Category: Editorial

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Undoing the Harm the Trump Administration has Done

I want to begin a series on “How to Undo the Harm that the Trump Administration Has Done,” starting along the lines of:

“Of course some of the harm cannot be undone:

  • The extrajudicial killings of fishermen in the south Atlantic, murders carried out by the U.S. military at the express direction of Hegseth and Trump. These killings are also war crimes for which Trump should be in prison.
  • The people killed in the illegal Iran War, including 162 schoolchildren along with their teachers, not to mention the unprovoked assassination of a foreign leader.
  • The estimated two million deaths attributable to the abrupt termination of USAID, at the behest of the richest man on Earth acting on behalf of the President.
  • The collusion in the genocide in Gaza.

There are also the daily struggles of ordinary Americans who are having trouble paying the rent, affording gas and groceries, as well as clothes and school supplies for their children. These are, in principle, reversible, but they are not likely to be relieved under this Administration. Similarly, throwing tens of thousands of immigrants into concentration camps, mistreating them, and deporting many of them. As far as I know, there is no way that any of us can stop any of this
 Continue reading “Undoing the Harm the Trump Administration has Done”

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Today in America

Q, Please explain why the right wing in America is trying to dismantle its institutions, and what the New American Dream should be,

A. (ChatGPT) This is one of the central political questions of our era, and it deserves a careful answer because there isn’t a single motive or a single “right wing.” Different factions are pursuing different goals that sometimes reinforce one another.

Broadly speaking, there are four overlapping impulses.

Continue reading “Today in America”

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Even AI Knows What’s Wrong with America

Why Trump’s “America First” Is Failing the People It Promised to Serve

(Generated by Grok, October 7, 2025; scroll down for ChatGPT’s take)

Fellow Americans—especially those of you who voted for Donald Trump because you believed in draining the swamp, putting workers first, and making America great again—let’s talk straight. You didn’t sign up for chaos that hurts your wallet, divides your family, or makes the world laugh at us. Trump promised to learn from the past, unite the country, and deliver results without the elite games. But nine months into this second term, the evidence is piling up: his administration is stumbling into the same traps that sank past leaders, alienating the smart folks who could help, and creating needless disruption that leaves everyday people paying the price.

This isn’t about “fake news” or “deep state sabotage.” It’s about cold, hard facts—from job losses to skyrocketing costs—that show how “winning” is turning into losing for the working class. If you’re a Trump supporter reading this, stick with me. These aren’t opinions; they’re numbers and stories you can’t dismiss. Because real patriotism means holding leaders accountable when they veer off course, not blindly cheering the wreckage.

1. Betraying the Working Class: Tariffs That Tax the Little Guy, Not the Elites

Remember the rallies? “I’m going to protect American workers from bad trade deals!” Trump thundered. But his blanket tariffs—now hitting everything from steel to consumer goods—aren’t bringing jobs back. They’re killing them. Manufacturing employment has dropped by 33,000 jobs so far in 2025, the steepest decline in years. That’s not “winning” for factory towns in Ohio or Pennsylvania; it’s families scraping by while prices for basics like cars (up $10,000 on average) and groceries climb 18%. Continue reading “Even AI Knows What’s Wrong with America”

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Misguided Leadership

Why is Trump Squandering America’s Potential?

America stands at a crossroads—not because we lack talent, vision, or potential, but because those who claim to lead the nation have chosen chaos over competence. The Trump Administration, for all its talk of greatness, continues to sabotage its own promises with divisive rhetoric, poor planning, and deliberate alienation of the very people it vowed to help.

Instead of harnessing this country’s energy and ingenuity, the administration thrives on disruption for disruption’s sake. They mistake outrage for progress. The result is a fractured nation, worn down by social unrest, international embarrassment, and squandered economic opportunity.

Alienating the Wise and the Willing

Continue reading “Misguided Leadership”

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Standing Up Against Tyranny: A Moral Imperative for Our Time

It should go without saying that our moral responsibility as citizens is to oppose tyranny in all its forms. Whether tyranny comes cloaked in nationalism, religious extremism, authoritarian populism, or corporate power, it corrodes the foundations of a free and just society. Standing against it is not just a matter of political opinion—it is an ethical obligation. But how we stand up matters. Our response must be measured, effective, and directed toward positive outcomes, even when the path forward is uncertain or fraught with risk.

In some parts of the world, such as Ukraine, the struggle against tyranny is brutally physical and immediate. Ukrainians have no choice but to defend their homes, families, and sovereignty with whatever means are at hand. Their resistance is a stark reminder of what is at stake when authoritarian power goes unchecked. For those of us not caught in such violence, the fight may be quieter, but it is no less critical. We still have the opportunity—which becomes our duty—to use our voices, our actions, and our civic power to prevent such conditions from emerging or worsening at home.

Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (2017) provides both a warning and a roadmap. Continue reading “Standing Up Against Tyranny: A Moral Imperative for Our Time”

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Avoiding the Worst Consequences of Collapse

It’s important to take a moment in the midst of the current political turmoil to consider what‘s really at stake. What we’re seeing from the Trump White House may be a symptom of the breakdown occurring as the new Administration tries to turn back the clock in several critical areas—climate, equity, foreign aid, and public service—while pursuing global triumphalism. But the consequences of a world economy built on fossil fuels, mass consumerism, and conventional agriculture are unavoidable. We need to understand that we are in the midst of collapse, and that chaos and conflict will only accelerate it. Here’s what even ChatGPT recognizes to be the situation we face.

The Reality of Accelerating Collapse

Civilization as we know it is under immense strain. Climate change, biodiversity loss, desertification, and ocean acidification are just some of the existential crises unfolding at an accelerating pace. These environmental pressures are compounded by political instability, economic fragility, and disruptive social movements seeking to overturn the status quo. We are in the midst of what scientists and historians may come to call the most decisive decade of the 21st century. What we do—or fail to do—will determine whether the future remains habitable for humanity and countless other species Continue reading “Avoiding the Worst Consequences of Collapse”

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The Return of Despotism?

Back in 2016, I wrote a post obliquely comparing Trump to Hitler. At the time it reminded me of Marx’s famous quote that history repeats itself, first as tragedy (Hitler) and then as comedy (Trump). I could not imagine that Americans could actually elect this buffoon as our president, and I had grave concerns about our freedoms and about our responsibilities to the biosphere. Many of these were justified.

The good news is that we actually survived those years and that on January 6, 2021, the vastly outnumbered Capitol Police turned back the deadliest full-on insurrection since, well, the Civil War. The bad news is that the feckless and immoral Trumpian effort may not be over.

The latest news is that Trump intends to pardon the insurrectionists if he is returned to office, and they may even be let go sooner if the Republicans win the House and/or the Senate in the 2022 midterms. We should be clear as to what this means. It is the sort of thing that happened after President Lincoln was assassinated, and Andrew Johnson presided over an accelerated reconciliation called Reconstruction.

Continue reading “The Return of Despotism?”

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New C-PACE Bill Passes in New Jersey

After almost ten years of concerted advocacy, New Jersey’s C-PACE law is finally being amended to make it actually usable by municipalities and commercial property owners to limit their carbon emissions, save money, and create new jobs and opportunities in local communities. While it will still be a number of months before the NJ Economic Development Authority (NJEDA) issues rules and guidelines, the passage of the new bill (A2374/S1953) is a major milestone in NJ’s commitment to meaningful climate action.

Here’s the press release posted by New Jersey PACE and its affiliated sites yesterday:

The Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy program, already approved in 37 states and D.C., with active programs in 24 states, is headed to the Governor’s desk for signature

Trenton, N.J. — On June 24 the New Jersey Legislature approved A2374/S1953 with overwhelming, bipartisan majorities in both the Assembly and Senate. The C-PACE (Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy) bill establishes the Garden State C-PACE Program, to be developed and overseen by the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA).

The bill was sponsored by Assemblyman Raj Mukherji (D-Jersey City) and Senators Bob Smith (D-Piscataway) and Kip Bateman (R-Somerset).  This represents the culmination of a ten-year effort by New Jersey PACE (NJPACE), a 501c3 nonprofit organization, to amend NJ’s unworkable 2011 PACE (Property Assessed Clean Energy) statute.

The legislation establishes a program that, through a municipal ordinance, allows commercial property owners to privately finance energy efficiency, renewables, and resiliency projects and repay them over time through a special assessment on the property tax bill, similar to a sidewalk or sewer assessment. These projects are 100% financed with private sector capital—no taxpayer or public monies are used.

Continue reading “New C-PACE Bill Passes in New Jersey”

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A Sage’s Thoughts…

“Pity the nation whose sages are dumb with years 
And whose strong citizens are yet in cradle
Pity the nation divided into fragments
Each fragment deeming itself savior of the nation!”

(Adapted)

By Zaheer Jan

As the new year dawns and as we, the Democrats take control of the house, I, a person who has been running from country to country, in the hope of having found the ultimate haven, am hopeful that we all in general and Nancy Pelosi in particular will hark to the words of President Abraham Lincoln and, “strive on to. . . bind up the nation’s wounds”, because “A house divided against itself, cannot stand.” And, “With malice towards none and justice for all”, take courage; go into the ‘Lion’s den, the states President Trump claims as his base, and reach out to HIS base.

Citizens of these states have for long felt disenfranchised from the decision making processes that affect them financially. Invite them and include them in the democratic party’s vision.

Our country and its system of government, our constitution is too great to be allowed to fall victim to petty rivalries and cheap theatrics. For if we allow that to happen, and let us be sucked into the whirlpool of international jealousies, then the only option left will be a cataclysm for mankind, nay perhaps the planet itself.

Our country’s adversaries are lying in wait, are deadly serious, and are playing for keeps.

Zaheer Jan

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Sounding the Alarm

New observations show that climate change is already harming us in a wide variety of ways. Possible Planet is looking at what we can do about it, from rewarding carbon capture on a global scale to refreezing the Arctic. 

Mounting Evidence of Harm to Humanity and the Biosphere

Climate change—or, as Dr. Janice Kirsh prefers to call it, climate disruption1—is already upon us. The effects are real, costly, and increasingly measurable. Amongst several other dire warnings issued near the end of 2018, the latest report of the Lancet Countdown notes that “Vulnerability to extremes of heat has steadily risen since 1990 in every region, with 157 million more people exposed to heatwave events in 2017, compared with 2000,” and “153 billion hours of labour were lost in 2017 because of heat, an increase of more than 62 billion hours since 2000.” Moreover,

The direct effects of climate change extend beyond heat to include extremes of weather. In 2017, a total of 712 extreme weather events resulted in US$326 billion in economic losses, almost triple the total losses of 2016.2

Add to this the “excess costs” of rising sea levels, and rising levels of ocean acidity; the agricultural impacts and the spread of vector-borne and water-borne diseases; and the broad range of public health impacts—and it’s clear that today’s costs and consequences alone are reason enough to sound the alarm.

But the planet also faces other imminent disasters:

  • the loss of natural habitat and biodiversity, precipitating what is widely considered “the sixth mass extinction event”
  • the widespread loss of soil fertility threatening agricultural production
  • and wars, conflicts, and mass migrations that are already being precipitated by environmental changes

Though some people are still apparently unwilling to believe that climate change is real, or that humans are the major cause of it, these very real economic and biophysical costs are of increasing concern to global policymakers, public health professionals, the insurance industry, and even the military. And ironically it’s perhaps the risk to the economy, even more than to the biosphere, that will drive a meaningful response.

Continue reading “Sounding the Alarm”