The reflecting pool debacle is the perfect visual metaphor for the Trump Administration - superficial approaches to complex problems leading to worse outcomes than if he had done nothing.
Middle East analysts say Trump's deal with Iran is a humiliating defeat for the United States. A guy who shits himself in public and thinks windmills cause cancer says it's an amazing foreign policy triumph. For busy Americans, it can be hard to know who to trust.
Dear Chris,
I can start by telling you who my audience is not.
It is NOT you.
It is NOT the pundit class that rarely leaves the safety of its Georgetown cocktail parties.
It is NOT the chattering class who gets paid to pretend it knows the mind of the American people.
It is NOT for anyone who looks at everything through the lens of politics.
The people I am talking to are tired of the bullshit.
The people I want to speak with are the 50 million Americans still sick and suffering. The families fighting for the lives of the those they love.
Whether they are people living in the shame and fear of being canceled, or consumed by grief after the loss of someone they love, they are just looking for a slight glimmer of hope that they too can get back up again.
My audience is the people who feel unheard, unseen, and uninvited, just like me.
My audience also includes my perceived enemies, those pitted against me by you and your colleagues in the media. I want to meet them where they are and help build a bridge. A bridge built of that which connects all of us. That’s where we begin to actually heal.
And it’s not as if my intent is difficult to understand or discern. Just read and listen to what I have said on this platform, and the 18+ hours of unscripted pod casts I have done.
I think your shock as to why anyone would care says far more about you than it does about me. Take a look at the comments to your post.
And I also know this: people are tired of the bullshit. They’re tired of you and the chattering classes’ obsession with my family as Rome burns.
So instead of wondering why people care about what I have to say, Chris, maybe you should concern yourself with why no one cares anymore about what you and everyone you represent has to say.
Remember, during today's literal cage match on the White House grounds:
No matter what, it's not his house. It's our house.
Get a hat, coaster, or sticker to support groups and candidates who will respect the form AND the function of the people's house. https://t.co/yGDgJciDQZ
There is literally zero evidence to what you’re accusing me of. But just like Trump everything with you people is either projection or confession. You are all so predictable. Show dozens of pictures of Trump and Epstein together over decades, teen beauty pageants, the misogyny and sexism from his own mouth, the accusations from dozens of women and girls, FBI interviews, court cases, his own sworn testimony, and on and on and your response is: The Biden’s are pedophiles. It’s so completely mindless and stupid and sophomoric that it makes me wonder if they literally have brainwashed you people. Wake the fuck up Nacho. Whose interets do you think you’re protecting? Because I promise you they don’t give a shit about you.
To everyone so eager to cancel someone for a tattoo they got at age 22, a drunk text, a selfie they took in the middle of a mental health crisis:
Show us your laptop.
Show us your iCloud.
Open your entire digital life to your worst enemy. No context. No filter. No explanation.
You won’t.
You won’t because you know what I know. Any one of us, frozen at our worst moment, photographed in our lowest hour, looks like a monster. Looks like a stranger. Looks like someone who deserves to be cast out.
That is not who we are.
My mom and baby sister were killed in a car accident when I was just a kid. Cancer took my brother Beau, my best friend and my rock. I battled alcoholism. I battled addiction. I chose the coward’s way out more times than I can count.
For years I believed the defining chapters of my life were written by tragedy, loss, and shame.
I no longer believe that.
Pain can shape us. Loss can humble us. Failures can leave scars that never fully fade. But none of them have the authority to define us.
And it sure as hell ain’t the critic that counts.
That authority belongs to us alone-the person in the arena.
Every setback presents a choice. Play the victim, or cut the bullshit and take ownership for who we become next.
Life does not determine our character. It reveals it.
Again and again we are asked the same question. When shit happens, what next?
We are not defined by what happened to us. We are not defined by the worst photo, the worst text, the worst tattoo, the worst night. We are defined by the person we choose to become. And by the courage to choose that person, every single day.
So before you reach for the gavel - show us your laptop.
You won’t.
The whole world saw mine. And I am still here. Still becoming. Still choosing. Still standing.
That is the only definition that matters.
So Sturgill Simpson is the greatest singer song writer out there right now in my opinion. I’ve been obsessed with his music and message since Meta Modern Sounds in Country Music. Turtles All the Way Down is one of my favorite songs ever. When I was in the early days of my recovery he released Sound and Fury with the anime on Netflix and it played in the background as I painted almost everyday. All that and his cover of “In Bloom” may be the best cover of any cover ever. I love Sturgill.
It had been months since I listened to this album. I've been binging on some new ones, and had barely played anything that was more than 6 months old.
Coming back to this one yesterday as I worked in the garage, listening to the lyrics, the heartbreak, hurt and joy found in it reconfirmed for me that it was my favorite album released last year.
And if I look back at my favorite albums from the last few years, this one sits high on the list. Maybe the top.
Probably the top.
Nicholas Jamerson // The Narrow Way // 2026
Rent.
Not housing policy. Not the abstraction. Rent. The check that goes out the first of every month before the food, before the medicine, before the gas, before the kid’s shoes. The check that disappears into an LLC that disappears into a holding company that disappears into a fund that sits on a server in Delaware and answers to no one.
A third of this country pays rent. Most of them pay more than they can afford. They are working two jobs to send money to a man they will never meet, who lives in a city they will never visit, who has decided their apartment is worth eight percent more this year than last because the algorithm said so.
That is the fix. Day one.
Cap the algorithmic price-fixing the landlord cartels have been running in plain sight. End the corporate purchase of single-family homes. Tax the institutional ownership of residential property at a rate that makes it unprofitable. Use the revenue to build. Not vouchers. Build.
You want to know why people are angry. You want to know why they will vote for anyone who promises to burn it down. Look at what they pay every month to live indoors. Look at what is left after.
Everything else can wait a week.
Can I return back to college football?
I only played 2 seasons, should have 2 more eligibility years left….
Can you find me a judge in Louisiana who can see to it that Honey Badger gets to finish his last 2 years of college football?
Who’s going to say no ?????
We were all just feeling sick & tired of being sick & tired everyday when suddenly Hunter Biden appears & it's like the sun came up. It's not just his humor & the laughs. Without meaning to, he's teaching us about Resilience.
And giving us a good guy to root for again.
In recovery we learn the whole point is service.
Showing up for somebody besides yourself.
That’s leadership too.
Setting the tone.
Right now the tone is vengeance and yeah, I get the anger.
But anger isn’t leadership. It’s tyranny.
We can and should reach for each other. Demand better.