CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Image by Roman Kraft.

Let me try to tell you what an old man I really am. As a start, imagine this: I still read the New York Times every day on paper. Yes, the paper New York Times still exists! Yikes! And the other day, at the very bottom of page seven of the first section of the Times, I noticed an article by Rebecca Dzombak with this headline: “2025 Wildfires Were World’s Costliest Ever, Study Says, With Populated Areas Hit.”

Really? The costliest fires ever? Doesn’t that catch your attention? It certainly did mine!

In fact, wouldn’t it catch your attention more than “President Said to Be Dropping Plans for Fund,” or “In Stalemates, Trump’s Talk Meets Reality,” or, for that matter, “Lutnick Runs Commerce Dept. With Bare-Knuckles Approach”? All three of those headlines were on the front page of that same paper, not at the bottom of page seven, and all three were, of course, distinctly Trumpian-themed pieces.

And, of course — sorry to be so repetitive, but what choice do I have in the world of… yes, who else but, of course, Donald J. Trump? — who or what could possibly catch your attention more than him and his crew?

If he were another president, I would have written “his crew and him,” but of course, in his world — and all too sadly in ours as well — he always seems to come first, no matter what. Certainly, on the planet that Donald Trump rules (or at least thinks he rules), the last thing that should appear on a front page would be an article about the scorching of this world of ours, or “the costliest wildfires ever,” or the fact that the European Union “declared the 2025 wildfire season the most destructive on record,” or that we (or at least our children and........

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