Friday Homestead Dispatch

It’s easy for an old man to look back and see the obvious, how wasted youth and health and safety are on the young who spurn such things, to be dismayed by the risk you took, but as a youth you do sense that life renders you powerless by dragging you back to it, breath upon breath breath in an endless capitulation to biological routine, and that the human will to control is as much about asserting power over your own body as exercising it on others.
— Breath, Tim Winton

1.
This November Kansans will have a chance to oust Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS), who seems to be Juan Ciscomani’s twin. Both are MAGAs and just love to parrot all things *rump.

The Democratic nominee who won the recent primary is Methodist pastor Rev. Adam Hamilton. As Jen Rubin reports, “A band of white Democratic pastors have a striking message ahead of November’s US midterm elections: Republicans have hijacked Jesus for political gain, and we’re not going to stand for it,” Barron’s reported last month. “[T]hese ministers are so fed up with President Donald Trump, and particularly his policies against immigrants, that they’re running as Democrats in November to rein him in.” Hamilton, together with Texas Senate nominee James Talarico, are among the most prominent of these religious leaders pushing back against MAGA’s obnoxious claim that Democrats aren’t real Christians.

Chances are slim as Kansans tend to vote red. But it’s not out of the question as they do love them some religion. Hamilton’s mix of common-sense policy initiatives, genuine religious faith, and superb communication skills — matched with Trump’s lousy economic record and declining approval in the state (dropping a net 16 points since taking office in 2025) — have unnerved MAGA Republicans who must now spend money and justify their disastrous records. For Democrats and the broader pro-democracy coalition, Hamilton offers a unique opportunity to undermine Republicans’ fake piety, arrogance, and governing malpractice.

Despite Kansans red leanings, they just overwhelmingly defeated a MAGA-backed ballot proposal to amend the state constitution and subject state supreme court justices to direct election.

But all is not wine and roses in the heartland. The NYTs reports Senate Bill 244 redefined “gender” to mean “biological sex at birth” and directed state agencies to revoke and reissue driver’s licenses and birth certificates that had previously been changed to align with people’s identities. It also directed all government and public buildings to designate “multiple-occupancy private spaces” — bathrooms, locker rooms, dressing rooms — as reserved for one sex. Like the infamous 2021 Texas law that enabled ordinary people to sue any person perceived as helping someone get an abortion, S.B. 244 created a bounty system, allowing people in Kansas to sue, for “actual damages or liquidated damages in the amount of $1,000, as well as declaratory and injunctive relief,” anyone they suspected of violating the bathroom provision.

Siobhan Kirchstein, who received an official letter from the Kansas Division of Vehicles instructing her to surrender her driver’s license, was one of hundreds of Kansans who received such letters when Senate Bill 244, a hastily passed piece of legislation, invalidated driver’s licenses on which the gender marker did not match the holder’s sex as assigned at birth.

Kirschstein characterized the process: “It was soft fascism.” It was. Fascism usually begins with redefining the nation by excluding certain groups, which are branded threats to national health and unity. The Trump administration has fixated on two groups most of all — immigrants and trans people — in just this way, smearing us (I am a member of both groups) as predatory, sick, at once subhuman and terrifyingly powerful. Even before Donald Trump was elected for the second time, more than half the states had considered or passed legislation limiting the rights of trans people. The process has intensified in the last year and a half, and the law enacted in Kansas in February is one of the most restrictive pieces of anti-trans legislation passed in any state so far.

Kris Kobach, the state’s elected Attorney General, has been using his power for years aping all of MAGAs talking points. He was the one who crafted the notorious Arizona 2010 SB 107 “show me your papers” immigration enforcement law. And he’s been in lockstep with the current administration to suppress voter’s rights.

If there is any justice and compassion in Kansas this fall, both Marshall and Kobach will be kicked to the street.

2.
While we’re on the religious subject, in a viral video, Rev. Dr. Caleb Lines, a progressive pastor and author, delves into the historical connection between religious anti-abortion activism and racism. He highlights how opposition to abortion wasn’t always a central focus for many Christian groups. Instead, abortion became a pivotal issue for political and religious leaders during the late 20th century, not out of theological necessity but as a strategy to maintain racial and social power.

Dr. Lines explains that in the 1970s, evangelical leaders were politically fragmented. Issues like school desegregation and civil rights had left them searching for a unifying cause. A significant catalyst was the Green v. Connally ruling (1971), which jeopardized the tax-exempt status of racially segregated private schools, many of which were established to avoid integration. Realizing they couldn’t openly defend segregation, conservative leaders turned to abortion as a rallying cry to galvanize their base.

Check out these Instagram posts here and here.

3.
The Guardian reports, and as no surprise to any person who is awake, Donald Trump’s use of his second presidency has reaped an “unprecedented” $2.2bn in 2025 revenues by amassing big cryptocurrency holdings, benefiting from wealthy foreign interests, expanding his Truth Social business and more, while federal oversight of his actions has waned.

Trump last year raked in at least $1.4bn from his crypto ventures according to financial disclosure forms he filed in June. Simultaneously, about one million investors in a Trump crypto scheme suffered almost $3.8bn in losses as their volatile crypto holdings tanked in value.

Monetizing his presidency further this summer, Trump’s Truth Social media business is pushing a new scheme that offers wealthy buyers special early access to his posts for a fee of $100,000 a month, which top Democrats and public interest groups say pose serious conflict of interest and corruption issues.

Democrats have stern words regarding this.

4.
What’s your reality today?

5.
Thom Hartmann wrote a post on Facebook (don’t need to be logged in) regarding the differences in the European food chain compared to ours. The difference between America and Europe isn’t culinary, it’s philosophical. Europe operates on the precautionary principle: prove it’s safe, then sell it. America operates on what I’d call the litigation principle: sell it, and if enough people get sick, their survivors can sue.

And our money-corrupted EPA now permits Americans to have a daily glyphosate intake that’s more than three times what European regulators allow. We may have spent twenty years blaming an ancient grain protein for what a modern herbicide is doing to us.

And then there’s the plastic. Researchers who bought 111 protein products in and around Portland, my own city, found microplastics in 88 percent of them, with significantly higher levels in the heavily processed items.

And glyphosates are still being used and passed along in the food chain in many products. It’s mainly the shit on the shelves in our grocery store’s middle isles.

Shop around the edge of the stores, support farmer’s markets, grow your own. Do your research.

According to the article in Consumer Notice, the 2022 Clean Fifteen are:

— Avocados
— Sweet corn
— Pineapple
— Onions
— Papaya
— Sweet peas (frozen)
— Asparagus
— Honeydew melon
— Kiwi
— Cabbage
— Mushrooms
— Cantaloupe
— Mangoes
— Watermelon
— Sweet potatoes

And now…