Tag: Trump misinformation

Saturday’s Theme Music — Circles

Bandon, southern Oregon coast. Saturday, August 15, 2026.

We’re in Bandon to do the Circles in the Sand walk. Back then, it was about 60 F. Clouds played keep away with the sunshine. I dropped my wife off at the Face Rock Wayside at 8:15. Then I drove back to the hotel and walked back to do the walk with her. We finished the walk at 10 AM, then I walked back, got the car, and picked up my wife. So it was a refreshed, relaxing morning by the sea.

Back in the room, I spoke with the house sitter. She and Papi are old familiars so he’s comfortable with her presence.

After that cool morning, it’s a gorgeous afternoon — 61 but feels 71. Sunshine washes over the coast.

Now:

The labyrinth — well, a third of it, from the parking lot overlook:

A few news headlines attracted my afternoon attention.

‘The government cites no binding authority’: Trump admin’s losing streak continues in lawsuits seeking ‘unredacted’ voter 

The buck stops somewhere else: Trump takes blame game to a new level

‘This is Trump’s economy‘: Nobel winner butchers president’s claims

Retail sales collapse as Trump slump continues 

Trump Is Still a Loser: Courts Edition

These aren’t news headlines so much as they’re affirmations of who Trump is, and how his poor decision-making and aggressive power moves are backfiring on him.

Trump and his administration refuses to learn or change course, so we keep going in circles. Trump attempts the same policies; they’re taken to court and are often denied or overturned. Trump then tries another tack to see if it’ll stick.

Over and over again — round and round in circles.

Meanwhile, the United States economy is circling the drain, along with many political norms.

Not surprising that between Trump circling the drain and walking the circles in the sand, The Neurons put a song about circles in the morning mental music stream. “Circle in the Sand” was released by Belinda Carlisle in 1977 and was a global hit.

I signed my name at the beach. The tides will erase it by tomorrow, but I have the photograph and memory — as long as they don’t fade…

Cheers

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Claims, Facts, and Evidence

More confrontations occurring between US citizens and DHS are in the new again.

ICE agent points gun at Virginia woman who shouted at them in video that conflicts with government’s narrative

The Trump administration repeatedly claims that ICE agents were threatened or attacked — often saying that people ‘weaponized’ their vehicles or that agents feared for their lives. Yet in case after case, video, witnesses, and subsequent legal proceedings have contradicted or undermined those accounts.

So it was with some doubt that I read this DHS claim:

“Our officers are experiencing a more than 1,300% increase in assaults against them, a 3,300% increase in vehicular attacks, and an 8,000% increase in death threats. When faced with dangerous circumstances, DHS law enforcement used their training to protect themselves, their fellow officers, and the public,” the DHS spokesperson said in the statement.

There’s not much context to assess their claim, such as a timeline. Additionally, ICE underwent a huge expansion since Trump came back into office. I want to know, what are the raw numbers, such as the number of assaults based on the number of agents? That would be a more meaningful number.

Secondly, I ponder, how is DHS categorizing and cataloguing ‘threats’. Do they change definitions to make the numbers seem worse, giving them cover to respond more aggressively because ‘their agents are being threatened’? That seems to be the conclusion of an older DHS Inspector General finding.

Third, for me, while ICE aggressively expanded, ICE slashed their training regime. Based on historic trends among military, law enforcement, and other professions, less training often ends up resulting in lower standards and more incidents.

Finally, I think that Trump’s more aggressive deployments to cities and

In short, has the danger to the typical ICE officer actually increased by anything remotely approaching the enormous percentages being cited?

Or is this like the Trump and his administration’s broader pattern of making outlandish claims:

Given Trump’s history of unsupported and misleading quantitative claims, I want to see the underlying data and methodology before accepting the interpretation DHS is placing on those numbers.

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Monday’s Theme Music – Cracking Up

Ashland, southern Oregon. Monday, August 10, 2026.

Our August cooling trend continues. Today we’ll see low 90s with blue skies and sunshine in our valley. Last night saw the temperature fall to 58 F in our area. I had to go around closing windows to keep the house from getting too cold. Poor us, right?

Mom and Gina, my sister and Mom’s Power of Attorney, continue their cold war. I don’t think peace will come again, a change from how I was viewing it. Something about the conflict has triggered both, hardening their attitudes. Each instantly react angrily. Invectives and accusations fly.

Got Food & Friends deliveries today, along with a medical appointment this afternoon, so it’s another brief post. Somehow, most of my reading ended up being about Trump and the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. The story reminds us that Trump first claimed how resilient the fix he installed was.

“In May, for example, Trump said the lining was “so strong, so powerful” that it couldn’t be cut with a knife. He even drove his motorcade across it while it was being installed to inspect the work.”

Then, somehow, a vandal or group with knives managed to cut and tear that ‘so strong, so powerful’ lining.

Next, Trump was making claims about the evidence of this vandalism:

“We have photographs, or tapes,” he said, making a circular gesture with his hands. After a pause, he pointed to the cameras recording him and added: “Like moving cameras, right?”

Except, oh no, after Jeanine Pirro announced that they were dropping prosecution of the one vandal they’d arrested, Trump now claims there is no evidence:

“There was substantial other damage to the Reflecting Pool, also but, unfortunately, there is no video or proof, other than the damage, itself,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday. 

Anyone following the story knows the truth and has seen the evidence: the one who screwed up the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is Trump. And the one lying about it is also Trump.

The thing is, too, as it’s been often noted, the cover up is frequently worse than the crime. If Trump had just let it go, admitted he made a mistake, or anything like that, it would have already disappeared as a story. Instead, Trump dug in, refuse the facts and the truth, and made it worse.

But that’s Trump: lying, then lying about his lies, digging deeper and deeper holes. Did it with the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool; tariffs and the economy; the Epstein files; and the war he began with Iran.

A little over a year ago, I used the song “Basket Case” by Green Day as the day’s theme music. Trump has just attacked Iran for the first time. At that time, I wondered if June 21, 2025 and the attacks on that day would go down as the day that World War III quietly began?

Trump declared that mission enormously successful.

Trump says US ‘completely and totally obliterated’ nuclear facilities in Iran

Three days later, he walked back those claims. February of this year, he attacked Iran again. And the war has been going ever since, off and on, widening and creating death and destruction. Time and again, Trump gives different reasons for that war, not calling it a war to avoid being held in check, and has claimed different levels of results and success.

And that is why “Basket Case” is playing in the morning mental music stream today — again.

Sample Lyrics:

Do you have the time to listen to me whine?
About nothing and everything, all at once
I am one of those melodramatic fools
Neurotic to the bone, no doubt about it

Sometimes I give myself the creeps
Sometimes my mind plays tricks on me
It all keeps adding up
I think I’m cracking up
Am I just paranoid or am I just stoned?

Papi has settled in for the day. He’s ready for a day of relaxation. Hope you are, too.

Cheers

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Wenzdaz Wandering Political Thoughts 2

We are so polarized in the United States in the second decade of the 2000s.

Yeah, that’s not news.

Last election for the POTUS in 2024, we had those on the right screaming about President Biden’s sleeping. They declared him feeble. ‘They’, egged on by Donald Trump and JD Vance, raged about President Biden’s enfeebled state. In their eyes, he was too old, too tired. And who should replace that enfeebled, tired president, the one called Sleepy Joe by Donald J Trump?

Why Donald J. Trump, of course! A year younger but so much more energetic, they declared. Despite his haggard appearance. Despite the photos of him sleeping at his trial in 2024.

Trump is what we need, they cried. Despite his felony convictions. Despite his business failures. He tells it like it is! Despite his well-documented lies. Despite his hatred, and his use of slurs against people, especially women and the handicapped. Despite his three marriages and payments to a woman for sex.

They thought Trump would lower prices through tariffs. Reduce inflation! Bring back jobs! Increase the prestige, success, and conditions in the United States.

The rest of us thought this weird. Trump had already been POTUS. He’d not accomplished anything he promised. His biggest broken promises were not building the wall that Mexico would pay for. He’d been twice impeached. He instigated insurrection against the United States and tried to overturn the election results when he lost.

Trump didn’t replace the Affordable Care Act — Obamacare, he mocked it — as he promised. Trump never even rolled out a concept in four years plus.

Trump said he would ‘never golf’ or ‘take vacation’ because he’d be too busy working for the nation. Trump has since golfed more than any POTUS. He’s golfed about 25% of his time in office in 2025.

And Trump, Trump, is the only POTUS to have the government shutdown three times. His third government shutdown, the Trump Epstein Shutdown of 2025, is the longest on record.

Now Trump has established new records. Through Trump’s orders, 80 people, strangers to the United States, as we rarely know their names, or their records, or any evidence against them, have been murdered in international waters, a violation of U.S. and international law.

Through Trump, U.S. citizens are being turned against one another through his deployment of unneeded national guard and military units. He offers flimsy excuses and reasons, declaring that the places where he’s deploying them are burning, when there is no evidence at all of these things happening.

Through Trump, tourism and travel to the United States is cratering. Through Trump, prices are rising and affordability is falling.

Trump makes money on being POTUS. He pushes products with his name on them, like his Bible, his gold shoes, his gold cell phone. He’s destroying the White House, having it torn down, over the objections of We the People.

And weirdly, weirdly, through all of this, some part of the United States population declares that Trump represents the best of us.

The rest of us recoil in horror. We think Trump represents the worst of us.

Trump’s greed is not the best of the United States. His failed businesses are not the best of the United States. His lies, womanizing, and cheating are not the best of the United States. His lawlessness and childish mocking of other people are not the best of the United States. His ranting on Truth Social is not the best of the United States. His wanton disappearing people based on the color of their skin or their accents, without any due process, is not the best of the United States. His killing of citizens from other nations without due process is not the best of the United States. His persecution of political opponents is not the best of the United States. Nor is his greed, avarice, and shallow thinking the best of the United States.

Twisted and polarized. This is what we are. The real question for us is, where do we go from here, in 2025, as we near the end of just the first year of Trump’s second term?

Many of us are holding our breath as 2026 approaches. Because we do not know what Trump will do next. And given his lawlessness and the way he’s breaking our nation, chances are, whatever he does, it will not be good for anyone except Donald J. Trump.

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A History of Fake History

Take the Time …

Trump has been spreading bullshit. Again.

Nan has connected to an accounting of some more Trump lies, aka Trumprications, or to use the two words separately, Trump fabrications.

But don’t read this CNN account of Trumprications if you’re already sickened and disgusted by his recurring disregard for the truth. The Daniel Dale analysis is just about guaranteed to nauseate you more. As Dale notes, “And the pattern has a purpose. Trump’s stories serve to exaggerate his foresight about and knowledge of domestic and foreign affairs, embellish his biography and record in office, and diminish his political opponents.“

More than that, the lies serve to impress and inspire the gullible and misinformed who put him in office.

That should tell you a lot about them.

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Wenzdaz Wandering Political Thoughts

It’s just another WTF morning. Emil Bove was confirmed by the Senate to be a .

You might have more than one Emil Bove in your contact list. This Emil Bove was Trump’s personal lawyer. I know, that starts a gag reflex, doesn’t it? A whistleblower came forward before and reported that this honorable individual, sworn to uphold the law, told people to blow off the courts.

Bove reportedly “stressed to all in attendance that planes needed to take off no matter what,” though he also noted “the possibility that a court order would enjoin those removals before they could be effectuated.”

The suggested response? “Bove stated that DOJ would need to consider telling the courts ‘fuck you’ and ignore any such court order,” per Reuveni’s report.

His response to questions about this was that he didn’t recall. Well, of course this ‘honorable man’ didn’t recall saying such things. Despite that, other whistleblowers emerge to reveal this individual’s corrupted character. Republicans, as they’re prone to do in this era, ignored facts and truths and hurried on to curry favor with TACO. So now, Emil Bove has a lifetime appointment as a judge in that same legal system which he told other lawyers to ignore.

But what did you expect at this point for the United States Senate? Voters, led by Republicans, elected an embecile for POTUS. Not just an embecile, but a felon, convicted in court. A sludge of being who’s been accused of being a rapist multiple times.

  • A person desperately trying to squirm away from being connected to Jeffrey Epstein and his crimes despite aircraft flight logs, anecdotes, news articles, and photographs.
  • A decadent and disgusting individual recorded as saying derogatory things about women, such as “Grab them by the pussy.”
  • An individual, who, when accused of rape, didn’t deny it but instead said, “She’s not my type.”
  • An idiot of a human being who drew a map to overrule what experts said about a hurricane’s landfall, a brainless meatbag who claimed, “I would never golf,” because he would be too busy and has since mostly golfed.
  • A liar, documented and caught in lies well over 30,000 times and counting. One factcheckers catch telling a lie in almost every speech and statement he makes.

With that piece of puke as their leader, were there real expectations that Republicans would find a backbone and vote down his personally endorsed nominee?

Come on, man.

1

Saturday’s Political Thoughts

I’m still trying to understand Trump supporters. A NYT article shows how well Trump’s fears and lies are embedded among his supporters.

From the article:

Karen Cannestra does not like that drop box in front of West Bend City Hall.

Ms. Cannestra, 72 and retired, prefers to vote at her polling place in Wisconsin on Election Day, the way it was always done. It goes beyond personal preference, she says. Who knows the motives of the person who’s pulling those ballots out at the end of the day? Couldn’t somebody tamper with the process?

Isn’t that exactly what happened in 2020, she asked, when, she felt, the election was stolen?

“I don’t trust it, the drop box,” Ms. Cannestra said, before walking into City Hall to pay a utility bill. “No, no, no.”

So, she felt the election was stolen. “Who knows the motives of the person pulling those ballots out at the end of the day?” she wonders.

As much as anything, she’s flouting her ignorance. Not only on how the voting process works, etc. She’s flouting her ignorance about what’s happened in the courts regarding the ‘election steal’. No evidence has been presented that the election was stolen. Trump’s own administration called it the most secure election ever.

But, as we see we greater scrutiny, facts don’t get in the way of Trump support.

Later in the same article…

Another man said that he believed there was “corruption” on the City Council over the issue and that the city clerk, who has local authority over drop boxes, was not doing her job.

“I think it’s absolutely appalling what’s going on in our community,” he said.

He thinks…he believes…he doesn’t cite evidence.

What’s ‘absolutely appalling’ is how Trump has convinced these people to have faith in him and turned their brains into oatmeal. They don’t trust their friends and neighbors, nor their local elected officials. Certainly, they can’t trust Democrats!

And it’s all presented without any evidence.

And likewise, later in the article…

At a rally in Dodge County this month, Sheriff Dale J. Schmidt took the stage, turning to address Mr. Trump, who was campaigning there.

“I have something very important I think you’re going to want to hear,” Sheriff Schmidt said. “In Dodge County, in this 2024 election, there are zero drop boxes for the election.”

As the crowd erupted in cheers, Mr. Trump gave a double thumbs-up.

“We’re going to make sure that we have the best, most secure election in Dodge County history,” Sheriff Schmidt said.

(Sheriff Schmidt was wrong about the number of drop boxes; several municipalities in Dodge County have them, as the clerks pointed out last week.)

You see it yet again — lies and misinformation being offered as facts to a cheering crowd. What have these people done with their thinking? All of these examples show how Trump supporters swallow lies without giving it much thought.

Mind-fucking-boggling.

Imagine the cascade of insanity that will roll across the nation if Trump returns to the White House. Please, vote blue. Save us from the ignorance of Trump supporters.

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Winday’s Political Thoughts

I read a disturbing Slate article today.

Remember that thing we used to learn about some truths being self-evident?

Under the GOP, that’s no longer directionally correct.

“The Wrong-Direction Election” by Ben Mathis-Lilley delineates exactly why the GOP has become so half-assed. It’s about being ‘directionally correct’.

Not familiar to you? ‘Directionally correct’ is a way of covering the GOP’s collective ass about Trump and Republican lying. Orwell is likely shaking his head in amazement. From the article:

“And being directionally correct—or sometimes directionally accurate—is, according to many of Donald Trump’s supporters, something that Donald Trump is very good at. His claims about trans athletes, immigrants, and the 2020 election might not be strictly true, these advocates say, but they are directionally so, because he’s talking about a real problem, or at least a feeling that there’s a real problem.”

Isn’t that precious?

The Republicans have become masters of bullshit. If I get the gist of it right, my saying that that the GOP are all unprincipled hypocritical, gun-loving, women-hating sexist, greedy, anti-democracy lying racist bigots, I’m directionally correct, because there’s at least a feeling that’s there’s a real problem with them and their lying campaigns in response to every critical moment in the nation’s recent history.

Take fer’instance if you will, their claim ‘Harris controls the weather’ and are ‘aiming it at red areas’. Or their bullshit (yes, let’s just call their lies and misinformation for what it is) that FEMA is being ordered not to help Republicans.

Or maybe I’m just directionally accurate.

Vote blue in 2024 so we can start cutting the heads of this monster.

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