Within three to four months of publishing their findings, the researchers said coal companies immediately took action to reduce air pollutio
Dec 16, 2025
Trained in air quality mapping, grassroots women leaders monitored air quality across 69 sites in rural areas of Bokaro and Dhanbad in Jharkhand, identifying 26 pollution hotspots.
Despite the awareness about air pollution’s health impacts, the study found that the public health system is unresponsive and inadequate.
The research prompted immediate action with the coal company installing water sprinklers, covering coal loads during transport, and setting up air quality monitors in public places.
So, Things Are Terrible and You Want to DO SOMETHING
The election is over and, ah...did not go well. While a lot of folks are doing a post mortem of the campaigns and trying to understand what happened with the vote and fighting over who shoulders the blame, we've gotta turn an eye toward the future and figure out, okay fam, where the fuck do we go from here.
I don't have all the answers on this, and I'm not an authority by any means, I'm just a horror author with a blog. But I've been thinking a lot about it and I wanted to share my thought process with others who might want to DO SOMETHING but feel they're spinning their wheels.
Buckle in. This will be a long one.
Step One: Understand the actual risks and stakes.
I think it is very easy to start panicking now about the worst possible case scenario -- jackbooted military busting into the door to disappear everyone who ever said something mean about Trump or bought a banned book or something -- and let fear turn into inaction.
I'm not saying things can't get that bad, and I'm not saying that it won't be absolutely terrifying right out the gate for some particularly at-risk groups -- but the distance between "now" and "V for Vendetta" is long and filled with a lot of intermediary steps. There will be so many opportunities to prevent the worst case scenario.
I say this because, if your mental image of "Bad Things Happening" is The Purge, it will be easy to wake up on inauguration day, look outside to see that the world is not on fire, think, hey, maybe things will be okay after all, and then completely disengage. Alternatively, you might feel so frozen with terror at the possibility of persecution that you do nothing. This is why people are saying: don't obey in advance.
It is essential for those of us with more privilege to use it to take care of those who are more vulnerable.
So. Who is most vulnerable? What does that vulnerability actually mean? What are the most likely risks of Trump's presidency? Here's a Guardian article that I think does a good job of summarizing some of the main issues. Go read that, then come back here.
Step Two: Take steps to protect yourself
You've gotta put your oxygen mask on first, right? So before you start getting involved in other causes, figure out what risks YOU are at, immediately, and do as much as you can to secure yourself. Some potential action steps depending on your circumstance may include:
Renewing your passport (helpful for leaving the country, but also for gender/name change purposes)
Getting vaccines / boosters
Securing birth control
Ensuring your necessary papers (birth certificates etc.) are where you have access to them.
Drawing up legal paperwork for spouses/partners (always a good idea, a helpful safety measure in case you lose marriage rights)
Bolstering your data privacy and online security. Here's a step-by-step guide I found that could help with that.
The specific steps you need to take here depend on what risks you, personally, face. You'll want to do some more research into this for your particular scenario.
No matter who you are, though, it's probably a good idea to start saving money and being a little more conservative with your spending and/or pay down debts to free up some cash. You don't know what kind of emergency may befall you, and having spare money for an emergency is never a bad idea.
There is a possibility that the cost of many things you rely on might go up, if Trump goes through with his tariffs plan. You will want to plan for that.
Food costs may also rise due to tariffs (we import a lot of food from Mexico and Latin America for example) as well as a loss of immigrant labor. There is also a possibility that food safety standards could fall due to overturning regulations. Now would be a good time to look into local food resources like farm share/CSA, community farms, etc., and to stock up on a few key staples like rice and beans.
Okay. Now that YOU are reasonably safe...what can you do to protect your community?
Step Three: Get Involved
Here is your mission: You need to stay engaged enough to know what's going on, without burning yourself out or exhausting yourself, and to take actual decisive actions instead of wasting your energy arguing on the internet.
Got that? Okay. Good. Here are some action steps:
Support independent journalism. Subscribe to local papers, donate to and watch public broadcast programming. I signed up for news from ProPublica, for example, as well as the news-roundup service What The Fuck Just Happened Today. The goal is to stay informed without falling down an endless rabbit hole of upsetting information.
Share news and resources with others in your circle. This can be a good use of social media. It's what I am doing right now!
If it is safe for you to do so, challenge and educate your friends/family members/neighbors/coworkers. Only if it is safe for you to do so. Do not put yourself at risk doing this. And do not waste your time arguing with people who are unlikely to change. But if you have well-meaning people in your life who you think could be won over, look for opportunities to do this - the right way. I've had some success with this, I will probably write a guide about it in the future. In the meantime, here's a good article that can help.
Join local grassroots activism groups. You'll have to do some work to decide what groups to join and which causes you want to support, because you cannot do everything. But there are tons of organizations taking direct action in all kinds of causes. Search "grassroots [cause] activists in [where you live]" to start finding things. Once you get involved in one group, you might meet people who can introduce you to other groups and causes. Yes, this means you will have to go outside and meet people. I'm sorry.
Join direct action groups. Same concept as above. You'll have to search in your area but once you know people it'll be easier to find more opportunities. Some of these groups may overlap. You might find direct action opportunities by engaging politically and vice versa. GO OUTSIDE AND TALK TO PEOPLE WHO ARE DOING THINGS TO HELP.
Get involved in local politics. Here are some quick tips. A lot of things are affected at the city level - stuff like book bans and bathroom bills are often battled first at local libraries and schools, and you can be part of those conversations! Sheriffs are elected and can have a big influence on local policing. Local elections affect how tax dollars are spent, how homeless populations are treated, and lots more. Don't snooze on local elections. Get involved and stay involved.
Look up your representatives. Get in the habit of calling, emailing, and writing letters. Figure out what legislature is being passed and then call your reps and harangue them about it - both to support bills you approve of and shoot down ones you don't. Sign petitions. Join email campaigns. Here's one you can go sign right now from the ACLU. See? Not that scary.
I think a lot of people figure that getting involved in politics doesn't matter or that it's all small potatoes but...man. The president is not god, no matter what he thinks. The sitting administration is not the sole power in the universe. There is an entire machine of government we can lean upon and act upon.
Finally, some general safety notes:
Some forms of direct action are not legal. Take steps to be safe if you choose to partake. Follow the lead of more seasoned activists for what forms of communication to use and so forth.
If you're not willing or able to put yourself at legal risk to act, you can help others by donating to bail funds and legal defense funds.
We've already seen this in some areas, and it will only get uglier - some bad actors are feeling emboldened by the change in regime and will misbehave. It's a good idea to learn some self-defense skills, in whatever way is comfortable to you, and brush up on some tenets of victimology that can help you stay safe. I'll write more about that in the future.
All right. That's all for now. It's by no means comprehensive...but should hopefully help you get started taking the next step. Stay safe out there.
If you want to do more for activism in your area, but you don't know where to start, I cannot emphasize enough how much information you should be able to find on your town's website. Now, I obviously can't speak for everyone's experience with their local city, but that's for you to look up yourself.
All I had to do was search my city and state name and our town's website came up. Within five minutes of browsing, I found:
info on the schedule and location of city council meetings open to the public
links to the city council's youtube page, which livestreams all the town meetings and has the past several years worth of town meetings still up, which means that I can catch up and also get a stronger finger on the pulse of what my local politicians are like and are invested in beyond the blurbs they stick on the election packets
links to information for volunteering opportunities in the area
links and phone numbers for food pantries, affordable housing assistance, and other services that support people in need
several pages on the website detailing the city council's plan for local efforts for climate action, ecological restoration, and improvements to energy and waste & pollution management, as well as volunteer information
A page outlining how you can present volunteer group project ideas that they can help you plan and implement - things like public art, litter cleanup efforts, etc.
public services & recreation events and programs, as well as scholarships and financial aid for minors who want to participate in city-sponsored recreation events that cannot afford it
informational pages about community development, preservation, and care, including so so so SO many proposals and plans for the community that are open for public comment
Everyone's local government is going to have different concerns and different plans of course, and maybe not every city will have their websites so thoroughly organized as mine was -- I was honestly surprised there was as much info on mine as there is.
But it's a starting point, if you aren't sure what you can be doing to help.
Most presidents announce foreign policy in measured phrases freighted with forethought and significance. Trump blathers, tumbling over proclamations as quickly as he can pronounce them. Perhaps Trump’s secret plan is to confuse everyone so thoroughly that they are frozen with doubt. Not a winning strategy, to be sure, but the only way to make sense of Trump’s whirligig fountain of nonsense that erupted on Monday.
Before parsing Trump’s contradictory statements, let’s skip to the end: Trump panicked on Monday, because he was shocked—shocked!—to learn that attacking the nation that controls the maritime chokepoint for 20% of the world’s oil supply would close that chokepoint if attacked. Trump attempted to bamboozle commodities traders by announcing that the “excursion” into Iran would be over soon. Trump’s ploy worked, even as he issued contradictory statements about his intentions, and oil prices dropped from $120 to $85 in a few short hours.
But within hours, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth posted a statement that said, “it’s only just beginning.” See The Mirror, Trump claims Iran War is ‘pretty much’ complete as Hegseth says ‘it’s only just beginning’.
Trump made his prediction that the war was almost over in an interview with his new favorite mouthpiece, CBS News. Per The Mirror article linked above,
In a phone interview with CBS on Monday, Trump said the war could be over soon. “I think the war is very complete, pretty much. They have no navy, no communications, they’ve got no Air Force,” he said.
Hours later, Trump gave a rambling, bellicose speech to Republican members of Congress gathered at Mar-a-Lago. See The Authoritarian Pep Rally - by What Did Trump Do Today?
Per WDTDT, instead of discussing the war “with sobriety,”
Trump spoke about war like a man narrating a casino win, bragging about sunk ships, “short-term excursions,” and enemies being “wiped out,” all while lacing the speech with the same familiar sewage of lies and scapegoating about immigrants, Democrats, and elections.
Trump told the assembled GOP members of Congress that “We’ve already won in many ways, but we haven’t won enough,” and that the US was prepared to hit Iran even harder. See Time, Trump Delivers Mixed Messages on the State of the Iran War
When Trump was asked to reconcile his statement that the war was “pretty much complete” (except for the “more winning” part) with Hegseth’s statement that “it’s only just beginning,” Trump laughably claimed that Hegseth was referring to “beginning of building a new country.” (See WDTDT, above.)
Don’t bother trying to reconcile Trump’s statements among themselves, much less with Hegseth’s statements. They cannot be reconciled because there is no plan, no vision, no objective, just chaos measured in “Trump-time,” which is the unit of time between the misfiring of Trump’s addled synapses.
But the chaos is inflicting human suffering and global economic panic. Trump blundered his way into a war in which one of the first acts was the killing of more than 160 innocent schoolgirls. Neither he nor the senior US military comm and has the decency or humanity to admit that they killed hundreds of Iranian children through their recklessness.
The evidence is overwhelming that the school was struck by a Tomahawk missile, which is in the arsenal of only one nation involved in this conflict—the United States. See CBC, Video appears to contradict Trump claim that U.S. wasn’t responsible for deadly Minab school blast.
In the face of incontestable evidence to the contrary, Trump is claiming that Iran stole a US missile and then fired it at a school filled with Iranian schoolchildren. When Trump was asked why he is the only person in his administration making this baseless claim, Trump responded, “Because I just don’t know enough about it.” See The Hill, Trump’s denial on Iran school bombing cuts against mounting signs of US responsibility.
Hegseth backed up Trump’s claims that Iran was responsible, saying that the “only side that targets civilians is Iran.” (See The Hill, above.)
The refusal of Trump and Hegseth to take responsibility for the killings is despicable. The military proudly announces within minutes when missiles hit their intended targets, but claims an inability to discern the truth when a US missile kills civilians.
If Trump and Hegseth are willing to lie about killing civilians, we should believe nothing they say about the war--which is why the Trump-Hegseth dizzying flurry of contradictory statements on Monday is meaningless. And the oil traders who relied on the liars' statements are fools.
Why does this matter to Americans defending democracy at home? Because Trump has once again bumped into the limits of political gravity in the US. Each time he does, he becomes weaker, more vulnerable to losing control of Congress in November 2026.
Trump’s war is illegal, unconstitutional, and unpopular in the US. The manner in which it is being conducted is reckless, and the failure to acknowledge civilian deaths at the hands of US weapons is immoral. We must raise our voices so loudly that Congress rouses itself to do its job by exercising oversight of Trump’s war. A great opportunity to do so is on March 28, 2026, the next No Kings Day. If Americans take to the streets by the tens of millions, we can teach reluctant politicians to fear the political wrath of the people more than they fear Trump.
We can do that. We are well on our way to making that happen. Be part of history—protect our Constitution, rein in our president, and save thousands of lives. Show up and speak out on March 28—or sooner, if possible!
Trump is delaying endorsement in Texas GOP Senate primary over SAVE Act
John Cornyn and Ken Paxton are headed to a Republican primary runoff for the US Senate seat currently held by John Cornyn. Many Republicans believe that Ken Paxton would lose in a general election and are pressuring Trump to endorse Cornyn.
Trump was likely heading for an endorsement of Cornyn when Paxton came up with a gambit to secure Trump’s endorsement. Paxton said he would drop out of the race if the Senate passed the SAVE Act. See Politico, Trump is delaying Texas Senate endorsement to pressure GOP senators on SAVE America Act.
Paxton’s move caught Trump’s attention, and Trump is now delaying the endorsement as a way of putting pressure on other GOP Senators—like John Thune—to pass the SAVE Act.
Why does this story matter? Because you will undoubtedly see media references to Paxton calling on the Senate to use the “talking filibuster” to pass the SAVE Act.
So, to save a lot of anxiety and confusion, the “talking filibuster” IS the filibuster—at least so far as amending Senate rules and procedure is concerned. To switch to a “talking filibuster” through a rules change, Republicans would need 67 votes. They don’t have 67 votes to change the rules for a talking filibuster. If they did, they would just overcome the filibuster with 60 votes.
The other way to implement a talking filibuster is with the “nuclear option”—using a parliamentary procedure to advance a bill with only 51 votes. Republican leadership is dead set against the nuclear option because they know Democrats will do the same thing as soon as they take control of the Senate.
I addressed the misconceptions about the “talking filibuster” in my newsletter dated February 26, 2026, Senate Majority Leader rejects Trump’s call to eliminate filibuster to pass SAVE Act.
The Politico article above noted that Thune remains opposed to the “talking filibuster” to pass the SAVE Act:
But on Monday, [Senate Majority Leader John] Thune poured cold water on Trump’s hopes once again, stating that formally nuking the legislative filibuster is “not going to happen” and arguing that a talking filibuster without forcing through a rules change is “way more complicated” than people realize.
See also, Politico, Thune: Talking filibuster ‘more complicated and risky’ than people realize..
This story matters for two reasons. First, it demonstrates that Trump understands he cannot implement the SAVE Act provisions through an executive order. If he believed that an executive order would pass scrutiny in the courts, he wouldn’t be pressuring Cornyn and Paxton to convince John Thune to use the talking filibuster to pass the SAVE Act.
Second, Paxton has found a way to extend a nasty, lose-lose fight for Republicans in a contest that will pit Democrat James Talarico against the wounded survivor of the Cornyn-Paxton cage fight.
Never underestimate Trump’s ability to make a bad situation worse for Republicans.
Susan Wagner of Grassroots Connectors calls out pundits for ignoring the grassroots.
Susan Wagner of Grassroots Connector has published an essay on Substack that is generating a lot of buzz in the political commentary world. See Susan Wagner, Grassroots Connector, Dear Pundits | We need your assistance.
Susan documents a well-known, maddening, and puzzling phenomenon: the tendency of pro-democracy commentators to treat the grassroots resistance as an afterthought. Instead, pundits are caught in a self-referential, cross-promoting, tightly-knit group of political insiders who opine on the problems that face our democracy while ignoring the people who are actually doing something about it—grassroots activists.
Susan writes,
All your programs, podcasts, livestreams, and Substack content feed the public a steady diet of all the evils of MAGA and Trump. The message is relentless: Democracy is collapsing. Institutions are failing. Our opponents are ruthless. You rarely, if ever, feature grassroots stories or host activists from organizations that are part of the solution. Excluding such voices is more than an annoying oversight.
There is only one goal for 2026 – to win every possible election and loosen the MAGA hold on this country. Winning requires all hands on deck, which requires a convincing narrative. As an example, sports fans need to believe their team can win in order to show up at stadiums. And sportscasters are masters of talking up their team’s chances, focusing on strengths, not detailing the dangers ahead. Your readers and listeners, like sports fans, need the hope that today’s activists bring. This is precisely the attitude needed to stage a decisive win for democracy.
There are exceptions. Rachel Maddow routinely devotes the first ten minutes of her weekly program to highlighting the efforts and victories of grassroots activists. But many of Rachel’s colleagues devote 95% of their coverage to cataloging Trump’s threats without making the obvious counterpoint: We can and are resisting Trump—and we are winning! Relegating that second part of the story—the part where we resist and win—to 5% of their coverage is wrong.
Susan makes the point that there are dozens of dynamic, articulate grassroots leaders who deserve at least as much time as the daily catalog of Trump’s threats.
Check out Susan’s essay. If it resonates with your worldview, forward it to your favorite political pundit who seems to treat the grassroots movement as an afterthought.
Concluding Thoughts.
Trump’s war on Iran and the cascading global consequences have raised the anxiety level among readers of this newsletter. See the Comments section to Monday’s newsletter. People feel off-balance, on their back foot, exhausted, and bewildered. After all, many who are on the streets protesting the war today have done it before—in the 1960s, the 1990s, and the 2000s. Do we have to do it again?
Yes.
Such is the nature of resistance—it is 90% persistence and 90% resistance. 1For a century before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus, Black Americans were refusing to give up seats in trains, trolleys, and streetcars. Were their efforts wasted? No! Their resistance was the foundation on which Rosa Parks stood when her act of civil disobedience took flight.
The people who preceded Rosa Parks were undoubtedly weary to the bone of fighting the same battle again and again and again. But they persisted.
Sometimes, the mere act of persisting is the most revolutionary act we can perform. This may be one of those moments. If it is, we should welcome that task as a sacred duty that will keep the struggle to preserve democracy alive long enough for reinforcements to arrive. That is all we need to prevail: Do not quit. Do not surrender. Outlast them. If we do that, we will surely prevail.
It’s crazy to me that even with how much acclaim Brandi Carlile has picked up in the last decade or so, there are only two times someone in the wild has ever acknowledged to me that they know who she is, one being my old boss (the phish fan/swiftie) who knew her bc she’d toured with a musician he liked, and one of my favorite ladies at the weed store who is like my dad’s age and saw me wearing my “mainstream kid” tshirt
like when we (my family) first started listening to her (mid 2000sish? I think?) it made sense that most people I mentioned her to didn’t know who she was but she is not like an unknown artist by any stretch now? so like. what?
In New York City, hundreds of thousands of people experienced food insecurity in 2023. Despite the comprehensive subway system the city is famous for, many people, especially those in lower-income neighborhoods that were historically redlined, experience a low proximity to grocery stores.
Grassroots food activist Karen Washington has spent years living in such a neighborhood, and now runs a farm just outside the city. Washington advocates for her community and others impacted by food apartheid, a term she coined to better describe the lack of access to fresh produce and healthy foods.
As Washington points out, it’s not that there’s a lack of food, but rather that there’s no fresh, healthy foods in areas that have been subjected to food apartheid. “When you talk about limited access to food, I always say that’s not a problem, because we have a lot of food,” says Washington. “Up and down in the neighborhood we have the junk food. We have the processed food. We have the fast food. What we don’t have is healthy food options.”
When Washington first started reading and hearing the term “food desert,” she was struck by how disconnected the phrase was from the communities themselves; the people whose access to fresh food was being restricted. “‘Food desert’ was an elitist sort of data term. It wasn’t a term that grew out of a grassroots organization,” she says, or that came from the community. The term was “putting a name on people who have limited access to food, but not explaining why.”
She coined the term “food apartheid” in 2018 to address not just the problem at hand, but why there’s a problem there in the first place. With the term, she’s looking through the lens of race, economics and demographics to address the root causes of disparate food access.
I believe in collective action more than anything, but I'm not sure when the narrative became "collective action will save us so there's no use in voting" when it could be "collective action will save us so we need to band together to vote in people who will support our actions"
