The Wild Reed

Wednesday, May 28, 2025

Tony Pentimalli on Trump’s “Death Warrant for Democracy”

Political analyst and social commentator Tony Pentimalli shared the following yesterday on Facebook and BlueSky.

And trust me, it’s an essential read for all who are concerned about President Donald Trump’s ongoing efforts to establish a full-fledged authoritarian regime.

_____________

America on the Brink

Trump’s “Beautiful” Bill Is the
Death Warrant for Democracy

By Tony Pentimalli
May 27, 2025
Let me be blunt: this is no ordinary Washington fight. This is the kind of moment where you either recognize what’s coming or you look back later wondering how you missed it.

Trump and his people call it the “One Big Beautiful Bill.” Beautiful? Please. It’s a loaded weapon, and it’s aimed right at the guts of American democracy.

This 1,100-page monstrosity scraped through the House on May 22, 2025, with a nail-biting 215–214 vote. You’ve got Speaker Mike Johnson, Elise Stefanik, Jim Jordan driving the charge, and over in the Senate, you see names like Josh Hawley, JD Vance, Marsha Blackburn, Ron Johnson doing everything they can to slam it through. Trump? He’s not even pretending to play it cool. He’s out there demanding, “send this bill to my desk AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.”

Here’s where things get real – and I want you to hear this plainly.

First, it guts the courts. There’s a provision that blocks federal judges from enforcing contempt rulings against the executive branch unless you post giant financial bonds. And I mean giant. Who has that kind of money? Not everyday Americans. Not grassroots groups. So if Trump decides to ignore a court order, what happens? The courts can wag their fingers, but they can’t stop him. Even Supreme Court rulings get tangled up and delayed. That’s no system of justice.

Second, it opens the door to election disruption. The bill jacks up presidential emergency powers, letting Trump play the “crisis” card to slow down, disrupt, or challenge elections. No, it doesn’t straight-up cancel voting, but it’s the legal scaffolding to choke the system until it barely functions.

Third, it puts every agency under Trump’s control. Thanks to Executive Order 14215, every agency, even those supposed to stay neutral, now has to follow Trump’s legal interpretations. Science, environment, public health, financial regulation – all reporting to one desk.

Fourth, it makes loyalty the price of a government job. Through the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Trump’s people can monitor, review, and purge civil servants they don’t like. This isn’t a performance issue; it’s a political purge, plain and simple.

Fifth, it hits LGBTQ+ Americans hard. The bill bans Medicaid and CHIP from covering gender-affirming care for anyone, no matter their age. That’s not just cruel – it’s calculated.

Sixth, it threatens your rights to protest, to speak, to organize. Expanded surveillance powers let the government track dissent, monitor online activity, and flag dissenters as potential threats. VPNs? Not named directly, but the powers are so broad civil liberties groups warn they could cover encrypted communications. Add in stronger voter roll purges and tougher ID rules, and you’re looking at a system built to keep marginalized people out of the political process.

Ian Bassin, co-founder of Protect Democracy, cuts right to the bone: “This bill doesn’t just expand presidential authority – it rewires the fundamental checks and balances of our system. It gives the executive branch powers that no modern president has ever held, creating the legal conditions for autocratic governance.”

I’m going to be honest with you: I’ve been writing about politics for years, and this moment? It scares the hell out of me.

Picture Maria, a Chicago teacher, posting a photo of a climate march. That post? Flagged, logged, tracked. Samuel, a federal scientist, publishes research that makes Trump look bad. His job? Suddenly under review. Alex, a trans teenager in Tennessee? Their healthcare? Cut off overnight. This isn’t theoretical – it’s the world this bill is shaping right now.

Here’s the kicker: this bill doesn’t break the law. It rewrites the law so Trump doesn’t have to break it.

We’ve seen it before: Hungary, Russia, Turkey. Authoritarians don’t need tanks in the streets. They just need tired, distracted people willing to look the other way.

Look, I know some of you are thinking, “Tony, the courts will stop him.” No, they won’t. Or, “It can’t happen here.” Well, I’m telling you: it already is.

This isn’t just another headline. This is the fight of our time.

We have to wake up. We have to resist. And most of all, we have to act: call your senators, jam their offices with calls, support the ACLU, Protect Democracy, Common Cause. Share this message. Get out there and be seen. The system will not save itself.

It’s up to us.

And history? History will remember what we did – or failed to do – when everything was on the line.

To read the full legislative text, click here.

Related Off-site Links:
A New Phase of Trump Neofascism – Robert Reich (Common Dreams, May 25, 2025).
Maria Ressa Warns of Authoritarianism in the U.S.: “This Is a Pivotal Moment” – GBH News (May 2, 2025).
Is Trump’s America Still a Democracy?: An Interview With Autocracy Scholar Ruth Ben-Ghiat – Prospect (May 1, 2025).
People Who Fled Authoritarian Regimes Say Trump’s Tactics Remind Them of Home – Frank Langfitt (NPR News, May 1, 2025).
What If It Is Fascism? – Fred Glass (Jacobin, April 29, 2025).
Marks of the Fascist, Tacky, Insatiable Beast – Abby Zimet (Common Dreams, April 27, 2025).
Democracy Is Dying in Broad Daylight: How Trump Is Leading a Totalitarian Coup – Marianne Williamson (Rising, April 8, 2025).
Expert on Fascism Explains Why He’s Getting Out of America; Offers Chilling Warning – Mike Figueredo (The Humanist Report, March 28, 2025).
“How Fascism Works”: An Interview With Author Jason Stanley – Amanpour and Company (March 26, 2025).
How the Media Walked Us Into Autocracy: An Interview with Ralph Nader – The Chris Hedges Report (March 6, 2025).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Marisa Kabas: “We’re Witnessing a Coup By an Unelected Billionaire Propped Up By a Felonious President”
• Timothy Snyder on Resisting the Oligarchs’ “Logic of Destruction”
• “This Is Essentially Viktor Orbán’s Playbook”
• “An Extremely Clever Ruse” by and for the Rich: Owen Jones on Elon Musk’s Coup
• “To Be a Rib in This Body of Our Country”
• Quote of the Day – February 21, 2025
• Ralph Nader: “We’re Heading Into the Most Serious Crisis in American History. There’s No Comparison”
• Why the Democratic Party Is Not Going to Save Us From Fascism
• “This Is How Democracy Unravels”
• Jason Stanley on How Fascism Works
• James Greenberg on Trumpism: “The Tactics Are Unmistakable”

Tuesday, May 27, 2025

“A Holocaust, Live-streamed”

The following commentary by Qasim Rashid was published earlier today on his website, Let’s Address This with Qasim Rashid.

Rashid, a human rights lawyer, is dedicated to “bringing the receipts to disentangle fact from fiction and advance the fight for universal human rights.”

_______________

I woke up to yet another gut-wrenching horror: Israeli airstrikes killed at least 52 people in Gaza Monday night – including 36 Palestinians who were taking refuge in a school-turned-shelter. Most of them were women and children. Killed while they slept, their belongings – and their bodies – incinerated in the night.

This wasn’t a battlefield. This was a school. A shelter. A place people fled to escape death, only to be immolated by it. The Israeli military burned children alive while they slept. Let me repeat, Netanyahu ordered the burning of babies as they slept.

This is not “just” genocide anymore. This is a full blown holocaust. Let’s Address This.

It is time to recognize we are witnessing a holocaust

Leading scholars of genocide, including Israeli scholars, are unanimous in recognizing Israel’s actions against Palestinians as genocide. For example, world renowned Israeli scholar Shmuel Lederman of Open University of Israel wrote just this month:

The cumulative effect of what Israel is doing in Gaza is genocidal in every sense. I think the second half of 2024 is the point at which a consensus emerged among genocide researchers (as well as the human rights community) that this was genocide. Those who may have still had doubts – I estimate that they have dissipated following Israel’s actions since the cease-fire was broken.

Those who continue to deny this genocide for what it is are denying the reality and gravity of the situation. And it is that same reality and gravity that moves us to now consider whether this is also a holocaust. While I accept some might object to using the term holocaust, I ask only that you look at the facts before drawing a conclusion. And when we analyze this from a definitional and factual perspective, the conclusion seems undeniable that what we are witnessing is in fact a holocaust.

Let’s start with the definition. The Merriam Webster’s Dictionary defines holocaust as “a thorough destruction involving extensive loss of life, especially caused by fire.”

Thus, this definition gives us three elements to consider: 1. A thorough destruction; 2. Involving extensive loss of life; 3. Especially through fire.

Now, let us apply that rubric to the ground reality in Gaza.

1. Has Gaza faced a “thorough destruction?”

Here’s what the facts tell us. Just this week a UN survey concluded that more than 95% of land in Gaza is now unusable for agriculture. Another report by Doctors Without Borders in January 2025 concluded that more than 92% of homes and more than 70% of all buildings in Gaza are destroyed, damaged, or unusable. Yet another UN report from last September concluded that nearly 70% of all infrastructure in Gaza has been destroyed or damaged. Finally, simply compare the visual destruction in Gaza from October 12, 2023 to January 11, 2025.

By April of 2024 Gaza had already suffered more than 70,000 tonnes of bombing. To put that in perspective, that is more than the combined bomb tonnage dropped on Dresden, Hamburg, and London in World War II. Now more than a year later, that bombing has only increased. It is no surprise, therefore, that UN Humanitarian Chief Martin Griffiths declared Gaza “uninhabitable” due to the bombing, destruction, blockades, and subsequent famines. Given all of the above data, it is factually accurate to conclude that Gaza has been “thoroughly destroyed.”

2. Has that destruction involved “extensive loss of life?”

The Lancet estimated last summer that Israel’s genocide upon Gaza had already killed up to 186,000 people, conservatively. The analysis concluded:

In recent conflicts, such indirect deaths range from three to 15 times the number of direct deaths. Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death9 to the 37 396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186 000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza.

The current “official” death toll in Gaza is approximately 56,000 people. That alone should suffice any metric to mean “extensive loss of life.” But applying The Lancet’s conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death lands us at a staggering 224,000 people killed. In fact, over the last 20 months, Israeli bombing has killed more children in Gaza than children killed in all global conflicts combined. While the latest data is far worse, even 1 year into Israel’s siege on Gaza, OxFam reported this horrifying fact: More women and children have been killed in Gaza by the Israeli military over the past year than the equivalent period of any other conflict over the past two decades.

Without question Gaza has suffered “extensive loss of life,” one that absolutely and tragically meets the second criteria of the textbook definition of a holocaust.

3. Has that destruction and loss of life especially been through fire?

While the first two definitional elements of holocaust can also be applied to genocide, the dictionary differentiates a holocaust with the third element of “killing by fire.” Again, let us look at the facts.

This week, Israeli bombing burned alive at least 36 Palestinians, including women and children, while they slept in a school designated as a shelter. And this is not a one-off event. It is part of a repeated, sustained pattern in which the Israeli military incinerates entire Palestinian families and family lines. And sadly is not new. Back in December, 2023, the New York Times reported: “Israel claims it protects civilians, but a New York Times investigation found that at least 200 times Israel dropped its most destructive bombs in areas it designated as safe for civilians in Gaza.”

Another investigation by NBC reached the same conclusion, that Israel repeatedly forced Palestinian civilians into what they called “safe zones,” then bombed those very safe zone, killing by fire and explosives the very people they forced into those trapped locations. How is this in any way different than rounding up civilians into camps, and then killing people in those camps?

And these reports were only from the first two months of bombing Gaza. The atrocities that have unfolded since further add to this death toll and mass killing by fire. And then there are the countless horrific stories like of Dr. Alaa al-Najjar, who as reported, “left her ten children at home when she went to work in the emergency room at the Nasser Medical Complex in southern Gaza. Hours later, the bodies of seven children arrived – most of them badly burned.” In total, the Israeli military killed nine of her 10 children by targeting them at home and burning them to death.

Let’s be clear. Hundreds, if not thousands, of bombings on locations Israel designated as safe zones, and forced people to move to under threat of death, before bombing them to death in those safe zones is not an accident – it is intentional policy. This is one reason why ICC prosecutor Karim Khan charged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with war crimes. And we see these blazes live streamed right before our eyes. . . . We see tragic example after tragic example of the Israeli military killing Palestinians by burning them to death. In schools, in hospitals, while they sleep, and while they sit in what is left of their homes. Any fair minded person can see these hundreds, if not thousands, of examples of the Israeli military killing Palestinians by fire and acknowledge that it meets the third definitional criteria of a holocaust.

Conclusion

Let’s recap this painful discussion. The textbook definition of holocaust is a “thorough destruction involving extensive loss of life especially through fire.” Applying this definition to the facts at hand, the Israeli military has:

• Destroyed more than 90% of Gaza

• Killed more than 224,000 Palestinians

• Incinerated Palestinians by fire and explosives with thousands of targeted, deliberate bombings, including in designated safe zones

Based on these documented and irrefutable facts, what other conclusion can we draw but recognize this as the literal dictionary definition of holocaust?

And still, no consequences for Netanyahu. Still, the world’s most powerful nations — including the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Canada – continue to fund this horror, in opposition to the unanimous consensus of genocide scholars that this is genocide, in opposition to their own government reports that Netanyahu is committing war crimes. In my younger years I used to wonder how the world could watch the Holocaust unfold and do nothing? How governments could witness mass extermination and justify their silence with “complicated geopolitics.” But now we don’t have to wonder. We are living through it. We are watching a genocide unfold on our phones in real time.

A holocaust, live-streamed.

– Qasim Rashid
Excerpted from “Holocaust”
Let’s Address This with Qasim Rashid
May 27, 2025

Quote of the Day

[Both Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu] stand accused of trying to undermine his country’s courts and the “deep state” – i.e., all the institutions that uphold the rule of law. In Trump’s case, it’s effectively to enrich himself personally and shift wealth in the country from the least privileged to the most privileged. In Netanyahu’s case, it’s effectively to escape the many corruption charges against him and shift power and money away from the democratic, moderate Israeli center to the settlers and the ultra-Orthodox. That group will keep Netanyahu’s coalition in office as long as he excuses the ultra-Orthodox from fighting in Gaza and allows the settlers to continue their march to annex the West Bank today and Gaza tomorrow.

When Netanyahu was elected in November 2022 and began forming his Jewish supremacist coalition, I wrote a column the next morning headlined, “The Israel We Knew Is Gone.” I hope I was premature – but I hope even more that I won’t soon have to write the same column about America.

The year 2026 will have a lot to say about whether the Netanyahu and Trump cults can be contained. That year, Netanyahu will have to hold national elections and Trump will have to face the midterms. Those committed to democracy and decency in both countries have one job between now and then: organize, organize, organize to win power.

Nothing else matters. And everything is riding on it.

– Thomas L. Friedman
Excerpted from “The Flashing Signals That I Just Saw in Israel”
The New York Times
May 27, 2025

Friday, May 23, 2025

Ted Rall on What It Means to Be a Leftist in 2025

Starting with Bill Clinton, the Democratic Party purged leftists. . . . [As a result] there's no room today for anything to the left of corporatist liberalism inside the Democratic Party.

– Ted Rall

Ted Rall is one of the most influential political cartoonists on the left today. In his new book What’s Left: Radical Solutions for Radical Problems, he presents a manifesto for left-wing politics in 2025, blending incisive analysis with his political cartoons.

In the following Current Affairs interview, Rall outlines what it means to be a leftist in an era where the Democratic Party has abandoned progressive ideals. He argues that the left must focus on real, substantive demands – from healthcare and the defense budget to a livable wage, offering both a critique of the past and a vision for what the future could hold if we organize around principles that actually improve people's lives.

Related Off-site Links:
An Interview with Ted Rall – What’s Left Podcast (May 24, 2025).
The Left Is Dead – What And Who Will Rise From the Ashes?: An Interview with Ted Rall – The Kim Iversen Show (April 26, 2025).
A Movement Beats a Party Every Time – Ted Rall (Creators, February 21, 2025).
We Need More Independent, Working-Class Political Candidates – Nick French (Jacobin, March 25, 2025).
Why the Democratic Party Is Not Going to Save Us From Fascism – The Humanist Report (March 6, 2025).
Wimpy Democrats Cannot Lead This Fight Against Trump – Ralph Nader (Common Dreams, March 24, 2025).
Sanders Pushes Progressives to Run as Independents in Response to Election Losses – Austin Denean (NBC-15 News, March 21, 2025).
Jill Stein and Kshama Sawant on the Fight the Rich Movement – Sabby Sabs (January 26, 2025).
Trump Is Unpopular – and So Are the Do-Nothing Democrats – Jeet Heer (The Nation, February 18, 2025).
If You’re a Democrat Annoyed by Outraged Voters, You Are Doing It Wrong – Norman Solomon (Common Dreams, February 24, 2025).
Democrats Are MIA – Just When the Country Needs Them to Counter the Trump-Musk Blitzkrieg – David Corn (Mother Jones, February 24, 2025).
Dems Reportedly Angry That Progressives Are Pushing Them to Act Like an Opposition Party – Jake Johnson (Common Dreams, February 12, 2025).
Ted Rall: “If I’m on Luigi Mangione’s Jury, He’ll Walk”; United Health CEO Killed Thousands for Profit – The Jamarl Thomas Podcast (December 14, 2024).
U.S. Presidential Candidate Jill Stein: This Two-Party System Is Jeopardizing America’s Future – Young and Profiting (August 20, 2024).
Ted Rall Interviews Green Party Candidate Howie Hawkins – TedRallToons (October 20, 2020).
Ted Rall on the Many Ways the DNC and Democratic Party Leaders Piss On and Disrespect Progressives – Rob Kall Bottom-Up Show (July 23, 2020).
Ted Rall: Hillary Clinton Is a “Disaster for the Democratic Party” – Newsmax (March 18, 2015).

UPDATE: Did the Left Learn Nothing from Bernie 2020? – An Interview with Benjamin Studebaker – Bad Faith (May 26, 2025).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Butch Ware on His Run for California Governor and the Wider Goal of Disrupting the Duopoly
• Eric Fernández: Quote of the Day – May 14, 2025
• Progressive Perspectives on Bernie Sanders’ “Fighting Oligarchy” Tour
• Why the Democratic Party Is Not Going to Save Us From Fascism
• An Opportunity for Organizing Against Duopoly
• Building Solidarity on the Left
• “It Is Our Responsibility to Make a Third Party Viable”
• “The Moment Is Ripe”: Butch Ware on Building a “True Oppositional Alternative” to the Duopoly
• Democrat Talk on the Eve of Trump’s Return
• Breaking the Mold: Why Progressives Should Push for Marianne Williamson to Lead the DNC
• Inauguration Day Thoughts
• The Green Party’s Jill Stein and Butch Ware Give Their First Post-Election Interview
• Progressive Perspectives on Where Democrats Went Wrong in the 2024 Election
• “A New Chapter of the Democratic Party Needs to Begin”
• What the Republican Party Now Stands For
• The Lamentable Legacy of the Biden Administration
• Jill Stein: “We Give Reasons for People to Come Out and Vote”
• We’re Witnessing a Liberal Meltdown Over Jill Stein
• Butch Ware: “You Can Actually Vote Your Conscience”
• Peter Bloom on the Unmasking of the “Democratic Charade”
• The “Green Smoothie” Option
• Green Party Vice Presidential Candidate Butch Ware in Minneapolis
• When Democrats Undermine Democracy
• Elise Labott on How Third Parties Can Revitalize Democracy
• Something to Think About – August 15, 2024
• Centrist/Corporatist Democrats Have Just Launched “Left Punching” Season
• “Americans Deserve Choices”: Jill Stein on Breaking Points – 4/30/24
• AOC Falls in Line
• The Cassandra of U.S. Politics on the “True State of the Union”
• Will Democrats Never Learn?
• “The Next Step Is a Green Step”: Cornel West Endorses Jill Stein (2016)
• Hope Over Fear: Voting Green

Thursday, May 22, 2025

In the Garden of Spirituality – Mike George

“We are not on earth to guard a museum,
but to cultivate a flowering garden of life.”

– Pope John XXIII

The Wild Reed’s series of reflections on religion and spirituality continues with an excerpt from Mike George’s Discover Inner Peace: A Guide to Spiritual Well-Being.” This excerpt focuses on the “source of the spirit.”

________________

According to Hindu belief, atman (the Sanskrit word for self or individual spirit) is of the same essence as, but distinct from, brahman (the source of spirit.) One of many Westerners inspired by this idea was the 19th-century American poet Walt Whitman, who believed that true knowledge comes through union with the Self in its universal sense. At such moments of union (which Whitman called “merge”), we see the enhanced clarity and can read infinite lessons in common things. Our essential and original divinity of the individual spirit implies the equality of all and the universal responsibility we share for loving each other.

The idea of a transcendent spirit, or godhead, is present in most religions. Commonly this universal spirit is symbolized as light. It is also described as the source, a kind of inexhaustible spiritual reservoir to which we are all connected. This sense of derivation brings in the idea of parenthood – spiritually, we are the offspring of the source.

Try to hold these three ideas in your mind simultaneously: light, source, parent. But bear in mind too that no image or analogy is ever going to be able even to come close to conveying the true quality of the source, which to use an old-fashioned theological word is “ineffable” – too great or intense to be rendered in words.

In the same way that the physical source of life is the sun, the spiritual source is the divine, the eternal, the all-encompassing. We can recognize the reality of this within our own spirit with total conviction, but we cannot confirm that reality through the evidence of the senses or through the power of reason. Mystics have testified to their direct contact with the ineffable in language that is often powerful and strange; and people who have undergone near-death experiences have often described a rushing toward a light at the end of a tunnel or an encounter with a blaze of light that radiates underconditional love and acceptance. But if we wish to have a truer sense of the source, it is more fruitful to take a step inward, to the spirit, than to set too much store by the reported experiences of others.

Why do we lose awareness of the supreme source? Mainly because we are enticed by body-consciousness. . . . The heart of spiritual awareness is the reawakening of our relationship with the source. Our relationships on earth are horizontal and progress within limits. Our connection with the source of the spirit is the transcendent, vertical relationship that gives the deepest meaning to life, like the axis around which our world spins. Spiritual awareness is a moving current of energy that carries everything in the direction of higher evolution.

. . . Many people believe in God because they are attached to a belief system. They literally “hold” beliefs, hanging on to the dogmas and rituals of religion out of fear or habit rather than love (which keeps fear at bay). This dependence on systems and rules can prevent some people from truly connecting with the source. Purely intellectual belief has little, if any, transformative energy. One indicator that belief can be an attachment rather than an experience is the intolerance that we often find expressed toward people who believe in a different understanding of God.

When people tell us that the divine is everywhere, present in everything, yet requiring no obligations of us, we are witnessing a kind of spiritual draft-dodging. The obligations on us to live by the spirit, in love, openness and trust, are in fact profound; and so are the corresponding rewards. If we retrain ourselves to be open to the spirit from whom we came and to whom we will return, we will feel the rightness of this relationship, and we will also feel its joy.

– Mike George
Excerpted from Discover Inner Peace:
A Guide to Spiritual Well-Being
Chronicle Books, 2000
pp. 36-39

Tuesday, May 20, 2025

Butch Ware on His Run for California Governor and the Wider Goal of Disrupting the Duopoly

As regular readers of Wild Reed would know, I’m supporting Green Party candidate Butch Ware in his run for California Governor.

Recently, James Li of Breaking Points interviewed Ware about his gubernatorial candidacy and how it fits into the greater goal of disrupting the duopoly.

It’s an interview of 26-minute duration and one that is well worth checking out.

Following are some online comments in response to Butch Ware’s appearance on Breaking Points.

• I’ve grown to HATE politicians. But this guy gives me hope. Following him for a while now. I wish him all the best.

• It’s entirely possible that Butch could get top two in the primary. If he does, I think he'd have a very good chance of winning as Governor. I wish my state elections worked like that.

• I voted for Dr. Stein & Dr. Ware this past election. I’m glad to see Dr. Ware continuing. It’s about getting the message out through all the noise and disruption.

• Thank you for highlighting the Green Party. The main barrier to the Green Party is that they don’t accept corporate money and therefore don’t have as much media reach. Independent media needs to stand up and highlight parties that aren’t bought by billionaire lobbyists.

• As an LA resident who worked in the non-profit low income housing industry, I can say he that Butch is absolutely right about the homeless industrial complex. Our company was a mismanaged mess run by people who only used the non-profit as a stepping stone to get somewhere else and had no idea how to manage a budget. So much waste.

• Thank you for covering this. More third party coverage please! Butch is great. He had my vote for VP and he has my vote for Governor.

• Wow! Excellent job, Breaking Points – engaging third parties from the start. When people ask what third parties are doing between elections, it is that they’re actually in the streets and in community spaces organizing and trying to resolve the issues. They don’t spend the whole time just campaigning. Or raising money. And people ask, Where was Dr. Jill Stein? She was at the encampments and rallies and working on healthcare issues.

• This is why I always lean Green; when they speak, I tend to agree 100% with what is said.

• We need more Greens on our ballots! I’m hoping Butch has a real chance this election.

• Dr. Ware, let’s do this! Thanks for offering clarification re. the AOC/Bernie tour. People showing up for these events are understandably desperate because of the insanity of the Trump regime and the general oligarchical tenor/terror of both parties.

• He’s not as polished as I’d expect a former VP candidate to be, and I don’t agree with everything he says. . . . BUT, this guy vs Newsome or Kamala? This guy every time.

• He should make his campaign slogan, “Butch, please!”

Sunday, May 18, 2025

Dandelion: A Celebration

– Photo: Michael J. Bayly

– Source: Dandelion Appreciation Society

– Art: Valentin Korotkov

– Photo: Michael J. Bayly

– Art: Adriana Morgante Giornetti

– Photo: Michael J. Bayly

– Source: Dandelion Appreciation Society

– Photo: Michael J. Bayly

– Art: Phil Greenwood

– Photo: Michael J. Bayly

– Image: Photographer unknown

– Image: Artist unknown

– Art: Peter Tregub

– Source: Dandelion Appreciation Society

– Image: Photographer unknown

– Photo: Michael J. Bayly

– Source: Dandelion Appreciation Society

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Photo of the Day – May 23, 2017
• Photo of the Day – June 3, 2017
• Of Dandelions . . . and Dandy Lions
• Prayer of the Week – July 28, 2013
• May Vignettes (2023)
• Spring . . . Within and Beyond (2022)
• Spring Awakens! (2020)
• The Call of Imbolc
• Resilience and Hope

Related Off-site Links:
Let Dandelions Grow. Bees, Beetles and Birds Need Them – Kate Bradbury (The Guardian, May 12, 2015).
Stop the Dandelion Madness! Making Peace with Dandelions and Bees – Laurie Neverman (Common Sense Homesteading, April 19, 2016).
16 Benefits You Didn’t Know About Using Dandelions – Debra Maslowski (DIY Natural, May 19, 2014).
3 Delicious Summer Recipes for This Powerful Flower – Nick Polizzi (The Sacred Science, July 5, 2017).

Wednesday, May 14, 2025

Quote of the Day

Bernie and AOC’s tour does absolutely NOTHING for progress. ZERO. They are not organizing disruptions to the economy. They are not organizing mutual defense training. They are not organizing an alternative to the oligarchs.

They are doing one thing only: fomenting illusions in the genocidal, strike-breaking, wealth supremacist, oligarch-controlled Democratic Party; doing everything possible to prevent an alternative from coalescing out of necessity, either by voters moving to the Green Party, or by organizing new parties that can eventually coalesce into a single alternative nationally while remaining independent locally.

Except by making their tour “Fighting Oligarchy” they create and maintain the illusion that the Democratic Party doesn’t work for rich donors.

Like the health insurers that lobby against Medicare for All. Like the real-estate lobby that fights affordable social housing. Like the defense contractors that fight peace. Like the oil and gas companies that fight real energy reform. And so on.

– Eric Fernández
via social media
May 14, 2025

The Wild Reed

Wednesday, May 28, 2025

Tony Pentimalli on Trump’s “Death Warrant for Democracy”

Tuesday, May 27, 2025

“A Holocaust, Live-streamed”

Quote of the Day

Friday, May 23, 2025

Ted Rall on What It Means to Be a Leftist in 2025

Thursday, May 22, 2025

In the Garden of Spirituality – Mike George

Tuesday, May 20, 2025

Butch Ware on His Run for California Governor and the Wider Goal of Disrupting the Duopoly

Sunday, May 18, 2025

Dandelion: A Celebration

Wednesday, May 14, 2025

Quote of the Day

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