Friday Homestead Dispatch

Succulent Savory Sunflowers

1.
Since you are reading this, I will assume that you’ve heard about the stunning and surprising defeat of the anti-abortion measure in Kansas. It bears repeating here. If the voters in the red state of Kansas, whose citizens voted for an orange man over Biden by nearly 15 percentage points, can step out in the August heat in huge numbers (for a primary!) to voice their opinions on the abortion issue, it could prove to be a game-changer in the mid-term elections. Let’s make it so, shall we?

Former Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, who served as Health and Human Services secretary in the Obama administration, said, “I think it should indicate both in Kansas and nationally that people can be energized around the notion that the Republicans are determined to have government mandates about women’s healthcare decisions, and that is something that doesn’t sit well with lots of people.”

And there was an ‘anonymous’ text sent to Kansas voters, including Sebelius, that read “Women in KS are losing their choice on reproductive rights. Voting YES on the amendment will give women a choice. Vote YES to protect women’s health.” (The wording in the amendment was crafted so that a ‘NO’ vote was the choice to protect women’s rights over the fetus)

“This misleading text shouldn’t surprise anyone. The anti-choice movement has been lying to the voters of Kansas for decades,” Sebelius said in a statement. “This act of desperation won’t stop the voters of Kansas from protecting their constitutional rights and freedom by voting NO tomorrow.”

And they did…by a whopping 60/40 across the state and 82/18 in Lawrence, of course.

The text was tracked down and the Washington Post reported that the messages were crafted by a political action committee led by Tim Huelskamp, a former hard-line Republican congressman from Kansas, and enabled by a fast-growing, Republican-aligned technology firm, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the advertising blitz. The people and groups behind the campaign have not been previously reported. The messages were sent from phone numbers that had been leased by Alliance Forge, based in Sparks, Nevada. The Alliance Forge client that sent the messages was Do Right PAC, chaired by Huelskamp, who served in Congress between 2011 and 2017. The PAC has raised more than $532,000 and spent more than $203,000 in support of the amendment, according to a filing last month. Huelskamp did not respond to calls and a text message seeking comment.

Peter Slevin, contributing writer at The New Yorker, wrote last Wednesday This is not what Republican leaders of the anti-abortion movement in Kansas expected. Backed by millions of dollars from the Catholic Church, legislators thought they could quietly pass an amendment this week that would strip abortion rights from the state constitution. They wrote a ballot question with inscrutable language and intentionally placed it on a midterm primary ballot that historically draws Republican voters in far greater numbers than Democrats or independents. They figured they could win while the opposition slept.

A historic number of Kansans went to the polls and, yesterday, dashed the Republicans’ plans. Voters halted, at least temporarily, a push for greater abortion restrictions in the state, and boosted the morale of beleaguered Democrats across the country. The ballot measure lost big, by eighteen percentage points, with nearly all votes counted. The turnout—double that of the state’s 2018 primary election—exceeded even the expectations of Kansans for Constitutional Freedom, the strategically named pro-choice coalition. “I have four daughters,” Ashley All, the spokesperson for the coalition, told reporters on Wednesday morning. “This campaign was for them.”

Consider supporting cartoonist Nick Anderson here.

2.
And in Arizona, as of this writing, Kari Lake has won the GOP nomination in the Republican primary for Governor over rival Karrin Taylor Robson. She will be pitted against Katie Hobbs (D). Back in May I wrote that Lake has also baselessly advocated the imprisonment of state Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who is now running for governor, over unspecified election crimes; there is simply no sign Hobbs broke the law. Lake has also pushed for the imprisonment of unspecified journalists she claims have told lies about the election and other subjects. She also said she would not have certified Joe Biden's 2020 victory in Arizona if she had been governor. She also continues to demand the decertification of the Arizona result today, though that is a legal impossibility.

Along with the reality that Lake may be the next Governor, she who wants to block Arizona from using vote-counting machines and do away with mail-in voting, the next Secretary of State could be the also repugnant Mark Finchem. I wrote in February that Finchem took more than $6,000 from the Trump campaign in December, as he was pushing fellow state lawmakers to overturn the November election results. Previously, Finchem has claimed to be part of the Oath Keepers, a right-wing extremist militia that was also present at the Capitol on January 6. In 2014 he sought to recruit new members to the group, according to a Facebook screenshot, and also claimed to be a member of the group in 2014 ahead of that year’s elections.

I’m bringing this up in the hope that the numbers of sane people voting will prevail in November, as it was shown to do in Kansas this past week.

3.
In Tucson, Arizona, from now until the end of the year, Council Member Kozachik and the Ward 6 Office are hosting a pilot program in which they are collecting non-recyclable plastics and turning them into construction-grade building blocks. All those plastic materials you cannot place in the blue bin are right now ending up in the landfill. They have free plastic bags for you to collect them in before dropping them off at the ward office. The Ward 6 Office is located at 3202 E. 1st Street. Stop by and grab your Starter Kit and join them in being a part of this waste reduction/reuse program.

Tucson councilmember Steve Kozachik, left, stands by the new bench in the San Gabriel neighborhood. – Mamta Popat, Arizona Daily Star

Kozachik wrote in his newsletter last week We appreciate the interest so many of you have expressed. There are literally hundreds of you coming by to drop off bottles, so I’m expecting many of those trips to the ward office will soon be double dips, some bottles, some plastic. Throughout the week we’ve gotten some great questions about what you can place in the plastic’s only roll off. The short answer – if it’s plastic, it’ll work. We want to avoid the water bottles, and other #1 and #2’s that Republic uses for their recycling, but all the non-recyclables belong in the roll off.

Anything like this happening in your village?

4.
And in this week’s Grifting News…

Exhibit A: According to the Guardian, Brooke Harrington, a professor of sociology at Dartmouth college in New Hampshire, tweeted on Saturday that she had looked into claims that Ivana Trump’s resting place might benefit her ex-husband’s tax planning from beyond the grave.

“As a tax researcher, I was skeptical of rumors Trump buried his ex-wife in that sad little plot of dirt on his Bedminster, NJ golf course just for tax breaks. So I checked the NJ tax code & folks…it’s a trifecta of tax avoidance. Property, income & sales tax, all eliminated,” Harrington wrote, after opinions accusing Trump of being primarily motivated by the possibility of a tax break began popping up on social media.

Exhibit B: Alex Jones. This guy may even be out-grifting the orange grifter. Financial records indicate that Jones was earning revenue of as much as $800,000 per day in recent years by selling diet supplements, gun paraphernalia and survivalist gear in ads accompanying his broadcasts. Take one look at his website, InfoWars, and you get the idea of the lies, misinformation, and the peddling of wild antigovernment conspiracy theories revolving around national tragedies and terrorist attacks he labels as “false flag” operations. Sample headlines include Alex Jones Witch Hunt Trial is a Violation of Basic Civil Rights, America Run by Globalists Who Care More About Ukraine’s Borders Than Our Own, COVID-19 Gain of Function Hearing Exposes Fauci’s Crimes Against Humanity.

“Are there some really evil, wicked Jews, and wicked Jewish mafia out there? Absolutely. The Jewish mafia created the ADL in 1913 when a pedophile raped and killed a little girl, and they didn't like the fact that he got in trouble, so they said, ‘We’re founding this organization to do this.’ And that’s who the ADL is. And it’s an evil organization, it’s very anti-American, who gives awards to George Soros, a Nazi collaborator, and award to Arnold Schwarzenegger who on record told Rolling Stone he loves Hitler.” — The Alex Jones Show, Feb. 3, 2022

“The system is publicly stealing this election from the biggest landslide and the biggest political realignment since 1776.” — Alex Jones, Million MAGA March, Dec. 12, 2020

“Imagine how bad she [Hillary Clinton] smells, man? I’m told her and Obama, just stink, stink, stink, stink. You can’t wash that evil off, man. Told there’s a rotten smell around Hillary. I’m not kidding, people say, they say — folks, I’ve been told this by high-up folks. They say listen, Obama and Hillary both smell like sulfur. … I’ve talked to people that are in protective details, they’re scared of her. And they say listen, she’s a frickin’ demon and she stinks and so does Obama. I go, like what? Sulfur. They smell like hell.” — The Alex Jones Show, Oct. 10, 2016

The trial that took place this week was about his much publicized claim, after 20 children and six adults were murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, that the shootings never happened and that the shattered families were simply actors. His lying about this and everything else has become the mainstay of right-wing rhetoric we hear every day, and opened the door for liars like Trump and many others to say whatever will trigger their witless political base.

The Washington Post reported that The trial is to determine how much he owes for defaming the parents of a 6-year-old who was among the 20 students and six educators killed in the 2012 attack at the school in Newtown, Connecticut. The parents who sued are seeking at least $150 million.

Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis’s son Jesse was among the 20 students and six educators who were killed in the attack in Newtown, Connecticut, which was the deadliest school shooting in American history.

"Do I look like an actor?" Lewis spoke directly to Jones, who was sitting about ten feet away. Earlier that day, Jones was on his broadcast program telling his audience that Heslin is “slow” and being manipulated by bad people.

“I am a mother first and foremost and I know you are a father. My son existed,” the parent said to Jones. “I am not deep state ... I know you know that ... And yet you’re going to leave this courthouse and say it again on your show.”

At one point, Lewis asked Jones: “Do you think I’m an actor?”

“No, I don’t think you’re an actor,” Jones responded before the judge admonished him to be quiet until called to testify.

Jones now says that he now understands it was irresponsible of him to declare the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre a hoax and that he now believes it was “100% real."

At one point Judge Maya Guerra Gamble told Jones, "This is not your show. Your beliefs do not make something true. You are under oath."

They asked the jury to award $150 million in compensation for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress but as of yesterday, they ordered him to pay only $4.1m…about the income he derives in a week. The rich are rarely punished and then they go about their business.

5.
How about blackmail? Does that fit into the grifting rubric? Steve Ubl, who heads up the the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, just sent out a letter to all members of Congress yesterday with the message, "Those members who vote for this bill will not get a free pass. We'll do whatever we can to hold them accountable.” Uhhhh…

He’s talking about the Senate budget reconciliation bill put forward by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-WV, which aims to cut medication costs for millions of Americans and reduce drug spending by the federal government. It includes provisions allowing the federal government to negotiate the price of certain high-cost medications, caps out-of-pocket costs for Medicare beneficiaries, and penalizes drug makers who increase drug prices faster than inflation.

The Washington Post reported Although it is limited in scope and wouldn’t go into effect until 2026, the measure if enacted would represent a significant step away from the government’s hands-off approach to drug pricing that has stoked drug company profits while fueling popular outrage. Polling has shown for years that huge majorities of Americans from both parties support Medicare negotiation of drug prices.

“Now, finally, like every other country in the world, we’ll be able to negotiate with drug companies on expensive drugs. It is a truly historic breakthrough many, many years in the making,” said David Mitchell, president and founder of Patients for Affordable Drugs, one of the advocacy groups that has been pushing Congress to act.

6.
And from Kentucky, former Tucsonan Barbara Kingsolver writes For those who’ve sent your concerns about the awful news from our region, our own farm is nothing worse than soggy. Our heartbreak is for all the lost lives and devastated communities near us in Kentucky and Southwest Virginia. The flooding is especially cruel in this region of fragile infrastructure and so much institutional poverty. If you’re looking to help, two nonprofits I cherish - Appalshop, and the Hindman Settlement School, both dedicated supporters of Appalachian life, culture, and education - are now working hard on recovery from unfathomable damage. Thanks for doing what you can.

And now…