In a world hurtling toward the unthinkable, the American presidency holds a terrifying singularity of power, one that places the fate of millions at the whim of a single, fallible individual.

The recent directive from President Donald Trump to pursue nuclear weapons testing parity with Russia and China is not merely a provocation; it is the latest symptom of a profound and enduring failure in our national security architecture.

This failure is compounded not only by Republican recklessness but by a Democratic establishment that has consistently lacked the courage to confront it.

THE CURE OF TROY

Human beings suffer

They torture one another,

They get hurt and get hard.

No poem or play or song

Can fully right a wrong

Inflicted and endured.

The innocent in gaols

Beat on their bars together.

A hunger-striker’s father

Stands in the graveyard dumb.

The police widow in veils

Faints at the funeral home.

History says, Don’t hope

On this side of the grave…

But then, once in a lifetime

The longed-for tidal wave

Of justice can rise up,

And hope and history rhyme.

So hope for a great sea-change

On the far side of revenge.

Believe that a further shore

Is reachable from here.

Believe in miracles

And cures and healing wells.

Call miracle self-healing:

The utter, self-revealing

Double-take of feeling.

If there’s fire on the mountain

Or lightning and storm

And a god speaks from the sky

That means someone is hearing

The outcry and the birth-cry

Of new life at its term.

It means once in a lifetime

That justice can rise up

And hope and history rhyme.

by Seamus Heaney

We are less than a week away from the scariest day of the year. I do not mean Halloween. I am talking about Election Day.

To understand the reason to fear this exercise in democracy, the consequences of voting 

The grim math from Harvard and UCLA confirms what many of us have long felt in our bones: in the wake of a mass shooting, as our nation grieves, the politicians in the pockets of the gun lobby often use that very moment of tragedy to loosen firearm laws.

The internet is the public square of the 21st century—a vital engine for our economy, our democracy, and our daily lives. Its power derives from its foundational principle: that all data is treated equally. This principle, known as net neutrality, ensures that a startup can compete with a giant, that an independent journalist can be heard alongside a major network, and that your internet service provider (ISP) serves as a neutral gateway, not a gatekeeper.

This principle is now under direct assault. The January 2025 ruling by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which struck down the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) net neutrality rules, is a devastating blow. It was not based on sound technological reasoning or public interest but on a radical judicial philosophy that empowers massive corporations at the expense of consumers and small businesses. The court, emboldened by the Supreme Court’s rejection of Chevron deference in Loper Bright, has effectively tied the hands of the expert agency meant to protect us.

This decision confirms what we have long known: in the face of a captured FCC, a hostile judiciary, and relentless lobbying by telecom giants, only a definitive, durable law passed by Congress can restore and permanently protect net neutrality.

In the grand theater of American politics, few spectacles offer such a peculiar blend of cruelty and predictability as the Republican Party’s enduring crusade to strip health care from the most vulnerable.

It is a political pastime that seems to provide its practitioners with a sense of profound satisfaction, a mission they pursue with the relentless glee of a cat batting at a cornered mouse.

The latest chapter in this long-running drama involves a concerted effort to defund Planned Parenthood by severing its ties to Medicaid, the nation's largest health insurance program.

The words a leader speaks carry weight. They shape the air a nation breathes, the thoughts that take root in the minds of citizens, and the boundaries of what some believe is permissible.

When those words are repeated often enough—when they are sharpened into weapons, when they paint opponents as enemies and institutions as corrupt, when they frame violence as necessary—they do not simply linger. They act.

The pattern is clear, and it is dangerous. The rhetoric promoted by Donald Trump—the casual dehumanization of adversaries, the glorification of brute force, the relentless insistence that the system itself is rigged—has created an environment where lone actors believe they are not just justified, but called, to commit violence.

The recent statement from Karoline Leavitt, claiming the Democratic Party is made up of "Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens, and violent criminals," is more than just a horrific lie. It is a dangerous and calculated weaponization of fear that must be condemned for what it is: a strategic tool to undermine our democracy.

This isn't a simple mistake or an isolated bit of mudslinging. It is a core part of Donald Trump's un-American political strategy. By falsely painting their opponents as evil, the GOP creates a fake crisis. They tell their supporters that our country is under attack from within by these invented demons.

Why? Because if political rivals are not just citizens with different ideas, but are instead "terrorists" and "criminals," then one can justify almost any action against them. This false emergency is being used to rationalize a brutal consolidation of power. It is the classic excuse of the would-be autocrat: we must break the rules to save the country from this "evil."

Newark's "revival" was a real estate play benefiting outsiders, not residents.

As of this month, a critical lifeline for millions of Americans has been severed.

The expanded Medicare coverage for telehealth visits—a revolutionary and successful program that kept our seniors and vulnerable citizens safe and connected to their doctors during the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic—has been allowed to expire.

This is not an accident of bureaucracy. It is a deliberate choice, and it is a death sentence for some.

We stand at a crossroads much like our founders faced in 1776.

Samuel Adams declared to those who chose comfort over conscience: 'If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom... crouch down and lick the hands which feed you.' 

His words in 1776 were a rebuke to those who sided with the British Crown. Today, they are a rebuke to every politician trading our freedom for corporate cash and every citizen silent in the face of authoritarianism

That choice echoes today. Will we bow to authoritarianism for the illusion of security, or fight for the freedom that defines America?

There is only so much to go around, and when a handful of billionaires take more than their share, the rest of us are left with scraps. That’s not freedom. That’s not democracy. That’s greed, plain and simple.

In 1934, Huey Long proposed a plan to cap extreme fortunes at $50 million, raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans, and use that money to guarantee security and dignity for everyone. 

Nearly a century later, his words ring truer than ever. Our country is being strangled by runaway inequality, and the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few billionaires is robbing the rest of us of opportunity, stability, and even hope.

In a move that suggests a willful illiteracy of history, the United States is once again sending its troops into the Middle East's gravitational field.

This time, the destination is Israel, where up to 200 Americans are to form the nucleus of a multinational task force. The U.S. maintains a substantial military footprint of 50,000 troops across bases in countries like Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain. About 4,000 military personnel remain stationed in Iraq and Syria as part of the ongoing mission against the Islamic State, a transnational Salafi-jihadist militant organization. 

Their stated mission, delivered with bureaucratic serenity, is to monitor a ceasefire in Gaza—a truce so fragile it seems woven from spider-silk and hope by a man whose military career was sidelined by nonexistent bone spurs.