Does Trump know New Orleans attacker was a US-born veteran?

NOT an immigrant, so shut up!

The Las Vegas cybertruck bomber was also a US-born veteran

Juan Cole in Informed Comment

I love New Orleans, and have been known to hit the jazz clubs on Bourbon Street into the wee hours myself. So what happened there is a gut punch, and I want to express my condolences to the families of the victims and to the community there for its trauma.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump jumped to the conclusion that the New Orleans attacker, who killed 15 people and wounded three dozen more was a career criminal and recent immigrant. In fact, he was an African-American veteran, born and bred in Beaumont, Texas. His conversion to Islam must have happened before 2004, when he tried to enlist in the Navy under that name. Instead, he ended up in the army, and deployed for a year to Afghanistan (2009-2010), as well as getting the training to become an IT specialist. He remained a reservist after his honorable discharge.

He was, in short, a patriotic American who did his part in fighting the war on terror. He was not an immigrant or a member of a foreign criminal gang.

That Mr. Trump persists in deploying the politics of hate and bigotry is a bad sign for the U.S. 

Even if Jabbar had been a immigrant, his actions would have said nothing about immigrants, who have low rates of criminality compared to the native-born population and whose productivity has been one key to American economic success. They don’t take jobs from the native-born on the whole, but do jobs that the latter typically won’t do.

Nor is Jabbar’s religion a reason to engage in Muslim-hatred. The NY Post‘s insidious and Islamophobic reporting ominously says that one of his neighbors in the trailer park in which he ended up only spoke Urdu. If that were true it would be because poor people live in trailer parks, including immigrants with limited English. However, it sounds fishy to me, since even poor Pakistanis of the sort who come to the United States tend to know English. It was the colonial language and still an essential language, like French in Tunisia. Then they say ominously that there was a mosque in the area. So what? Mosques are houses of worship where people go for solace when facing rough times.

Answer to the Big Question

Never forget. Never forgive.

New reports sharpen clinical picture of recent human H5N1 illnesses in US and Canada

Mutations? Not good.

Lisa Schnirring

Two groups of investigators today fleshed out fuller clinical understanding of North American patients recently infected with H5N1 avian influenza, one of them describing a Canadian teen who had a severe infection and the other reviewing illness features of 46 US patients, most of whom had mild infections following exposure to sick dairy cows or poultry.

The teams published their reports in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).

In the final months of 2024, US health officials continue to battle outbreaks in dairy cattle from the B3.13 genotype, with sporadic spillovers to people and fallout from contamination in raw milk. The United States and Canada are now juggling a steep rise in poultry outbreaks from a different genotype carried by wild birds migrating south, which have been linked two severe human infections—one on each side of the border—and a spate of deaths in US cats.

Finally meeting again, R.I. Cannabis Control Commission votes to hire $110K-a-year spokesperson

We're on it, dude

By Christopher Shea, Rhode Island Current

The Rhode Island Cannabis Control Commission met Thursday afternoon for the first time in over two months, spending most of its first meeting of 2025 behind closed doors.

Absent from the agenda was a staple item for most meetings: public comment.

The hiring of a chief public affairs officer, however, dominated the meeting. The commission’s three members spent 15 minutes in executive session where they voted to extend a job offer to a candidate. 

The announcement was made upon the commission’s return to open session. Then the commission adjourned. The meeting — the first since Oct. 15, 2024 — lasted 23 minutes.

Chairperson Kimberly Ahern would not disclose the name of the candidate the commission selected to the crowd of seven members of the public who attended the meeting.

“There are layers of things to do before we can share anything,” Ahern told Rhode Island Current. 

A total of 76 people applied for the chief public affairs officer job by the Oct. 12, 2024, application deadline. The job was posted Oct. 3 with a 10-day application period. The position is tasked with handling media inquiries and coordinating with the General Assembly about cannabis-related legislation. 

“It was a very robust applicant pool,” Ahern said. “People are very excited about the commission’s work, I think.”

The annual salary for the position is $110,585, said Matthew Touchette, a spokesperson for the Rhode Island Commerce Corp. and Department of Business Regulation, which has overseen the state’s cannabis rules as the commission sets up the governing rules for Rhode Island’s recreational cannabis market.

“I’m going to be bummed that I’m not going to be working with Kim as much anymore,” Touchette said. “I am the only person who’s been with her since day one — she’s just been awesome to work with.”

Sen. Whitehouse blasts judiciary for failing to police corruption

"By all appearances, the judicial branch is shirking its statutory duty to hold a Supreme Court justice accountable for ethics violations"

Jake Johnson for Common Dreams

By Ann Telnaes

Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse slammed the policy-setting body of the U.S. judiciary for declining his request to refer Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to the Department of Justice over the right-wing judge's repeated failure to disclose luxury trips taken on the dime of billionaire benefactors.

Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the decision by the Judicial Conference "contains a number of inconsistencies and strange claims, and ultimately doesn't address the only real question the Judicial Conference should've been focused on for the nearly two years it's spent on this matter: Is there reasonable cause to believe that Justice Thomas willfully broke the disclosure law?"

"By all appearances," Whitehouse added, "the judicial branch is shirking its statutory duty to hold a Supreme Court justice accountable for ethics violations."

Jeff Bezos blocked Washington Post from running this cartoon. Cartoonist resigns in protest

MAGAnut Marjorie Taylor Green wants to make January 6 a national holiday...

 

Says MAGA: "worth every penny"

Care New England to pay $2 million for cheating workers

U.S. Department of Labor settles with Care New England over wage theft

By Alexander Castro, Rhode Island Current

Rhode Island’s second-largest hospital will pay $1.9 million in back wages and damages to 853 health care workers under a settlement announced Friday by the U.S. Department of Labor.

The administrative settlement resolves a claim that during the pandemic, Warwick’s Kent County Memorial Hospital made employees work through their breaks but did not pay them adequately for the extra hours.

“The Wage and Hour Division is eager to return the $1.9 million in wages and liquidated damages we recovered to the workers who put their needs second and delivered essential care to the many people in Rhode Island who suffered during the pandemic,” Jessica Looman, the Labor Department’s wage and hour administrator, in a statement issued Friday. “An administrative resolution like this allows affected workers to collect their hard-earned wages promptly.”

Data Shows More Heat Pump Rebates Going to Wealthy Zip Codes Rather than Low-Income Communities

Money begets more money

By Rob Smith / ecoRI News staff

When state officials announced a new heat pump rebate program two years ago, aiming to steer residents away from fossil fuels, they included a bold promise. At least 40% of the funding awarded for the program, called Clean Heat Rhode Island, would go toward the state’s frontline communities, as outlined by the Biden administration’s Justice40 Initiative.

But 14 months after the program launched in September 2023, it’s falling seriously behind on its goals. Much of the rebates, ecoRI News has learned, have instead trended toward Rhode Island’s wealthier and whiter neighborhoods, despite an income-eligibility program that can pay for the complete cost of a heat pump installation.

The program, which is actually administered by the Massachusetts-based company Abode Energy Management, was announced in 2022 as a way to spur heat pump adoption in Rhode Island. The $25 million funding the program was sourced primarily through the state’s share of American Rescue Plan Act dollars.

Rebates are calculated based on the size of the system being installed, and are available for homeowners and businesses. The amount of the rebate typically ranges between $2,000 and $5,000.

The program also has income-eligible rebates, which cover the complete cost of a heat pump system and installation, making it free for low-income residents. It’s this category that supports Rhode Island’s environmental justice communities, according to the program website.

EDITOR'S NOTE: We installed a second heat pump, a split-unit that qualifies for a rebate (still waiting). To us, it was not just the right thing to do, but also makes good economic sense. The upfront cost was $1800. That cost is substantially recouped through the state rebate and the federal tax credit, not to mention the cost-savings from lessened heating oil use. But you're far more likely to take advantage of all these benefits if you have the upfront cash. 

Obviously, higher income communities will have more people with the upfront money than poor communities (duh!). Solar panel installation calls for the same math, except the upfront cost is generally higher. To make this program work, there has to either be financing or perhaps the state needs to be the ones to handle the finances of the deal directly with the installer.    - Will Collette

Rep. Megan Cotter calls for focus on the children in selecting the next Chariho School Committee Chair

The selection of a Chariho School Committee Chair should not be politicized

By Steve Ahlquist

RI state Representative Megan Cotter (Democrat, District 39, Richmond, Exeter, Hopkinton) sent me the following this morning about recent attempts by a new Republican majority on the Chariho School Committee to violate the rules (and possibly the law) to install one of their own as Chair. You can read about that here: There were shenanigans at the latest Chariho Regional School District meeting

Here are Representative Cotter’s full comments:

“I am writing to express my strong support for Karen Reynolds as the chairperson of the Chariho School Committee. Her dedication to education, fair-minded leadership, and unwavering focus on improving the lives of children make her the ideal candidate for this important role. Karen has served on the School Committee since her appointment in 2021 and was re-elected this fall.

World champion liar

Trump complains about flag tribute to President Jimmy Carter.

First-of-its-kind study uses remote sensing to monitor plastic debris in rivers and lakes

Find it and grab it

University of Minnesota

A first-of-its-kind study from researchers at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities shows how remote sensing can help monitor and remove plastic debris from freshwater environments like the Mississippi River.

The research, published in Nature, a peer-reviewed scientific journal, helps to increase the understanding of plastic debris behavior in freshwater environments.

Plastic pollution in oceans continues to be a growing environmental issue, with the United Nations Environment Programme naming it one of the leading pollution challenges. But, plastic pollution in lakes and rivers, or freshwater environments, has garnered less attention.

That is something the researchers wanted to change, because much of the plastic debris in oceans makes its way there through rivers. Previous studies in removing plastic waste use labor-intensive sampling, which can be time-consuming and expensive.

To help with those challenges, this study used remote sensing technology that can provide cost-effective solutions and reach a wider area. The technology uses spectral reflectance properties, or wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum, to pinpoint specific types of plastic. It’s important to find the specific wavelength of the plastic materials, so that the sensing technology can filter out materials found naturally in freshwater environments, such as seaweed, sediments, driftwood, and water foams.