The Wall Street Journal says Portland is OK

Mother, mother
Everybody thinks we're wrong
Oh, but who are they to judge us
Simply 'cause our hair is long. . . .
Picket lines and picket signs
Don't punish me with brutality
Come on talk to me
So you can see
What's going on (What's going on)
Yeah, what's going on (What's going on)

        Marvin Gaye, "What's Going On," 1971 (Ranked by Rolling Stone in 2004 as number four on its list of the 500 greatest songs of all time.)

The Wall Street Journal goes rogue on Trump.

There are two competing stories about Portland. President Trump's story is that Portland is a war zone. The other story is that Portland is OK, that normal police are handling things, and Trump is intentionally escalating confrontations. 

I hear both stories. The Trump administration, Fox News, and pro-Trump social media posts depict multiple people in the camera frame, showing movement, jostling, and sometimes confrontations. It looks unruly. An enthusiastic Trump supporter who reads this blog supplied links to Facebook posts with the Portland-in-chaos story, with the sarcastic heading "Peaceful Portland." People living in the Trump media world see and believe this story.

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/17BycAcdb5/

There are reliable story elements: 1. 100 nights of violence; 2. the radical masked and mysterious Antifa villain; 3. local police are instructed not to act because local "Democrat" leadership is weak and aligned with the protesters; 4. rioters are in control of Portland.

This caption has it all:

Democrats should not overstate their case. It is undeniable that there are incidents of disorder. Some protesters have blocked streets and entrances to the ICE facility, and they have been forcibly moved. Some of the protesters have used rude gestures and words. There is a blurry line between peaceable assembly and non-peaceable disorder. 

My own sense is that the Portland-has-it-under-control story is mostly right, complicated by the fact that we will always have hotheads fueled by political passions, testosterone, social pressure, or alcohol. We are watching the Trump administration stage a performance, using live actors in real time. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem called Portland officials "pansies," a vivid word intended to define the story as one of Trump-style strength versus Democratic permissiveness. Deja vu. It is the 1960s battle between hard-hats and entitled college students all over again. 

Democrats are doing their own performance. Some of it is in courtrooms. Some of it is shaping the look on the streets by reducing points of conflict. Against ICE's wishes, they are taking down the police tape that surrounds the ICE facility. The tape creates a line of scrimmage that sets up confrontations at the border. No line; maybe no line of scrimmage.

The Wall Street Journal is an anomaly in this battle of memes. It reveals a point of vulnerability for Trump. The WSJ has a small-government, libertarian orientation. Trump is a big-government populist. The WSJ is uncomfortable with government power, even when it is used by Republicans. They recognize the dangerous precedent of Trump's expansion of executive power using pretexts. Two weeks ago, the WSJ came to the defense of Jimmy Kimmel. If Trump can use the FCC to force Kimmel off the air, a Democratic president can force Fox stations off the air. 

Today's WSJ will frustrate Trump. It is a day-by-day review of Portland disorder. It takes the side of Portland leaders. They report that disorder, such as it is, is caused by Trump.  Gifted article. 

Trump enjoys being bossy. Americans resist being bossed. Democrats should learn the lesson of mandatory vaccinations and mask-wearing pushed by the CDC and Biden back in 2021. The regulations were for our own good and they saved lives, but it caused a backlash that Democrats underestimated. Democrats didn't know when to ease up and back off.

There is nothing about Trump that suggests that he will know when to ease up and back off, either. Trump may get what he wants -- troops in the street and snipers on roofs, and ICE pushing people around -- but it will cost him if he does. He lacks a moderating instinct. He is planting the seeds of backlash. 

[Note: To get daily delivery of this blog to your email go to: https://petersage.substack.com. Subscribe. Don't pay. The blog is free and always will be.]

Epstein, Epstein, Epstein

"Thou hast committed fornication:—
but that was in another country,
and besides, the wench is dead."
  Christopher Marlowe, The Jew of Malta, 1590

Republicans don't care what Trump did or didn't do with young girls. What matters is that he is deporting immigrants, reversing DEI, and attacking people and organizations on the political left.

Democrats do care. They care because Trump cares. Trump -- the master at populist messaging -- is fumbling his message because there is something about this case that makes Trump want to hide. Trump -- whose superpower is utter shamelessness -- seems both ashamed and desperate. Trump looks off his game.

 Trump and Epstein: "Best Friends Forever" back on the Washington Mall

Trump brought this on himself. He implied that he was going to find prominent Democratic scalps in the Epstein files. Republicans got excited about the story and called for full-disclosure. Then Trump's abrupt, weird reversal: nothing to see here, move on. Republicans are using extreme measures to hide something. House Speaker Mike Johnson sent House members home rather than let them vote to get the Epstein files. Johnson is not swearing in an elected House member rather than let her be a decisive vote to open the files. It is hard to pretend this is normal.

Trump is persuasive when he is presenting himself as proud, cruel, brave, decisive, vengeful, or any other pose that reflects ruthless domination. That is Trump. What he is not good at is playing dumb. Asked if he would pardon Ghislane Maxwell, Trump said, "I haven’t heard the name in so long. I can say this: I’d have to take a look at it." Trump suggested to the reporter that talk of pardon was all new to him. 

Well, I’ll take a look at it, I will speak to the DOJ. I wouldn’t consider it or not consider it. I don’t know anything about it, but I’ll speak to the DOJ.

He hasn't heard Maxwell's name???  Hasn't given it thought??? Yeah, right.

Trump got more bad luck this week. His commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, happened to have been an immediate next-door neighbor to Epstein in Manhattan. What are the chances in a city of eight million? Then, worse luck yet, Lutnick said to a reporter perfectly reasonable, self-protecting things distancing himself from Epstein. Lutnick described meeting him at his home and seeing a massage table in the living room. Lutnick immediately bragged that it was a place for sexual services, "the right kind of massage." Lutnick said Epstein was "a disgusting person, " evident at first glance. Oops. That undermines Trump's claim of a 15-year innocent relationship.

It gets worse for Trump. Lutnick said that Epstein created video evidence for blackmailing his guests, calling Epstein, "The greatest blackmailer ever." Lutnick said that Epstein urged men into the trap.

They get a massage, that’s what his MO was. "Get a massage, get a massage," and what happened in that massage room, I assume, was on video This guy was the greatest blackmailer ever, blackmailed people. That’s how he had money.

Now we have even more reason to think there is important information to uncover, and it comes from a Trump-related source. 

Attorney General Pam Bondi's senate hearing yesterday brought more drips. Sheldon Whitehouse (D. RI) got to ask her a delicious question::

[Y]ou seem to have looked at zero of those suspicious activity reports involving Jeffrey Epstein accounts. Let me ask you something else. There’s been public reporting that Jeffrey Epstein showed people photos of President Trump with half-naked young women. Do you know if the FBI found those photographs in their search of Jeffrey Epstein’s safe or premises or otherwise? 

Bondi was ready. She ignored the question and attacked.

You sit here and make salacious remarks once again trying to slander President Trump left and right. When you're the one who was taking money from one of Epstein's closest confidants.

She was referencing an alleged campaign contribution from Reid Hoffman. Senator Whitehouse said he didn't get one. Facts don't matter. The go-to response for the Trump team cannot be denial. There is too much evidence, too many photos for outright denial. Americans are watching a message war, and Democrats are in the position of attacker and have the better hand. Is this about Trump and naked 14-year-olds on a massage table? Or is this a story of a Democratic witch hunt?

Democrats are keeping up the drip, drip, drip, and events are falling into place for them.

[Note: To get daily delivery of this blog to your email go to: https://petersage.substack.com. Subscribe. Don't pay. The blog is free and always will be.]

Skip this post.

No politics here today.

If you aren't interested in my farm-posts, skip this one.

Update: We picked the Pinot Noir grapes yesterday. 

By "we" I mean a crew of four people I have hired for the job. I am not a picker. My job is to pay the workers, not to supervise them. 

This picker and supervisor, Adelberto Paz, clips off clusters of grapes from the cane wire, the wire at 31 inches in height.  The vines are pruned and tied so that the harvestable grapes are all at a similar level. Adelberto works from left to right. He puts the grapes into lightweight five-gallon buckets, which he then dumps into the bins on the trailer behind the tractor. This plant took him about 30 seconds to pick clean. 

We planted the grape rows nine feet apart. This is wider than many vineyards, but my thinking was that it would make it easier to manage. A tractor would get down the rows, as would the trailer holding the bins. 

The winemakers at Valley View Vineyards tell me they will keep these grapes separate from the grapes they grow at their own vineyard. There would be separate fermentation; separate aging barrels; and therefore, potentially, separate label and branding. How the wine is bottled and sold depends on whether the unusual terroir of the vineyard's pumice soil creates a wine that is distinct and superior. That would be nice. But it is farming, so who knows?

I will have wine to sell in about two years.

[Note: To get daily delivery of this blog to your email go to: https://petersage.substack.com. Subscribe. Don't pay. The blog is free and always will be.]

Senator Jeff Merkley is on fire

     "Do not kneel to this dictator. Get off the couch. Don’t hide your head under a pillow. Speak up."
          Senator Jeff Merkley, October 5, 2025

U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley, (D. OR)

My wife and I held a fundraising event for Senator Jeff Merkley at our home yesterday. It was a beautiful day. The event was well-attended.

The big surprise to me was Merkley himself. I have never seen Merkley like this. He was animated, intense, and angry. He said President Trump is dangerous and that America needed to treat the situation like the crisis it is.

I have known Jeff Merkley for 18 years. I like and admire him. I consider him a Bernie Sanders-Elizabeth Warren-style Democrat, and I am more centrist, but he fits Oregon pretty well, especially now that President Trump is targeting Oregon. A great swath of Oregonians can unify against a common enemy who openly says he wants to punish Oregon financially because we have mail-in elections. How dare we defy him?! He is going to make us pay. 

I have always known Merkley to be soft-spoken and mellow. He is unpretentious. He dresses in blue jeans and flannel shirts when he is in public in Oregon. He dresses as do customers that you might encounter at an auto parts store in a small town on a Saturday morning. He looks like he plans to buy a fan belt he will install himself in his driveway as soon as he gets home. Even when addressing a group, using a microphone, he is conversational, as if he was just talking to one person, saying words he had never expressed before. It is a style. 

I had expectations that Merkley would be true to type. The Merkley style has appeal as counterpoint to the politics of this Trump era. In 2019 he explored the possibility of running for president and he made some appearances in Iowa. I was happy to help that effort. Possibly, just possibly, Americans would see Merkley as an antidote to Trump. Voters might decide they like the Merkley style of reverse-charisma the way that Jimmy Carter's plain-folk piety was a welcome change from Nixon. And if Democrats wanted a candidate who could relate to working Americans, Merkley was their guy. 

But his presidential exploration didn't work out. In a pool of 15 Democrats, an earnest low-key candidate got lost.

Senator Merkley took me by surprise when he spoke at the event on my patio. He still dressed schlumpy -- that didn't change -- but something new is going on with his tone and manner. Mr. Low Key is gone. He is sounding an alarm. America has a big, imminent problem: Our democracy is under attack right now. He referenced the book, How Democracies Die, and said our democracy is on track to die just like the ones the book describes. First, the legislature voluntarily gives up its power; second, the courts consent to lawless action by the executive. The third requirement is an executive with a ruthless temperament and a desire for dictatorial power. All three elements are in place, Merkley said. "We are in trouble. This is the biggest threat to our republic since the Civil War."

He said that way to stop an autocrat is to oppose him and do so immediately. Fighting him in the first year is critical. The public needs to see that the executive's actions are not normal, and that they aren't treated as normal. We cannot let people get accustomed to the idea of autocracy. 

Merkley described the ICE presence in Portland. They are not there as peacekeepers. They are provocateurs. They escalate encounters into confrontations. They use pepper spray and tear gas while roughhousing detainees, all for the benefit of video cameras Trump has in place. It is performance with a purpose, to justify declaring an emergency to justify military action against citizens. There is a larger project, Merkley said, and that it to make it impossible for Americans to self-correct through elections. Democracy itself is in danger.

Merkley doesn't sound discouraged. He said that even though Congress and the courts have disappointed, the people themselves are starting to understand. He said that the telephone and letter volume he is getting has ramped up sharply. People are aware of the threat to our democracy.

"Beware the fury of a patient man"

John Dryden, 1681

Merkley is running for re-election.



[Note: To get daily delivery of this blog to your email go to: https://petersage.substack.com. Subscribe. Don't pay. The blog is free and always will be.]

Easy Sunday: Pick Pinot Noirs tomorrow

The Pinot Noir grapes are ready to pick. 

They are the right kind of ripe and the right kind of sweet. 

Thursday, October 3 report

The seeds inside the grapes have turned dark. The juice has gone from pale-amber to darker-amber. 

The October 3 report described the sweetness -- Brix -- of the grapes. The first number was for the self-rooted Pinot Noir  grapes, with a brix of 24 and an acidity of measure of 3.67. The second number is for a different clone of the Pinot Noirs, ones on grafted-root stock, planted in a section adjacent to the others. They look identical to my eye, but they measure as a bit less sweet, with a brix of 22.7.

This is the third time I have taken random grapes from the field to test for a baseline for that variety. On September 11 I brought them to Valley View Vineyards, the oldest vineyard and winery in the region, the pioneer of the modern wine industry in Southern Oregon. Their wines have been getting 90, 92, and 94 point ratings from Wine Enthusiast Magazine. They will be taking this year's grapes. Their winemaker, Michael Brunson, pressed the grapes inside the zip-lock bag to examine the contents; then he measured it for sweetness and acidity. 

We knew it was early but wanted a baseline: Brix of 20.9.

Brunson examined the color. We tasted the juice. It was delicious -- semi sweet. But it was nowhere near ready for harvest.

We tested again on September 24. The grapes were ripening on track. We made plans to test again and then perhaps pick the earliest variety, the Pinot Noirs, this weekend. The juice tasted much sweeter. It was delicious.

My vines look healthy and lush -- possibly too healthy and lush. The ground is very fertile, and it tests naturally high in potassium. Our goal in pruning this year was primarily to establish stronger vines in better preparation for larger harvests of better grapes in future years. We did not prune toward the goal of a significant harvest this year. so the crop is light, and canes with clusters cover only about a third of the six-foot spaces between plants. We estimate a harvest of about three bins, each holding a ton of grapes. I have four acres of Pinot Noirs. 

Pumice is a rare soil for wine grapes. It produces wines with unusual complexity because the soil is so fine-grained that the micronutrients in the soil are accessible to the fine capillary roots of the plants. Wine grapes grow on pumice soil on the volcanic island of Santorini in the southern Aegean Sea, and on the sides of Mount Vesuvius in Italy. There is substantial wine industry and wine tourism activity at both those places. The pumice on my farm was blown here when Mount Mazama exploded 7,200 years ago. The pumice layer is about 30-feet thick, based upon the report when we drilled the well for my farmhouse. Even though we are adjacent to the Rogue River, the pumice survives being washed away because it is on ground slightly higher than the hundred-year and thousand-year floods.

We will pick the Malbecs soon.

[Note: To get daily delivery of this blog to your email go to: https://petersage.substack.com. Subscribe. Don't pay. The blog is free and always will be.]

Prediction: We are past "peak Trump."

President Trump is getting sloppy.

Trump is forgetting that scorn for unworthy and entitled elites is what got him elected.

Trump rode an escalator down from the heights of privilege and wealth to a connection with working people who felt that America's elites weren't protecting their jobs and culture. I will do that for you, Trump said.

Trump political career started by nurturing public rebellion against entitled and unworthy elites. These included cultural snobs on the left who lorded it over the "deplorables." It included the entitled billionaires and corporate big-shots who needed government subsidies to survive. It included politicians of both parties, which Trump said he had been buying and selling for decades. Trump said he was so rich he was incorruptible, so he could drain the swamp of them.

Trump has been on a winning streak. His victories over media companies, law firms, universities, public health authority, Congress, public employees, progressive "wokeness," and even assassins do not consume his political capital. They add to it. He showed these centers of elite power to be weak and unworthy. 

We are at a moment. It is presumptuous to call a market top so soon after the events that I think mark it, but in the months ahead I think we will conclude that the Charlie Kirk event was the peak for Trump. Trump seemed formidable; not yet foolish. 

The Jimmy Kimmel matter gave us a hint of the downslope. Trump was too frank and obvious about exercising power. Ted Cruz's limited defection isn't itself the crack, but it suggests the real, underlying problem. Trump was enjoying this too much. He was acting like a big shot. Too entitled. 

There is a delicate place where formidable becomes foolish. Some of it depends on whether there is a crack in the presenter's demeanor, and whether he shows a sign of desperation or weakness. Maybe he slurs his speech. Maybe he is repetitive. Maybe he says the wrong thing. Sometimes it is an audience that starts the rustling of discontent. Some people are genial and gullible. Military leaders in tight discipline are not.

The Quantico, Virginia, speeches by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Trump, made them look worse than merely foolish. They looked dangerous. Hegseth was ignorant but confident, a blowhard. Trump was all about Trump. There was no hint of respect for duty, sacrifice, and honor, the symbols of which are worn proudly on the chests of his audience. Trump was me, me, me, me. There was no hiding the reality from the stone-faced audience. Their leader is a selfish jerk, and bonkers, too. No one in that audience would tolerate or promote a subordinate like Trump. They would promptly drum them out of the service.

Trump peaked. Trump looked selfish and dishonest and undisciplined. He acted like an unworthy and entitled elite. That is what Trump was supposed to replace. Not become.

Arthur Miller's character Charlie, in Death of a Salesman, describes the predicament of Trump, this era's greatest salesman, when the spell that keeps the winning streak together starts to break: 

“He's a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back--that's an earthquake. And then you get a couple of spots on your hat, and you're finished.”

Trump is far from finished. But people are starting to see him in a different way. At the peak market for Trump, he had what he thought was absolute power.

[Note: To get daily delivery of this blog to your email go to: https://petersage.substack.com. Subscribe. Don't pay. The blog is free and always will be.]

Portland's leaders wised up

Trump, his MAGA followers, and Fox have a story to sell: 

Riots! Violence! Chaos!

Portland's leaders are responding correctly to the problem of protests about ICE. Portland, too, has a story to sell:

We have this under control.

Portland Police Chief Bob Day

Portland got a reputation as a place where left-oriented protests were allowed to turn violent and then persist. The brand has staying power because even a casual visitor to Portland sees conspicuous homeless encampments on the streets giving a disorderly and disheveled look to parts of the city. The Portland-has-gone-to-crap story is easy to tell, and a culprit is easy to identify based on memory of the summer of 2020: leadership that is too liberal and permissive to keep order, reflecting the wishes of a population of post-hippie progressives. 

That Portland brand is powerful enough that it is the butt of jokes.

Here is yesterday's Fox News story about Portland, depicting crowds, movement, people on the ground, chaos:

Rebranding Portland  is hard because action -- especially violence -- makes memorable video, even if there isn't much of it. ANY of it creates a powerful message, and there are, indeed, small, sometimes-unruly crowds at the ICE facility in Portland. There is some fighting between people there. There are arrests. There are incidents to film. It isn't much, but it is real.

The bigger story is that Portland police have those disturbances under control. Portland police chief Bob Day is telling that story. The police chief is a solid-looking White male with short hair in a dark blue uniform -- a credible spokesperson for law enforcement. He looks like a Republican -- or at least the kind of person chosen for Fox News interviews: no-nonsense Republicans who bash "Democrat" cities and their leftist communist radicals with their anti-Christian, pro-homosexual, anti-American, immigrant-loving agendas. Bob Day is a good choice to tell a credible law and order story. 

Here are short YouTube clips. In the first he addresses the issue of whether Portland ignores left-coded violence. It doesn't.

https://youtube.com/shorts/R8pt-4SwTXU?si=ECeus1qhliC8m9bA

In this clip he says that the problems are small and isolated and that the TV and social media stories give a false impression:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1HYfXQMWgjI

This third clip is a response to the question of what message he would like Trump to know. He wants him to know the Portland police is on top of this.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/3m3rITRZtW8

Changing a brand is long, slow work. But Portland has the right message and a good messenger. It will help enormously if two things are true: that Portland protesters do their protests legally, and that the Portland Police Bureau in fact does the job Chief Day says they are doing. 

There will be provocations, and keeping order will be hard. I am not worried about the National Guard being there making trouble. They are Oregon residents, drafted into this job. But I do worry about ICE. They are federal. They may be under instructions from their leadership, either explicit or implicit, to make trouble and seek confrontation. They have the power to create exactly the visuals Trump wants.

[Note: To get daily delivery of this blog to your email go to: https://petersage.substack.com. Subscribe. Don't pay. The blog is free and always will be.]