Another corporate "win" courtesy of Trump

And at the expense of the biosphere, and therefore everyone, whether they realize it or not.

U.S. President Donald Trump issued a proclamation on Feb. 6 to open a marine protected area off the northeastern U.S. to commercial fishing, in his latest move to deregulate the country’s waters and fisheries.

The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, a 12,725-square-kilometer (4,913-square-mile) area roughly 209 km (130 mi) southeast of Cape Cod, is home to deep-sea corals and sponges, whale sharks and a variety of marine mammals…

“This Monument supports amazing species from the seafloor to the sea surface, and we see evidence of that during every aerial survey,” Jessica Redfern, an associate vice president at the New England Aquarium, a Boston-based nonprofit, said in a statement. “Removing protections for Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument puts these species at risk.”

…The fates of the four other marine national monuments are also in limbo. In April, Trump issued a proclamation to open up most of the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument, an area larger than the state of Texas, to commercial fishing. A federal judge blocked that reopening in August, but the case is ongoing. - Mongabay

Trump Rx is just another Trump con

Upon examination, it’s little different from anything else with Trump’s name on it. More here.

As a primary care physician who has spent decades helping patients navigate the byzantine complexities of our healthcare system, I researched the new White House unveiling of the self-referential TrumpRx (ew) with a mix of hope and concern. President Trump proclaimed it “one of the most transformative healthcare initiatives of all time,” promising Americans dramatic discounts on prescription medications. But after examining the platform this morning and reviewing independent analyses, I’m deeply skeptical that this initiative will meaningfully help my patients—and worried it may actually harm them…

But here’s the first thing that concerns me: these astronomical discount percentages are calculated against list prices, the sticker prices that virtually no one actually pays. It’s like a car dealership advertising 30% off MSRP when the real negotiated price was always going to be much lower. This mathematical sleight-of-hand creates the illusion of historic savings while obscuring what patients truly pay through insurance copays or existing discount programs, which is often much lower already.

Perhaps most troubling is what multiple independent analyses have revealed: approximately half of the 43 drugs featured on TrumpRx already have significantly cheaper generic alternatives available elsewhere. - Daily Kos

Farmers are taking a big hit from Trump policies

This is being underreported in “legacy” media, of course.

A large group of agriculture experts warned that US farms are taking a financial beating thanks to President Donald Trump’s global trade war.

In a letter sent to the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees on Tuesday, the experts warned of a potential “widespread collapse of American agriculture and our rural communities” caused in no small part by Trump administration policies.

The letter’s signatories—which include former leaders of American agricultural commodity and biofuels associations, farm leaders, and former USDA officials—pointed to Trump’s tariffs on imported goods and his mass deportation policies as particularly harmful.

“It is clear that the current administration’s actions, along with congressional inaction,” the letter states, “have increased costs for farm inputs, disrupted overseas and domestic markets, denied agriculture its reliable labor pool, and defunded critical [agricultural] research and staffing.” - Common Dreams

Some decent news on EV charging

Despite Trump’s efforts to kill anything that’s not disastrous for the climate.

Last year brought a torrent of bad news for the U.S. electric vehicle industry. The Trump administration pushed Republicans in Congress to cancel Biden-era EV tax credits and revoke states’ rights to set clean-car mandates. The White House moved to weaken vehicle fuel-economy standards. And it froze billions of dollars in federal EV-charging grants — although legal challenges have since unlocked $5 billion of that money.

Despite the upheaval, U.S. public charging networks had a growth spurt last year, according to a report released (Jan. 28) by data analytics firm Paren. And the new chargers are working more reliably and being used more heavily than ever — a sign the country is matching charging supply to demand.

The nation’s public fast-charging network expanded by 30% over the course of 2025, adding 18,041 ports, according to Paren. That’s up from the 13,970 fast-charging ports deployed in 2024, and way up from the 5,313 installed in 2021. - Canary Media

Trump loves deep sea mining, and that’s not good

Presumably there will be lawsuits over this, and maybe some action by state legislators (especially in Hawai’i), and we’ll see how things go.

The Trump administration is supporting a new and highly destructive deep-sea mining (DSM) industry in our ocean, despite immense environmental risks and broad international opposition. Early in his second term, President Trump issued an executive order directing agencies to fast-track deep-sea mining in both U.S. and international waters. Since then, and for the first time ever, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) officially initiated the process of leasing for deep-sea mining offshore American Samoa and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). BOEM also plans to initiate minerals leasing offshore Virginia. Meanwhile, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is advancing an application for an exploration license in the Pacific Ocean southeast of Hawai‘i and may soon advance an application for a permit to mine in the same area.

By fast-tracking deep-sea mining, the administration is leading a race to the bottom. The deep sea is the largest and least-explored habitat on earth. Humans know very little about it, yet we do know that DSM would likely cause significant and irreparable harm to deep-sea habitats over huge areas, including the destruction of the seafloor and the ecosystems it supports. The discharge of mining waste would result in sediment plumes that could spread for hundreds of miles. - NRDC

The billionaires are some serious carbon hogs

Although, you know, they do so much for the rest of us

Climate change is everyone’s problem, but not everyone equally shares the blame for rising global temperatures. A new analysis from Oxfam reveals the outsized contribution from the richest portion of the world’s population.

The stunning findings, published January 9, show that the super-rich exhausted their annual carbon budget—the amount of CO2 that can be emitted while staying within 1.5 degrees of global warming—within the first 10 days of 2026. For the richest 0.1%, it only took three days. - Gizmodo

96% of Trump tariffs are being paid by us

“Us” meaning U.S. importers and consumers. I’ve seen where even some progressive commenters have questioned how much damage the Trump tariffs are actually doing, because overall inflation hasn’t spiked. They may have overlooked how even small individual hits add up. There are also indications that importers are no longer in a position to absorb a substantial share of the tariff hits, and that an inflation spike for consumers is on its way. We'll see.

President Donald Trump has long insisted, in the face of decades of research by economists, that foreign producers are the only ones who are paying for his tariffs on imported goods.

However, a major new study released Monday by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, an economic think tank based in Germany, shows that US businesses and consumers are shouldering the burden for the vast majority of Trump’s tariffs.

After examining more than 25 million shipment records of goods imported to the US last year, the institute found that foreign exporters only absorbed 4% of the $200 billion in tariff payments, with the remaining 96% being passed on to US importers and consumers. - Common Dreams