping him up when he topples over.

Today’s morning mental music stream offering is “Brianstorm”. I watch a lot of Brit television — along with Scandinavian, Australian, Irish, Welsh, and German — and encountered “Brianstorm” by Arctic Monkeys on one of those a few years ago.

I laugh whenever I think of the title. So Trumpian: I can see him on a stage, talking about having a brianstorm…

But the lyrics are also delicously mocking:

(Brian) Calm, collected and commanding
(Top marks for not trying) You leave the other story standing
With your renditions and jokes, bet there’s hundreds of blokes
That have wept ’cause you’ve stolen their
Thunder
Are you putting us under?
‘Cause we can’t take our eyes off the t-shirt and ties combination
Well, see you later, innovator

See what I mean? Or is it just me? *smile*

Hope yours is a grand day, no matter your season or age. May peace grace you with joy and happiness.

Cheers

0

The State of Trump

These declarations sum up the state of the union and Trump right now:

Trump praises “cash cow” data centers as his neighbors reject major project

While US towns, citizens, and states are more and more frequently challenging the need for AI centers, Trump is gung-ho to get them built. Many variables are being rolled out against building them:

  • Are they actually needed and will they be profitable?
  • Impact on the dwindling water supply
  • The heat data and AI centers are shown to displace
  • Energy use and costs

Many Trump supporters think Trump is a ‘smart businessman’. The rest of us count Trump’s many bankruptcies, the continual grifting, and his mismanagement of war with Iran, the economy, trade deals, tariffs, the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, and respond, not so fast.

Harry Enten explains why Trump’s signature issue just turned into a polling nightmare

Donald Trump is currently plummeting in the polls on his signature issue of immigration, noted CNN’s chief data analyst Harry Enten on Tuesday.

It was “one of the pillars of Donald Trump’s first campaign back in 2016, winning that Republican primary,” noted Enten, who also pointed to Trump’s anti-immigration agenda enjoying 53% backing when he won his second term in 2024.

But now there’s been “a massive change in the court of public opinion,” he said.

“Now, 58% of Americans say no, they do not, in fact, trust Trump on immigration. Just 41% say yes. So what we’re seeing with ICE is finding its way to the Trump administration at large, to Trump at large.”

ICE keeps killing people, using under claims for public safety or ‘fear for their own lives’. But the video evidence and witnesses’ recounting completely contradicts those narratives. Meanwhile, more FAFO stories show up about Trump’s ICE forces grabbing people trying to complete their citizenship requirements and wholly, totally legally here.

More of We the People are saying, “Enough.”

Americans Know Trump Is Lying

No amount of media sanewashing can convince Americans that Donald Trump is rationally prosecuting the Iran war or accurately relating the terms of a (sort of) deal. No matter how many times Trump repeats his outlandish lies on matters big or small — e.g., vandals at the reflecting pool! She begged me for a photo! — or tosses out bacchanalian distractions, or seeks refuge in hapless propaganda (none creepier than Vice President JD Vance’s pro-Nixon spin), he cannot arrest a growing national consensus: whatever Trump is doing is a failure and whatever he says is a bald-faced lie.

Trump’s inability to snow over the public with his blizzard of deceit bodes well for Democrats’ chances to trounce Republicans in the midterms. Candid after his primary defeat, Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn let on: “The jury’s still out whether this MAGA populist movement can survive the midterms.” But widespread agreement that Trump is an inveterate liar offers the opportunity for something beyond a midterm victory, which would be nothing less than a reality reset.

In the late stages of any authoritarian crack, the degenerating despot’s spin, lies, and excuses eventually reach a point of diminishing returns. Each additional fabrication only reinforces exasperation with his galling mendacity. That, in turn, may whet the public’s appetite for some unvarnished truth-telling and public accountability.

Jen Rubin wrote this, and she is absolutely right.

Trump keeps rolling out new distractions. He’s doing everything he can to turn We the People’s attention away from his increasing lists of lies, failures, and broken promises.

His latest Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! effort is for money to fight communism in the United States. But all of it is secret. Trump runs an opaque administration. Whenever documentation and proof is demanded, he blusters and folds.

The ‘war on communism’ is his latest desperate attempt to stoke fear, sow divisions, and stay in power.

Johnson Says Pentagon Needs More Money for ‘Fighting Communism on Our Own Shores’

As he pushed for Congress to approve $350 billion in new spending requested by the Pentagon, House Speaker Mike Johnson suggested Tuesday that some of the funds were needed for “fighting communism on our own shores,” an ominous notion in light of President Donald Trump’s threats to deploy the US military against his domestic enemies.

In addition to the already record-breaking $1.1 trillion military spending bill that was approved last month by the House Appropriations Committee, the Pentagon has requested a separate $350 billion package to be passed through a separate GOP-led spending bill known as “Reconciliation 3.0,” which can pass without Democratic support.

Sure. They’re fighting ‘communism’. Some of We the People will hear the word and shrivel up in fear. But most of us know this dance and will not be fooled again. As Jen Rubin wrote, we know Trump is lying. So is Johnson.

Next, we have this piece by Paul Krugman.

The Humbling of the Once Almighty Dollar

Donald Trump’s stunning failure in Iran has weakened America on many fronts. The world now perceives us as neither a reliable ally nor an invincible enemy, with an extortionately expensive military that is losing its best and brightest to Pete Hegseth’s prejudice and incompetence. We are now four months into a war that was supposed to last a couple of weeks.There is no end in sight as strikes and counter-strikes continue despite Trump’s farcical proclamations of American victory and Iranian surrender. Sixteen months into his presidency, Trump has squandered all of America’s credibility with the rest of the world.

So let me add one more item to the tally of destruction: The supremacy of the dollar, the pre-eminent tool in America’s toolbox of global financial power, has been seriously damaged by the rise of alternative payment systems – a rise that was greatly hastened by the Iran war.

Paul Krugman summarizes how the United States and the USD are losing ground in international affairs. Instead of increasing respect for the United States, Trump has managed to reveal that, with him in charge, the US is now an unreliable ally and trade partner. Trump thumbs his nose at international law, sneers at history, and makes boasts and claims that he can’t back up.

Like We the People, the world is reaching the point that they’ve had enough.

Here is the capstone of the current trend:

Trump’s 37% approval problem just got harder to ignore

Trump’s approval rating is more than a single bad headline. At 37%, the president is sitting in territory that usually signals a broad coalition of dissatisfaction, not just predictable opposition from the other party.

Yes, it’s more than bad headlines, distractions, an unneeded war, and constant lies. Those are all symptoms.

The truth is that a person who should not be in charge of this nation won an election. Since his election, he’s done grave damage to our nation’s system of government and has grown as a threat to not just We the People, but to democracy itself.

Trump knows this. As much as he tries to spin matters, as much as his staff hides the truth, the cracks are showing.

Trump is failing. He and his policies need to be reined in before it’s too late.

0

Wednesday’s Theme Music — Blind

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.

Shaking my head.

This article made me laugh this morning:

Fox News viewers savage Donald Trump for ‘redneck garbage dump’ White House decorations

The best comments for me:

“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:

Can We Lose the Same War Twice? With Trump, Anything’s Possible

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.

Cheers

1

Tuesday’s Theme Music — Jail

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.

Trump also finally paid the $5M plus interest Trump owed E. Jean Carroll. A court ruled three years ago that Trump owed her the money for sexually assaulting her in 1996 and defaming her.

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.

Cheers

6

Monday’s Theme Music — Sweet Lies

Ashland, southern Oregon — Monday, July 13, 2026.

We’re climbing through the 70s, on our way to 90 degrees F. Sunny. Blue sky. No clouds. Supposed to be different tomorrow, with a 55% chance of rain. We will see.

We took a moment at our house to talk about Sam Niell passing. We both enjoyed his work. I was just watching him in the television “Peaky Blinders” last night.

My wife said today, “Who could have guessed that the cease fire with Iran would unravel?”

Yes, a Trump deal unraveling? Perish the thought.

I’ve been following numerous stories in the press that analyze what Trump says and how much of it is a lie. It’s become like a hobby for me. It takes enormous time because Trump lies frequently.

Some of his recent lies are in these stories:

Analysts fact-check the president‘s latest claims about the US economy

Trump Justifies Money Made as President With Inaccurate Claims

Trump claims 59% approval, but recent polls show support far lower

And then there was this headline out of Fortune Magazine:

U.S. Treasury has borrowed $155 billion every month of this fiscal year—and is now paying $24 billion a week in interest on its debts

Tax cuts and spending increases have pushed current spending. The nation is expected to borrow $2T to finance the debt in 2026.

Trump still believes in magic, though, claiming he will balance the budget without doing a thing. Your Trump Quote of the Day:

I file this Trump declaration with Trump’s many other declarations, lies, and broken promises, including the one about no new wars, releasing the Epstein files, and that other one about lowering inflation.

Today’s morning mental music stream is “Sweet Lies” by Fleetwood Mac. The Neurons inform that they are playing this song for me because Trump tells sweet little lies. MAGAts and Republicans faithfully nod, agreeing with his lies. Does that make them liars by proxy?

Hope your day comes free of lies and full of joy, peace, and security.

Cheers

4

Sunday’s Theme Music — Fire

Ashland, southern Oregon — Sunday, July 12, 2026.

Wildfire smoke arrived last night. I couldn’t open us up to cool us down, so the house is warm and stuffy today.

The smoke is from a southern Oregon wildfire that’s a few miles away. The East Evans Creek Fire exploded on us two days ago. Rapidly expanded, it’s already caused some evacuations.

Meanwhile, down south, California has LA wildfires, and there are fires in Colorado and the Utah fires are still going. Besides the US, there are wildfires in Canada, Europe, Australia and South America burning.

Around here, it’s 71 and we’ll hit the low 90s F today. Cloudy but hot. Two days ago, they were telling us it we might get rain. That chance appears to have evaporated.

Big news, saving Trump from doing more under Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! is Lindsey Graham’s death.

A Trump supporter, Graham was all for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that cut Medicare support, insisting that too much was going to insurance companies. But he never offered anything better, basically abandoning the need, letting everyone fend for themselves. With little surprise, Graham went along with Trump on the idea of health savings account, which disproportionately favor wealthy people. Results: we have more uninsured people in the US, part of the expanding problem of healthcare in the United States.

Trump also supported Trump’s Iran war, once saying that if the Strait of Hormuz wasn’t open, the US would ‘obliterate’ Iran.

Given his record, it would be a surprise if Graham was against Trump’s ballroom. He was not, and was one of the Senators willing to spend $400 million on the ballroom that Trump said would cost taxpayers nothing.

Other news is about Trump, of course. The Palm Beach International Airport has been renamed for Trump. It’s all ego for him. He likes to compare himself to the great Presidents. He is much like them in many ways, except he’s less intelligent, a liar, dishonest, thinned skin, not very educated, greedy and self-centered, and an egotist who thinks he’s a genius but struggles to speak in coherent sentences.

I feel sorry for those flying into Palm Beach International after the name change. In fact, I’d be worried; everything that gets Trump’s name attached to it begins failing and falling apart. Just look at his business and government record. As POTUS, Trump is a toddler running around breaking everything in reach.

Oh, yes, Mitch McConnell is still either alive or dead but has not been publicly seen or heard in weeks. Trump’s Iran war continues, Trump is trying to fix the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool again after fucking it up, gas prices — including those at the Freedom Fuel Network, where a gallon was prices at $3.46 — are rising, and the Epstein files haven’t been released.

Today’s song in the morning mental music stream is “Fire” by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown. Released in 1968, much of what people can hear is the repetition of “Fire!” But when you listen to the lyrics, they get pretty crazy:

Lyrics

And your mind, your tiny mind
You know you’ve really been so blind
Now’s your time, burn your mind
You’ve fallen far, too far behind
Oh no, oh no, oh no!
You’re gonna burn!

h/t to Genius.com

Hope you have a safe, comfortable, and happy day wherever you are.

Cheers

1

Saturday’s Theme Music — Uneasy Distractions

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.

Trump keeps juggling distractions: Greenland! Ballroom! Security! Freedom 250! Formula 1 race in DC! Immigrants! Commies, commies, commies! Iran with nukes! The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Stolen elections! Election fraud!

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:

And I knew I better think of something pretty quick
So I just reached out and kicked ol’ green teeth right in the knee
Now he let out a yell that’d curl your hair
But before he could move I grabbed me a chair
And said, “Watch him folks ’cause he’s a thoroughly dangerous man!”
“You may not know it but this man is a spy
He’s a undercover agent for the FBI
And he’s been sent down here to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan!”
He was still bent over holding on to his knee
But everybody else was looking and listening to me
And I laid it on thicker and heavier as I went
I said, “Would you believe this man has gone as far
As tearing Wallace stickers off the bumpers of cars
And he voted for George McGovern for President”
“Well, he’s a friend of them long haired hippy-type, pinko fags!

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”

h/t Genius.com

The narrator plays on fears to distract so he can escape, just as Trump does to ‘change the narrative’.

Listening to the song, I heard a few differences in this version.

  1. He doesn’t mention peace signs on his car.
  2. The original mentioned voting for Wallace; it’s been changed Reagan.
  3. The narrator accuses green teeth of voting for Jimmy Carter for president.
  4. “Mario Andretti would have sure been proud” was the original reference; that was changed to Cale Yarborough.
  5. And the references to their peckers on fire has been changed…

Hope you have a distractionfree day of peace, grace, good food and good health.

Cheers

0

Friday’s Theme Music – Golden Years

Ashland, southern Oregon — Friday, July 20, 2026.

It’s 70 F under bright sunshine this morning. A high of 90 is expected. Papi has already out to sleep through the heat in a comfortable space.

The Mitch McConnell pool remains open. Is he or isn’t he alive? He hasn’t been seen in public since June 14. People kept insisting they spoke with him but never offer proof. I suspect some mad scientist is probably trying to reanimate McConnell, or tech bros developing an AI version of him.

I can see the new Roberts Court ruling: “AI are people, too.”

Reminds me of an old nursery rhyme. “Fe fi fo fum, I smell the blood of a Republican. Be he live or be he dead, there’s not enough there to fit between my bread.”

My wife and I were talking last night about how things were before. It was mostly about our lives and bodies and their changes, but the conservation expanded in multiple directions.

One question that arose was, did we ever live in a golden age? Neither of us thought so. We used to work hard, budget money carefully, save. We were not extravagant people. Still aren’t. That kept us secure and safe. But we were young and healthy, with that glow that anything was possible.

We believed our society would keep moving forward and work closer together to solve what seems like insurmountable problems. Now, with Trump in the White House and most Republicans with their heads planted where the sun doesn’t shine, we have no faith that all the progress we thought had been made would continue.

For laughs, I reminded my wife that Trump said that we’re living in a golden age.

She mimed gagging, choking, and puking in response. Her follow up was, “Only if you’re wealthy. But every era is a golden age if you have enough money.”

No matter how well some might be doing now, as Trump attacks programs that aid the impoverished and needy, I can’t ever think of this period as a golden age or golden years. Since Trump began his second term, overall prices have not fallen. Real wages have declined and economic growth has not accelerated. Manufacturing employment continues to decline and the national debt keeps growing.

To distract us from noticing this, Trump attacks others. Right now, Trump is attacking Iran — again — after declaring that conflict over.

With his history — three marriages, cheating on his wives, numerous affairs, multiple business bankruptcies, the Epstein files, and a campaign strewn with broken promises — Trump can’t be trusted. How can I ever believe him when he says we’re in a golden age?

I don’t see the evidence for a golden age. My wife and I are in a golden age in the sense that we don’t organize our lives around our employment schedules. That sort of freedom is golden, if you’re financially secure. That’s a big caveat in the US. As for the rest of life, this is not a golden age.

Which takes me to the music. Today we have David Bowie singing “Golden Years” in the morning mental music stream. Came out in 1975.

For me the lines which matter from this song are,

“Run for the shadows, run for the shadows

“Run for the shadows in these golden years.”

Yes, run for the shadows.

Golden years are supposed to be a time of prosperity, happiness, and satisfaction. We seem to have some distance to that goal right now.

My hope for you is you have a golden day — one of prosperity, happiness, and satisfaction.

Cheers

3

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑