Visual arts inspired by ‘Moby Dick’
“Acushnet (Whaler),’’ from Henry M. Johnson logbook (1845-47) (ink pencil and watercolor on pencil), from the show “Call Me Ishmael: The Book Arts of Moby Dick,’’ at the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass., through March 29.
Edited remarks from the museum:
“The novel (Moby Dick) and its timeless themes continue to inspire artists, designers and creatives of all types. Its first sentence: ‘Call me Ishmael,’ is one of the best-known opening lines in all of literature.
“This is the first exhibition focused on the book arts of the hundreds of editions published since 1851: the illustrations, binding designs, typography and even the physical structure….The show explores decades of creative approaches to interpreting the novel visually in book form. It will shed some light on Herman Melville’s original inspiration and include a contemporary update through recent artists’ books, graphic novels, a translation into emoji and pop-up books.’’
Mathew Barlow/Judah Cohen: How polar vortex from the warming Arctic and warm ocean intensified our big winter storm
From The Conversation (except for image above)
Mathew Barlow is a professor of climate science at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell.
Judah Cohen is a climate science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Mathew Barlow has received federal funding for research on extreme events and also conducts legal consulting related to climate change.
Judah Cohen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
A severe winter storm that brought crippling freezing rain, sleet and snow to a large part of the U.S. in late January 2026 left a mess in states from New Mexico to New England. Hundreds of thousands of people lost power across the South as ice pulled down tree branches and power lines, more than a foot of snow fell in parts of the Midwest and Northeast, and many states faced bitter cold that was expected to linger for days.
The sudden blast may have come as a shock to many Americans after a mostly mild start to winter in many places in the nation, but that warmth may have partly contributed to the ferocity of the storm.
As atmospheric and climate scientists, we conduct research that aims to improve understanding of extreme weather, including what makes it more or less likely to occur and how climate change might or might not play a role.
To understand what Americans are experiencing with this winter blast, we need to look more than 20 miles above the surface of Earth, to the stratospheric polar vortex.
A forecast for Jan. 26, 2026, shows the freezing line in white reaching far into Texas. The light band with arrows indicates the jet stream, and the dark band indicates the stratospheric polar vortex. The jet stream is shown at about 3.5 miles above the surface, a typical height for tracking storm systems. The polar vortex is approximately 20 miles above the surface. Mathew Barlow, CC BY
What creates a severe winter storm like this?
Multiple weather factors have to come together to produce such a large and severe storm.
Winter storms typically develop where there are sharp temperature contrasts near the surface and a southward dip in the jet stream, the narrow band of fast-moving air that steers weather systems. If there is a substantial source of moisture, the storms can produce heavy rain or snow.
In late January, a strong Arctic air mass from the north was creating the temperature contrast with warmer air from the south. Multiple disturbances within the jet stream were acting together to create favorable conditions for precipitation, and the storm system was able to pull moisture from the very warm Gulf of Mexico.
The National Weather Service issued severe storm warnings (pink) on Jan. 24, 2026, for a large swath of the U.S. that could see sleet and heavy snow over the following days, along with ice storm warnings (dark purple) in several states and extreme cold warnings (dark blue). National Weather Service
Where does polar vortex come in?
The fastest winds of the jet stream occur just below the top of the troposphere, which is the lowest level of the atmosphere and ends about seven miles above Earth’s surface. Weather systems are capped at the top of the troposphere, because the atmosphere above it becomes very stable.
The stratosphere is the next layer up, from about seven miles to about 30 miles. While the stratosphere extends high above weather systems, it can still interact with them through atmospheric waves that move up and down in the atmosphere. These waves are similar to the waves in the jet stream that cause it to dip southward, but they move vertically instead of horizontally.
A chart shows how temperatures in the lower layers of the atmosphere change between the troposphere and stratosphere. Miles are on the right, kilometers on the left. NOAA
You’ve probably heard the term “polar vortex” used when an area of cold Arctic air moves far enough southward to influence the United States. That term describes air circulating around the pole, but it can refer to two different circulations, one in the troposphere and one in the stratosphere.
The Northern Hemisphere stratospheric polar vortex is a belt of fast-moving air circulating around the North Pole. It is like a second jet stream, high above the one you may be familiar with from weather graphics, and usually less wavy and closer to the pole.
Sometimes the stratospheric polar vortex can stretch southward over the United States. When that happens, it creates ideal conditions for the up-and-down movement of waves that connect the stratosphere with severe winter weather at the surface.
A stretched stratospheric polar vortex reflects upward waves back down, left, which affects the jet stream and surface weather, right. Mathew Barlow and Judah Cohen, CC BY
The forecast for the January storm showed a close overlap between the southward stretch of the stratospheric polar vortex and the jet stream over the U.S., indicating perfect conditions for cold and snow.
The biggest swings in the jet stream are associated with the most energy. Under the right conditions, that energy can bounce off the polar vortex back down into the troposphere, exaggerating the north-south swings of the jet stream across North America and making severe winter weather more likely.
This is what was happening in late January 2026 in the central and eastern U.S.
If climate is warming, why are we still getting severe winter storms?
Earth is unequivocally warming as human activities release greenhouse- gas emissions that trap heat in the atmosphere, and snow amounts are decreasing overall. But that does not mean severe winter weather will never happen again.
Some research suggests that even in a warming environment, cold events, while occurring less frequently, may still remain relatively severe in some locations.
One factor may be increasing disruptions to the stratospheric polar vortex, which appear to be linked to the rapid warming of the Arctic with climate change.
The polar vortex is a strong band of winds in the stratosphere, normally ringing the North Pole. When it weakens, it can split. The polar jet stream can mirror this upheaval, becoming weaker or wavy. At the surface, cold air is pushed southward in some locations. NOAA
Additionally, a warmer ocean leads to more evaporation, and because a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture, that means more moisture is available for storms. The process of moisture condensing into rain or snow produces energy for storms as well. However, warming can also reduce the strength of storms by reducing temperature contrasts.
The opposing effects make it complicated to assess the potential change to average storm strength. However, intense events do not necessarily change in the same way as average events. On balance, it appears that the most intense winter storms may be becoming more intense.
A warmer environment also increases the likelihood that precipitation that would have fallen as snow in previous winters may now be more likely to fall as sleet and freezing rain.
Still many questions
Scientists are constantly improving the ability to predict and respond to these severe weather events, but there are many questions still to answer.
Much of the data and research in the field relies on a foundation of work by federal employees, including government labs like the National Center for Atmospheric Research, known as NCAR, which has been targeted by the Trump administration for funding cuts. These scientists help develop the crucial models, measuring instruments and data that scientists and forecasters everywhere depend on.
1929: Drive to the poorhouse in your own automobile
For Sunday drivers with chains on their tires.
‘Share what sustains us’
Poster for “InGathering” show at the University of New Hampshire Gallery of Art, Durham, N.H., through March 27.
The gallery says:
“There is a season for all things, and every season has its purpose. During this fallow season of winter, we gather for sustenance and warmth. We gather nuts and grains. We gather songs and stories. We gather memories. We gather light and color. We gather together for warmth and to share what sustains us.’’
‘Silence never won rights’
In the National Archives, in Washington, D.C., where the Constitution (including the Bill of Rights), the Declaration of Independence and other American founding documents are exhibited.
“So long as we have enough people in this country willing to fight for their rights, we’ll be called a democracy.’’
“Silence never won rights. They are not handed down from above; they are forced by pressures from below.’’
“The rule of law in place of force, always basic to my thinking, now takes on a new relevance in a world where, if war is to go, only law can replace it.’’
— Roger Nash Baldwin (1884-1961), Wellesley, Mass., native who co-founded the American Civil Liberties Union.
Electric impulses
From Kate Henderson’s show “Electric Current,’’ at KLG/Kehler Liddell Gallery, New Haven, Conn., through Feb. 1
She says:
“As a creator, my impulses embody both a deep appreciation of nature as it exists, and an ever-present yearning for an ecstatic state. Aiming to bridge and ultimately reconcile these dualities, my work stands in subtle resistance against fundamentalism of all kinds, favoring an endless search for meaning across complex, multiple worlds.’’
Chris Powell: Conn. governor’s ‘unfinished business’ needn’t wait
Connecticut Capitol, in Hartford. “The Nutmeg State’’ has always been among the richest states.
MANCHESTER, Conn.
Being governor is a tough job, especially in Connecticut, where thousands have their hands out and the more they're given, the more they want and expect. The state has not prospered particularly during Ned Lamont's two terms, but given his party's ravenous constituencies, things probably would be worse under any other Democrat. Lamont has restrained spending and taxes more than the big Democratic majorities in the General Assembly would have liked.
But state government remains poorly managed and in some cases not managed at all, as was suggested by the audit released this week by the state Economic and Community Development Department about corruption in “anti-poverty" grants that the department administered only nominally. The grants were actually controlled by state Sen. Douglas McCrory, D-Hartford, who routed them through a special friend who, the audit found, took a lot of the money for herself in the guise of providing services not actually rendered.
The governor quickly tried to take ownership of the audit, joining in its announcement. He called it “a strong reminder that when taxpayer dollars are involved, we have zero tolerance for fraud, waste, or mismanagement."
This was nonsense, for such grants have been routinely allocated to Democratic state legislators as raw patronage without oversight or evaluation of results. The governor has gone along with this. The corruption exposed by the audit is a matter of his own indifference and the negligence of his economic development commissioner.
The governor said Senator McCrory should “step back" from Senate business but didn't propose to stop the patronage grants.
And are Connecticut's cities any less poor for the grants, or less poor for any “anti-poverty" programs? Is poverty any less of a patronage business?
In a recent interview with the Connecticut Examiner, Lamont said he was glad to answer for his record and, if elected to the third term he seeks, will address “some unfinished business."
Where to begin? And why wait?
Given the terrible cold descending on the state this weekend, “unfinished business" -- unstarted, really -- could begin with the “cold weather protocol" the governor has invoked. This happens when state government and social-service agencies summon the mentally ill off the streets at night to various overcrowded indoor facilities and send them back outside in the morning in state government's belief that the best therapy for mental illness is fresh air.
More than a hundred of them have died outdoors in Connecticut in the last year.
For decades this therapy has saved state government millions of dollars on mental hospitals, money spent instead on state employee raises and pensions.
Always needing urgent review is the Correction Department. Two Fridays ago the General Assembly's Judiciary Committee held a hearing about the department's chronic management failures, starting with the report issued by the state auditors last July showing that 15 of the 18 failures cited by the audit were cited by previous audits as well. The new audit found that the department lately had paid more than $800,000 in salaries for excessive administrative leave.
Two weeks ago the state inspector general concluded that the deaths of two inmates at the state prison in Newtown within days of each other in 2024 were caused by mistakes with medication administered by medical contractors. This week the department's ombudsman issued a report criticizing not only inadequate medical care for prisoners, a longstanding issue, but also unsanitary conditions and excessive lockdowns.
The correction commissioner said again that the department aims to do better, so that will suppress the issue for another year, since nobody cares much about prisoners besides the ombudsman, whose appointment the governor obstructed.
As for state taxes, however well the governor has restrained them, much of that restraint has always been achieved by pushing what probably should be state expenses down to the municipal level, where they are recovered through higher property taxes, though Connecticut's property taxes are disgracefully high.
For many years that too has been “unfinished business."
Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years (CPowell@cox.net).
More than just me
“Hush” (ceramic), by Delanie Kabrick Wise, at Boston Sculptors Gallery.
She says:
“When making figurative work, the pieces always end up being a kind of self portrait, not in the literal sense, but they reflect my sensibilities. It used to bother me that this happened, but now I accept this reality and embrace it. I am the person that I know the best and I feel my life experiences are not so unique as they are universal.’’
Llewellyn King: Check the Bible on citizenship and rights
The Eliot Indian Bible was the first translation of the Christian Bible into an indigenous American language, as well as the first Bible published in British North America. It was prepared by English Puritan missionary to New England John Eliot by translating the Geneva Bible.
About 40 exist today out of the original 1,050 printed, with about 30 in New England (libraries and private collections) and about 10 in Europe.
A Gutenberg Bible (1455) at the New York Public Library.
WEST WARWICK, R.I.
President Donald Trump claims that birthright citizenship isn’t that: a birthright. He wants the authority to revoke the citizenship of U.S.-born children of both immigrants here illegally and visitors here only temporarily.
The Supreme Court will hear arguments on birthright citizenship this spring. It will likely hand down a ruling by summer.
Before the justices decide, they may want to cast their eyes over the Acts of the Apostles in the Bible.
They will learn anew how inviolate birthright citizenship was to Paul when he entered Jerusalem. He had to invoke his Roman citizenship to save himself from flogging and torture.
On another occasion, Paul used his rights as a citizen to demand a trial.
Here is what befell Paul in Jerusalem in Acts 22:29:
22 The crowd listened to Paul until he said this. Then they raised their voices and shouted, “Rid the earth of him! He’s not fit to live!”
23 As they were shouting and throwing off their cloaks and flinging dust into the air, 24 the commander ordered that Paul be taken into the barracks. He directed that he be flogged and interrogated in order to find out why the people were shouting at him like this.
25 As they stretched him out to flog him, Paul said to the centurion standing there, “Is it legal for you to flog a Roman citizen who hasn’t even been found guilty?”
26 When the centurion heard this, he went to the commander and reported it. “What are you going to do?” he asked. “This man is a Roman citizen.”
27 The commander went to Paul and asked, “Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?”
“Yes, I am,” he answered.
28 Then the commander said, “I had to pay a lot of money for my citizenship.”
“But I was born a citizen,” Paul replied.
29 Those who were about to interrogate him withdrew immediately. The commander himself was alarmed when he realized that he had put Paul, a Roman citizen, in chains.
In the 1st Century A.D., Roman citizenship could be had by birth, purchased or granted by the emperor. But citizens who were born to their status had something of an edge over those, like the commander, who had bought their citizenship.
A Roman citizen enjoyed many rights, which are also contained in the U.S. Constitution but are being ignored by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who are sweeping up people — some have turned out to be citizens and some have been deported in error.
These are the rights of a Roman citizen in the 1st Century A.D.:
Immunity from flogging and torture. These could be used to extract confessions, but were forbidden to be used against citizens.
The right to a fair trial, which included the accused’s right to confront his accusers.
The right to appeal directly to the emperor.
Protection from degrading death, particularly crucifixion.
Protection from illegal imprisonment. A citizen couldn’t be jailed if he hadn’t been convicted.
Trump is seeking a Supreme Court ruling to uphold his executive order (14161), ending universal birthright citizenship. The lower courts have restricted the order, and the president has asked SCOTUS to set that aside.
The 14th Amendment grants birthright citizenship to any child born under the jurisdiction of the United States. But Trump’s executive order, according to the New York City Bar, “purports to limit birthright citizenship by alleging that a child born to undocumented parents is not ‘within the jurisdiction of the United States.’
“It thereby posits that birthright citizenship does not extend to any child born in the United States to a mother who is unlawfully present or lawfully present on a temporary basis and a father who is neither a U.S. citizen nor a lawful permanent resident.”
If Trump prevails, the unfortunate children will be unable to get birth certificates, register for school, receive health care or any kind of public assistance. They must either seek citizenship from their parents’ country or, more likely, join the growing ranks of the world’s stateless people, punished for life for the crime of being born. Victims to be exploited down through the decades of their lives.
The United Nations estimates that there are more than 4 million stateless people in the world, but that is a gross undercount, considering the number of refugees across Africa and in Latin America. War and drought are adding to the numbers daily.
If the justices want another biblical example, they may turn to the Old Testament and its several warnings that the sins of the fathers will be visited on the children for generations. As Exodus 20:5 puts it, “visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation.”
Those who support the Trump view may want to think about the iniquity they are promoting. No baby chooses where to be born, ever.
Llewellyn King is executive producer and host of White House Chronicle, on PBS, and an international energy-sector consultant. His email is llewellynking1@gmail.com ,and he’s based inRhode Island.
A moneyed perspective
The Aldrich referred to in this 1908 cartoon is powerful Sen. Nelson Aldrich of Rhode Island, (1841-1915) dubbed “The General Manager of the Nation.”
The cartoon is by John McCutcheon (1870-1949), the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist for the Chicago Tribune, which printed his cartoons on the front page for 40 years. He was known as the “dean of American cartoonists.”
Boston bursts with wind
“A Gust of Wind,’’ by Gaetano Bellei.
Edited from a Boston Guardian article (except images) by Daniel Larlham Jr. Robert Whitcomb, New England Diary’s editor, is chairman of The Guardian.
Chicago might proudly boast the nickname “Windy City’’ but it’s not nearly the windiest in the United States, and Boston’s surely got them beat when it comes to wind this year.
In fact, the name “Windy City” doesn’t necessarily refer to the gusts coming off Lake Michigan. It was popularized by rival newspapers in other cities during the 1800s, mocking Chicago for its politicians’ bragging in securing the 1893 World’s Fair.
Boston, on the other hand, is generally considered the windiest major metropolitan area in the country, where the overall average wind speed is 12.3 miles an hour. Chicago’s average wind speed is 10.3 miles an hour and doesn’t break the top 10 windiest city on multiple rankings.
“The city itself is windy because in the northeastern United States, we’re kind of at the confluence of several different storm tracks,” said Todd Gross, who worked for decades as a meteorologist in Boston and now covers weather and astronomical events for his half a million Tik Tok followers. “One storm track comes from the north like we’re getting this winter, which is constantly giving us wind.”
The other are the coastal storms commonly known as nor’easters and travel up the coastline. Those provide big winds as well.
One reason that wind speeds recorded in Boston are so fast is that they’re recorded at Logan International Airport, right on Boston Harbor, meaning speeds inside of the city are likely lower depending on where you stand. He still contends that Boston is a windier city than Chicago, but perhaps not windier than, say, Oklahoma City or Amarillo, Texas, which both sit on plains that let wind to travel long distances without obstruction.
“Other cities that I’ve found that are windier than Boston, again not on paper but in reality, would be like Cleveland or Buffalo. Cleveland especially, it’s right on the water of Lake Erie.”
Gross observed that both this winter and last in Boston appear to be windier than average, with more high-wind warnings than he’s remembered in the past. According to a Boston Globe article, 2025 was the windiest year on record, with 165 days in which Logan recorded wind gusts of 30 miles an hour or more.
Wind also comes off the Charles River, Gross said, and Boston’s many skyscrapers create the perfect conditions for wind tunnels between buildings, which can greatly accelerate the speeds inside the city.
“Let’s say it could bring it from almost nearly calm when the building is blocking it to as much as 50-60 miles an hour or more during the time that it is funneling between the actual buildings,” he added.
What it feels like outside can often depend on where you’re standing, and wind is particularly good at making it feel colder by rapidly cooling any surface area it meets, including human skin.
In a long lineage
“Vincent’s Slip” (oil on canvas), by Wendy Edwards, in her show “Flourishing,’’ at the Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, N.H., through April 5.
The museum says:
“The Currier presents eight large-scale paintings by New England artist Wendy Edwards (b. 1950) in the museum’s new Concourse Gallery. Let yourself be taken in by the grandeur of these sweeping canvasses, depicting abstract flora and human forms rendered with rich and surprising colors. With a commitment to expressivity and the luscious material qualities of oil paint, these works assert Edwards’ place within a lineage shaped by Edouard Manet, Vincent van Gogh, and Georgia O’Keeffe.’’
They have summer there, too. NE Delta Dental Stadium, Manchester, in August 2021
— Photo by Ynsalh
Churches in the age of disbelief
Dante and Beatrice gaze upon the highest heaven, from Gustave Doré's illustrations for Dante’s Divine Comedy.
Adapted from Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com.
“I neither affirm nor deny the immortality of man. I see no reason for believing it, but, on the other hand, I have no means of disproving it. I have no a priori objections to the doctrine. No man who has to deal daily and hourly with nature can trouble himself about a priori difficulties. Give me such evidence as would justify me in believing in anything else, and I will believe that. Why should I not? It is not half so wonderful as the conservation of force or the indestructibility of matter .…’’
— Thomas Huxley (1825-1895), English biologist and anthropologist and powerful defender of Charles Darwin’s rheory of evolution.
Community Church of Providence.
As I walked around the East Side of Providence on a mild day last week, I was impressed again by the large number of churches, some quite big, such as the massive Community Church of Providence. Most have shrinking congregations and some have closed. That they’re often meeting places for such groups as Alcoholics Anonymous helps keep them going.
I see many dark-skinned people coming and going at some of these churches in their Sunday best. Are some worried about ICE? The Third World has more enthusiastic Christians than you find in most of America.
It’s the age of disbelief around here, in part because of the general acceptance of the idea that we should seek hard evidence, respect science and practice rationality as much as we emotional and erratic creatures can, rather than taking refuge in death-denying theologies.
What a difference from many places in the South and Midwest, where you can find thriving evangelical churches even at old shopping malls -- lots of free parking! There, you can find many who believe, or want to believe, in the inerrancy of the Bible, despite its many translations’ innumerable contradictions and in such ideas as that God created the world about 6,000 years ago.
Worker in the sweater industry
“Will in the Snow” (archival inkjet print), by Nina Fuller, a Hollis, Maine, artist and sheep raiser, at Portland Art Gallery.
Bonny Eagle Falls, in Hollis, Maine, in 1869.
The colors are stored in the house
Work by Zoe Tilley Poster, at Long River Gallery, White River Junction, Vt.
Kent Jones: Trump’s lust for tariff power threatens economic democracy and encourages corruption
Effects of an import tariff, which hurts domestic consumers more than domestic producers are helped. Higher prices and lower quantities reduce consumer surplus by areas A+B+C+D, while expanding producer surplus by A and government revenue by C. Areas B and D are dead-weight losses, surplus lost by consumers and overall.
— From Wikipedia
From The Conversation, except image above
Kent Jones is a professor emeritus of economics at Babson College, in Wellesley, Mass.
He does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The future of many of Donald Trump’s tariffs are up in the air, with the Supreme Court expected to hand down a ruling on the administration’s global trade barriers any day now.
But the question of whether a policy is legal or constitutional – which the justices are entertaining now – isn’t the same as whether it’s wise. And as a trade economist, I worry that Trump’s tariffs also pose a threat to “economic democracy” – that is, the process of decision-making that incorporates the viewpoints of everyone affected by the decision.
Founders and economic democracy
In many ways, the U.S. founders were supporters of economic democracy. That’s why, in the U.S. Constitution, they gave tariff- and tax-making powers exclusively to Congress.
And for good reason. Taxes can often represent a flash point between a government and its people. Therefore, it was deemed necessary to give this responsibility to the branch most closely tied to rule of, and by, the governed: an elected Congress. Through this arrangement, the legitimacy of tariffs and taxes would be based on voters’ approval – if the people weren’t happy, they could act through the ballot box.
To be fair, the president isn’t powerless over trade: Several times over the past century, Congress has passed laws delegating tariff-making authority to the executive branch on an emergency basis. These laws gave the president more trade power but subject to specific constitutional checks and balances.
Stakes for economic democracy
At issue before the Supreme Court now is Trump’s interpretation of one such emergency measure, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977.
Back in April 2025, Trump interpreted the law – which gives the president powers to respond to “any unusual and extraordinary threat” – to allow him to impose tariffs of any amount on products from nearly every country in the world.
Yet the act does not include any checks and balances on the president’s powers to use tariffs and does not even mention tariffs among its remedies. Trump’s unrestrained use of tariffs in this way was unprecedented in any emergency action ever taken by a U.S. president.
Setting aside the constitutional and legal issues, the move raises several concerns for economic democracy.
The first danger is in regards to a concentration of power. One of the reason tariffs are subjected to congressional debate and voting is that it provides a transparent process that balances competing interests. It prevents the interests of a single individual – such as a president who might substitute his own interests for that of the wider public interest – from controlling complete power.
Instead it subjects any proposed tariffs to the open competition of ideas among elected politicians.
Compare this to the way Trump’s tariffs were made. They were determined in large part by the president’s own political score-settling with other countries, and an ideological preference for trade surpluses. And they were not authorized by Congress. In fact, they bypassed the role of Congress as a check and balance – and this is not good for economic democracy in my view.
A protester holds a sign as the U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments on President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Nov. 5, 2025. Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
The second danger is uncertainty. Unlike congressional tariffs, tariffs rolled out through the International Emergency Economic Powers Act under Trump have been altered many times and can continue to change in the future.
While supporters of the president have argued that this unpredictability gives the U.S. a bargaining advantage over competitor nations, many economists have noted that it severely compromises any goal of revitalizing American industries.
This is because both domestic and foreign investment in U.S.-based industries depends on stable and predictable import-market access. Investors are unwilling to make large capital expenditures over several years and hire new workers if they think tariff rates might change at any time.
Even in the first year of the Trump tariffs, there is evidence of large-scale reductions in hiring and capital investment in the manufacturing sector due to this uncertainty.
The third danger concerns that lack of accountability involved in circumventing Congress. This can lead to using tariffs as a stealth way of increasing taxes on a population.
Importing companies generate revenue for the government through the additional levies they pay on goods from overseas. These costs are typically borne by domestic consumers, through increased prices, and importing companies, through lower profit margins.
Either way, Trump’s International Emergency Economic Powers Act interpretation has allowed him to use tariffs in a way that would – if allowed to stand – bring in additional government revenue of more than US$2 trillion over a 10-year period, according to estimates.
Trump frames the revenue his tariffs have raised as a windfall of foreign-paid duties. But in fact, the revenue is extracted from domestic consumer pockets and producer profit margins. And that amounts to a tax on both.
Corruption concerns
Finally, the way Trump’s used the act to roll out unilateral and changeable tariffs creates an incentive for political favoritism and even bribery.
This is down to what economists call “rent seeking” – that is, the attempt by companies or individuals to get extra money or value out of a policy through influence or favoritism.
As such, Trump can, should he wish, play favorites with “priority” industries in terms of tariff exemptions. In fact, he has already done this with major U.S. companies that import cell phones and other electronics products. They asked for special exemptions for the products they imported, a favor not granted to other companies. And there is nothing stopping recipients of the exemptions offering, say, to contribute to the president’s political causes or his renovations to the White House.
Smaller and less politically influential U.S. businesses do not have the same clout to lobby for tariff relief.
And this tariff-by-dealmaking goes beyond U.S. companies looking for relief. It extends into the world of manipulating governments to bend to Washington’s will. Unlike congressional tariffs under World Trade Organization rules, International Emergency Economic Powers Act tariffs discriminate from country to country – even on the same products.
And this allows for trade deals that focus on extracting bilateral deals that take place without considering broader U.S. interests. In the course of concluding bilateral Trump trade deals, some foreign governments such as Switzerland and South Korea have even offered Trump special personal gifts, presumably in exchange for favorable terms. Presidential side deals and gift exchanges with individual countries are, as many scholars of good international governance have noted, not the best way to conduct global affairs.
The harms of having a tariff system that eschews the normal checks and balances of the American system are nothing new, or at least shouldn’t be.
Back in the late 1700s, with the demands of a tyrannical and unaccountable king at the front of their minds, the founders built a tariff order aimed at maintaining democratic legitimacy and preventing the concentration of power in a single individual’s hands.
A challenge to that order could have worrisome consequences for democracy as well as the economy.
Cast off the ‘surly bonds of earth’
“Return To flight” (acrylic paint and copper leaf on wood panel), by Boston area painter and registered nurse Kathleen George.
Lynn Arditi: As health-insurance costs surge, families puzzle over options
“The Sick Girl", by Michael Ancher, 1882, in National Gallery of Denmark, a nation that has very good health care.
From Kaiser Family Foundation Health News (except image above). This article is part of a partnership between KFF Health News and National Public Radio.
PROVIDENCE
New York-based performer Cynthia Freeman, 61, has been trying to figure out how to keep the Affordable Care Act health plan that she and her husband depend on.
“If we didn’t have health issues, I’d just go back to where I was in my 40s and not have health insurance,” she said, “but we’re not in that position now.”
Freeman and her husband, Brad Lawrence, are freelancers who work in storytelling and podcasting.
In October, Lawrence, 52, got very sick, very fast.
“I knew I was in trouble,” he said. “I went into the emergency room, and I walked over to the desk, and I said, ‘Hi, I’ve gained 25 pounds in five days and I’m having trouble breathing and my chest hurts.’ And they stopped blinking.”
Doctors diagnosed him with kidney disease, and he was hospitalized for four days.
Now Lawrence has to take medication with an average cost without insurance of $760 a month.
In January, the cost of the couple’s current “silver” plan rose nearly 75 percent, to $801 a month.
To bring in extra cash, Freeman has picked up a part-time bartending gig.
Millions of middle-class Americans who have ACA health plans are facing soaring premium payments in 2026, without help from the enhanced subsidies that Congress failed to renew. Some are contemplating big life changes to deal with new rates that kicked in on Jan. 1.
It often falls to women to figure out a family’s insurance puzzle.
Women generally use more health care than men, in part because of their need for reproductive services, according to Elizabeth Tobin-Tyler, a professor at Brown University’s School of Public Health.
Women also tend to be the medical decision-makers for the family, she said, especially for the children.
“There’s a disproportionate role that women play in families around what we think of as the mental load,” said Tobin-Tyler, and that includes “making decisions around health insurance.”
Before the holidays, Congress considered a few forms of relief for the premium hikes, but nothing has materialized, and significant deadlines have already passed.
Going Uninsured?
As the clock ticked down on 2025, B. agonized over her family’s insurance options. She was looking for a full-time job with benefits, because the premium prices she was seeing for 2026 ACA plans were alarming.
In the meantime, she decided, she and her husband would drop coverage and insure only the kids. But it would be risky.
“My husband works with major tools all day,” she said, “so it feels like rolling the dice.”
NPR and KFF Health News are identifying B. by her middle initial because she believes that her insurance needs could affect her ongoing search for a job with health benefits.
The family lives in Providence. Her husband is a self-employed woodworker, and she worked full-time as a nonprofit manager before she lost her job last spring.
After she lost her job, she turned to the ACA marketplace. The family’s “gold” plan cost them nearly $2,000 a month in premiums.
It was a lot, and they dug into retirement savings to pay for it while B. kept looking for a new position.
Because Congress failed to extend enhanced subsidies for ACA plans, despite ongoing political battles and a lengthy government shutdown over the issue, B.’s family plan would have cost even more in 2026 — almost $3,000 a month.
“I don’t have an additional $900 lying around in my family budget to pay for this,” she said.
B. had already pulled $12,000 out of retirement funds to pay her family’s 2025 rates.
Unless she finds a new job soon, the family’s projected income for 2026 will be less than 266% of the federal poverty level. That means the children qualify for free coverage through Medicaid.
So B. decided to buy a plan on the ACA marketplace for herself and her husband, paying premiums of $1,200 a month.
“The bottom line is none of this is affordable,” she said, “so we’re going to be dipping into savings to pay for this.”
Postponing a Wedding
The prospect of soaring insurance premiums put a pause on Nicole Benisch’s plans to get married.
Benisch, 45, owns a holistic wellness business in Providence. She paid $108 a month for a zero-deductible “silver” plan on Rhode Island’s insurance exchange.
But the cost in 2026 more than doubled, to $220 a month.
She and her fiance had planned to marry on Dec. 19, her late mother’s birthday. “And then,” she said, “we realized how drastically that was going to change the cost of my premium.”
As a married couple, their combined income would exceed 400% of the federal poverty level and make Benisch ineligible for financial help. Her current plan’s monthly premium payments would triple, costing her more than $700 a month.
Benisch considered a less expensive “bronze” plan, but it wouldn’t cover vocal therapy, which she needs to treat muscle tension dysphonia, a condition that can make her voice strain or give out.
If they get married, there’s another option: Switch to her fiance’s health plan in Massachusetts. But that would mean losing all her Rhode Island doctors, who would be out-of-network.
“We have some tough decisions to make,” she said, “and none of the options are really great for us.”
Lynn Arditi reports for Ocean State Media, a National Public Radio affiliate.
Chris Powell: Hartford mayor panders to the anti-ICE mob
MANCHESTER, Conn.
If the country is in big trouble, it's not just because the president pretends that he has authority to wage war wherever he wants. It's also because the country is full of people who are striving to obstruct immigration-law enforcement, full of people who hallucinate that the government is getting ready to kill them, and full of elected officials who pander to both groups.
Among those officials now is Hartford Mayor Arunan Arulampalam, who last week blamed the president and Immigration and Customs Enforcement for the conflict that occurred during a protest outside the federal building in Hartford, where ICE has an office.
Some protesters went behind the building and blocked the garage exit as two vehicles, presumably operated by ICE agents, were leaving. Video shows at least one protester in front of and leaning on an exiting car. Witnesses say someone, presumably an ICE agent, pepper-sprayed the blockaders and then the two cars made their way out by pushing through the mob, with a protester being knocked over but not injured.
The incident was the protesters' fault, not ICE's, just as the fatal incident in Minneapolis last week was caused by people who also set out to impede an enforcement operation.
At a press conference the day after the Hartford incident, Mayor Arulampalam called it "the direct result of the lawlessness and recklessness of the Trump administration." Oh, sure -- Trump and ICE made those protesters block the garage, and the ICE agents were wrong to try the clear the exit so they could do their work, though they are federal police officers just like FBI agents and impeding them is a federal felony.
With the mayor declaring that the work of the immigration agents is illegitimate, more criminal interference with ICE may be expected in Connecticut, at least until the FBI and local police make some arrests.
This doesn't mean that the fatal shooting of the protester by the ICE agent in Minneapolis was justified, though it may have been. It means that she and her friends were not just protesting peacefully but seeking confrontation and interfering, just like the protesters at the Hartford federal building garage.
This distinction was lost on the people who held other protests in Connecticut last weekend -- and lost on the journalists who interviewed them without posing critical questions.
A protester from Fairfield said, “It feels like it could happen to anyone now," though “it" doesn't seem to have happened to anyone not impeding or caught up in an ICE enforcement operation.
A protester from Stratford concurred, saying, “I don't know who among us is safe," though no one at her protest was attacked either.
Critical questions being out of fashion in journalism in Connecticut, no one seems to have asked the protesters just what, if anything, should be done about the illegal immigration that has overwhelmed the country. But questions should have been prompted by the signs the protesters carried, which called for ICE to be abolished or banished from Connecticut.
So should there be no immigration law enforcement?
That's the implication of the slogan on many other protest signs: “No human is illegal." But that's a straw man; no one has made such a silly claim. What's illegal is the presence in the country of people who have not been properly admitted after a background check. The sanctimony of this slogan seems to advocate a return to open borders.
ICE needs closer supervision and Congress should require it. As with regular police officers, agents making arrests should always be identified by badges and name tags and should not be masked. As with ordinary arrests, detainees should be promptly identified on public registers so press and public can keep track of them.
But as with regular police officers, ICE agents may be more sinned against than sinning, as they are sometimes assaulted by their desperate targets and protesters. People who impede them are insurrectionists as much as the January 6 rioters at the U.S. Capitol were.
Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years (CPowell@cox.net).
Walking it out
“Urban+Desert+1,’’ by Catherine Picard-Gibbs, at Brickbottom Gallery, Somerville, Mass., Jan. 23-Feb. 22