“But on the campaign trail, Mr. Trump repeatedly pledged to “expel the warmongers from our government” and strongly hinted there would be no new wars, like was the case in his first term.
“I’m going to keep you out of wars, I kept you out of wars,” the president said in a July 24, 2024, campaign rally.
“And in his November 2024 victory speech, he said, “We had no wars. Four years, we had no wars. Except we defeated ISIS. We defeated ISIS in record time. But we had no wars. They said, ‘He will start a war.’ I’m not going to start a war, I’m going to stop wars.”“
Donald Trump warned us, though. Trump and his MAGAzens like to pretend that he’s an outsider.
But Trump is the political establishment in 2026. And to quote him, he’ll say anything to remain in power.
Which circles us back to Trump’s base:
Unfortunately for Trump, many of We the People have wised up to his multiple cons. That’s why Trump is so desperately trying to pretend that everything is really going great — including the war.
Donald Trump will never stop lying, cheating, and conning people. That’s why a strong Congress is needed now more than ever.
Republicans have shown that a few might protest what Trump does or says once in a while — usually to curry favor with voters — but overall, they are quite willing to let Trump continue what he’s done, regardless of what is happening to the nation.
Actually, her ire grew because of how Nebraskans reacted, laughing and cheering. I don’t know which aspect of this pissed her off more.
First, she found Trump’s comments, made in a speech in Nebraska about Iran ‘taking out San Diego or Los Angeles’ as treasonous. “A President should not be suggesting things like that.”
What triggered her was the ho-hum coverage in so much of the media. “They’re writing it off as, oh, that’s just Trump being Trump! That’s one of the big problems with our country. They keep normalizing this insane shit that Trump says.” She went on with a louder, angrier tone about this.
Then, though, her anger punched through the roof as she talked about Nebraskans’ reaction. “They laughed and cheered. Oh, those are California cities! Who cares! Well, hello, Nebraska. What would you think if Trump suggested that Iran could take out Omaha. How would you feel then?
“Did they even think about what he was saying. Do they know how much California contributes to the economy? Think your fertilizer prices are high now? How much higher those prices are going to be if the ports of Los Angeles and San Diego are gone!
“California has a huge economy! Think of all the subsidies that the government would no longer be able to pay if two California cities are destroyed. And what about the radioactive fallout? What do they think, that it’s not going to spread to more of the country, that it’s not going to drift over the Midwest?
“And look how much of the military would be damaged! The Navy has a fleet stationed there, marines!”
She was furious by this point. “I don’t care why Trump said it. No American should cheer that. No human should cheer that kind of killing and destruction.
“Even if he was just suggesting that if he didn’t take action, nobody should be cheering the possibility of someone nuking and killing someone else.”
I think I correctly conveyed the gist of what my wife said. Hard to say, because she was going loud, fast — and angry.
I was part of a military unit. A light colonel – a commander from my real life – led us. Something disastrous had happened, and we’d shifted into holding on, bracing for attacks and problems. Food, water, and fuel were all issues.
Second in command, we had a dozen people. All were much younger than the commander and me. The weather seemed consistently dark and cloudy. Rain was often falling.
I started out required to make suggestions to the commander. He then agreed or not, and gave orders. My suggestions were about needing shifts, requiring everyone to collect and bring food, man the place and keep watch.
We arrived back in the morning as scheduled. Still a dark, rainy day. Part of our structure was gone. I suggested to the commander, maybe we should move our people inside the rest of the structure, to get us out of the rain.
“No,” he said. “Put them on the covered porch.”
I ordered that, but saw at that point that my commander had recognized that I was thinking about things. Touching my shoulder, he told me, “Supervise them. Get them set up and ready.”
I agreed. We had an engine. It ran a generator which gave us electricity. I’d seen the commander add oil to it the previous day. I went to the engine to do the same. The way he’d done it before didn’t make sense with what I saw. This was a Chevy V8, and it was running. I knew it was important to keep the engine running. The engine steamed as rain drops hit.
I checked fluid levels. Gas, oil, etc., were all topped off. I worried that I was overlooking something and decided, I didn’t know enough about how the engine worked. I needed to learn more.
People reported in to work, bringing food and water with them, including doughnuts. Thanking the people for them, I ordered the doughnuts to be shared, encouraging everyone to eat.
Reports came in – I’m not sure of the mechanism – that enemy forces weren’t far off. I directed people to take positions as lookouts. Someone asked if we should launch a drone.
I knew we had a drone but we also had a plane. I directed that both be launched.
They were launched but we weren’t getting images from other. I went outside to see where they were in the sky, which had turned apricot but was marbled with gray and black. Craning my head back, holding my hat on, I couldn’t see the plane or drone.
My commander asked me what I was doing. I told him, and he replied, “Good idea.” Others came out to also look. None of us could see either aircraft.
“I think the enemy destroyed them,” I said with worry.
In 2008, Essar Steel Minnesota planned to build a taconite mine, a direct-reduction-grade iron ore pellet plant, and a steel mill in Minnesota. The project suffered from repeated delays and over $1 billion in debt. In 2015, Essar withdrew its financial pledge, and the project collapsed into bankruptcy. From the bankruptcy emerged Mesabi Metallics.
Mesabi Metallics is Iowa’s new partner in the $15B steel mill complex.
Trump didn’t mention that Iowa could build this new steel plant because of windmills. Iowa is the top state in the nation for wind dependency, generating roughly 63% of its total electricity from wind power. Wind leads coal by far. A Republican governor began Iowa’s wind turbine electricity project waaayyyy back in 1983.
The project succeeded in part because Senator Chuck Grassley sponsored Wind Energy Incentives Act of 1992, which created the Production Tax Credit (PTC).
It’s hilarious in a not-funny way. Trump disparages wind energy. Donald Trump blames them for cancer, talks about how ugly they are, and bellows about how dangerous they are to birds. Yet, thanks to windmills, Donald Trump is in Iowa, trumpeting about a new manufacturing plant. Trump fights against the sort of incentives which Senator Grassley championed, the incentives which make Iowa’s new projects possible.
Trump’s hypocrisy and ignorance remain appalling.
On the other hand…
Because of all that flat farmland in Iowa, Iowa is currently at a critical energy crossroads. It ranks among the top five states per capita for data center density—with 4 massive centers under active construction and 17 more in planning in counties like Linn—meaning the Mesabi plant is landing right in the middle of a pre-existing technology boom.
Sounds good, doesn’t it? The problem is the climate, and the chance of flooding.
Your Trump Quote of the Day:
Donald Trump dismisses climate change as a con job. The new Iowa Mesabi Metallics plant sits close to the Mississippi River, which is needed as part of the plant’s supply chain. The iron pellets needed for the new steel production facility comes from Minnesota via barges on the Mississippi and railroad routes along river basins. The mining and iron pellets in Minnesota are part of that original, failed Essar Steel project that began in 2008.
Analysts cite a 15% chance that the area where the steel plant is being built will experience a major flood. That percentage might become worse, thanks to climate change and the extreme weather changes it causes, such as the super El Nino forecast for this winter.
The new steel plant is being built to survive a flood. The problem with a flood is that the plant would need to be shut down and restarted, a long and complicated process. Also, flooding will affect workers’ ability to reach the plant.
Flooding will also affect the power sources. Not the windmills, but the infrastructure needed to deliver the power.
Yet, Trump — and the GOP — are focused only on the construction and manufacturing aspects. Not the climate, weather, or other threats.
It’s funny, again, in a sad, I’m not laughing way. Back in 1983, Republicans had the vision to see these problems and forge productive viable paths forward.
Now, under Trump, they close their eyes, trying to pretend like they don’t exist.
Unfortunately, Iowans are pushing back against windmills. It again takes us to another crossoad of challenges and history. Blades have broken off and fallen in cornfields. There was also the Greenfield disaster, where a tornado hit and destroyed windmills.
Climate scientists are expecting more tornados in Iowa due to climate change. Fewer ‘tornado days’ are projected, but more tornado clusters are expected. Windmills falling apart rightly scare people. Their reaction is to build fewer windmills and even remove those which already exist. But to do that, they must shift energy production back to fossil fuels, which will accelerate climate change.
The Iowa steel and energy story is a microcosm of the global climate challenge we face. The hardest part of transitioning to clean energy isn’t the engineering or the math; it’s the political and human friction.
When Donald Trump attacks wind projects, he is speaking directly to the anxieties of older, core conservative voters who view rapid green mandates as costly and unreliable. Yet, those are now the Republicans pushing back against wind power.
It’s an interesting dichotomy. Part of that can be traced to how windmills changed from those early years into what they are now.
Part of the battle now can also be viewed as the difference between how the issue used to be framed — as a business initiative to improve costs — vice a political football to address climate change.
Ashland, southern Oregon — Saturday, October 3, 2026.
A scorcher of a day is set up. Long stretches of thin white crossing the atmosphere’s bowl, but it’s mostly blue. Dropped to 80 now — a hot 80 — but it was over 90. More of the same is expected tomorrow.
Mom reports she’s feeling better. Played bingo at the assisted living facility and won five games. She seemed relaxed and — risking the chance of jinxing it — happier today.
Meanwhile, my WordPress still isn’t right, just a fly in my pinot noir. On the good news side, my next step in my cancer treatment, the BCG was moved up to this coming Monday. An impatient person, that pleases me. I’m a ‘let’s get this done’ sort of personality.
Reading political and other news, I told myself, don’t look back. Looking back causes me to grit my teeth with pain and anger over what’s happening with our nation, especially so as Donald Trump breaks promise after promises, rages about different things, and lies about almost everything. There’s a lot riding on the upcoming midterms.
Those thoughts encouraged The Neurons to introduce “Don’t Look Back in Anger” into the morning mental music stream. As I hummed the Oasis tune to myself this morning, I was surprised to see an article claiming that it was released 31 years ago. Why it seems like just yesterday!
Then again, it seems like just yesterday that I took my first driving test and got my license. It feels like just yesterday that I as going to the prom, and just yesterday that I was getting ready to play a football game.
Just yesterday seems so close and so far. Maybe I’m going on a long elliptical orbit around my existence. My memories will begin fading and the next thing I know — without knowing — is that I’m living my life all over again, following the orbit already established through agencies outside of my control.
Here’s the Oasis music. May your orbit take you into brighter, happier days and you smile often.
