Trump's cruel and violent imagination

Here are 8 times Trump proudly shared his most twisted fantasies 

By Oliver Willis, Daily Kos Staff

Trump inspects Alligator Auschwitz in Florida

Donald Trump made a big show by visiting Florida’s new immigrant detention center, where he and other GOP officials have made clear their intention to abuse human rights and vulnerable communities.

The so-called “Alligator Alcatraz” brings to life Trump’s lurid fantasies of using wild, violent animals in detaining immigrants, but it’s also a reminder that Trump has spent decades publicly fantasizing about his twisted desires.

Here are 8 other times when Trump subjected us all to the gruesome visions bouncing around in his head.

1. Executing the Exonerated Five

Trump ran a full-page newspaper ad in 1989 calling for the execution of the Exonerated Five—known at the time as the Central Park Five. The 5 teenage boys, who were Black and Latino, were completely innocent.

Years later, after DNA evidence and a confession conclusively proved their innocence, they were released from prison after spending between 6 and 13 years inside. Still, Trump refuses to acknowledge that he was wrong.

2. Shooting immigrants in the legs

According to a 2019 book by two New York Times reporters, White House sources said that Trump went into a “frenzied week of presidential rages” over immigration. At one point, Trump asked his closest advisers to authorize shooting immigrants in the legs to slow their travels across the border.

He also reportedly wanted to put spikes along border walls and electrify immigrants. It was during this frenzy that he apparently began falling in love with surrounding immigrants with alligators and snakes.

3. Shooting protesters

Secretary of Defense Mike Esper, who served during Trump’s first term, revealed in 2022 that Trump wanted to curtail the exercise of First Amendment rights by shooting protesters. 

The authoritarian idea was reportedly in response to the protests for racial justice following the police killing of George Floyd in 2020.

Esper said that he and other military leaders were taken aback when Trump asked, “Can't you just shoot them, just shoot them in the legs or something?” 

Trump was upset because he thought that the protests made the country look weak.

What you voted for

Peaceful Protest on July 17 from 5:00 - 7:00 PM

Coastal relocation gives nature room to breathe and protect

This Retreat Isn’t a Sign of Weakness

By Frank Carini / ecoRI News staff

When it comes to climate change and southern New England’s eroding coastline, managed retreat is an unpopular choice. But there likely will come a time, perhaps sooner than we think, when it becomes the only option.

The climate crisis is altering human reality and the world in which we live. Many coastal policy experts in the region believe managed retreat needs to be part of this new reality.

Emma Gildesgame, climate adaptation scientist for The Nature Conservancy (TNC) in Massachusetts, believes honest conversations about managed retreat, also known as coastal relocation, are a must. She said the goal is to “work with nature to keep people safer from climate change.”

“This is the home that you bought, that you plan to live in for the rest of your life,” Gildesgame said, “but it’s going to be underwater more often than is sustainable for you to live in … that’s at the heart of the conversation.”

Managed retreat is about giving the shore room to breathe. Measures include voluntary buyouts, razing of buildings, easements, zoning changes, and moving structures.

Here's a shock: Bobby Junior is wrong about seed oils

Scientists Uncover Surprising Benefits of Omega-6

By Fatty Acid Research Institute

A recent study published in the journal Nutrients sheds new light on the ongoing debate surrounding omega-6 fatty acids and their potential role in inflammation.

Public concern over seed oils has been growing, largely because many of these oils are rich in linoleic acid (LA), an essential omega-6 fatty acid. Critics argue that Western diets are overloaded with LA, suggesting this shift is a key contributor to many modern health issues.

According to this view, elevated levels of LA are believed to drive chronic inflammation. But is there solid evidence that consuming more LA — and having higher levels of it in the bloodstream — actually leads to increased inflammation?

Investigators relied on data from the Framingham Offspring Study, a well-known research cohort from the Boston area. The Framingham Offspring Study is a landmark longitudinal research initiative that follows the children of participants in the original Framingham Heart Study to investigate genetic and lifestyle factors influencing cardiovascular and metabolic health. 

Launched in 1971, it has provided decades of valuable insights into chronic disease risk and prevention. The cohort’s rigor and continuity make it one of the most trusted sources for understanding long-term health trajectories.

Budget Bill Massively Increases Funding for Immigration Detention

Congress funds Trump concentration camps

Lauren-Brooke Eisen, Brennan Center for Justice

Donald Trump’s budget bill will codify much of Trump’s immigration agenda, drastically changing the landscape of immigration enforcement and detention. 

Significantly, the bill funds a giant immigration detention apparatus that would likely be difficult to dismantle under future presidents. 

This new money comes as the administration is thwarting attempts at congressional oversight of detention conditions — and alongside new levels of cruelty directed at undocumented immigrants.

The legislation makes U.S Customs and Immigration Enforcement the largest federal law enforcement agency, giving it $45 billion for building new detention centers in addition to $14 billion for deportation operations. It also includes $3.5 billion for reimbursements to state and local governments for costs related to immigration-related enforcement and detention.

The bill funds an expansion to approximately double immigrant detention capacity, from about 56,000 to potentially more than 100,000 detention beds. Private prison firms — many of which were significant financial supporters of GOP candidates for Congress as well as the president’s campaign — will reap major financial benefits from this spending, as nearly 90 percent of people in ICE custody are currently held in facilities run by for-profit firms.

What Trump’s budget says about his environmental values

That he doesn't have any?

Stan Meiburg, Wake Forest University and Janet McCabe, Indiana University

To understand the federal government’s true priorities, follow the money.

After months of saying his administration is committed to clean air and water for Americans, Donald Trump has proposed a detailed budget for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for fiscal year 2026. The proposal is more consistent with his administration’s numerous recent actions and announcements that reduce protection for public health and the environment.

To us, former EPA leaders – one a longtime career employee and the other a political appointee – the budget proposal reveals a lot about what Trump and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin want to accomplish.

According to the administration’s Budget in Brief document, total EPA funding for the fiscal year beginning October 2025 would drop from US$9.14 billion to $4.16 billion – a 54% decrease from the budget enacted by Congress for fiscal 2025 and less than half of EPA’s budget in any year of the first Trump administration.

Without taking inflation into account, this would be the smallest EPA budget since 1986. Adjusted for inflation, it would be the smallest budget since the Ford administration, even though Congress has for decades given EPA more responsibility to clean up and protect the nation’s air and water; handle hazardous chemicals and waste; protect drinking water; clean up environmental contamination; and evaluate the safety of a wide range of chemicals used in commerce and industry. These expansions reflected a bipartisan consensus that protecting public health and the environment is a national priority.

Evolution in action

There's a certain symmetry to this

Why smarter people make better decisions

Higher IQ linked to more accurate probability forecasting and effective decision-making.

University of Bath

A new study from the University of Bath's School of Management has found that individuals with a higher IQ make more realistic predictions, which supports better decision-making and can lead to improved life outcomes.

The research, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, shows that people with a low IQ (the lowest 2.5% of the population) make forecasting errors that are more than twice as inaccurate as those made by people with a high IQ (the top 2.5% of the population).

The research used data from a nationally representative sample of people over 50 in England (English Longitudinal Study of Ageing ELSA), assessing their ability to predict their own life expectancy.

Individuals were asked to predict their probability of living to certain ages, and these estimates were compared with the probabilities taken from Office for National Statistics life tables (a demographic tool used to analyze death rates and calculate life expectancies at various ages). The study controlled for differences in lifestyle, health, and genetic longevity.

Scientists reveal your morning coffee flips an ancient longevity switch

Researchers figure out how this works

Queen Mary University of London

A new study from the Cellular Ageing and Senescence laboratory at Queen Mary University of London's Cenfre for Molecular Cell Biology, reveals how caffeine -- the world's most popular neuroactive compound -- might do more than just wake you up. The study in the journal Microbial Cell shows how caffeine could play a role in slowing down the aging process at a cellular level.

Caffeine has long been linked to potential health benefits, including reduced risk of age-related diseases. But how it works inside our cells, and what exactly are its connections with nutrient and stress responsive gene and protein networks has remained a mystery -- until now.

In new research published by scientists studying fission yeast -- a single-celled organism surprisingly similar to human cells -- researchers found that caffeine affects ageing by tapping into an ancient cellular energy system.

The Texas Flash Flood Is a Preview of the Chaos to Come

Trump approach to emergency preparedness is a disaster

By Abrahm Lustgarten for ProPublica

On July 4, the broken remnants of a powerful tropical storm spun off the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico so heavy with moisture that it seemed to stagger under its load. 

Then, colliding with another soggy system sliding north off the Pacific, the storm wobbled and its clouds tipped, waterboarding south central Texas with an extraordinary 20 inches of rain. 

In the predawn blackness, the Guadalupe River, which drains from the Hill Country, rose by more than 26 vertical feet in just 45 minutes, jumping its banks and hurtling downstream, killing 109 people, including at least 27 children at a summer camp located inside a federally designated floodway.

Over the days and weeks to come there will be tireless — and warranted — analysis of who is to blame for this heart-wrenching loss. Should Kerr County, where most of the deaths occurred, have installed warning sirens along that stretch of the waterway, and why were children allowed to sleep in an area prone to high-velocity flash flooding? 

Why were urgent updates apparently only conveyed by cellphone and online in a rural area with limited connectivity? Did the National Weather Service, enduring steep budget cuts under the current administration, adequately forecast this storm?

Those questions are critical. But so is a far larger concern: The rapid onset of disruptive climate change — driven by the burning of oil, gasoline and coal — is making disasters like this one more common, more deadly and far more costly to Americans, even as the federal government is running away from the policies and research that might begin to address it.

Why does Trump and MAGA hate education?

Ignorance is the handmaiden of tyranny

Robert Reich 

Friends,

Under pressure from the Trump administration, the University of Virginia’s president of nearly seven years, James Ryan, stepped down, declaring that while he was committed to the university and inclined to fight, he could not in good conscience push back just to save his job.

The Department of Justice demanded that Ryan resign in order to resolve an investigation into whether UVA sufficiently complied with Trump’s orders banning diversity, equity, and inclusion.

UVA dissolved its DEI office in March, though Trump’s lackeys claim the university didn’t go far enough in rooting out DEI.

This is the first time the Trump regime has explicitly tied grant dollars to the resignation of a university official. It’s unlikely to be the last.

On June 30, the Trump regime said Harvard University violated federal civil rights law by failing to address the harassment of Jewish students on campus.

On July 1, the regime released $175 million in previously frozen federal funding to the University of Pennsylvania, but only after the school agreed to block transgender women athletes from female sports teams and erase the records set by swimmer Lia Thomas.

Let’s be clear: DEI, antisemitism, and transgender athletics are not the real reasons for these attacks on higher education. They’re excuses to give the Trump regime power over America’s colleges and universities.

Why do Trump and his lackeys want this power?

They’re following Hungarian President Viktor Orban’s playbook for creating an “illiberal democracy” — an authoritarian state masquerading as a democracy. The playbook goes like this:

First, take over military and intelligence operations by purging career officers and substituting ones personally loyal to you. Check.

Next, intimidate legislators by warning that if they don’t bend to your wishes, you’ll run loyalists against them. (Make sure they also worry about what your violent supporters could do to them and their families.) Check.

Next, subdue the courts by ignoring or threatening to ignore court rulings you disagree with. Check or in process.

Then focus on independent sources of information. Sue media that publish critical stories and block their access to news conferences and interviews. Check.

Then go after the universities.

Trump's retail justice

Know the difference

CRMC reform - always a good policy

CRMC reform didn't happen this year, but it will eventually

Deborah Ruggiero, president, DR Communications Group 

Photo by Will Collette

Back in 2021 and 2022 when I was a member of the House of Representatives, I chaired a study commission that explored and recommended ways to reform the Coastal Resources Management Council. 

The council has long been criticized for both its decisions and its composition as a panel of political appointees without any marine, coastal, or environmental expertise. The members continue to serve long after their terms expire and have often delayed important decisions for lack of a quorum at meetings.

On this one issue, Bobby Junior is right

Nearly 20% of US packaged foods contain synthetic dyes, study finds

Brian Bienkowski

Nearly 20% of packaged foods and drinks in the US have synthetic dyes, with most marketed to children and loaded with sugar, according to a new study that examined nearly 40,000 items from popular food brands. 

The study, published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, comes amid a federal push to rid the US food supply of synthetic dyes and follows recent commitments by food giants Kraft Heinz and General Mills to remove such dyes from their products. 

It also adds to evidence  — often cited by those opposing synthetic dyes in foods — that the chemicals disproportionately end up in sugary foods aimed at kids. Research has linked the chemicals to children’s behavioral issues, including increased risk for Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). 

Lead author Elizabeth Dunford, a professor and researcher at both the University of North Carolina and the University of New South Wales, said she approached the research as a curious mom.

“I have two young kids and definitely notice behavior changes after certain foods. I got really interested in the synthetic dyes in particular and thought ‘well let’s take a look,’” Dunford said. 

New Pell Center poll shows little overlap between RI Republicans and Democrats on the health of U.S. democracy, the economy, and immigration policy.

Dan McKee's approval rating continues to tank

Pell Center, Salve Regina University 

Download full report here. 

Well over half of registered voters in Rhode Island believe the United States democracy is not healthy, though the level of concern varies by political party, according to a new survey from Salve Regina University’s Pell Center. 

The survey was directed by Pell Center Associate Director and Fellow Katie Sonder and fielded by Embold Research between June 16-22, 2025.  It gathered responses from 804 registered voters in Rhode Island, with a modeled margin of error of 3.6 percent. 

Survey respondents are those registered to vote in Rhode Island who voted in the 2024 presidential election. The survey results show large divides between the major political parties, highlighting two very different lived realties between Democrats and Republicans.

Over half of registered Democrats agree that the United States is operating as a democracy, but 80% say it is not healthy and 94% believe we are facing a constitutional crisis. Democrats perceive a decline in the strength of the checks and balance system, which likely bolsters their sense of democratic backsliding. Only one-third (32%) agree the system is strong while 64% agree that country has fallen into dictatorship. 

Republicans, on the other hand, are seven times more likely to agree that our democracy is healthy than they were in the June 2024 Voices of Value survey. Well over three-quarters of Republicans (83%) say policies from the Trump administration have helped them personally and the percent who agree that polarization has increased dropped by 15 percentage points between June 2024 (86%) and June 2025 (71%).

While all respondents tapped disinformation and fake news as a leading contributor to political polarization, just as they did in the June 2024 survey, the percent who believe political leaders add to the schism has increased. 

Sounds of Hope from a small state

We're in trouble, but not without hope

BRIAN C. JONES, DANGEROUS TIMES

ARE YOU FEELING AS OVERWHELMED as I am by Donald Trump’s string of “successes” in his hideous crusade to destroy our country – drowning the rest of us in his sewer of misery and shame?

At the same time, because I live in the nation’s smallest state, I'm inspired that such a tiny place has a loud and eloquent voice, encouraged, perhaps by the state's motto, “Hope." More about this later.

First, let me acknowledge that the nation is at a truly awful place, and that it’s possible that we are actually doomed.

For example, Trump today gets to play Robin Hood in reverse, with the Republican Congress passing his hideous mega-bill that will take away food and health care from millions of Americans, while tossing a few extra bucks to the ultrawealthy.

Trump had wanted – and got – the legislation enacted just in time for this year’s Fourth of July – turning the holiday into perverse betrayal of its noble founding principles.

You’d think the president’s enablers would have been wary of the timing, since somebody might actually read the Declaration, and discover the contrast between its eloquent vision of democracy and Trump’s racist, cruel and authoritarian agenda.

Trump’s just getting started: pardoning the January 6th insurrectionists, along with a bunch of other criminals; sending masked thugs to round up immigrants and tossing them into a growing gulag of detention centers; bullying universities, law firms, media companies and other countries; accelerating the destruction of the environment; betraying Ukraine freedom fighters and declaring war on scientists.

Release the Epstein list!

Trump posts another bizarre image on the White House website.

Senator Whitehouse gives his 300th speech on the climate crisis

Says Dems, Groups Taking It Too Easy on 'Malevolent' Fossil Fuel Industry

Brad Reed for Common Dreams

Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, who has long been a chief advocate for taking action on human-induced climate change, challenged both his own party and environmental advocacy groups on Wednesday to step up the intensity of their battle against the fossil fuel industry.

As reported by The Guardian, Whitehouse delivered his 300th speech on the Senate floor warning about the dangers of climate change, and he said that proponents of taking action to combat it have for too long been "too cautious and polite" when dealing with the big oil and gas companies.

In particular, Whitehouse singled out the fossil fuel industry for warping the debate about climate change by spending decades pushing misinformation aimed at deceiving the public about the realities of the climate emergency—an effort that he characterized as "the biggest and most malevolent propaganda operation the country has ever seen." 

Additionally, Whitehouse said the industry was behind the right-wing capture of the United States Supreme Court and the flood of dark money into American elections that has benefited giant corporate interests and blocked meaningful action on climate change.

Brown researchers link antimicrobial common in everyday items to allergic conditions in children

Study was funded by grants from Trump-Musk targeted federal agency

By Juan Siliezar, Associate Director of Media Relations and Leadership Communications, Brown University School of Public Health

Triclosan is an antimicrobial chemical that was for decades added to everyday items like soap, toothpaste, cosmetics and even kitchen utensils and athletic wear, until concerns about potential health risks led manufacturers to phase it out of some products.

New research suggests there may be even more reason for concern. 

A study led by scientists at Brown University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst found that children with higher levels of triclosan in their bodies were more likely to have allergy-related health issues, with young boys appearing most affected.      

Published in Environmental Health Perspectives, the study followed 347 mothers and their children from pregnancy through the kids’ 12th birthdays. As part of the Cincinnati-based Health Outcomes and Measures of the Environment Study, researchers analyzed urine samples collected up to 10 times over that period to assess triclosan exposure in children. 

They found that children with higher levels of the chemical were more likely to develop allergic conditions like eczema and hay fever, a common allergy that causes sneezing, congestion and itchy eyes.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Research for such research is endangered. Not only has the Trump regime cancelled millions in science research grants to Brown, but also the agencies that fund such research have had their budgets poll-axed and staffs drastically cut. Click HERE for a 74-page list of grants terminated by Bobby Kennedy Junior's Department of Health and Human Services. We might not see research like this for the duration of Trump's reign. - Will Collette

R.I. leaders are planning their next move after feds withhold $30M in K-12 funding

Where's our money?

By Christopher Shea, Rhode Island Current

State leaders are considering their next steps as they face the potential loss of nearly $30 million in federal education funding halted by the Trump administration — a cut that could devastate afterschool programs, multilingual learning, and adult education in Rhode Island.

The funding is part of the roughly $6.8 billion for K–12 school districts nationwide halted abruptly by the U.S. Department of Education last week, despite being earmarked by Congress for programs supporting migrant students and English learners, as well as educator training, school technology, and afterschool programs in high-poverty schools.

“This will impact every single school district in Rhode Island — everyone is going to feel this,” state Education Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green said at a press conference inside the Providence Career & Technical Academy’s library. “No one saw this coming, and we have been left in the dark.”

Funding was expected to be disbursed by the federal government on July 1. 

But just as the work day was wrapping up on June 30, Infante-Green said she received an 83-word email from the U.S. Department of Education. It stated the Trump administration would review federally-funded education programs in order to ensure “taxpayer resources are spent in accordance with the president’s priorities.” 

The email did not provide any timeline on how long that review would take, and Infante-Green said she still has yet to hear anything back from the Trump administration.

“It’s ridiculous,” she said in an interview with Rhode Island Current. “Historically, we would have gotten projections and gotten the money on July 1.”

Conditions at Butler Hospital part of a "pattern of intimidation and retaliation"

Hospital workers need fair contracts from Care New England

Steve Ahlquist

After nearly two months, the Butler Hospital workers’ unfair labor practice strike is now considered the longest hospital strike in Rhode Island history. On Wednesday, union workers from Butler and Women & Infants Hospital spoke out about Care New England (CNE) ’s sustained campaign of intimidation, harassment, and retaliatory behavior that affected caregivers and their patients.

Beth Iams, an activities therapist and mental health worker at Butler Hospital for the past 24 years, outlined a series of escalating CNE tactics against striking workers. “Our unfair labor practice strike began on May 15 at 6 am in the pouring rain,” said Iams. “Unfortunately, Butler Hospital and Care New England decided their strategy would be to use fear and intimidation to get us back to work.

“They started their campaign one week into the strike by canceling our health insurance as of June 1st. What were we going to do? We all need health insurance. For many of us, that was the start of the unity, strength, and resilience that we all possess today. Our union organized HealthSource Rhode Island to help our members find health insurance so we could all breathe again.

“Then we returned to the negotiating table, and Butler offered us less than they offered in the previous negotiations. This will do it, they thought. We will offer less, and they will break. But guess what? We didn’t break, right? We stayed unified and we kept going.

“Then they posted our jobs, taunting us with what they know means so much to all of us. Would we break then? No. Again, we relied on each other to get through those difficult times. The more they tried to break us, the closer we became. People who never spoke were now friends and people you could lean on.

“We finally felt a win. We were approved for unemployment by the Department of Health, who acknowledged that our strike was a lockout. What was Butler’s new plan? They filed a restraining order against the state to block our unemployment until an appeal was heard. This appeal usually takes 30 to 45 days, so they wanted to block our unemployment payments until that appeal was heard. They went before a judge and explained how paying us unemployment would be a hardship for them.

“Fortunately, the judge decided they would not grant the restraining order, and they lifted the hold on our unemployment benefits. That was a huge win for us. But guess what Care New England’s latest tactic is? They’re appealing this decision to the Rhode Island Supreme Court. Regardless of what they throw at us, we stay strong. Their intimidation efforts are failing. We will not take less than we deserve. The only way to end this is to give us the fair contract we need for ourselves, our families, and our patients.”

The press conference/rally was outside Women & Infants’ Hospital at 101 Dudley Street in Providence. Here’s the video: Amid longest hospital strike in RI history CNE workers outline pattern of intimidation & retaliation

On May 15, Women & Infants announced it would lay off at least nine essential workers during one of the birthing facility’s busiest seasons. This includes eliminating the entire Pre-Admission Testing (PAT) department, which plays the vital role of pre-interviewing patients before surgery to ensure none of their current medications will result in complications.

Sure, let's agree to disagree

Trump reveals his actual plan on tariffs

For what it's worth, here's what he said about his stated goal of getting "90 deals in 90 days" with US trading partners.

Donald Trump on July 7:

"Oh, we’ve spoken to everybody. We know every. It’s all done. I told you. I told you we’ll make some deals, but for the most part we’re gonna send a letter. 

We’re gonna say, ‘Welcome to the United States. If you’d like to participate in the greatest, most successful country ever.’ I mean, we’re doing better than ever. We have. I don’t think. 

And you’re gonna see these numbers soon. We’ve never had numbers like this. We’ve never had investment like this. 

Uh, we have more than 90. We’re gonna have much more than 90. But most of those are gonna be sent a letter. This is exactly what I said. 

Now, we’ve made a deal with United Kingdom. We’ve made a deal with China. We’ve made a deal. We’re close to making a deal with India. 

Others, we’ve met with, and we don’t think we’re gonna be able to make a deal. So, we just send them a letter. ‘Do you wanna, do you wanna play ball? This is what you have to pay.’ 

So, we’re, as far as I’m concerned, we’re done. 

We’re sending out letters to various countries, telling them how much tariffs they have to pay. 

Some will maybe adjust a little bit depending if they have a, you know, cause. We’re not gonna be unfair about it. 

And actually, it’s a small fraction compared to what we should be getting. We should be. We could be asking for much more. 

But for the sake of relationships that we’ve had with a lot of really good countries, we’re doing the way I do it. But we could be getting a lot more. We could ask for a lot more than what we’re asking for.”

State funds green energy projects at local farms

Farmers in Charlestown, Westerly and South Kingstown among the grantees

Bee Happy Homestead in Charlestown is one of the grantees

The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) awarded more than $400,000 in funding to support 23 agricultural businesses across the state. 

These grants, distributed over the last two rounds of the Agricultural Energy Grant Program, will help farms invest in clean energy, lower utility costs, and advance the state’s climate goals.

“The Agricultural Energy Program supports farms in pursuing both energy efficiency and renewable energy upgrades,” said Acting Energy Commissioner Chris Kearns. “These grants help advance our Act on Climate goals while lowering energy bills for Rhode Island’s farmers.”

“The most recent USDA Census of Agriculture ranked Rhode Island as having the highest percentage of beginning farmers in the nation, and our goal is to continue that growth by ensuring the long-term viability of our state’s agriculture,” said DEM Director Terry Gray. “These grants will enable 10 of those farms to adopt energy-saving practices while continuing to grow a vibrant network of new farmers.” 

Grant Recipients

Barrington: Bayside Apiary — $20,000 

A family-run beekeeping operation with more than 80 hives adjacent to the Barrington Community Garden. This 8.72 kW solar expansion builds on an existing system and will fully power their climate-controlled honey processing facility.

Charlestown: Bee Happy Homestead — $20,000 

Owned by master gardeners, this farm grows produce, raises bees, and crafts bath products. A 6.02 kW solar system will offset 81% of its electricity use.

Natural Compound in Fruit and Vegetables Found To Slash Heart Disease and Diabetes Risk

Tasty way to good health

By American Society for Nutrition

Heart disease and type 2 diabetes are two of the leading causes of death and long-term health problems in the United States. Now, a new study highlights how eating more plant-based foods could make a real difference. Specifically, researchers have identified a compound in plants that may help lower your risk of both conditions.

The compound is called phytosterol. It is found naturally in foods like fruits, vegetables, nuts, and whole grains, and it has a structure similar to cholesterol.

According to the study, people who consumed more phytosterol had a significantly lower risk of developing heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Those with higher intake also showed signs of better blood sugar control, less inflammation, and even changes in their gut bacteria that may support a healthier metabolism.

The Supreme Court upholds free preventive care, but its future now rests in RFK Jr.’s hands

Cold comfort

Paul Shafer, Boston University and Kristefer Stojanovski, Tulane University

The Affordable Care Act has survived its fourth Supreme Court challenge.
 Ted Eytan via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY

On June 26, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a 6-3 ruling that preserves free preventive care under the Affordable Care Act, a popular benefit that helps approximately 150 million Americans stay healthy.

The case, Kennedy v. Braidwood, was the fourth major legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act. The decision, written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh with the support of Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor, ruled that insurers must continue to cover at no cost any preventive care approved by a federal panel called the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.

Members of the task force are independent scientific experts, appointed for four-year terms. The panel’s role had been purely advisory until the ACA, and the plaintiffs contended that the members lacked the appropriate authority as they had not been appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. The Supreme Court rejected this argument, saying that members simply needed to be appointed by the Health and Human Services Secretary – currently, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – which they had been, under his predecessor during the Biden administration.

This ruling seemingly safeguards access to preventive care. But as public health researchers who study health insurance and sexual health, we see another concern: It leaves preventive care vulnerable to how Kennedy and future HHS secretaries will choose to exercise their power over the task force and its recommendations.

The Trumpist majority closed the term with a ruling that could rip the nation apart.

A corrupted Supreme Court sinks to new lows

Lisa Needham

With another Supreme Court term having drawn to a close, the rest of us begin the hard work of living under the profoundly anti-democratic decisions issued by the Court’s right-wing majority.

To be fair, under Chief Justice John Roberts, the conservative justices were rolling back civil rights and rewarding powerful interests long before Donald Trump descended his golden escalator in 2015. But the MAGA era — and the three Trump appointees to the Court — has resulted in a new, gruesome project: giving Trump whatever he wants.

This toxic combination of bigotry and fealty has created a Court that uses all its might to attack the less powerful while coddling those who already have it all — particularly Donald Trump.

It’s a Court with a very clear vision of who matters and who needs protection.

A dystopian interpretation of the Constitution

The majority opinion in Trump v. CASA, the birthright citizenship case, was honestly inevitable, a culmination of all the ways in which the conservative justices have warped the Court in order to serve Trump. Indeed, the Court’s previous term will go down in infamy as the one in which they gave Trump a permission slip to do whatever he wants by inventing sweeping presidential immunity.

One year later, Trump needed his reliable pals on the Supreme Court to step in on the birthright citizenship case because four federal district courts and three federal appeals courts had enjoined him from implementing his executive order eliminating birthright citizenship. That shouldn’t be a surprise, or even remotely controversial. 

There’s simply no world where an executive order can undo the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship, and since the order was so obviously unconstitutional, the lower courts issued universal, or nationwide, injunctions to block the policy.

Those nationwide injunctions stopped Trump from stripping citizenship from babies, even in states that were eager to let him do so. Twenty conservative states filed an amicus brief urging the Court to let Trump’s executive order go into effect.

But the conservatives on the Court didn’t feel like grappling with whether Trump’s executive order was unconstitutional. Indeed, they very much want you to know that the administration’s requests did not ask the Court to rule on the birthright citizenship issue at all. Heavens, no. This is just about whether lower courts can issue universal, or nationwide, injunctions.

This is, to put it charitably, a self-serving lie, a way for the conservatives to soothe themselves, to pretend they aren’t responsible for Trump turning the immense machinery of his immigration crackdown on literal babies. No, all they did was strip the lower courts of the ability to issue universal injunctions. Of course, once those injunctions are narrowed, the administration is free to get started on its plans to deprive babies of citizenship anywhere the narrower injunctions don’t apply.

Grain of assault

July 12: Bluegrass at the General Stanton

Brown University researchers discover how people gossip without getting caught

We sometimes do it in our sleep

By Gretchen Schrafft, Science Communications Specialist, Robert J. & Nancy D. Carney Institute for Brain Science, Brown University

Cognitive neuroscientists at Brown University investigated one of humanity’s favorite pastimes and discovered how people can spread gossip without the subject of that gossip finding out — at least not right away.

In a study supported by a federal grant from the National Science Foundation, the researchers found that gossiping relies on a person’s ability to perform complex computational processes each time they decide to spread information, and that most people do this instinctively. 

EDITOR'S NOTE: Brown University has been stripped of much of its federal research funding, so much so that it is imposing severe cost-cutting measures. As of June 30, Higher Ed reports that $45 million has not been paid to Brown by the National Institutes of Health for work already performed.  -  Will Collette

‘MAHA Report’ Calls for Fighting Chronic Disease, but Trump and Kennedy Have Yanked Funding

Shocked! SHOCKED! That Bobby Junior has reneged on his promise

David Hilzenrath 

The Trump administration has declared that it will aggressively combat chronic disease in America.

Yet in its feverish purge of federal health programs, it has proposed eliminating the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion and its annual funding of $1.4 billion.

That’s one of many disconnects between what the administration says about health — notably, in the “MAHA Report” that Donald Trump recently presented at the White House — and what it’s actually doing, scientists and public health advocates say.

Among other contradictions:

• The report says more research is needed on health-related topics such as chronic diseases and the cumulative effects of chemicals in the environment. But the Trump administration’s mass cancellation of federal research grants to scientists at universities, including Harvard, has derailed studies on those subjects.
• The report denounces industry-funded research on chemicals and health as widespread and unreliable. But the administration is seeking to cut government funding that could serve as a counterweight.
• The report calls for “fearless gold-standard science.” But the administration has sowed widespread fear in the scientific world that it is out to stifle or skew research that challenges its desired conclusions.

“There are many inconsistencies between rhetoric and action,” said Alonzo Plough, chief science officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a philanthropy focused on health.

The report, a cornerstone of Donald Trump’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda, was issued by a commission that includes Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other top administration officials.

News organizations found that it footnoted nonexistent sources and contained signs that it was produced with help from artificial intelligence. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt described the problems as “formatting issues,” and the administration revised the report.

Trump ordered the report to assess causes of a “childhood chronic disease crisis.” His commission is now working on a plan of action.

Spokespeople for the White House and Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to questions for this article.

Richmond approves town budget by a healthy margin

What’s Driving the Republican Party to Climate Murder-Suicide?

At what point will the body count become intolerable for them?

William Debuys for TomDispatch

In the annals of national suicide, the present dismantling of the American state will surely rank high. It may not reach the apogee attained by Russia in its final Tsarist days or by Louis XVI in the run-up to the French Revolution, but Great Britain’s Brexit hardly smolders compared to the anti-democratic dumpster fire of the Trump regime. 

Countless governmental, scientific, educational, medical, and cultural institutions have been targeted for demolition. The problem for the rest of the world is that the behavior of Trumpian America is more than suicidal—it’s murderous.

The deaths are mounting. By one accounting, the disruption of overseas food and drug shipments from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), including life-saving HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria treatments, has already caused nearly 350,000 deaths (and they continue at an estimated rate of 103 per hour). 

Here at home, cuts to Medicaid, as contemplated in the absurdly named “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” would lead to more than 21,600 avoidable deaths annually. And those numbers pale next to the levels of mortality expected to arise from the effects of climate change—a worsening catastrophe that the Trump regime is dead set against doing anything about. Indeed, with an array of policies under the rubric “Drill, baby, drill,” President Donald Trump and his officials seem intent on worsening matters as quickly as possible.

Worrying about how future generations will cope with a savagely inhospitable climate is for losers.

If the World Economic Forum is to be believed, deaths from flood, famine, disease, and other nonmilitary consequences of a hotter, more violent global climate might reach 580,000 per year, or 14.5 million by 2050. And that may be a lowball estimate, according to the American Security Project. Its models assert that warming-induced fatalities are already running at 400,000 annually and are heading for 700,000.

Any way you cut it, that’s a lot of misery. Given that the Trump regime is opening new areas for drilling; aggressively curtailing funding for climate-related programs; purging mention of climate change from government websites and publications; and disassembling the government’s capacity to track, let alone predict climate-change impacts, it makes sense to wonder WHY?