I'm just making conversation, I don't really care if you've ever seen the rain or not.

Haiti Descends Deeper Into Chaos as Gang Terror Displaces Millions and Children Are Recruited Into Violence
July 24, 2026

□ [“David Lee Roth’s Tour Has Been Cancelled"]

He could have stuck with that retirement he promised just a few years ago.  In 2021 he said he was done with it after a Las Vegas residency.  Then covid shut that down.  Then in 2025 he started again.  By all accounts he was horrible, whatever voice he had was gone, back-up singers were doing most of the work.

My guess is he needed the money.  I heard about this yesterday when Sammy Hagar put out a post on facebook sounding as friendly and helpful as he could for Dave.  It's believable that Sam would do this, he always came off as that sort of decent guy.  Like it or not, he's a big part of that band and the surviving members are in their waning years.  But it was the way he immediately spoke out that surprised me.

The tickets weren't selling, that was the issue.  Maybe they were too expensive, that's common these days.  Maybe Dave's horrible singing was too well known and nobody's going to pay that kind of money just to stare at him on a stage.  Maybe even his fans are just tired of him in general.  I've heard Sammy's ticket sales have gone down this year but he's reportedly still doing better at some of the same venues.

Sammy's a better singer, he's protected his voice, cares what the fans think and don't forget, has had much more of a career.  Not just the billion-dollar liquor company he started, even in music he's been putting out albums for fifty years.  Van Halen is obviously the biggest part of his career but it's only part of it.  Even before he joined VH, he made sure to invest his profits into businesses that didn't center on him being a famous rock star.  That's how he was able to afford a Ferrari which is how the fancy car dealer knew him when Eddie brought in his Lamborghini and mentioned that the band needed a new singer.

I don't think Dave had that much sensibility.  Most celebrities probably don't, they think the money will keep coming in so they attach themselves to a very expensive lifestyle.  Even worse, they're often surrounded by people who get paid to tell them how great they are.  Being a celebrity means you're not part of normal life so I have no clue how any of them can deal with this, especially when they get old or less successful and the money stops coming in.

In the early days, Van Halen got low percentages of their album sales, despite selling in the tens of millions.  When Sammy joined, he made the contracts better.  It sounds like that more than anything is what EVH loved about him being in the band but somewhere, I think it was one of the band biographies, it was mentioned that Dave's percentage was not increased.  He had a complaint, something along the lines of 'the bass player is making more money than me.'  I'm pretty sure that when he returned in the 2000s, that was changed.  Of course by then the internet had destroyed album sales.

I am not a fan of David Lee Roth.  He had his moment and if Van Halen only gets one singer in their career, he's the one.  But they had other singers and I'm a Sammy fan.  Back then, Roth was a good front-man.  Problem is that he thought he was the whole thing, this is where you get celebrities surrounded by sycophants who tell them what they want to hear.  He really did not think the guitar player should take any attention away from him.  You have to work to miss that yet somehow Dave managed.

What I find more interesting is that the exact same thing is going on with a band I do like better, Guns'n'Roses.  Last night they started a new American tour.  Tickets are selling badly and unlike Dave, these guys expect to fill stadiums.  It sounds like tickets were very expensive and have been cut massively in the last few days.  Videos have already been posted from last night's show and are really only worth a few seconds just to hear how bad his singing is.

It's the same problem Dave has, expensive tickets, the fans are tired of this and the singer is repulsive.  Dave had a slight solo career but the few songs he posted on youtube were ignored.  His last album came out in 2003 and his stage show is only from the half-dozen albums he made over 40 years ago.  In G'n'R, Slash has always been productive and has a lot to fall back on.  Duff has gone back and forth on productivity but definitely has some.  He was also lucky, when the band started bringing in money, he went back to his home town of Seattle and worked with an investment company, putting money into new businesses like Microsoft and Starbucks.  So he's fine.

But Axl...  There's the expensive lifestyle, just that giant mansion from the "Estranged" video would be unthinkable.  There were his huge expenses back when the band was the biggest in the world, starting shows late, spending lots of money on ridiculous things like theme parties.  The "Use Your Illusions" tour lasted three years because it wasn't until the third year that they made a profit.  That's probably why G'n'R has toured consistently for about twenty years.

I suspect that Axl has been in massive debt for a long time and had no clue about that.  His court testimony a few months ago says he doesn't even know who owns the G'n'R catalogue and it might be Geffen Records.  I bet it is and they probably owned it long ago, just to cover the expenses of recording Chinese Democracy.  Just another paper Axl had to sign and he didn't even bother asking what it was about.

The tours got smaller and I assume that's the main reason Axl and his people started trying to get Duff and Slash back.  Izzy wasn't that interested and reportedly didn't think the offer was enough, Steven Adler couldn't be taken seriously and for whatever reason Axl has hated Matt Sorum for decades so that's it for the band who actually produced anything people want to hear.  The partial-reunion did sell tickets but obviously that's come to an end.

I still haven't had time to go through the testimony transcripts for Axl and manager Fernado Lebeis but one impression I got from what I did see was that Fernando and his family have been hustling Axl since they were hired, roughly sometime between the filming of "November Rain" and "Estranged."  Fernando was a little kid, his mother was Stephanie Seymour's baby-nanny.  When she and Axl broke up, they went with him.  Axl had some still-unknown interest in Stephanie's young son, perhaps that was transferred to Fernando.  But now they had access to a weak-minded celebrity who was taking over the biggest band in the world.  And they've kept it that way for decades.

I assume Fernando's not the one in charge, he just passes orders along to Axl.  He may not even be part of the fraud, just as manipulated as everyone else.  But whoever's making the decisions can probably see that there's no reason to keep G'n'R around.  I wonder if this happens to a lot of rock stars, I just don't pay much attention to them.  But that's the sort of life they live, there's probably a lot of connections to organized crime, whether or not they know about it.

Another Transgender Arrested for Murdering His Own Mother, This Time in Los Angeles
July 24, 2026

□ [“Plumbing Subcontractor Closes, Lays Off 25 Union Workers, Still Owed $4 Million on Barack Obama Presidential Center"]

So do we blame the black-owner of the company for not being able to keep his business functioning or the black customer who didn't pay his big bills?  I'm guessing most of the media won't be covering this story, at least not until they find an excuse to blame whitey.  Or Trump.

Then I actually look at the article and the subcontractor is actually white.  Well, it's still funny to say it's "racial discrimination."  Although I thought I'd heard Obama did pick black-owned companies to build this.  Maybe that was just the contractors and they had to sub-contract it out to people who actually got things done.

One thing's odd, he says he had another half-dozen projects that he had to walk away from to close down.  Maybe I"m missing a step but why wouldn't those projects bring in enough money to keep the company operating while you sue the scammers who ripped you off?  He also adds that he had to send in plumbers over-night right before opening and only got a partial payment, "too little, too late."

I suppose they could just say they were thrilled to work for free for Obama because capitalism bad or something.  Suck to be the guys who have to find new jobs as a result of working for free for Obama.  But that shows you how much he cares about the little guy.  It's not like the media is going to ask him about this, they're too busy saying the rich should give their money to poor needy people.

“The European Union will Pay a Very Big Price” Trump Blasts EU Fining US Tech Companies for Billions
July 24, 2026

□ [“More States Are Caught Including Thousands of Non-Citizens on the Voter Rolls"]

This is building.  So far there's been nothing explosive but California, New Jersey, Nevada and Pennsylvania have been found with varying amounts of non-citizens registered to vote.  Alaska has just moved 3,000 names to inactive status, asking for proof that they can vote to fix that.  Michigan has found a thousand non-citizens listed on jury pool lists.  It gives them more influence in other parts of the government and jury duty might help prove you're a citizen if you try to vote.

We don't know how long these groups have operated but if they were unknown for a long time, that could give them chances to vote in multiple elections.  You're registered to vote in State A and didn't turn that off when you officially moved to State B.  I don't know if it's really possible to do that but if it is, it's probably also possible to move around money for laundering.  I know a lot of other crimes could be included here but I've long-suspected there are organizations that focus on spreading money around for scams, fraud and any number of other illegal reasons.

At what point are people going to want to save themselves and turn on their associates and co-conspirators?  It's also unlikely that this is one gigantic conspiracy so at what point are you going to expose some big example of fraud?  And dare I say it, even arrest someone, just to make it look good.  We certainly can't expect anyone to spend a day in jail for any of this, we're certainly not going to get any money back, you're not even going to explain any of this so... where was I going with this?  Oh yeah, good job.  Keep it up.

Joe Biden Gives Up, Won't Seek Further Review of Appeals Court Ruling on Release of Audiotapes with Ghostwriter
July 24, 2026

□ [“Republican Lawmakers Demand Action After Somali Gangs Open Fire in Minnesota Park"]

Is this just who they are or are they preparing to use their weapons?  There were reportedly about 50 Somali youths in the park and only around 20 shots fired so it wasn't just a case of training.  Maybe they were gangs arguing over turf since it must not belong to Minnesota.  I doubt this will go anywhere, the Republicans will just be called "racist" and ignored.

□ [“Ilhan Omar’s Sister's $20 Million USAID-Linked Consulting Firm is Incorporated at the ‘Feeding Our Future’ Address"]

This is why my first assumption was that the shots were for weapons qualification.  They must know they're going to need to fight to defend themselves.  The Somalipop scandal hasn't been heard from in a while so this is a bit surprising.  Any investigator would have searched for what businesses are located at this address months ago and who is connected to these businesses.  You waited this long to reveal that one of them is related to the congresswoman who marries her relatives?  Just slipped your mind did it?

The address is basically the only proof that the sister is involved in this but otherwise, except for their Somali nationality, there is no other known connection or evidence.  The guy behind "Feeding Our Future" has already pled guilty to fraud, as has another business owner at that address.  So there is a valid question of what Omar's sister did with $20 million coming from projects linked to USAID.

This is why I think a lot of people are involved in funneling money around.  I also think a lot of them are connected to members of Congress, or connected to someone who is.  Somalipop is the most obvious example of this but it's not remotely the only one.  It might not even the biggest.  But it sure looks like an easy target to take down.  So what are we waiting for?  We need to get our guns ready?

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Reportedly Involved in Prison Fight, Is Sent to Solitary Confinement
July 24, 2026

□ [“Democrats Vote to Make South Carolina the First 2028 Primary State"]

This is one of those things the party does to favor some people over others.  In this case a large percentage of the voters are black so they're the ones to pander to.  But this does cause some other problems.  For one thing, blacks generally aren't fans of the *woke* agenda so that won't help *woke* Democrats.  But a lot of the blacks who take part in primaries probably are *woke* so they'd be pushing what their own voting block opposes.  That's a tough circle to square.

Another problem is that one way or another, they'll be pushing DEI, so the winning candidate might be required to be black.  At the moment they don't have any serious black candidates other than Kamala Harris and I'm still convinced there's no chance she'll be the nominee.  Even if she wins South Carolina, she won't get much further and I doubt she'll win.  You'd have to ban any candidate smarter than her from running, that's like banning the sun from rising in the east.

There are a few other possible candidates who might beat her just from what we see now.  I think Gavin Newsom is looking weak but it's not in an obvious way so I don't know what's going on there and so far he's still one of the front-runners.  But I'm starting to get the impression these primaries will come off as more of cheap sequel to 2008.

Remember, Obama didn't expect to win, Hillary had the race locked up.  I think he was just putting his name out to get attention for some future run.  I also think he would probably have been Hillary's first choice for veep.  Obama had been in the Senate for at least a few years and always gets board by then so he might have been looking for a change.  I'd have to check but I think two terms as POTUS is the longest he's ever held one job in his life.

But the point is, even in 2008, it was "anybody but Hillary."  That's the mess I think Harris will be dealing with if she actually makes it to the primaries.  I suspect that by this point, Democrats will seriously see a need to change course.  They may even be ready for a more positive example of Obama, someone who shows up basically out of nowhere and is able to call the party back from their current insanity.  I don't know if it will be John Fetterman or someone we haven't heard of yet who talks like him but at that point I think the party will have realized they need to at least appear sensible.  Not saying the candidate will be any better, but they at least need to present themselves like they can appeal to normal Americans.  I think Bill Clinton was the last Democrat to really try that and he's the one who inflicted Hillary on us.

University of Minnesota is Paying ‘Diversity’ Staffers Almost $1.5 Million Annually
July 24, 2026