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.”
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.”
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.
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. |
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.
Helena Foulkes objected to McKee talking over her during their final debate and provoked King Dan's reply:
Councilors Say They Have No Power Over Them
Adriana Vossari, RI & Local Government
Residents used the second public comment period at the
Westerly Town Council's Monday, August 17 meeting to object to automated
license-plate reading cameras in town, and councilors responded that the town
has no contract with the camera company and, by their own account, no direct
authority over the two devices now operating here.
The exchange, captured in the Westerly Town Council's
published meeting recording, produced one concrete factual point from the town
manager: the town has never subscribed to the license-plate reader service,
does not hold a contract with it, and its own downtown and beach camera footage
stays in municipal hands. The practical takeaway for residents is that the
cameras they are worried about are not the town's to switch off.
What the speakers said
A lifelong Westerly resident, speaking before the council
for the first time, said he was driven to attend out of "grave
concern" over the growing presence of the cameras. He told the council
that communities nationwide have canceled contracts or banned the devices, and
cited the Institute for Justice's tally of more than 100 documented cases of
license-plate reader abuse. He said South Kingstown had become the 100th
community to reject the readers, attributing that count to a camera-tracking project,
and referenced a Rhode Island lawsuit over a wrongful arrest he said stemmed
from a false positive. Those figures are his characterizations; the transcript
contains no independent verification of them.
He also raised data-sharing, citing a 2018 Electronic
Frontier Foundation study he said found only a fraction of a percent of scans
are tied to public safety, and said some municipalities had shared data with
more than 800 agencies. He said the company shortened its default data
retention period from 30 days to seven, but called the changes minimal.
URI team to address remediation challenges of manganese in R.I. drinking water
By Krysta Murray, writer, College of Engineering.
 |
| Black and brown stains shown here in a sample sink are classic effects of manganese. |
A partnership between the
University of Rhode Island and Rhode Island Department of Health will study
manganese levels in Rhode Island’s drinking water. The project, “Statewide
Support for Manganese Management in Rhode Island,” will be funded by a grant
from the Emerging Contaminants in Small and Disadvantaged Communities through
the health department’s Center for Drinking Water Quality and Rhode Island
Infrastructure Bank. It runs through Sept. 30, 2030.
Manganese is naturally occurring and comprises an
appreciable portion of the earth’s crust. New England has higher concentrations
of manganese than other parts of the U.S., due to glacial drifts that make up
the region’s geology. Rhode Island depends on groundwater sources that have
contact with the subsurface. Groundwater supplies roughly 26 percent of the
state’s population with drinking water with an estimated two-thirds of that
from public water supply and another third from private wells.
Bunker, left, a graduate student
in the civil and environmental department and primary graduate student assigned
to this project, and Joe Goodwill assess a water system in Rhode Island.
“Manganese in drinking water is a pervasive health issue and
treatment challenge across Rhode Island,” said Zach Shepard, principal
environmental health risk assessment toxicologist on the project for RIDOH and
a URI alumnus. “Public water systems, especially small systems and private well
owners, are impacted by manganese in their water. In this project, RIDOH has
partnered with URI to provide technical assistance to people who are impacted
by manganese.”
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency established a
lifetime human health advisory benchmark of 0.3 mg/L of manganese. In trace
amounts, it is essential for human survival, metabolism, and bone health. RIDOH
enforces safe manganese limits in drinking water at 0.3 mg/L for infants aged
one year or younger and 1.0 mg/L for everyone older than a year. Too much
manganese can lead to neurological effects, especially with long-term exposure.
Pay attention unless you like to bleed
 |
| Joey and Frida fight for world domination. Photo by Will Collette |
Regular interactive play supports cats’ physical health, reduces stress, and strengthens the human–cat bond.
But according to our most recent study, what many people think of as “play” may not be play at all. In fact, these interactions cause cats annoyance or stress.
When playing, both human and cat need to tell apart behaviors that might be threatening in other contexts, such as sudden movements, swatting or chasing.
Research shows people struggle to interpret cat communication and often fail to notice when a cat doesn’t want to play. Even when they do notice, many people choose to continue anyway.
To understand why people might misinterpret or ignore cat stress signals, in our new study we analysed 1,100 comments on social media videos hosted on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook depicting harmful “play”.
To avoid viral videos disproportionately influencing analysis, only the first 100 comments from each video were analyzed. Comments came from a mix of cat owners and non-cat owners.
All 11 videos included clear signs of cat distress such as hissing, biting, attempting escape, visible human injuries and, in some cases, cats being physically harmed. Despite this, 75–93% of comments on all videos were positive. How come?
From the guy who bankrupted casinos
 |
| Work on the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool began in 1919. Bettmann/Getty Images |
As I’ve followed this bizarre saga, I’ve found myself reflecting on the history of the pool itself. It was built in the 1920s, when Washington was transformed by ambitious construction projects, even as the nation grappled with political division, racial conflict and clashes between religion and secularism.
To me, everything about the pool’s early history – the debates over its placement, the innovative engineering techniques used during its construction, and its proponents’ longing for something visually and metaphorically unifying – stands in stark contrast to the slapdash renovations, blame games and abuses of power playing out today.
In 1901, the U.S. Senate formed the McMillan Commission, a group of architects, landscape designers and artists, to develop a parks system for the nation’s capital.
The commission’s 1902 report also recommended a location for the future Lincoln Memorial. Although proposals for a memorial had emerged shortly after Lincoln’s assassination in 1865, decades of political disagreement over its design, location and purpose had delayed construction.
The report proposed situating it at the western end of the Mall, near the Potomac River. Inspired by the waterways of Versailles and the reflecting basins of the Taj Mahal, the commission envisioned a reflecting pool linking the future memorial to the Washington Monument. In this way, these two magnificent monuments could be reflected in a huge mirror of water, framed by manicured, green grass.
Over the ensuing decade, the plans continued to elicit debate and controversy, pitting supporters of the commission’s vision against members of Congress, railroad interests and real estate developers.
The American Institute of Architects and American Federation of Arts backed the report, arguing that isolation from the city’s bustle created a dignified space for reflection. They also called attention to the qualifications of the artists on the commission, and to the economic viability of the site: The land was owned by the federal government, so the project’s funds could go toward the memorial itself rather than acquiring land.
That it's happening in the shadows doesn't make it less of a moral blight.
Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff, is making
his dreams come true: accelerating the arrest and removal of thousands of
unaccompanied immigrant kids.
By contrast, Miller's boss likes kids A LOT!
The man behind family separation in
the first Trump term who once boasted that policy would “prove
to be a migration deterrent” has now teamed up with another deadly threat,
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to attack the most vulnerable kids in our country: those
here on their own.
By law, kids who cross the border alone are put into the care of the Office Of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In recognition of children’s vulnerabilities and need for protection, this system exists outside the confines of the Department of Homeland Security and therefore the clutches of ICE and Border Patrol.
Thanks to the Constitution itself and federal law, these
children have the right to legal counsel, age-appropriate living quarters
usually in state-licensed settings with prompt release to vetted sponsors, and
fair hearings with special allowances to protect them from trafficking or other
abuse.
But as The Guardian reported from
immigration court in New York City, “the faces of migrant children — some as
young as three — have been beamed onto a video screen throughout the summer as
they faced deportation hearings.” These children did not have lawyers, in
violation of aforementioned federal law, and thus faced interrogation by Trump
appointee Judge Lisa Ling.
This is a scene taking place out of public view across the country, impacting 24,000 kids.
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The Trump administration is pushing a total overhaul of Head Start that could fundamentally reshape the 60-year-old program that has provided childcare and key support for America’s lowest-income families.
A new proposed rule released last week put more than 1,400 regulatory provisions that govern how Head Start is implemented on the chopping block. Across the country, 1,600 Head Start grant recipients provide quality care for disadvantaged children, as well as support for families by connecting them to health insurance, job training, developmental screenings, specialist referrals and postpartum support.
This latest proposal is aimed at cutting red tape and allowing more flexibility in the programs, the administration said.
“There's 1,600 providers across the country facing different conditions, and our proposed rule will reduce their paperwork. It will streamline duplicative statutory requirements and give them flexibility for things like personnel and workforce decisions, as well as licensing relief,” said Alex Adams, the assistant secretary at the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), on a call with reporters.
But Head Start providers and experts say the proposal may actually make it harder for programs to operate and transform Head Start to look more like commercial childcare than an anti-poverty program.
“Families lose the assurance that Head Start means the same thing everywhere, and taxpayers lose a clear measure of impact that Head Start funding should have,” said Celena Roldan Sarillo, the president of Start Early, a nonprofit that advocates for quality early learning.
Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on a call with reporters to announce the changes that “it is important to protect” Head Start, which is administered by HHS and was created in part by Kennedy’s uncle Sargent Shriver during the Lyndon B. Johnson administration. Kennedy wants to see more nutrition and physical activity requirements added to Head Start, and agrees the new rules could streamline it and open seats for more children.
That messaging, however, is misleading, said Yvette Sanchez Fuentes, the senior vice president at Start Early.
“At first glance, these proposed changes might not seem so terrible, but as you dig deeper into it, what we will find is that there really are a lot of changes that will impact what is the heart of Head Start,” Sanchez Fuentes said, adding that the performance standards are not just red tape, “they really are the foundation for how we ensure that programs across the country are supporting children, families and communities in the way that they want best.”
Here is a breakdown of what the administration is proposing to change for Head Start.
