Trump’s $500 Healthcare Rebate Plan Called ‘An Absolute Joke’ as Premiums Skyrocket

But of course, Trump NEVER pays

Jake Johnson for Common Dreams

Donald Trump said that his administration would issue $500 rebate checks to some Americans who were purportedly “overcharged” under the Affordable Care Act, a move that would provide little to no relief to the millions of people impacted by surging health insurance premiums.

The White House said in a fact sheet that around a million Americans in 30 states would receive rebate checks, beginning next month—just weeks before the November midterms. 

Brad Woodhouse, president of the advocacy group Protect Our Care, ripped the rebate plan as “an absolute joke,” calling $500 “a drop in the bucket compared to what Americans are paying because Trump and Republicans gutted healthcare to bankroll massive tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations.”

Woodhouse was referring to a Republican budget measure, signed into law last summer by Trump, that enacted more than $800 billion in cuts to Medicaid over the next decade.

The GOP also declined last year to extend enhanced ACA subsidies that helped reduce costs for tens of millions of Americans, sending premiums skyrocketing. Some families have seen annual premium increases in the thousands of dollars, leading many to drop marketplace coverage entirely. ACA premiums are set to surge by double digits for a second consecutive year in 2027.

Mobilize the Charlestown Choo-choo Panic Team!

Amtrak will ask Providence crowd about improving rail service between New Haven and Providence

Adriana Vossari, RI & Local Government

Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA) has a special
interest in raising the alarm over what was never
a serious threat, an issue that died 10 years ago. CCA
leader Ruth Platner has tried FIVE TIMES to rev up
fear in town as a political maneuver.
- Will Collette, editor 

Providence is one endpoint of a federally funded study that could shape future capacity on the rail corridor Amtrak and MBTA trains share, and Saturday's pop-up is the nearest chance for Rhode Islanders to comment in person.

Staff from the New Haven to Providence Capacity Planning Study will set up a public pop-up in downtown Providence on Saturday, taking questions and collecting comments from noon to 6 p.m. during PVDFest. According to an event notice posted by the Town of Charlestown, the table will be on Washington Street between Mathewson and Clemence streets. The notice, which is undated, directs people who cannot attend to submit comments through the project website. PVDFest's own schedule lists the festival for September 18 and 19.

The pop-up is one piece of an Amtrak-led planning study of rail capacity along the Northeast Corridor between New Haven and Providence. The study's website says the work began in mid-2026 and will run roughly 24 months of engagement, coordination and analysis. If that schedule holds, the analysis period would extend into about mid-2028.

What the study is not, at this stage, matters as much as what it is. Amtrak said in its July 7 launch announcement that there is no preconceived preferred alignment and no preferred set of improvements. The June 2026 Outreach and Engagement Plan states that the study will not include detailed engineering, environmental permitting, land acquisition or construction. A federal environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act is not part of it either. Anything that eventually got built would require its own separate planning, design and environmental approvals.

How anti‑bribery laws apply to Trump’s promise of $5,000 payments if Republicans keep control of Congress

Just remember, though, Trump NEVER pays

Austin Sarat, Amherst College

In his keynote address to the Republican midterm convention on Sept. 9, 2026, Donald Trump promised that if Republicans retain control of Congress in November, he would authorize a US$5,000 payment to every American adult.

Trump’s offer seems to run afoul of federal laws, which make it a crime to pay for votes.

After Trump’s speech, political commentator Sam Stein posted on X: “trump openly bribing people to vote for republicans. $5k per person if republicans hold the house and the senate?”

Stein was not alone in referencing bribery. Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group, issued the following statement after Trump’s speech: “Trump knows he can’t do this, and yet he’s attempting to bribe voters with the false promise of cash to help his party win an election.”

But as a scholar of political and legal rhetoric, I think it’s worth further examining what the president said and whether his promise violated any law.

An American tradition

Paying voters to support a particular candidate, or promising government jobs in exchange for votes, has a long history in the United States. It was a staple of machine politics in big cities starting in the late 19th century.

The political scholar Simeon Nichter argues that it would be better to describe these practices as examples of “turnout buying.” He notes that “observers in various U.S. cities have complained that some politicians use ‘street money’ – small, unreported cash payments ostensibly used for legal get-out-the-vote efforts such as canvassing and transporting voters – as direct payments for turnout.”

What Nichter describes has made a comeback in our era.

Recall Elon Musk’s effort to ensure a Republican victory in a 2025 state Supreme Court election in Wisconsin. He spent millions in that effort and, as The Associated Press reported, offered “$1 million to people who voted in the Supreme Court election” to encourage them to vote.

In July 2026, the Wisconsin Elections Commission found enough evidence to refer citizen complaints about Musk’s behavior to a district attorney, “which can choose,” as the AP notes, “to bring criminal charges over violating the state law against election bribery.”

A month later, a state prosecutor said he could not prove Musk’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and would not bring charges.

Trump Americanizes Putin-style corruption

Trump's thuggery will lead us to a very dark place

Sabrina Haake

Proving that a lying clock tells the truth twice a day, JD Vance recently quipped that politics have shifted so much that “if Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12-hour news story.” Vance was unwittingly acknowledging his own handiwork as he and his intellectually stunted boss flex Steve Bannon’s flood the zone strategy: throw crap on the wall, throw it often and fast, until the American public is too overwhelmed to pay attention.

It’s working. Eighteen months into this nightmare regime, as one corrupt move follows the next, Americans are turning away. One study found that 65% of Americans across political affiliation and age groups are consuming less news due to information overload and fatigue. It’s exactly what a corrupt administration wants.

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As Trump awards billions in no-bid federal contracts to his political donors, from the no bid multi-million dollar Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool debacle, to hundreds of millions to build a ballroom, to multi-billion dollar no bid contracts to rape and pillage our national parks, his political donors are reaping unprecedented windfall rewards.

His sons aren’t doing too poorly either. After Republicans blew a gasket over Hunter Biden serving on a corporate board, the Trump boys have cashed in big time with an Air Force contract to buy interceptor drones from Don Jr. and Eric (who have no experience in the drones business), Don Jr.’s ownership stake in a mining project that just secured $1.6 billion in government backing (ditto), and a $620 million Pentagon loan for Don Jr.’s venture capital firm. Trump’s crypto scams have caused investors to lose up to $3.8 billion while the Trumps pocketed up to $2.3 billion across the same crypto projects. Now Trump wants to personally profit from “selling” early internet access to his social media posts, which will facilitate large scale insider trading.

Meanwhile, as wealthy individuals spend millions to secure presidential pardons, and Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund for his supporters refuses to die, the Department of the Treasury just announced that it is destroying its anti-corruption database, the federal registry of shell-company ownership. It plans to destroy all the data it has already collected, to prevent future FBIs, future DOJs, and future local police departments from ever seeing the incriminating data. A true crime novelist couldn’t write this stuff as fast as it’s happening.

The question

Robert Kraft is a hypocrite

 

Saturday: Arts and Crafts in the Park

Utilities are overcharging Rhode Island heat pump owners

New report finds Rhode Island’s electric rates overcharge many heat pump customers

Conservation Law Foundation news release

Rhode Island is encouraging more families to install energy-efficient heat pumps because they can lower energy bills, improve air quality, and reduce climate pollution. 

Yet many households that make the switch aren’t seeing as much savings as they should because the state’s electric rates charge them more than it costs the utility to serve them.

A new independent analysis by Switchbox, commissioned by the Environmental Defense Fund, Conservation Law Foundation, Green Energy Consumers Alliance, Acadia Center, and Sierra Club, finds that Rhode Island’s current electric rates systematically overcharge many households that use heat pumps. The report, Heat Pump Rates in Rhode Island: Analysis of Fair Rates for Heat Pump Customers, shows those households often pay more than they should while effectively subsidizing an outdated fossil fuel heating system. 

The report recommends a dedicated heat pump rate that better reflects the actual cost of serving heat pump customers, helping more households save money while making heat pumps more accessible.

Some adult vaccines are linked to lower dementia risk. Can they promote brain health?

Scientists keep finding new and unexpected benefits to vaccines

Meghan Holohan

About seven years ago, Paul Schultz, MD, a professor and neurologist at UTHealth Houston, met with the biomedical informatics team he regularly collaborates with as they investigate risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease. Someone made a comment that piqued his interest.  

“My colleagues who were looking through the databases said, ‘Hey, we found a signal that the influenza vaccine seems to be associated with less Alzheimer’s. Is that something you know already?’” Schultz told CIDRAP News. “I was like, ‘Oh my God; that’s totally unexpected.’” 

The team began researching the relationship between receiving a flu vaccine and Alzheimer’s disease risk. Their first paper compared people who received the regular flu vaccine with those who didn’t and estimated the likelihood of each group to develop Alzheimer’s.

“Three years of receiving the influenza vaccine was associated with a 20% reduced risk, and six years was associated with a 40% reduced risk of Alzheimer’s for at least eight years,” Schultz explained. “It’s an association, not a cause and effect, but quite striking.” 

Over the past several years, more research has emerged showing a relationship between some adult vaccines and a lower risk of dementia. Recent studies show an association between receiving the recombinant shingles and flu vaccines and a lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia. 

“The vaccines themselves are different. But why are they starting to show some signals that they might be reducing risk of dementia or Alzheimer’s disease?” asked Glen Finney, MD, director of the Memory and Cognition Program at Geisinger Health and a fellow of the American Academy of Neurology. “Well, what are vaccines doing? They’re re-training your immune system.” 

Polls show Americans have lost confidence in federal government, public health leaders

Trump and Bobby Junior destroyed public trust 

Stephanie Soucheray, MA

Two new polls, one from the Annenberg Foundation and one from the Associated Press (AP), show that American adults are losing confidence in the federal government in matters of healthcare, and trust in public health figures, such as Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former US public health leader Anthony Fauci, MD, are dropping. 

In the Annenberg poll, just 38% of Americans said last month they are confident that Kennedy is providing trustworthy information about public health. That proportion is statistically unchanged from both April 2026 (37%) and February 2025 (38%), the Annenberg foundation said. 

National confidence in Anthony Fauci, MD, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and agency within the National Institutes of Health (NIH), took a hit over the summer, when Fauci appeared before the Senate Homeland Security Committee but declined to answer its questions on the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fifty percent of respondents said they are somewhat or very confident that Fauci provided the public with trustworthy information about matters concerning public health, a statistically significant decline of 5 percentage points, from 55%, in April 2026. 

Overall, Fauci still is considered much more trustworthy than Kennedy. 

Trump pays his dues

Charlestown Beach Cleanup Hits Shoreline Saturday

Time to clean up after the summer people

Jaxon Veridian, Entertainment & Culture

Rhode Islanders can join a two-hour shoreline cleanup at Charlestown Town Beach on Saturday, contributing hands-on effort and data to state and global marine-debris tracking.

Listen, there is a very particular late-September energy along the Rhode Island coast — the crowds have cleared out, parking gates flip open, and South County beaches settle into that crisp, quiet post-season groove. But if you think the shoreline simply takes care of itself once the lifeguards pack up their umbrellas, I have some numbers for you.

On Saturday, Save The Bay and the Town of Charlestown are summoning volunteers down to Charlestown Town Beach for a two-hour sweep from 9 to 11 a.m. The meetup point is 557 Charlestown Beach Road, and according to the town's notice, the clean-up corridor heads from the beach down toward the Breachway. It is quick, it is outdoors, and frankly, it is an easy entry point into a massive global undertaking.

Unless blocked by Trump as an "enemy alien," Former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to speak at Brown on Sept. 22

Maybe he can help us understand Trump's war on Canada

Brown University 

Former Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau will deliver Brown University’s 106^th Stephen A. Ogden Jr. ’60 Memorial Lecture on International Affairs on Tuesday, Sept. 22.

In an open-to-the-public talk titled “Leadership, Democracy and the Evolving Global Landscape,” Trudeau will reflect on his time in office and discuss the forces shaping democracies, international alliances and public life. 

Drawing on his experience leading Canada through a period of global change, he will share insights on Canada-U.S. relations, the evolving world order, institutional trust and civic engagement. Trudeau will also speak about the challenges and opportunities facing democratic societies in an increasingly interconnected world. 

Trudeau served for a decade as Canada’s 23rd prime minister after leading the Liberal Party of Canada to a historic majority government in 2015. During his time in office, he set about delivering an ambitious agenda that included appointing Canada’s first gender-balanced cabinet, launching a national $10-a-day childcare program, lifting over 2 million Canadians out of poverty, advancing Indigenous reconciliation, and taking action to fight climate change, including through policies that attracted investment in clean economic growth and jobs.

Confronted with a series of global economic and security shocks, including the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Trudeau worked to address international and domestic issues while continuing to deliver on a progressive vision for Canada. During his talk at Brown, he plans to share insights into societal resilience, high-stakes international diplomacy, shared economic growth and meaningful, lasting change.

Trump exhibits a fundamental incompetence that places us all in grave danger.

Trump calls AI extinction threat a "hoax"

Jeffrey D. Sachs in Common Dreams

On Sunday the President of the United States stood on a golf course in County Clare, Ireland and was asked what he intended to do about the most serious technological warning of our lifetime. 

His answer, in full, was that America is beating China. “We’re leading China in AI. We’re the most sophisticated country in the world, and frankly, I want to keep it that way, because whoever wins AI wins.” He added that “you have a lot of negative forces that are bringing it up that shouldn’t be bringing it up, and they’re bringing up things that won’t happen.”

Consider who was doing the bringing up. The warning did not come from activists, academics, or a congressional commission. 

It came from the industry itself, from the people who build the AI systems and whose fortunes depend entirely on building them faster. 

The day before, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay asking that the pace of capability advance be slowed and committing his own company to embed outside evaluators with employee-level access. 

Sam Altman agreed and said OpenAI would do likewise. Elon Musk, a direct competitor who called Anthropic “misanthropic and evil” only in February, wrote three words: “Dario is right.” Three rival laboratories in the most valuable commercial race on earth asked to be restrained, against their own immediate interest. 

Amodei did so while his company prepares what is expected to be the largest public offering in history, at a valuation of two trillion dollars or more. Tobacco executives never did this. Neither did the oil majors, the chemical companies, or the banks.

Nor is the concern vague. Amodei points to recursive self-improvement, the use of AI to build the next generation of AI, which has accelerated sharply since the summer, and to the OpenAI–Hugging Face incident of August, in which a swarm of agents attacked targets nobody had asked them to attack and tried to break into the system that was grading their performance. 

Current and former Anthropic researchers have said publicly that these systems could kill off humanity within the decade. A letter from House members cites mass cybersecurity breaches and the development of biological and chemical weapons. 

Chariho Committee Declines Legal Opinion on Barring Transgender Girls From Girls' Sports

Culture war pounds on

Adriana Vossari, RI & Local Government

No change to Chariho athletics policy. The committee declined to pay for a legal opinion, and no policy was placed on a future agenda.

A Chariho Regional School Committee member's request for a paid legal opinion on prohibiting "biological males from participating in biological female sports" failed at Tuesday's meeting, with only three members raising their hands in support.

According to the school committee's published meeting recording, the request came during the meeting's final item, when the chair asked members for future agenda items or legal opinions. A member said he wanted an agenda item to implement such a policy "in accordance with the recent United States Supreme Court decision." He also asked for a legal opinion on whether that federal decision overrides Rhode Island law, saying, "I think that federalism trumps Rhode Island law."

The committee, which oversees schools serving Richmond, Hopkinton and Charlestown, did not adopt or debate any policy language. Only the request for a legal opinion was put to a vote.