Pacific Madrone My Beloved

The tech and fossil fuel industries are two of the biggest sections of the ruling class backing Trump and the current transformation of the U.S. into a more openly authoritarian state. But fissures are starting to open up within sections of the grassroots MAGA movement. First, Steve Bannon and other MAGA activists expressed their racist, anti-immigrant opposition to Big Tech’s desire to grant visas to highly skilled workers. MAGA members have also expressed dissent for the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, as well as the broader U.S. policy of providing Israel with financial and military support, including throughout its genocide of Palestinians and its war on Lebanon. Now many people who voted for Trump several times are opposing the construction in their communities of the tech industry’s sacred data centers. As Indigenous people, union organizers, and those on the left come into contact with these disgruntled Trumpists, the opportunity exists to develop mutual understandings. Perhaps these encounters will widen the worldview of those who follow Trump and who are hostile to other working people, including those who have recently arrived in the U.S. looking for a better life. The process of widening a person’s worldview entails hard discussions. If we approach these with a strong understanding of the material grievances that draw people toward Trumpism, we can use the space of the emerging, imperfect coalitions against the data centers to create openings to redirect anger away from scapegoats and toward the systems of power driving ecological destruction, exploitation, and war. This presents an opportunity to cultivate a unifying understanding of the role of class oppression and how to resist capitalist exploitation.

Fields of Balsam Root

Residents had serious concerns about the project. While companies often win major tax breaks by promising jobs and economic stimulation, data centers bring few permanent jobs and can drain municipal water resources, drive up electric bills, rob cities of tax revenues, and cause damaging noise, light, and air pollution. Already, Wisconsin residents have seen some of these impacts at data center sites in Port Washington and Beaver Dam. Residents in Port Washington have complained about the disruption caused by around-the-clock construction at the new data center. Families near the construction in Beaver Dam have reported that their wells have run dry.

Although the Menomonie City Council voted to annex and rezone the land for the data center in early September [2025], pressure from local campaigners was so great that Mayor Randy Knaack announced at a Sept. 22 city council meeting that he had notified Balloonist that the city would not be moving forward with a development agreement. More good news came in January when the Menomonie City Council voted unanimously to place additional regulations on data center projects.

Feel free to use it! 🌈🌈🌈🌈

My Huernia zebrina, a succulent from Southern Africa, finally bloomed!

Like their close cousins, the carrion plants, another group of African succulents, they have a vague dead animal smell, and are pollinated by flies. One of the common names for this plant is the little owl. 

Family Apocynaceae