Trumpflation is here

He broke it, he bought it.

Tom Schaller

“Bidenflation.”

Throughout the 2024 campaign, Donald Trump, his supporters, and the national punditry invoked that term to indict President Biden’s economic policies. Although Biden actually reduced covid-induced inflation in the United States from 7.2 percent in 2022 to 2.4 percent by 2024, Trump won a second presidential term by capitalizing on consumer angst about high prices.

Put me, a genius businessman, back into office and I will solve America’s inflation woes, he promised.

Trump’s problem now is all three of his major second-term policies are raising prices across a range of commodities, but especially housing, food, and gas. Reducing the immigrant labor pool, imposing tariffs on imports, and the Iran War are costing consumers billions in higher out-of-pocket costs.

Americans are finally starting to realize the great business “genius” is an economic imbecile.

Clueless

Let’s start with Trump’s signature policy: xenophobic, ICE-led attacks on immigrants.

Nobody believes the United States should have open borders and zero restrictions for immigrants seeking either full citizenship or temporary work visas. But the ineluctable fact is that immigrant workers are good for the economy because their labor lowers domestic production costs and keeps inflation down.

That fact is especially true for the construction and food industries. Almost no commercial or residential work site operates without immigrant labor, and few agriculture products are harvested, picked, shipped, processed, cooked, or served without immigrant labor.

Immigrants comprise roughly 30 percent of the construction trade workers who build America’s commercial and residential properties. The construction industry confirms that 92 percent of member firms report production delays as a result of labor shortages caused by the “chilling effect” of Trump’s brutal ICE policies. An untold number of workers not already removed from the country by the government are no-showing for work. Trump has worsened America’s housing affordability crisis.

As for groceries — a term Trump, who has probably never food-shopped in his life, infamously marveled at — almost every calorie of food Americans consume that is not harvested from private gardens is cooked at home from fresh or processed foods purchased at markets, or are restaurant meals prepared from similar food sources.

Workers call for boycott of Starbucks

Help works get a fair contract from Starbucks

Int'l Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations. IUF

Starbucks baristas fighting for a fair contract need public support to put pressure on Starbucks.

More than 12,000 baristas have organized with Starbucks Workers United, winning more than 700 union elections nationwide, adding more workers to their ranks each consecutive month for nearly five straight years.

Starbucks is the second largest fast-food company in the world, and they have the resources to settle a first contract. It would take less than one day’s sales to settle a fair and reasonable contract that meets baristas’ demands. Instead, the company chooses to be the biggest U.S. labor law violator in modern history and stonewalls and stalls progress in negotiations.

Starbucks’ flagrant disregard for labor law isn’t just an attack on their own workers, it’s an attack on all working people. When union baristas—backed by a coalition of allies—prove that they can take on the biggest bosses and win despite rampant union busting, it will put all employers on notice about the power of the labor movement.

That’s why Starbucks baristas are calling on labor unions, federations and other allies to support the boycott, including through:

• Not purchasing Starbucks products for offices, meetings, or events, and to blacklist Starbucks from catering and sponsorships.
• Publicly amplifying the boycott, and encouraging members to do the same.
• And demanding that Starbucks settles a fair contract with union baristas.

Avoid explosive diarrhea - buy local

 From the Rhode Island Health Department:

Other Taylor Farms products to watch for:

And, of course, Taylor paid off Trump:

Rhode Island joins blue state boycott of Trump event in DC

Rhode Island skips out on the Great American State Fair, joining growing list

By Christopher Shea, Rhode Island Current

Add Rhode Island to the list of states that will not participate in Donald Trump’s Great American State Fair when it kicks off in Washington D.C. June 25.

Faith Chybowski, spokesperson for the Rhode Island Secretary of State’s office and RI250 Commission, said officials turned down the invitation to take part in the upcoming 16-day summer exhibition on the National Mall due to “financial and staffing limitations.”

“Rhode Island’s semiquincentennial commemoration is taking place in Providence on July 4, and staff are also supporting many other 250-related events across the state at the same time as the State Fair,” she told Rhode Island Current in an email Friday.

Officials from Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts, Illinois, North Carolina and Connecticut have also backed out, citing high costs, CNN reported Thursday. Maine has also backed out, according to the Bangor Daily News.

The fair organized by Freedom 250, the Trump-aligned nonprofit behind several semiquincentennial events across the nation, is billed as a “world-class exposition and modern-day World’s Fair” with exhibits from all 56 states and territories showcasing “the very best of America.”

But those displays, and who will staff them, fall entirely on state delegations, Chybowski said. The RI250 Commission, formed in 2021 to promote semiquincentennial-themed programming across the state, was given a little more than $324,000 from the General Assembly last year to show off the state’s revolutionary role.

Most funds were used for marketing, commemorative highway signs and holiday ornaments, banners for the Revolution and Rhode Island exhibit at the State House.  A little more than a third of the state’s funding were toward the commission’s one full-time staffer, Chybowski noted.

“It was a huge ask with not a lot of resources,” she said.

It's time to boycott CBS

Pressure mounts on Citizens Bank over its funding of ICE contractors

Brown union to pull $500K from Citizens Bank over ICE ties. 

By Christopher Shea, Rhode Island Current

Photo by Christopher Shea/Rhode Island Current

The union representing working graduate and undergraduate students at Brown University will withdraw nearly half a million dollars from Rhode Island’s largest bank, aiming to pressure it to cut ties with private prison companies that detain immigrants on behalf of the Trump administration.

A group of Boston-area churches plans to pull about $1 million if leaders at Citizens Bank do not meet with them within a week to discuss similar demands to no longer financially support U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations.

“If you do happen to know a bank that is not involved in these sorts of shady business dealings, we’d love some recommendations,” Michael Ziegler, president of AFT-RIFT Local 6516, told 300 demonstrators gathered outside Citizens’ Providence headquarters Thursday morning.

The announcements came before and after the bank’s annual shareholder meeting. As bank officials and stockowners headed inside to the meeting, protesters urged them to push the company to cut financial ties with CoreCivic and the GEO Group — two of ICE’s biggest contractors.

“We’re all here today for the same reason: to protest the reign of terror and abuse being caused by ICE in Rhode Island and across the country,” Julie Craven, one of the organizers for the De-ICE Citizens Bank Coalition, told protestors and press gathered outside the bank. “Citizens Bank has been the financial engine that made it all possible.” 

Peter Lucht, a spokesperson for Citizen’s Bank, declined to comment on Thursday’s protest and account-holder demands. 

Boycott Estee Lauder

Protest Citizens Bank's funding of ICE contractors

Boycott CBS

Support workers right to organize for a fair contract. BOYCOTT Starbucks

What Should We Do NOW?

What comes next, after No Kings 2.0

Robert Reich

No Kings 2.0 was a huge success. More than 7 million (by some estimates, more than 8 million) showed up. We were peaceful. We were patriotic (many of us waved American flags). We stuck to one message: that we refuse to live under a dictator. We had fun (the costumes and signs were fabulous). We felt powerful in our solidarity.

And we are powerful.

What’s next? How do we use that power? What should we do now? I’ll leave to others bigger or more dramatic suggestions. Mine boil down to a dozen simple ones:

1. Organize for the 2026 midterms.

Millions of us just participated in one of the largest demonstrations in American history. The most important thing we do with that power is wrest back control of Congress from zombie Republicans who are rubber-stamping whatever Trump wants. Otherwise, we will continue to lose our democracy and rule of law to this tyrant. We must:

• Counter-balance Republican gerrymandering in red states with, at least temporarily, Democratic gerrymandering in blue states (in California, be sure to vote YES on Proposition 50).
• Work with local, county, and state grassroots organizations to identify qualified voters who rarely vote, and make sure they do so next year.
• Organize young people to participate and vote.
• Make sure everyone you know — including friends and relations who have voted Republican in the past — are aware of the stakes in the midterms, and vote against Trump Republican candidates and incumbents.

2. Protect the decent and hardworking members of our communities who are undocumented.

This is an urgent moral call to action. As Trump’s ICE continues its vicious roundups and deportations, many of our neighbors and friends are endangered and understandably frightened.

If you haven’t done so already, consider forming an unofficial “sanctuary community” that widely shares information about where ICE agents are located, where ICE raids are occurring, and how ICE is violating the rights of people here legally as well as the undocumented, and that takes videos of what ICE is doing and provides those videos to local and national media.

It’s especially important to protect access to schools, public hospitals, and courthouses. Undocumented parents should not feel afraid to send their children to school. Undocumented people who are ill, including those with communicable diseases, must not be afraid to go to clinics and hospitals for treatment. People who believe they are here legally should never be afraid to report to court.

If you trust your mayor or city manager, check in with their offices to see what they are doing to protect vulnerable families in your community.

If you haven’t done so already, I recommend you order these red cards from Immigrant Legal Resource Center and make them available in and around your community: Red Cards / Tarjetas Rojas. You might also find this of use: Immigration Preparedness Toolkit.

3. Help people who are losing their jobs and benefits.

Tump’s cruel budget is eliminating food stamps for hundreds of thousands of Americans and reducing or eliminating health insurance for millions more by cutting Affordable Care Act subsidies and making it harder for people to qualify for Medicaid.

The federal government shutdown gives Democrats bargaining leverage to extend the expiring Obamacare premium subsidies in order to head off a spike in insurance premiums for more than 22 million Americans.

But the shutdown is creating its own hardships — such as eliminating paychecks for two million federal workers. Trump is also using the shutdown to fire tens of thousands of federal workers.

As a result, our generosity is needed now more than ever — to support community food pantries, local food banks, community charities, and shelters.

4. Call your members of Congress.

Phone your representative and your two senators. If they’re Democrats, tell them that as their constituent you support the shutdown as a way to extend Obamacare subsidies, and ask them to hang in there.

If they’re Republicans, tell them that as their constituent you demand they join Democrats to extend the Obamacare subsidies, and also stop doing whatever Trump wants.

Never underestimate the power of a constituent phone call. Every office keeps track of how many there are and what they’re supporting or opposing.

The Capitol Hill switchboard number is (202) 224-3121. The switchboard operator will connect you to your representative or senators.

5. Protect LGBTQ+ and Black and brown members of our communities.

Trump and his lapdogs are already making life more difficult for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and other people — through executive orders, changes in laws, alterations in civil rights laws, and changes in how such laws are enforced.

The Trump regime is also changing laws to favor white people and disfavor people of color. He is prioritizing white refugees over refugees of color. He is strong-arming corporations to eliminate programs that have fostered diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Trump’s rhetoric is encouraging hatefulness.

Please be vigilant against prejudice and bigotry, wherever it might break out. When you see or hear it, call it out. Join with others to stop it. If you trust your local city officials, get them involved. If you trust your local police, alert them as well.

6. Participate in or organize boycotts of companies that are enabling the Trump regime — starting with Tesla, X, Amazon, Home Depot, Walmart, and Palantir Technologies.

Never underestimate the effectiveness of consumer boycotts. Corporations invest heavily in their brand names and the goodwill associated with them. Loud, boisterous, attention-getting boycotts can harm brand names and reduce the value of corporations’ shares of stock.

7. Support groups litigating against Trump.

Some of the most important measures for resisting Trump are occurring in the federal courts. Groups behind this litigation include the American Civil Liberties Union, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, Center for Biological Diversity, Environmental Defense Fund, Southern Poverty Law Center, and Common Cause. They deserve your support.

In addition, Lowell & Associates, Democracy Defenders Fund, and the Washington Litigation Group are representing clients battling to get their jobs back, avoid prosecutions, and recoup millions of dollars that Trump has illegally blocked.

8. Spread the truth.

Get accurate news through reliable sources, and spread it. If you hear anyone spreading lies and Trump propaganda, contradict them with facts and their sources.

Here are some of the sources I currently rely on for the truth: Democracy Now, Business Insider, The New Yorker, The American Prospect, The Atlantic, Americans for Tax Fairness, Economic Policy Institute, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, The Guardian, ProPublica, Labor Notes, The Lever, Popular Information, The Bulwark, Heather Cox Richardson, and, of course, this Substack.

9. Join coworkers in getting employers to resist Trump.

If you work for a university, law firm, media company, museum, or any other organization that is being pressured (or could be) by the Trump regime to surrender its autonomy to the regime, urge them not to.

Join with your coworkers, colleagues, and alumni to pressure boards of directors and trustees, explaining that it’s impossible to appease a dictator. Join with other organizations or companies in the same industry to demand resistance. Most labor unions are on the right side — seeking to build worker power and resist repression. Support them by joining picket lines and boycotts and encouraging employees to organize in places you patronize.

10. Push for progressive measures in our communities and states.

Local and state governments retain significant power for good. Join groups that are moving our cities and states forward, in sharp contrast to regressive moves at the federal level by Trump and his lapdogs.

Lobby, instigate, organize, and fundraise for progressive leaders and legislators. Support higher taxes on the wealthy and on big corporations to finance affordable housing, health care, child care, and elder care.

11. Meanwhile, keep the faith. Do not give up on America.

Remember, Trump won the popular vote by only 1.5 points. By any historical measure, this was a squeaker. In the House, the Republicans’ lead is the smallest since the Great Depression. In the Senate, Republicans lost half of 2024’s competitive Senate races, including in four states Trump won.

America has deep problems, to be sure. Which is why we can’t give up on it — or give up the fights for social justice, equal political rights, equal opportunity, and the rule of law. The forces of Trumpian repression and neofascism would like nothing better than for us to give up. Then they’d win it all. We cannot allow them to. We will never give up.

12. Finally, please be sure to find room in your life for joy, fun, and laughter. We must not let Trump and his darkness take us over.

Just as it’s important not to give up the fight, it’s critically important to take care of ourselves. If we obsess about Trump and fall down the rabbit hole of outrage, worry, and anxiety, we won’t be able to keep fighting.

Be careful. Be strong. Hug your loved ones. We will win this.

Unionized workers at ABC6/WLNE-TV ask for ‘messaging flood’ from community - UPGATE: Sinclair caves on Kimmel

Fight far-right owners of Channels 6 and 10

NABET-CWA Local 18 

The newsroom union at ABC6/WLNE-TV in Providence has been bargaining since November 2024 to secure a living wage for its members. 

However, management and the station’s owners have refused every offer brought to the table, and their counteroffers would be well below a livable wage for someone renting or paying a mortgage in the Providence area, especially while paying student loans and health insurance bills.

Representatives for Standard Media Group have pushed back on all suggestions aimed at improving the newsroom’s performance and retaining employees. 

Management has made it blatantly clear that they do not care about the news as a product, are fine with turnover, and have no problem with being the fourth-place station in a market of four.

When presented with a wage and benefit proposal that would present both a fair benefits package and a raise scale that would keep up with inflation, the representatives from management said that a last-place station “cannot afford” to pay employees enough to retain them. 

"Thoughtful feedback" made Sinclair surrender
on its ban of Jimmy Kimmel

They suggested that those who cannot afford to live in or around Providence should consider relocating and commuting. 

When a member of a bargaining committee informed them that simply moving farther away would not help offset the lack of raises and rising inflation, they were told that the newsroom would not be suitable for a person who could not afford to work there.

Management has stopped listening to the union at the bargaining table, so the unit is calling on the community to have their voices heard instead.

Friends of our cause can visit this page or email news@abc6.com with words of support for the union. Inform management that you support the individuals who make the news you watch, so they can afford to live in the community they report on. Sharing experiences with unions that have helped you, or how a raise has changed your life, would also be appreciated.

Members of NABET-CWA Local 18 thank the community for its support and want management to see what that support looks like.

RIFuture.news is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Boycott Disney!

What the well-dressed MAGAnut is wearing

10 Reasons for Modest Optimism in the Fight Against the Trump-Vance-Musk Regime

Don't lose hope

Robert Reich for Inequality Media

If you are experiencing rage and despair about what is happening in America and the world right now because of the Trump-Vance-Musk regime, you are hardly alone. A groundswell of opposition is growing—not as loud and boisterous as the resistance to Tump 1.0, but just as, if not more, committed to ending the scourge.

Here’s a partial summary—10 reasons for modest optimism.

1. Boycotts Are Taking Hold

Americans are changing shopping habits in a backlash against corporations that have shifted their public policies to align with Trump.

Millions are pledging to halt discretionary spending for 24 hours on February 28 in protest against major retailers—chiefly Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy—for scaling back diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in response to President Donald Trump.

Four out of 10 Americans have already shifted their spending over the last few months to be more consistent with their moral views, according to the Harris poll. (Far more Democrats—50%—are changing their spending habits compared with Republicans—41%.)

Calls to boycott Tesla apparently are having an effect. After a disappointing 2024, Tesla sales declined further in January. In California, a key market for Tesla, nearly 12% fewer Teslas were registered in January 2025 than in January 2024. An analysis by Electrek points to even more trouble for Tesla in Europe, where Tesla sales have dropped in every market.

X users are shifting over to Bluesky at a rapid rate, even as Musk adds more advertisers to his ongoing lawsuit against those that have justifiably boycotted X after he turned it into a cesspool of lies and hate (this week, he added Lego, Nestle, Tyson Foods, and Shell).

2. International Resistance Is Rising

Canada has helped lead the way: A grassroots boycott of American products and tourism is underway there. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has in effect become a “wartime prime minister” as he stands up to Trump’s bullying.

Jean Chrétien, who served as prime minister of Canada from 1993 to 2003, is urging Canada to join with leaders in Denmark, Panama, and Mexico, as well as with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, to fight back against Trump’s threats.

Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum is standing up to Trump. She has defended not just Mexico but also the sovereignty of Latin American countries Trump has threatened and insulted.

In the wake of JD Vance’s offensive speech at the Munich security conference last week, European democracies are standing together—condemning his speech and making it clear they will support Ukraine and never capitulate to Russian President Vladimir Putin, as Trump has done.

Ten ways to resist Trump II

What you can do

Robert Reich

In light of Trump II’s predictably cruel and bonkers beginning, many people are asking: “What can I do now?” Here are 10 recommendations.

1. Protect the decent and hardworking members of your communities who are undocumented or whose parents are undocumented.

This is an urgent moral call to action. As Trump’s ICE begins roundups and deportations, many good people are endangered and understandably frightened.

One of Trump’s new executive orders allows ICE to arrest undocumented immigrants at or near schools, places of worship, health care sites, shelters, and relief centers — thereby deterring them from sending their kids to school or getting help they need.

So-called “sanctuary” cities and states have laws prohibiting their schools, public hospitals, and police from turning over undocumented individuals to the federal government or providing information about them. These are sensible policies. Otherwise undocumented people who are ill, including those with communicable diseases, won’t go to public hospitals for treatment. Parents will be reluctant to send their children to school. Crime victims who are undocumented will hesitate before reporting crimes for fear that they could then face being deported.

If you trust your mayor or city manager, check in with their offices to see what they are doing to protect vulnerable families in your community. Join others in voluntary efforts to keep ICE away from hospitals, schools, and shelters.

Organize and mobilize your community to support it as a sanctuary city, and to support your state as a sanctuary state. Trump’s Justice Department is already launching investigations of cities and states that go against federal immigration orders, laying the groundwork for legal challenges to local laws and forcing compliance with the executive branch. Your voice and organizing could be helpful in fighting back.

Influential far-right think tank plots out its agenda for America

What Harm Did ALEC Plot at Its 2nd Big 2023 Summit?

DAVID ARMIAK, Center For Media & Democracy

State lawmakers, corporate lobbyists, and right-wing operatives got together in Scottsdale, Arizona, last week for the 2023 States and Nation Policy Summit hosted by the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC. The summit—one of the largest annual gatherings of the ALEC faithful, along with the summer meeting—caps off ALEC’s 50th anniversary year.

Following its 50th Annual Meeting in July, ALEC held a formal gala on October 4 at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., where attendees were met with protests highlighting the pay-to-play group’s “50 Years of Harm.” 

ALEC also organized a “50th Anniversary Policy Day” at the U.S. Capitol that featured discussions on artificial intelligence; environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) investment strategies; school privatization; and the “state tax cut revolution,” as an agenda obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) details.

Meeting at the four-star Westin Kierland Resort & Spa in Scottsdale, ALEC politicians considered model policies and resolutions related to an Article V constitutional convention, so-called “woke” capitalism, school curricula, the environment, gutting regulations, and more.

Not worth a nickel

By Drew Sheneman

Time to bust Starbucks

 

Take that, Libtards