A brief history of Trump claims through the years.
How Epstein is a close friend. Trump will fix affordability; affordability is a hoax! He’ll balance the budget. Iran’s military has been destroyed.
I suspect that if someone confronted Trump with all of these claims, he would scream, “Fake news!” He’d claim, “That’s not what I said.” Then he would attack the one confronting him. Call them vile. Nasty.
That’s his MO. He cannot face the truth and can’t handle the facts.
For the record, affordability is a crisis for many Americans. Oil and gas prices are flirting with record highs.
His war with Iran is nearing its fifth month.
The Epstein files are still not released. The ballroom is still being built, and the US taxpayer is being billed.
April is marching on. Spring is going with it in this area.
Today is sunny with a blue sky. One small cloud visible from my window when I look west. Looks like a small white bird with spread wings. A peace dove.
46 F now, our high today is predicted to be in the upper sixties. We saw 72 F at our house for several seconds yesterday. Then the sun moved on, the clouds gathered over, and the shadows cut the temp. Still, that was the formula for a pleasant day to be outside, and is a marked improvement over blizzards, monsoons, wildfires, etc.
Trump’s DOJ continues to try to pull the nation backward. They’re bringing back the firing squad. Business as usual for the ‘pro-life’ camp.
Despite it’s presence in popular culture, The Conversation notes, “Of all of America’s methods of execution, it has been least often used. From 1900 to 2010, only 35 of America’s 8,776 executions were carried out using this method, and since 1976 just three people have faced a firing squad, with the last one carried out in Utah in 2010.”
The move works for Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! Headlines are full of the announcement. People like me will respond and condemn it. Many others will applaud. More importantly for Trump, there will be less news about his failures.
Trump’s long list of failures and setbacks is growing. Headlining: rising disapproval ratings. High gas prices on the cusp of May and the annual travel vacation months. A miserable war that’s dragging on into its eighth week after he said it was practically already over.
Talking out of the other side of his mouth, Trump also that the war would probably be over in five to six weeks. That time is passed. Since then, he’s whined that he needs more time and not to rush him. Then, in a really stupid move, he invoked how long the United States military was in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, wars which Americans would rather move on from.
Yet, the Epstein file is still out there, shadowing every move Trump makes, echoing through every word, flowing through every decision.
That clock is still ticking, and he hears it.
Your Donald Trump quote of the day:
From Factually: “Former President Donald Trump cherry-picked these statistics. Although some stations are charging $5 to $7 a gallon, about 99.2% of U.S. gas stations are selling gasoline for less than $5 a gallon, GasBuddy.com data shows.”
It was almost as if Donald Trump was predicting the future if he won.
Today’s music comes from thinking about highs and lows. The Neurons brought out “Low” by Cracker. In a lot of ways, the drippy, loopy 1993 song doesn’t make sense.
Lyrics
A million poppies gonna make me sleep Or just one rose, it knows your name My fruit is rusting on the vine My fruit is calling from the trees
Or hey, oh, don’t you wanna go down Like some junkie cosmonaut? A million miles below their feet A million miles, a million miles
I’ll be with you, girl, like bein’ low Hey-hey-hey, like bein’ stoned I’ll be with you, girl, like bein’ low Hey-hey-hey, like bein’ stoned
A blue, blue is the sun A brown, brown’s the sky A green, green are her eyes A million miles, a million miles
This was after he campaigned and promised no more wars.
Voters said they supported Trump because he tells it like it is.
Like that time while campaigning in 2016 when Trump claimed he was against Gulf War II. Trump said, “I’m the only one on this stage that said: ‘Do not go into Iraq. Do not attack Iraq.’ Nobody else on this stage said that. And I said it loud and strong.”
Facts don’t support Trump’s assertion. No evidence exists that he was against that war until 2004. Trump never let facts deter him.
But follow this cause-and-effect logic. The war will cause prices to increase. Within hours of the Iran War’s beginning, shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz dropped. Oil prices went up.
Trump and his backers think the bombing of Iran will make the world safer, just as they said when Bush invaded Iraq and Afghanistan — the war which Trump said he was against.
Many, including Pete Hegseth, Trump’s Secretary of Defense, are saying that this war is not like the war in Iraq or Afghanistan. They think it will last weeks, not years.
Sure. That’s exactly what the Bush administration said in 2002.
Ashland, Oregon — Monday, March 2, 2026. A sloppy weather mix confronts the valley. We’re drying from overnight rain, sparkling with sunshine. White and gray clouds splash and fade over a blue canvas. We sit at 48 F with a high of 61 projected but they tell us colder air will arrive tomorrow.
The home quiet so I’ve been reading, catching up on news and digesting opinions about Trump’s attack on Iran. They’ll call the U.S. attacking but Trump did it himself, using only his staff and military. Who needs Congress?
Some are writing that Trump did the world a favor. Others are pointing out more cautiously, there are too many variables to predict what’ll happen. Trump himself is forecasting this to be over in five weeks. I’ve not been impressed with his forecasting skill, so I don’t expect it to be over in five weeks. I wouldn’t be surprised that in five weeks, it’ll be raging on and Trump will be saying, “I never said it will last five weeks.” And if it goes miserably south, I expect him to spin around and try to blame everyone else.
One thing I will note is that history will probably not recall Trump as ‘the peace president’.
After that heavy news cycle, The Neurons called up Queen. “Hammer to Fall” came out in 1984 in part reaction to the cold war going on then. The song contains references to the inevitability of death that we all face, no matter how wealthy we are, or how poor.
“Hammer to Fall” lyrics:
Here we stand or here we fall History won’t care at all Make the bed, light the light Lady Mercy won’t be home tonight, yeah
You don’t waste no time at all Don’t hear the bell, but you answer the call It comes to you as to us all (oh) We’re just waiting for the hammer to fall, yeah
Oh, every night and every day A little piece of you is falling away But lift your face the western way Build your muscles as your body decays, yeah
The Neurons’ song choice amuses me, because it makes me think that many did not learn the lessons of the last war in the middle east. Wait, the last one was Israel attacking Gaza, wasn’t it? So I mean the last one before that, when the U.S. and coalition forces pounded Iraq and Afghanistan and invaded them. Do they remember the Soviet war in Afghanistan, or when Iraq marched on Kuwait and President Bush launched Desert Storm?
Sure, this war will be the one that makes a difference. War can be an effective tool but needs to be a last resort. Clear cut goals and exit strategies are needed.
Trump eschews clear cut goals and exit strategies. He uses military attacks casually. You can sense his mindset — “We are the most powerful nation in the world so no one else will dare attack us.”
History has shown that extremists rarely take that mindset. They’re willing to inflict pain for the sake of pain as payback for the pain war caused them. So yes, Iran may lose big ballistic missiles, navy ships and fighter aircraft, but the danger of terrorism will grow. At least, that’s how it often happened in the past.
May peace and grace find you today, and may we learn from our mistakes, and actually stop doing what didn’t work before, and start doing something that makes a difference.
Ashland, Oregon — Sunday, March 1, 2026. It’s raining and foggy in Ashland, with temperatures tottering around 50 degrees F. Not a shred of sunshine out there, and a high of 57 is expected. Spring is muscling in.
It’s a day of questioning for me, starting with what’s going on with Mom to what’s going on in the world and the nation.
I learned yesterday that another sister — our youngest — had been going to visit Mom, taking her things, etc. The youngest has been designated as our contact with Mom because she has the best relationship of everyone living nearby. I reached out to her to see how Mom was doing.
The youngest related that when she arrived, Mom was playing bingo with five or six others at a table and apparently laughing and having fun. Mom told the youngest that she’d gone to church, which she enjoyed, and seemed pretty content and happy.
After wheeling Mom back to Mom’s room, the youngest found clothes all over Mom’s area. Mom complained she didn’t have hangers. Sis pointed out that they’re in the closet, and told her, you need to look, and helped Mom tidy.
Then, though, today, Mom asked the youngest to bring her cookies — “Anything but chocolate chip.” Oatmeal raisin cookies were brought, which made Mom mad. She then gave my sister ‘mean faces’ and quit speaking with her. The youngest rolled Mom to the dining room so she could eat, and then left.
The youngest sister also related that Mom’s roomie is 95 years old with congestive heart failure and two ‘bad shoulders’. She had a hospice aid visiting. My sister suggested that maybe we should get Mom a hospice aid. That took me back, because there’s nothing indicated to me at this point that Mom is ready for hospice.
It’s just as troubling and confusing elsewhere in the world. Trump ordered the U.S. to attack Iran, a joint operation with Israel, “Operation Epic Fury”. While Iran’s supreme leader was killed, Iran retaliated. Americans were killed and injured. More critically, is this the opening that will explode the area into another war? Trump and his advisors seem to think in terms of gunship diplomacy and regime change.
Trump — the peace president, a self-made assertion that has Orwell laughing in his grave — said that the attack was to protect Americans. “Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime,” Trump said in prerecorded remarks posted on White House social media accounts early Saturday morning.”
Back in 2011, Trump said President Obama would start a war with Iran. “Our president will start a war with Iran because he has absolutely no ability to negotiate. He’s weak and he’s ineffective.”
Who is weak and ineffective now, Trump?
Protests in Baghdad broke out, with “Death to Israel, death to America,” being shouted. This smacks of the 1970s and 1980s, so it sickens me that we seem to be going into another war spiral. I hope to hell that’s not true.
As I sat with that information, news arrived of a mass shooting in Austin, Texas. Next came updated information about deaths in Iran where 85 are reported killed: “The majority of the dead are schoolgirls aged between seven and 12 years old, according to the regime-controlled news outlets Tasnim and Fars.”
Senseless killing, once again. I expect anger and hatred in Iran to rise in response. This is exactly where we were before, using violence and killing to win hearts and minds. It did not work then; I don’t expect it to work now.
BTW, remember when Trump vowed no more wars when he campaigned? Guess that promise meant as much as Mexico paying for the wall and lower food and energy prices.
The song in my morning mental music stream came when I first looked out the windows, before reading any news. “Rainy Night in Georgia” came out in 1970. The Neurons put it in there when I thought, “Another rainy day in Ashland.” I didn’t remember who performed the song and looked it up to learn it was Brook Benton.
I call again for peace and grace to find its way to us, and maybe it will someday. Right now, it feels less likely than it did last week. But things will change. It’s really just question of how and why.
I was visiting my sister at her house. She, her husband, my wife, niece, her boyfriend, Mom, and I were chatting. All present are Democrats at the least and progressive for the most part. Liberals. Most of our previous conversation included invectives aimed right at Trump and the Trump Regime minions destroying our nation. Then, lo, sis said, “I’m okay with him destroying those boats and killing those drug dealers.”
I was so horrified.
She went on to say, “They know who those people are.”
“Really? The people we were just talking about ‘know’ who those people are in those boats? Those people we just talked about? The ones who lie about anything and everything? You trust them to correctly and intelligently inform us that the people they’re killing in those boats are drug dealers just on their word?”
That was just the opening salvo. Yeah, I ranted. I pointed out that the U.S. military isn’t supposed to be used as wholesale executioners, killing non-combatants or civilians who are not actively attacking United States troops. Pointed out that this takes a huge step around due process and justice. Depends on the single word of a single individual to declare who is a criminal and who is guilty, all without presenting any evidence. And that person who we’re trusted that process to is a well-known liar, an untrustworthy individual named Donald J. Trump. That on its own is terrible but what it does as precedence for the rule of law is monstrously worse.
Further, I added, cuz I was not done, further, haven’t we learned from history? This is the start down the same path of pseudo warfare and lawlessness we pursued before as national policy, policy which ultimately culminated with the attacks of 9/11 that killed thousands of United States citizens, attacks which were then used with manipulated evidence to attack the nations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Where did that lead us? What did we gain from attacking those nations and killing those people and sacrificing so many of our own citizens in fruitless war?
“I don’t care,” sis said. “I want those drug dealers dead.”
When a reporter referenced U.S. intelligence findings that indicate no current evidence of Iran building a nuclear weapon, Trump responded: “My intelligence community is wrong.” When informed that this assessment came from his DNI, Tulsi Gabbard, Trump reiterated: “She is wrong.”
Gosh, it all makes me flash back to the turn of the century. Dubya Bush, asleep at the wheel, missed intelligence warnings about major terrorist attacks on the United States. We know the results of that day as 9/11. That security failure was used as a platform to attack Iraq and Afghanistan.
Iraq was attacked because the Bush Administration alleged Iraq had or were developing Weapons of Mass Destruction. WMD. Everyone remember that? Remember also that our intelligence showed that wasn’t the case. Just months after telling the world that Saddam Hussein wasn’t a threat, Colin Powell did a 180 and went on a campaign to convince everyone that he now was. As then VEEP Dick Cheney cherry-picked info to give us the rational for attacking, the United States steamrolled toward war on lies, flawed intelligence, and poor reasoning.
Now, here we are, in the wake of Israel’s surprise pre-emptive attack on Iran, contemplating joining the fray. Trump, now playing a dumber version of George Dubya Bush, thinks he knows better, as TACO always does. He can’t spell, he has a poor understanding of history, he doesn’t like to read, is a terrible negotiator, has an inflated ego and lies like a Persian rug, but this fool is insisting that he knows better.
Having just closed one disastrous chapter on war in that region, he seems hellbent on dragging the United States into another. Well, time will tell, won’t it?
Donald Trump declared “Liberation Day” on April 2, 2025. The phrase was used in conjunction with his ‘retaliatory tariffs’.
It reminds me of George Dubya Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln. Given on May 1, 2003, six weeks after the U.S. led Iraq invasion, the Bush Administration backpedalled from the speech and the phrase. Dan Bartlett, Dubya’s communications director, said it was the ship’s banner. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld claimed that he edited the speech and removed references to “Mission Accomplished”. Bush later stated in several different interviews that “Mission Accomplished” was a mistake.
At the time of the president’s speech, Americans had yet to pay the main costs of the Iraq War. The years immediately following “Mission Accomplished” were the deadliest in the conflict, which has left 4,500 U.S. troops killed and over 32,000 wounded. American taxpayers can expect to pay nearly $3 trillion for the Iraq War through 2050 when factoring the costs of veterans’ care, war-related defense spending increases, and additional interest on the national debt.
On a strategic level, President Bush was even more pollyannaish. He declared that, in deposing Saddam, the U.S. had “removed an ally of al-Qaeda” and prevented terrorist networks from “gain[ing] weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime.” These claims reinforced since-disproven narratives that there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden to begin with, or that the Iraqi government had weapons of mass destruction.
The key results of the invasion were two-fold: it empowered Iran to expand its influence in Iraq and across the Middle East by removing a check, and it aided our great power competitors, Russia and China, by distracting us in counterinsurgency operations for decades, delaying modernization programs, and wearing out our all-volunteer force and its strategic assets — such as the B-1 bomber fleet — from overuse.
In the days since that Bush speech, “Misson Accomplished” has often been employed in a mocking fashion. As in, “If you were trying to prove yourself ignorant, mission accomplished.”
As the Bush Admininistration did with the war in Iraq, Trump is using misinformation to convince us this is a great idea. Trump’s tariffs have introduced huge uncertainty. His thinking defies the lessons of history and economic theory. Trump will have you believe that the experts’ opinions that he’s wrong proves that he’s right.
I have doubts. Trump has always claimed to be the greatest. Evidence proves him otherwise. He says he’s a great negotiator. Evidence shows otherwise. He claims to be a brillant businessman. Multiple bankruptcies and failed businesses undermine that claim. Trump has instead proven that he’s an inveterate con man, master of spin, and consummate liar.
I believe that “Liberation Day” will join “Mission Accomplished” as a new mocking label in history. As it happened with “Mission Accomplished”, we’ll see in a few years what “Liberation Day” means to the United States and world.
Michael Seidel, writer 