Tuesday, October 13, 2026

Rainy Day

I've been busy on this rainy Tuesday....

... making Christmas cards. I'll stamp the message inside at another date.

These are all the same pattern, I just used the variety of Christmas papers I had. Some were newly purchased from Stampin Up this year but most are from years past.

Another craft I've recently started is a counted cross stitch for one of the granddaughters. I hope to make all 4 of them something to hang in their bedrooms over the next year or two. Yesterday I worked on this for the first time while we watched a football game.

I purchased this from a vendor on etsy. It was my second purchase. The first was a printed cross stitch and much too detailed. The vendor refunded my money and I found this one from another vendor which incorporates two things the granddaughter likes: cats and reading.

Making a pot of three bean soup for dinner tonight. Perfect for this rainy day.

Monday, October 12, 2026

Just Plain ...

I probably watch or read too much news.

In the morning after Connections, Strands and usually Wordle, I read the headlines in the NY Times and sometimes listen to the audio of What's Happening with Tracy Mumford.

I read The Contrarian daily, Heather Cox Richardson whenever a new newsletter arrives in my email box as well as NPR News and Scott Dworkin.

I'm getting tons of requests for $ support from candidates all across the country and have donated to Pappas here in NH running for the Senate, Jamie Davis running for Senate in LA. I've supported Faithful America, Americans of Conscience, and Common Cause.

But I've recently come to a conclusion about our president. Despite the critique of mainstream media for sane washing what he says and others saying that the man is on his death bed, or suffering dementia, both of these conclusions are really giving the man an excuse. The mainstream media doesn't call out the lies, the grift, the tragedy behind what he says. They clean up what he says. Those calling him sick give him an excuse for all those same behaviors as any of us would excuse a relative with Alzheimers who has taken to swearing profusely. The president knows exactly what he is doing because:

HE IS JUST PLAIN EVIL!

He knows exactly what he wants to do. He has many hates and acts upon them. He wants money and is greedy and will stop at nothing to get more. He doesn't care who he tramples, who he deports, what he's done to the environment, or who he pushes into poverty. I'm sure you can think of many more examples of his nature. Everything is about him and what $ he wants and it is all evil.

I pity the MAGA faithful who think he is wonderful. Some have had their eyes opened as loved ones get deported, or as they open bills and see how much more things are costing or as the read about the grift. Many of them think he has their interests in mind, but no, it's all about him.

He is EVIL!

What are we to do? The only thing open to us is vote all Republicans out. They have fallen under his spell or are to scared to go up against him.

We need the Congress to flip to Democratic control to impeach and convict this evil man and all his minions including those on the Supreme Court.

I will be voting the Democratic ticket on Nov. 3rd (no early voting here except absentee voting). I hope you and all your family will be too.

Saturday, October 10, 2026

Another Worth the Read

Trump: the Whining, Weak Wimp

🚨 26 Days to the Midterms 🚨

JENNIFER RUBIN

OCT 8

READ IN APP

Donald Trump melted down when the New York Times reported that his Ohio rally arena was sparsely attended. He insisted that attendees “migrate down” to lower seats! Of course, he meant to fill empty seats, but his dilapidated logic was dwarfed by the sheer hysteria and venom of receiving such a sad crowd. He utterly lost it, demanding: “The New York Times, and many other Artificial Media Outlets, should be arrested for their dishonesty and disservice to our Country.”

The reaction to his hissy fit was priceless, as an Alabama online outlet pointed out that “Trump has 292-word meltdown on Ohio rally flop: ‘Narcissism ... incomprehensibly off the charts’”:

Trump critics mocked the president’s grievance and his description of the Ohio venue as an “arena.”
“The trump rally was at a … high school gym,” posted Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA).
“Grandpa is melting down again because he couldn’t fill a high school gym,” added another user on X.
“The narcissism is incomprehensibly off the charts. And he’s the president of our country,” posted author Jennifer Erin Valent. “This is such a tragic era of American self-destruction.”

US President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally in [a high-school gym, not an arena] in Vandalia, Ohio, on October 3, 2026. (Photo by Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP via Getty Images)

In a similarly petulant vein, Trump’s handpicked MAGA cultist Texas attorney general Ken Paxton was caught whining to supporters about his imploding race. Politico revealed that Paxton apparently cannot even run his own campaign:

“I’ve never been in a race where I felt less control over the campaign and, like, what issues are going to matter because it’s all coming — you know — from D.C.,” Paxton said during a small fundraising event last month, according to an audio recording obtained by POLITICO from a person in the room who does not support Paxton, and verified by another attendee.
“I don’t control message or what we’re doing.”

It’s a mystery why Trump cannot direct his own people. But the irony of the acknowledged helplessness of a candidate who impugns the masculinity of his opponent, Democrat James Talarico, should not be lost on anyone.

The outbreak of sniveling and petulance in MAGA ranks is widespread. Vice President JD Vance has begged voters to give the Republicans a second chance. Unable to deflect questions about Republicans’ sagging polls or his own cruddy performances, he has now taken to embodying a Mean Girl. Sniping at another Republican, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Vance groused, “It is really obvious to me that, at this very moment, Ted Cruz is running for president.” He added, “At this moment, I’m not. I’m trying to help elect Republicans. That’s what I’m going to keep on doing.” Well, the VP who leaked to the New York Times a tale to explain his secret opposition to the Iran war is almost certainly thinking ahead to 2028. Regardless, why spend time backbiting about a fellow Republican? He’s “insecure,” was Cruz’s explanation.

All the sobbing and bellyaching does not seem very, well, high-T masculine, which has been a major theme for a party that has marinated in toxic misogyny for years. Bullies who accuse their opponents of feminizing the country (especially the military) and target trans kids seem ever so frail and helpless when things do not go their way.

Keen political observers have watched Trump and his ilk manipulate the fears and insecurities of American men who feel they are “losing” out in society and in the economy specifically. “When you can’t envision a sustainable career based on your skill set, you may be putty for a demagogue who evokes idealized memories of a past where you fit in—however racist or sexist that past may have been, and sometimes because of how racist and sexist it actually was,” wrote Harold Myerson in 2024. “You can be putty for a demagogue who blames your plight on MAGA’s usual suspects. You can be putty for Donald Trump.”

Resorting to temper tantrums to explain away one’s own shortcomings (in the case of Trump, his abject unpopularity born of failure; in the case of many of his followers, loss of economic and cultural stature in a shifting economy that deprioritizes physical labor, existing in a culture that liberated women from dependence on men). As Myerson put it:

It was only with Trump that the Republicans found a candidate whose own insecurity and rage at the elites who scorned him, and at the out-groups he deemed to be inherently undeserving, made him susceptible to some of the same phobias that define Precarious Manhood, and made him its avenging champion.

But by “remaking the Republican Party in his image, he transformed it in this way as well. The Grand Old Party is now the Party of Precarious Manhood.” Now, they risk becoming the party of whiny, complaining, male, self-assigned victims.

As historian Ruth Ben Ghiat has researched and written about, “strongmen” live in fear and weakness of being exposed, which is precisely what is happening now. “[T]hey have a constant need to feed their ego because they are weak and fragile people,” Ben Ghiat has explained. “The secret of strongmen is that they live in fear. And this is why they build their bunkers. And Trump’s always talking about, you know, not only the ballroom where people can adulate him and he can get money, but the bunker underneath; that’s his safe space.” It’s also why he surrounds himself with incompetent sycophants who will never upstage him, including the creepily rapturous Natalie Harp. But when daily confronted with evidence of his fading power and popularity, Trump falls into a pit of fury.

As is the case with many raging narcissists, Trump ping-pongs between self-pity and aggressive, violent ideation. From the Access Hollywood tape to his liability to E. Jean Carroll to his sympathy for the unnamed Cornell accused rapists to his selection of multiple men for his Cabinet accused of sexual assault to his non-stop badgering of female reporters who ask hard questions, Trump’s animosity toward women has never been a secret. But what has become increasingly apparent as he declines in vigor, impulse control, and overall health is the degree to which he and his followers fall prey to the victim mentality, excuse-mongering, and wallowing in their own rage.

Taking a step back, we can recognize Trump and his minions’ shrieking as the pathetic last yelps of a dying autocratic regime. As a pragmatic, political matter, it must be a turn-off for all those guys who thought they were getting a tough guy and instead received a feeble hysteric. No wonder they no longer bother showing up to his campaign rallies.