New York Times, Aug. 9, 1999: Gov. George W. Bush, who has his eye on one new house in Washington, went to settlement today on another west of Waco. “I am pleased to own this beautiful piece of land in Central Texas,” said Mr. Bush, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination. Mr. Bush declined to disclose details of the purchase of the property, an 1,550-acre ranch … The settlement confirmed weeks of rumors that Mr. Bush was planning to set up a retreat here.
La Jolla Light, Aug. 18, 2011: Bob Schuman, a La Jolla-based political consultant who has made a long and successful career out of being the man behind the candidate, has found himself squarely in the media spotlight recently. Schuman, who lives and works in La Jolla, has made headlines by launching Americans for Rick Perry, a national, independent grassroots campaign to draft the Texas governor into the presidential race. He was successful — Perry announced his intention to seek the Republican nomination over the weekend.
La Jolla Light, Aug. 22, 2011: Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is increasing his presence in San Diego, with plans to raze his 3,000-square-foot home in La Jolla to make way for an 11,000-square-foot house, according to documents filed with the city. The former Massachusetts governor … paid $12 million for the three bedroom, oceanfront house built in 1936 at 311 Dunemere Drive on May 30, 2008…
New York Times, Aug. 22, 2011: A [Romney] campaign official confirmed the report, noting, “Construction will not begin until the permits have been obtained and the campaign is finished.” The official also explained that the large renovation is family-motivated.
Pricey real estate: La Jolla had the highest home prices in the nation in 2008 and 2009, the average price for such a home in La Jolla was reported as US $1.842 million in 2008 and US $2.125 million in 2009.
Party Registration in La Jolla: La Jolla is in California’s Senate 39th District, in which voter registration is 42.6 percent Democratic, 27.9 percent Republican adn 24.7 percent Decline to State.
Jess Durfee, chairman of the San Diego County Democratic Party: Let’s hope [Romney] hires a contractor that provides union-equivalent wages and helps to stimulate the local economy. He also could register to vote here and help out the Republicans, whose numbers are dwindling.
We’ve just reached the end of Trump’s first hundred days.
His chaos has infected the world in horrifying ways.
Gutting government, alarming allies, starting trade wars,
Is just the launch of Project 2025 — it will get worse.
So we’ve started counting down to Donald Trump’s LAST hundred days.
“So Trump has produced a revived government in Ottawa with a distinct mandate to fight him tooth and nail. But that’s not the only way he was a loser on Monday. It’s not at all unusual for politicians to rally domestic support by picking a fight with other countries; it’s a jingoistic political tale as old as time. In this case, there is zero evidence (outside the hardest core of MAGA loyalists) that Americans have rallied to Trump’s Canada-bashing cause. Au contraire, as they might say in Quebec …. If that’s not enough, the president’s persistent bullying of Canada has drawn extra attention to his single most unpopular economic policy initiative: the on-again, off-again trade war that has unsettled markets everywhere and convinced price-conscious Americans that inflation is about to make a comeback.”
“Bloomberg used a Large Language Model to scan more than 300 of Trump’s public comments between August 2024 and mid-March as well as more than 3,000 social media posts from the president and members of his administration since the start of 2025. The technique allows for comparing meaning across large volumes of text, even if the specific wording differs. … The results showed a correlation between Trump administration contacts with Putin and subsequent comments that echoed the Russian leader’s own positions.”
“Well, if you’re a white male Christian cisgender macho MAGA man, you can be as dumb as a rock and be deemed qualified to serve as secretary of Defense. That’s apparently what we’ve learned from this episode.”
— Former National Security Adviser Susan Rice bucked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s intelligence following weeks of scrutiny over leaks at the Pentagon amid massive spending reductions at the Department of Defense, The Hill reports.
“Let’s be honest. This uncertainty, this chaos, is no accident. The president of the United States has chosen. Chosen to destroy the federal government’s ability to help people.”
— Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), quoted by The Hill.
“Yes, Trump and his accomplices are malicious. Yes, they’re corrupt. Yes, they’re dangerous. But they’re also profoundly stupid, and their stupidity is hurting or worrying a lot of people who voted for Trump. … So here’s my pitch: To break Trump’s coalition and reclaim our government, we need to talk not just about the administration’s corruption and its abuse of power, but about its pervasive incompetence.”
The U.S. economy shrank at a 0.3% annual pace from January through March, the first drop in three years, as President Donald Trump’s trade wars disrupted business, the Associated Press reports. First-quarter growth was slowed by a surge in imports as companies in the United States tried to bring in foreign goods before Trump imposed massive tariffs.
A new PRRI poll finds 52% of Americans say President Trump is a “dangerous dictator” who poses a threat to democracy and believe he’s overstepped his authority by actions such as the mass firing of federal employees. Said pollster Melissa Deckman: “It’s only been 100 days into the Trump administration, yet we’ve really seen a pushback among most Americans to the Trump agenda.”
“Despite promises to cut spending during the campaign and his first few months in office, President Trump’s federal government has spent about $220 billion more in his first 100 days compared to the same time period last year,” CBS News reports. “In fact, the government is now spending more, day to day, than was spent in nine of the last 10 years. The exception: 2021, when the government was spending trillions to fight the coronavirus pandemic and prevent an economic disaster.”
CNN: “Consumer confidence sank 7.9 points in April to a reading of 86, the Conference Board said in its latest survey released Tuesday. That’s the lowest level since May 2020 and a larger decline than economists had projected. … The survey’s Expectations Index, which captures people’s outlook on the economy, plummeted 12.5 points this month to 54.4, the lowest level in 13 years.”
A new Pew Research survey finds 72% of white evangelical Protestants approving of the way Donald Trump is currently handling his job as president. Also eye-opening: 69% rate the ethics of top Trump administration officials as excellent or good and 57% say they trust what Trump says more than what previous presidents said.
