Life On A Sandbar

It’s different. The birds are different. They are more subdued. Oh, I can see them up in the treetops, but they’re not calling to one another. It’s almost like they sense the rain coming.

Most days, there are all types of birds, from flocks of grackles to the pounding of a woodpecker. As long as it’s not raining, I usually lay out on the back deck, listening to an audiobook. I lean back in the chaise lounge with a lemonade or a soda and listen to my books. There is always some distraction—an airplane overhead, the birds, or just an ant zeroing in on my lemonade.

But today, it’s overcast, and the clouds are leaking raindrops. So today, I decided to heed the ways of the birds and hunker down.

Wink, Wink, Nod, Nod

He didn’t come out and say it but he threw out hints to his MAGA base.

Donald Trump says transgender people will “end” if GOP keeps Congress in midterms
The Fox host he was talking to didn’t push him to explain what he meant.
LGBTQ Nation
Alex Bollinger
August 31, 2026

Donald Trump said in an interview yesterday that voters should treat the 2026 midterms as if he is on the ballot, while bringing up how he is going to make “transgender… end.”

Former Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), who is now a Fox News host, asked Trump on his show yesterday about the upcoming midterms, in which it seems likely that Republicans will lose ground in Congress.

“I think we’re gonna do very well,” Trump said. “I’m gonna take a lot of time, and I’m going to help people get elected, if I can.”

[…]

“We’ve done a great job; we’re the most respected country right now in the world; we’re more respected than we ever were, and I think people wanna keep it that way, so I think we’re gonna win.”

What has he been smoking “the most respected country right now in the world”?

 

Is this Trump’s “Final Solution?” The elimination of the trans community?

---

Updated: 3:30PM

The Pink News reported that,

It remains unclear what Trump specifically meant by saying “transgender” will “end”, but transgender people themselves are obviously not going anywhere. Trans people have existed throughout history and across cultures, and there is no evidence that political repression or efforts to force people to suppress their identities can eliminate being transgender.

For Trump, however, the issue is clearly still part of his pitch to Republican voters. His message to them is essentially that the fight over transgender people’s rights should be treated as a reason to turn out for the GOP in November.

And with the midterms approaching, Trump appears to be making an agenda around trans people and trans issues a huge part of the case for keeping Republicans in power.

“For the Benefit and Enjoyment of the People.”

That is what is written in stone over the entrance of the Roosevelt Arch at the north entrance of Yellowstone National Park.

But what no one can see is the little asterisk that Trump stuck there… *Unless there is a profit to be made.

Trump’s Quietly Working to Give Part of Yosemite to a Private Developer

The National Park Service is under pressure to make an unprecedented deal that cedes a quarter-mile strip of the park.

NOTUS

By Anna Kramer

August 28, 2026

For more than a year, the National Park Service has been quietly working to fulfill an unprecedented directive from Trump officials: Parcel off a corner of Yosemite National Park to give to a private developer.  

National Park Service staff in California and Washington, D.C., are trying to arrange a land exchange between a Nevada-based company and the federal government, according to four people directly familiar with discussions, as well as agency documents reviewed by NOTUS.

The courts once turned them down... but now they are trying a different route: a swap.

Because the ranch is basically landlocked, it takes around 90 minutes to drive around to the park entrance, which is why the previous owner's requests failed. But this new land-exchange tactic changes everything, turning a 90-minute detour into a matter of minutes.

The Sierra News Online writes,

Opponents Warn About Precedent

Critics of the current proposal say the issue extends well beyond the amount of acreage involved.

California Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff have objected to the potential exchange, while conservation organizations and former park officials have raised concerns about allowing national park property to facilitate private development.

Among those speaking out is John Buckley, executive director of the Central Sierra Environmental Resource Center.

Buckley told NOTUS there is no current residential population at Hazel Green requiring access to Yosemite and argued that the primary reason for the proposed connection is to make new development of the property more feasible.

Critics have also raised concerns about additional traffic, wildfire risk, impacts on natural resources and the precedent that could be created if Yosemite land were exchanged to facilitate private development along the park boundary.

The Yosemite local of the National Federation of Federal Employees, which represents park employees, has also opposed the proposal, saying employees are concerned about potential effects on park resources, visitor safety and an already strained workforce.

Kingsbarn argues that the exchange should be viewed differently.

The company says Hazel Green is already privately owned and can be developed independently of Yosemite. Its position is that providing a shorter route to the park would reduce miles driven over existing roads and that an equal-value land exchange would leave Yosemite with no net loss of acreage.

Then there is that phrase: “... an equal-value land exchange would leave Yosemite with no net loss of acreage.”

The debate is over what “an equal-value land exchange” means. Proponents see it as X acres for X acres, but conservationists see it differently. They see it as thousands of acres of wilderness that will now have a road through it, and you cannot place a price tag on that.

The Guardian reported that,

And while the threat to sell off part of Yosemite National Park is about a quarter-mile parcel on the park’s edge, Yosemite is a crown jewel in the national park system and, arguably, the world’s first national park.

To let any bit of it be sold off for the benefit of a corporation’s planned development on the park’s western border would compromise the inviolability of national parks and sacrifice public good for the sake of private profit. This is of course the ongoing agenda of the Trump administration.

Then there is the fact that it is a National Park… that Congress has set aside for the people of the United States. And this will turn the public land into private land.

Public lands belong to all of us, a gift from the past because people worked hard to protect these forests, mountains, canyons, and a trust for the future, because the public should include everyone in this country alive now and everyone yet to come.

The Trump administration’s ruthless efforts to turn over public lands for mining and logging and fossil fuel exploitation while it also dismantles the Forest Service and Park Service is about turning long-term well-being for the many, human and more-than-human, into short-term profit for an elite.

And here is the kicker… it will be a private road. That means only the billionaires can drive on it to their million-dollar condos, benefiting just a small number of the nobility.

Do You Have A Warm Fuzzy Feeling?

I don't... this is from Axios,

 Two key reasons led to Army Secretary Dan Driscoll's resignation, announced Monday: the feeling that his modernization initiatives were being blocked, and the chaos created by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's firing of senior generals.

Why it matters: Driscoll's wartime resignation, on top of Hegseth's firing of Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George this spring, leaves the military's largest service without Senate-confirmed leadership, civilian or uniformed.

The last sentence is what got my attention. With this administration in the middle of a war... it is now all Hegseth's cronies and that doesn't sit well with me. Especially with a critical election coming up and all the threats Trump made about the election and using the military. No... this doesn't give me a warm fuzzy feeling.

There Is A Pattern

There is a pattern

[Editorial]

Trump is known for stalling, and his administration is doing the same. Back in the first part of the year, a judge ordered the ban on unescorted media access to be lifted. Here it is in August, and they still have no unescorted access. Why? Because of legal wrangling; the Pentagon won a key legal appeal in July. Now that is being adjudicated in the courts.

Then there is the case of Stars and Stripes. The newspaper has a special law from Congress dictating its independence from the military. The Secretary of Defense, Hegseth, fired editor-in-chief Erik Slavin, publisher Max Lederer, and reporter Lara Korte because they printed a story on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln.

Then there is this, reported in The Intercept:

U.S. Central Command maintains a secret directory of journalists who have been blacklisted by the press office, according to an official with CENTCOM public affairs. The disclosure comes amid a failed war in Iran, a “cover-up” of U.S. casualties from that conflict, and repeated refusals by CENTCOM to address questions about civilian deaths in Iran, including the killing of a family recently disclosed by The Intercept.

The CENTCOM official who revealed the existence of the list threatened that this reporter could be added to it for calling the command too often.

“You’ll be put on a list of people to disregard,” Richard Allee, an executive assistant with CENTCOM public affairs, told this reporter. When asked for clarification — “You have a list of people to disregard?” — he confirmed it with an emphatic “Yes.” When asked which reporters or outlets were currently on the list, he replied, “I’m not privy to give you that information.”

Remember the sayings: “No news is good news” and “Whoever controls the press controls the mind.” Well, the current administration keeps the news close to its chest.

It was the conditions of the USS Abraham Lincoln coming to light that started the chain of events.

The story breaks; sailors jump ship.

Why?

Lack of food, sanitary system backups, low morale.

Why?

Resupply bases bombed, supplies destroyed, causing ships to have shortages.

Why was the ship deployed so long?

The war is going on longer than planned.

Did firing the planners and the logistics people have anything to do with it?

This whole thing reminds me of the song “For the Want of a Nail.”

I would say that this whole war is a clusterfuck, since even before the planning started, and I think the real reason they want to cover it up is their own incompetence.

Figures Do Not Lie.

And you know the rest of the saying…

Well, Trump & Company came out with a report linking us to violence!

New Trump administration report links trans support to political violence

The Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services has released a new report claiming that support for transgender rights is associated with “left-wing authoritarianism” and a greater willingness to justify political violence.

Pink News

Siân Thompson

Aug 28

Critics have dismissed the 20-page report released on 27 August as “junk science” and accused the administration of using taxpayer money to manufacture a justification for targeting trans people and their allies.

The Human Rights Campaign released a statement the same day as the report, writing: “The entities that conducted the supposed ‘research,’ the Manhattan Institute and the Network Contagion Research Institute, are both known conservative-leaning think tanks with track records of producing reports that align with extremist right-wing positions.”

[...]

The report then attempted to connect those views with support for political violence by asking participants about things including damaging property, attacking police and the killings of political and business figures, namely Charlie Kirk and Brian Thompson.

The survey also included 13 statements that respondents were asked to rate their agreement with on a seven-point scale to measure their “left-wing authoritarian tendencies”. Statements included “America would be much better off if all of the rich people were at the bottom of the social ladder”, “We need to replace the established order by any means necessary”, and “Getting rid of inequality is more important than protecting the so-called ‘right’ to free speech”.

You know what this reminds me of? The 2018 study by Lisa Littman, a researcher at Brown University, on “rapid-onset gender dysphoria” (ROGD), and the 2024 Cass Review.

A key principle in any research is where you draw your subjects from. The population you study and the way you recruit participants should have a direct bearing on the question you are trying to answer. In this case, you can see the potential for bias just from the name of one of the research organizations: the Network Contagion Research Institute.

“Contagion”? Being trans is not contagious. We are born this way!

Researchers created their own “Clinical Gender Affirmation Scale” to measure support for trans people, asking participants whether they agreed with statements about respecting transgender identities, names, pronouns, gender expression and children exploring their gender.

The report then attempted to connect those views with support for political violence by asking participants about things including damaging property, attacking police and the killings of political and business figures, namely Charlie Kirk and Brian Thompson.

Okay, I was a researcher on a study funded by HHS through the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS at Yale. I was an MSW intern on the study, and I had to be certified to work with human subjects.

One of the things we had to do as part of the study was “validate” our measures—to make sure they were actually measuring what we intended them to measure.

Somehow, I have very serious doubts that those questions were properly validated.

Critics say the broader concern is not simply the report itself, but how its findings could be used. Certain right-leaning media outlets have already begun citing it as evidence that trans people and their allies pose a threat to American society at large.

As a trans person, this scares the crap out of me.

In Germany in the 1930s, the Nazis did something similar with Jewish people: they portrayed them as a threat to the nation and ultimately declared them enemies of the state.

That history is precisely why I find this kind of rhetoric so frightening. When a group of people is repeatedly portrayed as dangerous, diseased, contagious, or a threat to society, I think we should all be paying very close attention.

---

I was using ChatGPT to research this topic when this message popped up!

This content can’t be shown for safety reasons. Learn more about our intended model behavior in our Model Spec.

Now I was research a legitimate in how history is repeating but it is being censored! It appears to be censoring topics  

Your Paper's Please

I remember back in the fifties the big selling point of our republic was you don't need travel papers when you travel here in the U.S., you didn't need any ID.

But all that under Trump has been changed! A U.S. citizen born in Denver was deported. KXAN writes that...

Morales said he repeatedly told authorities that he was born in the United States and that he had copies of his birth certificate and social security number at his home in Austin that he could share with them. He was deported, anyway. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security disputed his account and accused Morales of having entered the country illegally.

According to Morales’s lawyers, that changed as they provided more documents as part of a lawsuit challenging his removal. His legal team submitted additional hospital records, affidavits from witnesses and his certified birth record from Colorado. The U.S. Department of Justice allowed Morales to enter the country while a lawsuit regarding his detention and deportation proceeds, his lawyers said. His lawyer, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, picked him up in Laredo, she said. 

[...]

“Brian’s case raises an alarming pattern of behavior on the part of the federal government,  demonstrating that they’re willing to racially profile, detain and deport U.S. citizens, “ Lincoln-Goldfinch said. “In order to prove citizenship, someone who is born in this country has to provide more than just civil documentation about who they are, and the federal government being permitted to require this level of evidence for someone to simply reside in the U.S. is extremely concerning and unacceptable.”

This is what a fascist authoritarian state does.

We Seen It

[Editorial]

We’ve seen it, I’ve seen it, I’ve seen it in Provincetown. What?

Gays and lesbians who think it should only be LGB. That trans people are dragging down gays and lesbians. The BBC writes,

Debate around trans rights is also fuelling the Pride culture war. Some gay and lesbian people who describe themselves as "gender critical" - and whose beliefs mean they're sceptical of some of the aims of the trans rights movement - say they feel sidelined by Pride; while some trans people say they no longer feel safe attending.

A lesbian woman who describes herself as gender critical, and did not want to be named, told me she no longer attends Pride because she thinks it has become dominated by a focus on trans issues.

Grimes, one of Reform's highest-profile gay members, argues that Pride has moved away from its focus on gay equality and become bound up with the wider gender identity debate: "You've slain the dragon in the pursuit of equality and now all you are left with is a few rambling sheep." He says that "public subsidy" for LGBT issues has become a "cash cow" that fuels "narratives of victimhood".

For some, the focus on trans rights is a reason to step back from Pride; for others, it underscores why events like Sparkle matter.

What we have seen here in the U.S., and what those who want to divorce us seem to forget, is the Rev. Martin Niemöller poem “First They Came.” We see it in deep-red Republican states: they’re going for the gay-inc. holy grail of marriage equality. We, the trans community, are the convenient low-hanging fruit. Conservatives don’t see us as LGBTQ+; they see us as all “gay.”

They forget we were the ones fighting for our rights at Stonewall, Compton’s, Dewey’s, and the Black Cat Tavern. We led the way, and they followed in our footsteps. We are only the bellwether of things to come. They want to bring us back to the 1950s, when we could be arrested. Conservatives dream of the “Father Knows Best” era.

[/Editorial]

---

When I went to proofread and discuss the post... ChatGPT censored it! So I tried the same thing with Gemini and DuckDuckGo AI and none of the rejected the proofreading!

It is becoming much more apparent that ChatGPT is over reacting and labeling anything LGBT as too controversial and censoring it.

The Gig Economy

[Editorial]

Jobs have changed. We have gone from a company being the bedrock of the community to chasing the lowest common denominator.

All around were bedrocks of industry—Stanley Works, North & Judd, United Aircraft, Aetna, and Travelers. But like other businesses, they fled to states with lower taxes. Then many of them fled overseas.

There are things that can use the gig economy, like construction, and there are jobs that are conducive to working from home, while others require all employees to work together as a team, such as in a factory.

In 1978, I got a job building control systems for all types of plants, including nuclear. There were some employees who had already been there for ten years. I worked my way up to running a testing department with 24 technicians, and we had very little turnover so we all knew our jobs. When you do one-of-a-kind designs, you have redesigns; we even had a fancy name for it: Problem Disposition Report (PDR).

It was for "Oops!" You know, you go to mount something on a cabinet wall and there is something in the way... so you write a PDR. The engineers go and battle it out, then send the PDR back and say, "Do it this way instead." We say okay and go on and do it. But with a job shop, they get out their pens and start adding up the changes... um... let's see... taking that off and moving it there will cost you... hmmm... 4 million dollars. Therefore, a company of bean counters who never ran a custom engineering shop ran the company over 9 billion dollars into the hole! The company that bought us out is known for TVs.

So what I am getting at is that when these gig people go from job to job, the company loses tribal knowledge. When a problem is found, the people who designed it are no longer around to help fix it.

We are also in the beginning another revolution: the AI and robotic revolution! I tie them together because I think very, very shortly the two will be merged.

I urge you all to read the 1952 book by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Player Piano:

Why you should read: Player Piano, Kurt Vonnegut

by Rachel Bradley

 

Before writing his breakout work Player Piano, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., an American science fiction writer, worked in Public Relations at General Electric.  He observed the cutting-edge automation of what was traditionally machinists’ work.  According to Vonnegut, GE’s decision to have a computer “make all the decisions wasn't a vicious thing to do . . . But it was too bad for the human beings who got their dignity from their jobs.”  So summarizes the heart of Player Piano, Vonnegut’s first novel, a book that arguably came well before its time (published in 1952) and now deserves a second consideration.

Goodreads put it this way:

Kurt Vonnegut’s first novel spins the chilling tale of engineer Paul Proteus, who must find a way to live in a world dominated by a supercomputer and run completely by machines. Paul’s rebellion is vintage Vonnegut—wildly funny, deadly serious, and terrifyingly close to reality.

What good science fiction does is suggest possible futures, and Mr. Vonnegut nailed it!

[/Editorial]

It Is Not A Spectator Sport

We are in a quagmire! Going to hell in a hand-basket! Or whatever other clichés you want to use, we are in another election cycle and the same thing is happening now as it did in 2024, and the election before, and before that, and…

Take a look at the current crop of political ads. Do any of these sound familiar?

• "Lowering costs for working families," "bringing down the price of everyday goods," and "making the American Dream affordable again."
• "Bringing back American manufacturing," "putting American workers first," and "building an economy from the middle out and the bottom up."
• "Bringing common sense back to Washington," "fighting for the forgotten communities," and "taking on special interests."
•  “I will stand up to Trump!,” "Standing up to executive overreach," "Protecting our democratic norms and institutions," and "Serving as a check and balance in Washington."

How many of these have you heard just today?

Okay, let me ask you a question… how are they going to do it? As they say, the devil is in the details! Yet the campaigns tell you nothing about the how. They purposely don’t tell you. Because if they don't, your mind fills in the blanks: "Yeah, cutting my taxes!" or "Yeah, they are going to make billionaires pay their fair share!" But the moment they specify what they actually want to do, they risk losing the other half of the voters who think the opposite. So, they keep voters in the dark by relying strictly on buzzwords.

Also, have you noticed that they don’t even mention their party anymore? It happens for the exact same reason they use empty buzzwords. If a candidate says the party name out loud, half of the voters immediately turn off their message. A mental buzzer goes off: "Oh, that's from the party I don't vote for," and they tune out completely. So, candidates now drop the party label altogether.

Meanwhile, the local newspaper gives candidates space to write about the upcoming election. But what do they write about? My two kids, Dick and Jane, our lovely dog Spot, and how they know the issues facing the town firsthand because their kids are in school! Um… okay. So what are the actual issues, and how will you deal with them? Zip.

Boycotting elections is self-defeating because it just hands power to the status quo, and staying silent leaves you vulnerable to manipulation by buzzwords. So how do we actually push back against the cycle? How do we bring substance back to elections?

The answer is looking at you in the mirror.

It is you!

Elections are not a spectator sport—you have to get off your couch and do the research! What has the candidate done in the past? If they have never run before and have no track record, and tell you nothing except platitudes, that also tells you a lot.

When I wanted to look up candidates, I started with Ballotpedia. When I found out who was running against Governor Lamont & Ryan Fazio, I checked his background, and then looked up his voting record on the Connecticut General Assembly's website. 

Well, there is this fabulous new tool called AI, where you can ask weird questions like, "How do I find a candidate's voting record?" Seconds later, I had direct pointers to official government portals and tracking resources:

•     The Connecticut General Assembly website for official bill tracking and session votes.
•     The LegiScan Connecticut Page to view sponsored legislation and past roll call votes.
•     Public legislative tracking databases like BillTrack50.

WOW! That was easy.

I then asked it a couple of follow-up questions: "Has Ryan Fazio said anything on abortion?" and "Has Ryan Fazio said anything on trans rights?" For the second question, it replied that he joined other Greenwich officials in condemning hateful signs at Town Hall, but otherwise, his primary legislative record and platform steer clear of culture-war debates, focusing instead on state economics and local policy.

The thing is habit and tribal loyalty are powerful forces. When people feel overwhelmed by work, life, and daily stress, falling back on party lines feels like a safe shortcut, even if it means buying into the exact buzzwords and empty promises you write about.

The bottom line is that you cannot sit on your butt and vote based on who has the prettiest ad on TV. We have to stop falling for family photo-ops and start digging into actual records.

Hypocrisy

Two faced, double-dealer, smooth-tongued Donald who was the antithesis of what Dolly Parton stood for.

Donald Trump Is Lowering Flags for Dolly Parton While Desecrating Her Legacy of Inclusion and Respect

The president’s political career has been spent countering many of the values Parton held so dear.

them

By Samantha Allen

August 25, 202

There are few celebrities whose passing could inspire such universal mourning as Dolly Parton. The country music legend and renowned philanthropist died today at age 80, turning all of our social media feeds into a sea of black-and-white portraits and tearful remembrances.

Surprisingly, those grieving Parton’s passing included one figure whose entire political career runs counter to her legacy of inclusion and respect: Donald Trump, who ordered the flag of the United States of America to be lowered for a one-week period beginning tonight.

“Very sad to report that Dolly Parton, one of the greatest Country singers, and far beyond, EVER, has just passed away,“ Trump wrote on Truth Social. “This is a true loss for millions of people. There has never been anyone like her, and never will.”

Broken clocks are right twice a day and so, apparently, are failed presidents. But what Trump doesn’t realize is that the reason so many people will experience Parton’s death as a “true loss” is because she stood for love, compassion, and kindness — all qualities that are especially lacking in Trump’s second administration.

[…]

And, of course, on LGBTQ+ rights, Donald Trump has seemingly made it his sworn mission to attack our community at every turn, with the vitriol and hurtful policymaking only ramping up in his second term. His administration has reserved its worst attacks for transgender people, targeting rights to restroom use, to obtaining correct identity markers on government documents, to employment protections, and so much more. Dolly Parton, meanwhile, adored the LGBTQ+ community, frequently collaborating with queer artists, defending her queer fans, and embracing her status as a drag icon, as The Advocate has documented.

She also had LGBTQ+ family members and employees herself, as she told The Hollywood Reporter in 2023 when asked about anti-trans legislation in her home state of Tennessee. “I have some of everybody in my own immediate family and in my circle of employees,” she said. “I’ve got transgender people. I’ve got gays. I’ve got lesbians. I’ve got drunks. I’ve got drug addicts — all within my own family. I know and love them all, and I do not judge.”

With her trademark humor, she added, “They cannot help that any more than I can help being Dolly Parton, you know, the way people know me.”

The only reason Trump lowered the flag is for “optic”

Saturday 9: Animal Crackers in My Soup

Saturday 9: Animal Crackers in My Soup (1935)
On Saturdays I take a break from the heavy stuff and have some fun… 

Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

This month Saturday 9 will be tasty, featuring songs with food in the title.
 

1) Do you eat soup all year round, or do you consider it a seasonal dish?
Well… two things.
The first is that I’m on Cape Cod and we have “chowdah.”
The second is that I haven’t had soup in a long time… I went trough my cabinets and half of the soup had expired.

2) Gazpacho is a popular cold soup. Made with water-rich tomatoes, cucumbers and bell peppers, it's considered a good choice for hot weather because it's hydrating. What are your favorite summertime foods?
Well ah… it is really a year round favorite… lobster. In the summer it is lobster roll and in the winter it is lobster Newberg.

3) This week, Shirley Temple sings of the delights of having crackers in her soup. How often do you add crackers to your soup: always, sometimes, never? 
Now with every order on the Cape you get oyster crackers which I toss in a big jar. When I get the munchies I split them open and put cream cheese on those little halves.

4) "Animal Crackers in My Soup" was the big musical number in the 1935 movie Curly Top. Shirley played Elizabeth, who helps her older sister find love with a handsome millionaire. Have you ever played matchmaker? If yes, were your efforts successful?
No, I haven’t tried being a match maker.

5) Gertrude Temple, Shirley's mother, was her daughter's onset hairstylist, creating the famous "curly top" with pin curls. What's your hair care regimen? 
Well every time you talk about hair… you got to have hair before you can style it.

6) Bartenders are still called upon to create the non-alcoholic Shirley Temple, made with ginger ale, lemon-lime soda, and grenadine. What's the most recent alcoholic beverage you drank? 
Whoa, another hard question. It has been so long ago that I can’t remember. Probably some sherry when I was making some Newberg.

7) In 1935, when this song was popular, Amelia Earhart flew from Honolulu to Oakland, California. Are you a nervous flyer?
Nope.

8) Also in 1935, The Hoover Dam was dedicated. Today it's a popular tourist attraction, with more than 7 million visitors each year. Have you ever been to Las Vegas?
Nope.

9) Random question: You get a spur-of-the-moment invitation to a meal with your best friend. Could you go wearing what you have on right now?
No… it is 2AM.

---

I woke up at around 1AM with voices! ????? they sound like right outside. I do a walk around inside the cottage listening. There are some men sitting out on a deck kitty-corner across the street. It is so quite that sound travels.

During the day you can’t hear the traffic on Rt. 6 (The very same Rt. 6 that ends in California, we have

the beginning of it. Where Rt. 6 begin is the Atlantic Ocean. If you keep going east you will come to Spain.

It is like night and day on the Cape now that schools back in session. I was at the grocery store the other day when there was a traffic jam at the end of Aisle 3. Someone joked about not having to worry about traffic anymore now that’s summers over. I quipped… the end of the “no left turn season” which got a laugh.

I had company all last week and company for Labor Day, then I’m home for two weeks. Then back up to the Cape until around the end of October.

A Tail Of Two States

A Synopsis:

In the first state, an ICE agent shot a man and lied about it. ICE argues that agents have “absolute immunity” for their actions on duty and then spirits the agent away to another state.

The first state indicts the agent for assault and falsely reporting a crime and sends an extradition order to the state where ICE shipped him. That state says, “We will think about it,” and releases the agent from custody.

So that is where we are now: The ICE agent is somewhere, maybe even in Mexico.

ICE officer’s release from Texas jail opens a new front in the escalating fight over extradition

AP News

By MICHAEL GONZALEZ, VALERIE GONZALEZ and SUDHIN THANAWALA

August 27, 2026

The release of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer from a Texas jail on Thursday despite Minnesota’s request for his return could set a dangerous precedent, increasing friction between states and helping criminal defendants avoid justice, legal experts said.

Christian Castro was released from a detention center in Brownsville after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declined to immediately sign his extradition warrant. A federal judge also declined to block Castro’s release or order Abbott to sign the warrant.

Minnesota officials say they believe Castro could flee to Mexico to avoid prosecution on charges he shot a man and lied about it during an immigration crackdown in Minneapolis in January. Extradition from Mexico would require action by the Trump administration, which opened an investigation into Castro’s actions but also has argued ICE agents have “absolute immunity” for their actions on duty.

And no way in hell will Trump extradite him!

But this goes way beyond this case. Texas and other Republican states have been trying to get health care records on women having abortions and children going to trans clinics in other states. Some see this as tit for tat.

The decision is alarming because it injects politics into the extradition process, said Marsh Halberg, a criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor in Minnesota.

“Something that’s been a routine process may now turn into a political card,” he said in a phone interview.

In recent months, California and New York have rejected extradition requests from Louisiana for doctors accused of mailing abortion pills.

But legal scholars say those cases are different because the doctors weren’t in Louisiana and never fled the state and became fugitives.

Is Texas looking the other way in a case of perjury and attempted murder because of the denial of a witch-hunt for medical records?

But it gets even more convoluted… the feds jump in!

Judge denies Minnesota's request to halt release of ICE officer charged in Minneapolis shooting

CBS News

By Aki Nace, Stephen Swanson

August 26, 2026

A federal judge on Wednesday denied Minnesota's request for a temporary restraining order to halt the release of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent sought for extradition in a shooting earlier this year in north Minneapolis amid Operation Metro Surge, and then lying about the circumstances under oath.

[…]

In U.S. District Court Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr.'s 13-page ruling, he denied Minnesota's request because the "matter does not present an issue ripe for adjudication," saying Minnesota's case is based on claims that Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has violated the Extradition Act by refusing to sign Castro's rendition warrant.

"The record reflects only that Governor Abbott has neither agreed nor refused to sign the rendition warrant as to Castro. Instead, Governor Abbott has requested that the Texas Secretary of State 'investigate [Minnesota's] demand and report to [the Governor] concerning Mr. Castro's situation and circumstances and whether he ought to be surrendered,'" Rodriguez wrote in his ruling.

So that’s where we are now… in limbo.

A Disturbing Trend

[Editorial]

Have you noticed that the Trump administration is going after care for minorities?

First, it was getting the homeless off the streets in Washington, D.C. Now it is the disabled. Home care has revolutionized the lives of senior citizens. No longer do they have to be institutionalized in nursing homes; they can live in their own homes. But that program is being cut.

The latest attack is focused on home care for the mentally and physically disabled. It is cheaper to institutionalize them. What the Trump administration is trying to do is what Project 2025 said to do: do away with federal mandates, like the number of nurses required per patient. Instead, they want to throw a block of money at the states with no strings attached and say, “Go to it!”

Lawmakers Knew All Along They Were Voting to Cut Medicaid for Older Adults

Justice in Aging

March 4, 2026

Last July, Congress voted to pass the Budget Reconciliation Act of 2025 (H.R. 1) and enact the largest Medicaid cuts in history. For months before the vote, advocates, older adults, and people with disabilities repeatedly warned lawmakers that cutting federal Medicaid funding would put home and community-based services (HCBS) first on the chopping block. But lawmakers took to the airwaves dismissing these claims, asserting they were only cutting “wasteful” spending, and promising that key Medicaid programs, including HCBS, would be protected and even strengthened as they cut federal Medicaid funding to states by $1 trillion. This was always an empty promise.

Medicaid’s coverage of HCBS is not a luxury. For most people, it’s the only option for at-home care. HCBS help with everyday activities like dressing, bathing, cooking, and taking medications that allow older adults and people with disabilities to remain at home and part of their communities. HCBS save money too, relieving costs for families who can’t afford to pay for care out of pocket and avoiding far more expensive institutional care that Medicaid would otherwise have to pay for. Research shows people who need but don’t receive HCBS are far more likely to have to go into nursing facilities.

At the same time, they are driving seniors out of their homes and into long-term care (LTC) facilities, such as nursing homes. The Center for Medicare Advocacy reports that;

LTC) facilities such are nursing homes. The Center for Medicare Advocacy reports that;

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) repeals the 2024 nurse staffing rule, specifically, the numerical staffing requirements (3.48 hours per resident day, divided among various categories of nurses) and the requirement for registered nurses 24 hours per day, seven days per week. The numerical requirement reflected a modest change and would have required additional staffing, primarily in nursing homes that have the lowest nurse staffing levels. The registered nurse requirement reflected a recommendation made by experts for many decades.

The staffing rule was a key component of a comprehensive nursing home reform agenda in 2022. The rule and reform agenda responded to the hundreds of thousands of residents and staff who died during the COVID-19 pandemic, revealing problems in nursing homes that could not be ignored. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania calculated that implementation of the final staffing rule would save 13,000 residents’ lives each year and reduce residents’ adverse health outcomes.

It is a squeeze play, forcing seniors and the mentally and physically disabled out of their homes and into institutions while, at the same time, cutting staffing!

NPR in "They grew up with disability rights. Now, they're fighting to keep them" talks about how disability rights are once again under attack;

And in 1999, the year Cody was born, the Supreme Court handed down the Olmstead decision. It reinforced the ADA's integration mandate, which says people with disabilities should get to learn, live and work in their communities rather than in institutions. The government made that promise after people with disabilities fought against segregation in institutions, which have a long history of abuse and neglect.

"That affects everything," said Kaleigh. "The integrated setting affects school. It affects where you can work. It affects community-based programs like what my brother uses."

Now, the integration mandate — and an entire system of community-based disability services that more than 8 million Americans rely on — are being challenged.

The Trump adminstration is running it like a business: minimize costs, maximize profits! And not like a government that cares about its citizens.

[/Editorial]

I Only Text

[Editorial]

How many times have you heard that from people? How many times have you had to verify something through a “two-step” process involving a text?

So, stop and think for a moment. Where does that statement come from? What are its assumptions? Or look at it from a “privilege” perspective. Not from the smartphone have/have-not perspective, but rather from how many texts a person receives.

If you look at my phone, you will see that I have seven unread messages. I can tell you exactly what those seven messages are:

Hi, this is CVS…

Hi, this is CVS…

Hi, this is CVS…

Hi, this is CVS…

Hi, this is CVS…

Hi, this is CVS…

Hi, this is CVS…

Then we have the people who say, “I only text! I don’t do voicemail.”

Here is what I say: “What is your preferred way to be contacted?”

You know, it is simply about showing respect.

For the holidays or a family function, I know to check my texts. But my family knows that to get in touch with me, they should use email or Facebook.

Show some respect. Think about others.

[/Editorial]

Dolly

Just that one word and you knew who I meant.

She had a heart so big it encompassed every human being every living thing on this planet.

Dolly Parton’s chauffeur and assistant of 30+ years was a trans man she supported and loved

Parton repeatedly thanked Jason Pirro — whose employment was widely celebrated by trans newsletters — throughout her career.

The Advocate

Mathew Rodriguez - them

Aug 27, 2026

As the world is still reeling from the news of the death of legendary Queen of Country Music Dolly Parton on Tuesday, many of her LGBTQ+ fans have resurfaced evidence of her long and enduring support of the LGBTQ+ community.

That support included a job and a lasting friendship with a transgender chauffeur, Jason Pirro, who previously spoke with the press about Parton, saying that the singer “knows all about me and is a very nice lady.”

Twenty Minutes, a transgender newsletter that circulated in the late 1980s and early 1990s, wrote about then 44-year-old Pirro in its August 1990 issue, pulled from a story in which the tabloid Star spoke to Pirro about his relationship with Parton.

[…]

The Twenty Minutes issue highlighting the Star article remains widely accessible through the Digital Transgender Archives, an online hub of materials meant to preserve trans history. That newsletter itself is housed in the Sexual Minorities Archives in Holyoke, Massachusetts, which also holds the research materials of late trans author and activist Leslie Feinberg

With her, it wasn’t something that was “in”; it was a way of life. When asked to write a song for the movie Transamerica, she not only wrote it, but she sang it—and it earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song! It also received Golden Globe and Grammy nominations and won Best Original Song from the Phoenix Film Critics Society. “Travelin’ Thru” is a song from her heart, written for the trans community.

[As I was listening to this while I am writing this and I had to pause… I was crying too hard! Why can’t everyone share this sentiments as this. Why does there have to be hate?]

The Los Angeles Times wrote in “Appreciation: Dolly Parton was special to the LGBTQ+ community. She showed us our country loves us” that:

In a brief online elegy for Dolly Parton, with whom she’d worked on the women-empowering film “9 to 5,” actor and famed liberal activist Jane Fonda made it a point to note that Parton cared about her queer fans.

“To her gay and trans fans, I want you to know that she loved you,” Fonda wrote. “You know that without me telling you.”

Indeed, we do.

Dolly meant something special to the LGBTQ+ community, in part because she represented an America where we are accepted — not just in big blue cities, but in one-room cabins in East Tennessee and in every rural, American-flag-flying corner of this big country.

She also spoke up for us, LGBTQ+ Nation wrote…

Country music star Dolly Parton expressed support for LGBTQ+ people, especially transgender people, when asked about the recent ban on gender-affirming care for minors in her home state of Tennessee. She also discussed working with several queer musicians on her soon-to-be-released album, Rockstar.

“I just want everybody to be treated good,” Parton said when asked about the ban in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “I try not to get into the politics of everything. I try to get into the human element of it. I have some of everybody in my own immediate family and in my circle of employees. I’ve got transgender people. I’ve got gays. I’ve got lesbians. I’ve got drunks. I’ve got drug addicts — all within my own family. I know and love them all, and I do not judge.”

While LGBTQ+ community members resent being compared to drug addicts, Parton intended the comparison as an example of people who are often rejected by society. She noted that she grew up in a church where “so many things were a sin” and where congregants criticized her as being “trash” and a “whore” for “being young and dressing the way I did and being the way that I was.”

“I know [trans people] and love them all, and I do not judge,” she continued. “And I just see how broken-hearted they get over certain things and I know how real they are. I know how important [gender-affirming care] is to them. That’s who they are. They cannot help that any more than I can help being Dolly Parton, you know, the way people know me. If there’s something to be judged, that is God’s business. But we are all God’s children and how we are is who we are.”

Her love for us was real. She will be dearly missed.

Travelin' through

I'm just travelin' through

I'm just travelin' through

I'm just travelin' through

I'm just travelin', travelin', I'm just travelin' through

[/Editorial]

---

Updated: 8/28 @ 9AM

 

Why Do They Hate Us?

All that comes out of Trump's mouth are lies about us, designed to cause fear and anxiety in our community while creating hatred against us.

Trump and Linda McMahon lie about trans kids — in front of schoolchildren

The president and Linda McMahon turned a back-to-school celebration into a barrage of falsehoods about transgender students, education and vaccines.

The Advocate

Christopher Wiggins

Aug 25, 2026

President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Linda McMahon used a White House back-to-school celebration Monday to spread lies about transgender children and education in front of students. Trump then inexplicably invited attendees to tour the construction of his helipad and ballroom, returning to his White House construction obsession.

And now come the lies:

“Every public school in America is now on notice that if they tell a child that they’re trapped in the wrong body, they are committing child abuse,” Trump said.

That’s not true. No Biden policy forced children to identify as transgender, and Trump cited no law making affirmation abuse—the targeted policies concern names, pronouns and privacy — not medical treatment.

And more lies:

McMahon repeated the lie that schools secretly transition children and threatened their federal funding over supposed “radical experiments.”

“After the Biden administration allowed schools to secretly transition students without parents’ knowledge, President Trump is defending parental rights like never before,” McMahon said. “At his direction, we are working hand in hand with the Department of Justice to ensure no school district ever has more power over a child than their own parents.”

Trump repeatedly lies about us, using those lies to create fear and anxiety in our community while fueling hatred toward us.

The mainstream media are complicit in this by not calling Trump and his administration out on these lies. FactCheck.org reported:

Trump Misleads on Transgender Issues

By Catalina Jaramillo

April 7, 2025

On the first day of his administration, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the federal government to no longer consider a person’s gender and to recognize people as either male or female, as defined by the size of their reproductive cells.

The directive served as a basis for a series of subsequent orders that called for defunding medical or educational institutions that have protections for transgender students, provide gender-affirming medical care to transgender youth or allow transgender girls or women to participate in women’s sports. Another order attempted to ban transgender people from the military. 

But some of those orders — and Trump’s later comments — lack context or include incorrect or misleading statements.

“For four long years, we had an administration that tried to abolish the very concept of womanhood and replace it with radical gender ideology,” Trump said on March 26 at a Woman’s History Month event at the White House.

Is it just for political gain that he is willing to cause harm to children? I don't know what is worse: the fact that he is using us for political gain, the fact that he is willing to accept that children will suffer lifelong consequences from not receiving appropriate medical care, or the fact that he is willing to accept that some children might harm themselves.

Failure of Judgment?

[Editorial]

Did the Secretary of Defense have a serious lapse in judgment in the firing of the Army’s Chief of Staff, Gen. Randy George, weeks into Trump’s War? Trump invaded Iran, and five weeks later, Gen. George was “Shit Canned” for no reason given at the time.

But let us go back in time, just before his firing… Army attack helicopters did an unauthorized fly-by of Kid Rock’s house. Here is what was reported at the time...

Hegseth ousts Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George
CBS News
By Jennifer Jacobs, Eleanor Watson, James LaPorta
April 2, 2026

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has asked Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George to step down and take immediate retirement, sources familiar with the decision told CBS News.

One of the sources said Hegseth wants someone in the role who will implement President Trump and Hegseth's vision for the Army.

Chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement that George "will be retiring from his position as the 41st Chief of Staff of the Army effective immediately. The Department of War is grateful for General George's decades of service to our nation. We wish him well in his retirement."

A senior Defense Department official told CBS News, "We are grateful for his service, but it was time for a leadership change in the Army."

Just like that—BOOM! With no hints… just the ax, with no replacement waiting in the wings! In the middle of the war. What could the general have done? That hasn’t come out until now, and the dots connect it to the Kid Rock fly-by… the general was all for investigating it against his boss’s wishes.

The Los Angeles Times reported back in April that:

The forced departure of George in the middle of a war created yet another blow to morale inside the Pentagon, where multiple officials expressed dismay over the state of the department’s leadership. Over the last year, Hegseth has fired five sitting members of the joint chiefs of staff, with only two holdovers remaining in their posts.

“Whenever you have a change in leadership, military or otherwise, there is bound to be some churn in information management,” one U.S. official said, granted anonymity to speak candidly. “So what you’re doing, in the middle of a war, as we are taking U.S. casualties, is you’re taking out the general in charge of making sure the right people and equipment are flowing into the Middle East."

Was it the bad news that got him “Shit Canned,” or was it something else? CBS News goes on to report:

The ouster follows Hegseth's X post lifting the suspension of the aircrew that flew by Kid Rock's house in Nashville last weekend. After the Army announced the suspension of the aviators involved and an administrative review, Hegseth overruled the Army, writing on his personal X account, "No punishment. No investigation. Carry on, patriots."

Timing?

But wait, there’s more! Since then…

Before Hegseth fired him, top general was advised to drop Kid Rock probe
Dan Lamothe and Noah Robertson,
The Washington Post
August 26, 2026

Days before the Army's top officer was abruptly fired earlier this year, he was advised by a fellow general now vying to replace him to stop the military's investigation into an unauthorized helicopter flyby of musician Kid Rock's Tennessee estate, three people familiar with the matter said.

Gen. Randy George, whom Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth removed as the Army chief of staff without explanation, felt it was important to follow typical protocol and determine whether any safety regulations had been violated during the March 28 flyby, these people said. Like some others, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the episode.

Gen. Chris LaNeve, the Army's No. 2 officer, told George that Hegseth did not want the investigation to proceed, one person said. The two others said that George later confided in colleagues that he seemed troubled by the encounter with LaNeve, who suggested it would be best if the review was scuttled.

The revelation, which has not previously been reported, adds a new layer of understanding to Hegseth's potential motivations for firing George on April 2. Kid Rock, whose legal name is Robert Ritchie, is a vocal supporter of President Donald Trump and avowed critic of many Democratic politicians and causes.

Here we are, right in the middle of Trump’s War, and we are changing leaders—not because of incompetence or a failure of judgment by the general. It was because a MAGA hotshot pilot wanted to impress a friend of Trump’s, Kid Rock, so he did a fly-by. The Army Chief of Staff wanted to pursue the possible violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), but his boss didn’t. His boss put politics ahead of the law and morale. That is why he was fired… he didn’t want special rules for special people. The general was advised to drop the Kid Rock investigation but felt it was important to follow normal protocol, and for that, he got fired!

Think about this: Gen. George was the Army’s senior uniformed officer during the planning and execution of the war in Iran. For that, I believe the Secretary of Defense showed a Failure of Judgment in putting politics before the war effort when he fired him.

I am reminded of “The Want of a Nail” by Todd Rundgren:

… For the want of a nail (the world was lost)
For the want of a nail, oh yeah (the world was lost)
For the want of a nail (the world was lost)
For the want of a nail (the world was lost)

[/Editorial]

What I Read Into This

There is an article in the Huff Post over this photo.

First lady Melania Trump, left, and President Donald Trump arrive for a Fostering the Future event
in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026.
Bloomberg via Getty Images

But to me what this looks like is a battle of wills. This looks like abuse to me. It looks to me as if he is squeezing her hand until it hurts. Dominance, I am the boss, I am the president.

Others see it differently, the Huff Post article says,

Abbie Maroño, a behavioral scientist, told HuffPost that the couple entering the Rose Garden gave off a “controlled, coordinated display of unity.”

“Their interaction is restrained rather than overtly affectionate, but they are presenting themselves very clearly as a pair,” she said.

But is it forced?

Is Crossdressing Going the Way of the Dinosaur?

[Editorial]

Is it only the boomers who crossdress?

Think about it: support groups for crossdressers are mainly seniors. Conferences… seniors. Boomers. Where are the other generations? The alphabet generations?

Well, they are in queer groups. Huh? Yeah, you see, there is a lot less stigma attached to crossdressing, so why do they need their own support groups? They are out there with their own generation.

So, will our support groups turn up inside LTC centers?

Senior Center’s Monday Meetings:

The Knitting Circle

Setback

The Crossdresser Club

Bingo

Photography Club

Is this our fate?

Since I earned my “senior” badge by officially playing Bingo at a senior center, I think I qualify to wonder if we will truly see ourselves in “old folks’ homes”… Or will we just have another closet?

[/Editorial]

Duh!

[Editorial]

It’s the economy, stupid!

That was the gist of the 2024 election. The economy was the #1 issue, according to voters.

Then he started all his tariffs in 2025.

Then he started a war with Iran that choked off oil supplies and used up all the bombs and rockets.

Now he has added a 50% tariff on our number-one trading partner.

Meanwhile, they can’t feed the troops.

They hide the true material losses.

Warships are breaking down and need to be towed.

The guy is a total basket case! And still, his MAGA-loyal followers worship at his feet.

[/Editorial]

They’re Not Pawns

[Editorial]

Before I retired, I ran an electronic test department. At its peak, I managed 24 techs, including an Air Force master tech. Every once in a while, he would vanish for a month or two. So I had to hire a “Rent-A-Tech,” and we paid the difference in salaries.

When he came back in the middle of winter with a tan, all he said was, “There was a lot of sand.” But in the news, we knew that the military had sent troops to the Afghanistan area.

The thing is, he was a vital person on my team. His loss was felt!

It cost the company to hire a temp!

The company covered the difference in salaries, but many businesses do not, so it is a hardship on the families!

We didn’t mind because he was being used for what he signed up for, but… picking up trash in Washington, D.C., is wrong. Trump doesn’t care. He is using the Guard as pawns in a chess match. He doesn’t care about the hardships he is causing.

Now he is pissed off about a report that showed that the National Guard is not making any difference, and Trump is pissed. And, true to form, he is attacking the media.

Trump threatens lawsuit against nonprofit that questioned whether National Guard plan lessened crime

AP News

By  GARY FIELDS

August 21, 2026

President Donald Trump is threatening to sue a left-leaning think tank unless it retracts a report that said his National Guard deployments to various cities did not reduce crime as he said.

The letter gave the Washington, D.C.-based Center for American Progress until the end of business Friday to issue the retraction or face a $5 billion lawsuit. The center declined.

The nonprofit’s president and chief executive, Neera Tanden, said in a statement that the lawsuit “is a transparent attempt to silence us. We will neither cower nor bend in the face of it.”

The report, published July 13, criticized the administration for taking credit for a historic drop in violent crime at a time when that decline was already underway. The analysis concluded that Trump’s deployment of the National Guard “had no measurable effect on violent crime trends.”

In typical Trump fashion……. ATTACK!

Before, he used to short his subs on construction jobs. Now he has the full weight of the U.S. government behind him. The FCC is attacking Disney/ABC. The Defense Department went after Stars and Stripes for publishing the article about the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln. The First Amendment be damned! When asked about the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln the Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the reports were "fake news" and the conditions "completely misrepresented," and insisted the Pentagon makes sure "every ship, every crew, every captain has everything we can provide them at every single moment." So instead of focusing on fixing the problem he went after the media.

The thing is… these are people’s lives. They signed up to defend the Constitution, not to be used as some political pawns, not as cannon fodder for Trump’s political ambitions and to gather more wealth for the Trump family. 

[/Editorial]

---

Updated: 8/26 @ 6AM

I just came across this NPR article: In candid interviews, National Guard members speak out about D.C. deployment and they write,

Thousands of armed National Guard members have been patrolling Washington, D.C., for more than a year now. But central voices have been missing from the public discourse around that deployment, and that's the Guard members themselves. NPR's Kat Lonsdorf has been speaking with some of them, and they say they're worried that this is a new norm of armed troops patrolling American cities. Kat's with me now. Good morning.

[...]

FADEL: So what did they tell you?

LONSDORF: Well, all three spoke really bluntly about how they didn't buy the justification for the deployment by this administration, which, remember, came after President Trump declared a crime emergency despite a 30-year low in violent crime in the city. They all said that reasoning was confusing to them in the beginning but even more so now, as the deployment has been extended for several years.

One Guard member said, quote, "it feels like the Guard is being exploited, being used for political narratives by the administration." Another told me that he hopes there will be some kind of official reckoning someday about why the Guard is here and whether it was worth it. And another Guard member told me that it, quote, "embarrasses" him to be involved in any way with the deployment.

They feel the same way I wrote... that they are nothing but pawns!

"Lock 'em up"

And throw away the key, the is the Republican philosophy. They're "Tough On Crime" however it doesn't work!

Scotland was the 'murder capital of Europe'. Then it started treating violence like a disease

BBC News

29 June 2026

Eve Livingston

In the early 2000s you were three times more likely to be assaulted in Scotland than in the US. But when the Scottish authorities started looking at violent crime as a public health problem, levels plummeted and the country now ranks among some of the safest in the world.

It was no ordinary day in court. There was no jury, no witnesses or defendants at Glasgow Sheriff Court on 24 October 2008. Instead, in front of the judge, who was dressed in full regalia, were 85 rival gang members from the east end of Glasgow, Scotland's biggest city.

For decades, the area had been plagued by territorial youth gangs, organised crime and fights over drugs and weapons, with knife crime an almost daily occurrence.

Despite their ongoing feuds, the assembled gang members fell silent as they were addressed in turn by a range of speakers. A mother described seeing her son's unrecognisable face after a gang-related machete attack at age 13. An American basketball player recalled losing his brother to gun violence. Doctors and surgeons described brutal lacerations and permanent disfigurements.

The message was clear: the violence has to stop.

But it is not the message that the Republicans push!

In Idaho they are tough on drugs! But it can snare unsuspecting women who get caught in their traps!

How THC tests have landed more than a thousand new mothers onto child abuse registries

CBS Sunday Morning

By Erin Moriarty

August 9, 2026

Giving birth to her fourth child in January of 2021 was life-changing, says Nicole Hamann, but not in the way she ever imagined. While still at the hospital, Hamann was informed that both she and her newborn tested positive for a trace amount of THC, the psychoactive chemical in marijuana. [A urine test is given to mothers, which is followed up by testing the umbilical cord.] "I felt like, all of the sudden, I was a criminal," Hamann said.

"Through all of my pregnancies, I took very good care of myself and my body. Now all of the sudden, I have these people making me feel guilt and shame and fear."

Hamann lives in Idaho, where marijuana is illegal. But a month before giving birth, Hamann, who has no criminal record, says she accidentally ate a pot-laced brownie at a relative's home in Oregon, where marijuana is legal. She says no one was interested in hearing her explanation of why she had THC in her system.

But that was enough to sic the hounds on her!

Child and Family Services began an investigation immediately, because in Idaho (and a number of other states), a single positive test result of THC in a newborn is considered presumptive evidence of child abuse.

"They knocked on my door, and there was an officer standing with them, a police officer," Hamann said.

Here in Connecticut it would have been handled a lot different! It wouldn't have escalated to criminal charges right off the bat!

Take a look at Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire verses Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Texas.

Maine recorded just 100.1 violent crimes per 100,000 residents. New Hampshire recorded 110.1, and Connecticut 136.0. Massachusetts was higher at 314.7, but still below the national rate of 359.1. Now look at the four states we're putting in the “lock ’em up” category; Louisiana recorded 519.8 violent crimes per 100,000 residents. Arkansas recorded 579.4, Tennessee 592.3, and Texas 389.4. Put another way, the violent-crime rate in Tennessee was almost six times the rate in Maine. Arkansas was nearly six times Maine's rate. Louisiana's rate was more than five times Maine's.

Now just look at Texas, they had a violent-crime rate almost four times that of Maine and more than three times that of Connecticut.

But perhaps the most important numbers aren't the violent-crime rates. They're the incarceration rates.

The Prison Policy Initiative's 2024 state data show an incarceration rate of 272 per 100,000 residents in Maine, 278 in New Hampshire, 326 in Connecticut, and 241 in Massachusetts.

Compare that with 1,067 in Louisiana, 912 in Arkansas, 817 in Tennessee, and 751 in Texas.

There it is.

The states in our “lock ’em up” group are incarcerating people at dramatically higher rates than the four New England states.

And yet they are not safer. In fact, three of the four, Louisiana, Arkansas and Tennessee, have violent-crime rates substantially higher than the national average. Texas is also above the national average. Meanwhile, Maine, New Hampshire and Connecticut have among the lowest violent-crime rates in the country. Massachusetts is below the national average as well.

But when the Republican cry "We are tough on crime, unlike those pansy liberals!" Their MAGA crowd all cheer on.

It Has Changed.

The other day I pulled in to the Stop & Shop, and when I came out, I looked around my car... BMWs, Mercedes, Escalades, and Porsches. Yeah, I saw them all before, but they seem to have taken over the lot.

Wicked Local writes... in Two 'quirky' Massachusetts town are some of the best East Coast trips...

Provincetown, Massachusetts

World Atlas named Provincetown, also known as P-Town, as one of the quirkiest and most fun towns to visit on the East Coast because of how much it offers its visitors.

"Victorian buildings house working art galleries beside bookstores, bakeries, and drag performance venues, which gives the street a mix few other New England downtowns can match," World Atlas said.

Yes, they are all still there, but the quaint little stores are disappearing, and the quaint little restaurants are disappearing. They are going upscale! The weathered storefronts are being replaced by steel and glass. The one- and two-story buildings that have been there for centuries are now being turned into three-story, million-dollar condos. The old Bohemian atmosphere is disappearing, replaced by conspicuous consumption. It's turning into Yuppieville!

I know someone who worked there for well over a dozen years, but not anymore; he cannot find a place to stay. It was gay heaven for us, but now it is GAY INC. heaven. You see the BLING they're wearing. It reminds me of... of... of... [the Pines on] Fire Island on Long Island, NY.

---

Updated: 8/20 @ 11:00AM

I was sitting out on my deck at the cottage, listening to my book earlier in the week, when I noticed a lot of private jets flying low, as if they were taking off from Provincetown Airport... Hmmm?

So I asked an AI: Are there more private jets coming to P’town?

More importantly, the airport has reported growing demand for Jet A fuel. In an Airport Commission discussion, the manager said the previous year's data showed about 500 Jet-A-powered aircraft had landed at PVC, and that current demand was exceeding the airport's existing 5,000-gallon Jet-A capacity.

So it appears that along with a condo boom we have" wealth migration → Provincetown luxury development → increased private aviation → even more high-end real estate demand.

So it appears that, along with a condo boom, we have wealth migration → Provincetown luxury development → increased private aviation → even more high-end real estate demand.

A town known for its Bohemian atmosphere and cedar-shake buildings is being replaced by steel and glass.

The Truth.

Under our Constitution… you, the military are answerable to us. The voters.

And we demand that our congressional representatives get answers from the administration to the following questions:

1. How much damage was done to the U.S. military bases in the Middle East?
2. Are the reports true that some of these bases are unusable?
3. Was the damage the cause of the resupply problems with the USS Abraham Lincoln?

Then there are questions about who was fired or removed from positions within the U.S. intelligence establishment — including the CIA, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the NSA, and parts of military intelligence:

4. Did these changes affect the intelligence used in the bombing of the school in Iran?
5. Did these changes affect the planning to protect our military bases in the region?
6. Did these changes affect the deployment of ships to rotate in and out of the Middle East?
7. Did these changes affect logistics and resupply for the Middle East combat zone?

I think we need to find out whether all of this was the result of incompetence, a political agenda, or both.

They Don’t Come Back!

One thing that we have learned from Trump’s “Tariff Yo-Yo” is that they don’t come back! Businesses find other suppliers.

Trump accuses Canada of wanting ‘benefits of being a State, without being one’ amid trade war

The Hill

by Tara Suter

08/23/26

President Trump on Sunday claimed that Canada desires the “benefits of being a state, without being one” amid trade tensions between the U.S. and its northern neighbor.

“Canada wants the benefits of being a State, without being one!!! They have also charged our great farmers, for many years, massive amounts of Tariffs. No more!!!” the president said in an early morning Truth Social post.

On Saturday, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said that his country would implement retaliatory tariffs on the U.S. starting on Sep. 8, responding to the Trump administration’s new 50 percent tariffs, which just went into effect.

During a press conference, Carney said that Canada would “match Washington’s new tariffs dollar for dollar in order to protect Canadian workers, farmers, families and businesses.”

But it is much more than the tariffs… once businesses find another supplier, they don’t come back! Trump isn’t just shooting himself in the foot; he is doing it to the whole nation! The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) writes:

We use the 2018-2019 U.S. trade war to examine how supply chains adjustments to a tariff cost shock affect imports and exports. Using confidential firm-trade linked data, we show that the decline in imports of tariffed goods was driven by discontinuations of U.S. buyer–foreign supplier relationships, reduced formation of new relationships, and exits by U.S. firms from import markets altogether. However, tariffed products where imports were concentrated in fewer suppliers had a smaller decline in import growth. We then construct measures of export exposure to import tariffs by linking tariffs paid by importing firms to their exported products. We find that the most exposed products had lower exports in 2018-2019, with most of the impact occurring in 2019.

A tariff doesn't necessarily cause a business to bring production home. It can cause the business to find a different foreign supplier. And once the new supply chain is established, lowering the tariff doesn't necessarily undo that decision.

They don’t come back! Think about it. If you are having problems with Supplier A and now you are doing business with Supplier B… would you go back to Supplier A?

Trump is doing what Trump does best... wreck things. What a loser... but sadly he is the head of our country.

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