beth paschal

love the sun and the forest and try to spend as much time as possible in BOTH

[Acyn @Acyn]

MSNow: You're willing at this point to let the Senate fall into the hands of Democrats, if that's what it takes to end data centers?

Republican Voter: My entire community is going to break rank. Everybody, all of us. We've had enough.

[Crazy Vibes @CrazyVibes_1]

Her neighbors in La Jolla, California, knew her only as a gentle older woman who lived alone, drove herself around, and dressed simply. She had no chauffeur. No private chef. No bodyguards. No staff. She bought her own groceries. She opened her own mail. She walked her own little dog.

If you had asked her name, she would have smiled and said, “Margaret.”

Just Margaret.

She did not mention her last name.

Because her last name was Cargill.

Margaret Anne Cargill was born on September 24, 1920, in Los Angeles. Her grandfather, William Wallace Cargill, had founded the Cargill grain company in 1865 from one tiny storage building in Iowa. By the time Margaret was grown, the family business had quietly become the largest privately held company in the United States. Today, Cargill Inc. is part of the backbone of the global food supply, helping feed hundreds of millions of people every day.

Margaret inherited that fortune. She could have chosen almost any life imaginable. She could have lived in mansions. She could have owned yachts. She could have traveled with an entourage.

She chose almost none of that.

She never married. She had no children. She never bought a grand estate. She lived quietly in Southern California. She loved fiber arts, beadwork, jewelry making, and the beautiful textiles of Native American tribes. She loved nature. She loved animals. She loved older people. She loved books. She loved being alone with her thoughts.

And quietly, almost invisibly, for decades, she did one thing that very few people knew about.

She gave.

Whenever she found a cause that mattered to her, she wrote a check. Large checks. Quiet checks. The American Red Cross. The Smithsonian Institution. The Nature Conservancy. The Salvation Army. The San Diego Humane Society. The National Museum of the American Indian. St. Paul’s Senior Homes & Services. Programs for Indigenous communities, teachers, children, animals, and the elderly.

Over her lifetime, she gave away more than $200 million. But every gift came with one firm, non-negotiable condition.

No one could know it was her.

No plaques. No buildings carrying her name. No press releases. No interviews. No thank-you dinners. She had no interest in fame. She had no interest in praise. Her philosophy was simple and quiet: the giving was not about her. It was about the work being done by the people and organizations she supported.

Dr. Mark Goldstein, president of the San Diego Humane Society, met her once. He said, “I have been in this business 30 years and I have never met a more compassionate, humble person of such great wealth who cared about people and animals, and cared nothing about being recognized for it.” She came to that meeting in an old, worn-out van. He said, “You could never even imagine that she could afford the van.”

But Margaret had one small, tender secret pleasure of her own. She liked quietly attending the dedications of buildings she had helped pay for, slipping into the crowd as if she were just another visitor. She walked through the new halls of the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington and listened as people thanked an anonymous donor. She stood inside the new senior care center near her home and watched elderly residents smile. No one recognized her. She loved every quiet, hidden minute of it.

She did make one small concession to history. She agreed that after her death, the world could finally learn the truth about her giving.

On August 1, 2006, Margaret Anne Cargill died peacefully in La Jolla. She was 85.

And then the world discovered who the anonymous angel had been all along.

Her estate had been carefully arranged into the Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies, made up of two sister foundations. One carried Margaret’s name. The other honored her mother, Anne Ray Cargill. The plan was simple. Her wealth would continue giving long after she was gone, to the very causes she had quietly studied, loved, and supported throughout her life.

In the years that followed, those foundations grew. And grew. And grew. By 2021, they held a combined value of about $9 billion, making them one of the largest philanthropic organizations in the United States. Every year, they send hundreds of millions of dollars into the arts, environmental protection, animal welfare, disaster relief, Indigenous communities, and care for older adults. The same causes Margaret had loved quietly while she lived among us.

She had wealth. She had freedom. She had privacy. She used all three in service of others and refused to take a single bow.

The size of a life is not measured by how many people know your name.

It is measured by how many people you helped, even if they never knew yours.

Margaret Anne Cargill.

September 24, 1920 to August 1, 2006.

The silent philanthropist.

That was exactly how she wanted it.

[beth paschal @bethpaschal8]

@bluejumbofish @LongTimeHistory Uh huh....and that's why she says "these people"... because she means "clothes wearing people", right? get real.

[Mike Levin @MikeLevin]

This New York Times piece is worth your time. Here’s what is happening, as simply as I can put it.

Back in January, Trump sued the IRS, an agency he controls, demanding $10 billion over the leak of his tax returns a number of years ago.

IRS lawyers did their jobs. They wrote a memo laying out the defenses that could beat the suit, including the fact that Trump filed too late. His own lawyer was in court when the leaker pleaded guilty in October 2023, more than two years before Trump sued.

The Justice Department never showed up to court. Never argued back. Never used the defenses sitting on their desk.

The judge got suspicious and ordered both sides to explain whether they were actually opposing each other or just colluding. The day before that brief was due, Trump dropped the suit.

Same day, his Justice Department announced a $1.776 billion taxpayer-funded “anti-weaponization fund.” 

Trump gets a formal apology. The IRS agrees to drop any audits of him and his family, even though a 2024 Times report found a loss in an ongoing audit could cost him over $100 million.

The acting Attorney General, Trump’s former criminal defense attorney, picks the five commissioners who decide who gets paid. Trump can fire any of them. Proud Boys and Oath Keepers are not ruled out.

This is the most corrupt thing I’ve ever seen from an American president.

Where in the hell are my Republican colleagues?

https://t.co/La0nlLuz1r

[Meidas_Charise Lee @charise_lee]

Unbelievable presentation of our health insurance a rip off unscrupulous business‼️

[MAGA Cult Slayer🦅🇺🇸 @MAGACult2]

NYPD just got caught blatantly lying and trying to frame an innocent black kid.

[Typical African @Joe__Bassey]

This is more than disgusting.

[sim 🇧🇷🇲🇽🇸🇳🇫🇷🇭🇹 @simscircuit]

Did not expect a question that starts out 'Do you think before you speak?' to go so well. A+ question from Charlotte Harpur A++ response from Eileen Gu.

[Bill Madden @maddenifico]

What happened last night w/ kids being released by ICE Nazis from Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis was straight up evil. The kids were released in blizzard conditions wearing only t-shirts as protection from the freezing cold. The pedophile president is a fucking MONSTER.

[Meidas_Charise Lee @charise_lee]

Being monitored by men‼️ 🚩 We KNOW what that means‼️

[Bill Madden @maddenifico]

Criminal things are happening at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW. 😳👇

[BMcArthur @bmcarthur20]

Is anyone actually listening to what's going on in America?

This hurts.

WATCH:

#DemsUnited

[Meidas_Charise Lee @charise_lee]

Art is POWERFUL and beautiful. Thank you for making this video ❤

[The Tennessee Holler @TheTNHoller]

RAHMAN: “On the way to my 39th traumatic brain injury appointment, I encountered a traffic jam caused by ICE… an agent yelled, "Move, I will break your f'ing window”…. Then the glass of the window flew across my face. I yelled, "I am disabled!” — the agent said, "Too late."

[Meidas_Charise Lee @charise_lee]

Thank you for showing us this! US medical insurance is a scam‼️

[Meidas_Charise Lee @charise_lee]

That was an absolutely excellent explanation‼️
No notes‼️
She speaks eloquently and is very well informed on this topic‼️

[Sovereign Media @sov_media]

REST IN POWER, MICHAEL PARENTI (1933–2026)

Tragic news that Michael Parenti passed away peacefully this morning, surrounded by his family, at the age of 92.

One of the most influential anti imperialist thinkers in the United States, Parenti spent decades exposing how power actually works beneath the language of democracy, development, and humanitarianism. In this 1986 lecture at the University of Colorado Boulder, he dismantles the myth that foreign aid is about helping people.

Parenti argued that foreign aid functions as a subsidy for empire, transferring wealth from ordinary people in the Global North to elites in the Global South who protect multinational interests. Drawing on economists like Kenneth Boulding and Thorstein Veblen, he highlighted the missing class dimension, that those who profit from imperial investments are not the ones who pay the costs of maintaining them.

He pointed to the Philippines, Cuba before the revolution, and British ruled India to show a recurring pattern. Infrastructure was built for plantations and exports while entire communities were left without roads, clinics, or schools. Aid money, he argued, props up private corporations and funds police and military forces whose real role is suppressing impoverished populations.

His message was blunt and remains urgent. Empire benefits a small elite and devastates everyone else. Without class analysis the conversation is baby talk. With it the machinery of empire becomes impossible to deny.

Rest in Power, Parenti. You taught us so much.

@VoxUmmah @venanalysis @qiaocollective @ProgIntl @KawsachunNews

@OrinocoTribune @blkagendareport @SoberaniaPod

[Meidas_Charise Lee @charise_lee]

They want to control women‼️

[𝒦𝑒𝓁𝓁𝓎࿎☽ @idropFbombs]

All of this ends much faster than most are prepared for..

[Rutger Bregman @rcbregman]

Sometimes you get a few minutes on live TV with a billionaire. I tried to make them count! 😅