Pictures are worth thousands of words
Report from the heartland . . . and it’s bad, very bad
No Tassels, No Ears. A Sterile Summer In Northern Ohio
by AuntieB
Across the road from my house is my neighbor’s cornfield. He lives about a half-mile up the road. The corn is tall, lush and green. It is easily seven or eight feet but something’s wrong with it. On hot July afternoons, the air stays still and scentless. There’s no sweet smell of tasseling corn, no perfume of silks curling from the husks. In the evenings, the fireflies don’t rise from the fields like they have in years past. Instead, they lift in waves from my yard and pastures, blinking above the sheep and chickens, avoiding the corn as if they know it’s no longer home.
I’ve been watching the field every day.
Spring was an odd one. May started out cold, like spring might never come. There was rain, and more rain. Then a dry spell of just a few days, and every farmer in the area rushed to plant before the weather turned again. It was early June by the time the corn went in.
Then came the heat.
June hit like an oven. One day of rain, then nearly a week in the high 90s, with three days in the triple digits. After that, the temperatures plunged into the 60s again, followed by even more rain. For weeks, the corn in the surrounding fields just sat there, two little leaves high, looking like it might never make “knee-high by the Fourth of July.”
But it did. Just barely. Then, almost overnight, summer finally settled in, and the corn sprang upward, from knee-high to towering. By mid-July, it looked like a perfect crop.
Then I started to notice the silence. Usually corn fields hum with life. Birds, crickets, all sorts of insects create a quiet hum all day and all night. I couldn’t hear it.
Some of the fields also looked different. They were planted just before that wild swing of rain followed by heat. That brutal one-two punch hit right as the seeds were waking up. Now the corn has grown tall, but it’s sterile. No tassels. No ears. No harvest.
Farmers here are calling it “tight tassel.”
They say it might affect a third to half of the local crop.
Up until then, the farmers who grew row crops, commodity crops like corn, soybeans, and wheat, were considered the lucky ones.
The fruit and vegetable farmers were already in trouble. Without the migrant workers who normally come for each harvest, their crops are rotting in the fields. The blueberries are finishing up now. When you walk past the rows, you see birds feasting and smell the vinegary scent of overripe fruit. There are too many berries, and too few hands to pick them.
Last month, a local orchard, a century-old family farm, sold off its apple, pear, and peach trees. They plowed under their asparagus field. The orchard building and its coolers were rented out to vegetable farmers hoping to sell directly to locals.
I spoke to the granddaughter of the orchard owners. A few years ago, the family refinanced to install solar panels and new walk-in refrigeration. This year, their year-round workers were gone. Some were deported by ICE. Others just left to avoid deportation. Many of the trees went untrimmed in spring. The family managed to spray most of the orchard themselves, but when they learned the migrant harvesters wouldn’t be arriving, they called the bank, hoping to defer the loans.
The bank said no.
The orchard was auctioned off in two-acre lots in June.
At the local diner, the row crop farmers shook their heads over the loss. Everyone agreed it was a tragedy, but at least the grain farmers were still safe. They didn’t rely on migrant labor because their machines did most of the work.
Then came the hundred-degree days at the beginning of June.
The other morning, my neighbor pulled into the ditch across the road. I stepped out with a glass of lemonade. It was already 80 degrees at 10 a.m. He held the cold glass but didn’t drink it.
We talked about the corn. It looks so lovely, but with no ears.
He’s thinking about cutting it for silage, just to salvage something. But the other farmers have warned him that if the insurance companies decide the silage counts as a crop, he won’t get paid. No harvest, no insurance. No insurance, no next season.
Some of the other farmers will soon start running over their corn with equipment to shred it, and are planning to plow it under this fall or next spring. They will start as soon as the insurance is sure.
He’s hoping to get enough insurance money to cover the loans and try again next year. But he’s got payments on the combine, on the house, and on the new truck. He looks like he’s doing well, and in other years, he would be. But I know he’s thinking about that orchard. A family who farmed this land for a hundred years, and now selling it acre by acre.
I told him I missed the smell of sweet corn on days like this. His field is green and lush, but barren. Even the lightning bugs avoid it. It doesn’t smell like corn at all.
Study confirms what we already knew: Trump supporters are assholes
Study confirms Trump supporters are major assholes
Trump Supporters Report Having Higher Levels of Psychopathy, Manipulativeness, Callousness, and Narcissism
A study found that Trump supporters report enjoying the pain of others, lacking empathy and having higher levels of psychopathy, manipulativeness, callousness, and narcissism.
The Journal of Research in Personality reported that psychopathic traits and malevolent disposition predicted an increase in conservative political ideology, whereas a benevolent disposition predicted decreased conservative ideology, which is to sway more liberal ideology.
Conservative ideology was represented “by symbolic and operational ideology and positive view of Trump.”
The study found “psychopathic traits and malevolent disposition predicted increased conservative political ideology,” whereas “Benevolent disposition predicted decreased conservative ideology–i.e., more liberal ideology”.
It was really quite simple and rather discouraging: “Those viewing Trump favorably reported elevated malevolent and reduced benevolent dispositions, and less empathy.”
https://www.thedailypoliticususa.com/p/trump-supporters-report-having-higher
Fed Chairman Powell slaps the shit out of Trump . . . quietly, on camera
A building in DC belonging to the Federal Reserve Bank is undergoing renovation.
Trump is trying to find an excuse to fire Jerome Powell, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank System. So — Trump went to “inspect” the building renovation, hoping to catch Powell in a huge cost overrun.
Trump said the cost was $3,1 billion when the work was budgeted at $2.7 billion.
Powell questioned him, Trump pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and told Powell the paper showed the he was vastly over-budget.
Powell pointed out that Trump’s figures included the cost of a third building. Trump said something about that being a planned building. Powell pointed out that the building was currently occupied and was built five years ago.
Trump, realizing his bullshit had been caught on camera, changed the subject.
Just watch this. Here Trump makes up a higher number for the new fed building construction, Powell factchecks him – you just added the building that was finished 5 years ago! pic.twitter.com/aa6LClW6CL
— Olga Nesterova (@onestpress) July 24, 2025
One day, when Trump is gone, we will have to deal with the MAGAts
One day Trump’s attempt to establish a dictatorship in the US — supported by about 40 percent of the population – will be over and the rest of us will have to restore our democratic republic.
The question then will be how to deal with Trump’s followers. The example of Nazi Germany after WW II may be instructive.
“Historians have a word for Germans who joined the Nazi party, not because they hated Jews, but out of a hope for restored patriotism, or a sense of economic anxiety, or a hope to preserve their religious values, or dislike of their opponents, or raw political opportunism, or convenience, or ignorance, or greed.
That word is “Nazi.” Nobody cares about their motives anymore.
They joined what they joined. They lent their support and their moral approval. And, in so doing, they bound themselves to everything that came after. Who cares any more what particular knot they used in the binding?”
― A.R. Moxon
When Trump and his dictatorship are gone, and we are faced with dealing with his supporters, remember this:
“They joined what they joined.”
Then, treat them accordingly.
Well, after all, this IS Alabama and they voted for Trump
BIBB COUNTY, Ala. (WBRC/Gray News) – A fourth man has been arrested in a case involving young children and animals being sexually abused in an underground bunker in Alabama, officials said.
On Tuesday, the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office arrested a fourth suspect, identified as 23-year-old Timothy St. John.
Previously, the sheriff’s office announced that three other men were facing charges after they allegedly sexually abused children in an underground bunker.
. . .
Trump is a bullshit artist, you can see that in everything he does and says
Some thoughts on QAnon, Trump, Epstein, and conspiracy nutcases in general
There are a number of things I don’t understand about the Trump administration. But I think I’ve got a handle on what is happening with the Jeffrey Epstein issue. I’ve gleaned it from multiple sources online. I’ve seen little of this in the major media, who seem to prefer taking Steve Bannon’s word that there’s no there there or are looking at it strictly from the point of view of Epstein’s sex trafficking of minors.
There are at least two ways to look at the situation: 1) From a relatively normal logic in which most people agree that sex trafficking children is evil; and 2) From a MAGA/ QAnon perspective, which adds a great deal to the normal logic. The second is important for understanding, and perhaps using, what is happening.
QAnon surfaced for most of us with PizzaGate, when a guy attacked a Washington pizza parlor looking for the catacombs in which children were being tortured. There were no catacombs and no torture. Here’s a summary of that. Some people still believe that that guy had it right.
The general QAnon idea is that people in power kidnap children to harvest adrenochrome to keep themselves young. Pedophilia seems to be part of it too. You can probably find many variations, but it’s basically the same story — these horrible people — all Democrats — are so depraved that they torture children.
Somewhere along the way, Epstein was incorporated into the story. He trafficked children for sex and interacted with many powerful people and thus fit into the existing narrative. Trump, ever sensitive to his batshit-crazy audiences, promised that all would be revealed and implied that the powerful people that QAnon pointed at were indeed part of the conspiracy. He added all the usual objects of hate, including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
Within QAnon, this elevated Trump to savior. He would reveal the pedophiles. There would be trials and executions. This was called “The Storm.” It went further than what Trump said, but he didn’t disavow any of it – they were his supporters, after all.
The QAnon faction has been estimated at a third of Trump’s support. That’s a lot, and milder versions of these ideas undoubtedly float into the consciousness of less-committed followers and voters. Trump promised to release the Epstein files, which the QAnon faction took to mean that The Storm was coming. Vindication at last! Vengeance on Hillary!
And then Pam Bondi said no, there’s nothing there and no, she wasn’t releasing the files.
The faithful were denied The Storm. That is what they are angry about.
Additionally, Trump has handled the non-release in such a way as to provoke suspicions of the worst. DON’T LOOK! NOTHING TO SEE HERE! LOOK OVER THERE — OBAMA AND MUELLER — SQUIRREL!
The QAnon faithful feel betrayed. They were promised revelations of adrenochrome parties and trials and executions, and now nothing.
Many of those less bought-in see trafficking of teenagers for sex with powerful men as a bad thing. Reminders of Epstein’s activities and Trump’s friendship with Epstein are now everywhere. Ew.
Normal people focus on the sex trafficking, and the Democrats are joining Republicans in insisting that the files be released. If they are released and it’s Donald Trump having sex parties with children rather than Hillary Clinton, that’s a problem with a large chunk of his base. It may be even more of a problem with the people who voted for him because the price of eggs was too high.
Trump was NOT shot.
