Donald Trump's especially crazy Thanksgiving message posted just before midnight

This is the guy who has the nuclear launch codes.

This is another example of the need to invoke this section of Article 25 of the US Constitution:

URI Dec. 3 program: Building climate resilience ‘From the Ground Up’

Jainey Bavishi will explore how local leadership and civic collaboration are reshaping climate action

Peter J. Hanlon

Costly repairs to the Charlestown Breachway are
an example of the price of climate change.
Photo by Will Collette

Jainey Bavishi, former deputy administrator of NOAA and former director of New York City’s Office of Climate Resiliency, will discuss “From the Ground Up: Communities Leading the Next Chapter of Climate Resilience” for the Charles and Marie Fish Lecture hosted by the URI Graduate School of Oceanography. 

The event, scheduled for Wednesday, Dec. 3 at 6 p.m., will be presented in-person at the URI Narragansett Bay Campus, Corless Auditorium, 215 South Ferry Road in Narragansett. The lecture is free and open to the public, but registration is requested.

As climate impacts accelerate and uncertainty grows, communities across the country are redefining what it means to be resilient. In a fireside chat, Bavishi will explore how equity, local leadership and civic collaboration form the backbone of effective climate action, even as traditional systems face strain. 

Thank you, Bobby Jr., for reviving Whooping Cough

Waning Immunity and Falling Vaccination Rates Fuel Pertussis Outbreaks

Céline Gounder

Rates of pertussis, also known as whooping cough, are surging in Texas, Florida, California, Oregon, and other states and localities across the country.

The outbreaks are fueled by falling vaccination rates, fading immunity, and delays in public health tracking systems, according to interviews with state and federal health officials. Babies too young to be fully vaccinated are most at risk.

“Pertussis cases increase in a cyclical fashion driven by waning immunity, but the size of the outbreak and the potential for severe outcomes in children who cannot be vaccinated can be mitigated by high coverage and good communication to folks at risk,” said Demetre Daskalakis, a former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s immunization program, who resigned in August.

Before the first pertussis vaccine became available in the early 1900s, whooping cough was one of the most common childhood diseases and a major cause of childhood death in the United States. Today, children get a series of DTaP shots (full-dose version) starting at 2 months old, and teens and adults receive a Tdap booster (lower-dose version) every 10 years. (Both vaccines target diphtheria and tetanus in addition to pertussis.)

Until recently, 8 in 10 toddlers had received four doses of the DTaP vaccine by age 2, and case rates were controlled. But vaccine coverage has declined since the covid pandemic and increases in state nonmedical exemptions have widened immunity gaps, which is when the proportion of individuals who are immune falls below the level needed to contain spread.

Texas logged 1,928 pertussis cases in 2024. By October 2025, the state had exceeded 3,500. National numbers are just as stark: In the first three months of 2025, the U.S. tallied 6,600 cases — four times last year’s pace and 25 times 2023’s. Several states are posting their highest case totals in a decade, and outbreaks from Louisiana to South Dakota to Idaho make clear this surge isn’t regional. It’s everywhere.

Who wins and who loses as the US retires the penny

It's a toss-up for consumers

Nancy Forster-Holt, University of Rhode Island

The Charlestown Citizens Alliance features
rusty pennies in its budget postings

By now, Americans know the strange math of minting: Each penny costs about 4 cents to make. Chances are you have some in a jar, or scattered among pockets, purses and car ashtrays.

As small as it is, the penny punches above its weight culturally. If it ever disappeared, so too might the simple kindness of “take a penny, leave a penny,” alongside timeless classics like penny loafers and the tradition of tossing a penny in a fountain.

But the penny’s days are indeed numbered. The U.S. Mint pressed the last 1-cent coin on Nov. 12, 2025, following a directive from the White House. While pennies will remain legal tender, old ones will gradually be taken out of circulation.

The impact of this change will reach beyond coin jars. Its ripples will be felt as small, cash-reliant Main Street merchants face another test of adaptability in a system that increasingly favors scale, technology and plastic. It will also be felt by people who rely on cash – often people without bank accounts who have the least room to absorb even tiny shifts in price.

My interest comes from my former lives as the chief financial officer of a large credit union and as a small-business owner. Now, I bridge theory and practice as a professor – or “prac-ademic,” as I like to say – studying the challenges facing Main Street businesses.

When the penny goes away, some will win, some will lose – and for some, it’ll be a coin toss.

New UNH poll shows McKee has only 11% support for his re-election bid

McKee's only hope seems to be the 42% of Democratic voters who remain undecided

By Alexander Castro, Rhode Island Current

Nearly half of likely Democratic voters still aren’t sure who they’d choose in Rhode Island’s 2026 gubernatorial primary, according to the latest Ocean State Poll conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. 

A sizable 42% of Democratic primary voters considered themselves “undecided” in the survey released Monday. But former CVS executive Helena Buonanno Foulkes holds a slight, early lead in a hypothetical Democratic primary with Rhode Island House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi and incumbent Gov. Dan McKee. 

Of the 359 respondents who are likely to hit the polls in the Democratic primary slated for September 2026, 29% said they would back Foulkes.

Shekarchi, who has not publicly committed to a run but has expressed interest in media interviews, secured 13% of support from the surveyed respondents.

Limping along with slightly lower polling numbers is McKee with support from only 11% of primary voters — his latest dismal showing in a string of polls, especially in concert with the poll’s other numbers for McKee, which demonstrate a broad and more diffuse dissatisfaction with his leadership both within and across party lines.

Sure beats maximum security

Dear Leader's Thanksgiving

Holiday greeting from Rhode Island Energy: PAY us more

Rhode Island Energy proposes increases in customer electric and gas service charges

By Nancy Lavin, Rhode Island Current

More bad news for Rhode Islanders struggling to pay their energy bills: Hikes are coming.

Rhode Island Energy unveiled its long-anticipated request to increase service charges for gas and electric customers in a press release the day before the Thanksgiving holiday. An application spanning thousands of pages across 21 separate documents was simultaneously submitted to the Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission for review.

If approved, the increases would take effect in September 2026.

For the first year, the average residential electric customer would see their monthly bills rise $7.78, or 4.83%, while a typical residential gas customer would pay $343.53 more, a 20.6% increase, according to Rhode Island Energy’s proposal. Charges would rise again in the second year, with another $1.56 added to monthly electric bills, on average, and $89.43 more tacked on to annual gas bills.

Anticipating the fury coming its way, Rhode Island Energy President Greg Cornett had already attempted to justify the proposal by highlighting the benefits for customers. 

Everyday microplastics could be fueling heart disease especially in men

Microplastics may be silently fueling heart disease by damaging the very cells that keep arteries healthy.

University of California - Riverside

Microplastics dramatically intensified plaque buildup in male mice and interfered with the cells lining their arteries. The study points to direct cardiovascular harm from widespread environmental exposure. Credit: Shutterstock

A research team at the University of California, Riverside has found that routine exposure to microplastics -- tiny pieces released from packaging, fabrics, and common consumer plastics -- may speed up the formation of atherosclerosis, the artery-narrowing condition associated with heart attacks and strokes. The effect appeared only in male mice, offering new insight into how microplastics may influence cardiovascular health in people.

"Our findings fit into a broader pattern seen in cardiovascular research, where males and females often respond differently," said lead researcher Changcheng Zhou, a professor of biomedical sciences in the UCR School of Medicine. "Although the precise mechanism isn't yet known, factors like sex chromosomes and hormones, particularly the protective effects of estrogen, may play a role."

How farmers screwed themselves by supporting Trump

Farmers – long Trump backers – bear the costs of new tariffs, restricted immigration and slashed renewable energy subsidies

Kee Hyun Park, Nanyang Technological University; Institute for Humane Studies and Shannon P. Carcelli, University of Maryland

Few political alliances in recent American history have seemed as solid as the one between Donald Trump and the country’s farmers. Through three elections, farmers stood by Trump even as tariffs, trade wars and labor shortages squeezed profits.

But Trump’s second term may be different.

A new round of administration policies now cuts deeper into farmers’ livelihoods – not just squeezing profits but reshaping how farms survive – through renewed tariffs on agricultural products, visa restrictions on farm workers, reduced farm subsidies and open favoritism toward South American agricultural competitors.

In the past, farmers’ loyalty to Trump has overridden economics. In our study of the 2018–19 trade war between the U.S. and China, we found that farmers in Trump-voting counties kept planting soybeans even though the trade war’s effects were clear: Their costs would rise and their profits would fall. Farmers in Democratic-leaning counties, by contrast, shifted acreage toward alternatives such as corn or wheat that were likely to be more profitable. For many pro-Trump farmers, political belief outweighed market logic – at least in the short term.

Today, the economic effects of policies affecting farmers are broader and deeper – and the resolve that carried farmers’ support for Trump through the first trade war may no longer be enough.

Tariffs: The familiar pain returns

The revived U.S.-China trade conflict has again placed soybeans at its center. In March 2025, Beijing suspended import licenses for several major U.S. soybean exporters following new U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods. Trump countered with a new round of reciprocal tariffs, broadening the list of Chinese imports hit and raising rates on already targeted goods.

An October 2025 deal promised China would buy 25 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans a year, but relief has proved mostly symbolic.

Before the 2018-19 trade war, China regularly imported 30 million to 36 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans annually — more than one-third of all American soybean exports. Now, Beijing has signed long-term contracts with Brazil and Argentina, leaving U.S. producers with shrinking overseas demand for their crops.

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.