Evidence

Evidence

Every June, for the past three years, brown or red ants have made their way into our house through the bottom of the front door. Not just a few, but an entire army of ants. The first time they came for three days, starting late in the afternoon. I stood at the door with a vacuum cleaner and vacuumed them up several times until the sun set. The siege halted for the night, then surged the next day. During the initial invasion, an Airbnb guest (a cherubic twenty-something ballroom dancer from China) walked in through the front door —never looked down – unaware of what had attached to her back. They had wings. They were so gentle and delicate, she apparently did not feel them.

“Don’t turn around,” I said. I was aghast.

“Stay where you are,” I said.

She did, and I brushed the ants off her back.

Then the ballroom dancer went upstairs.

I went back to vacuuming.

Ant Evidence

Mike and I weren’t sure where the ants were coming from. There is wood – potential ant havens – all over the property and a woods behind us. We have random pieces of wood artwork near the house, like Mike’s log people: logs about 2 feet high with tennis ball eyes and smiles and masks, assembled during covid. On the west side of the house sit five cords of wood (two-year supply), waiting to be stacked. Sometimes when Mike splits a large piece of wood, a dozen or so black ants scurry out.

The ants appeared the next year, also in June. We jettisoned Mike’s wood sculptures near the front door thinking that maybe his artwork encouraged the invasions. Mike also drilled holes in the trim at the front door’s base and sprayed in an insecticide. It’s very rare that we use toxic chemicals, but there was no other way to get to the ants. So we thought.

This June the ants once again returned. We did the usual vacuuming. We set out ant traps. But they were still gathering on the front stoop, and marching into the front hallway, so Mike removed the outside trim and sheathing beside the door. He looked inside with his trusty flashlight and saw immediately that the still plate was rotten. In 2012 there was major work done on the house which included installation of siding, a sill plate, foam insulation, and windows. During this work, a water pathway had been created between the door and front stoop. Normally this would not have been such a problem, but the front door faces west, the direction that most of our violent rainstorms come from. The rainstorms seem to be getting more ferocious every year. The water and darkness drew the ants.

Sometimes you ignore the physical evidence in front of you (ants!) hoping that the evidence magically disappears. Maybe because there’s so much else going on, like weeding the garden or making dinner, whereas finding and eliminating the ant infestation would take planning and effort. After all, the ants worked hard together to create this nest of theirs.

Mike spent a several hours among the ants. He ducked inside beneath the rafters and scooped out ants and ant poop. He removed the expensive, insect-proof blown-in insulation and part of the house frame. The ants ate right through both, although I think they found the insect-proof blown-in insulation to be an easier job.

Evidence that can no longer be ignored: pitted frame board, hollowed-out yellow foam insulation, and hollowed-out sill plate.

I took a video so that we would never forget our visitors.

Ants!

Other Evidence

Mike is a keen observer of the natural world and was probably looking down for one of his many lost nuts, bolts, nails, or screws when he found this ground nesting bee. He knew that they lived in mini volcano-like dirt structures. If you look closely, you can see the bee. I don’t know what type of bee. We left the bee alone.

Ground nesting bee behind the house.

According to The Bee Conservancy:

Bee careful where you walk — there’s a universe of bees underfoot! Though you may think most bees live in hives like honeybees, 70% of the world’s 20,000 bee species actually live largely solitary lives and lay eggs in underground nests.

I did not know that!

We also have evidence of groundhogs. Most people who live nearby a woods in upstate New York are familiar with these cute, furry creatures. Evidence of their presence included the holes dug out beneath the shed, and the tops of the New England asters and borage bent and bitten. Since Mike ‘electrified’ their tunnel, the visits stopped. But that didn’t stop them from taste-testing the Queen Ann’s Lace outside the shed.

Groundhog evidence: chewed down stalks of Queen Ann’s Lace, or Daucus carota subsp. Sativus.

More Evidence

By now most everyone has heard about Trump’s $14.7 million, no-bid contract renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. First the pool’s floor was painted a dark blue, not recommended as dark colors absorb more of the sun’s energy than light colors. That’s science, maybe middle school science, but Trump and his advisors, sad to say, do not believe in science. Warmer water encourages algae growth. To kill the algae, workers poured in hydrogen peroxide, then used a nanobubble technology. Later

Several people and news organizations began reporting that the blue paint which had been applied to the pool . . . began coming off, with swaths of it floating in the water and to its surface.

This is where Olympic canoeist, David Hearn, comes in. He saw one of the swaths floating around, and curious, he touched it. He admitted this. Next thing he knew, he was indicted on a felony charge.

. . . Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney in Washington, said in a news briefing that prosecutors had “tremendous evidence” underpinning the indictment, and she condemned what she called “unchecked vandalism and civil disorder.”

“National Park Service employees observed Hearn actually forcefully and violently pulling up and removing the bottom liner with both hands,” she said. “According to witnesses, Hearn damaged approximately two square feet of sealant from the bottom of the pool.”

When a parks employee told him to stop, Ms. Pirro said, Mr. Hearn was “belligerent, rude and disrespectful.”

Fox News embellished Pirro’s spin:

Fox News host Jesse Watters delivered a blunt message Thursday night after former U.S. Olympic canoeist David ‘Davey’ Hearn was indicted in connection with alleged damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

Don’t do the crime, if you can’t do the time,” Watters said on his Fox News segment. Hearn was indicted Thursday in D.C. Superior Court on one felony count of destruction of property. Prosecutors said he caused more than $1,000 in damage to the reflecting pool.

It’s now a crime to touch a roving blue swath of liner in the Reflecting Pool. I find it hard to believe that Hearn caused $1,000 of damage. To be fair, other administrations have tried to address the algae growth. No one has been successful. But previous administrations did not paint the pool’s base a dark color against the advice of the experts. They did not drive a motorcade (nine-ton vehicles) over the pool shortly after it had been sealed. You can find photos online of the motorcade’s tracks.

According to four waterproofing experts who investigated the damage, “this is what an installation failure looks like, not vandalism.”

Evidence of Trump’s Finances

On July 2, 2026, The New York Times reported:

This week, new financial disclosures suggested that Mr. Trump has broken that mold by making at least $2.2 billion in his first year back in the White House, including about $1.4 billion from his family’s cryptocurrency businesses.

Mr. Trump’s profits are a haul once unimaginable for any leader of a liberal democracy, particularly a sitting American president. No modern Western leader has ever publicly disclosed such big windfalls while in office.

Yet for many voters in countries run by populists . . . checks and balances in general are seen as just another part of the elite politics they criticize. . . Since Watergate . . . the United States had helped set the standard for international anti-corruption norms. Now . . . Mr. Trump was setting a different standard that could have the effect of demolishing democratic guardrails and clearing the way for others’ conflicts of interest.

Maga’s response to The Trump Family windfalls:

President Trump’s $2.2 billion in personal earnings during his presidency has been met largely with silence from his MAGA base, which has been increasingly willing to revolt against policies they view as an abandonment of his promises to put everyday Americans first.

Kelley Koch, chair of an Iowa group called MAGA Nation, said Mr. Trump’s earnings were proof of his ability to navigate the complicated new frontier of digital finance. “We live in a free country — capitalism,” Ms. Koch said. “He’s extremely smart. He’s a businessman. My kids follow Bitcoin, Polymarket, Kalshi, all of this new tech stuff. If you don’t, you’re going to be left behind.”

No Evidence

Recent California elections were investigated and there was no evidence of voter fraud. And the 2020 presidential election?

The evidence assembled by election experts, courts, and multiple fact‑checking analyses shows no credible evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 U.S. presidential election; isolated incidents were investigated but were too few to affect the outcome. Major institutions including federal law enforcement, academic analysts, and nonprofits characterize the 2020 vote as secure, describing fraud as extremely rare or non‑systemic, while also noting large-scale misinformation campaigns and legal challenges that failed for lack of evidence.

Soon to be Evident

Most people will agree that cost of food has gone up. Gasoline has gone up 26 percent. We feel it every day. The evidence is in our emptier wallets. Lowering the cost of living was one big pillar of Trump’s campaign. However, what he did when he got securely in office was to push for the One Big Beautiful Bill.

. . . on July 4, 2025, Trump signed into law what he called the One Big Beautiful Bill. It passed both the House and the Senate without a single Democratic vote, making it a signature piece of legislation for Trump and his party. . .. NBC News reported on July 1 there was a “seismic shift” at the heart of the new law: it extended about $4.5 trillion in tax cuts to corporations and wealthy Americans over ten years while cutting about $1.1 trillion from healthcare and food assistance programs that serve poor and working-class Americans. It also adds about $4.7 trillion to the national debt over the next ten years.

Digging A Little Deeper

Back to Mike, and his love of this 1950s Sear’s kit house. He replaced part of the sill plate. He replaced the rotted plywood with sheathing (green board) and installed a new frame (horizontal blonde board outlined white caulk). Then he saw a crack – lead-pencil thin – in the masonry. He chipped away the masonry and found what I considered to be a sizeable crack in the cinderblock foundation. He gave me the probable history of how previous owners had tried, unsuccessfully, to fix the crack.

Southwest corner of the house showing a crack in the foundation.

“Houses settle and this happens,” he said, as if the crack was not a big deal. But the crack does make me nervous. Then, as if sensing my discomfort, Mike said, “Remember, the entire load of the house doesn’t rest on this one corner.”

I guess that’s reassuring. Yet I still worry. Like on those days when I get a mountain of texts and e-mails screaming about yet another injustice. Another murder. It feels overwhelming, and I can’t do everything demanded of me. But I can do some things. A phone call to my senators to demand an end to the Iran war takes five minutes. Then there’s an ICE OUT Protest, Saturday, July 25^th. At the very least, I can show up.

Mike went back to mixing concrete and filling the crack, and the insides of nearby hollow cinder blocks. It all started with an ant invasion, three or four years ago. We ignored the signs of a big, festering problem. Now Mike is attacking this infestation and its consequences with everything that he has.

Notes

Ground Nesting Bees - The Bee Conservancy

(100) Letters from an American | Heather Cox Richardson | Substack June 16, 2026

Heather Cox Richardson, June 16, 2026

Washington, DC News, Crews drain Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool after algae, paint issues, Brian Farrell, Jun 19, 2026.

Algae turns reflecting pool green after repainting. Here’s why : NPR, June 19, 2026

The paint is already peeling in Trump’s renovated Washington Reflecting Pool

What to Know About Problems at the Reflecting Pool and Trump’s Claims of Vandalism - The New York Times

Fox News’ Jesse Watters sends scathing 10-word message to Reflecting Pool vandal

How One Shady Firm Is Using Reflecting Pool Renovation as a Cash Grab | The New Republic

Reflecting pool liner failed at seams, experts say, as Olympic canoeist faces felony trial.

How Trump Became the Biggest Crook in the History of Democracy | The Nation

MAGA Base Stays Quiet After Trump Reports Billions in Personal Gains - The New York Times

Trump’s Huge Windfall Has Few Known Global Precedents - The New York Times

David Hearn, Olympian Canoeist, Is Indicted After Arrest at Trump’s Reflecting Pool - The New York Times

How much fraud was there in 2020 election?