The annual climate assessment from the American Meteorological Society
Below is the full report.
See Link Here for the World Meteorological Organization maps, stats, and key messages.
Clearly, the captain of the American ship needs to read the stars.
Poster for State of the Climate 2024
At the White House 2 + 2 = 0. ~ Anonymous
Republicans justifying cuts to programs through the One Big Beautiful Bill (Rescissions Act of 2025) assert that the States and private sector will make up for cuts to federal funding in the Congressional budget.
Alice Ruhnke, President of GrantStation, lists the ways the bill is disabling the Nonprofit Sector which provides a big swath of the Social Safety Net in America.
Read her work here. Interesting to see the progression month by month. Pay attention to proposed changes to the Johnson Amendment (1954). If passed, it would drag churches and charitable organizations into the maelstrom of partisanship politics.
The recent passing away of Bill Moyers brought tears to my eyes and then a long remembrance of his work in our culture and politics. One of his most important gifts to American Life was his curiosity and study of our people. Before he left us, Bill identified the corrupting influence of concentrated wealth in our politics. As usual, he put his finger on the most serious threat to democracy in our history: the corrupting power of greed on human character.
First, we must recognize the danger of this moment in history of the United States of America. I can think of no one better than Timothy Snyder, a Yale Professor recognized as one of our most effective voices on how democracies can die and how citizens can act to prevent it, to guide us in this moment. Dr. Snyder wrote On Tyranny and On Freedom – two small, powerful books with razor sharp vision of how democracy should act and how to spot its demise. Please check out his audio address from Ukraine on his “Thinking About” Substack account, linked below.
Read my recent Letter to U.S. Representative Jen A Kiggans. Hope you will write your representatives as well and call out all that we citizens see and know and remind them that the People run the government.
We can thank the destructive forces let into the heart of Democracy for showing us the truth of our founding principles among which are consent of the governed and the rule of law.
We witness an attempt to overthrow our government by a despot and the foolish people who follow in his path. Mostly, it is a party of grievances against the restraints imposed by principles established at our founding. These establish how we treat each other and live together.
Individuals who throw off the restraining standards of behavior toward one another and detest those principles of decency, respect and caring for each other are tyrants.
Further, neglect of the Earth from devouring forces that eat at her heartwood, not only rob our children of a future but imperil all life on the planet.
Our collective culpability is grave.
Unbridled capitalism is on display in the highest offices of the land, elected by unknowing citizens concerned with the costs of living while forgetting our responsibility to elect leaders who are grounded in the virtues that our founders asserted as a restraint on the forces of tyranny.
Let us join the choir of truth tellers emerging everywhere as our nation awakens to what we have done: we let a fox into the henhouse. This is not political but our individual responsibility to conduct ourselves with respect for each other.
The preservation of our republic is of vital importance today for another reason: the mounting threat to life on Earth. We are a nation that has forgotten that we live here only by the grace of Earth’s living, breathing body and spirit. For too long we have plundered the Earth for coin.
And now we have put a despot at the helm when the Earth is teetering on massive changes which may not include life as we know it. The entire planet is in flux. Even when we watch our fellow Americans fleeing raging fires, epic floods and death, and temperatures that render farmlands barren, this despot denies even his own body and thus imperils all of us.
The first step out of this dilemma is to admit the truth of our present reality. From there, we must resist every attempt of the now unrestrained actions of a man filled with anger and hair-brained ideas detached from the truth.
We may at a time not too far from now have to make bold decisions and risk all to stop him and the hoard who follow hoping for power, money, or at least to duck his vicious nature. If we don’t, we’ll not appear in any history book as standing up for a nation of free people but for the fact that no one will be around to write that history.
Emerging Resources for Citizens Searching for Truth and Community:
Undaunted: courageously resolute especially in the face of danger or difficulty: not discouraged. Merriam Webster.com
A Golden Resource for Americans Who Cherish “Little d” Democracy –
The National Constitution Center Town Halls and Podcast
A great book, is Our Ancient Faith, Lincoln, Democracy, and The American Experiment by Allen C. Guelzo, Historian.
According to our ancient faith, Lincoln said in 1854, “the just powers of the governments are derived from the consent of the governed…. Lincoln translated…to mean “that no man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent. I say that is the leading principle—the sheet anchor of American republicanism.” From Our Ancient Faith by Allen C. Guelzo, Chapter 1: The Cause of Human Liberty, p. 26.
Citizens, those who love and cherish the ideals of our democracy, make it a weekly practice to write to your Senators and Representatives and to members of Key Committees. Here is mine today to Senator Elissa Slotkin who is a member of the U. S. Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee.
We can never know whether what actions we take are heard but I have faith that if millions of freedom loving American write, call, email or visit their Congresspersons, the flame of democracy will never die in America. She may flicker now and then when despots blown in on hot air and untruths, or when we are temporarily fooled, but freedom has its way, always. We must remain undaunted!
Before you vote, sit with yourself in quietude – if possible. Think about which candidate represents your values. Which candidate has earned the right to lead a representative democracy based on consent of the governed, the rule of law, and the belief that no one is above the law?
Who shows the character and knowledge (experience) to represent us at home and abroad? Who is consistent in the values that govern their public life?
Who lifts people up? Who presents a positive vision of who we are and where our nation can go together? Who brings us together without putting people down? Finally, who would you bring home to meet your mother?
Actions speak louder than words. As President John Adams once famously wrote from the newly built White House: “I Pray Heaven To Bestow The Best Of Blessings On This House And All that shall hereafter Inhabit it. May none but Honest and Wise Men ever rule under This Roof.”
Our world is changing. Don’t miss the chance to be a part of assuring our nation continues on its long and hopeful path as the flagship of democracy.
STOP, WAIT, CONSIDER.
What keeps a ship from toppling over with strong winds and rough seas? The force of gravity pulling down and the force of buoyancy acting upward.
What is the force of gravity that keep the ship of state upright? Answer: the Rule of Law and Dynamic Balance among the Branches of Government: the Lesgislature, the Executive, and the Court.
What keeps a ship from sinking? The force of bouyancy pushes upward against the force of gravity. Bouyant forces of Democracy are citizens, civic groups, local and state houses of governance; churches, educatonal institutions, the freedom of the press, and collective political and social norms conducive to a democratic nation. The ship is safe as long as dynamic balance is maintained through checks and balances and a crew that agrees on basic rules and principals in the conduct of deliberation: personal ethics, collaboration and an ephemeral quality in current culture – character.
Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom. Let us never forget this.
Consider then that our Ship of State is as steady in rougher waters as a dynamic balance between forces: our institutions of governance, the ballast, and the winds and rough seas our collective beliefs and actions in living out our creed.
Any student of American history can chart that course over the 248 years of our voyage. We have come close to toppling the ship of state during the Civil War, and at times when men of poor character or despotic nature rose briefly to Captain the ship. We course corrected and repaired our great vessel once more to sail together toward that perfect union.
Every adult American is responsible for this voyage, but some more than others. 2024 is proving to be another storm with dangerous forces threatening the Ship of State.
Our upcoming choice of captain and crew is an opportunity to come together to sustain the course as a free, democratic nation. Outside forces seek to overcome us. Autocratic winds blow around the globe seeking our demise.
This election will go down in history. Let’s make sure it doesn’t take the whole ship down with it.
Check out Defending Our Democracy Together.
National Constitution Center: https://constitutioncenter.org/news-debate/podcasts/can-the-constitution-serve-as-a-document-of-national-unity
The National Constitution Center, a place for citizens to learn and to engage with scholars on American history and constitutional law, is a quiet sunny island in an otherwise turbulent stream of contemporary life.
When all of us rise to a new day only to open a fire hose of information from our phones, home stations, and television, I turn a lot of that off now. I go to the library and check out David McCullough’s 1776, a gritty and personal record of the people and places, and gestalt of colonial America and 18th Century England. What were they thinking? These are the deep roots of our Constitution. We observe our heroes and heroines just as confused as we are in times of tumult and an uncertain future. It lends some comfort as well as reflection.
Click here to watch the Town Hall debates on relevant topics to the state of U.S. politics and how historians and Constitutional scholars understand short comings in our three branches of governance that are not meeing the needs of today’s Americans and why Originalism can trip us up.
David McCullough brings the Road to Revolution alive!
Susan Feathers 