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| Plus he CHEATS |
Saturday, August 22, 2026
The EPA’s data on cancer risk from air pollution has gone dark
Ending your right to know
Sachi Kitajima Mulkey, Reporter
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Darya Minovi was mapping pollution from medical sterilization plants across the country when many of the communities she was speaking to began asking the same question. The facilities emit ethylene oxide, a potent carcinogen, and those who lived nearby wanted to know how much the emissions were increasing their cancer risk. She turned to data compiled by the Environmental Protection Agency to find out.
The resulting maps, published in 2023 by the Union of Concerned Scientists (SEE SCREENSHOT BELOW), a nonprofit where Minovi is a researcher, revealed that more than 14 million people lived in a 5-mile radius of ethylene oxide-emitting facilities. Crucially, the map highlighted 23 sterilization facilities that the EPA had found emit ethylene oxide at levels that definitively contribute to elevated cancer risk. The project helped raise awareness and was used to push the government to tighten limits on ethylene oxide emissions.
The risk assessments are routinely used by communities to understand the effects of the pollution in their neighborhoods, as well as by journalists and nonprofits to inform the public and hold polluters accountable. Withholding this information would shift the burden of interpreting pollution data — a technically demanding task requiring specialized experience and an understanding of EPA protocols — onto the public, Minovi said, making it harder for communities to access this vital public health information.
This Flesh-Eating Fly Is Back in the U.S.
Scientists Are Tracking Where It Could Strike Next
By Mika Ono, University of California - San Diego
 |
| Meet our little friend. New World screwworm larva close up, and the mouth hooks they use to eat living flesh. Credit: USDA |
A wound no bigger than a tick bite can be enough for New World screwworm to take hold.
For decades, the United States had largely escaped that
threat. An ambitious eradication campaign eliminated New World screwworm from
the country and eventually forced the parasite south to Panama. But after
spreading north through Central America and Mexico, the fly has returned.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed the first
animal case of the current U.S. outbreak on June 3, 2026. Since then,
detections have been reported in Texas and New Mexico. Across Central America
and Mexico, the wider outbreak has already produced more than 209,400 reported
animal cases and 2,440 human cases. No locally acquired human infestations have
been reported in the United States, and the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention say the current risk to the U.S. public remains very low.
Scientists Race to Predict Screwworm’s Next Move
The return is reviving memories of a pest that once
inflicted enormous losses on American agriculture. In the 1950s, New World
screwworm cost U.S. livestock producers tens of millions of dollars annually,
with losses reaching an estimated $50 million to $100 million a year in the
hardest-hit areas of the Southwest.
Now, researchers and public health officials are trying to
answer an urgent question before the fly spreads farther: Where is it most
likely to appear next?
The threat of more, expanded measles outbreaks looms with start of school
With measles on the rise, school gets riskier
 |
| Map showing where the most measles cases have been reported in the United States in 2026. Credit: CDC |
School starts
soon in north-central Colorado and pediatrician Shen Nagel, MD, is bracing for
the possibility of a measles outbreak.
In some ways this
is par for the course. After major holidays and summer breaks, kids bring
viruses back to their classrooms, and Nagel sees spikes of flu, respiratory
syncytial virus and other respiratory illnesses, among his patients at
Pediatrics West, a practice in suburban Denver.
Measles might soon be added to that list, though it wasn't a disease that pediatricians worried about much when Nagel started practicing 25 years ago. But post-COVID-19, dropping vaccination rates and conflicting federal messaging have created an opening for measles, widely considered the most contagious infectious disease known to humans.
The good news is
that most parents do get their kids the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR)
vaccine, which is 97% effective after two doses. Experts who spoke to CIDRAP
News for this story say that if a fully vaccinated child has a normal immune
system, parents shouldn't worry about their child catching measles at
school—especially if that school has a relatively high vaccination rate.
Outbreaks are extremely unlikely in communities where overall MMR coverage is
95%.
Friday, August 21, 2026
“Travel with Natalie”
How three words from Jon Ossoff prompted an epic MAGA crash-out.
He’s temperamental and emotional in a way that supposedly disqualifies women from serving in powerful political or corporate roles. He lashes out at critics, opponents, the media, even his own staff.
Were it not so
frightening, it would be Veep-level hysterical that the man atop the world’s
most powerful government and military lacks the impulse control of a high
schooler.
But the questions now swirling around Trump’s personal
assistant Natalie Harp — and especially the way Sen. Jon Ossoff unleashed a
media firestorm this week by invoking her name — offer a long overdue lesson
for Democrats on how to successfully bait Trump and his MAGA cohorts for
maximum effect.
Harp strikes a chord
Let’s start by unpacking what Ossoff actually said last
Sunday, which was not nearly as salacious as the ensuing MAGA meltdown would
have you believe.
“While the sailors on the Lincoln fight his war, while he
fruitlessly drains our munitions and oil reserves, the president sleeps through
his meetings. He golfs and trades stocks,” said Ossoff, of Trump. “See, he
doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with
Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of
Qatar.”
But the kicker was these three words: “travel with Natalie.”
Ossoff’s statement would have delivered the same critique of
Trump as an entitled, lazy lout had he omitted any mention of Harp. But he
dropped her name — and only her first name, plus the first-person plural
“their” for emphasis — to pair them and suggest a degree of interpersonal
intimacy.
Ossoff’s gambit worked perfectly. Americans immediately wanted to learn who Natalie Harp is.
Answer: a “platinum blonde geyser of
positivity, there to buck him up when the going gets rough,” as the New York
Times described the
young aide who serves as Trump’s personal, 24/7 “security blanket.”
The White House and conservative pundits lost their marbles,
crying foul about attacks on the young staffer and veiled implications of her
and Trump having an affair.
More amusing and hypocritical is how conservative apologists
rushed to Harp’s defense, depicting her as a child immune to attention or
attacks, and the victim of
sexist “dehumanization.” (In fact, Harp is 35 — an adult more than twice the
age of the Central Park 5 Black youths when Trump called for their execution
before they were even tried for a crime that, it turned out, they never
committed.)
In 2023, Harp twice dodged presidential
security protocols and wary Trump staffers to get close to Trump — once, by
securing a maid’s room at Trump’s Bedminster, New Jersey golf club, and then by
sneaking into an SUV trunk in Trump’s motorcade. She behaves like a rock band
groupie, not a presidential adviser.
Harp has also skirted security
clearance checks, a fact that suggests Trump is willing to sacrifice
national security to maintain his emotional “security blanket.” That’s the term
Ossoff used to describe Harp when, instead of apologizing or backtracking as
weak-willed Democrats often do when facing backlash, he doubled down on
his Trump attack during a Monday television interview with MS NOW’s Jen Psaki.
Ossoff shows the way
But enough about poor Natalie — back to Ossoff.The senator and his speechwriters clearly understand that
powerful words do more than assert or indict: They create imagery.
Ossoff painted a picture of Trump flying in comfortable,
Middle Eastern-supplied luxury, oblivious to the problems around him, his every
need and indulgence fulfilled like some oleaginous sultan. That image contrasts
sharply with his MAGA cult supporters’ rally flags depicting Trump as a
bandana-wearing Rambo delivering rough justice.
Depicting Trump as Ossoff skillfully did generated paroxysms
from Republican politicians and conservative talking heads.
The right-wing media narrative is lousy with depictions of
liberals and Democrats living better than — and therefore condescending to —
their lessors: those humble, hardworking, heartland Americans. Ossoff delivered
this same appraisal of Trump in fewer words than a median-length William
Faulkner sentence. The senator’s quip was a Thomas Nast cartoon sketched with
four sentences.
And therein lies the key lesson of this episode: Trump can
be weakened by policy attacks, especially on the economy and his foolhardy war
with Iran. But politicians in the new media age who want to gain traction — no
less run for the White House — need to talk less in stentorian policy tones,
like a Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren, and more like Jimmy Kimmel or
Chelsea Handler.
The Georgia senator whom many believe to be a frontrunner
for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination understands that Democrats need
more than “affordability” policy messages to win in 2026 and beyond. They need
to depict Trump as feeble, selfish, and tone-deaf.
By inserting Harp into the national political discourse,
Ossoff inverted the national narrative about which side is politically soft and
entitled. The 2028 presidential election is more than two years away, but this
week Ossoff put his party and the punditry on notice that he will be a skilled
and formidable contender.
A flustered Trump dismissed Ossoff as “Pee Wee Herman.” Weak
tea.
Trump’s snide derogatories have lost their oomph. More to
the point, like all bullies his feckless response proves he can throw a punch
but can’t take one.
And the senator’s invocation of “Natalie” — leaving out her
last name to imply some special intimacy between Harp and Trump — was the shiny
frame that drew millions of eyes to the Trumpian imagery Ossoff so deftly
painted.
Troll bridge to 2028
Narcissists like Donald Trump cannot abide criticism, and no
critique is more effective with insecure narcissists than mockery. Making fun
of Trump as a lazy, unpatriotic, and ineffective president cuts to his bone.
Trump commits ample policy and political errors without provocation, but he is
far more prone to blunder when under attack and on the defensive. And so are
his allies.
Trump’s supporters warn that if Democrats recapture the
House this fall, they will immediately impeach Trump for a third time. His
self-dealing corruption, which makes Watergate look like a parking ticket,
alone warrants his removal. But to paraphrase a time-worn maxim, if you try to
kill a wannabe king you better succeed. Even if Democrats flip the Senate, they
will not have enough Republican support to convict Trump on any House
impeachment article.
The better way to impeach Trump is to rattle his confidence
and destroy his heavily-curated image as a tough and competent patriot. This
week, Jon Ossoff separated himself from the pack by providing liberals and
Democrats a perfect formula for how to do so.
Thanks for reading Public Notice. This post is public so
feel free to share it.
Trump Threatens to ‘Bomb the Shit’ Out of Oman as Strait of Hormuz Traffic Again Grinds to a Halt
Add another US ally to the list of formerly friendly nations Trump wants to bomb
Brad Reed for Common Dreams
Speaking with
Fox News, Trump was asked about talks that Iran and Oman have been conducting
about jointly overseeing operations of the strait, which has been shut down
ever since Trump started an illegal war in late February.
Trump replied that “if Oman gets in the way” of reopening
the strait, “we’ll bomb the shit out of them.”
Will flu, COVID-19 vaccines be available this fall?
What road blocks will Bobby Jr. and Trump throw up?
But experts say Americans don’t have to worry about vaccine
coverage—this year, at least.
“There will be available an updated influenza vaccine and an updated COVID vaccine. So far, that’s pretty normal,” William Schaffner, MD, professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt Health and spokesperson for the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), told CIDRAP News. “Insurers, that is, the medical insurance industry, have said that they would cover those vaccines.”
While Actively Trying to Deny Millions This Right, Trump Again Votes by Mail
Is it possible Trump votes by may BECAUSE it is "inherently corrupt?"
Stephen Prager for Common Dreams
The White House confirmed to The New York Times that
the president voted by mail ahead of Florida’s Republican primary on Tuesday,
marking at least the third time he has done so since becoming president. He
also voted by mail in a state legislative special election
earlier this year and in the 2020 Republican primary.
Though Trump has repeatedly characterized mail-in voting itself as a form of
“cheating” and pushed to abolish it for most Americans under his
proposed SAVE America Act, White House spokesperson Olivia Wales said it was a
“non-story” that he chose to participate in the practice himself.
“The SAVE America Act has commonsense exceptions for
Americans to use mail-in ballots for illness, disability, military, or travel—
but universal mail-in voting should not be allowed because it’s highly
susceptible to fraud,” she said. “As everyone knows, the president is a
resident of Palm Beach and participates in Florida elections, but he obviously
primarily lives at the White House in Washington, DC.”
Florida notably does not distinguish between absentee and other forms
of mail-in voting, allowing residents to cast votes without an excuse—so the
system Trump used to vote by mail is the same one he wants to make illegal.
Failing to pass his SAVE America Act through Congress, Trump
has attempted to restrict
mail-in voting via executive order.
Thursday, August 20, 2026
Inside Trump’s Failed Hunt for Noncitizen Voters
You want to find voter fraud? You're looking in the wrong place
By Peter Elkind, Jen Fifield, Doug Bock Clark, Ken B. Morales and Andy Mannix for
ProPublica
 |
| Looking for voter fraud? Here are filings by Vic Mellor, Republican, on June 16 with the Justice Department as an agent of the Cuban government. Mellor wants to win the Sept. 9 Republican primary here in Rhode Island so he can run against Rep. Seth Magaziner (D) for the Second Congressional District seat. Aside from the huge question of what the hell is Mellor doing representing the Cuban government, note that on his filing he lists his home address as Florida. Mellor filed his candidacy notice on November 1 with the Federal Election Commission, giving a Rhode Island address. That is contradicted by this filing made by him more than six months later. One of these two failings was false. |
It was late March when Joe Teirab, the second-in-command at Minnesota’s U.S. attorney’s office, received an urgent email from Washington.
The federal government was scrambling to find criminal cases
to back up President Donald Trump’s claims that illegal voting by noncitizens
was tipping the scales in American elections. Agents from Homeland Security
Investigations, a massive federal law enforcement agency, had been dispatched
to work leads across the country, including hundreds in Minnesota.
Teirab was already under pressure. In an earlier missive,
Nick Davis, a high-ranking Justice Department appointee helping to lead the
election fraud crusade, had reminded him the cases were so high priority that
Teirab and his staff couldn’t decline to move forward on them without express
approval from agency higher-ups. On March 24, Davis demanded a status report —
within hours.
Teirab, a former Marine and a Harvard Law graduate who’d run
unsuccessfully for Congress as a Republican, responded with a blunt reality
check.
“Bottom line up front,” he replied in an email reviewed by
ProPublica. After subpoenaing records on about 130 people, only one had been
referred for prosecution, his staff had told him. Agents had deluged local
election offices with calls and demands for voting histories, demonstrating “a
complete lack of understanding” of illegal voting investigations.
“The HSI task force has been disjointed and disorganized,”
Teirab wrote. The entire process, he said, had been “dysfunctional.”
 |
| Ken Paxton wants to find voter fraud. Did he look here... |
Since Trump regained the White House, his administration has
launched a series of unprecedented initiatives to find and prosecute voting by
noncitizens, which he’s long claimed, without evidence, is rampant.
He’s stepped up this push in recent weeks, saying in a
nationally televised speech that the American election system was “so
vulnerable that no one can possibly defend it.” To support that assertion, the
Department of Homeland Security, HSI’s parent agency, released documents
asserting it had found more than 250,000 noncitizens on voter rolls in just
four states, all led by Democrats. The documents included no explanation of how
that number was calculated.
It’s well known the administration has tasked HSI — a force established to combat drug cartels, terrorism and other cross-border criminal enterprises — with leading the campaign to find election fraud cases in the United States.
 |
| Did he look in the mirror? |
But an investigation by ProPublica reveals for the first time how the Trump administration came to harness HSI’s personnel, technology and sweeping legal authority in service of its election agenda — and how meager the results have been, despite the prodigious resources sunk into the effort.
According to interviews and internal emails reviewed by ProPublica, career staffers at the Justice Department warned that transferring voter rolls to HSI to enable it to search for noncitizen voters could violate federal privacy laws. Similarly, longtime HSI insiders cautioned that using the agency’s databases and tools to search these lists would yield mismatches and wildly inflated results.The administration plowed forward anyway.
Dan McKee declares "I AM the state of Rhode Island"
Helena Foulkes objected to McKee talking over her during their final debate and provoked King Dan's reply:
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