Republicans have funded the world's largest police state

With more money than most countries' militaries, ICE is running amok over Americans' rights

Sabrina Haake

Less than a week after Republicans passed Trump’s big brutal bill into law, national media awaits Trump’s next performative show of force. The bill signing ceremony, however, will be a tough act to follow.

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Trump signed his heinous creation into law in an overly produced, lavishly made-for-Fox-TV moment paid for by American tax dollars. On the Fourth of July, cameras zooming in, Trump raised his sharpie, perfectly choreographed to follow B2 bombers flying overhead in formation, at a cost to taxpayers of $2 million per.

Once again using the nation’s military as a political prop, Trump’s high-res production team finally turned out the spectacle he’s been craving since his military parade became an international joke. Trump got to perform his assault on America’s interests on America’s own birthday, after he forced his 950 page abomination of a bill down scared Republican throats. No democrat in either chamber voted aye.

July 4 was the artificial deadline Trump imposed for Congress to pass the bill, to guarantee that no one would have time to read it before they voted for it. Dubbed the cruelest piece of legislation in US history, Trump’s monstrosity will:

• Remove over $1 trillion from Medicaid, which will leave 12 to 14 million Americans without health care;
• Extend already unaffordable, damn-near-theft tax cuts to wealthy Americans and corporations that don’t need them;
• Adjust Medicaid payments forcing many rural hospitals to close their doors;
• Slash Food Stamps and food assistance for approximately 42 million Americans, including children and senior citizens; while
• Increasing the already-bloated federal deficit by $3.4 trillion, an unprecedented debt level many economists consider dangerous.

Trump and his party are spending money like drunk sailors on leave, dampening the economy with a deficit to GDP ratio that will affect interest rates, bond markets, the strength of the US dollar, and the cost of repaying the national debt owed to foreign governments, including, primarily, China.

What about the political backlash, you ask? Too clever by half, republicans delayed cuts to Medicaid until after the midterms to insulate themselves from consequences.

American Apartheid

 For those who still refuse to accept the level of racism that has now become US policy:

This is what America used to stand for:

Daylight Savings Time ends officially Sunday at 2 AM.

Tomaquag Museum's Loren Spears discusses new book by acclaimed author on Monday

‘Dr. IndigiNerd’ Lee Francis IV to share Native pop culture history at Nov. 6 URI Humanities lecture

Indigenous Imagination Workshop founder to cover pop culture ‘From Noble Savage to Tragic Chief’

James Bessette 

Pueblo of Laguna tribe member Lee Francis IV will deliver a
lecture titled “From Noble Savage to Tragic Chief: A Brief History
of Natives in Pop Culture” as part of the University of Rhode
 Island Center for the Humanities’ “Humanities and Popular
Culture/Counterculture” lecture series on Nov. 6.
(URI Photo/Courtesy Lee Francis IV)

Indigenous and Native people have played significant roles in global popular culture for more than four centuries.

In that time, images and representations of Native American and North American Indigenous Peoples have permeated the collective consciousness around the world, from early portrayals of the “Noble Savage” through the villainous “Red Devil.” But what does it look like when that identity is reclaimed?

Pueblo of Laguna tribal member Lee Francis IV, Founder and Chief Imagination Officer of the Indigenous Imagination Workshop—who is also known as Dr. IndigiNerd—will reflect on the past, present and future of Indigenous people represented in popular media during the University of Rhode Island’s Humanities and Popular Culture/Counterculture lecture series. Francis’ talk, titled “From Noble Savage to Tragic Chief: A Brief History of Natives in Pop Culture,” will be held Thursday, Nov. 6, at 5 p.m. in the Hope Room of the Robert J. Higgins ’67 Welcome Center, 45 Upper College Road on the Kingston Campus.

Why you can salvage moldy cheese but never spoiled meat

What to pitch, what to salvage

Brad Reisfeld, Colorado State University

When you open the refrigerator and find a wedge of cheese flecked with green mold, or a package of chicken that smells faintly sour, it can be tempting to gamble with your stomach rather than waste food.

But the line between harmless fermentation and dangerous spoilage is sharp. Consuming spoiled foods exposes the body to a range of microbial toxins and biochemical by-products, many of which can interfere with essential biological processes. The health effects can vary from mild gastrointestinal discomfort to severe conditions such as liver cancer.

I am a toxicologist and researcher specializing in how foreign chemicals such as those released during food spoilage affect the body. Many spoiled foods contain specific microorganisms that produce toxins. Because individual sensitivity to these chemicals varies, and the amount present in spoiled foods can also vary widely, there are no absolute guidelines on what is safe to eat. However, it’s always a good idea to know your enemies so you can take steps to avoid them.

Offshore wind’s effects on fish won’t be studied due to federal cuts

Fishermen join the list of those harmed by vindictive Trump cuts

By Anastasia E. Lennon in The New Bedford Light 

 

A research project that would have studied how New England offshore wind projects affect commercial fish species is now dead in the water. 

The canceled study, which would have employed New Bedford fishermen, is one casualty of $7.5 billion in clean-energy funding cuts in mostly Democrat-led states, announced last week by the Department of Energy.

Coonamessett Farm Foundation, a Falmouth-based scientific research nonprofit, was awarded $3.5 million by the Energy Department in 2021 to survey commercial fish species in wind farm areas before, during and after construction. The surveys, which were scheduled to begin this year, would have helped fill large information gaps on how wind farms on the Atlantic Coast could affect fished species.

Wind developers already collect this type of data (to varying degrees), but the companies largely keep the data private. The project would have published open-source data, and would have paid a handful of fishermen — most from New Bedford — to assist in the project by towing or deploying specialized survey equipment through the waters in and around the wind leases. 

Liese Siemann, a senior research biologist and the lead investigator for the project, said it’s “ironic” the federal government terminated a project that could have provided information to fishermen, a group that’s been vociferous in its concerns about offshore wind. Many local fishermen supported President Donald Trump in the 2024 election because of his opposition to the wind industry. 

“The logic of canceling this project that would answer questions [fishermen] have and support a community [the administration] wants to support kind of escapes me,” said Siemann. “We’re not promoting offshore wind; we’re collecting data about offshore wind and trying to better understand potential impacts.”