Tag: Epstein Files

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

Trumpsanity Rages

Trumpsanity continues to rage around the world. Trump orders attacks on Iran based on reasons he said before didn’t exist. Claims the war is not a war. It will be short — just as he said before. Just as he before said that the war was over when it started and has declared it over multiple times.

Just as Trump said he would cut prices and then claimed it was harder than he thought. Then Trump pivoted, declaring affordability doesn’t matter.

And it’s similar to how Trump complained about President Obama golfing too much. Trump said he would never golf because he would be too busy working. Now he golfs about 25% of his time.

It’s very familiar thinking to when Trump said he would probably release the Epstein files, then declared them a hoax, before changing his tune to demands people forget about them.

The week, we saw Trump crowing about his ‘new’ Air Force One. This is the Qatari Boeing aircraft they gave to Trump for a sweet deal.

Which takes us to your Trump Quote of the Day:

There is so much to say about this quote and aircraft. Built in the United States, Trump babbles that our country couldn’t build one like it. But it was built by Boeing, in the United States. Way to support America, Trump!

The aircraft was then heavily modified for royal use. That’s probably what Trump is talking about: all those luxury accoutrements.

Yet, luxury is not what the ultimate aircraft for We the People is all about. Air Force One was made to be safe and secure, not luxurious. Bowing to that, Trump ditched Qatari One, reverting to the old aircraft due to security. If Trump had the balls of steel he’s always making himself out to have, he would have said, “Damn the danger,” and stayed with Qatari One. He didn’t, because he remains a coward.

Struggling with declining popularity and growing problems, Trump wheeled out more distractions via Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL!

I don’t blame him. This week had Trump talking about a country which doesn’t exist, veering away like he was confused on the tarmac in Turkey, struggling to walk, and appearing to fall asleep in a meeting. The last ‘could have been’ Trump focusing on a translator, but I’m giving Trump the same latitude that Trump and MAGA gave President Biden.

The optics are horrible. Trump looks like the feeble, doddering old person that he accused President Joe Biden of being.

With nothing new available, Trump returned to talking about Greenland, bleating about what a security threat it is.

That doesn’t change anything. The Epstein files are still out there, waiting to be released and fully expose Trump. The economy is still groaning and flailing from the Trump tariffs and rising prices due to the Trump war.

Some excellent posts are out there to help cope with the Trumpsanity.

The One Big Beautiful Bill was passed last year. Trump named it because it held everything that he wanted.

  • Annie Asks summarized our political mess and candor in politics in her post, Mitch McConnell, Graham Platner, and Candor in American Politics. Schroedinger’s McConnell — both alive and dead until we see his corporeal vessel — has been generating a lot of press, along with what’s happening with Graham Platner and others running for our nation’s highest offices. It’s a good read to help filter the noise.

  • Jill Dennison shares John Pavlovitz’s column about Graham Platner, reminding us as Democrats and Progressives in what we don’t want in our candidates in MISSING: Humanity | Filosofa’s Word

Pavlovitz finished his comments:

As the Democrats scramble to choose his replacement and try to salvage a victory in Maine, progressives, liberals, and moderates who are crestfallen today need to remember that in the loftier spaces that transcend politics, this is still a win.

Choosing not to align with indecency always is.

I agree with him. Likewise, choosing not to align with Trumpsanity is a step forward to a better world.

3

How Low Can Trump Go?

A WSJ story today conveys Trump offering things from a White House room full of Trump merchandise to a foreign delegation.

My first reaction was, of course he has a room in the White House full of stuff he wants to sell to make money. That’s all he really thinks about: how can I make myself more money? He’s such a broken toy.

But next, I thought, sure. Trump is giving his stuff away because he can’t sell it.

Third: Trump thinks this is normal for government officials to be offer things to sell on the Internet to make money.

In reactions to the story, one person wrote it best: “Just when you think he has hit rock bottom, Donald blasts 20 feet deeper.”

Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! fired up again now that the Freedom250 phase of it ended. OEL–S! is Trump’s continual efforts to distract us from his grifting, and how he’s corrupting democracy, and bankrupting the nation. Like a magician, he’s always utilizing ways to stop us from looking at one place too long, trying to weave a spell of confusion about what the hell he’s doing.

Trump isn’t as smart as he thinks he is. We always know what he’s doing, even when he tries hard to hide it, except for the MAGA faithful. They prefer to remain blind to it, even perversely cheering him on.

Freedom250 and the Great American State Fair are supposed to be celebrations of the nation’s beginnings. First, Trump has a decidedly skewered view of that. His ignorance of history is appalling, and that doesn’t seem to be an act. He honestly appears to be that uneducated and ignorant in that realm.

Second, Trump’s ego says, I must make it about me, so he does. Everything becomes about him, to the detriment of We the People.

In the latest OEL–S!, the United States is again attacking Iran. The Trump administration accuses Iran of violating the terms and declares punishment, doing so in the name of peace, of course.

Trump declared that the ceasefire is over. Bombing will commence again. Oil prices immediately rose. The stock market immediately dropped.

Meanwhile, Trump is backing the Freedom Fuel Network.

After chastising President Biden for high gas prices, Trump launched a war that sent gas prices rocketing upward. Now, he’s crowing about supporting 25 gas stations where gas is lower than the national average while remaining higher than what it was when Trump took office, back when it was just $3.12 a gallon.

I’ll tell you what: Trump is involved, so I’m suspicious about the foundation and future of Freedom Fuel Network. From my point of view, when a con is involved with a new business, it’s another con. My evidence on this is built upon evidence of:

  • Trump Shuttle
  • Trump Mortgage
  • Trump Steaks
  • Trump Bibles
  • Trump Plaza and Hotel
  • Trump Taj Mahal
  • Trump Mobile T1
  • Trump Castle/Trump Marina
  • Trump University
  • The Donald J. Trump Foundation
  • Trump Vodka
  • $TRUMP Memecoin
  • World Liberty Financial
  • Freedom250
  • the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool
  • Trump Sneakers
  • Epstein files
  • Iran War and ceasefire
  • and multiple other Trump promises and claims, like paying for sex with Stormy Daniels, then lying about it

How low can Trump go?

He’ll keep going lower until he’s finally passed away and lowered into the ground.

Then we’ll begin to learn the truth about how low Trump went.

10

Wednesday’s Theme Music — Round & Round

Ashland, southern Oregon — Wednesday, July 8, 2026.

It’s another sunny rocking morning. Cool at 69 degrees, which feels wonderful, with a friendly breeze carrying the heat off. We’re expected to pass 90 again today. My house saw 96 yesterday. Still, a dry heat and not so bad that it saps your ability to breathe. Does do a little damage to the will to move around, though.

Papi has staked out a cool spot in some plant shade, giving me a coolly level amber look before lowering his head and closing his eyes. He appears to be asleep in a second.

On the family news front, Mom’s home is moving through the selling stages without a hitch. My brother-in-law ended up with two stents and staying overnight in the hospital. The medicos said he was severely clogged. Reluctantly, I wasn’t overly surprised. Although energetic, slender, and athletic, he ate a lot of pizza, and a great deal of red meat, sausage, and bacon. Fingers crossed for him. He’s set to be released today. Round and round.

Catching up on the news, I wearily wonder, WTF is Trump doing now? How is he making himself look an idiot this time?

Well, earlier this week, he did it by interfering with the World Cup. He thinks he did a great thing. As others point out, whenever Trump touches something outside of his immediate circle, it fails. So it came to pass that the Trump touch brought on end to America’s World Cup hopes.

Now we see, oh, the war with Iran will begin again. Who is surprised with Trump ‘in command’? He’s declared it over. Done. Changes his objectives about why the war was begun. And here it goes, grinding on…again.

Prices will go up again. The long hot summer will get a little hotter, our optimism will fade a little more, and MAGA will shout “Praise him” once again. Don’t know if they actually do that. Seems like something in the MAGA wheelhouse.

Meanwhile, the Trump DOJ announced that Todd Blanche is a good Trump tool — such a great tool, the best tool ever! Everyone says so!

Blanche is busy delaying and obstructing, as a good Trump tool does, keeping the Epstein files from showing Bad Things About Trump. As if, again, We the People — with the exception of solid MAGAs and some GOP who would rather stab out their eyes than admit what they see — don’t see what Trump has done, who he is, and what he’s doing.

The horrendous, bloated Epstein ballroom remains under construction, despite the will of We the People.

So we come to the song inhabiting my morning mental music stream: “Spinning Wheel”. Blood, Sweat, and Tears released the song in 1969. I’ve always enjoyed how the song begins and builds, slyly, smoothly:

Lyrics

What goes up, must come down
Spinning wheel got to go round
Talkin’ ’bout your troubles, it’s a cryin’ sin
Ride a painted pony, let the spinning wheel spin

You got no money and you, you got no home
Spinning wheel, all alone
Talkin’ ’bout your troubles and you, you never learn
Ride a painted pony, let the spinning wheel turn

Did you find a directing sign on the straight and narrow highway?
Would you mind a reflecting sign?
Just let it shine within your mind
And show you the colors that are real

It’s such a perfect song for a summer day despoiled by Trump and his smirking arrogance. He doesn’t understand cause and effect, such as what his tariffs and broken trust has done to prices and trade. Trump likes to pretend it isn’t real — or, if it’s a problem, it’s someone else’s fault!

May the spinning wheel take you and yours to loftier places, where you’re safe, healthy, happy, and free.

Cheers

2

Trump Prizes

I saw this post and kind of laughed today:

I distinctly remember other times when ‘survival’ was the prize during other times and researched to confirm I wasn’t making things up.

What is most interesting is that we went into ‘survival prizes’ whenever the nation was in a crisis, such as the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo and the 2008 recession.

We’re not supposed to be in a recession now or crisis now. Trump keeps telling us how great everything is.

Yet, economists such as Paul Krugman keep noting that people are talking about recession vibes, or ‘vibecessions’. The economy doesn’t have a ‘feel-good’ tone. Instead, what’s manifesting is a ‘feel-bad’ sense.

I have the feel-bad tingles. Although financially secure, whenever I shop for groceries these days, I experience shock about how much prices have gone up.

For instance, Ben & Jerry’s was my ice cream of choice for years. Actually, I was a froyo guy but I can no longer find it in local stores. I still look, though.

I used to get a pint of B&J froyo for under $3. We’re talking about fifteen years ago? This week, an Albertson’s was heralding a sale on B&J pints: almost $8 with a digital coupon.

I flipped. $8 for a pint of ice cream? Has the world gone insane?

It’s not all Trump, but he’s done us a lot of damages.

It started with his tariffs and his crazy insistence that We the People won’t be paying for them. Any who took basic high school history lessons knew that wasn’t true.

We see his damages when we look at the photos of the laughably cheap props created under his eye for the Great American State Farm and the empty fairgrounds. We see it when he shows us photos of tacky gold embellishments on the home of We the People.

We see it when we look at the mess Trump made of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, listening and watching as he squirms, trying to blame others for how it looks, denying what he did and its results.

We see it in the paved over historic Rose Garden and the destroyed White House East Wing. We heard it in the lies when Trump proclaimed it would cost us nothing.

He didn’t realize how much it already cost when we saw what he callously did to the property that belongs to We the People.

We hear it when Trump weaves one lie after another about why he ordered attacks on Iran, how long it would last, and what objectives he’d established and didn’t achieve.

We heard it when Trump talked about how much richer he is now after being back in the White House for over a year.

We felt it when Trump laughed and said, we’re all profiting because the stock market is up, exaggerating that it’s up 85%, because we knew that wasn’t true.

And we knew it when Trump said that he couldn’t fix inflation. We knew it when he said he didn’t care about affordability. We knew it when he said he was a peace president and began ordering attacks.

We knew it when Elon Musk and DOGE made wanton wholesale cuts to government programs established by the government through meticulous processes.

We knew it when Trump’s Congress cut subsidies to healthcare premiums. We knew it when Trump promised not to touch Medicare and then cut it in the monstrously ugly named, One Big Beautiful Bill.

We knew it when Trump’s budget was all about defense, setting a record high, telling us that we couldn’t afford childcare. We knew it when he directed that the United States build battleships, an obsolete weapon system. We knew it when Trump said it was a Trump-class battleship.

We knew it when Iran fought the US to a standstill and closed the Strait of Hormuz.

As we approach our celebration of 250 years as a nation, the feeling is not of being united and free. Nor is it a feeling of hope or patriotism.

Nor is there optimism.

It’s a feeling instead, that we’re in a mess. We’re fighting to extricate ourselves, but we’re torn about how to do it.

That’s the crises we now face, and why survival is now the prize.

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