La Colina Linda, LCL Farm

03/06/2026

Vice Admiral Nancy Lacore, one of the senior military leaders fired without cause by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last summer, is running for the Congressional seat of Republican Nancy Mace in South Carolina's 1st Congressional District -- turning her dismissal from the Pentagon into a fight to flip a Republican House seat.

"After decades of service to our country, a career that started as a Navy pilot and finished as a three-star admiral, I was removed from my position without cause," Lacore declared in her campaign announcement. "I still have more to give, more to fight for, more work to do -- and I am not done serving."

As she told Reserve & National Guard Magazine last week, “I spent 35 years defending the Constitution and upholding the rights and freedoms that are in it. I’m concerned that is at risk right now.”

Lacore is a trailblazer in every sense: a Navy veteran who began her career as a helicopter pilot and rose to become a three-star admiral and the 16th Chief of the Navy Reserve, where she led more than 60,000 sailors. A native of Albany, New York, she followed in her father's footsteps by accepting an ROTC scholarship to the College of the Holy Cross, earning her naval aviator wings in 1993.

Over three and a half decades, she accumulated approximately 1,300 flight hours in military aircraft, deployed to Afghanistan in 2011, commanded Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, and served as the 93rd Commandant of Naval District Washington before ascending to lead the Navy Reserve. Her awards include the Legion of Merit, Defense Meritorious Service Medal, four Meritorious Service Medals, and four Navy Commendation Medals.

Her firing on August 22, 2025 -- exactly one year after taking command of the Navy Reserve -- came alongside Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse, who led the Defense Intelligence Agency, and Rear Adm. Milton Sands, who commanded the Navy SEALs. The Defense Department offered no explanation for her dismissal beyond the catchall "loss of confidence," the same vague justification Hegseth has used to fire dozens of America's most senior military leaders.

Ironically, this unprecedented purge has been conducted by the least qualified Defense Secretary in modern history -- a former Fox News TV host with no senior military command experience, no experience managing large organizations, and no previous government service at any level.

This systematic dismantling of military leadership has alarmed national security experts across the political spectrum. Five former defense secretaries -- including retired Gen. Jim Mattis, Trump's own first defense secretary -- condemned the firings as "reckless" in a joint letter to Congress, asking for "immediate hearings to assess the national security implications" of the dismissals.

Former National Security Council member Kori Schake, a George W. Bush adviser, said the Trump administration is "squandering an enormous amount of talent." Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, a Marine officer who served in Iraq and now sits on the House Armed Services Committee, was blunter: "That's a recipe not just for a politicized military, but an authoritarian military. That's the way militaries work in Russia and China and North Korea."

In Lacore's case, her extensive military record and broader community service show the high caliber of leader that Hegseth has dismissed without cause. After returning from Afghanistan in 2012, she visited the Women in Military Service for America Memorial for the first time and found herself paging through a book devoted to the stories of women who died in Iraq and Afghanistan -- and realized that even after 24 years in the Navy and her own deployment to a war zone, she had no idea how many women had been killed.

"As a woman who had just served in Afghanistan, I really had no idea who had been killed, how many, what services," she said. "And so, I was like, 'You know what, I can do something about this.'"

So she did. In 2014, Lacore founded Valor Run, running 160 miles in 160 hours -- one mile for each of the 160 American servicewomen who died in Iraq and Afghanistan -- from Chesapeake, Virginia to the Women's Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery, raising $33,000 for military charities.

"It's not about me running," she said at the time. "It's about the people coming together and recognizing all the women who have died." The nonprofit ran for ten years, awarding more than $30,000 in scholarships to children whose mothers served in those wars.

Lacore's campaign is centered on putting people first -- affordability, opportunity, and honoring service. "Hard work should result in a stable life," she said. "Americans deserve a lower cost of living -- housing, healthcare, childcare, and daily essentials -- so families, seniors, veterans, and young Americans can build secure futures." With four of her six children now in the workforce, she knows the challenges young people, in particular, are facing firsthand.

South Carolina's 1st District, which includes Charleston, Beaufort, and the surrounding Lowcountry, leans Republican -- Trump won it by 13 points in 2024. But there's precedent for an upset: in 2018, Democrat Joe Cunningham flipped this very seat in one of the biggest upsets of the midterm cycle, becoming the first Democrat to represent the Charleston-based district since 1981. Cunningham lost narrowly to Mace in 2020, but Democrats believe that in a wave election year, with the right candidate, the seat could flip again.

Nancy Lacore -- a decorated combat veteran, a three-star admiral, a mother of six, and the founder of a nonprofit to honor fallen servicewomen -- may be exactly that candidate. As she declared: "I've served my whole life, and I'm not done yet."

To learn more about Nancy Lacore's campaign and how to get involved, visit https://www.nancylacore.com/

For women considering running for office at any level, there are several organizations that can help including Emerge America (https://emergeamerica.org), Vote Run Lead (https://voterunlead.org/), and She Should Run (https://www.sheshouldrun.org)

For books for children about trailblazing female political leaders in the U.S. -- both historically and in modern times -- visit our blog post, “Remember the Ladies: 25 Children's Books on Women in Politics” at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=11162

For a children's book that gives groundbreaking women in the military, past and present, the respect they deserve, we highly recommend "Heroism Begins With Her: Inspiring Stories of Bold, Brave, and Gutsy Women in the U.S. Military" for ages 9 and up at https://www.amightygirl.com/heroism-begins-with-her

For more books for young readers that honor the service of women in the military, visit our blog post "The Price of Peace: A Mighty Girl Recognizes Veterans" at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=12356

For books for children and teens about the importance of standing up for truth, decency, and justice, even in dark times, visit our blog post, "Dissent Is Patriotic: 50 Books About Women Who Fought for Change," at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=14364

To stay connected with A Mighty Girl, you can sign-up for our free email newsletter at https://www.amightygirl.com/forms/newsletter

Thanks to ABC News for sharing this image!

01/22/2026

There's a kind of defiant hope -- a kind of resistance -- that only emerges in dark times. It's what happens when everyday people choose humanity over fear. When a community refuses to look away while their neighbors are hunted.

It looks like a church parking lot full of volunteers loading groceries into cars. A line of strangers signing up for delivery routes they've never driven. A human chain passing boxes of food out into the cold.

In Minneapolis, where over 3,000 heavily armed, masked federal agents have turned neighborhoods into occupied territory, that hope is taking shape in thousands of small acts of solidarity. As entire communities have become too terrified to step outside -- too aware they could be targeted simply for the color of their skin -- people are refusing to let their neighbors go hungry. They're refusing to look away.

This is one story of how the community is rising up.

At Dios Habla Hoy, a church in south Minneapolis, what started as a few hundred grocery deliveries a week has exploded into something much larger. Nearly 25,000 requests for help have come in recent weeks. Volunteers have made over 14,000 deliveries so far -- boxes of food brought directly to the doors of people too afraid to step outside. Bringing 50,000 to 70,000 pounds of food a week to families living in hiding -- in America.

Pastor Sergio Amezcua is at the center of it. He ran a smaller version of this program during the pandemic, but what's happening now, he says, is worse. The fear cuts deeper. It's not just undocumented immigrants hiding inside -- it's U.S. citizens. People born here. ICE agents are stopping people on the streets, going door to door, pulling over cars, demanding papers -- detaining anyone who can't immediately prove their citizenship.

Amezcua himself is an immigrant from Mexico, and describes himself as a conservative. When he first heard ICE was coming to Minneapolis, he wasn't worried -- agents would go after criminals, he figured, and then leave. That's what the Trump administration kept saying after all; that's what they keep claiming to justify the unjustifiable.

What he's seen since has shattered that assumption.

"This is literally racism in the name of patriotism -- and a conservative guy is telling you that," he said. "I feel betrayed by Donald Trump."

Amezcua recounts how, when they first announced the drive on social media -- telling families they could help if they were scared to leave their homes -- he was expecting a few dozen requests. Within eight hours, they had over 2,000 families asking for help.

The need has only kept growing, but so has the response. Volunteers have been lining up at the church in droves, waiting to sign up for delivery shifts. Donations keep pouring in. Amezcua is already working to open more distribution hubs across the city. No one knows how long this will last -- but the community is settling in for the long haul.

On Friday afternoon, despite falling snow and freezing temperatures, the church parking lot was a hive of activity. Germaine Grueneberg, a Minneapolis resident, was among the volunteers. She spoke of the need that many people in Minnesota -- and around the country -- have felt: the need to take action, to do something in the face of unrelenting cruelty. That the time for inaction has passed. That everyone needs to step up.

"The desperation is palpable right now, and we need to do something," Grueneberg said. "I'm lucky enough to have the privilege of a comfortable home, being able to buy my own food, being able to go out and feel somewhat safe. It's about time we support our neighbors."

You can support their food drive to help immigrant families in Minneapolis at https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/donation-form/despensas-food-drive -- and follow their efforts at DHH Church

There is also a state-wide day of action against ICE tomorrow in Minnesota -- learn more at https://www.iceoutnowmn.com/

To help those working on the ground in Minnesota to protect the Constitutional rights of immigrants, you can support the critical work of the Immigrant Defense Network at https://immigrantdefensenetwork.org/

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For children's books that encourage empathy and understanding of Mighty Girl immigrants of the past and present, visit our blog post, "A New Land, A New Life: 25 Mighty Girl Books About the Immigrant Experience" at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=12855

For books for children and teens about people helping others in their communities experiencing hardship, visit our blog post "Cultivating Compassion: 25 Books About Financial Hardship Close to Home" at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog/?p=10049

For a heartwarming book that addresses an issue kids rarely hear about -- hunger in their local community and how they can help -- we highly recommend “Maddi’s Fridge” for ages 4 to 8 at https://www.amightygirl.com/maddi-s-fridge

For Mighty Girl books that teach children about the importance of giving -- both through charity and community service -- you can find many reading recommendations in our blog post: "Making an Impact: 40 Mighty Girl Books About Charity and Community Service” at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=10983

For more empathy-building book for young kids about the importance of compassion and being kind to others, visit our blog post "25 Children's Books That Teach Kids to Be Kind," at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=19359

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To read more about the food drive campaign in MN, visit https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/20/us/minnesota-groceries-church-volunteer-ice-trump.html

You can also watch a short news segment about their efforts at https://www.facebook.com/reel/1929226864668427

04/12/2025

Last month, dairy farmer Nicholas Gilbert received a delivery of grain for the 1,400 cows he tends at his dairy farm in Potsdam, New York, 20 miles from the Ontario border. The feed came with a surprise tariff of $2,200 tacked on.⁠
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“Gilbert cannot increase the price of the milk he sells, which is set by the local co-op,” Annie Lowrey writes. “He cannot feed his cows less food. He cannot buy feed from another supplier; there aren’t any nearby, and getting it from farther away would be more expensive. When he got the delivery, he stared at the tariff for a while. Shouldn’t his Canadian supplier have been responsible for paying it? ‘I’m not even sure it’s legal! We contracted for the price on delivery! If your price of fuel goes up or your truck breaks down, that’s not my problem! That’s what the contract’s for.’”⁠
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Gilbert “is one of tens of thousands of American business owners caught in a spiraling trade war,” Lowrey continues. And he “lives in one area of the United States that might already be tipping into a recession because of it. Businesses near the Canadian border are particularly vulnerable to the rising costs and falling revenue caused by tariffs, and are delaying projects, holding off on hiring, raising prices, letting workers go, or wondering how they are going to keep feeding their cows as a result.”⁠
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Trump’s tariffs “are capricious, haphazard, and weird,” Lowrey writes. They take into account only trade in goods, not services. They apply to nations that have long-standing free-trade agreements with Washington; countries that have trade surpluses with the U.S.; and unpopulated islands. “The nonsensical policy will nevertheless have real effects … Thousands of American firms, mostly small businesses, will go under. The United States risks collapsing into an astonishing voluntary recession, caused solely by a few powerful ideologues’ erroneous beliefs about trade.”⁠
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“If you want to understand where the American economy is heading,” Lowrey continues at the link in our bio, “head to the border.”

📸: Katsarov Luna / Bloomberg / Getty

04/11/2025

Vice Admiral Shoshana Chatfield, the U.S. military representative to NATO's Military Committee, was fired this past weekend as part of the Trump Administration's widening purge of senior military leaders. Her dismissal marks the ninth firing of a senior U.S. military officer -- and notably the fourth woman -- since President Trump returned to office less than three months ago. Chatfield's firing brings her impressive 38-year military career to an abrupt end.

One of only a handful of female Navy three-star officers, Chatfield is a decorated Navy helicopter pilot who commanded a joint reconstruction team in Afghanistan and was the first woman to lead the Naval War College. Senator Jack Reed of the Armed Services Committee, who has demanded an explanation from Trump for her firing, observed that Chatfield was unanimously confirmed by the Senate for the NATO job in 2023; he called her lengthy military career “unblemished by President Trump’s behavior.”

Chatfield was one of the military leaders explicitly targeted by a right-wing group in a December letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth which labeled her as "woke" and called for her to be fired for comments made during a 2015 Women's Equality Day speech where she stated "our diversity is our strength" -- a phrase that Hegseth has publicly condemned as "the single dumbest" in military history. The group also criticized Chatfield for quoting from a presentation by the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute which asserted "investing in gender equality and women's empowerment can unlock human potential on a transformational scale."

Ironically, while Hegseth has repeatedly declared that he is "returning the focus of the military to merit," the former Fox News TV personality and National Guardsman, is most remarkable for being the least qualified defense secretary in history, never having served in a senior military or government role nor managed a large organization, and having the least amount of military experience of any defense secretary in modern times.

While firing senior military leaders is normally rare, the Trump Administration has broken historic precedent by firing many in the senior ranks of the military including General Charles Q. Brown Jr., Admiral Lisa Franchetti, and Admiral Linda Lee Fagan. The timing of Chatfield's removal is particularly disturbing as it shows the growing influence of fringe figures on the White House. Just last week, Trump fired half a dozen national security officials, including General Timothy D. Haugh, the head of the National Security Agency, on the advice of Laura Loomer, a far-right conspiracy theorist, known for asserting that the Parkland school shooting was staged and endorsing claims that the 9/11 attacks were an "inside job," who is described as having "Trump's ear."

Trump's unprecedented purge of senior military leadership led five former defense secretaries, who served under both Democratic and Republican administrations, to issue a scathing letter denouncing the firings and calling on Congress to hold Trump accountable for "these reckless actions and to exercise fully its Constitutional oversight responsibilities."

In the letter, they asserted: "The United States cannot afford to have our military infected by partisan politics and distracted from its core mission of defending the nation. As George Washington warned Alexander Hamilton in 1783, after Hamilton had pressed military officers to insert themselves into domestic politics, 'The Army is a dangerous instrument to play with.' We're not asking members of Congress to do us a favor; we're asking them to do their jobs. We're urging them to take George Washington's warning to heart."

Even some prominent Republicans are calling Trump's reckless national security decisions into questions. After last week's firing of General Haugh, Senator Mitch McConnell said: "If decades of experience in uniform isn’t enough to lead the NSA but amateur isolationists can hold senior policy jobs at the Pentagon, then what exactly are the criteria for working on this Administration’s national security staff? I can’t figure it out.”

In Vice Admiral Chatfield's case, she had built a distinguished 38-year naval career after graduating from Boston University in 1987 with degrees in International Relations and French, later earning a Harvard MPA and a doctorate in education from the University of San Diego. Qualifying as a naval helicopter pilot in 1989, she flew multiple deployments to the Western Pacific and Arabian Gulf, making history as the first commanding officer of Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 25 and later commanding a joint provincial reconstruction team in Afghanistan. Her remarkable career included teaching political science at the U.S. Air Force Academy, serving as type wing commander of HSC Wing, U.S. Pacific Fleet, becoming the first woman president of the Naval War College in 2019, and culminating with her 2023 promotion to vice admiral and appointment as the United States military representative to the NATO Military Committee.

Please join us in thanking Vice Admiral Chatfield for her many years of service to the nation. You deserved so much better than this disgraceful treatment!

To add your voice to the defense secretaries' call to Congress for accountability and to raise concerns about Trump's politicization of the military, you can reach your elected officials via 5 Calls at https://5calls.org

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For books for children and teens about the importance of standing up for truth, decency, and justice, even in dark times, visit our blog post, "Dissent Is Patriotic: 50 Books About Women Who Fought for Change," at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=14364

For a children's book that gives groundbreaking women in the military, past and present, the respect they deserve, we highly recommend "Heroism Begins With Her: Inspiring Stories of Bold, Brave, and Gutsy Women in the U.S. Military" for ages 9 and up at https://www.amightygirl.com/heroism-begins-with-her

For books for young readers that honor the service of women in the military, visit our blog post "The Price of Peace: A Mighty Girl Recognizes Veterans" at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=12356

To see more stories from A Mighty Girl, you can sign-up for A Mighty Girl's free weekly email newsletter at https://www.amightygirl.com/forms/newsletter -- and follow us on Bluesky at https://bsky.app/profile/amightygirl.com

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To read more about Admiral Chatfield's firing, https://wapo.st/425ymYR

To read about the growing influence of conspiracy theorists like Loomer over Trump: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/04/us/politics/trump-nsc-firings-laura-loomer.html?unlocked_article_code=1.-E4.emtT.o6IZwIijcCh8&smid=url-share

To read about the defense chiefs denouncement of Trump's military leadership purge: https://wapo.st/3Xrtzy4

To read the full letter from the defense chiefs to Congress, visit https://tinyurl.com/3ujhx3ez

04/11/2025

Illinois House passes bill banning Native American mascots in K-12 schools, aiming to reduce stereotypes in education.

04/03/2025

01/17/2025

Once the face of the anti-Trump resistance, the Women's March has largely faded from view.

09/18/2024

https://www.kcur.org/news/2024-09-16/pawpaw-festivals-native-fruit?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_term=nprnews&utm_campaign=npr&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0Q5eQV1IxYlktLjmrUVcUz51wN78X0gLMRd8f2Z5fjgQY7AbiBw0jS2_g_aem_l3NuJfBwhiy4-d9MIF2hmg&sfnsn=mo

Even as the tropical-tasting fruit gains popularity through farmer's markets and festivals, the pawpaw faces big hurdles to reaching a mass market.

05/03/2024

Help needed in Anna

03/04/2024

Thimbleberry Wild raspberry

02/29/2024

Changes are coming to The Pilot Garden! Over the next month you might notice raised beds being added to the garden. We're excited to have more space to grow fruits and vegetables for Cairo!

12/14/2023

https://mailchi.mp/a44f7f3a9ac1/99hwbbdt50?e=3d5aa6afaa