Is the DOJ Serious About Investigating Beef Price-Fixing?

Or will they just blame immigrants and Democrats?

By Philip Mattera, director of the Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First, for the Dirt Diggers Digest

This administration must be on drugs

Apparently shaken by the Democratic gains in this month’s elections, Donald Trump has changed his tune on the economy. He still tries to get us to believe everything is marvelous, but at the same time he has rolled out a series of proposals designed to give the impression he is addressing the affordability crisis.

Most of these initiatives do not amount to much. The rollback of tariffs on some food products is easing an aspect of inflation Trump himself caused. The idea of getting banks to offer 50-year home mortgages would result in modest monthly savings for borrowers while causing them to pay much more in interest over the life of the loan and slow the rate at which they build equity in their homes. 

It is unclear whether the deals he has been making with pharmaceutical companies will result in significant cost reductions for consumers. The suggestion that Obamacare subsidies be replaced with payments to health savings accounts would result in the proliferation of junk insurance policies and financial ruin for those with serious health conditions.

What these initiatives also have in common is that they do not challenge corporate interests in any significant way. The one possible exception to this is Trump’s call for a probe of price fixing in the beef industry.

Happy Trumpsgiving

Thanks where it's actually due

Yet another lunatic post by King Donald

This comes from the President of the United States. 

Trump seeks rollback of protections for endangered species

Trump Administration Seeks ESA Regulatory Rollbacks, Risks Accelerating Extinction for America’s Most Vulnerable Wildlife

Defenders of Wildlife

In a move that could accelerate the extinction crisis we face today, the Trump administration proposed significant changes to the regulations implementing the Endangered Species Act, which, for more than 50 years, has served as the backstop to America’s most imperiled wildlife. 

The administration’s proposed revisions to Sections 4, 4(d) and 7 regulations would weaken some of the protections that have helped prevent the extinction of iconic species.

“America’s imperiled wildlife remains at an uncertain crossroads, with one road pointing toward extinction and the other toward recovery. The Trump administration’s proposals announced today seek to undermine critical portions of the Endangered Species Act and will make recovery for many of those species that much more difficult,” said Andrew Bowman, president and CEO at Defenders of Wildlife. 

“These devasting proposals disregard proven science and risk reversing decades of bipartisan progress to protect our shared national heritage and the wildlife that make America so special.”

Trump action became inevitable after this happened

“The ESA is one of the world’s most powerful laws for conservation and is responsible for keeping 99% of listed species from extinction,” said Jane Davenport, senior attorney at Defenders of Wildlife. “But the ESA is only as effective as the regulations that implement it. Rolling back these regulations risks reversing the ESA’s historic success and threatens the wellbeing of plant and animal species that pollinate our crops, generate medicine, keep our waterways clean and support local economies.”

These proposed rollbacks would make it easier for federal agencies to greenlight destructive projects, such as mining, drilling, logging and overdevelopment, without fully assessing their impact on threatened and endangered species or their habitats. The move would also allow economic interests to influence decisions about which species warrant protection and which critical habitat receives federal designation. In addition, automatic protections for some threatened species would be eliminated.

Mayo Clinic says you should stop believing these eight back pain myths

For example, surgery is not the only or best option in all cases

By Mayo Clinic

Back pain is one of the most prevalent health issues globally, affecting up to 80% of individuals at some point in their lives and ranking among the leading causes of disability across all age groups. 

The condition encompasses a broad spectrum of problems involving muscles, ligaments, intervertebral discs, nerves, and the vertebral column itself, making its origins multifactorial and often difficult to pinpoint.

Its impact reaches far beyond individual discomfort—chronic or recurrent back pain contributes to reduced mobility, lost workdays, and diminished quality of life, placing a significant burden on healthcare systems worldwide.

Despite its commonality, several misconceptions about it persist.

Meghan Murphy, M.D., a neurosurgeon with the Mayo Clinic Health System in Mankato, outlines eight of the most frequent myths and explains what scientific evidence actually shows.

Myth: Lifting heavy objects is the main cause of back pain.

Fact: Lifting heavy objects with poor form can contribute to back pain, but the major culprits are a sedentary lifestyle, poor posture, obesity, and genetic factors.

Myth: Bed rest will make my back pain better.

Fact: Probably not, but it depends on the cause of your pain. If it’s muscle strain, taking it easy for a few days may help. However, bed rest can also make back pain last longer or even worsen. If your pain is from nerve compression, a disc issue, or joint degeneration, inactivity can cause muscles to tighten, pain to worsen, loss of physical condition, and more debility. In these cases, you should modify your activities, switch to low-impact exercises like walking and swimming, and avoid movements like bending, twisting, or lifting. Maintaining some degree of physical activity can help you heal faster.

Renewable energy is cheaper and healthier – so why isn’t it replacing fossil fuels faster?

One word: Trump

Jay Gulledge, University of Notre Dame; University of Tennessee

You might not know it from the headlines, but there is some good news about the global fight against climate change.

A decade ago, the cheapest way to meet growing demand for electricity was to build more coal or natural gas power plants. Not anymore. Solar and wind power aren’t just better for the climate; they’re also less expensive today than fossil fuels at utility scale, and they’re less harmful to people’s health.

Yet renewable energy projects face headwinds, including in the world’s fast-growing developing countries. I study energy and climate solutions and their impact on society, and I see ways to overcome those challenges and expand renewable energy – but it will require international cooperation.

Stop Pretending Trump Has a Coherent Economic Strategy

Trump's only apparent strategy is to enrich himself, his families and his buds 

He also loves making people, markets and countries jump whenever he tries out some new idea that pops into his head

Dean Baker for Beat the Press

Trump's only strategy is self-enrichment

It is striking that many people feel the need to claim that Donald Trump has some coherent economic plan for the country. It’s understandable that Trump’s team likes to pretend that his random ramblings and angry acts of revenge are all part of some grand strategy, but why would anyone not on his payroll play along with this obvious absurdity?

To anyone paying attention, it should be pretty clear that Donald Trump is clueless about the economy. 

Just to take an obvious example to make the point: Trump has repeatedly promised to lower drug prices by 800, 900, or even 1,500%. As he rightly says, no one thought it was possible.

It wouldn’t be a big deal that he got confused once or twice and forgot that you can’t lower prices by more than 100%, unless you envision drug companies paying people to use their drugs. But Trump has done this repeatedly, over many months.

This tells us two things. First, he really doesn’t have even a basic understanding of arithmetic and percentages. That would be bad in and of itself. After all the president is sometimes directly negotiating deals, and it would be bad if he agreed to something and then had to call back his negotiating partner and tell them he didn’t understand what he had agreed to.

But the other issue is even more serious. Surely people like Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Kevin Hassett, Trump’s national economic adviser, understand percentages. But apparently, they are too scared of Trump to explain how they work. Instead, they let him go out week after week and make a fool of himself by making nonsensical promises on lowering drug prices.

This fact is crucial if we are trying to assess whether Trump has a coherent economic strategy. The point is he is obviously confused about many things when it comes to the economy. He seems to think that other countries pay tariffs and send the US checks. He also seems to think that wind and solar power are very expensive sources of energy. And he seems to think that the economy was collapsing when he took office.

This little piggy

Forget Black Friday

The seemingly never-ending chemtrail "conspiracy"

Why are we still talking about it?

Calum Lister Matheson, University of Pittsburgh

Everyone has looked up at the clouds and seen faces, animals, objects. Human brains are hardwired for this kind of whimsy. But some people – perhaps a surprising number – look to the sky and see government plots and wicked deeds written there. Conspiracy theorists say that contrails – long streaks of condensation left by aircraft – are actually chemtrails, clouds of chemical or biological agents dumped on the unsuspecting public for nefarious purposes. Different motives are ascribed, from weather control to mass poisoning.

The chemtrails theory has circulated since 1996, when conspiracy theorists misinterpreted a U.S. Air Force research paper about weather modification, a valid topic of research. Social media and conservative news outlets have since magnified the conspiracy theory. One recent study notes that X, formerly Twitter, is a particularly active node of this “broad online community of conspiracy.”

I’m a communications researcher who studies conspiracy theories. The thoroughly debunked chemtrails theory provides a textbook example of how conspiracy theories work.

Trump tackles food prices

Didn't Trump say other countries would pay the tariffs?

R.I. must speed up lowering carbon emissions to meet Act on Climate mandates

We need more and better alternatives to cars

By Nancy Lavin, Rhode Island Current

Rhode Island needs to put the pedal to the metal on its clean energy transition — while reducing its reliance on driving  — if it wants to achieve its own decarbonization mandates, according to a new report by the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM).

The 9.52 million metric tons of carbon dioxide produced from travel, buildings, and other human activity across Rhode Island in 2023 marks a 1.4% increase over 2022 level emissions, according to the 41-page analysis published Friday.

Even worse: The long-term pace of progress, while showing modest reductions in emissions, is too slow to meet deadlines set under the state’s Act on Climate law. 

The 2021 decarbonization mandate requires that Rhode Island achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, with incremental progress markers, including a 45% reduction from 1990 levels by 2030. 

If Rhode Island continues to decrease its fossil fuel reliance at the same rate as it has over the last five years, it will miss the 2030 target, while further jeopardizing its 2050 goal, the report warns.

“Significant decarbonization of transportation, electricity consumption, and buildings are instrumental to attain net-zero emissions by mid-century,” the report states.

The warning comes amid major shifts in federal incentives and policies under the Trump administration that are expected to make state clean energy mandates harder to achieve.

“The Trump administration’s rollback of clean-energy initiatives and its cuts to billions of dollars in funding have intentionally undermined the clean-energy future for states across the nation,” Gov. Dan McKee said in a statement Friday. “As federal policies continue to shift, we will keep working with our partners to chart a practical and responsible path forward on reducing emissions.”

Leading the way is the Executive Climate Change Coordinating Council, a consortium of state agencies charged with helping Rhode Island meet its decarbonization mandates.

Initial projections reported by the council suggested the state was poised to fall short of that 2030 milestone, though the 2022 report emphasized that the model was “simple” and “preliminary.” A more detailed report will be published by the end of this year, informed in part by the latest state greenhouse gas emissions.

Terry Gray, DEM director and chair of the council, called the latest emissions results “disappointing,” but noted that it mirrors national trends which saw a rise in travel-related emissions in 2023.

FACTOID: Charlestown remains the only Rhode Island municipality with no RIPTA bus service, except of course Block Island.

The Verdict of History

Trump and his fascist glorification

Robert Reich

Trump has ordered the U.S. Treasury to draft a $1 coin featuring him on both sides, for the purpose of “honoring America’s 250th Birthday and @POTUS,” according to Treasury officials.

Meanwhile, Trump wants the Washington Commanders to name their planned $3.7 billion stadium after him. A senior White House source told ESPN: “It’s what the president wants, and it will probably happen.” Presumably, Trump’s name will be carved into a granite facade at the stadium’s entrance.

The giant $300 million ballroom that Trump is adding to the White House is called “the President Donald J. Trump Ballroom” on the list of donors to the project, and senior administration officials say the name is likely to stick.

Trump is moving to immortalize himself with his name etched into coins, carved into pediments, and inscribed into White House marble. He wants to glorify himself in the most permanent ways possible.

This is what fascist dictators do when in power. Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini built monuments to glorify themselves so they’d be exalted in history.

Democracies don’t do this. They memorialize their heroes only after they’ve died, and only if the public wants them commemorated.

Trump deserves to be remembered — but not as a hero. To the contrary: It is our solemn duty to ensure he is remembered for all that he has done and may still do to destroy American democracy.

He must be remembered as the president who claimed without evidence that an election was “stolen” from him. Who then instigated a coup that included false electors, threats to state officials, and an assault on the U.S. Capitol that resulted in five deaths and injuries to 174 police officers.

He should be remembered as the president who, after being reelected, tried to erase the nation’s memory of what he had done by pardoning 1,600 rioters who had been criminally convicted for participating in the Capitol attack and 77 people who had conspired with him to carry out the attempted coup. He called them all “patriots.”

He must be remembered as the president who then usurped the powers of Congress. Who denied people due process of law. Who prosecuted his political opponents. Who violated international law by killing people he labeled enemy combatants. Who sent the military into American cities over the objections of their mayors and governors. And who openly and brazenly took bribes.

We must not allow Trump to erase this history with false tributes to himself, etched into silver, marble, or granite.

Instead, after he is gone, a monument should be erected to remind future generations of Trump’s treachery and the treachery of officials who supported him.

It would be a simple building constructed of iron and cement, containing the records of his attacks on democracy and the names of everyone who aided him.

Over its doorway would be the words “Trump’s Treason.”

It would be situated on the White House lawn where the Trump ballroom (since demolished) once stood. It would face Pennsylvania Avenue so that families visiting the nation’s capital — including those commemorating America’s 500th anniversary — have easy access, and will long remember this catastrophe.

The plan for Trump's next parade