League of Rhode Island Businesses: Republican business owners seeking power by subverting campaign finance rules and misleading voters

Behind the mask

Tom Sgouros

Things are seldom dull in the world of politics. This year, Rhode Island has seen the creation of the “League of Rhode Island Businesses,” an organization running several candidates for the General Assembly, many in Democratic primaries. League founder Dave Levesque, who owns the Brewed Awakenings coffee shops in Cranston, Johnston, and Warwick, is a Republican pro-gun activist who feels his point of view is underrepresented at the State House.

You can see a “Lively” interview with him where he calls women’s rights and the repeal of Roe v. Wade “little bitty issues” and tries valiantly to avoid saying that Joe Biden was elected President in 2020. (Kudos to Bill Bartholomew for pursuing him on the points.)

(Full interview here.)

Levesque was to be a featured speaker at a “Rhode Island First” rally planned for this past May, featuring Roger Stone. Yes, that Roger Stone, the treasonous fop with a Nixon tattoo on his back, was sentenced to prison for covering up for Donald Trump’s campaign collusion with Russian operatives in 2016. Trump commuted his sentence, leaving him free to become centrally involved in the 2021 “Stop the Steal” event that led to the January 6 assault on Congress.

Levesque’s League has embraced an innovative strategy to fund its candidates. They created 40 different PACs — one statewide and one for each city and town in Rhode Island — and when you donate through the League web page, it automatically distributes your donation among them so that you can totally evade the disclosure rules for campaign donations. 

To me, the remarkable part is that they boast, right there on the website, that they are doing this to evade disclosure requirements. ➜

 According to the state Board of Elections, what they are doing is indeed legal. It is a loophole in Rhode Island campaign finance law that allows a single organization to control multiple PACs. The League is not the only organization doing this, and a few unions control multiple PACs, as do Amica Insurance and Bally’s. 

Presumably, this is why a bill to close this loophole failed in the General Assembly this year. 

⟵ But for the sake of comparison, here is a chart of information from the Board of Elections showing all the organizations who control multiple PACs. (Thank you, Nancy Lavin, of the Rhode Island Current.) Sometimes a difference in degree becomes a difference in kind, and I marvel that any union would lobby to preserve this kind of disadvantage.

As Levesque has explained, the organizing base of the League is the pro-gun activists who show up to the state house every year to lobby against any proposed regulation of guns. Their website features lots of calls to action like this one. ⬇

As the League, they embrace more issues than just guns. They also inveigh against taxes, road tolls, and business regulation. In other words, standard Republican stuff. However, try as I might, I cannot find the word “Republican” anywhere on their website, or on any of the websites of candidates they endorse.

To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with advocating for positions I do not agree with. Obviously, I think people who hold positions I disagree with are misguided (that’s what it means), but go ahead and take those positions and defend them. 

What’s remarkable about the League is the extent to which its candidates seek to obscure those positions, mainly by running in Democratic primaries on an essentially Republican platform.

Take Kevin Hoyle, for instance, a candidate in the Democratic primary for House District 32 in North Kingstown. Here’s how he introduces himself on Facebook, an image he included in an email exchange with me.

Challenged to endorse the state’s Democratic Party platform, Hoyle emailed me a detailed list of where he agrees and where he does not. 

I suspect he thought this would end a conversation about what kind of Democrat he actually is by allowing him to say he agrees with most of it. 

But his endorsement is filled with cautions and careful wording, such as saying “Recent IPCC reports may change some of this” in response to the platform’s Environment and Climate section, or noting that investment in transportation and infrastructure is important but not through taxes. 

He supports the party platform on voting rights, but felt it was important to emphasize that he only wants voting rights for citizens. Imagining that there is anyone out there advocating for voting rights for non-citizens is a standard part of the MAGA fever dream, of course. Hoyle even included a strange hedge on the civil rights plank, questioning its use of the word “equitable”.

As an exercise in power, running very conservative, if not covertly Republican, candidates in September’s Democratic primary is not a terrible strategy. As we have seen all too well, many voters are not inclined to do much research on the candidates they vote for, and it is relatively straightforward to mislead them. 

Blake Filippi, who was the Republican leader in the House from 2018 to 2022, first won his seat in a Democratic primary in 2014. After defeating Donna Walsh, one of the leaders of Progressive Charlestown, he was unopposed in November and promptly disaffiliated upon his election. Eventually, he became the House Minority leader, successfully — and repeatedly — winning re-election while never using the word “Republican” on his campaign website. You can say this is essentially dishonest, but you can also say, hey, it worked.

EDITOR'S NOTE: While Rep. Donna Walsh was a Progressive Charlestown favorite and I personally work with Donna on issues and her campaigns, she never had any official connection to Progressive Charlestown.  - Will Collette

So this is the League of Rhode Island Businesses: Republican business owners who are seeking power by subverting campaign finance rules and misleading voters. Hoyle is not the only such candidate, and with the lure of plenty of untraceable money to spend, the League has recruited several others, including Mark Mesrobian in Narragansett and North Kingstown; Vanessa Lopez in Pawtucket; Brian Coogan in East Providence; and Leah Boisclair in Charlestown and Westerly. These are all going to be well-funded campaigns, and here’s hoping that money is not enough in the state’s Democratic primaries.

A guest post by Tom Sgouros, Public policy nerd and data scientist. Currently at work on projects in public finance, immunology, astronomy, and information theory. Also a bus rider.

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It's hard being green

New reason why Trump should take over Greenland. NOT a joke.

You're invited!

 

Charlestown Residents United Fundraiser! When: Tuesday, July 14, 5-7 pm. Where: The Breachway Grill, 1 Charlestown Beach Road. Why: To support the good work the members of CRU have achieved since gaining the majority on the council, keeping the tax rate low, accomplishing major public works projects like repairing the breachway and paving Charlestown Beach Road, and protecting the rural nature of our town. What: Pizza and wings, with a cash bar. We realize this is a busy time of year, so if you can't make it and would like to donate anyway, please visit our web page by clicking here and filling out the form. We hope to see you there next Tuesday night! Charlestown Residents United | PO Box 412 | Charlestown, RI 02813 US

Charlestown Conservation Commission holds July 23 on the safety of your well water

Cool, crisp, clear … safe to drink?

Kristen Curry

In Rhode Island, private well owners are responsible for
testing and maintaining the quality of their own well water.

To provide residents with information on private well water testing, treatment, and maintenance, research associate Lisa Hollister with the University of Rhode Island’s Cooperative Extension Water Quality Program and private well specialist Shannon Nakama with the Rhode Island Department of Health Private Wells Program will hold a free program on Thursday, July 23, from 6 to 7 p.m. at the Cross’ Mills Public Library, 4417 Old Post Road, in Charlestown. 

This program is held in partnership with the Charlestown Conservation Commission and the Cross’ Mills Public Library. Attendees will learn about well maintenance and protection, the importance of regular well water testing, and resources available to interpret results.

New research suggests that heavy soybean oil intake may disrupt the gut

America’s Most Popular Cooking Oil May Be Harming Your Intestines

By SciTechDaily.com

A diet high in soybean oil is found to encourage the growth of harmful bacteria such as adherent invasive E. coli in the gut. Credit: Sladek lab, UC Riverside

Soybean oil or “vegetable oil” is everywhere in the American diet. It is used in salad dressings, sauces, fried foods, packaged snacks, frozen meals, and many restaurant meals. Most people may consume it regularly without realizing how much they are getting.

New research from the University of California, Riverside suggests that high soybean oil intake may affect more than body weight. In mouse studies, it has been linked to changes in gut bacteria, a weaker intestinal barrier, greater susceptibility to ulcerative colitis, and metabolic problems.

The findings do not prove that soybean oil causes these diseases in people. But they do raise concerns about how often this inexpensive, widely used oil appears in processed and restaurant foods.

Anti-vaxxer mom likely to have her lawsuit dismissed

She is charged with murdering her twins whom she claimed were killed by vaccines

Walker Bragman

An Idaho woman whose claims that vaccines killed her toddler twins were promoted by Robert Kennedy Jr.’s former anti-vaccine group has been arrested and charged with their murders.

Andrea Shaw, 23, formerly of Payette, Idaho, was arrested on Tuesday after a grand jury returned an indictment, charging her with two counts of first-degree murder, which requires premeditation, in connection with the deaths of her 18-month-old twins, Dallas and Tyson. Police found the twins unresponsive in their shared bed on May 1, 2025 after responding to a 911 call.

Shaw blamed the flu, hepatitis A, and DTaP (tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis) vaccines the children had received days earlier, but the indictment alleges that she suffocated the toddlers. The arrest concludes “a lengthy and thorough” multi-agency investigation led by the Payette Police Department, according to a press release posted to the department’s Facebook page. That investigation was launched last year as foul play was suspected.

Children’s Health Defense (CHD), the anti-vaccine advocacy group founded and previously led by Kennedy before he became Health and Human Services Secretary, picked up Shaw’s story and promoted it for months. Days after her children’s deaths, Shaw appeared on a CHD podcast, claiming that her husband’s side of the family all suffered allergic reactions to the flu shot that the pediatrician ignored. In the days after the vaccines, she said, her children deteriorated, prompting a hospital visit. On the eighth day, they died.

Shaw later became the lead plaintiff in a racketeering lawsuit filed by the group against the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)—while under investigation for murder.

‘Brazen Crypto Corruption’ Helps Trump Pocket $2.2 Billion During First Year Back in Office

Explains why Trump has been pushing crypto so hard 

Jake Johnson for Common Dreams

Annual financial disclosures released Tuesday reveal that Donald Trump pocketed at least $2.2 billion—more than half of it from his family’s crypto grift—during his first year back in the White House, a windfall that experts say is without precedent in American history.

The disclosure report shows that Trump pulled in $635 million in royalties from Celebration Coins, an entity linked to the president’s meme coin. The president also disclosed around $527 million in proceeds from token sales by World Liberty Financial, the Trump family crypto venture spearheaded by Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr.

“It is completely unprecedented,” Megan Gorman, a tax attorney who has studied the history of presidential wealth, told The New York Times of the president’s windfall.

Robert Weissman, co-president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, said in a statement that “Trump’s obscene income is driven by various cryptocurrency schemes, leveraging his political position to exploit a scam-driven industry that he once said was nothing more than a racket.”

“In doing so, he’s ripping off investors—to the tune of billions—who want to get in on the game with him, or think that buying his crypto products is an innocent means to show their support,” said Weissman. 

“Most troubling, Trump’s personal profit interest has now aligned him with the crypto industry, paving the way for dangerous legislation that will facilitate mass rip-offs and even threaten financial system stability.”

Trump’s massive profits from an industry he’s tasked with regulating represent what the watchdog group Campaign Legal Center (CLC) described as an “unprecedented” conflict of interest, notwithstanding the White House’s laughable claim that “neither the president nor his family has ever engaged—or will ever engage—in conflicts of interest.”

“We have never seen a president have direct conflicts of interest with his financial holdings and the policies he supports, and it’s another example why we need widespread ethics reform now,” Kedric Payne, CLC’s senior director of ethics, told The Wall Street Journal.

The Journal noted that, in addition to crypto profits, “Trump reported $4.7 million in income last year from Trump-branded watches, as well as $1.9 million in royalties from his ‘Save America’ book.”

Trump tells NATO the US is back to a shooting war with Iran, still thinking about taking over Greenland and is launching a new trade war against Spain

Trump won't stop his war against the world until he gets the Nobel Peace Prize

 

This week's Tea with Tina to focus on housing

NEWS FROM THE RE-ELECTION CAMPAIGN FOR TINA SPEARS

JULY 2026

Let's Talk Housing at the next Tea with Tina

Our next Tea with Tina will be Saturday, July 11th @ Caf Bar in Charlestown 5153 Old Post Road 10 AM–12 NOON   Join the conversation on housing with Tina Spears and guests Deb Carney and Collin Penney

FRIENDS,   In our community, every voice is welcome. Whether your priority is affordable housing, protecting our rural character and environment, or finding the right balance, your perspective matters.    Housing is one of the most important issues facing our community, with thoughtful perspectives on all sides.   The future of our towns should be shaped by those who live in it. Let's come together, learn more, and build a path forward.   Following our discussion, there'll be a short Q&A to give us an idea of solutions we hope to explore with your input:  What makes our area special, and what should we protect for future generations? What are your biggest concerns about development here? What housing challenges do you believe our neighbors face today or will face in the future? What principles should guide housing decisions moving forward?   We hope you'll join us. Together, we can shape our community's future. If you are unable to come, you can email your thoughts on these questions to tina@tinaspearsri.com

Have you seen our new yard signs? Contact Tina at tina@tinaspearsri.com or call Kathleen 401 439 4469 to get yours!

If you'd like to donate to Tina's re-eelction campaign, please make personal checks payable to: The Friends of Tina Spears 82 Hillside Drive Charlestown, RI 02813   Or click HERE to contribute online or scan the QR code

Want to volunteer on Tina's re-election campaign? Contact us here. We have lots of fun and we'll keep Tina in the State House!

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State law prohibits the acceptance of any corporate or business checks. Only individuals and RI registered PACs may contribute. RI law requires contributors to note place of employment. Contributions are limited to $2,000 per person per calendar year, and are not tax-deductible.