Landpride

Yoni Appelbaum:”Deleting accounts of the past not because they are false but because they are true betrays a curious lack of confidence.” Let’s be proud of our incomplete struggle to be welcoming and just. Vote to reject Trump/Heritage Foundation /GOP views based on dull, inaccurate nostalgia.

The National Homebuilders Association reports that sentiment among single-family homebuilders fell to the lowest level since 2013. Blame for the pessimism goes to rising interest rates and material and diesel prices, and to worsening labor conditions related to immigrant crackdown. Thanks, Donald.

I know I put up a lot of big tree pictures, but this image shows the scale of time we should consider when making policy. Not whatever might get votes fot a party when its president has really made huge mistakes and has no consistent values beyond self-interest.

I voted today against stupid wars, environmental destruction for personal greed, and efforts to stifle rights here and around the world. I voted for clean government, thoughtful climate change policies, freedom for Ukrainians, and universal health care. May the Democrats win and deliver.

What ever happened to those Epstein/Trump files?

Humility and accountability - the themes of this very short video: vimeo.com/1231516362/b...

You know the president of the United States has gone deeply off the track of democracy and reason when he believes we need a sniper’s nest at Arlington Cemetery.

High Country News reports how climate change and low Colorado River reserves foster floods, challenge the lives of 11 tribes, and threaten water supplies for 40 million people. But the Grand Canyon’s ecology and geology is always changing. Whatever AI may do, the River, rock, and nature will endure.

Trump lied about trying to help after 9/11 and how fireman later evacuated him from the US Steel building. He also lied about “thousands and thousands” of American Muslims celebrating 9/11, and about the Central Park Five. His ego-boosting crap takes credit from true heroes and ruins innocent lives.

Not news, but worrisome. The Trump GOP strategy may seem to be simply an effort to discourage Dem voters more than Republican ones. But Trump may be delegitimizing elections to prepare for an arbitrary power grab. Support state and local elections officials, and be ready to hit the streets.

Trump/Heritage Foundatiom ideologues ordered US agencies to not collaborate with the Smithsonian. The Congressional GOP attacks the Smithsonian with hearings over partisan bias. Reactionary conservatives hate the fact that not all that’s good in America flows from white male capitalists.

Meanwhile, in Oregon, a project testing how to convert wave energy to electricity just opened, but its operation is hindered by federal funding delays. The fossil-fuel obsessed Trump/GOP/Heritage Foundation regime continues to cripple America’s opportunities to be a true world leader.

Thanks US employees for being professional, despite being disdained by your appointed overlords. It’s wrong that the Trump admin had no public comment or praise for Forest Service employees held hostage in California for 15 hours or their rescuers. Trumpers disrespect federal workers & the public.

Trump says he wants to help ranchers, like Glen Beck, by de-regulating beef processing. No doubt the business is dominated by too few companies, but you can also be sure that health and safety standards will also be lowered. Trump will do anything to get the e-coli vote.

In January the Pentagon had rescinded the policy that Star and Stripes should emphasize editorial integrity. That enabled them to fire the editor after S&S reported on the crappy conditions on the Lincoln. Talk about the need for testosterone: Hegseth and Trump cannot handle the truth.

Reuters says Trump’s concern over autism motivated his decisions to make childhood vaccines more complicated and foster more doubt about their safety and merits. BS. He does not even know what the shots look like. He only seeks to shore up his base and absorb more media attention.

I know I’m repeating myself, but I get confused. Does “Lake America” flow from or to Lake Epstein?

Bret Stephens (NY Times) compares Trump and MAGA to a burlesque stripper increasingly exciting viewers with each piece of clothing they remove. He says more Americans seem tired of the show. May the wave of resistance grow.

The recent progressive Democratic wins and the Tea Party rise in the Tea Party in the GOP both reflect frustration with the status quo. But Democratic progressives actually have serious policy ideas, whereas the Tea Party rallied against things with no real positive agenda.

Wouldn’t it be nice if McConnell’s was simply having a weekend at Bernie’s?

Smoke in the Willamette Valley from distant fires. There have always been fires, but the frequency and expansiveness of Western fires is related to climate change. And the Trump/Heritage Foundation GOP does not give a damn. To them, nature is just a low-value commodity. Unforgivable.

The fires in France and Spain, and in Oregon and Canada, have complex specific causes but climate change underlies them all. Totally disregarding the consequences of fossil fuel consumption, as GW Bush and especially Trump have done, could make the USA the destroyer of Western civilization.

Monsoon rains hit Las Cruces, New Mexico last night. The clarity of the morning is lovely.

Give Trump a million $ plus for his campaign, his ballroom or family businesses, and get a huge non competitive contract, a tax break, and maybe a pardon and good inauguration seat. If you are not rich and buy his MAGA crap, “coins”, and promises, enjoy your patriotic feeling. You get nothing else.

Oregon 2026 needs new politicians, ones not socialized in the status quo. But the GOP is off-track. Some GOP legislators are reasonable, but statewide GOP candidates are in the Trump vortex of divisiveness and superficial symbolic ideas. Vote Democratic and demand accountability, or go further left.

Dear President Trump: Please do not interrupt my regular television programming with you self-serving lies. You created a whole media sewer system called Truth Social to project your verbal diarrhea. Use that, and leave normal Americans alone. Thank you for you attention.

The Center for Disease Control reports record number of cyclosporiasis in Michigan and high figures for other states. If it starts to look like Trump cuts and appointments are to blame, will they take what they consider decisive action - cutting the CDC’s ability to track and report on this also?

AI is essential to America’s future - our future fake political ads and silos of self-deception.

AI: Given the likely great economic disruption and intensified disparity, this is the time to revise our economic safety net. Require adequate environmental protections, but let AI do its thing - while building universal health care and a sustainable social security system into the model.

Trump is initiating a third round of staff cuts for the CIA. The Trump/Heritage Foundaton has identified the greatest threat to their regime: intelligence.

Team USA’s World Cup loss might be simply the Trump sports curse. But Trump sticking his nose into the FIFA process is like him sticking his thumb into your food dish, might or might not hurt you but it’s disgusting. And he sticks his nose or thumb into everything

Should the large majority of America voters properly embrace our diversity and empower individuals by freeing them from concerns such as wondering how to pay for health care, I am sure JD Vance would write a new book about how he agrees.

No wind here, so the picture is not very dramatic, but having recently read a book about Martin Luther King, Jr, I know progress is possible. Have a good 4th.

The Founders had slavery and self-serving legalities, but Jefferson & Company’s words created a North Star towards the principle that we are all created equal. May the words that inspired the historical waves that Lincoln, S.B. Anthony, and ML King worked in push the US for the next 250 years.

Democrats must highlight Trump’s $2 billion+ wealth increase, fueled in part by granting crypto investors and special interest special access and favors. No wonder affordable housing bores him

All Americans should benefit from AI and be compensated for its infrastructure & environmental social costs. Reasonable taxes and regulations of AI will better serve the public than giving government equity in AI. Gov’t ownership will weaken the state’s will to monitor and constrain the industry.

J. D. Vance strongly admires Nixon. VP correctly says Watergate would be one-day news today. The Trump/GOP has conditioned us to accept corruption, lies, and unethical politics. Vance cynically claims moral authority while fully supporting Trump’s unethical, corrupt acts. Read D. Graham (Atlantic)

Describing the 1960s civil rights movement, C V Woodward: “a rising tide of indignation against an ancient wrong, the slow crumbling of stubborn resistance, the sudden rush and elation of victory, and then … the onset of reaction and fading of high hopes.” Sounds familiar. Need action & hope, again.

Pulling out tansy this morning. The yellow flowers are kind of pretty, but it’s a noxious invasive. Kind of unusual for me to be managing it before it goes to seed. Not often I am ahead on such chores. Weird.

You know people must have left early when Trump, posting about his speech opening America’s 250 commemoration, says “… everyone stayed right until the end of my Speech.”

Europe experiences another record-breaking, dangerous heat. The Trump/GOP machine continues to stifle alt energy and promote fossil fuels. Trump evades personal consequences for his selfish acts, but the world will remember how the US destroyed hope for slowing climate change. Defeat the GOP

Kind of boring, but wouldn’t it be nice if Congress passed the Social Security reform proposed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren(D-Mass.) and Sen. Bernie Moreno(R-Ohio)? Taxing all wages at 6.2% for workers & employers without the $184,500 cap would cover full SS benefits, and make SS taxes less regressive.

Grant County, Oregon, home to around 7,300, just renewed funding their only library. With one of the oldest and most conservative populations in the state, this vote shows how Americans of all stripes value an informed public. Grant County is a beautiful and interesting place, worth a visit.

Today’s mail had one item: a dinner invitation from a funeral home. I need a beer!

Evening is settling on our little farm after an unseasonably hot day. It’s an earth worth fighting for

Trump and the G7. What does it matter if we let the Russians destroy Ukrainian culture? The core to a truly free and broadly prosperous world, and US, is fighting (or at least supporting the fight) against authoritarian imperialism.

Meanwhile, Bernard Construction demonstrates Trumper/GOP irony and corruption.Their $5.6 billion border wall contracts are an excellent return on their leaders’ political donations, including $1 million to Trump. No-bid contracts violate market principles. Cut corporate welfare and fund Medicaid.

Hegseth dropped the LDS Church from the military’s list of recognized religion. They backpedaled when Mike Lee of Utah objected, but the Latter Day Saints must know that was no accident. Besides their sacred text not recognized by other sects, Mormons are too progressive for Hegseth’s Christianity.