What fun to live in the Empire—with our bombs, drones, & foreign aid cuts!! Portlanders can’t always agree on whether we should care about the bombing/starvation campaign in Gaza. Taking over from Earl Blumenauer, Maxine Dexter won her primary in part with AIPAC pro-Israel funds (per The Intercept & OPB). Nonetheless, Rep. Dexter demonstrates a liberal conscience. She came out swinging for federal employees, against the staffing cuts. She visited El Salvador to show her concern about the imprisonment of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Her letters, of late, to us in the Multnomah County Dems who have emailed her about Gaza, have seemed to reflect our views, yet she has not gone so far as to co-sponsor all the Gaza-related Congressional proposals. In recent years, we could count on Rep. Blumenauer to vote/co-sponsor Israel-Palestine proposals in a way similar to Jeff Merkley & Bernie Sanders. A current House bill supports UNRWA & pushes for Israel to allow this aid group back into Gaza (HR2411). Bonamici is a co-sponsor, but Dexter is not yet. The Wall Street Journal, a critic of the Administration's incompetence, describes the chaos unleashed in Gaza (5/28), as U.S. security firms began to provide aid there— another stupid Trump plan, a Netanyahu diabolical plan, or both? NOTE—DEXTER HAS A TOWN HALL THIS SATURDAY, AT MT HOOD COMM. COLLEGE, AT 11AM (Yoshida Event Ctr, 26000 SE Stark St, Gresham): a time to show your support for the progressive positions she has taken, & to ask for more. A starving Gazan (“Democracy Now,” 5/29) said: "Before, the U.N. agency used to send me a message, and I would go, like any respected person. I’d take the aid, and I’d go back home. Now there’s nothing." WATCH IT: Macklemore’s expanded “Hind’s Hall” echoes the tortured truth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X08SH1MBBxg