A Rose

Hello Friends,

This clearly is a rose, is a rose, is a rose. It was shot a few years ago with my Panasonic Lumix GX7 with frame sides for phantogram processing and cleaned up a little with PhotoShop.

Two issues stood out for me this past week in our nation's political landscape. Stories from the New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/03/opinion/ebola-disease-trump-musk-usaid.html) and Health Policy Watch (https://healthpolicy-watch.news/the-human-cost-one-year-after-the-us-took-a-chainsaw-to-global-health/) cited an academic study (published in The Lancet) describing the effects of the chain saw Department of Government Effeciency (DOGE) cuts Elon Musk made to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) early in Trump's second term. Estimates vary but it appears that slightly under a million people, mostly children have already died due to these cuts, and in the upwards of 14 million will likely die from them. Congressman Ro Khanna appeared on a podcast and cited these stories, and has called for an investigation and subpoenaing Musk to testify. Musk's response is to call this a "total lie" and theatened to sue Khanna. Khanna offered to debate Musk.

The other issue was that republicans and democrats in both houses of congress shockingly worked together and with big majorities passed the "21st Century ROAD to Housing Act", a bill aiming to bring down housing costs in the US, both for home buyers and renters. A signing ceremony at the white house was planned only to have Trump refuse to sign the bill unless congress first passed his SAVE act, whose aims are stated as helping election integrity, but whose effect would largely be confusion and voter suppression. It appears that Trump is backing off on this one and it should be enacted.

There are so many more things to talk about, ... immigration policy as Trump is removing protected status for many millions of immigrants here legally, ... the needless and fruitless war with Iran, ... and the idiocity of their partisan state fair to celebrate our nation's 250th anniversary, ... the reflecting pool fiasco, ... the Kennedy Center fiasco, ... and so many more. JD Vance put it well this past week stating that Watergate, which brought down Nixon, would only make it through 12 just hours of the news cycle if it happened today.

Wishing for better,

Barry Rothstein

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