Birth of A Monarch

A couple years ago, my wife and I created a rain garden.  We selected plants that liked their feet wet, to include a swamp milkweed. To our surprise, last August the milkweed was chock full of monarch caterpillars voraciously consuming it.  They ate, and ate, and ate, until all that was left were the stalks.  Not a leaf in sight.  Then, as fast as they had appeared, they disappeared.  Where did they go?  A week later, we noted several green chrysalises in the garden.  About ten of them.  The caterpillars had alighted from the milkweed and found shelter in nearby ornamental grasses.  

The chrysalises were beautiful, a deep green with a golden beaded band near the top.  The green transformed after a week, it seemed overnight, to black, but in reality, the chrysalises were turning translucent.  The black was the emergent butterfly, patches of fiery orange could also be seen through the translucent chrysalis. Any day or moment they would emerge, I thought. 

By then I felt like an expectant father.  Protective, pacing the gardens edge, counting the chrysalises, trying to divine when they would emerge. You see, there were no contractions to count, no water breaking, no nurses to explain.  

Hourly I checked on them.  I mostly missed the emergence of the monarchs over the next day and a half, stepping out to see new monarchs unfolding their wings, flapping them at times, but mostly, it seemed they rested, gaining strength and taking in the world and preparing for their journey.  This was the generation that would return to Mexico this fall.

The next day, exactly at dawn, I came out of the house to check on the remaining chrysalises.  I spied an emerging monarch.  “No, no,” I thought, as I ran back into the house and got my camera, sporting a macro lens for this moment.  No time for a tripod.  Back out in a flash, I crouched in the garden, focusing the best I could in the low light.  The slight breeze did not help as the monarch swayed.  

The monarch was already outside the chrysalis and beginning to unfold its wings.  Wow, I thought, they pop out damn quick.  Given the low light and hand holding the camera I hoped the images were in focus.  Some were, some weren’t. Over the course of two days, we counted about a dozen monarchs that emerged from known and unknown chrysalises.

This spring we planted two more swamp milkweeds, hoping to entice more monarchs to lay eggs.  This August we counted abut 13 caterpillars, and like last year, after voraciously denuding the milkweeds, they disappeared.  We only found and counted 4 chrysalises, however.  Disappointed, we hoped we missed some, not finding them in the ornamental grasses.

Yesterday, two of the four chrysalises turned translucent.  Learning from last year, I pre-staged my camera and tripod beside the front door.  I was determined not to miss the emergence of this year’s batch of Monarchs. 

This morning, when I checked them early, the Monarchs had not yet emerged.  Them, around late morning, a summer shower ripped through.  Heavy rains, winds and gusts, one of several storms pummeling central Virginia over these past few weeks.  After lunch, I went back out to check and discovered both Monarchs had emerged.  

Damn, missed the emergence again.  

As I photographed and observed the two, to my surprise, four more Monarchs emerged from the grasses.  A total of six, with two known chrysalises remaining.  What a beautiful moment.  

In this dreary time, with an angry Monarch spreading his wings across America, one must take in and relish the beautiful moments in life.  I have written enough about these dark times and wanted to write about hope and the goodness that can still be found. I found it with these Monarchs.

Godspeed to these emerging Monarchs and wish them a safe journey back to Mexico where there they will produce a new generation of Monarchs to spread their wings and migrate north across this great continent.

The Power Grab:  NextEra Energy and Virginia’s Dominion Power.

NextEra Energy wants to buy Dominion Power for $67 billion, or thereabouts.  That’s not good for you, for me, for Louisa, or for Virginia.

This week Virginia’s Lt. Governor Ghazal Hashmi started a listening tour in Loudoun County to hear what voters have to say about the proposed acquisition or merger.  According to reporting from one packed public hearing, the critiques and concerns were many.  Only one person, it was reported, approved of the merger.  NextEra is expanding and buying electric company utilities up the east coast, not just Virginia.  

It is a juggernaut.  While it boasts of being Florida’s largest public electric utility, it has its corporate fingers and tentacles everywhere: Data centers, power grids, transmission lines, battery storage, solar power, gas fired power plants to power data center campuses, nuclear plants.  Last year It partnered with Google Cloud to “scale multiple gigawatts of power” for new data centers across the U.S. 

With the acquisition of Dominion Power, NextEra claims it will be the “largest regulated electric utility business by market capitalization and one of the world’s largest energy infrastructure companies,” adding for emphasis, “with an unmatched operating platform benefiting customers.” Ha! 

I think we know a monopolistic octopus when we see one.

They are, it seems, bad neighbors as well.

NextEra describes itself as “the largest electric power and energy infrastructure company in North America and is a leading provider of electricity to American homes and businesses. Headquartered in Juno Beach, Florida, NextEra Energy is a Fortune 200 company that owns Florida Power & Light Company, America’s largest electric utility, which provides reliable electricity to approximately 12 million people across Florida. NextEra Energy also owns one of the largest energy infrastructure development companies in the U.S., NextEra Energy Resources, LLC. NextEra Energy and its affiliated entities are meeting America’s growing energy needs with a diverse mix of energy sources, including natural gas, nuclear, renewable energy and battery storage.”

NextEra has been in federal court recently.  

In April NextEra agreed to a $150 million settlement with investors who alleged “fraud and deceit.”  I think the settlement is merely window dressing and housekeeping before it becomes an issue with Virginia’s regulatory body.  The settlement, it appears is still under review, by a federal appeals court, before final approval.

Clean Virginia, an advocacy group that has filed motions with Virginia’s State Corporation Commission regarding the proposed merger, stated that the merger “would hand Virginia’s electric grid to a company with a troubling track record of raising bills in Florida, heavily interfering in state politics and prioritizing corporate profit over the public interest” (https://www.cleanvirginia.org/2026/07/15/mergerapplicationfiled/).  This included ‘ghost candidates’ and surveillance of a journalist.

It has its own political arm:  NextEra Political Action Committee.  In fact, there was a Federal Election Commission (FEC) investigation in 2022 which alleged campaign finance law violations.  In 2024 the FEC closed the investigation, citing it did not find illegal activity.   Hmmmmm.

Additionally, according to online reporting, NextEra’s PAC has donated approximately $60 million to various politicians in various states.  Our new governor received some of that largess.  It was reported that Governor Abigail Spanberger’s inauguration committee received two donations from NextEra totaling $15k.  While $15k seems like a small amount, it opens the door for larger donations.  Like a free bag of dope.  Spanberger, now that she is on the bandwagon to challenge the merger and apparently the first governor in Virginia history to “intervene” in the regulator process, should return the donation.

Campaign donations, public utilities, and politicians go together like a peanut butter and banana sandwich on white bread, and, are not a new combination to Virginia.  A recent Virginia Mercury article reporting on the NextEra merger, “Public Utilities Shouldn’t be Funding the Campaigns of the People who Govern them,” journalist Ivy Main highlighted the perils of taking unlimited donations from public utilities.  According to the article, Virginia’s House speaker Don Scott reportedly has received nearly $4million in donations from Dominion Energy over the years.  Wow, $4 million (https://virginiamercury.com/2026/08/31/public-utilities-shouldnt-be-funding-the-campaigns-of-the-people-who-govern-them/#).  

Overall, the merger would be a disaster in my opinion for Virginians already battling high electricity prices and a tsunami of data centers, Louisa County included.  NextEra has a history of price spikes.  In Florida they raised the rates 33 percent from 2021 to 2026 and has a poor history of customer service, unauthorized charges, doubling or tripling rates after the initial, introductory, contract expired.  

Basically, the merger would create a monopoly with NextEra’s tentacles everywhere, from our pocketbooks to politicians’ pockets.  Monopolies mean higher prices, poorer service, and more woe. Let’s not move on to that next era of monopolies.

Time to write your local representatives and Governor Spanberger.  The final decision by regulators is January. Tell them “NO” to the merger.

Les Enfants Terribles

“The infant is more secure in his world than the mature man is in his wider world,” wrote American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr in The Irony of American History. Stop, pause and think deeply about those words.  That thought is both simple and profound, I think.

Niebuhr was an influential voice of conscience as the shadow of the Cold War darkened the world and McCarthyism was eating at America’s soul. He wrote through the lens of a mid-century white male American gaze, eliding some of America’s worst excesses as a nation, or, at times, obliquely referencing them.   But who doesn’t write though the lens of the present and one’s lived experiences.   

His salient points, nonetheless, were about virtue, and in his book’s case: not rejecting the “Christian idea of the ambiguity of human virtue” while America pursues it Cold War battles with the Soviet Union through proxy wars.   He wanted America to avoid the trap that our way, the American way, was the one true way. 

You can imagine, were he alive today, Niebuhr would be a tenacious critic of Trump and the Christian right’s cult of virility; embodied by Stephen Miller’s pronouncement that the only virtues in the world are power, strength, and violence. Niebuhr’s and Trump’s concepts of virtue and Christianity are diametrically opposite. 

As for an infant being secure in his world, I think Niebuhr was critiquing the naiveté of the growing popularity of the myth of American exceptionalism and government policies that flowed from that belief.  The hubris that Americans of European heritage were a chosen people, in a land created by God for them, blinded them to history’s lessons.  We see that myth once again resonant in America.  Our government is run by these man-infants, these enfants terribles who naively and mistakenly believe that they are God’s chosen, that they speak for God, that only they have the virtue to lead America.  

Well before Niebuhr, many, many centuries ago, Abu al-Ala al Ma’arri  — a freethinking  poet, philosopher, and writer, some would say heretic — was born in Syria in the late 10th century.  He was skeptical and suspicious of any religion’s claim to absolute truth.  

Blinded by smallpox while young, he was nonetheless a prolific author, dictating his many works.  I came across a quote of his while reading about the crusades.  At the time, I was posted to Beirut and had borrowed a three-volume work on the crusades to help pass the nights away.   While al Ma’arri lived before the first crusaders set foot in Jerusalem in 1099, he did live in an Arab world where Shia and Sunni battled over the soul of Islam, territory, and power.  

Al Ma’arri’s truism stuck with me.  I even printed and framed the quote, hung it in my office for years:  “The inhabitants of the earth are of two sorts:  Those with brains, but no religion, and those with religion, but no brains.”  It was reminder to me of the sectarianism, fanaticism, and zealotry that drove (and drives) much of our world’s history.  In Beirut, the grim reminders of sectarian civil war were everywhere.  

It’s about extremism.  Whether it be religious bigotry and zealotry predicated on deliberate interpretations, misreadings, or misconceptions of religious texts to murder the other; or scientific Darwinism used to justify the sterilization or murder of the mentally and physically disabled.

We never seem to learn the lessons of sectarian violence.  If anyone is the personification of this ideation of no brains but religious certitude and bigotry it is Secretary of Defense Hegseth.   For Trump in general, and Hegseth in particular, the Iran war wasn’t really a war to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons, although it was part of the equation. The war is really about going to war with Islam on a global scale, punishing a transgressive Iran for not becoming supplicants like the Saudis or Emirates.  

Netanyahu, for his part, exploited Trump’s and Hegseth’s biases and infant-like world view for his own purposes.  For all his faults, and there are many, Netanyahu is not naïve like an infant, he sees the world for its complexities.

As for domestic politics, most every single consequential executive order issued by this President revolves around a form of white male Christian sectarianism and zealotry:  American history (who counts and who’s erased), DEI (reinstating white male privilege), Immigration/birthright citizenship (racist replacement theory), access to reproductive rights (male control of the female body), and vaccinations (God decides who lives or dies). 

Our government, it seems every day, is falling deeper into the latter half of al-Ma’rri’s dictum and continues to self-radicalize as Trump’s misjudgments tanks the economy and he is humiliated on the world’s stage by Iran.   It is bad enough that the Executive Branch has been captured by these enfants terribles, but when Congress and the Supreme Court are also controlled by this gang of enfants terribles, things become dangerous.  

Trump’s strongman grip strangling America’s democratic institutions is starting to slip as he becomes weaker politically, but his weakness is also simultaneously a time of greater danger.  All strongmen flail violently when the end nears.  Miller’s virtues — power, strength, violence — are a warning.

Democratic institutions like the courts should be rallying around the Constitution, and they are at the lower levels.  But, given the Superme Court’s recent stay of a lower court’s order blocking implementation of parts of Trump’s executive order regarding mail in ballots, I doubt the Court will block Trump’s meddling and interfering with the mid-term elections. 

America has had periods of rupture before and come back stronger.  Will our country recover from the coming rupture this November?  We have seen what Trump’s acolytes can and will do to overturn an election.  Unlike January 6, 2021, the guard rails are gone.  They are acting for God, they believe.  Will Trump’s paramilitaries (DHS) rain pain on Americans after the mid-terms?  Will the military occupy blue cities and seize ballot boxes?  Will the Justice Department conduct mass arrests and detentions of Trump’s political opponents, blue state governors?  Will Speaker Johnson refuse to seat newly elected democrats in the House?  I wouldn’t be asking these questions if I thought they were far-fetched.  Ten years ago, I would say these are crazy questions.  Now, you feel in your gut that they aren’t far from the mark.

 Our 250-year-old experiment in in serious jeopardy, both at home and abroad.  We are a nation without friends.  A bully pushing agendas driven by sectarian ideologies.  Even our geographic neighbors – Canada and Mexico — hate us, it seems with a passion.  Why? Because we the people choose this nut job now residing in the White House.  We put him there. We choose this path with eyes wide open.   Most Americans who voted choose to reelect a Machiavellian, narcist, psychopath with a god-complex whose first disastrous term ended in an attempted coup.  What could go wrong?

V is for Voting

Famously, presidential candidate Bill Clinton posted a reminder note that said, “It’s the economy, stupid.”  A cue that wonky policy sound bites or nuanced discourses on the pro and cons of a particular policy only go so far with the average voter.  For most voters, it comes down to kitchen table issues:  

Can I pay the mortgage or rent? 

Can I feed my kids?

Can I afford a middle-class life?  

They measure these questions against the previous few years:  Am I better off today than I was four or two years ago?

For conservatives and Republicans, continuing failures to successfully manage kitchen table issues – remember 2008 and 2020, the Great Recession and then the COVID pandemic – brought them down a path to embrace the most divisive candidate, and then President, in modern American politics.  Kitchen sink issues were replaced by xenophobia, homophobia, Islamophobia, gynophobia and its corollary misogyny, and racial animus.  

The basic kitchen table question must be revived.  Am I, and the people of Louisa, better off today than they were January 20, 2025?

I say, “No.”  The people of Louisa are worse off by most kitchen table measures.  

Louisa’s farmers are hard hit.  High diesel and gas prices, record fertilizer costs combined with low prices for commodities, and disappearing lucrative foreign markets, like China, are crushing Louisa, and American, family farmers.  This is the result of Trump’s misguided tariff war with China.

While unemployment remains at 3.9 percent, core inflation continues to shrink paychecks.  Wage shrinkage from inflation continues to be a self-inflicted wound.  Trump’s economic nationalism, which includes steep tariffs on most countries, continues to drive inflation up and shrink real wages.  

The disastrous never-ending war on Iran continues to keep gas at over $4.00 a gallon and diesel at over $5.00.  Borrowing money is increasingly costly as investors sour on America’s ten-year bond, raising interest rates for mortgages, credit cards, car loans, and small farm and business loans. 

Food Insecurity: The Louisa Resource Center Council’s Food Bank has seen record numbers of visitors, I learned, over the past year.  Louisa County Public Schools this  summer — starting June 8 — began a summer school age nutrition program serving meals at various locations throughout the county. The meals are free of charge, and available for any child ages 2 to 18. No ID is required. This program speaks to the ongoing food crisis for vulnerable children in our county. How is it we have the first trillionaire, yet our children go hungry?

Housing costs in Louisa soar:  Housing costs have been increasing for well over a decade.  The median sales price for a home in Louisa is $445k, up from $234k a decade ago.  The price per square foot, however, increased close of 6 percent over the past year.  This is a huge rise, directly correlated to Trump’s tariffs.  His recent 50 percent tariff on Canadian wood products, will only make matters worse regarding affordable housing.

Access to health care continues to shrink: Deep cuts to Medicaid and Medicare subsidies and the elimination of the Affordable Health Care Act premium subsidies have left many folks in Louisa County with no health care or delayed health care, many of them vulnerable children.

Meanwhile, as the denizens of Louisa pay the price for Trump’s mismanagement of about everything he touches, he and his family have profited to the tune of $2 billion dollars, mostly in the dark world of crypto currency.  The swamp he promised to drain has turned into a deep sea of corruption.

You can also frame the “are you better off today” question in terms of our democracy.  Is America’s democracy better today than it was before January 20, 2025?

I think most Americans would respond with an emphatic “No.”

By most measures, America is backsliding from the hallmarks of liberal democracy:  Pluralism, the rule of law, a healthy civil society, a government with three coequal branches, government transparency, equal access to voting and representation in government at local, state, and federal offices.

Sustained attacks on America’s institutions such as a non-partisan civil service, an apolitical military, Congressional powers, the federal courts, an independent justice Department have severely degraded America’s 250-year experiment.

Our Justice Department has become so rotten that a man was arrested and charged with vandalizing the Lincoln reflecting pool just to support Trump’s claims that his embarrassingly botched reflecting pool make over was sabotaged.  Prosecutors lied to and mislead the grand jury that indicted him.   This is what dictators do.

Despite all these challenges and threats to our democracy, we must still care …. and take the time and effort to vote.  The Democratic primary is this coming Tuesday, August 4.  Get out and vote for one of the three Democratic candidates for our district (Tom Perriello, Rob Tracinski, and Suzanne Krzyaowski).

As for this November, Rep. John McGuire (R) must go.  He has done nothing over the past two years for the folks of Louisa County or the 5th Congressional District.  His main job has been to kiss Trump’s big, beautiful orange ass. His legislative achievements for Louisa: a ‘big fat nothing burger’ as right-wing influencers are fond of saying.  Mostly culture war stuff.  He did vote for the big, beautiful bill, however, which crushes Medicaid and Medicare services to Louisa’s poorly paid working class and her seniors, and refuses to reign in Trump’s never ending illegal war with Iran.  As for Louisas farmers, he has been a big fat zero.  

Seems he is more interested in the stock market as he bought Nvidia stock twice this year and other stocks that his House Committee assignments oversee.  Once a couple of weeks after Trump purchased his own Nvidia shares.  Hmmmm?

Now, as we near the November mid-terms, Trump is increasingly signaling he will not accept the results.  He is positioning the Justice Department, the country’s intelligence services, and the Department of Homeland security to support his claims of fraud.  Will the military stay above the fray or go all in with Trump? What will the Supreme Court do?  

This raises the very serious question that are on many minds.  Will there be a peaceful transfer of power after the mid-terms?  Voter turnout this November must be huge. A democratic win must be overwhelming. Not by one or two points but by tremendous majorities.  Trump won’t dare to challenge a massive electoral loss, especially in deep red counties and states.  At least I hope he doesn’t.  But he is crazy, and not all there, so who knows.  If he does, then we must be prepared take a different tact, massive civil disobedience in coordination with court action. 

So, ask yourself, and ask your family or friends, are we better off today than we were in January 2025?  No. So, let’s get out and make our voices heard next week and in November. 

This Old Flag: What is the 4th of July to Americans?

“Our masters, they have lived under the flag, they got their wealth under it, and everything beautiful for their children. Under it they have grind us up, and put us in their pocket for money.  But the first minute they think that old flag mean freedom for we colored people, they pull it right down and run up the rag of their own. But we’ll never desert the old flag, boys, never; we have lived under it for eighteen hundred six-two years, and we’ll die for it now.”

Corporal Prince Lambkin, 1st South Carolina Colored Infantry

What is the 4th of July to Americans? 

Besides the obvious play on Frederick Douglass’ famous speech, that question has occupied, no troubled, my mind these past several months.  Not only for Americans as a people, but for myself as well.  Why does our 250thanniversary simultaneously inspire me, but also repel me?  I recall the energy and excitement of our bicentennial in 1976, although through the lens of a 12-year-old.   

As a patriotic American that served in uniform and served in our foreign service overseas in war and conflict zones, this anniversary bothers me. It vexes me because I think, it is deeply tarnished and soiled.  Mostly because it has been stolen and appropriated by Trump for his personal glorification and enrichment.  I ‘ve been to countries where tinpot dictators’ rule and Trump’s America has many hallmarks of these petite regimes.

There are two national plans on how to celebrate our nation’s story of independence. One, a bipartisan celebration planned by a commission authorized and funded by Congress in 2016, and the second, a partisan celebration highlighting one faction:  The Trump Organization.

America250 is, according to its website, is the “U.S. Semi-quincentennial Commission established by Congress in 2016 to plan and orchestrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.”  It is led by persons “Appointed by the House and Senate leadership of both parties, the nonpartisan Commission is composed of 16 private citizens, 4 U.S. Representatives and 4 Senators, as well as 12 Ex Officio members from all three branches of the federal government and its independent agencies.”  For close to a decade this commission has been working across party lines to plan for our 250th anniversary celebrations.

Freedom250 is a Trump initiative managed by an event planning firm – Event Strategies LLC — with long ties to Trump. As with anything Trump, things are opaque and murky, like the reflecting pool.  Its’ website is silent as to its leadership, organization, and make-up.  The White House calls it a ‘public-private venture.’  The company, according to a Wired article, has raked in tens of millions of tax payer dollars, to including a potentially $100 million windfall in government contracts with the General Services Administration. (https://www.wired.com/story/they-helped-plan-the-january-6-rally-now-their-events-company-is-raking-in-millions-in-government-contracts/)

Initially, from what I could gather, both the America250 commission and Trump’s Freedom250 organizers worked together.  The original event organizer for America250 was let go and Event Strategies LLC got the gig.  This explains, I think, what happened to $150 million that was appropriated by Congress for the 250th anniversary in the “big beautiful bill.  The bill did not designate whether the taxpayer dollars went to America250 or Freedom250.  From what I learned from an NPR interview regarding Freedom250, it was initially agreed that $100 million would go to America 250, with the remaining $50 million going to Freedom250.  That decision was reversed.  As of this writing, less than a week before the 4th of July, America250 was allocated only $25 million. This begs the question, where did the $125 million go? 

Freedom250 quickly monetized July 4th by selling Freedom250 logoed merchandise through its website, mimicking America250 website selling America250 logoed anniversary products.  Sales from America 250 would go to the Congressionally authorized Commission presumably.  Where then, do the sales from Freedom250 go?  Event Strategies LLC?   It seems Trump and his corrupt cronies are perhaps profiteering from our grand 250th anniversary.  

This arrangement highlights, I think, that Trump’s love of America is purely and simply transactional.  “Make America Great Again” is a multimillion-dollar profit center for Trump.  A slogan to capture the MAGA masses imagination and rake in their hard-earned dollars.

Our country has many blemishes, our history is troubled, great injustices were perpetrated, but as Corporal Lambkin intoned in his remarks, this is our country good or bad, we love it, and we will die for it.  It is as much our land as it is anyone’s, slave master or freed slave, and we will fight for it.  And we [the former slaves now soldiers] have the patriotic moral high ground.  He probably wouldn’t understand the MAGA slogan, or, more likely, think it more fitted to the slave master’s rebellion than his own quest for freedom and equality.

Lambkin and his fellow soldiers knew something about what it means to be a patriotic Americans.  Something that Trump can’t ever grasp.  America is about community, about service, about sacrifice, about progress towards a better good, to work for something bigger than oneself.  Trump is and always will be about himself.  Greed, corruption, money, power, and fame.  Trump had an opportunity to fight for his country.  He did not.  He thinks those that served and died for their country are “suckers.”  His words not mine.  

Trump is like those slave masters who got their wealth under the American flag, but when it became too pluralistic, too inclusive, too democratic, they rebelled like spoiled pampered aristocratic slave masters.  Instead of moving forward toward a better America, Trump wants ‘real’ Americans to follow him as a redeemer, a modern-day liberator of white Christian America.  

This self-styled autocratic piped piper of Mar a Lago is trying to take America back to a mythological, godly ordained America where great white men ruled wisely and justly, women swooned and had babies, and blacks knew their place.  That is the America Trump yearns for. I can’t tell if he wants to go back all the way to 1856 or just 1954.  Erasing the history of blacks, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and women is part of that strategy.

Trump and Freedom250 hijacked our 250th anniversary. It is the coronation and deification of Trump, not a celebration of America and all walks of American life.  The mixed martial arts extravaganza on the White House lawn is an example of this Trump centric spectacle.  An eroticized male theater of mostly naked white men grappling with each other for the affections of our dear leader Donald Trump, with Trump sitting ring side admiring their hard, sweaty bodies, in a space mostly devoid of women.   Happy Birthday wishes big boy!

In the run up to into 2026 we have been subjected to a barrage of endless Trump vanity projects.  Renaming the Kennedy Center after himself.  Building a billion-dollar ballroom, hanging three-story tall portraits of himself on government office buildings, bejeweling the White House with gold, having the Treasury mint coins with his image, ordering special U.S. passports be printed with his image superimposed over a famous print of the signing of Declaration of Independence.  The message:  Trump is America, America is Trump.

It is hard to remain enthusiastic about our 250th anniversary when it is overrun by rats and imbeciles.  The constant conveyor belt of assaults on our constitution, on who’s a citizen, on our rule of law, on our civil society, on our courts, on our men and women of color who serve our country with dignity and honor, fatigues the everyday American. This list of Trumpian inspired vainglorious squalor can go on for pages.   

So, what then is the 4th of July to me?  For me it remains a time to reflect on our American origin stories, the confluences of many nations, representing peoples already here and those that immigrated, willfully or otherwise.  We were conceived as a nation built on an ideology of equality, not race or nation.  It was this enlightenment promise that all men are created equal that drew people to this country in the decades that followed. That promise today is still seen as equally valid as it was the day it was penned.  

We still have work to do, however, as anyone not blinded by rightwing propaganda can see.  Our founders in the preamble to the Constitution recognized that achieving this grand promise was just a beginning.  The preamble is a statement of a goal, an endpoint in some distant future.  It is a goal I think most Americans continue to strive for.  To go backwards is un-American, to go forward is quintessentially American.  

I am proud to be an American, but I find myself more akin to Corporal Lambkin’s ideal of what it means to be an American, to make for a more perfect union, despite our imperfections.  Not the backwardness, hate, and greed represented by the current person soiling the White House and its hallowed grounds. America and Americans are better than that.

Trump’s Capitulation: Hegseth Loses his First War.

President Trump signed the now infamous Memorandum of Agreement with Iran at a Palace of Versailles dinner party last evening. From one image, it looks as if the dinner plates, silverware, and crystal wine glasses had been shoved aside so that Trump, grasping an extra large sharpie, could sign the document. Reminds me of a family dinner and getting my parents to sign my report card.

A lone candle and table top flower arrangements were the official props for this sad bit of presidential theatrics, a sad charade intending to display strength and power, but in reality, signifying a humiliating a defeat for America.

Didn’t Nixon sign some peace accord in France?

Why Trump would use a dinner party at Versailles to sign the Memorandum of Understanding is bewildering, considering that the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, signed over a century ago, was a keystone in the the rise of Nazis Germany and World War Two. The agreement is mostly a one-sided capitulation to Iran. There are a number of 30- and 60- day sticks and carrots in the agreement, however, but mostly carrots. It reflects Trump’s desire to extract himself out of his self made briar patch.

Trump’s first term trashing of Obama’a deal with Iran cascaded into an avalanche of disasters: The deaths of tens of thousands, including 13 servicemen and women in Trump’s latest war; the expenditure of 100s of billions of American taxpayer dollars; a creating critical shortage of munitions to defend our homeland.

Additionally, an unforeseen consequence of Trump killing the Obama agreement, and disengaging from dialogue with Iran, was Hamas’s attack on Israel on Oct 7. This horrific attack was followed by Israel’s war of retribution against Hamas and the death of over 50,000 Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

Iran would never have greenlighted Hamas to attack Israel, I argue, if the Obama era deal — the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — were in force. The horrific terrorist attack on Israel and the resultant wars on Irans’ regional surrogates and tens of thousands of civilian deaths were avoidable. These deaths and never ending wars were primarily the result of Trump’s racial animus and vendetta towards Obama, his rank amateurism, hubris, and plain stupidity.

None of the ever changing goals of the war were achieved: Iran did not end its ballistic missile program; Iran did not end its nuke program; Iran did not turn over all its fissile material to the U.S.; Iran did not end support to proxy groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, Iran’s regime did not change. None.

Below are some key points of America’s agreement with Iran:

And I thought it wasn’t a War: An “immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts” and a final deal to follow, confirming the “permanent termination of the war.”

No Regime Change: The U.S. and Iran promise not to “interfere in each other’s internal affairs.”

The Retreat of U.S. Forces: The “U.S. will undertake to remove its forces from the proximity to Iran within 30 days of the final deal.”

Ending the U.S. Naval Blockade: The U.S. will immediately begin removing its naval blockade of Iranian ports.

“Best Efforts” to Open the Strait of Hormuz (that weren’t closed before the war): Iran “will make arrangements using its best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman.”

“Not One Penny for Tribute” …fees, well, okay: ‘Iran will consult with Oman to define future administration and maritime services in the Strait of Hormuz.’

Can we say,’graft.’ Real Estate Developer and Trump Son-in-law — Jared Kushner’s — modern Marshall Plan: The U.S and others will develop a $300 billion reconstruction and economic development plan for Iran. Funding partners TBD.

Ending Sanctions on Iran: The U.S. will “undertake to terminate all types of sanctions” against Iran in an agreed upon schedule as part of the final deal.

No Nuke Promise, again: Iran reaffirms that it shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons. Pending the final deal, Iran can maintain its’ current “status quo “of its nuclear program.

The Obama Plan Redo: Iran agrees to “blend down its enriched uranium” under the supervision of the IAEA. Where have I seen IAEA oversight before? Wait, wait, it will come to me.

No New Sanctions on Iran’s Nuke Program: “The U.S. will not impose any new sanctions and will not deploy additional forces in the region.”

Waivers for Iran Exporting Crude Oil: The U.S. will “issue waivers” for the export of Iranian crude oil pending termination of the sanctions.

‘Let it Go, Let it Go,’ unfreezing Iran’s assets: The US will unfreeze Iran’s frozen assets and make them fully available (pending additional negotiations).

Now He Needs the United Nations: The final deal will be endorsed by a United Nations’ Security Council binding Resolution.

The full MOU:

1 — The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran and their allies in the current war, by signing this MOU, declared the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon, and undertake from now on not to initiate any war or any military operation against each other, and to refrain from the threat or use of force against each other and ensuring the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon. The final deal will confirm the permanent termination of the war on all fronts, including in Lebanon and other provisions of this paragraph.

2 — The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran undertake to respect each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and to refrain from interfering in each other’s internal affairs.

3 — The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran commit to negotiating and achieving the final deal in maximum 60 days, expendable with mutual consent.

4 — Immediately upon the signing of this MOU, the United States of America will begin the removal of its naval blockade and any disturbances or impediments against the Islamic Republic of Iran, and will fully end the naval blockade within 30 days. During this period, the traffic of vessels will be in proportion to the numbers of pre-war traffic being restored by the Islamic Republic of Iran. The United States of America further undertakes to remove its forces from the proximity of the Islamic Republic of Iran within 30 days after the final deal.

5 — Upon the signing of this MOU, the Islamic Republic of Iran will make arrangements using its best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels with no charge for 60 days only from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman and vice versa. The traffic of commercial vessels will immediately start, and considering the need for removing the technical and military obstacles and demining by the Islamic Republic of Iran, will be instated within 30 days. The Islamic Republic of Iran will conduct dialogue with the Sultanate of Oman to define the future administration and maritime services in the Strait of Hormuz, in discussion with other Persian Gulf littoral states in line with the applicable international law and the sovereign rights of coastal states of the Strait of Hormuz.

6 — The United States of America undertakes with regional partners to develop a definitive, mutually agreed plan with at least USD $300 billion for the reconstruction and economic development of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The mechanism for the implementation of this plan will be finalized as part of a final deal within 60 days. All required licenses, waivers, and permissions needed for the relevant financial transactions will be granted by the United States of America.

7 — The United States of America undertakes to terminate all types of sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran, including the United Nations Security Council resolutions, IAEA Board of Governors resolutions, and all unilateral U.S. sanctions—primary and secondary—in an agreed upon schedule as part of the final deal. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America acknowledge the critical importance of the sanctions termination issue above mentioned and expressed their intentions to immediately address these issues in the negotiations in order to achieve mutual agreement on them.

8 — The Islamic Republic of Iran reaffirms that it shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons. The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran have agreed to resolve the disposition of stockpile enriched material pursuant to a mechanism that will be mutually agreed upon in accordance with the schedule mentioned in paragraph seven, with the minimum methodology to be down blending on site under the supervision of the IAEA. The two parties also agreed to discuss the issue of enrichment and other mutually agreed matters related to the Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear needs, based on a satisfactory framework being agreed upon in the final deal. The final deal will confirm the provisions of this paragraph. The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran acknowledged the critical importance of the nuclear issues above mentioned and expressed their intention to immediately address these issues in the negotiations in order to achieve mutual agreement on them.

9 — Pending the final deal, the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran agree to maintain the status quo. The Islamic Republic of Iran will maintain the current status quo of its nuclear program and the United States of America will not impose any new sanctions and will not deploy additional forces in the region.

10 — The United States of America undertakes that immediately upon the signing of this MOU and until the termination of sanctions, the U.S. Department of Treasury will issue waivers for the export of Iranian crude oil, petroleum products and derivatives, and all associated services, including banking transactions, insurances, transportation, etc.

11 — The United States of America undertakes to make fully available for use the frozen or restricted funds and assets of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Upon the implementation of the MOU, the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran will mutually agree on the procedures related to the release of these funds during the negotiations. Such funds, whether retained in the original account or transferred, shall be made fully usable for payment to any ultimate beneficiary designated by the central bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The United States of America undertakes to issue all the necessary licenses and authorizations accordingly.

12 — The United States of America and Islamic Republic of Iran agree that an executive mechanism will be established to monitor the successful implementation of this MOU and the future compliance of the final deal.

13 — After signing this MOU, and subject to the beginning of the implementation of paragraphs 1, 4, 5, 10, and 11 of this MOU, and the continuing implementation of these measures, the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran will start negotiations regarding the final deal exclusively on the other paragraphs.

14 — The final deal will be endorsed by a binding United Nations Security Council resolution.

Screwworm:  Putting the Screws to Texas and John McGuire

Screwworms infestations were detected in Texas recently, according to media and government reports.  The screwworm, known as the New World Screw worm, is a fly that lays eggs on open wounds, for instance on livestock, that then grow into flesh eating maggots.  It can be fatal if not treated.

The screwworm was eradicated from the U.S. in the 1960s.  For decades, the U.S. worked to keep the screwworm at bay, working closely with Mexican and Central American governments.  This included the U.S. government funding facilities to produce and distribute sterile flies, for instance.  In 2023, the screwworm started migrating north again, probably climate change related, no?  As a result of further northward migration, a ban importing cattle from Mexico was recently put in place.  This is a key contributor to the shortage of beef cattle in the U.S., in fact, a 75-year low.  

If the screwworm infestation becomes more widespread in Texas, the state could suffer close to $2 billion dollars in economic losses.  Canada banned livestock imports from Texas temporarily.  A 1976 screwworm outbreak in Texas caused economic losses between $700 million and $1.8 billion in 2024 dollars, according to a Congressional Research Report submitted as part of a bill introduced in 2025: H.R. 3392 (more on that bill a bit later). 

The response to the new infestation has been, to say the least, interesting.  Texas ranchers are blaming the federal government for being too slow to respond.  Yep, the same Texas ranchers I suspect who voted for Trump, once, twice, and most likely thrice.  They, I would imagine, cheered on the DOGE cuts to USAID and USDA, two agencies that are instrumental in programs to contain the screwworm south of the border. Things could have been different, but ….

On May 14, 2025, Texas Republican Tony Gonzalez introduced the “STOP Screwworms Act” in the House of Representatives.  H.R. 3392 required the Secretary of Agriculture to “establish a New World Screwworm fly rearing facility, and for other purposes.”  It never got past being introduced, much less become law.  It was a bipartisan bill, with over 50 cosponsors.  The same CRS report mentioned above outlined the devastating impact an infestation could have on Texas and other border states if no action was taken.  

The failure of this bill to pass and become law illustrates how screwed up and incompetent the House of Representative is under the control of the Republicans and Speaker Johnson. Not to be outdone, the current Trump appointed Secretary of Agriculture blames, wait, wait, wait….. Biden and open borders.  The cattle ranchers aren’t buying it.  

Some ranchers have proposed self-funding screwworm eradication programs given the federal governments slow and incompetent response. You know, you get slow and incompetent when programs are defunded, scientists hounded out of government service, and all sorts of other stupid stuff.  

Meanwhile, as the screwworm infestation gets worse, our President keeps a razor sharp focus on……the reflecting pool, his billion-dollar ballroom, and his birthday bash UFC fight at the White House’s Thunderdome.   Texans.  What the hell did you think was going to happen?  It’s your own damn fault.

Another thing that irritates me is that when there was a 2025 measles outbreak in West Texas that infected close to 800 kids, of whom about 100 were hospitalized, and two died.  All hell should have broken loose, but no.  Texans seemed to shrug.  Fits the anti-science, anti-vaccine, anti-government ideology of Texas. Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human services blamed the vaccines and suggested suspect treatments.  Where was the outcry?  I guess you all like your cattle more than your kids.  About 70 percent of kids are vaccinated in Texas, that is below the national average.  

Come on Texas, you can do better.  The federal government’s slow and haphazard response should be a warning to farmers and ranchers that still support Trump, in Texas and my home state of Virginia.  He’s not your friend.  Do you trust a politician whose hands have never touched dirt, or had a callous, or owned a dog, or got up before sunrise?  

But, I imagine you’re busy trying to find buyers for soybeans and corn crops you planted and worrying whether you can afford the diesel fuel or fertilizer as Trump’s incompetent and haphazard war of choice with Iran drags.  You farmers and ranchers all need some “straight” talk and tough love at times:  You screwed yourselves.  

This November, put a stop to the chaos. Make Congress vote for you and not Trump. Vote for Democratic candidates and family farmer friendly policies, not for corporate farm monopolies.  

John McGuire, our representative, has not introduced or sponsored one bill to directly help the farmers of his district. He doesn’t serve on any farm or agricultural subcommittees.  He did vote for two key bipartisan farm bills, however, which included funding for a new fire truck for Louisa County and monies for the Nottoway Sheriff’s office, hardly direct help to our farmers here in Louisa.  He did sponsor a bill to “Make the District of Columbia Safe and Beautiful” in 2025.  

The sugar farmers love him it seems, as he gets campaign donations from them and their associations.  For instance, the America Sugar Cane League, the Michigan Sugar Growers PAC, and the Sugar Growers Cooperative Florida.  Do we even grow sugarcane in Virginia?  Did I mention he has been buying Nvidia stock this year?  Twice (January and May).