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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