Tag: PINO Trump

Saturday’s Theme Music — Here We Go Again

Ashland, southern Oregon — Saturday, May 9, 2026.

72 F. Sunny. Blue skies. Moving toward 86 this afternoon.

Had smoke in the area yesterday. Turned out to be from winds carrying smoke from three controlled burns into the valley, where it became trapped. The sight and smells triggered alarm until we verified the source/causes. Even knowing what it was, I was left toiling inside, as the smoke immediately irritated my nose and sinuses.

Progress on selling Mom’s home is slowly being made. We’re worried about how long it’ll take. Mom is slowly running out of cash and has meager income from social security and her VA nurse’s pension. We’re selling her home’s contents but I don’t believe that will bring her much. I told my family I’d cover the costs between when/if Mom’s money runs out and her contents/house is sold.

Here we go again. What’s going on with the war and the cease-fire? What’s going on with tariffs?

The Trade Court ruled against Trump’s tariffs. How long until it hits the Robert’s Court and how will they rule? Will it be in open court or will there be another shadow docket decision?

In parallel to those questions, I wonder if the Roberts Conservatives will do some more originalist cherry-picking to ignore historic precedence to claim, “This is what the founders intended!” They duplicitously employed such thinking before. Then Roberts whines that his court is being misunderstood. Right.

Shall we talk about what your court is doing to equal rights, voting rights, and democracy in the United States, Chief Justice Roberts?

On top of those things, hurricane season is bearing down on us. It’s expected to be below average to above average, depending upon who’s doing the forecast. But there’s also a potentially super strong El Nino coming, too.

Meanwhile, what will happen with Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL!?

Despite a ‘ceasefire’, the US military attacked several Iranian targets during the last several days. Like everything else Trump does, he lies and misleads about what’s going on.

Your Trump Quote of the Day:

Trump said this in August of 2024, while running for office and laying out his ‘economic plan’.

It didn’t surprise me that My Neurons blended the news with things I was doing this morning to come up with “Here It Goes Again”. I don’t think I’ve heard the 2006 song by OK Go in years, but it popped into my morning mental music stream today.

So on we go, into another Saturday. Hope your day is of the kind that goes well in all the important ways.

Coffee is served. Here I go.

Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music — All About Him

Ashland, southern Oregon — Friday, May 8, 2026.

Friday, we wear purple.

Thin white clouds marble a bright blue sky. 56 now, a high of 78 F is expected. Sunshine washes the greenery with bright, warm light. Papi says, “This is perfect weather. Don’t change it.”

The jobs report for April came out. I wasn’t surprised that more jobs than expected were added.

It wasn’t much: 115,000. Jobless claims held steady, 4.3%. The jobs growth saw a surprise increase in “messengers and couriers” of 38,000 jobs.

Healthcare added nearly 54,000 jobs. Again, not a surprise, because healthcare laid off 108k in January. Hospitals are closing in rural areas, and rebalancing is underway as the healthcare industry copes with Medicaid, Medicare, and private insurance changes.

May will be an interesting month for the jobs report, and travel, hospitality, and tourism industries. Gas prices are up over 50% since Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! initiated war in Iran in February 2024. The national average is now around $4.53 per gallon.

Trump may not care but Americans who aren’t wealthy are worried. “The University of Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment Index dropped to a record low of 48.2 in early May 2026, missing market expectations of 49.5 and falling below April’s 49.8.”

Sure, Trump doesn’t care. Make a promise — “No new wars” — break a promise.

That’s him. Just like Trump’s Epstein ballroom. ‘Americans won’t pay anything for it.’ Sure. Now, we’ll just pay a $1,000,000,000. Or more.

We’re feeling the economy in my region. Southern Oregon University (SOU) is in a slow collapse; Assante is in decline, taking the regional healthcare system down; the City of Ashland is mired in financial struggles.

With SOU cutting back, music programs and activities are in danger of disappearing. Parks and Rec has been forced to cut back. Meanwhile, we’re holding our breath to see what happens with tourism, OSF, wildfires, and drought — along with rising gas, energy, and insurance prices.

What’s of more interest to me at this point: is how many other regions in the US are being affected in like ways?

Today’s music is brought to you by The Kinks. The song is “He’s Evil”. I first heard it when I was in high school.

It’s in the morning mental music stream today because, Trump.

Lyrics:

He comes on smooth, cool, and kind
But he wants your body, not your mind
He’s got style, personality
But he’s the devil in reality
He’ll make you laugh, make you smile
And make you feel good for a while
Wicked smile, decadent grin
He likes school girls, nuns, and virgins

His skin is soft but his mind is hard
He’ll lead you on and then he’ll tear you apart
He’ll treat you rough and he will make you cry
And you will kiss sweet innocence goodbye
And once you’re in, there’ll be no getting out
So look out, look out, look out
Look out, look out, look out

He’s evil, he’s evil, he’s evil, he’s evil, he’s evil
He’s evil, he’s evil, he’s evil, he’s evil, he’s evil

Hope you have an evil-free day, full of grace and peace.

Got my coffee. Time to rock.

Cheers

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Ashland, southern Oregon — Wednesday, May 5, 2026.

Today’s is a picturesque spring day, Ashland edition — sunshine, clouds, 56 F. They say we’re heading to the lower eighties. We cracked 80 at my place yesterday.

I caught up on some local news last night. A rural hospital crisis is affecting the United States. Been going on for years but getting worse.

Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill worsened the situation. By removing healthcare subsidies, healthcare premiums shot up. Many people had no choice but to severely cut back.

It’s playing out here in southern Oregon.

Asante warns of a projected $50M shortfall leading to 300+ job cuts

Asante is already reducing many services at Asante Ashland Community Hospital in my town. Now operating in other southern Oregon cities such as Medford and Grants Pass, they note that they’ve lost money in the first six months of this fiscal year and cut personnel. Part of the reason why they’re losing money is buried in a paragraph down in the story:

“Patients covered by private insurance are at the lowest percentage in Asante’s history at just over 14% of all patients so far in 2026.”

Oregon saw average premium hikes of nearly 10% for individuals after Trump’s OBBB took effect. Asante’s CEO noted that many local businesses are being priced out of offering health insurance due to these rising costs. Medicare and Medicaid barely cover the costs they say. It’s not a sustainable model.

Yet, with this crisis going on, Trump pretends to worry about the Iranians having nukes and attacks them.

Trump worries about his own security and image, naming things after himself, wrecking part of the White House to build that ridiculous Epstein ballroom, which went from ‘costing Americans nothing’ to $1,000,000,000.

Trump screams freedom! Security! Peace! Then he has the military attack and kill more people in boats.

So much for law and order.

Waiting to see what Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! brings today.

Your Trump Quotes of the Day.

He’s so consistently inconsistent!

Today’s song was another one inspired by Papi, my ginger furbrother. I was petting him after giving him his meds. He was purring like mad. But his personality requires that he be given space. I wouldn’t let him go, keeping hold of him until he gave me an annoyed look. Meanwhile, I laughed and sang the lines from “Magic” by The Cars:

I’ve got a hold on you
I got a hold on you
Got a hold on you

I’m off for my cystoscopy to see what’s going on in my bladder. It’s being done at Asante in Medford so I better do it before they close.

I hope the best possible day of grace, peace, and joy finds you and carries you on through life on a great wave.

Cheers

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Monday’s Theme Music – Hope

Ashland, southern Oregon — Monday, May 4, 2026.

It’s cloudy this morning but it’s not a solid mass. Sunshine washes through to warm us. It’s 55 F but we expect a high in the mid to upper 70s, and thunderstorms. We experienced a high of 80 yesterday before thunderstorms cooled us in the mid-afternoon hours.

Trump’s thin ego and weak position has been on display all weekend, beginning on Friday night. Heather Cox Richardson summarized Trump’s frenzied Friday night texts in her May 3, 2026, edition of “Letters from An American”.

  • This great uniter called Rep. Jeffries ‘low-IQ’ and a thug
  • Trump continued his pattern of spreading fake information, showing an AI-generated image of Jeffries holding a bat
  • Likewise, Trump showed an image of him and some of cabinet desecrating the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, a national monument
  • Trump added a text showing his worry about the mid-term elections; in his mind, they’re going to be stolen

Trump also makes the fake claim that Democrats destroyed the US after the 2020 elections. History shows otherwise. BTW, gas was a lot cheaper back in President Biden’s days, wasn’t it?

Trump was promising to release the Epstein files, and still hasn’t released them all.

And we also weren’t at war.

Your Trump Quotes of the Day:

Hope is my theme today, though. Last night, I watched a documentary on Netflix about the making of the song, “We Are the World”. The documentary came out two years ago. Here is the Wikipedia summary of the song:

“We Are the World” is a charity single recorded by the supergroup USA for Africa in 1985. It was written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie and produced by Quincy Jones for the album We Are the World to raise money for the 1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia. With sales in excess of 20 million physical copies, it is the eighth-best-selling single of all time.

Documentary trailer:

It’s the hopeful nature of the endeavor that made me decide to play the song today. The song was made at a time when there was a lot of hand-wringing as people asked, “We can we do?” It reminds me of now, as so many watch Trump stagger through the world, destroying the nation, peace, and the environment. Come together, focus, and work against him and his reactionary, destructive policies.

The documentary was full of some fascinating moments. Diana Ross took her music to Daryl Hall and asked him to sign it for her because she was his biggest fan. Watching those singers cope with the notes, wording, and situation fired my amazement about how capable and accomplished they are. They were also often star struck by the others in the room.

One of the most hilarious pieces came from an anecdote related Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles talking together. Both are blind. Ray commented that he needed the restroom. Stevie said, “Oh, I’ll show you where it is.” Stevie then led Ray away, leading someone to crack, “The blind are really leading the blind here.”

Hope you have a great day. I’m off to do Food & Friends deliveries with my wife.

Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music – Fronts

Ashland, southern Oregon — April 30, 2026.

A new weather front has moved in. It’s 54 F under layers of clouds and sprinklings of sunshine, a typical Ashlandic spring day. Highs in the upper 70s are forecast for us. Right now, with all those clouds, it feels weirdly chilly.

Good news from the home front. Mom is electing to stay in assisted living and cooperating. She’s also agreed to sell her house and furniture. While it’s welcomed, it’s also so sad for her and our family. She wanted to be there; we wanted her to be there. Yet, practically, it could not work. Personally, I will miss go home, to her house, to hugging her in her living room, chatting with her in her kitchen, helping her with her laundry. And I will miss the many wonderful dishes she used to make. Her potato salad, spaghetti with meatballs, and chili all remain the best I ever had.

I will say, though, my sisters are a little annoying with their texting. They get up early, before six, and text. My first text from them came at 2:12 AM. I have my phone set up to notify me of texts from the family, in case there’s an emergency, but these were casual, informational texts. Okay, rant over.

No, I haven’t spoken to them about it. They’re doing so much to take care of Mom and help, etc. It would be really petty of me to complain to them about the time they send their texts. I’ll just whine here instead. *smile*

I’ve not seen much surface changes on the Trump front. The voting front is rapidly changing as the Roberts Court dish out their rulings and states respond. A situation as messy as first graders fingerpainting is going to get muddy and sloppy. That mud and slop favors the GOP and Trump. That’s why they’re pressing it. Not about democracy; it’s about staying in power.

Meanwhile, it’s been quiet on the Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! front and the Epstein front.

With the war in Iran at a stalemate, more conversations about the US military’s capabilities are emerging, such as this one. And they’re right; as often happens, the military fights the last war. We’re built for vast nuclear battles in the US with technologically sophisticated but expensive systems. Iran is countering us with different tactics and inexpensive weapons.

In a sense, what we’re seeing in this war echoes wars for the US back to the American revolution. The British were fighting an old war. The colonist changed tactics and won.

Changing policies and weapons in the US will be a challenge. As President Eisenhower warned, the military-industrial complex has a firm hand on procurement. Defense companies manage Congress through projects, manufacturing, and employment. We build systems as much for our economy as much as we do for our security. Meanwhile, the public nods agreeably because, ‘patriotism’.

Trump is responding by increasing the defense budget and calling for more expensive weapons systems. He’s pushing hard on a new class of Trump battleships. As with many things Trump, the battleships he envisions are outdated and bloated relics better fit for the past.

As the war stays stall, oil prices are slowly rising. A Gasbuddy AI analysis from March of 2026 is hilarious to read:

“GasBuddy’s latest projection paints a starkly different picture from the past. The company now forecasts the 2026 U.S. gasoline price average to fall to $2.97 per gallon, marking the fourth consecutive annual decline and the lowest average since 2020. This sets up a clear seasonal pattern, with prices expected to peak in May around $3.12 per gallon before declining steadily to a low in December of $2.83 per gallon.”

Mock Paper Scissors found a saner prediction from a Gasbuddy expert:

“GasBuddy’s Patrick De Haan, a widely cited gas price expert, predicts the national average price at the pump will hit $4.50 a gallon within a week (currently $4.30).”

Never to shirk from taking advantage of a bad situation, British Petroleum is making some handsome profits from the war and the world energy situation.

Oil giant BP announces huge rise in profits in first results since Iran war

Your Trump quote of the day:

“Gas prices have risen 49% since the beginning of 2026, according to prices tracked by AAA. They dropped by an average of 7 cents a gallon after a two-week ceasefire was announced last week.”

And as any driver now knows, that drop is already gone.

The Neurons observed my thoughts on fronts and responded. They put Elton John and “All Quiet on the Western Front” from 1979 in my morning mental music stream. Lifted from a movie of the same name, it’s not a song that comes on the radio much. The song’s tempo’s and musical style reminds me of “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” from 1975.

I hope your front is calm and peaceful and that you progress to better and better places for you in all ways possible.

Cheers

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Kickbacks, Secrets, and Lies

This Is How Trump’s Corruption Works

“This is the way you can manipulate government contracts.”

Yep, that’s Trump, the manipulator and con artist. It’s pointed out that all the previous presidents together have accumulated 40 million dollars. That includes many great individuals, including successful businessmen.

Trump, in 350 days, has enriched himself by billions.

If you think Trump’s ballroom is going to be built via private donations, you’re delusional.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music — Enduring

Ashland, Oregon — Tuesday, April 28, 2026.

Spring endures in Ashland. 48, blue skies, clouds, sunshine, high in the mid-sixties expected.

Mom endures in her assisted living facility. My sister couldn’t do the things she enumerated yesterday. Mom remains in the assisted living facility and seems agreeable to selling her house. However, she’s trying to manipulate us in other ways, according to my sister. She said Mom wrote a long text that she wanted sis to share with all of us. My sister refused. Life.

My plumbing endures. Mixed results with the plumber yesterday. Both shutoff valves replaced at the toilets, but the plumber felt only one had a leaking wax seal. When he pulled it, lo, the wood under it was soaked. So, wax ring replaced, toilet put back, but now we need to send someone under the house to examine that area. I’ve been under the house; not fun. We have a low, low crawlspace. But I don’t have the expertise needed for this kind of assessment. Thought about using different cameras to see what it looks like. Still noodling that.

Trump endures, too. It is remarkable but many speculate that Trump staged the attempt on him. While Trump blames ‘the left’, he continues to incite hatred and violence toward others while asking that we be nicer to him.

Part of this is that Trump is a documented liar and cheat. He wants to be feared, liked, respected, admired. As part of his ‘weave’, he’ll say anything but that’s shredded his credibility. We know now he makes grandiose promises and bizarre accusations and declarations; it’s all just air.

Doesn’t help, neither, that within hours of the attempt, Trump was calling to build his White House ballroom because, “Security!” But the WHCD was not in the White House. Even if the ballroom had been done, it wouldn’t have affected what happened at the WHCD.

I will also say that even if Cole Tomas Allen left behind a ‘manifesto’ and seems to have a life, Hollywood has convinced me that creating a legend like that is very possible. While I don’t particularly believe the Trump administration is sanguine enough to get it done, there are some high-tech security firms in his corner who could do it. If I believe Hollywood, so could the CIA.

Why not? It’s the age of deep fakes and AI.

With Trump not being held accountable for his lies and behavior, it’ll probably because worse as others attempt to emulate and duplicate his success as a con artist. More troubling is how his actions undermine our trust and belief in authority.

Meanwhile, the squeeze is on U.S. farmers. They’re in a bad situation: diesel is up, fertilizer is up, interest rates are up, available migrant labor is down, and droughts are in the forecast.

Perhaps they will reconsider who they vote for in November.

Your Trump quote of the day:

“Data from the USDA show that soybean exports to China, as of March 19, are about half the amount they were last year.” 

Reminder: we’re into the eighth week of the Trump Iran War. He has no exit plan.

Reminder: the Epstein files have not been completely released.

Reminder: Trump’s popularity is declining and prices are rising.

Expect some new Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! breaking news soon.

“Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)” ended up in my morning mental music stream. So many bricks being put into place between what we were, what we could become. Trump builds walls to divide and separate, keep the poor in misery and empower the wealthy, along with walls against equality, freedom, science, and education.

Hope you end up in the best possible place when this day is finished. Onward.

Cheers

1

That Didn’t Take Long: So Trump

There was another assassination attempt on Trump on April 25, 2026.

Immediately after that attempt at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner Trump called for Americans to “resolve our differences peacefully”.

Less than 24 hours later, Trump and Karoline Leavitt were blaming “Democratic hate speech” for the attack. Leavitt explicitly named Democratic leaders like Hakeem Jeffries and governors like JB Pritzker and Josh Shapiro.

This is how the Trump Administration functions: blame everyone else for the shit they do.

And then cry, poor us.

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Sunday’s Theme Music — Memories

Ashland, Oregon — Sunday, April 26, 2026.

Hope your April is going well. We’re saying good-bye to it this week.

It’s a cloudy spring day here. 46 F, our afternoon forecast includes rain and a high of 62. It’s a pretty tableau outside, with shafts of sunlight highlighting green leaves and far off trees rising on the southern mountains.

Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL! opened another line of distraction last night. Shots were reported at the White House Correspondents Dinner. Trump and his staff were hustled away. No one was hurt. Headlines were captured, though.

It seems so obviously planned or a deliberate lapse in security. First, Trump never goes to the dinner but decides to go this year. Second, the reactions afterward by Vance, Trump, etc., seemed false.

Bottom line: Trump really thinks we’re idiots.

The allegedly staged attempt is understandable, though. Trump is desperate. His approval ratings are falling, his war is going bad, prices are rising and everyone is reminding everyone else he said he’d lower prices day one. He said he’d end the Ukraine War before he took office but didn’t. He said, no new wars, and here we are, in another war.

We won’t rehash the Epstein files. He wants them buried. Forgotten. That’s not happening.

After the attempt, Trump then called for Americans to come together and resolve our differences peacefully.

Trump quotes of the day:

Trump has a history of using divisive rhetoric. Now he calls for unity.

I wonder how long it will be after this speech before he calls a political opponent, journalist, Democrat, or woman, a dog or scum?

All this focused The Neurons on Trump’s warped memories and views. “Time Warp” from “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” entered the morning mental music stream. I found a Tenacious D cover of it that I enjoyed. Hope you do, too.

Let’s all have a Sunday of peace and unity, along with a little grace, and treat each other like humans.

Cheers

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