Pollen count is also high
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| Air Quality Forecast | Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management |
Tuesday, May 19, 2026
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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Neronha sues country club that refuses to obey CRMC order
RI AG sues Quidnessett over rock wall built without permission
By Nancy Lavin, Rhode Island Current
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| A man fishes along the shoreline immediately north of the rock wall built without permission by the Quidnessett Country Club in North Kingstown, Rhode Island. The attorney general’s office sued the country club over the wall on Tuesday, May 12, 2026. (Photo courtesy of Save the Bay) |
The state’s top prosecutor is stepping in to try to force Quidnessett Country Club to remove a rock wall built without permission along its shoreline more than three years ago.
The complaint filed Tuesday by Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha’s office comes after years of unsuccessful efforts by state coastal regulators to negotiate with the country club owners and later, pursue legal action against them for the rock wall built in defiance of state coastal regulations.
The 600-foot stone wall was built along the shoreline of the North Kingstown country club in early 2023 — though not flagged by regulators until that summer — to protect the 14th hole of its signature golf course from coastal erosion. But state coastal regulations restrict development along sensitive and species-rich waters like the section of waterfront in question, a violation the Rhode Island Coastal Resource Management Council (CRMC) has sought to have corrected.
Yet the wall remains, each day worsening the delicate ecosystem that surrounds it and inhibiting the state’s constitutionally enshrined public access to the shore, the AG’s complaint states. The 28-page complaint filed in Providence County Superior Court asks a state judge to issue a preliminary injunction forcing the club owners to remove the seawall and restore the shoreline, including vegetation, to its natural state awaiting a jury trial.
Cotter proposes sales tax holiday weeks for restaurants
Gives customers and restaurants a welcome break
.webp)
“This is a bill to help boost small businesses,” said
Representative Cotter (D-Dist. 39, Exeter, Richmond, Hopkinton). “Mom-and-pop
businesses make up a substantial portion of the restaurant industry. A tax-free
week is a great way to encourage people to visit a restaurant they’ve never
tried, hopefully one they’ll want to visit more often. This will put more money
directly into the hands of servers and small business owners alike and
encourage Rhode Islanders to enjoy the many fantastic restaurants we are fortunate
to have all over the state.”
The legislation (2026-H 8512), which Representative Cotter introduced May 1,
would establish one sales tax-free week in the summer and one in the winter for
restaurants statewide. The specific dates would be determined by the General
Assembly.
The tax holiday weeks could essentially create statewide
“Restaurant Weeks” which several communities in Rhode Island currently
organize. Such weeks usually include special menus and deals to entice
customers who might not otherwise visit.
The legislation is supported by the Rhode Island Hospitality
Association.
Trump appeals decision protecting trans kids at Rhode Island Hospital
Leave trans kids ALONE!
By Alexander Castro, Rhode Island Current
The federal appeal is the latest volley in a back-and-forth court saga with a cache of sensitive medical records at its core, namely six years of patient information from minors prescribed puberty blockers or hormone therapy via Rhode Island Hospital providers.
The court fight — whose genesis lies in DOJ’s July 2025 maneuvering to obtain these records via an administrative subpoena — has now spanned two U.S. District Courts and two Courts of Appeals.
The DOJ filed its notice of appeal with the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, aiming to undo U.S. District Court Judge Mary McElroy’s decision in the case first brought to her court on May 4 by Rhode Island’s Office of Child Advocate.
Child Advocate Katelyn Medeiros is tasked with legal representation and advocacy for children in state care, an unspecified number of whom would be affected by the desired records’ disclosure. Her office moved to have Rhode Island’s own federal court nullify the DOJ subpoena that would have forced the hospital to turn over medical records by Thursday — a deadline set per the order of a judge in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, where the DOJ sought, and obtained, an order to enforce the subpoena on April 30.
McElroy granted the child advocate’s petition and impugned the federal prosecutors for their conduct during an in-person hearing on Tuesday and their claims made in court documents. McElroy wrote that DOJ “has misrepresented and withheld information” to not only her court, but to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.
Sunday, May 17, 2026
MAGA Supreme Court Okays G.O.P. Overthrow of American Democracy
Disenfranchising 40% of a state’s citizens cannot be reconciled with representative democracy
The Supreme Court gave a “two-fer” to white supremacists and proponents of Republican autocracy: First, six right-wing justices completed the erasure of the crowning achievement of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, the Voting Rights Act. Second, in the same case, Louisiana v. Callais, the right-winger judges approved of states shaping legislative districts that deny the opposing party any role in government.
In essence, the Supreme Court okayed the destruction of
Congress as an instrument of American democracy.
The Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution was enacted and
ratified five years after the Civil War. The Amendment confirmed – in principle
– that African-American citizens have the right to vote and to have their votes
count.
So said the Constitution. But for almost a century the former Confederate states negated African-Americans’ right to vote.
The Voting Rights Act put an end to the myriad legal schemes Southern white politicians had used to disenfranchise Black Americans
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 put an end to the myriad legal
schemes that Southern white politicians had used to disenfranchise Black
Americans and terminated the ploys used to deny African-Americans a fair
opportunity to elect representatives of their choice.
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