After decades of colonial resource extraction, Dole Plantation is sticking the public with the cost of fixing its aging Wahiawā dam and ditch system. With big Ag Park dreams, a powerful Hawaiʻi Senator wonders, “how we gon’ pay for dat?”

Between President Trump’s tariff chaos, haphazard cuts to government functionality via Elon Musk’s rogue agency DOGE, and Congress advancing $5.1 trillion in tax cuts for the rich on the backs of the rest of us, it’s looking like the U.S. economy and the empire that supports it are headed for a painful, stupid end.