On Rhode Island healthcare and taxing the rich with Senator Meghan Kallman and the EPI's Nina Harrison

The budget is a moral document

Steve Ahlquist

The Rhody Civics Club held an event at the Buttonwoods Brewery on Thursday to hear from the Economic Progress Institute’s policy director, Nina Harrison, and State Senator Meghan Kallman (Democrat, District 15, Pawtucket, Providence) about the state of Rhode Island’s healthcare system.

The discussion was about the catastrophic impact HR1 (Donald Trump’s “big beautiful bill) will have on low- and middle-income Rhode Islanders, and the massive impacts of federal cuts to Medicaid, health insurance premiums, and food assistance. It wasn’t all doom and gloom. Senator Kallman and Nina Harrison have presented bills currently before the Rhode Island General Assembly that could help mitigate the impending catastrophe.

Nina Harrison

I’m the policy director at the Economic Progress Institute. The Economic Progress Institute is a nonprofit that does policy research and advocacy in Rhode Island. We try to get laws passed that benefit low- and modest-income Rhode Islanders, improve racial equity in the state, and give people a chance at economic opportunity. I am also the co-chair of the Protect Our Healthcare Coalition, which I co-lead with Shamus Durac from RIPIN, a huge resource in the state that advocates for children with disabilities.

I’m told that you all basically know how things work at the State House, that people like Senator Kallman are there in the evenings, at committee hearings, hearing testimony on bills. I’m often there giving testimony and saying, “Please pass this bill, or please don’t pass this other bill.”

I’m going to start by talking about what happened over the summer, which some of you may have heard Trump talking about: one big, beautiful bill, which is not beautiful, especially for Rhode Islanders, that essentially cut more than a trillion dollars in funding for Medicaid and SNAP over 10 years. And they did that to pay for tax breaks for the richest people in America. Because of the tax break Trump made permanent over the summer, the highest-income earners are getting an average tax break of $58, 000 this year.

We’re losing healthcare and food assistance, but the highest income earners are getting a $58, 000 a piece tax break this year.

What does that mean for Rhode Island? It means that unless the state takes action, 53, 000 people will lose healthcare. That’s not my stat; that’s a statistic from the state itself. About 33,000 people are expected to lose Medicaid coverage. Medicaid is for people who are low-income, typically 138% or less of the federal poverty line, which is already too low.

We have a major situation

Rhode Island record confirmed

Former Rep. Donna Walsh to be honored by the League of Women Voters tomorrow

2026 Community Impact Award recognizes her decades of service to South County

By Will Collette

My good friend Donna Walsh will receive a lifetime honor from the League of Women Voters of South County tomorrow at the League's Annual Tea Fundraiser from 2 to 4 p.m. on Saturday, April 11. The event will be held at the Peace Dale Congregational Church Fellowship Hall, 261 Columbia St., in Wakefield.

When Cathy and I returned to Rhode Island in 2001 to live in Charlestown, Donna became one of our first friends and remains so these 25 years later. We were proud supporters of her as she ably represented House District 36 which includes all of Charlestown. I worked on her campaigns and during each legislative session as a volunteer researcher.

During that time, Donna became a legislative leader and one of the most stalwart defenders of the environment. But whether it was getting major legislation passed, constituent service or getting grants for local charities, Donna Walsh got the job done through hard work with people in the district and with integrity and determination.

Before her decade representing Charlestown in the General Assembly, she also served as state Senator and member of the Charlestown Town Council. She is fondly remembered by many in the area as “Mrs. Walsh” for her 38 years as a teacher at Chariho.

Though she no longer holds elected office, Donna now serves on the boards of numerous local non-profit charities such as the Society of St. Vincent de Paul where she serves as President.

Congratulations, Donna!

Warming Waters in the Gulf of Maine May Affect the Future of Lobsters

Save our lobster rolls!

By Nicole Williams

This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.

Curt Brown spent his childhood harvesting lobsters along the coast of Maine. As an adult, he went on to earn a Master of Science from the University of Maine, observing the very waters where he spent years fishing for the crustaceans.  

With a rapidly changing climate, many researchers worry that Maine’s lobsters will eventually move north to colder waters. Brown isn’t so sure, though, seeing all of the forces affecting the ecosystem as highly complex. His studies in marine biology and policy, along with his continued work as a lobsterman, have helped him understand that the lobster industry depends upon various factors, some beyond man’s control. 

Last year, the state of Maine’s lobster fisheries harvested 78.8 million pounds of lobsters, and according to the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR), commercial harvesters earned $619 million. 

Synonymous with the New England state, lobsters have a documented history in Maine that dates back to 1605. Recent studies, though, show that climate change and a shift in currents are warming up the local waters. In a now well-quoted 2015 study led by Andrew Pershing, researchers found that the surface temperature of the Gulf of Maine is warming 99 percent faster than the rest of the ocean. 

Some say this could lead to lobsters moving north to Canadian waters in search of colder temperatures and many wonder what the future of Maine’s fishery will look like.

Brown feels like the rate of warming has been sensationalized as a headline since the Pershing’s study came out, and sees the issues facing lobsters more nuanced and complex. 

An October study funded by NOAA National Sea Grant’s American Lobster Initiative looks at the effects that multiple stressors, not just warming waters, have on lobster embryos and their future life cycles. 

In the study, “Effects of multiple stressors on embryos and emerging larvae of the American lobster,” researchers look at how the combination of warming waters and ocean acidification affect egg-bearing lobsters and the development and physiology of their embryos in the hopes of getting a more accurate picture of what the future of Maine’s lobster fishery may look like as the effects of human-caused climate change increase.

What do you do when you can't trust the government?

The haze of contradictions and confusion is a feature, not a bug.

Lisa Needham

We’re more than a month into Donald Trump’s increasingly disastrous Iran war, and we have no idea what’s really going on.

In part, that’s because Trump is now nothing but a creature of pure id surrounded by enablers, running the country like an enormous out-of-control toddler. But it’s also because the administration is not at all interested in providing the American people with objective, reliable information.

That erasure of truth leaves us unmoored.

Trump’s increasing instability was always going to lead to chaotic, contradictory statements about the war, blurting out whatever ideas have taken hold in the nest of spiders inside his head.

These constant reversals about what he plans to do next aren’t always random or delusional, but the sheer volume of Trumpian proclamations that seem divorced from reality does a terrific job of obscuring when something is deliberate.

That was the case at least until earlier this week, when Trump decided to use the Iran war to engage in a little light market manipulation. Well, some pretty hefty market manipulation, actually.

Follow the money

Trump spent last weekend frothing at the mouth with threats to bomb Iran’s power plants unless it opened the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours. Sure, attacking a country’s civilian energy infrastructure can be considered a literal war crime, but that sort of threat is really par for the course for Trump these days.

After ratcheting up his rhetoric all weekend, Trump abruptly reversed course Monday morning around 7:05 a.m., posting on Truth Social that the United States and Iran “have had, over the last two days, very good and productive conversations regarding a complete and total resolution of our hostilities in the Middle East,” According to Trump, the “tenor and tone of these in depth, detailed, and constructive conversations which will continue throughout the week” led him to postpone any strikes against power plants for five days. (Tellingly, Trump was unable to specify which if any Iranian officials were parties to these alleged negotiations.)

So while Trump was publicly telling Iran that he was prepared to do war crimes to get them to yield, the administration was also somehow simultaneously engaged in “good and productive conversations” with Iran about ending the war. Even in the shambolic world of the Trump administration, it seemed unlikely both of these things were true. But Trump contradicts himself so often that we’ve become accustomed to disregarding it as nothing but background noise, conveying nothing meaningful. It’s not worth trying to separate fact from fiction when it might all be fiction.

But it turns out that Iran wasn’t the audience for Trump’s bluster nor his improbable change of heart and newfound commitment to seeking peace. In fact, he wasn’t talking to Iran at all. He was talking to the markets, though it appears he did so only after tipping off some lucky duckies about what he was planning to do.

Because really, how else do you explain that about 15 minutes before Trump’s surprise announcement of how hunky dory talks were going, there was a sharp increase in purchases of stock market and oil futures? There was no discernible reason for these sudden jumps occurring at 6:50 am, normally a fairly sleepy time for premarket trading. But when Trump’s 7:05 am announcement about all those productive conversations predictably drove oil prices down, and stocks rebounded, those 6:50 am traders made bank. In just a few moments, those anonymous and fortunate folks made roughly $580 million.

Did Trump or one of his minions tip off some oil traders? Sure looks like it! Is this the first time Trump has used the war to move financial markets? Probably not! On March 9, while markets were still open, he offered the hopeful assessment that the war was “very complete, pretty much,” which juiced the markets. After the markets closed higher, though, Trump returned to doom and gloom, saying that “we’ve already won in many ways, but we haven’t won enough.”

Gov. McKee, Statehouse MAGAs At War With Renewable Energy

Rightwing attacks on our best solution to our energy crisis

By Frank Carini / ecoRI News columnist

An illegal war started by a Monster caused the price of gasoline and other fossil fuels to explode. The human-caused climate crisis, fueled by the burning of said fossil fuels, is both frying and flooding great swaths of the planet and changing the ocean’s chemical composition.

But have no fear, Gov. Dan McKee and MAGA asshats are here.

To address this dual-threat emergency — war and the climate crisis, not gasoline prices — the underwater governor and the MAGA faction within the General Assembly believe blowing up Rhode Island’s support for renewable energy and retreating on the state’s climate initiatives are solutions.

Elections certainly do have consequences. We’ll be paying for them for generations.

House Minority Leader Rep. Michael Chippendale, MAGA-Foster, recently introduced a package of legislation designed to eliminate many of the state-mandated charges on utility bills that fund renewable energy and climate programs. He denied the legislation was meant to end renewable energy programs in Rhode Island, but it would essentially do just that.

His five irresponsible bills would: require all changes to the Renewable Energy Growth Program be approved by the General Assembly, instead of the Public Utilities Commission (the corporate-friendly PUC apparently isn’t corporate enough) or just eliminate the program altogether; terminate the energy efficiency charge, which funds the program that allows Rhode Island Energy to offer rebates, free weatherization services, and other initiatives that help ratepayers use less energy; end the net metering program used to finance solar arrays and prohibit any state subsidies for consumer heat pump purchases; and place a five-year moratorium on the Renewable Energy Growth and energy efficiency program charges.

Release them all now!

Our war leader and his family

Rhode Island fishing season starts Saturday

60,000 Fish Stocked in Over 100 Waterbodies

Opening Day of trout season is set for Saturday, April 11, and the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) has stocked more than 100 freshwater locations, including children’s only ponds, with over 60,000 fish – brook, brown, rainbow, and golden rainbow trout. A complete list of stocked waters can be found at www.dem.ri.gov/troutwaters. Fishing is prohibited in all trout stocked waters until Opening Day. After Opening Day, many areas will be stocked additional times to support spring fishing.

“Opening Day is a spring tradition for thousands of Rhode Islanders who head out on the second Saturday of April to a favorite fishing spot to reel in their first trout of the season,” said DEM Director Terry Gray. “The work and logistics involved in raising and stocking thousands of fish every year are intense, and this year our hatchery staff overcame a particularly challenging winter to provide fishing opportunities for the public. I’m proud to recognize all members of DEM’s Freshwater Fisheries Team who pull off this feat every year – and keep freshwaters stocked throughout most of the year.”

Scientists Uncover Hidden Chemical Risks in Crops

Are Your Vegetables Safe?

By McGill University

A sweeping international analysis is raising new concerns about what may be quietly entering our food supply. Scientists report that crops can absorb “contaminants of emerging concern” (CECs), a broad group of modern pollutants that includes pharmaceuticals, microplastics, engineered nanomaterials, and PFAS (commonly known as “forever chemicals”).

Even in trace amounts, these substances can interfere with plant growth, reshape soil ecosystems, and potentially move into the human diet.

Unlike traditional pollutants, many CECs are not routinely monitored or regulated in agriculture. Yet the study shows they can enter farmland through unexpected routes, including recycled wastewater, treated sewage sludge, manure, and plastic-based farming materials. Some of these practices are widely promoted as sustainable solutions, which raises a difficult question about hidden trade-offs in modern agriculture.

Rhode Island House approves Rep. McEntee’s clergy sex abuse bills

Expanding accountability for clerical sex predators

The House approved Chairwoman Carol Hagan McEntee’s five-bill legislative package that delivers accountability for victims of childhood sexual abuse.  Three of the bills were recently recommended within the Attorney General’s report on clergy sex abuse.

“This report is a long time coming and it should be clear to anyone reading it that the systematic coverup of this pervasive and appalling behavior is just as bad as the actual assaults of countless helpless children.  Like the Epstein files, this report shows the lengths to which vile predators were shielded and protected from accountability by powerful institutions, and it should make us all angry and disgusted.  Revealing the truth about this immoral corruption is the first step to delivering real justice for so many victims, and I will continue to support our victims’ rights and quest for justice through this legislation that will hold both the abusers and the institutions that protected these predators accountable in the courts,” said House Judiciary Chairwoman McEntee (D-Dist. 33, South Kingstown, Narragansett).

TACO Don loses again

It's consistent with how other countries, organizations, and people have defeated him

Robert Reich

Last night, 90 minutes before Trump said he’d cause the death of a “whole civilization” if Iran didn’t open the Strait of Hormuz, an Iranian official said the shipping channel would be reopened for two weeks if the United States stopped bombing Iran. The U.S. has now stopped bombing Iran.

So we’re back to the status quo before Trump began his war. Only now, Iran can credibly threaten to close the strait if it doesn’t get what it wants from Trump — thereby causing havoc to the U.S. (and world) economies. Trump’s only remaining bargaining leverage is the threat of committing war crimes.

In other words, last night’s showdown was a clear victory for Iran and a clear defeat for Trump (although he’ll frame it as a victory).

The Iran fiasco is only the latest in a host of examples revealing how to defeat Trump.

In addition to Iran, similar strategies have been used by China, Russia, Canada, Mexico, and Greenland. Inside the United States, the people of Minneapolis have used them, as have Harvard University, comedian Jimmy Kimmel, writer E. Jean Carroll, and the law firms Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, Susman Godfrey, and WilmerHale.

What’s the strategy that connects them all?

All refused to cave to Trump, despite his superior military or economic power. Instead, they’ve engaged in a kind of jujitsu in which they use Trump’s power against him, while allowing Trump to save face by claiming he’s won. Consider:

Iran knew it was no match for the superior might of the U.S. (and Israel). So it used cheap drones and missiles to close the Strait of Hormuz and incapacitate other Gulf oil installations, thereby driving up the prices of oil and gas at the pump in the U.S., which has put growing political pressure on Trump, months before a midterm election. Hence, Trump has been forced stop his war.

China knew what to do when Trump imposed a giant tariff on Chinese exports to the U.S.: It put restrictions on seven types of heavy rare earth metals and magnets, crucial to U.S. defense and tech industries. Beijing continues to use these rare earth restrictions as tactical levers in ongoing negotiations over trade, rather than demand complete surrender by Trump on his trade policies.

Russia has leveraged its vast deposits of oil and natural gas with U.S. allies. It has also demonstrated its power to intrude into U.S. elections (the Mueller Report detailed a “sweeping and systematic” campaign by Russia to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, primarily favoring Trump).

Canada and Mexico have won every tariff showdown with Trump by leveraging America’s substantial economic dependence on them for components and raw materials, but without crowing about their victories.

Greenland has leveraged public opinion globally and in the United States — overwhelmingly against an American invasion or occupation — to curb Trump’s ambitions there.

The citizens of Minneapolis and St. Paul have leveraged their asymmetric power against Trump’s ICE and Border Patrol agents by carefully organizing themselves into a force of nonviolent resistance to protect immigrants there. Their strategy showed itself to be especially effective, tragically, after Trump’s agents murdered Renee Good and Alex Pretti, and the public outcry forced the agents to leave the Twin Cities.

Let's play "What Will He Screw Up Today?"

White House doesn't want you to see this photo of Trump's Press Secretary.