VISIONING A BETTER WORLD

 “Imagine all the people living life in peace.”
—John Lennon, Imagine

The Greater Promise of the Abraham Accords

In the 1940s, few Americans could have imagined Germany and Japan becoming two of America’s closest allies. Both had fought devastating wars against the United States and its allies. Yet American leaders recognized that permanent punishment would only plant the seeds of another war. Reconstruction, economic development, security partnerships, and gradual reconciliation offered a better future.

That vision worked. Germany became central to the transatlantic alliance, while Japan developed into a peaceful democracy and one of America’s most important economic and strategic partners. This transformation did not require forgetting history. It required giving former enemies practical reasons to build a different future. Japan’s reconstruction ultimately produced a formal American alliance that has endured for generations. U.S. State Department historical record

Therein lies the brilliant promise of the Abraham Accords. They reject the assumption that the Middle East must remain imprisoned by its oldest grievances. Instead of demanding that every disagreement be resolved before cooperation can begin, the Accords allow cooperation itself to become part of the solution.

Diplomatic recognition leads to direct flights. Direct flights encourage tourism and personal relationships. Trade creates jobs and shared investments. Cooperation in water, agriculture, energy, technology, medicine, and defense gives governments and ordinary citizens something valuable to protect. Peace stops being merely a document signed by political leaders and becomes woven into everyday life.

The potential extends far beyond Israel’s present partners. A widening circle of normalized relations could connect Israeli technology and innovation with Arab capital, markets, geography, and energy resources. It could strengthen moderate governments, weaken extremist movements, and give younger generations an alternative to inherited hatred.

None of this requires nations to surrender their identities. Germany did not stop being Germany, nor Japan Japan, when they became American allies. Arab countries need not become less Arab or Muslim to cooperate with Israel, and Israel need not compromise its Jewish identity or security.

This is why the future of Iran is so important. The world properly focuses on the Iranian regime’s use of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and other armed groups to spread instability. But Iran also participates in a wider strategic alignment with China and Russia. In a true sense, Iran their proxy. The three governments cooperate where doing so helps them challenge American influence and the Western-led international order. 

The replacement of Iran’s Islamic revolutionary government with one seeking normal relations would therefore represent far more than a regional change. It could weaken the network of proxy warfare surrounding Israel and demonstrate that national prosperity offers more than permanent confrontation. Regime collapse alone, however, would not guarantee this outcome. The real hope must be for a stable government accepted by the Iranian people and prepared to live peacefully with its neighbors.

The rise of the Persian people changes the equation for China and Russia, along with the USA and Israel. Witness this shift in America's Hemisphere. Thanks to the same mastermind. You know who!

No Place at the Table for the IRGC

There can be no place within a peaceful regional order for an apocalyptic theocracy committed to destroying Israel, driving America from the region, and undermining Western civilization. A government cannot demand the privileges of cooperation while financing terrorist proxies, exporting revolution, threatening its neighbors, and seeking another nation’s destruction.

This is not an indictment of the Persian people. Many Iranians want the same peace, freedom, normalcy, and prosperity that the entire region desperately needs. They deserve the opportunity to reclaim their country, determine its future, and restore Iran’s honorable place among the nations.

The door should remain open to an Iran that abandons terrorism, nuclear intimidation, and annihilationist ambitions. But the first requirement for joining a community of peace must be accepting the right of everyone else at the table to exist.

CAN COMMUNISTS SEE THE LIGHT?

If the Abraham Accords can help transform the Middle East from a battlefield of proxies into a community of sovereign nations cooperating through trade, security, and mutual interest, China and Russia will have reason to take notice. (Color me skeptical.)

That points toward the larger message Trump has expressed since entering politics: nations can defend their sovereignty and interests without remaining trapped in endless wars. His administration calls this “America First” and “peace through strength”—a policy that seeks cooperation from a position of national confidence rather than weakness. White House

The Abraham Accords’ greatest promise, therefore, is not merely peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors. It is the possibility of demonstrating to the world that cooperation can produce greater security and prosperity than domination. Germany and Japan prove that yesterday’s enemies do not have to remain tomorrow’s enemies. The hope is that the Middle East will prove it again—and that China and Russia will recognize the possibilities for themselves.

Then Again, There Is Man

It is a magnificent vision. Unfortunately, it depends on human beings.

God told Noah that “the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Genesis 8:21). 

In other words, humanity had just received a fresh start—and God was already managing expectations.

So, yes, let us pursue peace, expand the Abraham Accords, open embassies, increase trade, and keep everyone talking. Just do not assume that another treaty will cure pride, envy, greed, or our remarkable ability to turn a seating arrangement into an international incident.

There is another promise: the Messiah.

Until then, keep negotiating—and double-check the seating chart.

LINCOLN LOVES WHAT HE SEES

WASHINGTON DC NEVER LOOKED BETTER OR WAS MORE SAFE

The Trump Administration has launched an unusually large restoration program, but only some projects are fully completed. Others remain under construction or proposed.

Here is the most complete list I can verify for President Trump’s second term, from January 20, 2025 through September 4, 2026.

Completed or substantially completed

1. Lafayette Square rehabilitation

The park’s landscaping, walkways, fountains and related infrastructure were rehabilitated. Its fountains began operating again in June 2026 after being inactive for nearly a decade.

2. Meridian Hill Park lower plaza

The lower plaza, reflecting pool and thirteen-basin cascading fountain reopened on May 14, 2026. Additional testing and minor improvements continued after reopening. National Park Service

3. Arts of War statues

The monumental equestrian sculptures Valor and Sacrifice, located at the eastern entrance to Arlington Memorial Bridge, received bronze conservation, repaired granite bases and new 23.75-karat gold leaf. This portion was completed near the end of July 2026.

4. Columbus Fountain and Columbus Plaza

The fountain, sculpture, plaza and surrounding grounds at Union Station underwent cleaning and rehabilitation between late 2025 and mid-2026.

5. World War II Memorial beautification

Cleaning, landscape rehabilitation and maintenance of its fountains and water systems were undertaken for the America 250 observances.

6. National Mall cleanup and landscape work

Crews cleaned monuments, repaired walkways, restored turf and improved public areas in preparation for the country’s 250th anniversary. This is a collection of smaller projects rather than one construction contract.

Reopened but still requiring work

7. Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool

The pool was drained, repaired, resurfaced, refilled and reopened. Recurring algae and coating problems led to additional cleaning, repairs and temporary closures. It is therefore fair to call the refilling and structural work an accomplishment, but not yet a completely finished success.

8. Meridian Hill Park upper grounds

The lower plaza reopened, but landscaping and rehabilitation elsewhere in the park have continued.

Under construction or nearing completion

9. Arts of Peace statues

Music and Harvest and Aspiration and Literature are receiving the same conservation and regilding treatment as the Arts of War. Completion was scheduled for late September 2026.

10. White House ballroom

A major new state ballroom is under construction. It is intended to provide a permanent venue for large state dinners and official events, replacing the frequent use of temporary outdoor structures. It is not yet finished.

11. White House historic columns and porticoes

Conservation and cleaning work has been undertaken on the exterior columns and stonework, including work around the North Portico.

12. White House South Lawn helipad

The administration announced replacement or reconstruction of the existing landing area with a more durable granite installation. This should be described as an active construction project, not a completed one.

13. Lincoln Memorial undercroft museum

The large museum and visitor-space project beneath the Lincoln Memorial is moving toward completion. It began before Trump returned to office, so the administration can claim completion or stewardship if it opens during this term—but not sole credit for originating it.

Historic fountains being returned to service

The National Park Service identified nine long-inoperable fountains for rehabilitation:

14. Columbus Plaza Fountain

15. Freedom Plaza Fountain

16. John Marshall Park Fountain

17. John Paul Jones Memorial Fountain

18. Lafayette Square fountains

19. Meridian Hill Park fountains

20. Philip Sheridan Memorial Fountain

21. Rawlins Park Fountain

22. Simón Bolívar Memorial Fountain

Lafayette Square and Meridian Hill have documented reopenings. The others belong to the active restoration program, but public records do not consistently establish that every one is completely operational yet.

Operational fountains receiving upgrades

Nine additional sites were selected for maintenance, mechanical improvements or conservation:

23. Dupont Circle Fountain

24. Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial water features

25. George Mason Memorial Fountain

26. Japanese American Memorial water feature

27. Korean War Veterans Memorial Pool of Remembrance

28. National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial fountains

29. Taras Shevchenko Memorial fountain

30. United States Navy Memorial fountains

31. World War II Memorial fountains

The complete official fountain program is documented by the National Park Service.

Approved, proposed or preparatory—not yet construction successes

32. United States Triumphal Arch

The proposed 250-foot arch would stand at Memorial Circle between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery. Preliminary excavation has been announced, but the project still faces regulatory and legal questions. It should be called a proposed project, not a completed achievement.

33. National Garden of American Heroes

Congress provided $40 million toward the planned sculpture garden, but it is not yet a completed physical attraction.

34. East Potomac Golf Links redevelopment

Plans have been advanced for a substantial redevelopment, but it remains a proposal rather than a finished project.

35. Presidential Capital Stewardship Program

The Administration has proposed a very large, long-term federal investment for Washington restoration and beautification. 

DC is looking great. President Trump is undertaking the most concentrated presidential campaign to restore and reshape Washington since the Kennedy–Johnson era. Whether he ultimately surpasses Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson will depend on how many of his major projects are completed.

SAFER TOO! 

Washington, D.C., is experiencing its lowest overall per-capita crime level since 1962.

All his critics can do is complain. 

Note: The Jefferson Memorial roof and portico restoration and the Arlington Memorial Bridge rehabilitation were substantially associated with Trump’s first term, not his current term. 

ISRAEL'S QUIET COMEBACK

How Trump and Netanyahu Rewrote the Map

In a period when antisemitism has been loud on college campuses, in the streets, throughout the media, and at the United Nations, the state-level map did not move the way the noise suggested. If foreign policy were merely a weather vane for protests, 2025 and 2026 should have brought Israel even greater isolation. Instead, governments restored ambassadors, pledged or opened embassies in Jerusalem, signed security and trade agreements, and joined diplomatic frameworks modeled on the Abraham Accords.

That gap between public hostility and government behavior is where strategy shows.

That is why this is a quiet comeback. A diplomatic realignment of this size should be a major international story. But much of the mainstream media is reluctant to report anything that reflects well on Israel, while a growing part of the Democratic Party has become openly hostile to Zionism. The individual events may receive scattered coverage, but the unmistakable pattern is ignored. Israel’s comeback is quiet not because it is small, but because acknowledging it would mean admitting that Trump’s foreign policy—and Netanyahu’s refusal to bend—are working.

The shift was not universal. Europe remained divided. Brazil and Mexico remained cold at the top. Public opinion toward Israel deteriorated across much of the West. Grant all of that. Then look at what actually changed among governments.

The List Tells the Story

Political, diplomatic, and strategic shifts during 2025–26

Argentina — Became Israel’s closest Latin American ally; launched the Isaac Accords; designated an arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization; pledged to move its embassy to Jerusalem.

Colombia — Restored the relationship damaged under Gustavo Petro; announced the reopening of its embassy in Jerusalem; recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

Bolivia — Restored diplomatic relations severed in 2023 and began reversing the previous government’s alignment against Israel.

Peru — Began a security-centered reset under Keiko Fujimori; expanded cooperation with Israel; severed diplomatic relations with Iran.

Chile — Returned an ambassador to Israel after the election of José Antonio Kast.

Honduras — Restored ambassadorial representation and expanded bilateral cooperation.

Venezuela — Restored consular relations with Israel after seventeen years.

Ecuador — Expanded security and cybersecurity cooperation and opened an innovation office in Jerusalem.

Costa Rica — Signed a free-trade agreement with Israel.

Dominican Republic — Adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism.

Slovenia — Reversed sanctions and restrictions imposed by its previous government and announced plans to move its embassy to Jerusalem.

Kazakhstan — Joined the Abraham Accords in November 2025, giving new life to one of Trump’s signature foreign-policy achievements.

Somaliland — Established full diplomatic relations with Israel following Israel’s historic recognition in December 2025.

Fiji — Opened an embassy in Jerusalem in September 2025.

Palau, Nauru, and Papua New Guinea — Continued moving toward stronger diplomatic identification with Israel and Jerusalem.

Greece — Signed a roughly $3.5 billion agreement for an Israeli-built multilayered air-defense system.

Romania — Purchased approximately $2.3 billion in Israeli SPYDER air-defense systems.

Germany, Finland, Slovakia, Czechia, India, Cyprus, and Abraham Accords states — Bought or expanded their purchases of Israeli defense systems.

Read individually, these developments can be dismissed as unrelated events. Read together, they reveal something much larger: Israel’s diplomatic and strategic map is being redrawn.

Latin America Was the Proof

The greatest movement occurred in Latin America, a region where socialist governments, Iranian influence, and anti-Israel politics had been gaining ground. That direction changed.

Argentina’s Javier Milei supplied a political and moral language that other leaders could follow. He spoke openly about Western civilization, liberty, terrorism, Israel, and the danger posed by Iran. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar recognized the opportunity, declared 2026 the “Year of Latin America,” and worked the region aggressively.

Trump supplied the larger force behind the movement.

He did more than offer diplomatic incentives after these elections. He helped create the political movement producing them. His defense of national sovereignty, capitalism, secure borders, and Western civilization—and his warnings about socialism, illegal immigration, Iran, and failed globalism—resonated far beyond the United States. Voters elsewhere were confronting many of the same problems and drawing many of the same conclusions.

Trump changed the political conversation, and Israel benefited from the governments that conversation helped bring to power.

Alignment with Israel once again became a way for foreign governments to demonstrate alignment with the United States. Supporting Israel, confronting Iran, controlling national borders, rejecting socialism, and cooperating with Washington became parts of the same political realignment.

Trump made that alignment valuable.

Netanyahu Refused to Let Europe Decide Israel’s Future

Netanyahu deserves equal credit for understanding that Israel’s legitimacy would not be decided by hostile demonstrations, editorial boards, European bureaucrats, or condemnations at the United Nations.

He looked elsewhere.

Israel treated Latin America, Central Asia, the Pacific, the Gulf, Africa, and Eastern Europe as markets, partners, security allies, and voting blocs. Netanyahu and Sa’ar did not wait for cultural approval before pursuing national interests. They worked with governments willing to work with Israel.

Israel recognized Somaliland when the safe diplomatic choice was to wait. It continued building relationships with small Pacific nations because their votes at the United Nations count. It sold air-defense technology to European governments whose politicians sometimes denounced Israel publicly while relying upon Israeli systems privately.

Netanyahu understood that the world is larger than Brussels, London, Paris, the editorial pages of American newspapers, and the Democratic Party.

Strength Recognizes Strength

Israeli defense exports reached approximately $19.2 billion in 2025. Greece signed its roughly $3.5 billion air-defense agreement. Romania purchased SPYDER systems worth about $2.3 billion. Germany, Finland, Slovakia, Czechia, India, Cyprus, and Gulf states continued buying Israeli technology.

These purchases do not depend upon affection for Netanyahu or agreement with every Israeli policy. They reveal something more important: when national survival and public safety are at stake, governments distinguish between political rhetoric and strategic reality.

They know Israeli technology works. They know Israeli intelligence matters. They know Israel has confronted many of the threats now moving toward them. And they know that an alliance connecting Israeli innovation with American power is more valuable than the approval of protesters.

Defense followed reality.

The Economic Comeback Will Follow

These alliances will produce more than diplomatic support. They will bring enormous economic benefits to Israel. Defense agreements create relationships that extend beyond the original purchase into manufacturing, maintenance, training, cybersecurity, research, and future contracts.

The benefits will spread throughout the Israeli economy:

• Exports — Greater demand for Israeli defense systems, cybersecurity, water technology, agriculture, medicine, and artificial intelligence.
• Manufacturing — Expanded production, new facilities, larger supply chains, and more skilled employment.
• Investment — Joint ventures and foreign capital flowing into Israeli companies and infrastructure.
• Tourism — More business travel, religious tourism, diplomatic visits, and direct transportation links.
• Trade — New markets opening as the Abraham and Isaac Accords expand.
• Construction — Greater demand for housing, commercial development, roads, utilities, schools, and public services.
• Aliyah — Jews moving to Israel will purchase homes, open businesses, fill jobs, raise families, and contribute to the country’s long-term growth.
• Regional renewal — Communities in Judea and Samaria, southern Israel, and eventually northern Israel will grow as security is restored.

This is already beginning, but it could accelerate dramatically as the Abraham Accords expand and Gaza is rebuilt without Hamas. A peaceful and reconstructed Gaza could open new regional opportunities in transportation, trade, construction, energy, and investment instead of remaining a base for terrorism and perpetual war.

The same opportunity exists in northern Israel. Once Hezbollah is defeated and can no longer threaten Israeli communities, displaced residents can return, rebuild their homes and businesses, and restore economic life along the border. Israelis who left the country during the violence may also come home as security and opportunity return.

Israel’s diplomatic comeback can therefore become an economic and demographic comeback. New allies create new markets. New security encourages new construction. Aliyah and returning Israelis strengthen the workforce and enlarge communities. The diplomatic map is being redrawn first, but the economic map will follow.

The Trump-Netanyahu Effect

Trump and Netanyahu share an understanding that much of the Western political establishment rejects: nations are not protected by international approval. They are protected by strength, borders, military capability, economic vitality, dependable alliances, and leaders willing to defend their own people.

Trump restored American strength as an organizing force. Netanyahu ensured that Israel remained strong enough to be an indispensable partner.

Together, they created a clear choice. Governments could align themselves with America, Israel, capitalism, national sovereignty, and opposition to Iran—or continue down the road of socialism, uncontrolled migration, globalist weakness, and accommodation of regimes that openly threaten the West.

A growing number chose the first road.

They Hate Us Cause They Ain't Us

Antisemitism did not disappear. In much of the West, it became worse. Israel did not suddenly win universal acceptance. But while its enemies were winning demonstrations, Israel was winning agreements. While protesters occupied campuses, governments exchanged ambassadors. While international institutions issued condemnations, countries purchased Israeli defenses, opened offices in Jerusalem, restored relations, and joined new diplomatic frameworks.

That is the story much of the mainstream media missed—or preferred not to tell.

Israel’s comeback is not complete, but it is real. Trump helped create the worldwide political movement that made it possible. Netanyahu possessed the strength and vision to take advantage of it.

The road did not disappear. It moved.

Trump pointed toward it. Netanyahu took it.

SOLVING NEW YORK STATE'S RISING ENERGY COSTS

A Power-Positive Data Center Partnership

POSITION PAPER

Jonah Ritter, Citizen

THE POSITION

New York should welcome major data centers only when their developers add more dependable generating capacity than their facilities consume, pay the costs they impose, strengthen the grid, and produce enforceable benefits for the host community. Niagara Falls is the natural place to begin.

Benefits at a Glance

• Adds new electricity supply instead of merely adding demand to the existing grid.
• Places downward pressure on long-term energy costs by increasing dependable supply.
• Makes the developer, rather than ordinary ratepayers, finance project-driven generation and grid improvements.
• Improves reliability through new generation, storage, modern substations, transmission upgrades, and demand response.
• Gives utilities access to additional dependable supply and useful new infrastructure without placing the project's financing burden on their existing customers.
• Uses private and international capital to move generation forward faster while preserving public safety and environmental review.
• Uses Niagara's existing energy and industrial infrastructure as a platform for contributing more power to New York.
• Captures data-center waste heat for nearby factories, schools, hospitals, government buildings, housing, and greenhouses.
• Returns former industrial property to productive use while protecting residential neighborhoods and farmland.
• Creates construction work, permanent technical jobs, local contracts, workforce training, and new tax revenue.
• Helps attract additional manufacturers seeking dependable electricity and lower-cost heat.
• Gives New York a constructive alternative to either banning data centers or allowing them to burden the public grid.

Executive Summary

Data centers are becoming essential infrastructure for artificial intelligence, banking, healthcare, communications, commerce, national security, and everyday internet services. They also require extraordinary amounts of continuous electricity. A large facility may demand 100 megawatts or more - an amount comparable to the annual electricity use of tens of thousands of homes.

That demand becomes a public problem when it is simply placed upon an existing grid already facing rising loads, transmission constraints, an aging generation fleet, and the need for substantial new investment. New Yorkers should not be required to subsidize the power needs or infrastructure risks of one enormous private customer.

But rejecting data centers is not an energy policy. It sends investment elsewhere while leaving New York's shortage of dependable, affordable power unsolved. The better approach is collaboration with firm conditions: major data-center developers should build or finance new generation greater than their own needs, export the excess through approved market and interconnection arrangements, fund required grid upgrades, participate in emergency demand reduction, recover useful waste heat, and guarantee benefits for the host community.

This paper calls that approach the Power-Positive Data Center Partnership. It recommends establishing the first such development district in the Niagara Falls region.

THE KEY WORD IS "EXISTING"

The central problem is not simply that data centers use a great deal of electricity. The problem is what happens when their demand is imposed upon the existing public system.

When enormous new loads arrive faster than dependable supply, electricity costs can rise, expensive substations and transmission facilities may be required, reliability margins can shrink, and older generators may have to operate longer. Unless the rules are established in advance, some costs or risks can be shifted to households and existing employers.

The answer is not complicated: do not allow a major new electrical load to arrive alone. Require it to arrive with new power.

Political Courage, Not Political Opportunity

Politicians can make themselves appear to be heroes for ordinary citizens by campaigning against the 'big, bad data centers.' It is an easy position. Data centers are large, unfamiliar, and owned by powerful companies. A politician can oppose one, claim to have protected the public, and collect votes without solving New York's underlying energy problem.

That is short-sighted political opportunism, not leadership. Data centers are coming because the modern economy requires them. New York can reject the investment, jobs, tax revenue, and technical development, or it can demonstrate the courage and creative thinking required to turn a huge new demand for power into an opportunity to build new supply.

The answer is not simply to stop data centers. The answer is to require them to help solve the problem they would otherwise make worse.

The Power-Positive Partnership

New York should adopt one clear principle:

A data center should bring new power to New York - not merely consume the power New York already has.

Suppose a proposed data center requires 100 megawatts of continuous power. The developer should be required to build or finance a new generating and storage system capable of serving that load while adding a defined amount of dependable net capacity for the wider system. The exact margin should be established through engineering and reliability review rather than a political slogan, but it must be measurable, additional, and enforceable.

The data center would ordinarily take its power behind the meter. Excess generation would be exported under NYISO, utility, environmental, and market rules. New York already recognizes behind-the-meter net generation, in which a generator serves a host load and has the ability to export excess electricity. The proposal expands that concept into a public-benefit requirement for exceptionally large loads.

How Utility Companies Benefit

Utility companies should not view this arrangement merely as an accommodation for a very large customer. Properly structured, it can provide the utility and its existing customers with additional dependable supply, stronger local infrastructure, and a better-balanced system.

A power-positive campus can add generation, storage, modern substations, and transmission improvements at the location where new demand is being created. The utility gains another source of electricity and operational flexibility without having to finance the entire project through customer rates. During periods of high demand or system stress, contracted exports, stored energy, and demand reductions by the data center can provide additional tools for maintaining reliability.

Additional efficient generation can also increase competition in the wholesale market. It should not be promised that one project will automatically lower every customer's bill, because retail bills contain many costs and market conditions change. But increasing dependable, competitively priced supply - especially in the right location - can reduce upward pressure on wholesale prices and help avoid more expensive emergency solutions.

The developer also brings something utilities and governments do not always have readily available: rapid access to large pools of private capital. Major technology and infrastructure companies can raise money through international capital markets, institutional investors, private-equity funds, pension funds, banks, and long-term energy partners. The generating plant can therefore be financed principally by investors accepting the project's risk, rather than by families through utility rates or by taxpayers through government borrowing.

Private financing does not eliminate regulation. Power plants, transmission connections, water systems, and data centers must still satisfy applicable state, federal, local, environmental, and reliability requirements. The advantage is that one financially capable development team can coordinate the load, generation, storage, and construction schedule as a single investment. Federal regulators are now recognizing that studying associated load and generation together can reduce unnecessary grid upgrades and make interconnection faster and less costly.

How Government Can Help

Government's role should be neither passive approval nor automatic obstruction. It should establish demanding public standards and then clear an efficient path for projects willing to meet them.

New York is competing with Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and other states for data centers, power investment, construction activity, technical jobs, and the industries that will grow around artificial intelligence. Developers compare sites according to power availability, approval time, infrastructure, cost, community support, and regulatory certainty. Delay can be the same as rejection: capital moves to the state that is prepared to act.

Government therefore has to think more like a competitive entrepreneur. It must recognize an opportunity, assemble the necessary partners, anticipate obstacles, set a timetable, and make a convincing offer before another state does. That does not mean lowering safety, environmental, labor, or community standards. It means making the requirements clear at the beginning and coordinating the agencies responsible for enforcing them.

New York should designate one accountable project team to coordinate state and local review; establish a single public schedule for environmental, energy, water, zoning, and interconnection decisions; allow related generation and load to be studied together; identify pre-screened industrial sites; and give qualified power-positive projects priority without guaranteeing their approval.

Fast-tracking should mean faster decisions, not weaker decisions. Projects should earn expedited treatment by committing to new dependable generation, full cost responsibility, transparent water and emissions plans, enforceable community benefits, and meaningful excess power for the grid.

Some politicians are moving in the opposite direction. They treat delay, blanket resistance, or a moratorium as proof that they are protecting the public. That may produce an easy headline, but it can also drive private investment, jobs, tax revenue, and new power generation into competing states. A state that only knows how to say no will eventually watch other states build the infrastructure of the future.

Real leadership is harder. It protects the public while finding a way to say yes to a project that leaves New York with more power, stronger infrastructure, and greater opportunity than it had before.

Why Niagara Falls Is the Natural Location

A Great Energy Foundation - But Not a Free Supply

The Niagara Power Project in Lewiston is New York's largest electricity producer and can generate up to 2,600 megawatts of clean hydropower. That electricity is already serving utilities, public bodies, municipal systems, industries, and residents. A new data center should not consume a large portion of that existing resource or compete with current employers for low-cost power.

It must contribute to the supply. Niagara's hydropower and energy expertise should serve as the foundation for a larger system, not as an excuse for placing another immense load on the region.

Infrastructure for Contributing to the Grid

Niagara already has major generating facilities, transmission corridors, substations, industrial land, energy professionals, and decades of experience moving large volumes of electricity. This makes the region a natural place to connect new generation to the grid, subject to detailed engineering studies.

The developer should finance every new substation, transmission line, storage facility, or related upgrade primarily required by the project. Properly designed, those improvements could do more than connect one data center: they could reduce bottlenecks, strengthen regional reliability, and prepare industrial sites for future employers.

The test is simple: after the data center is operating, does Niagara have more dependable power available or less? If the answer is less, the proposal has failed.

Water and Climate

Data centers produce great quantities of heat and require dependable cooling. Western New York's Great Lakes location, colder winters, and moderate annual temperatures offer an advantage over hot, dry regions. Outside air can provide part of the cooling during much of the year, reducing mechanical cooling demand.

Regional water abundance is not permission for unlimited consumption. Any project must protect drinking water, aquatic life, and the Niagara River, and should use closed-loop or other highly efficient cooling wherever practical. Water withdrawals, treatment, and discharge must be independently reviewed and publicly disclosed.

Industrial Land and Economic Need

Niagara Falls has industrially zoned land, legacy utility corridors, transportation connections, and former industrial properties that may be suitable for careful redevelopment. Proper siting can return underused land to productive use rather than consuming farmland or intruding upon residential neighborhoods.

The city also has a real need for durable investment. Census estimates for 2020-2024 place Niagara Falls' median household income at $49,101 and its poverty rate at 23.7 percent. The community that helped power New York's industrial development should be a priority for the next generation of energy and technology investment.

Data centers do not employ as many people as the great factories of the past, and advocates should not pretend otherwise. Their local value comes from large construction programs, specialized permanent positions, service contracts, infrastructure investment, and a substantial tax base. Those benefits must be secured in writing.

Turn Waste Heat Into a Second Energy Resource

Almost all electricity used by servers ultimately becomes heat. Ordinarily, cooling systems remove that heat and release it into the environment. A planned Niagara energy district could capture it and distribute it to nearby factories, schools, hospitals, government buildings, housing, greenhouses, and other large users.

A district-heating network uses insulated pipes to carry heated water between facilities. Because data-center heat is often below the temperature required by older heating systems or industrial processes, large heat pumps may be needed to raise its temperature. Proximity matters: heat users should be planned near the data center so the network is economical and energy losses remain low.

This is not theoretical. Microsoft and the energy company Fortum are developing Finnish data-center projects expected eventually to provide about 40 percent of the district heat required in nearby communities. In Ireland, recovered heat from an Amazon data center supplies public buildings including a university and library.

New York should require every major data-center proposal to include a waste-heat recovery study. In Niagara, the State should evaluate a shared thermal network as part of the original district plan, rather than trying to add one after the buildings are complete.

The Virtuous Energy Cycle

The developer builds new generation and storage.

The system serves the data center and exports dependable excess electricity.

The computers produce heat as they operate.

The heat is captured and delivered to nearby buildings and industry.

Those users buy less natural gas, heating oil, or electricity for heat.

Lower heating demand leaves more energy available to the rest of New York.

Modern grid and thermal infrastructure helps attract additional employers.

This Approach Is Already Emerging

New York would not be inventing the idea of pairing data centers with new generation. It would be improving it.

Ohio reported approving five behind-the-meter natural-gas and fuel-cell plants at data-center sites during 2025, while also developing special tariffs intended to protect other customers.

Governors in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia advanced a 'Bring Your Own Generation' concept that would connect large loads with dependable new generation and faster review.

Pennsylvania has pursued stronger affordability, environmental, transparency, workforce, and community requirements for data-center projects.

Federal regulators are examining co-located generation, large-load reliability, grid-upgrade responsibility, and consumer protection.

Texas and other states are seeing large campuses plan their own behind-the-meter power because public-grid interconnections cannot arrive quickly enough.

Most existing programs stop at 'bring your own power.' This paper proposes the stronger standard: bring more dependable power than you use, and leave the public system stronger than you found it.

Conditions New York Must Require

9 requirements that define success:

1. True additionality. The new generation must add capacity. An existing plant must not simply stop serving the public and redirect its output to a private customer.
2. Ratepayer protection. The developer must pay the direct and indirect costs primarily caused by its project, with deposits, minimum payments, and financial guarantees protecting the public from abandoned or downsized projects.
3. Power before operation. The data center should not reach full load until its promised generation, storage, interconnection, and required grid improvements are ready.
4. Guaranteed net contribution. The amount and availability of exported power must be established by contract, independently verified, and enforceable.
5. Emergency cooperation. The facility should provide demand response, stored power, or flexible-computing reductions when the grid is under exceptional strain.
6. Climate and environmental compliance. The technology must comply with applicable air, water, land-use, and New York climate requirements, including the State's zero-emissions electricity objective for 2040.
7. Local benefit agreement. Jobs, training, tax payments, infrastructure, local contracting, and community protections must be specific rather than promotional promises.
8. Transparent agreements. Material energy subsidies, special rates, cost allocations, water plans, emissions assumptions, and public obligations should be disclosed.
9. Heat recovery planning. Every project must study nearby thermal users and reserve practical routes for a future or immediate district-heating network.

Technology Must Meet the Standard

This position paper does not prescribe one generating technology. New York should invite competing proposals using combinations of hydropower, advanced nuclear energy, geothermal energy, fuel cells, renewable generation, storage, demand flexibility, or other qualifying resources.

It should also avoid claiming that any new plant will automatically produce electricity more cheaply than the existing system. The developer must demonstrate cost competitiveness through transparent assumptions about construction, fuel, financing, maintenance, interconnection, emissions compliance, and useful life.

The public standard should focus on results: dependable net power, affordability, environmental compliance, local benefits, and protection from financial risk.

A Niagara Power-Positive Development District

New York should create a focused planning process for a Niagara Power-Positive Development District. State agencies, NYPA, NYISO, the serving utility, Niagara County, the City of Niagara Falls, neighboring municipalities, labor, educational institutions, community representatives, environmental experts, and prospective developers should work from one integrated plan.

• Identify suitable industrial and brownfield sites away from residential neighborhoods.
• Map realistic electricity, transmission, water, wastewater, fiber, transportation, and thermal connections.
• Set a minimum dependable net-power contribution for exceptionally large loads.
• Establish developer-funded interconnection and infrastructure rules before projects are negotiated.
• Design a shared district-heating backbone and identify anchor heat customers.
• Create enforceable workforce, tax, local-contracting, and community-benefit standards.
• Use a transparent competitive process that rewards the greatest lasting public benefit.

Conclusion

New York does not have to choose between stopping data centers and allowing them to overwhelm the existing grid. It can insist upon a better bargain.

Niagara Falls is uniquely positioned to demonstrate it. The region has water resources, a cool climate, industrial land, energy expertise, generating and transmission infrastructure, international connections, and a community that deserves serious investment. But its existing hydropower must not be treated as a prize for a new data center to consume.

The developer must contribute. It must add generation, improve infrastructure, export dependable excess electricity, recover useful heat, protect ratepayers, and leave the host community better off.

Niagara Falls once helped electrify America's industrial age. With courage, discipline, and creative partnership, it can help power the digital age - while giving New York more energy than it takes.

Sources

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New York Independent System Operator. Power Trends 2025 Fact Sheet. https://www.nyiso.com/documents/20142/23494579/2025-Power-Trends-Fact-Sheet.pdf/c0eb52f2-806b-8813-a0cf-171475cf0790

New York Independent System Operator. 2026 Power Trends. https://www.nyiso.com/documents/d/guest/2026-power-trends

New York Independent System Operator. 'Behind-the-Meter Net Generation.' https://www.nyiso.com/behind-the-meter

New York Independent System Operator. Behind-the-Meter Net Generation Resource Guide. https://www.nyiso.com/documents/20142/41887799/Behind-the-Meter-Net-Generation.pdf/c393e9be-c674-1f2d-9996-5f9bbc03f57d

New York State Public Service Commission. Order Instituting Proceeding and Soliciting Comments, Case 26-E-0063, February 12, 2026. https://documents.dps.ny.gov/public/Common/ViewDoc.aspx?DocRefId=%7BB040539C-0000-CB26-AEB3-8C865EF3724D%7D

New York Power Authority. 'Niagara Power Project.' https://www.nypa.gov/Power/Generation/Niagara-Power-Project

New York Power Authority. 'NYPA Announces Next Generation Niagara Turbine Milestone.' February 26, 2026. https://www.nypa.gov/News/Press-Releases/2026/20260226-turbine

New York Power Authority. 'Low-Cost Niagara Hydropower Supports Economic Development.' March 26, 2025. https://www.nypa.gov/News/Press-Releases/2025/20250326-jobs

New York State. Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. https://climate.ny.gov/

New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. 'Transmission and New York's Electricity Grid.' https://www.nyserda.ny.gov/All-Programs/Offshore-Wind/Focus-Areas/Transmission-NY-Electricity-Grid

U.S. Energy Information Administration. New York Electricity Profile 2024. https://www.eia.gov/electricity/state/newyork/

U.S. Census Bureau. QuickFacts: Niagara Falls city, New York. 2020-2024 estimates. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/niagarafallscitynewyork/PST045225

Public Utilities Commission of Ohio. 'PUCO 2025 End of Year Review.' December 19, 2025. https://puco.ohio.gov/wps/portal/gov/puco/news/2025-year-recap

Public Utilities Commission of Ohio. 'Data Centers and Electricity.' https://puco.ohio.gov/wps/portal/gov/puco/utilities/electricity/resources/data-centers

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. 'Interconnection of Large Loads to the Interstate Transmission System,' Docket RM26-4. https://www.ferc.gov/rm26-4

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. 'FERC Launches Aggressive Targeted Action to Speed Large Load Integration.' June 18, 2026. https://www.ferc.gov/news-events/news/ferc-launches-aggressive-targeted-action-speed-large-load-integration

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Commissioner Rosner, 'Remarks on the Large Load Show Cause Orders.' June 18, 2026. https://www.ferc.gov/news-events/news/commissioner-rosners-remarks-large-load-show-cause-orders-e-7-e-12-june-18-2026

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Commissioner Rosner, Concurrence on SPP High Impact Large Load Tariff Revisions. January 14, 2026. https://www.ferc.gov/news-events/news/commissioner-rosners-concurrence-order-accepting-tariff-revisions-subject

New York Independent System Operator. How Competitive Electricity Markets Power New York State's Clean Energy Goals. https://www.nyiso.com/documents/20142/2224547/How-Electricity-Markets-Power-NYS-Clean-Energy-Goals.pdf/819ee0e6-989f-b28e-e3e0-8967bbd4a735

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. 'Governor Shapiro Signs Executive Order on Data Center Development.' August 18, 2026. https://www.pa.gov/governor/newsroom/2026-press-releases/governor-shapiro-signs-executive-order-on-data-center-developmen

International Energy Agency. 'Opportunities for District Heating in the Changing Energy Landscape.' December 8, 2025. https://www.iea.org/commentaries/opportunities-for-district-heating-in-the-changing-energy-landscape

International Energy Agency. 'Data Centres and Energy - From Global Headlines to Local Headaches.' https://www.iea.org/commentaries/data-centres-and-energy-from-global-headlines-to-local-headaches

Fortum. 'Fortum and Microsoft's Data Centre Project Spearheads Clean Heat.' https://www.fortum.com/services/heating-cooling/data-centres-helsinki-region

Amazon Web Services. 'District Heating: Using Data Centers to Heat Communities.' March 13, 2024. https://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2024/03/district-heating-using-data-centers-to-heat-communities.html

THE WARNING IN JOSEF GANZ’S STORY

Sometimes protecting your party means drawing a line inside your party.

The story of Josef Ganz has been on my mind—not because history repeats itself exactly, and certainly not because today’s DSA is the Nazi Party. It isn’t.

The warning is subtler than that.

Josef Ganz was a Jewish German engineer and automobile visionary. Germany was his country. He initially viewed the new government with enough optimism that he welcomed some of its plans for roads and inexpensive automobiles. Then reality came quickly. In May 1933, the Gestapo arrested him on fabricated accusations. His career was systematically destroyed, his life became endangered, and in June 1934 he fled Germany.

Ganz’s story illustrates something deeply human: we tend to believe tomorrow will still resemble yesterday.

We tell ourselves that the extremists are only talking. The institutions will hold. Reasonable people remain in charge. Surely things cannot go that far.

And perhaps most dangerously: I am a citizen. I belong here. It can’t happen to me.

That is where I see a lesson for America today.

Again, the parallel is not that democratic socialism equals Nazism. The parallel is what can happen when a political movement becomes increasingly radical while the larger political establishment hesitates to confront it.

The Democratic Socialists of America are quite open about wanting fundamental change. Their current constitution says they reject an economic order based on private profit and envision popular control of resources and production and economic planning. Their current program goes considerably further, describing the goal of creating a “democratic socialist republic,” drafting a new constitution, and ultimately building a new society rather than merely reforming the existing one.

Those ideas deserve to be taken seriously precisely because their advocates take them seriously.

My concern is that Democrats have become so afraid of conceding even an inch to Republicans or conservatives that too many seem reluctant to confront radical elements developing within their own coalition.

A healthy Democratic Party ought to be capable of saying: We disagree with Republicans, but this goes too far. These ideas are incompatible with what we believe America should be, and these people do not speak for us.

Republicans should be expected to do exactly the same thing when extremism develops on the right and they have. Republicans have demonstrated that a political movement can draw lines against people who once seemed firmly inside its own camp. Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Candace Owens and others were once influential voices within the broader Trump coalition. Yet when serious ideological divisions emerged, those relationships fractured—sometimes spectacularly. Republicans did not simply say, “We must defend them because they are on our side.”

That is precisely what I believe Democrats must be willing to do with the radical left. Political parties have an obligation to police their own boundaries. Democrats should not be so afraid of giving Republicans a political victory that they refuse to say plainly when elements within their coalition have gone too far.

Political tribalism becomes dangerous when defeating the opposing party matters more than policing your own side.

That is what Josef Ganz’s story makes me think about.

Ganz had every reason to believe in Germany. He had talent, accomplishments and a German identity. Yet none of those things could protect him once the political environment around him fundamentally changed.

The lesson is not to panic.

The lesson is to pay attention early.

Do not dismiss radicals because their objectives sound impossible. Do not assume institutions automatically preserve themselves. Do not keep moving the line of what is acceptable simply because acknowledging the danger might give your political opponents a talking point.

Sometimes the greatest mistake reasonable people make is assuming that everyone else will eventually become reasonable too.

Josef Ganz learned otherwise.

DON'T BET AGAINST THE DONALD

 

TO THE READER

Trump supporters probably recognize every quality described in this essay already. They have watched him closely, often for years, and many understood these dimensions of his character long before his critics were willing to consider them. This essay is therefore not primarily written for them.

It is written for the Trump hater.

I do not use that description for everyone who opposes Donald Trump. Disagreement is not hatred. A person can reject his policies, dislike his conduct, question his judgment or vote against him without surrendering fairness. I am speaking instead to people whose hostility has hardened into a certainty that Trump possesses no intelligence, courage, compassion, accomplishment or redeeming quality at all.

If critical thinking means anything, it must include the willingness to examine evidence that complicates our preferred conclusion. It is easy to analyze an opponent’s failures. The harder test is whether we can recognize his strengths without feeling that we have betrayed our own beliefs.

I am not asking the reader to approve of Donald Trump. I am asking the reader to become curious about him.

Keep an open mind. Consider the whole man rather than the caricature. Allow the possibility that a person can be deeply flawed and historically extraordinary at the same time. Perhaps that small opening small will tone down some of the hatred and let in a little appreciation for the history we are witnessing.

A FRESH LOOK AT AN AMERICAN PHENOMENON

I have written about Donald Trump before. But it has been several years, and he has survived, returned and accomplished so much since then that I decided it was time to take another look at him.

What follows is a shortened and condensed version of more than fifty pages of developing thoughts, notes and research. Even those fifty-plus pages would have been considerably longer had I fully fleshed out every trait. There is enough material here for a book—but my purpose is narrower: to assemble essential characteristics that explain why Donald Trump has been so persistently underestimated.

This is not intended to prove that Trump is flawless. He plainly is not. He can be boastful, abrasive, impulsive, repetitive and needlessly insulting. He has made mistakes in business and government. Some of his habits annoy even people who admire him. But admitting those qualities should not require us to accept the opposite caricature: that he is stupid, incompetent or merely lucky.

That caricature has prevented many intelligent people from understanding one of the most consequential figures of our time. Again and again, Trump’s enemies have predicted his political death. Again and again, they have mistaken a setback for an ending. They judge the latest round; Trump keeps fighting the entire match. 

The thesis of this essay is simple: whatever else one thinks of Donald Trump, betting against him has repeatedly proved to be a very expensive mistake.

There are hundreds of thousands of extremely wealthy Americans, and there have been many times that since the nation was founded. Yet only forty-five individuals in all of history have served as president before Trump began his second, nonconsecutive presidency. He became both the forty-fifth and forty-seventh president— not because there have been forty seven men but because presidential terms are numbered separately when they are interrupted. Only Grover Cleveland had previously returned after losing office. Trump also became the oldest person ever inaugurated as president.

He turned inherited wealth and opportunity into a worldwide name. Then he placed that name, his fortune, his family and his reputation into the service of a political mission. Long before he ran, he told interviewers that he preferred his business life but might seek the presidency if the country became bad enough. Eventually he concluded that it had.

How did he get from Queens to the White House, lose it, and then return? Accomplishments alone cannot answer that. We have to examine the formation, instincts, appetites, weaknesses and unusual strengths of the man himself.

Link to my essay. 

A QUIET BOOM

A "quiet manufacturing boom" is underway in the U.S., especially in the heartland, driven by sticky long-term capital investments in factories rather than short-term speculation. 

Key data include the ISM Manufacturing Index at 55 (a four-year high after seven months of gains, signaling expansion) and manufacturing employment at a new four-year peak in high-paying, family-supporting roles. Factory- and trade-related construction jobs have surged under President Trump—from just 9,300 added in Q1 2025 to 93,000 so far in Q3 2026.

The Administration's reciprocal trade policies that reject predatory practices (especially from China) and non-tariff barriers like Europe’s VAT subsidies, plus a lighter regulatory environment and aggressive energy development that attract capital are to be credited. Foreign direct investment hit $232 billion in 2025 (up 50% from 2024), with commitments reaching a record $321.4 billion and a 23.6% global share.

Capital investment in factories is only the beginning because it commits long-term resources to actual production cycles that unfold over years, generating cascading economic and social effects far beyond the initial spending.

In short, the capital inflows create the physical capacity; the subsequent years of production, hiring, innovation, and wage growth are where the deeper, lasting impact—and potential political payoff—materializes.

I called this a "quiet manufacturing boom." It is only quite because the Trump hating legacy media largely ignore the trend. No wonder why.