Saturday, August 31, 2024

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Patricia Morgan faces new FEC warnings

Feds warn her to follow the rules

By Nancy Lavin, Rhode Island Current

UpriseRI
Republican congressional challenger Patricia Morgan remains under threat of a federal audit over missing information in her federal campaign finance reports, according to a series of written warnings by the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

The trio of Aug. 21 letters give Morgan, who is one of two Republicans challenging Democratic U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse for his seat, until Sept. 25 to correct omissions in three separate campaign finance reports over the last year. 

“Failure to adequately respond by the response date noted above could result in an audit or enforcement action,” Lauren Schleyer-Hinchey, a senior campaign finance analyst for the FEC, wrote in the Aug. 21 notices to Morgan’s campaign treasurer.

It’s not the first time Morgan has run afoul of federal campaign finance rules; the two-term state representative from West Warwick has faced a string of similar, federal campaign finance warnings since jumping in the U.S. Senate race.

The latest letters show that two of those previously flagged reports — for the fourth quarter of 2023 and the first quarter 2024 report — are still not complete, despite revisions Morgan already submitted. In both cases, Morgan’s revised reports made changes to specific donations, such as the date received, compared with her initial submission and failed to include requisite identifying information from one or more donors who gave over $200. The 2023 report also fails to include the identifying details for a $15,000 loan Morgan made to her own campaign. 

Meanwhile, Morgan’s second-quarter submission, submitted in July, has also raised red flags with federal financial regulators for failing to include the identifying information from one or more donors.

Let's go swimming

 Gary Taxali 
 

State Beach Facilities Close After Labor Day Weekend

With summer people gone, we have the beaches to ourselves

Best time to enjoy the beach (photo by Will Collette)
The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) is reminding the public that Labor Day — Monday, Sept. 2 — marks the last day that state beach facilities, restrooms, and concession stands will be open and staffed with lifeguards, rangers, and facility attendants. 
DEM’s Division of Parks and Recreation begins cleaning, winterizing, and closing pavilions and restrooms on Tuesday, Sept. 3. 

In the off-season, all gates and parking lots remain open except in cases of an extreme weather event like a hurricane. Salty Brine State Beach’s concession and Misquamicut State Beach’s concessions will remain open during weekends, weather permitting, for a few weeks following Labor Day. 

Fisheries research overestimates fish stocks

We don't have as many fish as we thought

Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (GEOMAR)

The state of fish stocks in the world's ocean is worse than previously thought. While overfishing has long been blamed on fisheries policies that set catch limits higher than scientific recommendations, a new study by four Australian research institutions reveals that even these scientific recommendations were often too optimistic. 

The result? Far more global fish stocks are overfished or have collapsed than we thought. 

Dr Rainer Froese from the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel and Dr Daniel Pauly from the University of British Columbia have provided their insights on the study. In their Perspective Paper, published today in the journal Science alongside the new study, the two fisheries experts call for simpler yet more accurate models and, when in doubt, a more conservative approach to stock assessments.

Many fish stocks around the world are either threatened by overfishing or have already collapsed. One of the main reasons for this devastating trend is that policymakers have often ignored the catch limits calculated by scientists, which were intended to be strict thresholds to protect stocks. But it has now become clear that even these scientific recommendations were often too high.

In the European Union (EU), for example, fisheries are primarily managed through allowable catch limits, known as quotas, which are set by the European Council of Agriculture Ministers on the basis of scientific advice and recommendations from the European Commission. A new study by Australian scientists (Edgar et al.) shows that already the scientific advice has been recommending catch limits that were too high.

Groundbreaking Universal Vaccine Could End Flu Season Woes

One shot solution?

By American Society for Microbiology

Cleveland Clinic researchers have developed a universal flu vaccine candidate showing strong immune responses in animals, with human trials expected soon. 

This vaccine could potentially protect against various influenza strains over multiple seasons.

  • Flu vaccine efficacy varies year to year.
  • A universal flu vaccine would protect people against all influenza strains that infect humans and last more than a season.
  • A new vaccine candidate incorporates proteins from 8 strains of influenza.
  • Recent tests of the candidate show efficacy in animal models, and the researchers hope to move to clinical trials soon.

Progress in Universal Vaccine Development

Annual flu vaccines protect against severe infection, but they vary in efficacy and may not match the most virulent strains of the season. The reality of a universal flu vaccine, which would protect people from all strains, and ideally longer than a single season, remains elusive.

Friday, August 30, 2024

Besides both being nuts, here's another thing RKF Jr. and Donald Trump have in common

Big Mellon bucks

Jake Johnson for Common Dreams

Joining Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump onstage at a campaign rally in Arizona Friday night, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tried to emphasize what the two share.

"We talked about not the values that separate us, because we don't agree on everything, but on the values and issues that bind us together," Kennedy said shortly after suspending his independent presidential bid to throw his support behind Trump.

But Kennedy did not mention that he and Trump have in common the same billionaire megadonor, a reclusive heir to a Gilded Age fortune who has pumped over $165 million into the 2024 campaign thus far.

Timothy Mellon, the grandson of plutocrat Andrew Mellon, has poured tens of millions of dollars into the campaigns of both Trump and Kennedy, making the secretive billionaire the top individual donor to both.

This is how Bobby Jr. felt about his new master
The campaign finance watchdog OpenSecrets noted Friday in an analysis of Mellon's donations that the billionaire "made a $50 million cash infusion to pro-Trump super PAC Make America Great Again, Inc." in July, according to new Federal Election Commission filings.

"This brings his total contributions to the group to $125 million this election cycle, including a $50 million check he wrote to the super PAC the day after Trump was convicted of 34 felonies," OpenSecrets added. "Mellon's latest $50 million contribution accounts for over 90% of what MAGA, Inc. raised in July."

As for Kennedy, his hybrid PAC American Values 2024 received $25 million from Mellon earlier this year. OpenSecrets observed that Kennedy is quoted on the cover of the billionaire's autobiography, "praising Mellon as a 'maverick entrepreneur.'"

State Announces Additional West Nile Virus Finding

Use Personal Precautions to Reduce Risk

The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) and Rhode Island Department of Health (RIDOH) are announcing that the most recent mosquito samples tested by the Rhode Island State Health Laboratories (RISHL) has confirmed one positive finding of West Nile Virus (WNV). 

The mosquito sample testing positive for WNV was collected in North Kingstown. These results are from 125 samples collected from 30 traps set statewide by DEM on August 13 and 19. 

All other samples tested negative for Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE) virus, WNV, or Jamestown Canyon Virus (JCV). Last week, DEM, RIDOH, and the Mosquito Borne Disease Advisory Group (MDAG) they convene recommended that members of the public, schools, and communities consider “smart-scheduling" of outdoor activities during peak mosquito activity hours to help minimize the risk of mosquito bites. 

Earlier this week, DEM announced that it is conducting an aerial application of mosquito larvicide across 3,000 acres of Chapman Swamp in Westerly and Great Swamp in South Kingstown to reduce mosquito populations and related disease risk. As mosquito season continues, the MDAG will continue to evaluate the risk level statewide and will provide updates if any further mosquito control measures are planned. DEM and RIDOH continue to urge Rhode Islanders to protect themselves and their loved ones from mosquito bites and the diseases they carry, including EEE virus and WNV. 

Trump Drastically Inflates Annual Fentanyl Death Numbers

Shocking News: Another thing Trump lied about

 

“We’re losing 300,000 people a year to fentanyl that comes through our border. We had it down to the lowest number and now it’s worse than it’s ever been.”

— Former President Donald Trump at a July 24 campaign rally in Charlotte, North Carolina

Former President Donald Trump claimed at a recent campaign rally that more than 300,000 Americans are dying each year from the synthetic opioid drug fentanyl, and that the number of fentanyl overdoses was the “lowest” during his administration and has skyrocketed since.

“We’re losing 300,000 people a year to fentanyl that comes through our border,” Trump told his supporters at a July 24 campaign rally in Charlotte, North Carolina. “We had it down to the lowest number and now it’s worse than it’s ever been,” he said.

Trump’s figures appear to have no basis in fact. Government statistics show the number of drug overdose deaths per year is hovering around 100,000 to 110,000, with opioid-related deaths at about 81,000. That’s enough that the government has labeled opioid-related overdoses an “epidemic,” but nowhere close to the number Trump cited.

Moreover, though the number of opioid deaths has risen since Trump left office, it’s incorrect to claim they were the “lowest” while he was president.

Numbers Are High, but Nowhere Near Trump’s Claim

Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt wouldn’t comment specifically on the source for Trump’s statistics. She instead sent KFF Health News an email with several bullet points about the opioid crisis under the heading: “DRUGS ARE POURING OVER HARRIS’ OPEN BORDER INTO OUR COMMUNITIES.”

One such bullet noted that there were “112,000 fatal drug overdoses” last year and linked to a story from NPR reporting that fact — directly rebutting Trump’s own claim of 300,000 fentanyl deaths. Additionally, the number NPR reported is an overall figure, not for fentanyl-related deaths only.

More recent government figures estimated that there were 107,543 total drug overdose deaths in 2023, with an estimated 74,702 of those involving fentanyl. Those figures were in line with what experts on the topic told KFF Health News.

“The number of actual deaths is probably significantly higher,” said Andrew Kolodny, medical director for the Opioid Policy Research Collaborative at Brandeis University, noting that many such overdose deaths go uncounted by government researchers.

“But I don’t know where one would get that number of 300,000,” Kolodny added.

Trump’s claim that fentanyl deaths were the “lowest” during his administration and are now worse than ever is also off the mark.

Overdose deaths — specifically those from synthetic opioids such as fentanyl — started climbing steadily in the 1990s. When Trump took office in January 2017, the number of overdose deaths related to synthetic opioids was about 21,000. By January 2021, when he left the White House, that tally was nearing 60,000, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Vital Statistics System shows. Deaths involving synthetic opioids continued to increase after Trump left office.

Thursday, August 29, 2024

The Trump administration’s disastrous tax law paved the way for corporate America’s “mink coats and Cadillacs” moment.

What Mob Movies Teach Us About GOP Tax Policy

Bilal Baydoun for Common Dreams

In one of the more memorable scenes from the Scorsese mob classic Goodfellas, Jimmy scolds his co-conspirators for flaunting the spoils of their infamous Lufthansa Heist—the 1978 theft of $6 million in cash and jewels from New York’s JFK Airport.

“Didn’t I tell you not to get anything?” Jimmy snaps at Johnny, who had arrived at the Christmas party in a new pink Cadillac. Moments later, Frank walks in alongside a date donning a new mink coat, and Jimmy is incensed. “In two days, one guy gets a Caddy and one guy gets a $20,000 mink!”

The mob logic portrayed here—that when you hit a major lick, it’s best to lay low and not attract attention—seems innocent by the standards of the Trump administration’s signature heist: the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). That law paved the way for corporate America’s “mink coats and Cadillacs” moment by slashing the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%—robbing the public of roughly $1.3 trillion and further enriching billionaires and top executives. 

In Goodfellas terms, that’s equal to 46,428 inflation-adjusted Lufthansa heists. And like Johnny and Frank, the corporations who scored the biggest windfalls have since done the opposite of lay low. They have instead gone on a years-long profiteering binge, rolling out some of the most egregious tactics to cash in even further.

In typical trickle-down fashion, the corporate rate cut was sold as a boon to workers and ordinary families. The Trump administration said the TCJA’s most expensive provision would boost wages to the tune of $4,000 per year. That promise, it turns out, was a fraud. According to a recent study, 90% of American workers received zero dollars from the TCJA’s corporate rate cut. Meanwhile, executive pay soared, and stock buybacks hit a record high $1 trillion in the year after it passed.

So what did the typical American family get if not a major boost in income? Junk fees, deceptive scams at the grocery store, price gouging, and major collusion scandals in everything from meatpacking to rentals to oil and gas. It can be said that the TCJA unleashed a greatest hits of predatory tactics by rewarding otherwise too-risky pricing schemes that push consumer loyalty to the brink. 

Brain worm epidemic

By Nick Anderson

Green energy beats coal

'Major Power Milestone': US Green Groups Cheer Wind, Solar Overtaking Coal

Jessica Corbett for Common Dreams

Idiot
U.S. climate advocates this week are celebrating new federal data that show wind and solar have generated more power than coal during the first seven months of 2024 and are on track to do so for the entire calendar year.

"This is the kind of news we like to see!" Food & Water Watch said of the data on social media Tuesday. "Ensuring a livable climate for all depends on us making a swift and just transition to clean energy like wind and solar."'

The group shared reporting from E&E News, which noted that "the milestone had been long expected due to a steady stream of coal plant retirements and the rapid growth of wind and solar. Last year, wind and solar outpaced coal through May before the fossil fuel eventually overtook the pair when power demand surged in the summer."

"Renewables' growth has been driven by a surge in solar production over the last year," the news outlet continued. "The 118 terawatt-hours generated by utility-scale solar facilities through the end of July represented a 36% increase from the same time period last year, according to preliminary U.S. Energy Information Administration figures. Wind production was 275 TWh, up 8% over 2023 levels. Renewables' combined production of 393 TWh outpaced coal generation of 388 TWh."

Sierra Club executive director Ben Jealous said in a statement Wednesday that "wind and solar energy has long been the most cost-effective choice for utilities, but now it has also outpaced coal generation as the top source of energy, further demonstrating that clean energy is critical to a reliable and affordable grid."

Diet is main risk factor for colon cancer in younger adults

Eat better, live longer

Cleveland Clinic

A new Cleveland Clinic study has identified diet-derived molecules called metabolites as main drivers of young-onset colorectal cancer risk, especially those associated with red and processed meat. The NPJ Precision Oncology report, which analyzed metabolite and microbiome datasets, highlighted that one of the best ways a younger (<60 years) adult can prevent colorectal cancer is to discuss their diet with their doctor.

Increased monitoring and screening for colorectal cancer is an extremely helpful tool. Despite the success of these methods, these data indicate physicians can take a different approach with their younger patients, says senior author and gastrointestinal oncologist Suneel Kamath, MD.

How COVID-19 Silently Sabotages the Human Immune System

Molecular Trickery 

By Julia Moióli, São Paulo Research Foundation 

Colorized scanning electron micrograph of a cell (purple)
infected with the Omicron strain of SARS-CoV-2 virus particles
(green), isolated from a patient sample. Image captured at the NIAID
Integrated Research Facility (IRF) in Fort Detrick, Maryland.
Credit: NIAID
To evade the human host’s immune response, SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, uses the machinery of defense cells to induce the expression of unproductive isoforms of key antiviral genes – variant forms of genes that result from disrupted splicing or transcription processes and do not code for functional (protective) proteins. 

This is a key finding of a study conducted by researchers at the Albert Einstein Jewish Brazilian Hospital (HIAE), the University of São Paulo (USP), and the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG). An article on the study, which offers a foundation for the development of novel therapeutic strategies to combat COVID-19, was published in the International Journal of Molecular Science

Other viruses, including coronaviruses, also distort protein production by disrupting messenger RNA (mRNA) splicing, but SARS-CoV-2 goes further by blocking expression of interferons, a family of proteins that help the immune system fight infection, and modulating specific immune cells. A lack of precise details regarding this process has been a major hindrance to the development of novel options to treat COVID-19.

Wednesday, August 28, 2024

If the wealthiest paid their fair share, we could easily fund better child care, elder care, and health care for the rest of us.

If We Want Better Care, We Need a Better Tax Code

By Amy Hanauer

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have starkly different views on taxes and how the tax code can support families.

Harris voices strong support for families through investments in the care economy. She’s vowed to advance paid family leave, affordable child care, care for disabled or aging family members, and health care. This could be funded with a better tax code.

These policies would help all of us care for our families and strengthen our communities. Investing public dollars in care could also narrow racial and gender pay gaps by boosting the pay of care workers — who are mostly women, and many of them women of color.

The Trump campaign has been largely silent on care investments. But his campaign has signaled support for more tax cuts at the top. Such cuts would increase inequality and reduce the availability of federal funding to strengthen the care economy.

We saw this in the 2017 tax law that former President Trump signed. It cut taxes for the wealthiest people and corporations, including cutting the effective tax rate for our largest corporations from an average 22.0 percent to an average 12.8 percent. It also preserved loopholes that allow some of the wealthiest corporations to avoid taxes on most — if not all — of their profits.

These tax cuts for the ultra wealthy led to huge losses in federal tax revenue and spiked the national debt, making it harder for the government to fund new investments in priorities that are important to families.

If re-elected, Trump has said he wants to slash corporate taxes further — even though some billionaires pay a lower share of their income in taxes than nurses and teachers do.

By contrast, the Biden-Harris administration created a minimum corporate tax so the wealthiest corporations could no longer pay nothing, added a modest tax on stock buybacks, and funded the IRS to better collect taxes from corporations. These policies raised revenue for care investments and other priorities.

Cleaning up the aging brain

Scientists restore brain's trash disposal system

University of Rochester Medical Center

Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and other neurological disorders can be seen as "dirty brain" diseases, where the brain struggles to clear out harmful waste. 

Aging is a key risk factor because, as we grow older, our brain's ability to remove toxic buildup slows down. 

However, new research in mice demonstrates that it's possible to reverse age-related effects and restore the brain's waste-clearing process.

"This research shows that restoring cervical lymph vessel function can substantially rescue the slower removal of waste from the brain associated with age," said Douglas Kelley, PhD, a professor of Mechanical Engineering in the University of Rochester Hajim School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. 

"Moreover, this was accomplished with a drug already being used clinically, offering a potential treatment strategy." Kelley is one of the lead authors of the study, which appears in the journal Nature Aging, along with Maiken Nedergaard, MD, DMSc, co-director the University's Center for Translational Neuromedicine.

Targeted Aerial Application of Mosquito Larvicide Over Great Swamp in South Kingstown and Chapman Swamp in Westerly

Mosquito bombing starts tomorrow


The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) is announcing that a licensed contractor, North Fork Helicopters, will conduct an aerial application of mosquito larvicide across 3,000 acres of Chapman Swamp in Westerly and Great Swamp in South Kingstown beginning Thursday, Aug. 29 through Friday, Aug. 30, weather permitting. 

The application, which consists of pellets that kill mosquito larvae being dropped by a helicopter into the targeted wetlands, will take place between 7 AM and 7 PM. The larvicide applications will not target open bodies of water, and treatment areas do not include Worden Pond in South Kingstown or Chapman Pond in Westerly. In the event of inclement weather, a rain date will be announcedThe larvicide used, known as Bti, does not pose a risk to humans or the environment.  

Another reason why Charlestown should repeal its anti-residential wind ordinance

This silent wind turbine for the home outperforms solar panels

BD. García

New LIAM F-1 silent wind turbine
Windmills have been the emblem of the Netherlands since ancient times, a tradition that has not been lost to this day. Far from it, the country has become one of the leading wind energy nations in Europe. 

That said, it is not surprising that this new, smaller, more efficient and quieter wind turbine designed for domestic use comes from there. So, why do you need solar panel at home? You can have a silent wind turbine like this one.

The Netherlands reinvents windmills: an ultra-efficient silent wind turbine

It may be difficult, especially for younger generations, to think of the Netherlands as a heavy industrial powerhouse highly dependent on fossil fuels. However, until the 1970s, pollution due to large numbers of cars and emissions from natural gas and coal-fired power plants fueled a thriving chemical industry.

Air pollution, land scarcity due to its high population density and rising sea levels that threatened to flood its cities led to a sustained effort to decarbonize its economy and diversify its energy sources and industries. Today, the Netherlands is an emblem of innovation in sustainable technologies and policies.

For this transition, one of the key technologies was wind energy, in which today they are one of the main leaders, developing important innovations in this field. The most recent of these innovations is the LIAM F1 UWT, a small and quiet wind turbine for urban use with the capacity to generate between 300 and 2500 kWh, approximately half of the average household consumption.

The new trend in wind energy: generators so small that you can install them on your rooftop

Wind energy is one of the most widespread renewable energy sources worldwide, especially in Europe. However, traditional wind turbines require large tracts of land, with their gigantic blades that generate a negative visual impact, pose a risk to birds and prevent the use of these lands.

This is why the aim is to reduce their size and increase their efficiency in order to exploit the weaker, more erratic winds that flow close to the ground and between buildings in urban environments. One such solution is the hexagonal wind turbines developed by a Scottish company. The LIAM F1 silent wind turbine, developed by The Archimedes, ups the ante in this field.

With a helical design inspired by Archimedes’ Spiral, this silent wind turbine has a diameter of 1.50 m and weighs no more than 100 kg. Its design allows it to move according to changes in wind direction to make the most of all air currents. This enables it to generate, on average, 1500 kWh per year with winds of only 5 m/s.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Charlestown is one of the only towns in America to effectively ban wind-to-energy devices of all types. A CCA-pushed NIMBY ordinance creates so many terms and conditions that even small, silent residential units are effectively banned. No one in Charlestown has managed to get past this self-imposed barrier to this energy source.

Ironically, Dr. Bruce Gouin's Arrowhead Dental showed how vertical axis turbines are not only quiet but pleasant to look at. He placed a group of them as an art installation around the beautiful grounds at Arrowhead. But they don't generate electricity - if they did, they would be illegal.

Ironically, Dr Gouin was one of the most vocal opponents of residential wind power and supported Charlestown's draconian ordinance, an ordinance that needs to be repealed to allow residential wind power.   - Will Collette

Tuesday, August 27, 2024

Corporate price manipulation is very real and costs YOU lots of money

Attacking Price Manipulation

BPhilip Mattera, director of the Corporate Research Project, for the Dirt Diggers Digest

Throughout Joe Biden’s time in office, critics have complained he has not done enough to address high grocery prices. Now that his replacement as the Democratic presidential nominee has come forth with a plan to deal with the problem, many of those same critics are accusing Kamala Harris of going too far.

A wide range of pundits are particularly scandalized at Harris’s critique of price-gouging. It is perfectly valid to question whether her policies would be effective, but many commentators are trotting out simplistic and outdated economic principles to claim that corporate price manipulation is non-existent.

These believers in the supremacy of market forces are apparently unaware that the food sector is a hotbed of anti-competitive practices. This is especially true in the meat industry, where a small number of dominant corporations have had to pay out hundreds of millions of dollars in fines and settlements to resolve allegations that they collude to keep prices high.

Take the case of JBS, the giant Brazilian corporation that owns U.S. companies such as the poultry producer Pilgrim’s Pride and the beef producer Swift. As shown in Violation Tracker, JBS and its subsidiaries have paid out over $200 million in class action antitrust lawsuits since 2021. Pilgrim’s Pride was also sentenced to pay $107 million in criminal penalties after pleading guilty to federal charges of participating in a conspiracy to fix prices and rig bids for broiler chicken products.

Tyson Foods, another poultry goliath, has paid out over $120 million in class action settlements over the past three years, including one case in which it had to hand over $99 million. In the pork industry, Smithfield Foods, owned by the Chinese corporation WH Group, has paid around $200 million in price-fixing settlements.

Massive biomolecular shifts occur in our 40s and 60s, Stanford Medicine researchers find

When you start going off the rails

By Rachel Tompa

If it’s ever felt like everything in your body is breaking down at once, that might not be your imagination. A new Stanford Medicine study shows that many of our molecules and microorganisms dramatically rise or fall in number during our 40s and 60s.

Researchers assessed many thousands of different molecules in people from age 25 to 75, as well as their microbiomes — the bacteria, viruses and fungi that live inside us and on our skin — and found that the abundance of most molecules and microbes do not shift in a gradual, chronological fashion. 

Rather, we undergo two periods of rapid change during our life span, averaging around age 44 and age 60. A paper describing these findings was published in the journal Nature Aging Aug. 14.

“We’re not just changing gradually over time; there are some really dramatic changes,” said Michael Snyder, PhD, professor of genetics and the study’s senior author. “It turns out the mid-40s is a time of dramatic change, as is the early 60s. And that’s true no matter what class of molecules you look at.”

Xiaotao Shen, PhD, a former Stanford Medicine postdoctoral scholar, was the first author of the study. Shen is now an assistant professor at Nanyang Technological University Singapore.

These big changes likely impact our health — the number of molecules related to cardiovascular disease showed significant changes at both time points, and those related to immune function changed in people in their early 60s.

It's Worden Pond's turn to be off limits

Blue-Green algae strikes again

The Rhode Island Department of Health (RIDOH) and the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) are advising people to avoid contact with Worden Pond in South Kingstown due to a suspected blue-green algae (or cyanobacteria) bloom in the pond. 

Blue-green algae can produce toxins that can harm humans and animals. Visual evidence of a bloom was detected by the RIDEM. Confirmation samples will be submitted to the State Health Lab. 

Use caution in all areas of Worden Pond. Cyanobacteria can sink or float to control their location in the water column. Other factors such as, wind, rain and wakes from recreational activities can affect the location of a bloom. All recreation, including swimming, fishing, boating and kayaking, should be avoided. People should not ingest water or eat fish from the ponds. Pets can also be affected by exposure to the algal toxins and thus owners should not allow pets to drink or swim in the water. The advisory will remain in effect until further notice.    

Who benefits from $2-5 million Constitutional Convention?

Want a constitutional convention in 2026? Here’s how much it could cost the state.

By Christopher Shea, Rhode Island Current

Holding a constitutional convention in 2026 could cost Rhode Island as much as $4.6 million, should voters approve the ballot measure in November.

The potential price tag was revealed Wednesday during the second to-last meeting for the bipartisan commission gathering input for a voter information guide. Joseph F. Rodgers, general counsel for the commission, told the panel the $4.6 million figure was the high end of the estimate, while the low is $2.6 million.

That low estimate is roughly what the $891,000 the state paid when the last convention met in 1986 would be today when adjusted for inflation.

A convention question typically goes on the ballot in years ending in the number four. Rhode Island voters rejected ballot questions asking if a convention should be held in 1994, 2004, and 2014.

Monday, August 26, 2024

Traitorous Trump is way beyond 'weird'

He's a traitor, and not just because of his collusion with Putin

Robert Reich 

By Steve Cousineau
I’m glad Democrats are finally hitting back at Trump. Enough with the “high road.”

They’re calling him “weird.”

They’re mocking him. “Donald Trump fell asleep at his own trial,” Hillary Clinton sneered at the Democratic convention. “When he woke up, he’d made his own kind of history — the first person to run for president with 34 felony convictions.”

Barack Obama noted Trump’s “weird obsession with crowd sizes.”

Michelle Obama asked, “Who’s going to tell him that the job he’s currently seeking might just be one of those ‘Black jobs’?”

Trump hates to be laughed at. He cannot abide ridicule. So, keep it up.

But in addition to the mockery, we must not forget Trump’s treachery.

The values a president enunciates and demonstrates ricochet through society, strengthening or undermining the common good.

George Washington biographer Douglas Southall Freeman noted that by June 1775, when Congress appointed him to command the nation’s army, Washington had already “become a moral rallying post.”

In the 2016 presidential campaign, 240 years later, candidate Donald Trump’s moral squalor was on full display. When accused of failing to pay his income taxes, he responded, “That makes me smart.”

He thereby signaled to millions of Americans that paying taxes in full is not an obligation of citizenship.

Trump also boasted about giving money to politicians so they would do whatever he wanted. “When they call, I give. And you know what, when I need something from them two years later, three years later, I call them. They are there for me.”

In other words, it’s perfectly okay for business leaders to pay off politicians, regardless of the effect on our democracy.

After Trump launched an attack on NFL players who kneeled during the national anthem, Steve Kerr, coach of the Golden State Warriors, explained that the players were trying to protect a core American value. “They’re protesting excessive police violence and racial inequality,” said Kerr. “Those are really good things to fight against. And they’re doing it in a nonviolent way. Which is everything that Martin Luther King preached, right?”

Before Trump, the peaceful transfer of power was assumed to be a central feature of American democracy.

As Harvard political scientist Archon Fung has noted, when losing candidates congratulate winners and deliver gracious concession speeches, they demonstrate their commitment to the democratic system over the result they fought to achieve — an important means of reaffirming the common good.

Think of Al Gore’s gracious concession speech to George W. Bush in 2000, after five weeks of a bitterly contested election and just one day after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Bush:

“I say to President-elect Bush that what remains of partisan rancor must now be put aside, and may God bless his stewardship of this country …. Let there be no doubt, while I strongly disagree with the court’s decision, I accept it …. And tonight, for the sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession.”

Consider what might have occurred had Gore bitterly accused Bush of winning fraudulently and blamed the five Republican appointees on the Supreme Court for siding with Bush for partisan reasons. Or if, during his campaign, Bush had promised to put Gore in jail for various alleged improprieties, and then, after he won, accused Gore of spying on him during the campaign and trying to use the FBI and CIA to bring his downfall.

These statements — close to ones Trump actually made — might have imperiled the political stability of the nation.

Instead, Gore made the same moral choice his predecessors made at the end of every previous American presidential election, and for the same reason: He understood that the peaceful transition of power confirmed the nation’s commitment to the Constitution, which was far more important than his own loss.

Trump has had no such qualms. When he lost, he embarked on a coup against the United States and instigated an assault on the U.S. Capitol, resulting in five deaths.

At this moment, Trump and his lackeys are installing loyalists in state and county election offices to deny certification to the Harris-Walz ticket and other Democrats down the ballot.

The essence of Trump’s failure as president — and the fundamental reason he doesn’t merit a second term — is not that he has behaved in childish and vindictive ways or is “weird.”

It is that he sacrificed — and continues to sacrifice — the processes and institutions that undergird America to achieve his own selfish aims.

He abused the trust we place in a president to preserve and protect the nation’s capacity for self-government.

Trump is a traitor.

He and the Republican Party — now a personality cult based on Trump’s Big Lie — violate everything America stands for.

We cannot and must not forget his treachery and the GOP’s complicity. It is a despicable blot on America.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/

Broken record

By Ann Telnaes

The Nature Conservancy inks agreements to preserve 11 acres on Block Island, South Kingstown

Nature Conservancy uses its big bucks to protect Moonstone property

By Nancy Lavin, Rhode Island Current

The Nature Conservancy paid $1 million to buy a 5-acre marsh on Block Island, while signing an agreement with private owners to protect another 6-acre coastal property in South Kingstown.

The pair of deals, announced on Monday, add 11 acres of sensitive coastal and wetland habitats to the 12,700 acres of protected open space statewide under ownership or conservation easements by The Nature Conservancy, said Tim Mooney, an organization spokesperson.

Globally, the nonprofit aims to preserve 30% of the world’s land and water, including 1.6 billion acres of land, by 2030.

That now includes a 5-acre “coastal gem” on Block Island’s Corn Neck Road, bought from private owners by The Nature Conservancy for $1 million. The purchase included a $700,000 contribution from The Block Island Land Trust and $100,000 from the Block Island Conservancy, with the remainder paid for through nonprofit donors. The marsh and pond-adjacent property features an array of wildlife, including horseshoe crabs and shoreline birds, as well as an important water source flowing into the Great Salt Pond.

Is recycled plastic safe for food contact?

If the company making it says so, according to the FDA

Meg Wilcox By EHN

Recycled content in food packaging is increasing as sustainability advocates press manufacturers to cut their use of virgin plastic.

Since 1990, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the agency responsible for ensuring food contact materials are safe, approved at least 347 voluntary manufacturer applications for food contact materials made with recycled plastic, according to a database on its website. Approvals have tripled in recent years, from an average of 7 to 8 per year through 2019, to 23 per year since then, and they continue to climb. The FDA has already approved 27 proposals through June this year.

Other than Coca-Cola, most manufacturers seeking approval are petrochemical giants such as Eastman Chemicals, Dupont and Indorama; and lesser-known plastic packaging manufacturers, including many from China, India and other countries.

The end buyers of the recycled materials aren’t included in the FDA database, but many popular brands are using recycled content. Cadbury chocolate bars come in a wrapper marketed as 30% percent recycled “soft plastic packaging.” The Coca-Cola Co. in North America reports it sells soft drinks in 100% percent recycled PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottles, while General Mills says its Annie’s cereal boxes use a liner made from 35% percent recycled plastic film.

Increasing recycled content in packaging may be good news for the planet, but researchers say the FDA has a lax approval process for plastic food packaging that hasn’t kept pace with the science on chemical hazards in plastics. The agency's approval process for recycled plastics is voluntary and ignores the potential risk of chemical mixtures, researchers told EHN. Companies can seek guidance on their recycling process, but they are not required to. 

In addition, the FDA relies on manufacturers’ test data when it approves materials, leaving companies essentially in charge of policing themselves. Meanwhile, some studies show that recycled plastic can harbor even more toxic chemicals — such as bisphenol-A (BPA), phthalates, benzene and others — than virgin plastic.

FDA spokesperson Enrico Dinges defended the process, telling EHN the agency “reviews [industry] data against stringent scientific guidelines” and can “use its resources to spot test materials” if it sees an issue.

But researchers say the agency fails to protect the public from the toxic chemical soup found in recycled plastics.

“[The] FDA is most concerned about pathogen contamination coming with the recycled material, rather than chemicals,” Maricel Maffini told EHN. The approval process “is very lax,” she said.

Slow Down, Enjoy Nature, and Let the Turkeys Cross the Road

Yield to turkeys on parade

By Paul Roselli / Environmentalist

Photo by Will Collette. I once saw a dozen turkeys parade out
of the kettle hole behind my house to the crest of the moraine
 in front. Cued by the big Tom leader, they leapt from the
crest and flew across Route 1, heading for Ninigret Pond.
I expected to hear car crashes but fortunately, there were none.
A busy highway seemed to be an over-the-top obstacle to this group of turkeys trying to get to the other side. Eleven of them in all. Their leader, seemingly to have done this before, waited, staring down the whizzing autos going 60, 70 mph, far too fast for any good to come out of this endeavor, I thought. 

But there they stood. Eleven of them all banking on what the first in line would do next. Watching patiently. Judging as if life depended on the next move. And in this case it did.

I was on my way to a dinner date. Driving along I-295, I was absorbed in the strict attention necessary for driving, every once in a while thinking about the speed of things and all that had to be accomplished over the next few weeks, but concentrating on the necessity of paying attention.

But at this moment I remembered why I was traveling, that a good friend wanted to celebrate the day before Daylight Savings Time. My friend celebrates anything of note. Life has a way of catching up on you and with her, life-changing complications were fast approaching. I was the leader of sorts, having moved into the slow lane trying to extend mileage from a resource that had skyrocketed in price over the past few days. 

Not wanting to give aggressors pushing war into a sovereign nation any benefit from my hard earned-money, I went the speed limit. Not wanting to give the slightest bit, not a penny, to a war machine bent on killing and overthrowing democracy, in the slow lane I shifted to cruise control to squeeze every bit of mileage out of a gallon of gas.

I saw the turkeys ahead, nervously moving back and forth. Their leader inching ever so close from the narrows of the breakdown lane into oncoming traffic. I knew what the leader wanted to do: cross three lanes of traffic, then go to the medium strip, and then cross three more lanes to get to the other side. An impossible situation for anyone. Impossible for this group of birds — this rafter of turkeys. Impossible, I said.

The leader must have seen my hesitation at first and then saw that I slowed down. A signal perhaps. Others around me must have seen this hesitation as well; the turkeys noticed and then others saw what I saw, what seemed to be all at the same time. Brake lights on, first me, then the cars to the left and behind me too slowed down. We all came to a stop. Not a rolling stop. I mean a stop.

I’ve seen turkeys cross the road before. Any movement, any at all, and the turkeys turn around and go back. A learned behavior from watching others? An experience shared from a mishap that ended in disaster? I don’t know. But I have seen this before.