Politics

The origins of Thanksgiving date back to a 1621 feast in which the Wampanoag people helped the Pilgrims to survive in the New World. We can draw inspiration and wisdom from the plight of the first English settlers who colonized this country.  If we peel back the sanitized renditions of this narrative we are confronted by unspeakable hardships. These settlers were ravaged by malnutrition and disease and most did not survive their first winter. This year the COVID-19 pandemic makes this a Thanksgiving like no other.  While many Americans are heeding advisories from public health officials and foregoing the usual...

U.S. president Donald Trump and his allies are doing everything they can to tie President-Elect Joe Biden's hands before he is inaugurated. They seem intent on burning down the house as part of a scorched earth policy designed to make life as difficult as possible for the incoming administration. They are poisoning people with baseless accusations of electoral fraud and impropriety, while resisting science based action to combat COVID-19.  They are firing key personnel, hiring loyalists, announcing sanctions, withdrawing troops and rattling the sabers of war.  All the while they are continuing their assaults on environmental protections and climate action....

The November 3rd election not only elected an environmentally responsible president it also gave Americans a chance to vote on environmental issues in five state ballots and two city referendums. Americans  weighed-in on clean energy, fossil fuels and wildlife. Issue 1 referendum in Columbus, Ohio asked the electorate in that state to vote on whether they want to the city to run on 100% renewable energy by 2022. It gives the government the power to buy renewable electricity for residents of Columbus (passed). Measure 4 in East Brunswick, New Jersey asked voters to decide if they want to give residents and...

Joe Biden will be the next president of the United States and this could pull us back from the precipice and change the course of history. The former vice president garnered more votes than any candidate since the dawn of the republic more than two centuries ago.  A Biden presidency will preserve democracy and return the U.S. to a fact-based approach to governance. Science will once again take its rightful place informing policy including national efforts to manage COVID-19. However, the most important corollary of this election may be reviving hope that we can act in time to preserve the...

Trump is the most consistently unpopular president in the history of the republic. The most recent polls show the Biden leads trump by an average of 8.8 points nationally. This is the largest deficit by an incumbent president in decades. Biden has the support of Blacks, Latinos, women, seniors, independents and educated voters while Trump has Christian evangelicals, rural voters, older uneducated white men and police associations. Trump has also been endorsed by the Taliban and the Proud Boys. as well as authoritarian leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin,, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Pilipino President...

US president Donald Trump is a failure. He has consistently foundered throughout his life but the presidency has exponentially amplified the scale of his failings. Despite repeated warnings Trump chose to playdown the Coronavirus and this may prove to be his apex of evil. More than 228,000 Americans have died due to this pandemic and an additional 200,000 are expected to die by the end of the year.  Trump's corruption may be legendary but it is eclipsed by his epic mismanagement of the pandemic.  His inactions will go down in history as one of the most callous failures of any president in...

Here is the full transcript of the climate related questions and commentary from the second and final debate between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden. The debate took place on Thursday October 22 at Belmont University in Tennessee and was moderated by Kristen Welker. Kristen Welker: (12:41) Gentlemen, we’re running out of time so we got to get onto climate change, please. You both have very different visions on climate change. President Trump, you say that environmental regulations have hurt jobs in the energy sector, Vice President Biden, you have said you see addressing climate change as...

Former President Barack Obama delivered a scathing speech on the campaign trail on Wednesday, October 21, rebuking President Donald Trump. Read the full speech here:Hello, Philadelphia. Man, it is good to be back in Pennsylvania. What beautiful weather we got here. Little Indian summer. I know the president spent some time in Erie last night, and apparently he complained about having to travel here. And then he cut the event short, poor guy. I don't feel that way. I love coming to Pennsylvania. You guys delivered for me twice and I am back here tonight to ask you to deliver the White House...

President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden participated in head-to-head town halls on Thursday October 15th. The bellicose disposition that defined Trump's comportment in the first presidential debate carried over into his town hall. By comparison Biden's town hall included a series of sober exchanges on a wide range of topics from covid to climate. Obfuscation was the name of Trump's game in the first presidential debate and he stayed the course. Mike Pence followed suit in the vice-presidential debate. Trump elaborated upon this strategy lying his way right through the town hall, making some bizarre statements along the way. If the...

The usually nonpartisan New England Journal of Medicine has come out against Donald Trump's bid for a second term. This is the first time in its 208-year history that the world's leading medical journal has come out against a sitting president. In a blunt statement editors at the journal said the Trump administration is "dangerously incompetent."  They cite the fact that this administration "took a crisis and turned it into a tragedy." Without referring to Democratic challenger Joe Biden by name they are urging people to replace President Trump. The editors indicated that they were motivated to condemn Trump due...