Trump's whoppers about oil and gas prices

Big Oil wins. You lose.

Noah Berlatsky

“The United States is the largest Oil Producer in the World, by far, so when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money,” Donald Trump boasted on Truth Social.

Oil prices are, of course, going up because Trump launched an illegal war of aggression against Iran without considering the (incredibly obvious) possibility that Iran might retaliate by closing the Strait of Hormuz. Gas prices have spiked 60 cents this month as oil hit $100 a barrel, and Energy Secretary Chris Wright refused to rule out the possibility oil might even rise to $200 a barrel.

Trump’s blasé trumpeting of the virtues of rising prices is in part simple fecklessness — he’s a liar who insists everything he does is brilliant and awesome.

But Trump’s decision to attack Iran and put upward pressure on prices at home puts him a political pickle, since he excoriated Biden for the high cost of gas during the 2024 campaign. In fact, the day before he launched his war, Trump preened about how far prices had fallen. But suddenly high prices are good, because as long as Trump is shuffling gaseously from Mar-a-Lago to the White House, it’s always an orange utopia in America.

To some degree, though, Trump’s love of high prices is sincere. Our current fascist president is a crony capitalist and loves the idea of screwing consumers, who he sees as suckers and marks. He identifies with the wealthy and likes it when the rich get richer. His populist mouth noises have always been a put on — as an instinctual oligarch, he gets a little shiver of pleasure whenever he can harm the little guy.

Don't let it spread

 

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Rep. Megan Cotter introduces bill to boost tax break for seniors

Rep. Cotter, Sen. Ujifusa submit bill raising ‘circuit breaker’ tax credit to help seniors, those with disabilities

Sen. Linda L. Ujifusa and Rep. Megan Cotter are sponsoring a bill to provide relief to some of the state’s most vulnerable households by raising the eligibility limit and the maximum credit for the “circuit breaker” tax credit, which benefits low-income seniors and individuals with disabilities.

“Rhode Islanders with low incomes are bearing the heaviest burdens of our housing crisis, as well as paying a far greater share of their income under our regressive tax structure. For those with fixed incomes, such as seniors and people with disabilities, higher housing costs can mean they are going without other necessities to keep a roof over their heads. They need relief. Raising the limits on the circuit breaker credit is a very effective, targeted way to help many of the households who are facing the greatest housing cost burdens,” said Senator Ujifusa (D-Dist. 11, Portsmouth Bristol).

The circuit breaker credit program provides an income tax credit to low-income Rhode Island homeowners and renters who are over 65 or disabled, equal to the amount that their property tax exceeds a certain percent of their income. That percent ranges from 3 to 6 percent, based on household income. In the case of renters, a figure representing 20 percent of their annual rent is used in the place of property tax in the calculation.

Currently, the program is limited to households with annual incomes of $40,730 or less, and the credit is limited to $700.

The legislation Representative Cotter and Senator Ujifusa have introduced (2026-H 7700, 2026-S 2031) would raise the income limit to $50,000 and raise the maximum credit to $850.

More Kids Are in ERs for Tooth Pain.

Trump Cuts and RFK Jr.’s Anti-Fluoride Fight Aren’t Helping.

Farrell Brenner and Angela Y. Zhang 

Eight-year-old Jonah woke up one May morning with a swollen face and a toothache. He refused the pain medication that his mom, Geneva Reynolds, tried to give him. He didn’t sleep or eat and cried constantly.

Within a few days, Reynolds became so desperate that she and her husband had to physically restrain Jonah, dumping pain medication down his throat as he screamed in pain.

“It broke our hearts,” said Reynolds, who lived in Georgetown, Kentucky, at the time. “And I remember just thinking that it shouldn’t have to come to that.”

Reynolds couldn’t find a dentist with an opening who could treat Jonah, who is autistic and often resists dental exams due to hypersensitivity and anxiety. Over the course of five days, Reynolds took Jonah twice to a nearby emergency room as he struggled with persistent pain and a fever due to a likely infected tooth with an exposed nerve. The ER had no dentists; both times, the family was sent home with only pain medication and an ice pack.

Across the nation, more children are entering ERs for preventable tooth problems. Dentists, hygienists, and researchers attributed that trend to a shortage of pediatric dental care professionals in rural areas and worsening oral hygiene since the covid-19 pandemic. Tens of thousands of kids end up in the hospital for dental emergencies each year, according to Melissa Burroughs, senior director of policy and advocacy at the national health nonprofit CareQuest Institute for Oral Health.

ER visits for tooth problems unrelated to physical injuries rose almost 60% nationally for children under 15 years old from 2019 to 2022, according to a report released late last year by CareQuest. And local data reflects that national trend: At Children’s Hospital Colorado in the Denver area, nontraumatic dental cases, such as cavities or gum infections, in its ER increased 175% from 2010 to 2025, according to hospital spokesperson Sarah Bonar. In Kentucky, where Jonah lives, children’s visits to the ER for dental problems rose 72% from 2020 to 2024, according to the state.

Policy changes under the Trump administration are poised to worsen the trend. President Donald Trump’s 2025 federal budget reconciliation law, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, called for billions in cuts from Medicaid, which may force states to limit or drop dental coverage from the public insurance program for those with low incomes or disabilities. New eligibility requirements for Medicaid in some states could affect kids’ access to dental care, even though children are guaranteed dental coverage under the program. Research shows that when parents lose Medicaid, even kids with coverage are more likely to have untreated cavities and less likely to go to a dentist.

The Trump administration has also promoted skepticism about fluoride. Decades of research show that fluoride in drinking water and topical fluoride treatments dramatically reduce tooth decay and prevent cavities. In recent months, the Food and Drug Administration warned health professionals against the use of fluoride supplements and the Environmental Protection Agency released an assessment of “potential health risks of fluoride in drinking water.” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has called fluoride a “neurotoxin” and “industrial waste.” A 2025 study in JAMA Pediatrics linked high levels of fluoride with lower IQ in children — but only at concentrations far exceeding the recommended level in public drinking water.

Critics Blast Decision to Mint Trump Coin for US 250th Anniversary Celebration

Malignant narcissist strikes again

By Chris Walker

This article was originally published by Truthout

A federal commission tasked with approving designs for coinage has approved a 24-karat gold coin featuring Donald Trump, flouting precedent regarding commemorating living presidents and possibly violating federal law.

The coin, formally meant to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the founding of the United States, shows Trump standing behind a desk, firmly pushing his two fists on top of it while giving a stern look in the direction of the coin holder. 

The unanimous vote from the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts occurred on Thursday. 

The commission is composed entirely of people appointed by Trump, following his firing of its former members last fall. 

Commission member Chamberlain Harris, who is also a political adviser to Trump, defended the decision to mint a gold coin featuring a living president.

“I think it’s fitting to have a current sitting president who’s presiding over the country over the 250th year on a commemorative coin for said year,” Harris said. 

U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach similarly heaped praise on the idea of featuring Trump on a coin. Said Beach:

As we approach our 250th birthday, we are thrilled to prepare coins that represent the enduring spirit of our country and democracy, and there is no profile more emblematic for the front of such coins than that of our serving President, Donald J. Trump.

Federal law bars the depiction of living presidents and public figures on currency. The U.S. Mint may try to sidestep that rule by insisting that those standards don’t apply to this coin, as it is a “commemorative” coin that will be limited in production and isn’t intended for regular currency circulation. 

Only one president in U.S. history has ever had his image placed on a coin while he was still living — Calvin Coolidge, in 1926. The action — also done to commemorate the anniversary of the country’s “birth” — drew controversy and outrage, resulting in most of the coins being re-collected and melted down. 

The REAL Reason Trump is Trapped in Iran

And why American consumers are up Shit's Creek

Robert Reich

On March 19, Trump said that he’d do whatever is necessary to ease the oil crisis. He also assured America that the crisis “will be over soon.”

Bullshit.

The problem isn’t just that Iran has blocked the Strait of Hormuz. It’s also that Iran, Israel, and the United States have all inflicted — and continue to inflict — serious damage to the oil and gas infrastructure of the Middle East. This damage will take months if not years to repair.

At one point on Thursday oil prices jumped to $119 a barrel before falling back to around $111 a barrel — all but guaranteeing that the price of gas at the pump will continue to rise, as will the prices of many other products and services indirectly affected by oil prices.

What we are now witnessing is one of the grossest military and political blunders in modern history.

It’s not hard to understand why Trump is trapped in Iran. He doesn’t listen to anyone outside his small circle of sycophants who tell him what he wants to hear.

But there’s something else. Iran has adopted an asymmetric war strategy that’s working.

I’m indebted to Marty Manley for uncovering a fascinating historical fact that sheds light on what Iran is doing. 

During the Korean War, U.S. Air Force Colonel John Boyd came up with a theory of competitive decision-making that shaped American military doctrine for a generation. He called it the OODA loop: Observe, Orient, Decide, Act.

Boyd found that victory doesn’t go to the side with more firepower. It goes to the side that cycles through the OODA loop faster — observing what’s changing, orienting to its meaning, deciding what to do, and acting before its adversary does.

Get inside your opponent’s loop, Boyd reasoned, and you don’t just outpace him. You break his ability to form a coherent picture of the war he’s fighting.

Manley observes that Iran has adopted Boyd’s approach. Iran hasn’t needed to match American firepower; it’s needed only to generate economic and political problems for Washington that outrun Washington’s ability to orient, decide, and act.

Iran has gotten inside Trump’s OODA loop because Iran has responded to U.S. airstrikes by widening the war horizontally — attacking tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, launching drones and missiles at Gulf state oil and gas infrastructure, provoking the U.S. and Israel to destroy even more of that infrastructure, hitting Amazon data centers in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain (causing regional outages for banking, e-commerce, and cloud services), and squeezing other choke points that the global economy depends on.

Iran’s leaders — veterans of asymmetric wars in Iraq and Syria — are applying the same asymmetric logic to Trump’s war. Inexpensive drones, short-range missiles, and sea mines can have the same effect that IEDs had in Iraq — only with far greater strategic impact, because they disrupt global supply chains.

What has Washington done? Dropped more bombs and launched more missiles.

Your lyin' eyes

And he's surprised when they say "no!"

The truth

Pothole damage from driving around Rhode Island?

The state will pay only up to $300. Sorry about your Beemer

By Christopher Shea, Rhode Island Current

Twice in one month Antonio Lanni has heard the same sound coming from underneath his 2025 BMW M3: the hiss of air escaping the tires.

The first instance came in February while driving in the area of Pine Street in downtown Providence. He hit a pothole, cracking the rim and puncturing the tire on his rear passenger side. The cost to repair: $1,000.

The second time happened the night of March 4 on Putnam Pike on his way back home to North Providence. He hit a pothole on the state-maintained highway, ripping through both driver side tires. Replacing them will cost him $225 per tire.

Lanni has filed claims with both the city of Providence and the Rhode Island Department of Transportation (RIDOT) to cover the damage. But he’ll still have to dig into his own wallet. 

Pothole damage is typically only covered by car insurance if the policy includes collision coverage, which is subject to a deductible. Lanni said his car insurance policy would not cover pothole-related damage.

All Rhode Island municipalities, and the state itself, only offer up to $300 in pothole-related reimbursements — rates lawmakers set decades ago during the Garrahy and Sundlun administrations.

“To be honest, if I’m spending $1,500, I’ve got to try to do something,” Lanni said. “I know it’s not going to cover the whole thing, but it’s definitely better than nothing.”

Lucky for Lanni, he said he can get his tires at a discounted rate since he works as a service adviser at Tasca Chrysler Jeep Dodge Ram FIAT in Johnston.

RIDOT’s $300 rate was set by lawmakers in 1979, becoming law without Gov. Joseph Garrahy’s signature. Adjusted for inflation, the Carter-era reimbursement rate would be $1,404 today.

The law was updated in 1994 to set a timeline of 45 days for RIDOT to pay for approved claims because there had been no established deadline for the state to respond. Also that same year, lawmakers set the maximum reimbursement for damages from potholes on local roads at $300 to match the state rate. Previously, the maximum amount municipalities could reimburse motorists was $50 under a rate set in 1956, the equivalent of $609 today.

Cancer vaccines could transform treatment and prevention – but misinformation about mRNA vaccines threatens their potential

Why are Trump and Bobby Jr. standing in the way of a cure for cancer?

Dannell D. Boatman, West Virginia University

Scientists are making rapid progress toward a long-awaited goal that could help to reshape cancer care: mRNA cancer vaccines with the potential to significantly boost the immune system’s ability to fight and eliminate tumors.

Since the early 2000s, there have been over 120 promising clinical trials testing the use of mRNA vaccines to treat multiple cancer types, such as melanoma, brain, breast, lung and prostate cancer.

At the same time, misinformation about so-called turbo cancer began spreading widely on social media, with mainstream media outlets first reporting on it in late 2022. Turbo cancer refers to the false claim that COVID-19 mRNA vaccines cause unusually aggressive cancers.

As a researcher in health communication who monitors cancer-related conversations online, I have seen how quickly new misinformation can spread and the impact it can have on people’s health decisions. In the case of mRNA cancer vaccines, this false narrative could undermine public confidence in an important tool that may help prevent or treat cancer in the future.

Cancer research and mRNA vaccines

Most people likely first heard about mRNA technology through COVID-19 vaccines, but scientists have been studying it for decades.

How mRNA vaccines work is by delivering instructions that prompt the body’s cells to make specific proteins. This process teaches the immune system how to recognize and attack those proteins. In cancer research, scientists can design highly targeted vaccines that train the immune system to find tumor cells and more effectively kill them without harming healthy cells.

Cancer vaccines teach the immune system to kill tumor cells more effectively.

One example of this potential comes from studies on glioblastoma, an aggressive brain tumor with few effective treatments. Researchers have found that a personalized mRNA vaccine can rapidly activate people’s immune systems against this type of brain cancer and improve survival.

The body of evidence that mRNA vaccines can transform how researchers harness the immune system to treat cancer is growing. However, even the most promising medical advances can only improve health if people are willing to use them.

Sen. Gu, Rep. Cotter introduce bills to cap electric and gas utilities’ profits

Protecting consumers from price-gouging utilities

If only this was real

Sen. Victoria Gu and Rep. Megan Cotter have introduced legislation to limit the profits of utilities distributing electricity and natural gas to “just and reasonable” rates.

“One very important reason our utility bills are so high is that in Rhode Island, as in many places across the country, utilities are making unreasonable profits that exceed a reasonable rate of return, reflected locally in the nearly $12 million Rhode Island Energy’s parent company CEO made in 2023, ” said Senator Gu (D-Dist. 38, Westerly, Charlestown, South Kingstown). 

“Utilities are regulated monopolies, and they don’t operate like a normal business. If they spend $100 million on a project, they get 9.275% back from ratepayers. If they spend $200 million on the same project, they still get 9.275% back and they double their profits. There’s no incentive to control costs.”

Said Representative Cotter (D-Dist. 39, Exeter, Richmond, Hopkinton), “While billion-dollar utility companies post record profits, families and seniors in our community are sitting at their kitchen tables trying to figure out how to pay their electric bills. That’s just not right. Our profit cap bills are about protecting working families who are choosing between heat and groceries and making sure seniors on fixed incomes don’t have to live in the cold. Utilities are a necessity, not a luxury, and we have a responsibility to make sure they are fair, affordable and accountable to the people they serve.”

Guy with enough money to fund 41 political action committees in Rhode Island, including ones aimed at ousting Charlestown legislators Tina Spears and Victoria Gu, claims he is being hurt by the minimum wage

If we pay a living wage, our businesses will suffer, argue lobbyists and business owners opposed to increasing the minimum wage

Steve Ahlquist

In a hearing that highlighted a fundamental disagreement over the purpose of the minimum wage and the economic consequences of raising it, virtually every Rhode Island business represented by a trade association opposed it.

The Rhode Island House Committee on Labor heard three bills seeking to raise the minimum wage:

• H7770, from Representative David Bennett (Democrat, District 20, Warwick, Cranston), would increase the minimum hourly wage commencing January 1, 2029, by an amount equal to the total percentage increase in the Consumer Price Index for all Urban Consumers (CPI-U) for the Northeast Region for the calendar year 2027;
• H7769, from Representative Jenni Furtado (Democrat, District 64, East Providence, Pawtucket) would set the minimum wage for 2027 at $20 per hour; and,
• H7771, from Representative Enrique Sanchez (Democrat, District 9, Providence), would set the minimum wage for 2027 at $24 per hour.

Here’s the video, edited to exclude bills and discussions not related to the three minimum wage bills: House Labor - Minimum Wage - March 18, 2026

Proponents, including labor representatives, public health professionals, and economic justice advocates, argued that the current minimum wage was not a living wage, forcing full-time workers into poverty and creating health inequities. They contended that raising the wage would provide economic stability, stimulate local economies, and offer dignity to workers.

Opponents, primarily small-business coalitions and a hospitality association represented by well-connected, high-priced lobbyists, argued that significant wage increases would hinder small businesses already facing high costs. They warned, without evidence, that raising the minimum wage would lead to higher prices, inflation, and job losses, making Rhode Island less economically competitive.

But the core of the opponents’ argument is that most businesses in Rhode Island cannot survive if they are required to pay their workers a wage sufficient to lift them out of poverty. In other words, an “economically competitive” Rhode Island depends on the exploitation of low-income workers.

Among the lobbyists present to make these arguments were:

• Jason Martesian, representing the Rhode Island Business Coalition;
• William Walsh, representing the Northern Rhode Island Chamber of Commerce, the Rhode Island Builders Association, the Rhode Island Hospitality Association (RIHA), the Rhode Island Marine Trade Association (RIMTA), and the Construction Industries of Rhode Island;
• Robert Goldberg, representing the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce; and,
• Ryan Moot, manager of Government Affairs at RIHA, who doesn’t appear to be registered as a lobbyist.

Some business owners, such as David Levesque of Brewed Awakenings, also spoke in opposition:

“I don’t know how many of you guys actually sign the front of a check, but I do. And many of the businesses that I work with also believe in what I’m about to say: You guys are trying to push a minimum wage so we can have a livable wage. Well, what is a livable wage? What’s it for you? What’s it for you? It’s different for everybody.

“I can tell you, when my daughter started working for me a year and a half ago, at 15 years old, she wasn’t worth $15 an hour. She had no experience. She hadn’t worked before, but you required me to pay her $15 an hour. So the worker that’s been with me longer, eight, nine, 10, or 20 years… We can’t afford to pay more when we’re forced to pay an entry-level worker an unacceptably high wage. There needs to be an entry-level wage.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Dave Levesque is the founder of the League of Rhode Island Business (LORIB), a statewide political action committee with 40 subsidiary PACs in every Rhode Island city and town, including Charlestown. Levesque is pro-MAGA and Trump, as well as bitterly opposed to gun control and taxes on the wealthy. His PAC seeks to unseat virtually every Democratic woman legislator in South County, as detailed HERE.

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