Well, it’s winding down now, huh? The nation’s gala 250th birthday, that is, which was spectacular in places and an utter shitshow in the capital, where Big Daddy tried to make it all about him, except where he allowed his rotating staff of toadies and incompetents to screw things up independently.
Granted, it was 102 degrees for much of it. Alan was reading passages from the WashPost to me Saturday night, laughing uproariously:
But a little before 7 p.m., attendees were ordered to leave the grounds because of approaching violent storms and seek shelter in nearby museums and government buildings. Many on the Mall balked at the order, and some yelled at U.S. Park Police and other law enforcement agents who directed them to leave as skies darkened above them.
As the Mall was being cleared, other people continued to arrive, only to be turned away.
On Pennsylvania Avenue NW, just steps from the White House, authorities were shepherding attendees from the event perimeter.
Crowds streamed in all directions, in search of shelter or a restaurant or their hotels. Officers blew whistles and shouted for everyone to clear the area. But hundreds of people, some in star-spangled outfits or Trump-themed gear, stayed nearby hoping to be let back in.
John Kile, who flew in from Dublin just for the event, fumed at having been turned away. He said he tried to gain access at several checkpoints, spending hours waiting in line.
“We came all the way here for the Fourth of July event, got an expensive hotel, and we can’t get in,” said Kile, 29. “And it’s … 100 degrees, so, yeah, definitely a letdown.”
“It doesn’t seem to be well-orchestrated to be honest,” he added.
Ya think? I can hear the world’s tiniest violin:
A dejected Michala Herbster and her grandparents, Carl and Debbie Herbster, sat on a ledge near the Wilson Building, not far from the Mall. The trio waited in line for over two hours in the “unbearable” heat, in hopes of getting a good spot for the fireworks show — and, more importantly, Trump’s speech.
After being evacuated from the Mall, all the family wanted to do was to get back to their hotel. Michala, 23, traveled from Ringgold, Louisiana, for the holiday, while her grandparents came in from Indianapolis. “Very expensive trips,” Debbie groused. Unable to call an Uber to get back to their hotel, they headed to the Federal Triangle metro stop, heads bowed slightly as rain continued to fall.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Trump Steaks of holidays.
I don’t want to dwell, though. We did nothing much on the holiday, and things were fine. We were fortunate to have electricity, after a fierce storm moved through Friday afternoon, toppling trees and leaving wide swaths of the service area dark. Kate’s block is browned out, so Alan took our generator over to keep their refrigerator going at the very least. We’ve learned through bitter experience that when power goes out around here, it can stay out for days, and indeed it has; most are not predicted to get juice again for another 24 hours.
At least it’s not 97 degrees anymore. So: Small blessings.
It does seem as though the country is falling apart, despite all the Lee Greenwood blather over the weekend. The open corruption — even extending to the World Cup — gets more blatant every week. The crypto scam is particularly galling, but not at all surprising. Again, a tiny violin, but this could have been your grandparents:
The odds were always in his favor. Mr. Trump profited whether the price of his memecoin went up or down. He collected returns whenever anyone traded the tokens, as he repeatedly pushed his followers to do, using his Truth Social account to promote the coin.
OK, enough. After a delightful half-day of rain, the sun is out again and the week ahead looks better than the one behind us. Onward to Monday.
Jeff Gill said on July 5, 2026 at 7:21 pm
Our Fourth of July parade in Granville, Ohio was hot enough to chase most of the horses out of the lineup, which meant I had less work to do in my twenty-first year of walking at the end of the parade with a wide blade shovel & a tractor with a scoop loader ready to receive. I’m training my replacement, because the four miles of brisk walking and intermittent stoop & swing, after four hours of staging & arranging the occasionally fractious entries up to the 10:45 am step-off… let’s just say by the time we start moving at the last checkpoint as end of the line, it’s after 11:30, with the parade route ahead & then the return loop to get the horses back to their trailers, is something I am finding a little harder to do. Plus my wife reminds me I need to finish the transfer to Medicare paperwork this week before my August 1 activation date.
So in our small town, we celebrated community and history and hopes and heritage, with Trump’s only appearance being walking behind a float with an Abe & George & a green-hued Liberty, a “fathead” picture with eyeholes attached to a young lady in a suit, with a friend subjecting herself to wearing a similar “fathead” Melania. They were neither cheered nor booed that I heard, mostly treated as background noise.
Joyce & I heard from two MAGA folk who were working hard to communicate along the route and on social media that “it wasn’t what it used to be” or “a real snooze” etc. Apparently that’s the coping strategy for what pancaked so hard in D.C.: if everyone isn’t praising the Dear Leader, then they will slag our Fourth celebrations (while eating our Scout fries and Music booster lemon shake-ups, so hand me your money & I’ll just shrug).
If you can find the PBS event at Colonial Williamsburg, it’s worth a watch. Michael Feinstein gets off to a rocky start (live TV is heck), but Judy Collins took us home at the end, and the whole program was a real breath of fresh air that Stephen Miller should be forced to watch with his mouth taped shut. Seriously, they did a great job. Happy Fourth, and in Ohio we have a bunch of America 250 stuff yet to do through the rest of the year.
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Heather said on July 5, 2026 at 10:12 pm
In yet another example of irony that was no doubt lost on them, many attendees of the shitshow sought shelter in the Museum of African-American History.
It was a rainy July 4th weekend here in Chicago. I went to a friend’s for dinner and watched fireworks over the city from her balcony, but at some point the smoke and the moisture in the air created an almost impenetrable haze.
Looking forward to cooler temps this week and keeping the windows open.
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Julie Robinson said on July 6, 2026 at 8:30 am
Heather, I may have chortled when I read that. It couldn’t have happened to nicer people.
Did folks forget how for generations, DC emptied during the summer for heat relief?
Good to know, Jeff. After Friday’s PBS festival of poor singers, we streamed 1776 instead. It still works.
Our little neighborhood has a boat regatta, the boats mostly being kayaks these days. The idea is to decorate it patriotically, but this year only one did.
There was high participation in the pie fest, though I didn’t go since I’m nursing a sore hip flexor. I swam instead, fulfilling the pursuit of happiness.
Our lake also collects for a fireworks display, but this year for some inexplicable reason they didn’t use the dock in the middle of the water. They were set off from the lakeshore down several houses from ours, which meant we mostly heard them and caught a few glimpses between the trees.
The worst of both worlds. Kinda like our country.
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alex said on July 6, 2026 at 9:40 am
Hubby and I had originally planned to go out on our pontoon boat and watch neighbors blowing their paychecks on pyrotechnics. We were to be joined by other neighbors as well as a friend who lives in town. But we went to a pool party in the afternoon and got so schnockered that Hubby passed out when we got home and didn’t answer his text messages and the whole plan fell through. We had even bought the makings for a nice charcuterie board that didn’t get made.
Jeff mentioned above finalizing his Medicare. I’m about to embark on the journey as I’ll be eligible in October and I want Medigap (Plan G) and Part D. I had gotten a quote from a Humana sales rep about a month ago, but she emailed me links to a web site that would only allow me to enroll in Medicare Advantage plans. I’m feeling miffed enough to try my luck instead with Mutual of Omaha or Anthem. I’m sure it’s because the sales reps get fat commissions for Advantage plans that they push them so hard. I think that woman was trying to trick me into signing up for a plan that I didn’t want.
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Suzanne said on July 6, 2026 at 9:58 am
Alex, I have Mutual of Omaha Medicare supplement plan. It seems to go up every year but so far, I have no complaints about coverage. The insurance guy we talked to told us to avoid Medicare Advantage plans because if you have any kind of major health issues, you are going to pay in the end as they balk at paying for anything out of their network. With my cancer, I have many tests, etc that go out to labs all over the place and I would pay through the nose. My brother who is type 1 diabetic was also cautioned to avoid Advantage plans for the same reason.
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David C said on July 6, 2026 at 10:11 am
The good thing about medigap plans is they apply the deductable you choose and pay up. They have no choice. So for my wife’s we choose the least expensive, a regional carrier called WPS. It was the least expensive in both WI and MI. From what we’ve seen, Part D plans are all trash unless you have nothing but the cheapest generics prescribed. For my wife’s Parkinsons, carbidopa/levidopa, which is dirt cheap anyway, was paid for. She went on Crexont and we’re paying $420 out of pocket for 90 days. I know a lot of people have it worse. Knowing there are breakthrough treatments for Parkinson’s on the horizon, but insurance could block them really stinks.
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Julie Robinson said on July 6, 2026 at 4:25 pm
Dementia Donny just introduced the SBA head, Kelly Loeffler, as Nicki Minaj. ‘Splain to me again about Sleepy Joe?
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David C said on July 6, 2026 at 4:41 pm
They’re so similar.
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Sherri said on July 6, 2026 at 5:44 pm
We’re trying to figure out what to do about health insurance when my husband retires in a couple of months. He’ll go on Medicare, I’ll still be 7 months away from 65. We just connected with an insurance broker to help us navigate it. Probably I’ll just go on COBRA until I can go on Medicare, but we’ll see. I also take a lot of prescription drugs, and I don’t want to change my doctors.
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Sherri said on July 6, 2026 at 5:45 pm
Graham Platner. Like that wasn’t utterly predictable.
Misogyny isn’t just a right wing problem.
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Mark P said on July 6, 2026 at 6:33 pm
I have some friends on a Medicare advantage plan, and everything they tell me makes me glad we’re on regular Medicare. They have to wait for procedures until the insurance company approves. The doctor has to do certain treatments that they know won’t work before the insurance company will pay for the treatment that will work.
And the Republicans want to convert all regular Medicare to advantage plans.
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Deborah said on July 6, 2026 at 8:01 pm
I had bad feelings about Platner all along, it didn’t smell right to me from the get go. No there’s very little time and if you ask me Collins is going to win, unfortunately. Why do the dems let this happen? It’s like they have no idea what they are doing. So aggravating.
Misogyny is a serious problem.
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Jakash said on July 7, 2026 at 2:31 pm
I’ll second that nice paragraph that Jeff G. wrote two days ago about the Williamsburg event. You mean we can celebrate a multicultural nation with indigenous and West African drumming and a performance by an African-American choir from the oldest Baptist church in Virginia, while also having folks stand for the National Anthem, showcasing a performance of “Amazing Grace,” and ending with a nice fireworks display accompanied by patriotic music? Who knew? Calling it “America Made In Virginia: 250 Years Together” seemed a bit cocky to me, but, hey, a lot of stuff did happen there, and a number of founding fathers came from Virginia! 😉
Shortly after we watched it live, it showed up on YouTube, for anybody interested.
Julie, we didn’t take a chance on “A Capitol Fourth” this year, and you’ve made me glad we didn’t. I did mention the possibility of watching “1776”, but my wife and I had differing opinions about that idea. I think it’s fun and interesting enough, though kinda silly, while she just thinks it’s silly. That was a good day to watch it, though!
This is completely off-topic, but I saw it on Heather’s Bluesky, so seeing her comment above reminded me of it. A funny two-minute parody referencing a scene from Jurassic Park (with music), featuring people (including the mayor of Evanston) marveling at a bit of landscaping in a local suburb. “It’s … a wetland prairie garden!”
https://bsky.app/profile/danielbiss.bsky.social/post/3mpheguxwyk2y
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Julie Robinson said on July 7, 2026 at 4:43 pm
Six degrees of Daniel Biss…his grandfather was my mom’s cardiologist in DeKalb, Illinois. He was beloved. Grandma had come from Russia through Europe, was a world class musician, and Daniel’s father (and mother) were also musicians. His brother Jonathan is also a professional musician, born two weeks after my eldest child. The family is Jewish, which is why Grandma escaped Europe.
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Deborah said on July 7, 2026 at 9:47 pm
Biss is not that well liked in the Evanston area, he won the primary for congressperson sure, but he has a lot of naysayers. That was in the heat of the election, so who knows? Now that he will be leaving because he’ll no doubt win the election for congress in Nov, who will replace him as Mayor? We’ll see.
My husband’s family’s foundation dementia center project is in Evanston so we’re watching the situation.
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Jakash said on July 8, 2026 at 12:42 am
I’m not campaigning for the guy, I just thought it was a clever video! 🙂
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