Trump's unfitness to serve triggers federal officials' duty to act

Trump has crossed the line where invoking the 25th Amendment should be compulsory

Sabrina Haake

The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) governs the conduct of every person in the United States military, and applies equally to all ranks and branches, whether in combat, or not.

All servicemembers are taught, and are expected to understand, its core principles. Ignorantia juris non excusat, or ‘Ignorance of the law,’ is not a legal defense in the US military. 

Under Art. 92 of the UCMJ, members have a duty to obey all lawful commands, and they have a parallel duty to disobey all unlawful commands. Obeying a manifestly illegal order, like an order to target civilians, can expose a service member to criminal liability.

The Nuremberg Trials of Nazi war criminals established
the principle that "I was just following orders" is NOT an excuse

The duty to disobey manifestly illegal orders is a cornerstone of international law, with foundations in Nazi-related post-WWII trials like Nuremberg. Orders of such nature that their unlawfulness is clear and obvious, such as an order to target unarmed civilians, are considered manifestly illegal.

Trump, Hegseth are issuing manifestly illegal orders to murder civilians

Trump has ordered the summary execution of at least 83 people so far in suspected drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean and Pacific. Trump and Hegseth call these targets ‘narco-terrorists’ because they think that means they can treat them as enemy combatants in a war that does not exist.

Name them, Donald

It doesn’t. Even if the victims were “narco-terrorists,” for which Trump has provided zero evidence, at worst, they are citizen criminals entitled to interdiction and legal process under US and international law. No country has the right to execute non-combatant civilians unless faced with imminent threat, otherwise unhinged leaders could shoot people for sport, which Trump’s snuff videos are chillingly starting to resemble.

The international condemnation of Trump’s campaign in South America is growing, along with global accusations of murder that would be louder if Trump weren’t threatening foreign leaders with erratic tariffs. Formerly strong US allies, including the UK, Colombia, and the Netherlands, have either refused or suspended related intelligence sharing with the US because of the illegal strikes. Military support groups are starting to talk in earnest, offering counseling and advice on what to do when faced with illegal order situations.

Native art sale at Quonnie Grange, December 6

Help re-elect our fine State Representative Tina Spears

 

Join Us!

For a reception in support of District 36 Representative

Tina Spears

Thursday, December 4th, 2025 6–8 PM The General Stanton Inn  4115 Old Post Road, Charlestown, RI

DONATE

Suggested contribution:$50 | $100 | $200 Light refreshments will be served

Please make personal checks payable to: The Friends of Tina Spears 82 Hillside Drive Charlestown, RI 02813   Click HERE to contribute online or use the QR code   DONATE

Charlestown Gallery opens doors for Charlestown Ramble

Special event prices

The Charlestown Gallery invites you to join us for the Annual Charlestown Holiday Ramble on Friday, December 5th from 3pm to 9pm and Saturday, December 6th between 10am and 7pm.  You can find us at 5000 South County Trail in Charlestown, Rhode Island. 

We have collected over 100 original art works priced at $500 and below for this event. You will not be disappointed.  Friday night raffle 50% off one original work of your choice (limit applies) and Saturday night raffle 1 free workshop of your choice.  Sip a hot beverage and mingle while you tackle some holiday shopping. Exquisite original paintings, sculptures, furniture, books, ornaments, jewelry, and pottery will make memorable gifts.  You might even find something for yourself if you dare.  

Chef Bryan Chavez Food Truck Curbside Creperie will be on site Friday and his Farm to Sandwich Truck on Saturday.  Gather around the fire pit while you meet the artists and your Charlestown neighbors while supporting small local artists and businesses this holiday season.  Make a lasting difference in our community.  

Storm tomorrow unlikely to bring much (or any) snow

But it will be wet and windy according to the National Weather Service:

7-Day Forecast 41.38N 71.66W

If you are travelling north, watch out:

Boston/Norton, MA Weather Forecast Office Winter Weather Forecasts

Trump Latin America policy: Pardon convicted right-wing drug traffickers while threatening to bomb left-wing leaders

Trump and Hegseth policies make no sense

Julia Conley for Common Dreams

The US Congressional Progressive Caucus on Friday accused President Donald Trump of “flagrantly interfering” in Honduras’ upcoming presidential election after Trump announced his endorsement of right-wing candidate Nasry “Tito” Asfura and repeated threats he’s made previously ahead of other electoral contests in which he sought to secure a conservative win.

On the social media platform X, Trump warned that only a victory for former Tegucigalpa Mayor Asfura and the National Party in Sunday’s election will allow Honduras and the US to “fight the Narcocommunists, and bring needed aid to the people” of the Central American country.

He accused Asfura’s opponents—former finance and defense minister Rixi Moncada of the left-wing Liberty and Refoundation (Libre) Party, which is now in power, and sportscaster Salvador Nasralla of the centrist Liberal Party—of being communists and said Nasralla is running as a spoiler in order to split the vote and weaken Asfura. 

State-sponsored terrorism

He added that a loss for the right-wing candidate would allow Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro “and his Narcoterrorists [to] take over another country like they have taken over Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.”

The president also wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social, that “if [Asfura] doesn’t win, the US will not be throwing good money after bad,” repeating a comment he made during New York City’s mayoral election in which he urged voters to reject progressive candidate Zohran Mamdani or risk losing federal aid for the city. Trump also offered Argentina a $40 billion bailout if voters elected his ally, Javier Milei, earlier this year.

War crimes or just plain old murder - why the US
military needed reminding about the duty to not
follow illegal orders

Under President Xiomara Castro, the Libre Party’s government has invested in hospitals and education, and has made strides in halting the privatization of the country’s electricity system, Drop Site News reported. 

The poverty rate has also been reduced by about 13% since Castro took office in 2021, although, as the outlet reported, some rights advocates have criticized Castro’s government for keeping “many of her predecessor’s militarized policies in place, despite her commitment to implement a more community-minded strategy.”

Trump added in his social media post that he was issuing a pardon to former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who represented the National Party and is currently serving a 45-year prison sentence in the US. 

He was convicted of working with drug traffickers who paid bribes to ensure more than 400 tons of cocaine were sent to the US. The pardon was announced as Trump continues his threats against Venezuela, which he has accused of trafficking drugs to the US.

This is the homestretch to Charlestown’s December 2 Town Council special election

On Tuesday, please support Democrat Jill Fonneman for Charlestown Town Council

By Will Collette

Well, another day and another huge postcard from former Council member and Charlestown Citizens Alliance spokes-troll Bonnita Van Slyke. Maybe before Election Day on Tuesday, she’ll send us a real poster-sized card featuring her and her dog Sam.

I know that Sam is a very good boy. I also know Bonnie was crap as a former town council member. She bailed from the Council in 2022 just before the CCA got ousted by Charlestown voters for messing up the town’s money but now she wants back onto the Council.

Bonnie was a central figure in creating and then covering up the CCA’s “$3 million oopsie,” padded surplus fund accounts and shady land deals by her boss, CCA founder and de facto leader Ruth Platner.

Charlestown’s money problems during the decade of CCA rule, which included Van Slyke’s entire term on the Town Council, were documented by 2022 reports by the Rhode Island Auditor General and the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council. These reports were never acknowledged by the CCA. Click HERE and HERE for more details.

I have been calling for Van Slyke to own up to her mistakes and then apologize. Instead, she produces these expensive postcards filled with platitudes and vague promises about environmental issues where there is no fundamental difference between her and her opponents.

Vote for Jill Fonnemann (D). She also has a dog
plus far better ideas than her competitors 

I don’t expect her to dump ashes on her head and prostrate herself in front of Town Hall. But I do expect her to stop telling fairy tales about the way the CCA mismanaged Charlestown’s tax dollars and then tried to cover it up.

My choice for Council is Democrat Jill Fonneman who has been forthright about taking on Charlestown’s issues and pledges to work hard for fair taxation and trying to revitalize our blighted small business landscape. I blame the CCA’s business-hostile approach for our Boulevard of Broken Dreams (thank you, Green Day), better known as Route One where there are more shuttered businesses than growing concerns.

Boarded up derelict businesses are not compatible with Route One’s status as a Scenic Highway. Jill wants to see Charlestown make a concerted effort to turn this around.

Jill brings youth and solid business experience in boosting the Rathskeller’s success as well as fund-raising events to boost local charities and to assist the workers after the devastating fire at the Matunuck Oyster Bar. See video below.

Van Slyke brings nothing to the table but her awful past performance on the Council where she was the puppet of Charlestown Planning Commissar Ruth Platner. Van Slyke simply recites the tired old Platner-tudes about open space Über alles. If you think about it, a vote for Van Slyke is really a vote for her master Ruth Platner.

There’s no point in talking about mail-in or early voting since Monday and Tuesday are the last days to cast ballots. Now is the time to make your decision about whether you want to move forward with Jill Fonneman or take a big step backwards with Van Slyke.

Voting on December 2 (Tuesday) will take place ONLY at Town Hall from 7 AM to 8 PM.

White House redesign plans

Holiday greens and help send kids to camp

Rhody grown: Real trees support local farmers

Tips and trends when picking out this year’s Christmas tree

Kristen Curry 

Local choices can have a big impact: Real trees support local farmers.

It’s that time: One of the particular joys of the season is heading outdoors to pick out a Christmas tree.

Some good news for tree shoppers this season: If you are buying from a big-box store or pop-up lot where the trees are likely shipped from Canada—live trees imported from our northern neighbor are exempt from tariffs.

However, a better option might be to buy local, advises URI forestry extension specialist Christopher Riely. He will be heading to a local tree farm to make his selection, keeping his decorative dollars in the local economy. Plus, it’s a magical experience.

“It can be a fun expedition to pick out a Rhody-grown tree,” says Riely.

Riely likes to vary the type of tree he puts up from year to year. He enjoys buying fresh-cut trees from local farms, and in recent years has been drawn to “character” trees that are far from the perfect conical shape but unique in appearance (and also offer a good value). Last year, he brought home a white fir.

Supporting Christmas tree farmers helps ensure the continued economic viability of local agriculture and reduces the likelihood that productive open space will be developed or converted for another use.

NIH grant terminations disrupt hundreds of clinical trials, affecting more than 74,000 participants

Just as we are on the verge of cancer breakthroughs, Bobby Jr. does this

Laine Bergeson

An analysis published this week in JAMA Internal Medicine finds that recent terminations of National Institutes of Health (NIH) research grants abruptly disrupted 383 active clinical trials affecting more than 74,000 enrolled participants—raising concerns about scientific waste, data integrity, and participant safety.

The cross-sectional study, led by researchers at Harvard Medical School, examined all NIH-funded interventional trials active between February 28, 2025, when the first wave of grant cancellations was reported, and August 15, 2025. Of 11,008 ongoing trials, 3.5% lost funding during this time. 

The affected studies spanned multiple stages: 36% had completed data collection, while more than one-third were actively recruiting. Notably, 43 trials were "active, not recruiting," meaning that participants may have been receiving interventions at the time funding was withdrawn.

Trials focused on infectious diseases saw the highest proportion of terminations (14.4%), followed by prevention-focused studies (8.4%) and those involving behavioral interventions (5%). International trials were also disproportionately affected.

Terminations unethical, may harm participants

Unanticipated funding disruptions can jeopardize follow-up, undermine data quality, and leave researchers unable to complete analyses, warn the authors.

In an accompanying commentary, Teva D. Brender, MD, of the University of California, and Cary P. Gross, MD, of Yale School of Medicine, who weren't involved in the study, argue that terminating funding for reasons unrelated to safety or efficacy is an ethical breach. The abrupt terminations violate principles of informed consent and pose real dangers. "Participants who have been exposed to an intervention in the context of a trial may be harmed by its premature withdrawal or inadequate follow-up and monitoring for adverse effects," they write. 

Participants who have been exposed to an intervention in the context of a trial may be harmed by its premature withdrawal or inadequate follow-up and monitoring for adverse effects.

The terminations may also rob participants of something harder to quantify but no less important: hope. "For some participants, enrolling in a trial was a source of hope, in situations when other treatment options were inadequate," they write. "For some, participating in the study was a part of their legacy, a way they hoped to contribute to humankind, which will now be denied."

Although some grants have since been reinstated, the commentators emphasize that reversals can mitigate, but not undo, the scientific and ethical harms. The widespread disruptions pose "unacceptable and unethical risks to patients," they conclude. 

The researchers of the study urge continued monitoring to understand how these terminations will affect future trials, study design, and data integrity.

Trump’s Anti-Green Agenda Could Lead to 1.3 Million More Climate Deaths.

To Trump, this could be a plus

By Sharon Lerner for ProPublica. Co-published with The Guardian

New advances in environmental science are providing a detailed understanding of the human costs of the Trump administration’s approach to climate change.

Increasing temperatures are already killing enormous numbers of people. A ProPublica and Guardian analysis that draws on sophisticated modeling by independent researchers found that President Donald Trump’s “America First” agenda of expanding fossil fuels and decimating efforts to reduce emissions will add substantially to that toll, with the vast majority of deaths occurring outside the United States. 

Most of the people expected to die from soaring temperatures in the coming decades live in poor, hot countries in Africa and South Asia, according to recent research. Many of these countries emitted relatively little of the pollution that causes climate change — and are least prepared to cope with the increasing heat.

ProPublica and the Guardian’s analysis shows that extra greenhouse gases released in the next decade as a result of Trump’s policies are expected to lead to as many as 1.3 million more temperature-related deaths worldwide in the 80 years after 2035. The actual number of people who die from heat will be much higher, but a warming planet will also result in fewer deaths from cold.

Leaders from most of the world’s countries are now gathered at an international conference in Belém, Brazil, to address the escalating effects of climate change. The absence of the United States, which has 4% of the world’s population but has produced 20% of its greenhouse gases, has been pointedly noted by participants. Afghanistan, Myanmar and San Marino are the only other nations that did not send a delegation to the meeting, according to a provisional list of participants.

Our calculations use modeled estimates of the additional emissions that will be released as a result of Trump’s policies as well as a peer-reviewed metric for what is known as the mortality cost of carbon. That metric, which builds on Nobel Prize-winning science that has informed federal policy for more than a decade, predicts the number of temperature-related deaths from additional emissions. The estimate reflects deaths from heat-related causes, such as heat stroke and the exacerbation of existing illnesses, minus lives saved by reduced exposure to cold. It does not include the massive number of deaths expected from the broader effects of climate change, such as droughts, floods, wars, vector-borne diseases, hurricanes, wildfires and reduced crop yields. 

The numbers, while large, are just a fraction of the estimated 83 million temperature-related deaths that could result from all human-caused emissions over the same period if climate-warming pollution is not curtailed. But they speak to the human cost of prioritizing U.S. corporate interests over the lives of people around the globe. 

“The sheer numbers are horrifying,” said Ife Kilimanjaro, executive director of the nonprofit U.S. Climate Action Network, which works with groups around the world to combat climate change.

Neronha co-leads suit over HUD policy that would put more people into homelessness

Once again, Rhode Island is the center of resistance to oppressive Trump policies

By Christopher Shea, Rhode Island Current

Nineteen attorneys general and two governors filed suit in Rhode Island on Tuesday to stop the Trump administration from shifting nearly $4 billion in housing grants they say could place as many as 170,000 formerly homeless people back out on the streets.

The group co-led by Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha is accusing the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development of violating “congressional intent” in its plan to dramatically reduce the amount of grant funds that can be spent on permanent housing, along with other conditions placed in its latest Notice of Funding Opportunity for Continuum of Care grants.

Enacted Nov. 13, HUD’s new policy instead shifts Continuum of Care funding toward transitional housing and other short-term interventions to the nation’s ongoing homelessness crisis. Only 30% of funds from the $3.9 billion grant program would be allowed to be used for permanent supportive housing — units that provide a subsidized, stable residence for formerly homeless people, often those who have experienced mental illness or spent years on the streets.  

HUD has previously directed approximately 90% of Continuum of Care funding to support permanent supportive units as part of its “Housing First” philosophy, according to the 55-page lawsuit.

King Donald reminisces about the good old days

How can we trust them with the economy when they don't understand basic arithmetic?