The Charlestown Town Council December 2 Special Election

Who is best for Charlestown?

By Will Collette

Now that the Blue Tide has swept over Nov. 4’s off-year elections, it’s time for Charlestown to focus on its December 2 special election to pick a successor to Rippy Serra whose unexpected death created a vacancy.Rippy served as Council vice-president, was a stalwart in the Charlestown Republican Town Committee (CRTC) and a leader in the non-partisan Charlestown Residents United (CRU) that ended the long rule of the Charlestown Citizens Alliance with landslide wins in the 2022 and 2024 elections. The December 2 election features three women who will appear in the following order on the ballot. 

At the top of the ballot is Democrat Jill Fonnemann well known to patrons of the Rathskeller where she works as beverage director and has organized numerous community fund-raisers. She is endorsed by the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee (CDTC) and the CRU. Spoiler alert: Jill is also my personal choice. Second on the ballot is Laura Rom, chair of the CRTC, who wants to keep Rippy’s seat Republican. She currently serves on the town Planning Commission and chairs the Charter Revision Commission. She is endorsed by the CRTC and shares a joint endorsement from the CRU with Jill Fonnemann. In a statement, the CRU explained why it issued this unusual joint endorsement:

A Message from Charlestown Residents United (CRU)

As many in the Charlestown community know, Council Member, Rippy Serra passed away this past August.  His dedication, integrity, and commitment to serving all residents left a lasting impact, and his loss is still felt by many in our town.

As we look ahead to the upcoming election to fill this important Council seat, Charlestown Residents United (CRU) recognizes the contributions that both candidates - Laura Rom (R) and Jill Fonnemann (D) - could bring to the Council.  We believe each candidate offers valuable experience and a strong commitment to serving our community.

Consistent with our mission as a nonpartisan, community-focused organization, CRU supports both candidates equally and remains committed to a respectful, informed and inclusive process.

We hope every resident will take the time to learn about each candidate’s vision, values and priorities and vote in a way that best reflects their hopes for Charlestown.

Together, we can continue fostering respect, transparency and collaboration in our community.

Charlestown has the distinction of being governed effectively and without drama – despite the partisan rancor roiling the country – by the CRU’s bi-partisan coalition. Together, they ended the financial mismanagement, shady land deals, secrecy and cover-up that marked the 10-year reign of the CCA. Thus the dual endorsement.

The third name on the ballot is a familiar one to any resident who follows local politics, Bonnita B. Van Slyke who is endorsed by the CCA.

Van Slyke on the right. Her puppet master
Ruth Platner to the left

Van Slyke has become the CCA’s main spokesperson, delivering the script prepared for her by the CCA’s de facto leader Planning Commissar Ruth Platner.

I’ve devoted a lot of time to debunking the endless stream of false statements that came from the Platner-Van Slyke duo over the past 10 years. There are a total of 62 articles so far featuring Van Slyke. You can read them all by CLICKING HERE.

The CCA is already cranking up its propaganda machine. As usual, they seem compelled to lie, even when it is so easy to disprove them. Here’s a “whopper” (one of Van Slyke’s favorite words) in their latest piece about the CCA and Van Slyke’s greatest claim to fame:

“Reduced the tax rate to one of the lowest in Rhode Island and adopted a policy to reserve sufficient savings to protect taxpayers in the event of emergencies.

This is a two-part false claim. First, the CCA did NOT reduce the tax rate and certainly not during Van Slyke’s tenure from 2014 to 2022. Simply look at the tax rate table from Town Tax Assessor Ken Swain that shows the tax rate steadily increased when the CCA took power in 2008 and dropped dramatically when the CRU kicked them out in 2022.

The CCA took power in 2008 and
were kicked out by the CRU in the
2022 election.

While Charlestown’s tax rate is very low compared to other municipalities, property values driven by non-resident purchases, not anything the CCA did or didn’t do, that determined your property tax bottom line.

Second, the CCA policy of raising the actual taxes you pay to pad the town’s surplus fund account spawned such scandals as the $3 million that went missing (“misallocated” was the term the CCA used).

It drove a series of shady land deals where Van Slyke acted as Platner’s puppet plus a systematic cover-up campaign by CCA tool, former Town Administrator Mark Stankiewicz.

Van Slyke's other recent campaign pieces are also packed with easily disproved and discredited claims as we'll be showing you over the coming weeks.

Over the month of November leading up to the December 2 special election, we’ll be covering these issues and more. 

We’ll look at why Charlestown needs Jill Fonnemann, a young, fresh new face, on the Council. 

We’ll also examine Van Slyke’s past record and current claims to see what Charlestown will get if she is returned to the Council.

Here are the ways you can vote:

You can also get an application for a mail ballot by e-mailing Town Clerk Amy Weinreich at arweinreich@charlestownri.gov. Amy turned my own request around very quickly.

Last Tuesday, November 4, record numbers of Americans turned out for off-year elections. “No Kings” translated into a Blue Wave that swept from Virginia to California sending a clear message that Americans do not want a corrupt, inept and repressive government.

We had that in Charlestown for 10 years under CCA rule. Your vote for Democrat Jill Fonnemann keeps Charlestown on a forward track for the benefit of all Charlestown’s people.

Send us your huddled mass of pedos yearning to be free

Welcome home, Andrew

Why the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles may need to be moved

He has already declared he wants the strictest possible anti-trans tests on female Olympians. What about all his travel restrictions? 

Under Trump Proclamation 10083, twelve countries face a full ban on both immigrant and non-immigrant visas: Afghanistan, Myanmar (Burma), Chad, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. Seven countries face partial restrictions: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela. 

Why are psychopaths different?

Just remove their brains and they'll be fine

By Nanyang Technological University

A team of neuroscientists from Nanyang Technological University (NTU Singapore), the University of Pennsylvania, and California State University has uncovered a biological difference between psychopaths and non-psychopaths. Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans, they found that the striatum, a region in the forebrain, was about 10% larger in individuals with psychopathic traits compared to people with little or no such tendencies.

Psychopaths, or individuals who display psychopathic traits, tend to show a combination of self-centeredness, emotional coldness, and a lack of empathy or remorse. In some cases, these characteristics are accompanied by antisocial or criminal behavior.

The striatum, part of the brain’s subcortical forebrain region, is involved in functions such as motivation, decision-making, and reward processing. It also helps coordinate motor actions and plays a role in how people plan and respond to stimuli.

The hidden plastic problem in your daily dental routine

A mouthful of plastics

Saroash Shahid, Queen Mary University of London

You brush twice daily, floss religiously and see your dentist every six months. But what if these acts of oral hygiene are quietly contributing to one of the planet’s most pressing environmental crises?

A growing body of research reveals that our pursuit of clean, healthy teeth comes with an unexpected cost: we’re washing billions of microplastic particles down the drain every day.

Take toothpaste, for example. Decades of using toothpastes with plastic microbeads triggered bans in many countries, but studies show that many modern toothpastes still contain microplastic particles.

And toothpaste isn’t the only offender; dental floss is another stealth culprit. Most flosses are made of nylon or Teflon – non-biodegradable fibers – that shed and linger in ecosystems.

Even the simple toothbrush sheds dozens of nylon bristle fragments during normal use. These fragments enter sewage, pass through treatment systems and end up in marine food chains where they are ingested by plankton, shellfish, fish and, eventually, us.

Rhode Island rights groups ask courts to hold virtual hearings to prevent ICE courthouse snatches

ICE trolls courthouses looking for immigrants to grab

Rhode Island Deportation Defense Coalition

On Saturday, November 1st, over 30 Rhode Island organizations, court workers and politicians, including Providence City Council, penned an open letter calling on Governor Dan McKee, Chief Justice Suttell, and the RI Judiciary to immediately implement virtual court hearings in response to the brutal kidnappings of immigrants at Rhode Island’s courthouses. 

These organizations and individuals have added their support to the nearly 2,200 individuals who signed the petition for virtual courts since it was launched in July.

The full text of the letter and list of signatories is printed below:  

–––––––––––––

ICE is a pandemic: We demand virtual court hearings now!

To Governor McKee, Chief Justice Suttell, and the Rhode Island Judiciary,

Every week, ICE vehicles wait outside of RI courthouses to abduct our immigrant community members. Since the end of July, we have witnessed over 20 abductions outside the courts, and those are only the ones we have seen. These community members are trying to navigate a system that fails them — like the well-documented case of a woman who was a victim of domestic violence, was never charged with anything, but was still kidnapped while leaving court. 

Trump’s use of National Guard troops on American streets is bad enough. This could be worse.

Present and former military alarmed at Trump's misuse of National Guard and federal troops

By Joan Johnson-Freese, Rhode Island Current

I saw some of my former Naval War College colleagues at the recent No Kings rally in Providence. Given that National Guard troops and protestors had clashed in Los Angeles at an earlier June rally protesting ICE raids, we wondered whether we would see National Guard troops as we marched, where they would be from, and their mission? 

We didn’t. That doesn’t mean, however, that there is no need for concern about the future.

The National Guard is unique to the U.S. military given it is under the authority of both state governors and the federal government and has both a domestic and federal mission. 

Governors can call up the National Guard to help when states have a crisis, either a natural disaster or a human-made one. Federal authorities can call on the National Guard for overseas deployment and to enforce federal law. 

President Dwight Eisenhower used both federalized National Guard units and regular U.S. Army units to enforce desegregation laws in Arkansas in 1957. But using military troops to intimidate citizens and support partisan politics, especially by bringing National Guard units from other states has never been, and should never be, part of its mission.

But that’s what is happening now.

A host of Democratic U.S. senators, led by Dick Durbin of Illinois, ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Jack Reed of Rhode Island, ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and 25 others has called for an inquiry into the Trump administration’s recent domestic deployment of active-duty and National Guard troops to Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Portland, Oregon, and Memphis, Tennessee. 

In an Oct. 17 letter to the Defense Department’s Inspector General, the senators challenge the legality of the domestic troop deployment and charge that it undermines military readiness and politicizes the nation’s military. 

Ostensibly, the troops have been sent to cities “overrun” with crime. Yet data shows that has not been the case. Troops have been sent to largely Democratic-run cities in Democratic-led states. 

The case for political theater being the real reason behind the deployment certainly was strengthened when largely Republican Mississippi sent troops to Washington D.C., even though crime in Mississippi cities like Jackson is higher than in D.C. Additionally, there is an even more dangerous purpose to the troop presence  — that of normalizing the idea of troops on the streets, a key facet of authoritarian rule.

There are fundamental differences in training and mission between military troops and civilian law enforcement, with troop presence raising the potential for escalation and excessive force, and the erosion of both civil liberties and military readiness.

Shut up

In direct defiance of two court orders

Is it a bad thing or a good thing that no one seems to be taking him seriously

By the way, Nigeria is a US ally on most issues (not immigration) and our second-largest trading partner in Africa

While this Nigeria threat may be bullshit, Trump has amounted an impressive record of global aggression.

Countries Trump has threatened to attack since he began his second term:

Canada

Mexico

Greenland

Panama

Venezuela

Colombia

He has threatened to take over Gaza to build a Trump Resort, removing the Palestinians to parts unknown in the process.

He has actually mounted major military attacks on Iran and Yemen

Plus. we're blowing up boats and killing people in international waters without any legal basis.

Finally, we're in a self-destructive trade war with nearly every country on the planet. Except Russia.

Future of nation’s energy grid hurt by Trump’s funding cuts

Trump's mindless vendetta against green energy is causing widespread havoc

Roshanak (Roshi) Nateghi, Georgetown University

The Trump administration’s widespread cancellation and freezing of clean energy funding is also hitting essential work to improve the nation’s power grid. That includes investments in grid modernization, energy storage and efforts to protect communities from outages during extreme weather and cyberattacks. Ending these projects leaves Americans vulnerable to more frequent and longer-lasting power outages.

The Department of Energy has defended the cancellations, saying that “the projects did not adequately advance the nation’s energy needs, were not economically viable and would not provide a positive return on investment of taxpayer dollars.” Yet before any funds are actually released through these programs, each grant must pass evaluations based on the department’s standards. Those included rigorous assessments of technical merits, potential risks and cost-benefit analyses — all designed to ensure alignment with national energy priorities and responsible stewardship of public funds.

I am an associate professor studying sustainability, with over 15 years of experience in energy systems reliability and resilience. In the past, I also served as a Department of Energy program manager focused on grid resilience. I know that many of these canceled grants were foundational investments in the science and infrastructure necessary to keep the lights on, especially when the grid is under stress.

The dollar-value estimates vary, and some of the money has already been spent. A list of canceled projects maintained by energy analysis company Yardsale totals about US$5 billion. An Oct. 2, 2025, announcement from the department touts $7.5 billion in cuts to 321 awards across 223 projects. Additional documents leaked to Politico reportedly identified additional awards under review. Some media reports suggest the full value of at-risk commitments may reach $24 billion — a figure that has not been publicly confirmed or refuted by the Trump administration.

These were not speculative ventures. And some of them were competitively awarded projects that the department funded specifically to enhance grid efficiency, reliability and resilience.

Only unprocessed, nutrient-rich plant foods protect the heart. Ultra-processed options offer no benefit.

Is Your “Healthy” Plant-Based Diet Secretly Harming Your Heart?

By INRAE - National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment

Eating more plant-based foods is linked to better cardiovascular health, but only when those foods are high in nutritional quality and minimally processed. This conclusion comes from a team of researchers at INRAE, Inserm, Université Sorbonne Paris Nord, and Cnam, who analyzed health data from 63,835 adults. Their findings were published in The Lancet Regional Health – Europe.

Earlier research has shown that consuming large amounts of ultra-processed foods increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, while other studies have found that diets rich in well-balanced, nutrient-dense plant-based foods can help lower that risk.

To better understand how diet affects heart health, the INRAE and Inserm team went beyond the basic comparison of plant-based versus animal-based diets. They examined not only the ratio of plant to animal foods but also their nutritional composition—such as levels of carbohydrates, fats, antioxidant vitamins, and minerals—and the extent to which they were industrially processed.

The study drew on data from participants in the French NutriNet-Santé cohort. On average, participants were followed for 9.1 years, with some tracked for up to 15 years. Dietary information, including foods and beverages consumed over at least three days, was gathered through online questionnaires. This detailed dataset allowed researchers to categorize diets based on the proportion of plant versus animal foods, their nutritional quality, and their level of processing.

Communications experts try to figure out Trump's crazy social media posts

Troll or loony? Both?

Andrew Rojecki, University of Illinois Chicago and Tanja Aitamurto, University of Illinois Chicago

Two Instagram images put out by the White House. White House Instagram

A grim-faced Donald J. Trump looks out at the reader, under the headline “LAW AND ORDER.” Graffiti pictured in the corner of the White House Facebook post reads “Death to ICE.” Beneath that, a photo of protesters, choking on tear gas. And underneath it all, a smaller headline: “President Trump Deploys 2,000 National Guard After ICE Agents Attacked, No Mercy for Lawless Riots and Looters.”

The official communication from the White House appeared on Facebook in June 2025, after Trump sent in troops to quell protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Los Angeles. Visually, it is melodramatic, almost campy, resembling a TV promotion.

A June 2025 Facebook post from the White House. 
White House Facebook account

The post is not an outlier.

In the Trump administration, White House social media posts often blur the lines between politics and entertainment, and between reality and illusion.

The White House has released AI images of Trump as the pope, as Superman and as a Star Wars Jedi, ready to do battle with “Radical Left Lunatics” who would bring “Murderers, Drug Lords … & well-known MS-13 Gang Members” into the country.

Most recently, on the weekend of the No Kings protests, both Trump and the White House released a video of the president wearing a crown and piloting a fighter jet, from which he dispenses feces onto a crowd of protesters below.

Underpinning it all is a calculated political strategy: an appeal to Trump’s political base – largely white, working-class, rural or small-town, evangelical and culturally conservative.

As scholars who study communication in politics and the media, we believe the White House’s rhetoric and style is part of a broader global change often found in countries experiencing increased polarization and democratic backsliding.

Trump posted a video on the weekend of the No Kings protests of him dropping feces on a crowd of protesters.

The triumph of bullshit

Internet conspiracy theories are now official government policy.

Liz Dye

During the first Trump administration, Washington Post fact checker Glenn Kessler documented more than 30,000 lies by the president. Now Trump’s back in the White House and Kessler is gone, as the Post’s owner Jeff Bezos seeks to make the storied paper more MAGA-friendly.

The nature of lies in MAGA-world has changed, too. We’re a long way from “covfefe” and tumescent hurricanes Sharpied® on a weather map. This is an era of lies as policy, where government priorities are based on right-wing conspiracy theories and fear-mongering. The federal agencies that survived Elon Musk’s wrecking ball are now captured by the echo chamber of his social media platform, with cabinet secretaries staring furiously into a digital funhouse mirror to divine the will of the most internet-addled members of the MAGA base.

Harmeet Dhillon, a former Trump lawyer placed in charge of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, even bragged to the Wall Street Journal that she “wakes up around 6am and begins her workday scrolling through X, searching for claims of discrimination … After spotting ‘a list of new horrors,’ she said, ‘I text my deputies, and we assign cases, and we get cranking.’”

Dhillon’s office has been bleeding staff, since experienced lawyers are largely disinclined to waste their time chasing down the latest target of conservative ire. But she did find someone to harass the Portland Police Bureau for daring to arrest conservative provocateur Nick Sortor during a demonstration in which he stole a burning flag from a protester. Sortor was invited to the White House the following week, where he held forth alongside Jack Posobiec, of Pizzagate fame, and online propagandist Andy Ngo, a former Dhillon client.

The message was clear: The White House is fully occupied by conspiracy theorists, and their maniacal postings will inform federal policy.

Stupid election day MAGA posts

Not a MAGA post, but my favorite of the day. From the Onion: