Priorities, again

OK, MAGA, to stay in step with your Dear Leader, you need to replace the arm rests for all your chairs with marble because it's SO comfortable.

Why Canadians don't move here and don't want to be the 51st state

 

Meet Trump's pick to be Rhode Island's "interim" US Attorney

Senator Whitehouse describes him as a MAGA stooge with neither the qualifications nor temperament for this position

Read Katherine Gregg's story on him: Charles Calenda to be sworn in as interim US Attorney for RI.
Calenda's appointment is opposed by both of Rhode Island's Senators, with Sen. Whitehouse describing Calenda's appointment like this:

“Despite good-faith efforts at a bipartisan nomination process with the Trump White House, the MAGA Department of Justice insisted on a MAGA stooge with neither the qualifications nor temperament for this position. There will be no blue slip and we will be rid of him soon enough.”

Scientists reveal a powerful heart boost hidden in everyday foods

Tasty and good for your heart

King's College London

Regular consumption of polyphenol-rich foods like tea, coffee, berries, nuts, and whole grains may significantly support long-term heart health. A decade-long study of more than 3,100 adults found that those who consistently ate polyphenol-packed diets had healthier blood pressure and cholesterol levels, as well as lower predicted cardiovascular risk.

Higher intake of polyphenol-rich foods was linked to better heart health and slower increases in cardiovascular risk during aging. Metabolite analysis confirmed the protective effects of key plant compounds like flavonoids and phenolic acids. Credit: Shutterstock

People who frequently include foods and beverages rich in polyphenols, such as tea, coffee, berries, cocoa, nuts, whole grains and olive oil, may experience better heart health over time.

Trump and Bobby Jr. are gunning for trans kids

Bans gender-affirming health care for trans kids

Ayurella Horn-Muller, Staff Writer

Even the NRA thinks this is stupid

This story was originally reported by Grace Panetta of The 19th. Meet Grace and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy.

Trump administration officials announced new proposed regulations targeting gender-affirming care for youth, part of a larger push from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to restrict such care. 

One of the new proposed rules would ban hospitals that provide gender affirming care to youth under 18 from receiving Medicaid and Medicare funds. Another proposed rule would bar Medicaid from covering gender-affirming care for youth under 18 and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) from covering such care for youth under 19. 

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., along with other officials, formally announced the proposed rules at an event on Thursday morning. In his remarks, Kennedy cast gender affirming care as “sex-rejecting” procedures that impose “lasting harm” on children.

“This is not medicine. It is malpractice,” Kennedy said. “We're done with junk science driven by ideological pursuits, not the well-being of children.”

Gender-affirming care for youth, backed by major medical organizations to treat gender dysphoria, varies depending on the patient’s age and circumstances. For those entering adolescence, providers can prescribe puberty blockers, which temporarily halt hormones causing puberty and are also prescribed to cisgender youth who undergo early puberty. Research has shown that puberty blockers significantly reduce depression and risk of suicide in trans and non-binary youth and that gender-affirming care also reduces depression in transgender adults. 

Trump Cabinet Officials Re-Name Themselves

“Good enough for a battleship, it’s good enough for me,” said Homeland Security chief Kristi Trump-Noem.

Mitchell Zimmerman in Common Dreams

Secretary of War Pete Trump-Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Trump-Rubio were the first to announce that they were changing their names in a display of loyalty to the president, but they were swiftly followed by the remaining cabinet members.

A rush of orders for new business cards and government IDs is expected, but key officials are likely to be the first to see their new names recognized on repainted doors and Trump accoutrements. 

Priority is expected to be given to Attorney General Pam Trump-Bondi, Secretary of the Homeland Security Kristi Trump-Noem, and Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Trump-Kennedy Jr.

Although Trump-Hegseth and Trump-Rubio were first out of the box, insiders believe that the changes were inspired by former Secretary Kennedy, who reportedly mused that if the center honoring his uncle was to be renamed The Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, maybe he would change his own name too.

The renaming of the Performing Arts Center followed a renaming that created the Donald J. Trump Institute for Peace and precedes the naming of a proposed group of guided-missile battleships of the United States Navy as the Trump class.

“Kinetically lethal,” said War Secretary Trump-Hegseth.

There have also been legislative proposals, not yet acted upon, to rename or add the Trump name to Dulles International Airport and D.C. Metro, and to place Trump’s likeness on Mount Rushmore as well as the $100 bill.

Litigation is expected regarding the institutional renamings, and the three liberal justices of the Supreme Court asked the conservative block to recuse themselves on grounds of conflict of interest. 

Legal observers expect their request will be rejected by Chief Justice John G. Trump-Roberts and Associate Justices Clarence Trump-Thomas, Samuel A. Trump-Alito, Neil M. Trump-Gorsuch, Brett M. Trump-Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Trump-Barrett.

Mitchell Zimmerman Zimmerman is an attorney, longtime social activist, and author of the anti-racism thriller "Mississippi Reckoning" (2019).

Ya think?

He just can't help himself

The Gavle Goat is dead. Long live the Charlestown New Year's Eve bonfire!

After several safe Christmas seasons, world's favorite goat finds a new way to die

By Will Collette

I first started writing about Sweden's Gavle goat in 2011, the year Tom Ferrio and I launched Progressive Charlestown.

A proud holiday tradition in the Swedish town of Gavle since 1966, local resident build a giant goat (Gävlebocken) made of straw that stands in the town square through the Advent season.

Except when it doesn't.

While a majority of town residents love the goat, a sizeable minority don't. They make it their business every year to burn the goat down. It does make a pretty spectacular bonfire. There's a lively betting pool on whether the goat will survive and, if so, how long. And as the saying goes, a certain amount of alcohol is involved.

Vandals caught in the act usually do three months of jail time. Metro.UK reports "of the 58 Gävle goats in history, 42 have been destroyed."

Each year I wrote about the Gävlebocken, usually in the context of publicizing Charlestown's own New Year's Eve bonfire. Some year's, the goat made it; other years, it didn't.

Due largely to dramatically heightened security, the Gävlebocken made it through the past several years uncharred.

But this year, its luck ran out.

Yesterday, December 27, the Gävlebocken was busted up by high winds from Atlantic Storm Johannes.

Hopefully, the weather will be kind on Wednesday night for Charlestown's annual New Year's Eve bonfire at Ninigret Park. Currently, the National Weather Service is forecasting a cold (20 degrees) and cloudy for Charlestown.

Charlestown's bonfire was started as volunteer effort by Frank Glista who hustled up the lumber (usually from Arnold Lumber) and hand-crafted it himself. Frank carried on this work for years until recently handing it off to former Engineers union leader and current Charlestown Residents United chair Tim Quillen.

The Charlestown bonfire has had its own share of troubles. In 2013, an undisclosed complainant to DEM asked that the bonfire be banned because it created an illegal "municipal waste disposal site." DEM issued a "Notice of Intent to Enforce" which was promptly appealed by then Charlestown Treasurer Pat Anderson.

DEM rejected Pat's appeal and then former Charlestown state Representative Donna Walsh got to work, ultimately getting DEM to rescind its intended enforcement action.

There was a lot going on in Charlestown at that time. Bradford residents were hammering at DEM for its failure to enforce the law on the infamous Copar Quarry on the Charlestown-Westerly line. Town Councilor Deputy Dan Slattery was going on a tear about Ninigret Park, "phantom properties," state acquisition of properties to protect water resources after just completed his campaign to destroy former town administrator Bill DiLibero's career. Planning Commissar Ruth Platner was cranking up her effort to micromanage every business, residence and land parcel in town. 

Banning the bonfire was someone's bright idea, someone who has never stepped forward to take the "credit."  But if you study the history, you can make a pretty good guess.

Pharmacists offer tips that could reduce your out-of-pocket drug costs

My prescription costs what?! 

Sujith Ramachandran, University of Mississippi and Adam Pate, University of Mississippi

Even when Americans have health insurance, they can have a hard time affording the drugs they’ve been prescribed.

About 1 in 5 U.S. adults skip filling a prescription due to its cost at least once a year, according to KFF, a health research organization. And 1 in 3 take steps to cut their prescription drug costs, such as splitting pills when it’s not medically necessary or switching to an over-the-counter drug instead of the one that their medical provider prescribed.

As pharmacy professors who research prescription drug access, we think it’s important for Americans to know that it is possible to get prescriptions filled more affordably, as long as you know how before you go to the pharmacy.

US Launches Christmas Strikes on Nigeria—the 9th Country Bombed by Trump

Trump has now bombed more countries than any president in history.

Brett Wilkins

Donald Trump—the self-described “most anti-war president in history”—has now ordered the bombing of more countries than any president in history as US forces carried out Christmas day strikes on what the White House claimed were Islamic State militants killing Christians in Nigeria.

“Tonight, at my direction as Commander in Chief, the United States launched a powerful and deadly strike against ISIS Terrorist Scum in Northwest Nigeria, who have been targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians, at levels not seen for many years, and even Centuries!” Trump said Thursday in a post on his Truth Social network.

“I have previously warned these Terrorists that if they did not stop the slaughtering of Christians, there would be hell to pay, and tonight, there was,” the president continued. “The Department of War executed numerous perfect strikes, as only the United States is capable of doing.”

“Under my leadership, our Country will not allow Radical Islamic Terrorism to prosper,” Trump added. “May God Bless our Military, and MERRY CHRISTMAS to all, including the dead Terrorists, of which there will be many more if their slaughter of Christians continues.”

A US Department of Defense official speaking on condition of anonymity told the Associated Press that the United States worked with Nigeria to conduct the bombing, and that the government of Nigerian President Bola Tinubu—who is a Muslim—approved the attacks.

It was not immediately known how many people were killed or wounded in the strikes, or whether there are any civilian casualties.

Why the GOP Healthcare Plans Won’t Fill the Prescription

So is this the best they can do?

Dean Baker in Beat the Press

During his first term, after repeatedly promising the country a terrific healthcare plan, Donald Trump famously commented, “Nobody knew that healthcare could be so complicated.” In fact, everyone who spent even a few minutes looking at the issue knew that healthcare was complicated. 

That is why Obamacare ended up being a hodgepodge that was pasted together to extend healthcare coverage as widely as possible. It is also the reason Trump and the Republicans never produced a healthcare plan in Trump’s first term.

The basic problem is that healthcare costs are hugely skewed. Ten percent of the population accounts for more than 60% of total spending, and just 1% accounts for 20% of spending. Most people have relatively low healthcare costs. The trick with healthcare is paying for small number of people who do have high costs.

Individual Choice, Cherry-Picking the Pool, and Screwing Cancer Survivors

The Republicans in Congress, along with Trump on alternate days, are pushing plans that are supposed to give choice to individuals and somehow take it away from insurers. It’s not clear what they think they are saying. They seem to still envision that people will buy insurance, as they do now in the Obamacare exchanges, but somehow that they will have more control in the Republican option.

There is one story they could envision, which would make it much easier for insurers to skew their pool. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) restricted what sort of plans could be offered in the exchanges in order to limit the ability for insurers to avoid high-cost individuals.

It would be possible to relax these restrictions to allow insurers to cherry pick their enrollees. For example, they could offer high-deductible plans, say $15,000 in payments, before any coverage kicked in.

No person with a serious health condition would buy this sort of plan since they know they would be paying at least $15,000 a year in medical expenses, and then a substantial fraction of everything above this amount, in addition to the premium itself. 

On the other hand, a low-cost plan with $15,000 deductible might look pretty good to someone in good health, whose medical expenses usually don’t run beyond the cost of annual checkup.

They know exactly what they're doing

Not counting freebies from friends

Turn Your Christmas Tree into Fish Habitat

Here's a smart way to dispose of your xmas tree

Spruce up wildlife habitat this holiday season! For the eighth year, the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) and the Rhode Island Chapter of Trout Unlimited (TU) team up for  “Trees for Trout,” recycling donated conifer trees to restore habitat for wild brook trout and other aquatic life. 

Drop off your trees Saturday, Jan. 10, between 10 AM – 3 PM at the Arcadia Check Station, Wood River Arcadia Management Area, 2224 Ten Rod Rd, Exeter.

Is RFK Jr. backing Big Food’s drive to overturn tough new state laws?

Bobby Jr. echoes industry talking points on food safety laws

Stacy Malkan, U.S. Right to Know

For months, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert Kennedy Jr. has crisscrossed the nation advancing his Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) agenda — spotlighting plans to crack down on unhealthy ultra-processed foods, and praising state-level efforts to restrict chemical food additives and bolster consumers’ right to know. 

At least 90 proposals in dozens of states seek to restrict, ban or label ultra-processed food or synthetic ingredients. The push is based on strong scientific evidence that the poor health of many Americans may arise in part from eating so much ultra-processed food. 

Two new COVID vaccine studies show shots keep kids out of the emergency room and reduce risks to pregnant women and their babies

While Bobby Jr. peddles fake science, real science reinforces value of vaccine 

Two articles on two new studies

Updated 2024-25 COVID vaccine cut emergency visits among kids, study suggests

Laine Bergeson 

A new analysis from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) finds that the 2024-25 COVID-19 vaccine substantially reduced the risk of emergency department (ED) and urgent care (UC) visits among US children and adolescents. The findings, published yesterday in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, draw on data from more than 98,000 pediatric cases in nine states. 

Researchers looked at data from electronic health records to assess how well the updated vaccines, which target the Omicron JN.1 and JN.1-derived sublineages, protected against COVID-related ED and UC visits from August 2024 to September 2025. The test-negative, case-control study measured the added protection provided by the 2024-25 dose in children and adolescents, many of whom already had some immunity from prior infection, previous vaccination, or both.

76% effectiveness against severe disease in young kids

Among children aged 9 months to 4 years, vaccine effectiveness (VE) against COVID-associated ED/UC visits was 76% during the first 7 to 179 days after vaccination. Protection remained stable through 299 days. 

These VE estimates are similar to or higher than those observed in adults during the same season, and they exceed that reported in young children during the 2023-24 season. According to the authors, the higher 2024-25 estimates might be related to different infection patterns compared with previous seasons or fewer changes in circulating variants in 2024-25. 

During the 2024-25 season, hospitalization rates among US infants aged 6 to 11 months were higher than those of all adult age-groups except those aged 65 years and older. These findings underscore the potential benefits of COVID-19 vaccination in eligible infants, note the authors.

In children and adolescents aged 5 to 17 years, the 2024-25 vaccines reduced the risk of an ED/UC visit by 56% during the first 7 to 179 days after vaccination. Protection declined slightly to 45% when the window was extended from 7 to 299 days.

Who’s the Last Person in the World to Deserve the Nobel Peace Prize?

The person who’s been waging illegal wars

Robert Reich

Trump recently had his name engraved on the U.S. Institute of Peace — now renamed the “Donald J. Trump U.S. Institute of Peace.” The White House confirmed the renaming, calling it “a powerful reminder of what strong leadership can accomplish for global stability.”

Actually, it’s a reminder of what a strong malignant narcissist can accomplish when untethered from reality.

Gianni Infantino, president of FIFA, the world football league, awarded Trump the first (and likely last) annual FIFA Peace Prize — along with a hagiographic video of Trump and “peace.”

What FIFA has to do with peace is anyone’s guess, but Infantino is evidently trying to curry favor with Trump. (Infantino, by the way, oversaw the 2020 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, defending and minimizing Qatar’s miserable human rights record. He also played a key role in selecting Saudi Arabia to host the 2034 FIFA World Cup, notwithstanding the Saudi murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.)

Both Trump’s absurd renaming of the U.S. Institute of Peace and the equally absurd FIFA award are parts of Trump’s campaign to get the Nobel Peace Prize — something he has coveted since Barack Obama was awarded it in 2009 (anything Obama got credited with, Trump wants to discredit or match).

Check your history - this is how it works

 

Happy Kwanzaa!

Why are Trump's latest inflation numbers so low?

Answer: He cheated.

Note in the chart below that the only numbers included are for gasoline and cars. Food, housing, energy and health care are excluded.

Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics

Don't forget that Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics for producing data he didn't like. When this happened, economists warned this may make future federal data untrustworthy. And so it is.

2025: The year the US gave up on climate, and the world gave up on us

US not only walked away from its promises but committed to more climate-destructive policies

Naveena Sadasivam, Senior Staff Writer

"This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist's weekly newsletter here."

Well, except for Trump's billionaire friends

As the year comes to a close, 2025 looks like a turning point in the world’s fight against climate change. Most conspicuously, it was the year the U.S. abandoned the effort. The Trump administration pulled out of the 2015 Paris Agreement, which unites virtually all the world’s countries in a voluntary commitment to halt climate change. And for the first time in the 30-year history of the U.N.’s international climate talks, the U.S. did not send a delegation to the annual conference, COP30, which took place in Belém, Brazil.

The Trump administration’s assault on climate action has been far from symbolic. Over the summer, the president pressed his Republican majority in Congress to gut a Biden-era law that was projected to cut U.S. emissions by roughly a third compared to their peak, putting the country within reach of its Paris Agreement commitments. 

In the fall, Trump officials used hardball negotiating tactics to stall, if not outright derail, a relatively uncontroversial international plan to decarbonize the heavily polluting global shipping industry. And even though no other country has played a larger role in causing climate change, the U.S. under Trump has cut the vast majority of global climate aid funding, which is intended to help countries that are in the crosshairs of climate change despite doing virtually nothing to cause it. 

It may come as no surprise, then, that other world leaders took barely veiled swipes at Trump at the COP30 climate talks last month. Christiana Figueres, a key architect of the 2015 Paris Agreement and a longtime Costa Rican diplomat, summed up a common sentiment.

“Ciao, bambino! You want to leave, leave,” she said before a crowd of reporters, using an Italian phrase that translates “bye-bye, little boy.” 

These stark shifts in the U.S. position on climate change, which Donald Trump has called a “hoax” and “con job,” are only the latest and most visible signs of a deeper shift underway. Historically, the U.S. and other wealthy, high-emitting nations have been cast as the primary drivers of climate action, both because of their outsize responsibility for the crisis and because of the greater resources at their disposal. 

Real snow likely tonight and into Saturday

 

NOAA puts the odds of 2" or more at 70%. Three inches expected and a range of 1"- 4" or 5" possible.

The National Weather Service is calling it a 90% probability of snow tonight with an accumulation of 2-4".

Temps rise to above freezing on Sunday with a 90% probability of rain Sunday night into Monday that should pretty much wipe out any accumulation we receive.

Nonetheless, be careful out there.

Tax Prosecutions Plummet to Lowest Level in Decades as Trump Guts Enforcement Efforts

Trump's Xmas present to his oligarch friends

Brad Reed for Common Dreams

Donald Trump’s administration has drastically slashed resources for enforcing tax laws, and the result has been a massive plunge in tax-related prosecutions.

A Tuesday report from Reuters found that federal tax prosecutions in 2025 fell to “their lowest level in decades this year,” falling by 27% over the last year.

The report noted that the Trump administration has made “deep cuts to the Internal Revenue Service’s criminal investigative unit,” and has also reassigned some agents who worked in the unit to focus more on immigration cases.

The Trump administration has even assigned more than 20 IRS agents in the agency’s DC office to conduct patrols alongside city police officers as part of the president’s purported plan to reduce crime in the capital city, Reuters reported.

Reuters also observed that the US Department of Justice closed its Tax Division, and that “a third or more of the criminal lawyers who worked there quit.”

Sources told Reuters that the Trump administration explicitly told DOJ prosecutors earlier this year that tax prosecutions were not a top priority, and one source said that DOJ leadership under the second Trump administration was “very skeptical about white-collar crime and whether we should be doing those cases.”

Some powerful Christmas messages

Holiday greetings from alternate universes

And then, there's this

Donald Trump's heart-warming message

Wishing you peace and goodwill

Catholic Bishop of Providence leads saying the Rosary outside prison for immigrants in Central Falls

Catholics lead protest in opposition to U.S. immigration policies outside the Wyatt Detention Center

Steve Ahlquist

“Migration has been part of our spiritual DNA since Adam and Eve left the garden,” said Bishop Lewandowski (right in photo above). “We need a movement, akin to the civil rights movement or women’s suffrage, to advocate for just treatment of migrants.”

“We gather here today to pray for an end to the violence of mass deportations of our migrating brothers and sisters, which include practices of racial profiling, the separation of families, the deportation of people who are asking for asylum and safety from the conditions of their homelands, too often taken back to dangerous conditions without any criminal records to justify removal from our country and arbitrarily losing their legal status,” said Father Bob Mosher of the Bristol Columban Fathers, standing outside the Wyatt Detention Center in Central Falls yesterday. “Together with our bishops, we express concern for the conditions in detention centers like the Wyatt facility in front of us. We pray today, the Holy Rosary, meditating on the five holy migrations of our Lord Jesus Christ, aware that our Savior, whose birth we celebrate in a few days, also experienced the challenges and dangers of migration during his life on earth.

“May God help us to denounce this injustice happening today in our country and move our elected authorities to reform our broken immigration system so that all those individuals and families fleeing poverty, violence, and the devastating effects of climate change, may be welcomed, attended to, and integrated into our own society.”

On Monday, led by the Diocese of Providence and M25:35, around 60 people gathered at the new offices of Fuerza Laboral at 6 Chace’s Lane, Central Falls, to march to the Wyatt Detention Center to oppose the Trump Administration’s immigration policies and the brutality of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. Fuerza Laboral is a social justice organization that supports migrants and works with the Diocese to train parish volunteers and families to respond to risks and emergencies.

M25:35 is a migrant and refugee ministry with a mission to welcome Christ in the stranger by providing general assistance with refugee resettlement and support for migrants, organized out of Saint Mary of the Bay Church in Warren. The name comes from the New Testament Gospel of Matthew 25:35: “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger, and you invited me in...” Due to changes in federal immigration policies, M25:35 has shifted its focus from resettling new arrivals to supporting families already in Rhode Island.

Last week, four M25:35 Advisory Board members attended the Witness to Hope conference at the cathedral in Providence, organized and sponsored by the Diocese along with national organizations, including the HOPE Border Institute based in El Paso, Texas, the Center for Migration Studies based in New York, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Bishop Bruce Lewandowski was the opening speaker at the conference, and he spoke about church teaching on social justice related to migration issues:

“Migration has been part of our spiritual DNA since Adam and Eve left the garden,” said Bishop Lewandowski. “We need a movement, akin to the civil rights movement or women’s suffrage, to advocate for just treatment of migrants.”

One of the actions coming out of the conference was the formation of a Migration Commission in the Diocese of Providence to expand advocacy efforts in solidarity with migrants facing arbitrary detention, loss of status without due process, family separation, and deportation.

This commission organized Monday’s action. As people gathered outside, those imprisoned in the Wyatt could be heard banging on their cell windows. The crowd outside waved in response. The Rosary included meditations on the mysteries of the five sacred migrations of Jesus Christ, developed by Father Mosher:

• The first Holy Migratory Mystery: The Lord’s Journey to Bethlehem.
• The second Holy Migratory Mystery: The Flight of the Holy Family into Egypt.
• The third Holy Migratory Mystery: The Journey to Nazareth.
• The fourth Holy Migratory Mystery: The Journey of Our Lord to Jerusalem, announcing the Kingdom of God.
• The fifth Holy Migratory Mystery: The Journey of Our Lord to Galilee, to meet his disciples after the resurrection.

Attendees were not all Catholics. There were people there from many differing faiths, united in their support for immigrant rights, safety, and fair treatment.

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