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Wednesday, May 20, 2026
RI Senate passes Victoria Gu bill to require home insurers to give proper notice before cancellation
Climate change risk pushes insurers to cancel coastal home insurance
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“Insurance companies are being a lot more selective about the location and the condition of the houses they insure, declining to cover homes in coastal areas or with older roofs or water heaters,” said Senator Gu (D-Dist. 38, Westerly, Charlestown, South Kingstown).
“The 60 days’ advance
notice will help homeowners find alternative insurance coverage and find
tradespeople if they need to fix something at their house in order to continue
insurance coverage.”
EDITOR'S NOTE: Cathy and I went through this last year TWICE, each time finding insurance companies were changing the rules about covering properties near the coast. Once you find coverage, or maybe I should say IF you find coverage, prices are way up. - Will Collette
Newest poll shows Helena Foulkes kicking Dan McKee's butt by 20%
59% Say Rhode Island Is Headed in the Wrong Direction
A new Emerson College Polling/WPRI-TV 12 News survey of Rhode Island finds incumbent Governor Dan McKee trailing businesswoman Helena Foulkes in the Democratic primary by 20 points, 20% to 40%. Thirty-seven percent are undecided ahead of the September primary.
“Registered Democrats support Foulkes over Governor McKee by
a 12-point margin, 37% to 25%, while independent voters break more
significantly for Foulkes by 32 points, 45% to 13%,” Spencer Kimball, executive
director of Emerson College Polling, said.
McKee is viewed unfavorably by 60% of Rhode Island voters,
while 21% have a favorable view of him. Among Democratic Primary voters, 29%
have a favorable view of McKee and 50% an unfavorable view. Foulkes’
favorability is split: 27% have a favorable view of her and 29% have an
unfavorable view of her. Among Democratic Primary voters, 35% have a favorable
view of Foulkes and 23% an unfavorable view.
Trump fights fraud by withholding funds from blue states while pardoning the fraudsters
It's odd that fraud only seems to happen in blue states
Julia Conley for Common Dreams
Vance and Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Services, claimed the state’s Medicaid records have generated
“red flags” and demanded officials clarify $630 million in billing, $500
million that’s been spent on home health services, and $200 million in what Oz
called “questionable expenditures,” which he claimed had been used to provide
coverage for undocumented immigrants, who are not eligible for Medicaid.
The announcement came a month after Vance’s federal
anti-fraud task force suspended the licenses of nearly 450 hospice care
facilities and 23 home health agencies in the Los Angeles area, accusing them
of fraud.
“We can turn off other resources within their state Medicaid
programs as well,” said the vice president.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has
frequently sparred with the Trump
administration, said Vance and Oz were “attacking programs that keep
seniors and people with disabilities OUT of nursing homes,” which are far more
expensive to run than home healthcare agencies.
Newsom said the growth of the state’s In-Home Supportive
Services program has saved taxpayers “$107,000 per person” by reducing reliance
on nursing homes.
“MAGA hates in-home support programs—which help people stay
out of costly institutional settings like nursing homes and get the care they
deserve, typically from loved ones,” said Newsom.
Newsom also said the Trump administration had informed state
officials that the deadline to review California’s Medicaid records “before
deciding whether to defer funding” would be later in the month.
Tuesday, May 19, 2026
Will the rich run away if Rhode Island tries to tax them?
Weayonnoh Nelson Davies & Patrick Crowley call out vague claims and weak evidence in RIPEC's anti-millionaires' tax report
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The Economic
Progress Institute (EPI) and Rhode Island AFL-CIO find
that the Rhode Island Public Expenditure
Council (RIPEC)’s recent report, Rhode
Island’s Millionaires’ Tax Proposal: The Economic Risks of Becoming Less
Competitive and Losing Taxpayers, falls woefully short on data
or evidence to justify its claims and opposition to raising taxes modestly on
the state’s highest-income filers.
Here are the Top 5 reasons why the report is unreliable
and misleading – plus a critique of the report’s main data point and
statistical claim:
McKee unveils 6 picks for revamped CRMC.
Critics are underwhelmed.
By Nancy Lavin, Rhode Island Current
The six nominees, all men, are slated for initial confirmation hearings before the Senate Committee on Environment and Agriculture Wednesday — nearly three months after the March 1 deadline for new appointees to join the volunteer council.
McKee’s office did not respond to requests for comment Monday on the delay or on his choices of candidates. Copies of their resumes or applications were also not immediately available, nor was the total number of applications received.
McKee’s recommendation letters, submitted to the Rhode Island Senate on May 14, do not offer any details about the candidates besides their names, and, when applicable, their professional qualifications.
Requiring the volunteer panel members to have relevant work experience was a central part of the reform effort approved by state lawmakers on the final day of the 2025 legislative session. The law reduced the size of the council from 10 to seven people to fix the problem of recurring vacancies that force meetings to be canceled due to lack of quorum.
Foulkes rolls out first part of her economic plan with a $100 Million "Classroom-to-Career" proposal
Practical approach for jobs and the economy
Gubernatorial candidate Helena Buonanno Foulkes (Democrat) announced the first component of “Believe in Rhode Island,” her comprehensive economic plan to give “every Rhode Islander a real shot at a good-paying job, a career, and a better future.”
“Over the next few weeks, I’m going to be rolling out parts of Believe in Rhode Island, my comprehensive economic plan that I will implement as governor,” said Foulkes.
“My plan is grounded in the belief in our
people, our talent, and the incredible assets that Rhode Island has to offer.
For too long, our elected leaders have been trying to tax incentive or special
deal their way into economic success. Instead, we should invest in Rhode
Islanders and lean into what our incredible state has to offer. I’m proud... to
announce my Classroom-to-Career Initiative, the largest investment in career
and technical education in the history of Rhode Island.
“Every parent I meet wants the same thing for their kid: a good, stable job and a future where they don’t have to leave Rhode Island to find a job. For too long, we’ve told young people that the only path to a successful career runs through a four-year college, but talking to the men and women in our trades, the operating engineers, the electricians, the plumbers, the iron workers, and the carpenters, they’ll tell you they have stable careers, good pay, and pride in the work they do.
"It’s the same for our healthcare workers, our advanced manufacturers, and our marine technicians. All Rhode Island needs is more people in all of these careers, and that’s why, as governor, I’ll propose a $100 million bond to fund capital construction for career and technical education facilities at or near high schools throughout the state, so our young people can learn career track skills and start careers with Rhode Island companies straight after graduation.”
“My classroom to career plan has four key points,” said Foulkes.
Monday, May 18, 2026
Earth-Destroying Trump and the Threat of World War III
The nightmare that is Donald Trump
Tom Engelhardt in the TomDispatch
In that context, here’s my advice to you: Don’t get old. For years, I managed not to do so, but unfortunately that’s all over now and I’m increasingly an old man. In fact, I’m not quite two years older than Donald J. Trump.
I was born on July 20, 1944, while World War II was still ongoing, and
he was born on June 14, 1946, in the peacetime that followed but would all too
soon become the Cold
War with the Soviet Union.
And let me tell you something else: these days it’s hard enough to keep the website I still run, TomDispatch, in some kind of reasonable shape, while also keeping track of our ever-stranger, more confusing, all-too-Trumpian world.
But keeping track of things nationally and
globally as an 80-year-old president of the United States (with
another two-and-a-half years to go) in a world that seems to be coming apart at
the — whoops, sorry, I can’t help it! — seams? I simply can’t imagine that. Of
course, I couldn’t imagine it for Joe Biden either,
and yet he left the presidency when he was a staggering 82 years and 61 days old and will still have been
younger than Trump if he truly makes it to January 20, 2029. (And both of them
will have beaten the oldest Roman Emperor, Gordian
I, who at 81 only lasted a few weeks in power.)
But in case you hadn’t noticed, while he’s always had
his odd moments, they are indeed getting ever odder and more frequent. After
all, how many times has this country had a president who mistook himself for (or do I mean confused himself
with) Jesus Christ? Oh, wait, how could I be so confused? That
image wasn’t of Jesus but (as “our” president insisted) of a lookalike medical doctor. (“I thought it was me as a
doctor,” Trump said. “Only the fake news could come up with that.”)
And meanwhile, of course, in his own ever stranger fashion,
“our” president took out after Leo, the American pope, himself a veritable
youth at 70 years old, calling him of all things, “WEAK on crime” and, of
course, “catering to the Radical Left.” Oh, and while he was at it, Trump
also posted an image of himself being hugged by (yes, of
course!) Jesus. And Leo responded to the president’s abuse by all too
accurately deploring a world being “ravaged by a handful of
tyrants” (including, of course, You Know Exactly Whom).
Just in case you hadn’t noticed, as an imperial power (even,
historically speaking, the imperial power, the only one at its
height to control quite so much of the planet in one fashion or another), this
country, too, is growing ever older and (again) in its own strange fashion
going down (as, of course, all great imperial powers do sooner or later). Phew!
That was a long sentence for this old guy, but you can’t get too long and
complicated (or do I mean confused?) when it comes to the world of Donald J.
Trump. In electing him a second time in 2024, 49.8% of
American voters clearly opted to go down in style by giving imperial oldness a
startling new meaning.
News from the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee
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