Have you ever been on a religious retreat before? Many churches, of all denominations, hold weekend retreats, often for men or women and occasionally co-ed. It's an opportunity to pray and meditate, and come closer to God and Jesus. It's also an opportunity to make new friends, renew old friendships, and to share our stories and experiences. You should try it some time. I've been on close to a dozen in the last 30 years or so. So has my wife.

OCU

I just learned something interesting yesterday.

It seems that the so-called 'American Flag Blue' paint used on the Reflecting Pool wasn't actually paint, nor was it what they normally paint swimming pools with. It was a urethane material that was normally used to line the bed of pickup trucks and such, what's known as a spray-on 'bed-liner', which is traditionally applied to smooth metallic surfaces which already had a coat of paint. What caught my attention was that I heard a reporter remark that the material used came from a company named 'Rhino Linings'.

Well as soon as I heard that I knew exactly where it came from, a company just north of San Diego. But that's not all. I know the CEO of the company. In fact, he and his wife are very active members of our church. He and I were on the church's building committee together. We've participated in at least two weekend men's retreats together. And his wife and my wife worked for years together helping organize an annual women's event which was held at the church. We've been to at least two or three events that they hosted at their house, which is only about a mile from where we live.

I first met him over 30 years ago when he was still the CEO of Mitsubishi of North America (their office building was less than a mile from ours). He left there about 25 years ago and went to work for Rhino Linings Corporation, eventually replacing the founder of the company, first as president and then eventually at the CEO (the founder, a chemist, wanted to spend more of his time doing R&D).

Now, I have no idea if the company played any role in actually applying the 'paint' on the floor of the Reflecting Pool. It's quite possible that all they did was sell the contractor, who actually did the job, the material that they used.

Now Rhino Linings makes several different products, mostly used in industrial applications, including things like spray on urethane foam insulation, sound deadening material, and other industrial coatings. But their original product and the one that you hear about the most, is the spray-on trunk bed liner, as there are many places which offers that service using their products (they used to do that themselves, but now they license their process and products to private retailers).

We see him and his wife almost every Sunday, but I suspect that I'll not mention this to him as I wouldn't want to put him on the spot as we do have a cordial and spiritual relationship that we've enjoyed for over 30 years.

But as they say, it's a small world...

OCU

And then the Agriculture Secretary had the audacity for trying to blame it on the Biden administration.

OCU

Can you imagine what the Right wing media would be saying about now if this had been someone like Hunter Biden, or a family member of some high ranking Democrat, exchanging these alleged text messages.

OCU

"Mail voting in the US: Data points to very low fraud and significant benefits to voters"

#5 | Posted by Corky at 2026-06-15 10:40 AM

That alone makes it dangerous to Republicans...

OCU

Pres Trump more likely just wants to replace the statue of Lincoln with one of him, everything else is an excuse ...

#1 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-06-04 07:19 PM

And of course, it would be covered in 23+ carat Gold leaf...

OCU

Only the best...

OCU

Now it's meaningless as Trump would never sign such a bill, but it does show that his hold the Republicans in Congress is being diminished. They're coming to the realization that Trump, for all intents and purposes, is already a 'lame-duck' president, and it's only going to get more obvious as we approach the midterms if it continues to look like the Democrats will at least win back the House, if not the Senate as well.

OCU

Can you imagine the outrage if it had been revealed that during the Obama or Biden administrations, that one of the liberal Justices had a child, or a close relative, secretly working in the general counsel's office of one of the executive branch's Cabinet departments which had, or was anticipating in having, their polices or actives being questioned as part of a case being heard before the Court.

OCU

Yes, a friend of ours has been evacuated and she's moved into our guest bedroom until further notice. We don't really mind as she's sort of like the daughter that we never had (she's a year older than our oldest son). When we were back in Michigan, my wife worked with Kellie's mother and when we moved back to California in 1987, she had just graduated from high school and she wanted to get away from her parents and so she came back with us. She lived with us for about five months before getting a job and a place to live.

She said that they were told to plan to find a place where she could spend up to a week or more. Like I said, we enjoy her company so it won't be an issue with us, however, in a bit over two weeks our oldest son, his wife and two of his daughters, will be visiting us, so we hope that things are cleared-up by then as we only have two 'spare' bedrooms.

OCU

I wonder if Sullivan's aware of how ironic this is?

OCU

Yes, and all of those people were paid actors, like the ones standing on the mezzanine of Trump Tower in 2015, wearing Trump T-shirts, when Trump and Melania descended the gold escalator before he announced his candidacy for president. And in his case, they actually were actors who had responded to a 'casting call' and were paid $50 each to wave and cheer for the cameras as Trump was going down the escalator.

OCU

And here we have Trump, going all out to reward 'victims' of past president's 'weaponization' of various government agencies, while we sit and watch his government agencies weaponize their actions toward Americans. Will the next president demand that he be given an 'anti-weaponization' fund so that he can right all of the wrongs done by the Trump administration? I suspect that someone, somewhere, is keeping track.

OCU

And if my spouse was stricken with a life threatening disease, I wouldn't wait over five weeks to quit my job before I could spend full time with them.

OCU

And it seems that many of the these people from South Africa have been disappointed after their arrival. For one thing, they apparently felt that they had been promised a significant amount of cash when they arrived. Instead, they were informed that that the nominal benefit available to refugees was limited to no more than $2,450 per person, and even then most of that was in the from of credits to help cover housing, furniture, food and transportation supplied by various organizations who were assisting the South African families in getting settled.

OCU

Everyone should keep in mind that Trump, and many of his people, have been having issues with Gabbard ever since both Venezuela and the war with Iran, over her long term opposition to foreign involvement, particularly when it came to forcing regime change.

OCU

Many from the first batch he brought over ended up going home from what I read. The US was too violent for them.

#3 | Posted by qcp at 2026-05-21 01:08 PM

And it didn't help when they learned that they couldn't pay 'slave' wages for nannies and housekeepers like they were able to do back on South Africa.

OCU

What could possibly go wrong...

OCU

How is this not a 'Get Out of Jail Free' card? This would insulate not only Donald Trump, but all members of the Trump family as well as all of their various business endeavors, from ever being audited nor prosecuted even if evidence were to be found that they've committed tax fraud.

And this will set a horrible precedent. What's to stop future presidents from simply suing the government over some perceived grievance and then ordering their DOJ to make a deal which benefits themselves and those close to them, all at the expense of the taxpayers?

OCU

It's also been reported that the DOJ may also be asking the IRS, as part of Trump's settlement with the agency, that neither he nor any of his family members, as well as any of the business entities, will ever be subject to an IRS audit in the future, which would just invite them to commit all kinds of tax fraud and that there would be nothing that anyone could do about it.

OCU

Trump claims he knows nothing about what was agreed to between his lawyers and the DOJ when they set up the nearly $1.8 billion slush fund, referred to as the Anti-Weaponization Fund'. If that's true, then the bar association needs to open an investigation as lawyers are required, by law, to get their clients concurrence before they're allowed to accept any deal in their client's name.

But that aside, it appears that the agreement that Trump's lawyers made with the DOJ and the Treasury Department is that Trump will appoint five individuals, whom he can remove anytime he wishes for whatever reason he wishes, to a panel which will decide who gets money from this slush fund. And the way it's set up, conceivably it will only take two individuals to agree for a payment to be made since three individuals will constitute a quorum and only a majority is needed for a decision, which would therefore only need to be two individuals.

Also, the payouts will be confidential and the individuals receiving them will not have to pay any taxes on the money. Also, there will be no restrictions on how the money is spent, meaning that it could be used to fund a criminal enterprise or it could conceivably be paid to individuals who are not US citizens or who don't even reside in the United States. Basically, there are NO restrictions on who can receive a payout, even to a member of the Trump family. The only individual, who is barred by law from taking any of the money, is Donald Trump himself.

OCU

And keep in mind that Trump is claiming that he was irreparably harmed because an IRS subcontractor gave two-years worth of his tax returns to the New York Times. If this had ever gone to court it would have been thrown out. After all, ever since Nixon was president, all presidential and vice-presidential candidates have released years worth of their income tax returns and there's no record that any of them have ever been harmed by those releases, so how could Trump make that claim unless he was afraid that it would show that he had cheated on his taxes or that he was not as wealthy as he claimed that he was.

OCU

And I suspect that before this over, most all of the South Lawn will have been paved over, which will give Trump even more space to hold outdoor 'events' including UFC fights and anything else that he might deem appropriate for his new concept of the Executive Mansion. If he really wants to make the White House feel like one of his resorts, I don't know why he doesn't just tear up all ot White House grounds and put in a golf course.

OCU

And Trump never even showed as he was too busy getting in a round of golf at one of his resorts at taxpayer expense, which included renting golf carts to the Secret Service and charging green fees for any of them who where present on the course, whether they were playing golf or not.

But they did play a video of Trump reciting a passage from the Bible. However, the White House didn't take the time to record a message just for the event, but rather recycled the same video that he taped from the Oval Office last month for the Bible reading marathon that he 'participated' in.

OCU

Note that our oldest son, when he was in Army infantry boot camp in 1989, was taught how to use a bayonet as an offensive weapon.

OCU