Domino theory: Trump's overreach is metastasizing.

 "Give him an inch and he'll take a mile."

The burden of the amicus curiae brief my attorney filed is that President Trump is out of control, a flagrant scofflaw.

And that he's getting worse.

Today's news makes my point for me. 

Wall Street Journal: Trump and Bolsonaro

Trump is using the threat of a punitive, trade-killing tariff as a lever to bully Brazil into not prosecuting a former president, Jair Bolsonaro, who, like Trump, attempted unsuccessfully to stay in power after having lost a presidential election. Trump sympathizes with Bolisaro and wants the U.S., via our trade policy, to give him a boost.

Attorney Thad Guyer prepared the brief. It combines three examples of Trump's overreach:

  -- Trump's claim that he has the power to set tariffs on a whim;

  -- the claim that he can ignore laws passed by Congress to ensure a professional, merit-based Civil Service;

  -- his lawsuit against every federal district court judge in Maryland, for having insisted on due process on deportations.

The point of the brief is that Americans need to hold the line, stopping Trump on tariffs, because if he gets away with ignoring clear Constitutional separation of powers here, there is no stopping him. The cancer is metastasizing. 

The authors of the Constitution had good reason to want Congress, not the Executive, to set tariffs. They were attempting to keep unified a set of former colonies with very different interests, and Congress is set up to broker those conflicts. Cloth manufacturers in mill towns in New England would want tariffs on foreign cloth. Southern tobacco and cotton farmers would want the cheapest and best cloth, wherever made. Congress, with representatives giving voice and power to everyone, kept tariff policy from exploding the country -- a difficult task at a time when tariffs were a primary source of national income. A president -- John Adams from Massachusetts, for example -- if left alone to set tariffs might please textile manufacturers of his acquaintance in Massachusetts with tariffs, convinced he was serving the national interest, putting a burden on people in southern states -- who were not likely to vote for Adams, anyway -- who paid higher prices because of the tariffs. A president couldn't be trusted with that power.

In the case of southern Oregon wine, the premise behind my interest in the case, tariffs on China matter. In stores like Costco, where margins are tiny, a rise in wine bottle prices from 90 cents to $1.75 squeezes out all the margin in competition with Spanish wines. Senator Jeff Merkley has visited my farm, and Senator Ron Wyden and I have discussed the economics of grapes and melons multiple times. I may not get the tariff policy that pleases me -- indeed, I expect I would not under any circumstance -- but at least I have representation and a voice.

The worst fears of the authors of the Constitution are being played out today, with Trump exercising his personal agenda supporting a fellow election-denying incumbent president, who, like Trump, encouraged rioters to attempt to stop the vote count. In a formal White House letter to Brazil, Trump openly linked Brazil's tariff with Trump's support for their disgraced president. This letter, dated yesterday, embeds an open presumption that the American public would tolerate its president using U.S. tariff policy in flagrant service of Trump's personal political agenda:

Political columnist Paul Krugman said this letter alone should be the basis for impeachment. If impeachment would lead to conviction, I would agree. But it wouldn't. Trump has already moved the norms so far that there isn't a two-thirds majority to convict him, even for this flagrant misuse of his office.

The amicus brief with my name on it argues that a version of the "domino theory" is underway. One overreach leads to an even greater one. It is out there in the open for all to see: Trump dangling, taking away, then dangling again a tariff to extract a political benefit is one domino. Hold the line. 

[Note, in future blog posts I will summarize the arguments made by other amicus filers. Each focuses on different reasons to oppose Trump's overreach. Coming soon, the brief by The Goldwater Institute, a conservative legal advocacy group.]

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Amicus curiae: I am a friend of the court

Attorney Thad Guyer filed on my behalf an amicus curiae brief to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

The brief, submitted yesterday, argues that Trump is acting unconstitutionally in claiming power to set tariffs. 

Congress, not the president, has the power to establish tariffs.

Normal practice is for a "friend of the court" to be a high-profile, high-prestige organization or person, perhaps the ACLU,  NAACP, The Heritage Foundation, or The New York Times. I am very much the opposite, a relative nobody, making my claim from the perspective of an individual citizen, a retiree, and a small farmer. 

Thad Guyer wrote the brief, cited the cases, made the legal and historical arguments. As we all learned in school, there are branches of government. Each has a role. The checks and balances protect us against tyranny.

A "friend of the court" filing begins with a statement of interest. I have an interest in tariffs being set by Congress, as the Constitution directs, where I have access to representatives who know the problems of vineyard owners in Southern Oregon. The tariff issue is just one of the places President Trump has overstepped, and it establishes a pattern that is metastasizing.  He ignores Congress' power of the purse. He attacks judges and ignores their rulings. He freezes funds and closes departments authorized by Congress. He uses federal agencies to extort money and to punish critics. If we can enforce the law on tariffs, it may reaffirm that the checks and balances that protect the republic are still in place. We are drawing a line.

I wrote one section of the brief, the statement of interest. Under the rules of the court, these statements are expressed in the third person, voiced by my attorney on my behalf. Here is what I wrote:

STATEMENT OF INTEREST OF AMICUS CURIAE

Peter W. Sage, age 75, is a retired professional who operates a small farm and vineyard in Southern Oregon. He lives primarily on Social Security and modest personal investments, along with the hope of future income from his vineyard. He is financially vulnerable to costs imposed by tariffs affecting the equipment and supplies necessary to develop and operate his vineyard, as well as the risk of losing access to foreign markets for his wine in the event of retaliatory tariffs. 

Mr. Sage depends on a competent, merit-based federal civil service to safeguard his well-being and that of his community. He relies on the National Weather Service for accurate forecasts to protect his crops from frost damage and to provide critical data for managing and responding to regional forest fires, which at times leave his region immersed in hazardous smoke for weeks. He depends on career professionals at the Department of Health and Human Services to administer his Social Security and Medicare benefits fairly and accurately. He also relies on the integrity of financial regulators, including the SEC and the Treasury Department, to protect his investments from fraud, bank failures, and market instability. Political interference in these agencies and the courts threatens Mr. Sage’s livelihood and erodes public trust in essential governmental functions.

 

Mr. Sage relies on the constitutional structure of the United States, specifically on the separation of powers and Congress’s exclusive authority to impose tariffs, to protect his financial interests. He depends on the stability of congressional action, rather than the unilateral deal-making of an executive, to ensure a reliable supply chain and stable markets for his vineyard’s products. Congressional authority over tariffs provides him with practical access to decision makers in the House and Senate who understand and represent the needs of small agricultural producers in Southern Oregon like himself.

 

In addition to these concrete economic concerns, Mr. Sage has, for almost a decade, written about executive overreach in his political blog, Up Close with Peter Sage,* where he reports on in-person interactions with presidential candidates in New Hampshire and Iowa. Until recently, Mr. Sage’s warnings about unchecked executive power were largely theoretical. However, he now fears targeted retaliation by the President of the United States, including politically motivated IRS audits, placement on a no-fly list, interference with the naturalization status of family members, and harassment of lawfully present Hispanic workers at his vineyard. These are no longer abstract possibilities; they

have become tangible concerns in light of recent examples of executive retaliation against critics.

 

Mr. Sage notes with alarm that the Executive Department recently filed lawsuits against every District Court judge in the state of Maryland — an act that is unprecedented and demonstrates a shocking lack of respect for judicial review of executive actions. He is concerned about the erosion of boundaries and the dismantling of checks and balances. These threats are manifesting now, in real time. Each breach of constitutional boundaries, including, in this case, the circumvention of Congress’s authority over tariffs, normalizes further encroachments and weakens the framework of limited government.

Mr. Sage’s experience underscores the broader constitutional principle at stake: no individual, including the President, is above the law. When executive power is exercised without accountability, it jeopardizes not only national governance but also the personal freedoms, safety, and economic stability of ordinary Americans. For these reasons, Mr. Sage respectfully urges the Court to reaffirm the separation of powers and the foundational principle that the President is subject to the law.

* https://peterwsage.blogspot.com 

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Paradox: Not wanting what you want. ("Did you ever have to make up your mind.")

"Did you ever have to make up your mind?
You pick up on one and leave the other behind
It's not often easy and not often kind
Did you ever have to make up your mind?"
          John Sebastian, The Loving Spoonful, 1965

It happens in life. It happens in politics. You don't really want what you want.

Republicans have that problem with immigration. 

Trump understood the frustration felt by Americans on immigration. Too many. Too fast. Too foreign. Too unregulated. Too many people in a permanent gray-area state, semi-legal, here legally awaiting a hearing where they would be sent back. People were angry with Democrats for dithering.  Enough voters decided that since Democrats won't handle immigration, Trump would. So Americans elected Trump.

[A quick aside to Democrats. I don't acknowledge Trump's strengths because I like and admire him. He is vile, crass, dishonest, authoritarian. But he is president because Democrats screwed up some things, including immigration enforcement, and because Trump better understood American voters anger at cultural elites. Democrats need to understand why Trump won, or our fellow Americans will keep electing him or people like him.]

The One Big Beautiful Bill had lots of moving parts. One part was a giant increase in the budget for ICE -- Immigration Control and Enforcement. The new overall budget is $170 billion, up from about $9 billion -- an extraordinary refocus of resources. The new law includes $45 billion for immigration detention centers and $30 billion to hire more ICE personnel. It will fund at least 116,000 beds, according to the American Immigration Council. These beds are temporary for that time between arrest and deportation, so people will be moving in and out of them. That is a huge capacity for mass deportation.

This isn't pussyfooting around. Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson said, “One of President Trump’s biggest campaign promises was to secure the border and execute the largest mass deportation operation in history." There is a purpose: "The more beds we have, the more bad guys we arrest," border czar Tom Homan said. And everyone here in the U.S. illegally deserves deportation. 

Trump's base voters tell pollsters they want people here illegally sent back. Don't be a dithering Hamlet. Take arms against a sea of troubles and clean house.  As this blog reported on July 1, 59 percent of Republicans tell the Pew poll they want deportation of people here illegally; 66 percent of "conservatives" feel the same. After all, illegal is illegal. If they were gone, then social service agencies would save money, schools and hospitals would save money, crime rates would go down, and Americans would get off their butts and do jobs currently done by immigrants working under the table. There is an emotional element of invasion, one that Trump and Fox exploit successfully. They insult us by flouting our laws. How dare they? Get out.

The Big Bill did not gear up for "pick and choose" deportation. It geared up for Steven Miller's policy of mass deportation. Pick-and-choose doesn't solve the problem of too many of the wrong people in the wrong spots taking up money and space and jobs. Democrats perceive Miller as a vile racist with a snake-like head, but their disgust with him blinds them to the fact that Republican voters generally agree with his policy. 

Here is the rub: Most of those Republicans don't really want what they think they want. They want both mass deportation but also pick-and-choose deportation. The Trump policy of deporting people at apparent random, including highly-visible people with long-standing connections to the community, has an intended and perverse effect. The intended effect is that immigrants see that anyone can be deported. Illegal immigration has slowed and across America, and people here illegally are rethinking their risks. Maybe they should leave so they can leave on their own terms, not in shackles and sent God-knows-where. The perverse effect is that people with mixed-status families, people who own property, people with long-standing jobs, and people best assimilated into America's melting pot are the ones with the most to lose in this current policy of high visibility deportations of "good" people. The dread from the potential of being picked up in the mass deportation effort is unsettling immigrant communities. Stores are empty; workplaces are missing key employees; people are staying away from churches, sporting events, restaurants. We are seeing a kind of strike, and it it is bad for business and communities.

Trump and the GOP created a dilemma for themselves. They defined the problem of immigration as one of mass invasion and substitution of real Americans (i.e. White native-born) for the new people Trump said are mostly bad people, not Mexico's best. Trump said, "They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people." Some. But most aren't, and all of them are mocking our laws by being here. Trump can only do pick-and-choose deportations by denying the original premise of the need for bold action. We are entering an era of contradiction. Trump's voters are already getting uneasy about this.

Trump has one very valuable tool for a politician. He has no sense of obligation to his own past and to people who counted on him. He is willing to change positions without any apparent feeling of guilt or embarrassment for misleading people, and then assert against all evidence that he is being 100-percent consistent. Anyone else would try to explain. He simply pushes ahead with the new position.  He will respond to his supporters' contradictory feelings. He will relax enforcement of deportations in red states. It is really what they wanted all along -- a sense that we were making the rules, not the scofflaw immigrants. He will concentrate strict enforcement -- perhaps even punitive and intentionally cruel enforcement -- in blue cities. His supporters will get to keep the immigrants they wanted all along, and his blue-city opponents will cry liberal tears. His supporters will love that. Meanwhile, Democratic mayors and governors will position themselves as supporters of Mexican-flag-waving scofflaws. Better yet for Trump. 

Watch. It is already starting to happen. 

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ABC: Always Be Closing

     "A-B-C. A-always, B-be, C-closing. Always be closing! Always be closing!! A-I-D-A. Attention, Interest, Decision, Action. Attention -- do I have your attention? Interest -- are you interested? I know you are because it's fuck or walk. You close or you hit the bricks!"

Blake, played by Alex Baldwin, Glengarry Glen Ross, 1992

"First prize is a Cadillac El Dorado. Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you're fired."

Millions of Americans got the Social Security letter last week.

Maybe we were shocked by it. So blatantly political. Wow. Has it come to this?

Yes. It has come to this.

Here is my copy of the letter, along with the subject line heading. This was official business from the government's website.

By now most readers will have read enough commentary to know that the letter is deeply misleading. The Big Beautiful Bill doesn't eliminate taxes on Social Security, as Trump claims and campaigned. The letter writes, 

"By significantly reducing the tax burden on benefits, this legislation reaffirms President Trump’s promise to protect Social Security and helps ensure that seniors can better enjoy the retirement they’ve earned."

Coming from Social Security, this implies that there was some change to taxation of Social Security benefits. Not so. The new law does change the standard deduction amount for seniors, which in a few cases, if people are on an income margin, will drop people from paying taxes to not paying them, but the new law doesn't change Social Security taxation or provide "meaningful and immediate relief" for anything involving Social Security.

The big effects of the law are elsewhere. If the $150 billion in new money for immigration control is spent effectively, then there will be dramatic reshaping of our population through deportations. The tax cuts for top earners have become permanent. Some people will lose Medicaid access, which will be catastrophic for some of them. The deficit will rise and the debt grow.

The Trump administration broke through a new boundary on the politicization of the federal government's agencies. Traditionally politicians sell, but government agencies describe, and do so in a neutral way. Government reports are dry -- boring even -- but reliable as information without "spin." This letter is something new. Jeff Nesbit, the former deputy commissioner of the SSA under President Joe Biden, said "The agency has never issued such a blatant political statement.The fact that Trump and his minion running SSA has done this is unconscionable." Unconscionable, maybe, but not clearly illegal, and in any case no inspector general or ethics official in the Department of Justice is going to raise a fuss. Trump is getting away with this.

Trump is a transformative president. The executive departments are now part of the overt political and communication apparatus of the incumbent president. They spin. They sell. Now that Trump has done it and gotten away with it, the changes will likely persist after he leaves office. The incentives to use executive department credibility to cheerlead for incumbent presidents and their party are enormous, but only if the public tolerates it and perceives it as the new normal, and that is the case. There is no objection from any group with the power to do anything. Within the suite of Trump sales-oriented activities, from shoes, watches, real estate deals, lawsuit settlements with media companies, Melania's payment for a documentary, and meme crypto coins, the distinctions and prohibitions against of self-dealing financially or politically have eroded away. 

Democrats are so disgusted by Trump's crassness, dishonesty, cruelty, and selfishness that they have underestimated the power of relentless salesmanship. President Biden was a miserable salesman, and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is little better. Democrats tolerate that. Democrats in leadership positions act as if features and benefits sell themselves. Trump knows better.

Trump gets away with outrageous behavior because he is selling all the time, using every tool at his command. He commands the executive department. He just commandeered Social Security.

The Blake character in Glengarry Glen Ross was a vulgar, bullying, unappealing character, but he was a "winner." He brags to the workers that he made almost a million dollars in 1992, drives a hundred thousand dollar car, and has a big gold watch. He was disgusting all the way to the bank. He was always closing.

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Easy Sunday: I don't use Artificial Intelligence to write my blog

The blog is all me. 

I don't use AI.

Maybe my sense of superiority over AI-generated text stems from the fact that I don't know how to use it very well.

I could analogize to a novice driver who doesn't realize that he needs to shift the automatic transmission out of the gear marked "1" into the gear marked "D." He thinks the car can go only 15 miles per hour, so is unimpressed with this newfangled  automatic transmission. 

I experimented by asking Chat-GPT to write a short blog post that sounded like me. It made a stab at it, bluffing that it was writing in my style. I asked it if it had any access whatever to my posts. It responded that it was inferring it from a general idea of what it probably was, but admitted, that, no, it had never seen one word of mine.  

Chat-GPT is a confident bullshitter. It sometimes substitutes a matter-of fact tone, excellent grammar, and all-around good sense for actual knowledge. That is deceptive. I liken it to a smart and articulate student who didn't do the assigned reading of To Kill a Mockingbird, who is asked by a teacher to describe the story. He confidently and elequently says it is a nuanced and superbly-described story of hunting songbirds.

I uploaded 10 recent blog posts to "train" Chat-GPT. The application told me it was delighted to read this material.  I got feedback like this:

Thank you for sharing Sample Number 5. This one highlights a reflective, personal storytelling style combined with sharp observations about political presentation and charisma. It balances nostalgic reflection with political critique, emphasizing the importance of personality, stamina, and persuasion in leadership. The tone is conversational, candid, and often introspective, encouraging readers to think beyond policies to the human elements of leadership.

"Sharp observations." I liked that. It seems to approve of me. Chat-GPT is a likeable friend.

I asked it to write a short blog post warning Democrats not to be over-confident that the Big Beautiful Bill would be a political disaster for Trump. Readers who bathe in MSNBC's cocoon are inundated with commentary saying how terrible and unpopular the bill is. Don't be so sure. The good stuff --  tax cuts -- comes now. The bad stuff -- Medicaid cuts that will hurt some MAGA voters -- comes later, after the midterms. And Trump will make this all about stopping "criminal illegals.")

I asked Chat-GPT if it could prepare about 250 words for me:

Absolutely! Here's a short political piece in the style of Peter Sage, warning Democrats not to underestimate Trump's ability to sell even his most unpopular ideas:

---

Don’t Underestimate Trump’s Selling Power

Democrats beware: don’t fall into the trap of thinking the public automatically dislikes Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.” Because here’s the truth: Trump can sell ice to an Eskimo — and he knows it.

Look past the obvious. The bill isn’t popular—who truly benefits from more chaos and division? Yet, Trump’s genius (or madness, depending on your point of view) is in his ability to frame himself as the only “decisive” leader, the “tough guy” cutting through the bureaucratic clutter to get the job done. That’s a narrative that resonates with a sizable chunk of voters — especially those tired of “business as usual.”

The media and Democrats tend to dismiss Trump’s selling skills as bluster or demagoguery. But that’s a mistake. The man’s entire career is proof: he’s a master salesman who’s convinced millions that he’s the only one who can “fix” things, no matter how broken things actually are. The fact that he can spin even his most unpopular policies into a badge of honor is no accident.

Think about the “Big Beautiful Bill” and how he could reframe it. He can declare it a “bold stand against woke liberal corruption,” rallying his base with tales of fighting the establishment. And, make no mistake, many swing voters still see him as a figure of strength — not compromise.

Democrats should remember: polling isn’t persuasion. The House and Senate majorities might slip away if they underestimate the emotional power Trump wields. He may be many things — impulsive, dishonest, divisive — but he’s also a salesman who always finds a way to turn the tide. The lesson? Never count him out until the votes are counted, because in politics, perception is often reality.

There is a readable, self-confident style, and it followed my prompt. It said anodyne, commonplace things in good, vernacular English. But notice something: Chat-GPT writes that Democrats have House and Senate majorities that will slip away under Trump's salesmanship. It is factually mistaken. Republicans have the majority which might slip away, but not if the premise of the blog is correct, which is that the bill is not as unpopular as Democrats think. AI hallucinated that falsehood and got things backwards.

AI presents itself as having consciousness and personality. That is seductive. It leads you to think it is trying to take care of you, and therefore it is conscientious and trustworthy, like a reliable and tireless employee. 

That would be a mistake. It is a willful and overconfident employee, at least for me, a novice, looking at the transmission display stuck on "1."

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Canada: Ploughshares into Swords.

"He who troubleth his own house inherits the wind."

     Proverbs 11:29

Canada is treating the U.S. like a threat, not an ally.

Well, of course.

Canadians are just being realistic.

It is possible that Donald Trump really does want to annex Canada. Canada, plus Greenland and the "Gulf of America," would round out some pieces on a map of North America. Trump is a builder and he sees these places as underdeveloped land. His strategy isn't courtship. It's pain. If Canada is miserable enough being our neighbor and ally, maybe it will join us. It might be voluntary -- or not. A bold president might decide it is a military necessity, a matter of "self-defense" for us. That's how Trump would sell it to the world, and Americans might buy it. Canadians wouldn't, but what does Trump care? How many divisions does Canada have on the border?

Canada is responding to this new era.

Classmate Sandford Borins is Canadian. He regularly shares his understanding of the Canadian perspective on events in the USA. He is Professor of Public Management, Emeritus, at the University of Toronto. He writes and posts regularly at www.sandfordborins.com, where this comment first appeared yesterday. This photo, with the class-deprecating T-shirt, refers to a comment by Harvard's president about our class, spoken amid the turbulent times on college campuses during the Vietnam War. Borins, photographed here among some of his awards and diplomas, recently received the King Charles III Coronation Medal, in honor of his public service.

Guest Post by Sandford Borins

Beating our Ploughshares into Swords

I was surprised to see that NATO so readily embraced the target of member nations spending five percent of GDP on defence and defence infrastructure and that Canada was part of this consensus. And there does not appear to be much public debate here as to whether this is an appropriate goal. By inverting the prophet Isaiah’s vision of the messianic age, I want to raise questions about NATO’s new vision.

The US and NATO

The impetus for the increase from a target of two percent of GDP to five percent of GDP came from US President Donald Trump’s call on NATO members to increase their defence spending as well as his veiled threat that the US would reduce its spending on European defence, for example by withdrawing its troops. Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine is also an implicit threat against the sovereignty of NATO members contiguous to it. (If quoting scripture, we could set Ecclesiastes against Isaiah: “to every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven … a time of war and a time of peace.”)

Trump’s 5 percent target was not the product of any comprehensive analysis, but, as is always the case with him, an eye-catching number. Trump has long argued that other NATO members have “ripped off” the US by spending a smaller share of GDP on defence. While the stationing of US troops in Europe has substituted for European troops, the US has benefited from its large defence budget by developing advanced technologies that enabled it to be a prime supplier of weapons to other NATO members. In addition, US military technology has often been transferred to US-based businesses. Thus, the US’s leading role in NATO has given it substantial industrial benefits in defence and other sectors of its economy.

Perhaps Trump’s call on other NATO members to increase their defence spending is an attempt to reap double benefits: first, from a reduction in the cost of US troops stationed in Europe, and second from other NATO members purchasing more US military equipment and technology. If this was Trump’s thinking, he immediately undermined it by expressing his lust for the territory of NATO members Canada and Denmark. Given the complexity and ongoing maintenance requirements of military equipment, Trump’s avarice is making the US an untrustworthy supplier of military equipment. Other NATO members are working to increase their own defence production capacity, not only to avoid relying on the US but perhaps even to defend themselves against the US.

Negotiating Sovereignty

A dramatic increase in defence spending in Canada will involve difficult tradeoffs. I don’t think the Government of Canada and Canadian society are so inefficient that increased defence spending will be funded simply by cutting waste. More defence spending will involve less spending on health, on housing, on education, on culture, and on support for other Canadian industries. Or it may involve a huge increase in the government’s deficits and debt, which only delays the tradeoff. Perhaps the increase in direct defence spending to 3.5 percent of GDP (and defence infrastructure spending to 1.5 percent of GDP) will be phased in gradually over 10 years, even backend-loaded, so that the current commitment can be revisited after the Trump presidency ends on January 20, 2029.

But “Liberation Day” is more than three years away. The renegotiation of Canada’s economic and security relationship, which is intended to produce an agreement, or at least a framework, in three weeks poses stark challenges to our government and society. I assume the worst about the Trump Administration, namely that they want to weaken us, with a long-term goal of absorbing Canada. From this perspective, tariffs and defence spending are two arms of a pincer. Tariffs are intended to weaken the Canadian economy by shifting industrial production — particularly autos, steel, and aluminum – to the US. Pressuring us to increase defence spending – especially if it involves procurement from the US – is intended to weaken us by forcing our public sector to reduce spending in other areas. (A recent historical analogy is the Reagan Administration’s enthusiastic commitment to an arms race that ultimately bankrupted and destroyed the Soviet Union.) Two hugely expensive military systems – completing the contract to purchase 88 F-35s and participating in the Golden Dome missile defence system – contribute to the Trump Administration’s objective of putting financial pressure on Canada and ultimately undermining our sovereignty.

If Canada is to dramatically increase defence spending, we need a careful study of the objectives we want to achieve and the best systems to achieve them. One important objective would be to maximize defence production in Canada. The war between Russia and Ukraine has demonstrated the importance of warfare using inexpensive drones, and Canada should be able to produce its own.

I await the results of the current negotiations with deep concern. The Canada Day celebrations are over. The battle for our sovereignty against our formerly closest ally continues.

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July 4th at the Vineyard

Happy Independence Day.

I am celebrating it by being at the vineyard at 5:30 a.m. to join farmworkers pruning grape plants.

There is life outside of politics.

Yesterday my nephew and I finished pruning the two acres of Cabernets.

Liam Flenniken, age 17. He did most of the work. He will be a  senior at Lincoln High School in Portland this fall.

I grow a few melons out of love and inertia. Here is what a cantaloupe vine looks like at age four weeks. The vine will double in size every five days.  By the end of July it will be a thick mass of vines.

Cantaloupe: two feet across

Watermelon: two feet across Those tendrils extend several inches a day.

The big job today is pruning the suckers out of the base of the grape vines. and getting the vines secure between the two sets of upper wires. With melons, big, lush vines mean healthy melons. With grapes, lush vines mean more work.  One builds a healthy grape plant by what one removes.

This is a very healthy pinot noir, in need of pruning. 

Adelbert Paz 

He is fast. He pulls and snaps off the suckers and cleans up with clippers.

Finished

Vines off that plant

I am still doing some jobs at the vineyard: planting replacement grape vines, hoeing weeds, moving pipes, walking the field to check the irrigation drips. I prune some, but pruning means getting down low onto one's knees to trim suckers and then getting up to go to the next plant. Doing a few is easy, but there are 2,000 Cabernets, 2,000 Malbecs, and 4,000 Pinot Noirs. The hundredth time -- one long row -- getting up is too hard. 

The vineyard is on the part of the farm with deep pumice soil. It is very fine-grained, and when tilled it is the consistency of powder snow or powdered sugar. You can see the deep footprints in the photos. The grape roots should find it easy to extract the unique characteristics of the terroir.  Ideally, it will make excellent wine. Next year, when I will have grapes to sell in quantity, I will water less to get less foliage and to make the grape vines struggle more, toward the goal of richer, more concentrated grape flavor.

Happy July 4th.

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