Cheating or just trying to win?

Is 2026 the year of the crossover voter in Rhode Island? What the data says.

By Nancy Lavin, Rhode Island Current

Democratic voters in Charlestown, Block Island,
Westerly and So. Kingstown need to know about phony
"Democrats" like Leah Boisclair. They are fronts
for a MAGA guy who set up a network of PACs
to support fake Dems in the Sept. 9 primary

Lifelong Republican Joe Paglia recently disaffiliated from the GOP for the first time in his life.

His views haven’t changed. But the Narragansett resident and small business owner sees the registration change, which lets him vote in local and state Democratic primaries, as a way to change the course of a political path he doesn’t like.

“I don’t want anyone who’s too far left, or even too far right,” Paglia, 59, said. “I just want someone who can get stuff done, 

Rhode Island, like much of the country, has a long history of crossover voting, in which partisan voters change political affiliations to influence the outcome of primary races of opposite political parties. But the strategy has gained renewed attention across the Ocean State this election cycle, widely promoted by a conservative-leaning political group, The League of RI Businesses.

“This is the best time to knock out the worst candidate,” is the declaration on a graphic on The League’s Facebook page. The accompanying post explains that unaffiliated voters in Rhode Island can vote in either party primary. Voters who are registered Democrats or Republicans cannot access the opposite party’s primary ballot.

“In the Rhode Island primaries, who’s on the Democratic ticket decides the election,” said Dave Levesque, co-founder of the League. 

It’s not just about preventing candidates perceived as too progressive from winning. 

Levesque, also a Republican turned independent, also believes there are Democratic candidates who truly represent the business-minded, small government platform that he and other conservative voters embrace. Ten of the 23 state legislative candidates endorsed by the League are Democrats, including Mark Mesrobian, who is challenging Sen. Alana DiMario for the District 36 seat representing parts of Narragansett, North Kingstown and New Shoreham.

Paglia, a district voter, said he appreciates Mesrobian’s business background and emphasis on affordability concerns, including energy costs. Voting for Mesrobian is the main reason he disaffiliated, though he also plans to vote for Joe Solomon Jr. in the four-way Democratic primary for the attorney general’s race, he said.

According to Levesque, the League’s strategy is gaining traction, with many Republican voters verbally committing to disaffiliate to vote in local primaries.

The numbers say otherwise.

Why we fight

Iran War Enters 6th Justification - The Onion

Tomaquag hosts Sept. 9 walk

 REGISTER: Indigenous Wisdom: Our Connection & Responsibility to Water Tickets | Tomaquag Museum

Join us for a walk at Ninigret Park with cultural educator Chenae Bullock, LPIM, a citizen of the Shinnecock Nation and Montauk Descendant. Participants will leave with a deeper understanding of Indigenous perspectives on water as a living relative and source of life, culture, and community. Together we will reflect on our own relationship with water and explore what it means to move from using water to honoring, protecting, and taking responsibility for it.

Chenae Bullock, LPIM, is a citizen of the Shinnecock Nation and descendant of the Montauk people. As founder and CEO of Moskehtu Consulting, she leads cultural preservation, traditional canoe revitalization, and Indigenous wellness initiatives rooted in her coastal whaling lineage. A licensed Indigenopathic practitioner and global advocate for water protection, Chenae has led ancestral water journeys, revitalized Mishoon (traditional dugout canoe) making, and guided sacred paddling practices across tribal territories. Through her work, she connects Indigenous knowledge, environmental stewardship, and cultural understanding, emphasizing the vital relationship between water, life, and humanity.

Limited to 25, so register today.

Three weeks out, McKee is still 20 points behind Foulkes in governor’s race

Dan's in trouble

By Nancy Lavin, Rhode Island Current

McKee needs almost all the undecideds to go his way

Three weeks and a day out from the primary, Gov. Dan McKee has failed to narrow a 20-point gap with his Democratic gubernatorial challenger, Helena Buonanno Foulkes, a survey published Tuesday by The Pell Center at Salve Regina University finds. 

The poll of 857 likely primary voters echoes surveys by other organizations, which also showed Foulkes with a 20-point or higher lead over McKee. 

“There’s no strong surprises there,” said Katie Sonder, Pell Center associate director and fellow. “Helena Foulkes has been leading McKee over the last few months.”

The new survey is the Pell Center’s first 2026 election-specific poll, conducted Aug. 3 to 11 by Embold Research. The margin of error is 3.6%, with a 4.2% error margin for Democratic primary-specific questions.

Survey results were shared with Rhode Island Current in advance. 

More than 1 in 5 voters were still undecided at the time of the survey, which ended one day before the first televised gubernatorial debates. 

“With those undecideds, we could see it swing in either candidate’s direction,” Sonder said.

And the governor is “running strong,” said Sophie Mestas, a spokesperson for McKee’s campaign.

Come meet Climate Action endorsed candidates on Thursday

NEWS FROM THE RE-ELECTION CAMPAIGN FOR TINA SPEARS

AUGUST 2026

Meet the Candidates!  Thursday, August 20th at Tilted Barn Brewery

Climate Action Rhode Island and South County Action Team are hosting the candidates and you're invited.   Join the South County Local Team for a casual evening of conversation with Climate Action Rhode Island's endorsed candidates! Meet candidates, connect with fellow members, and enjoy some time on the patio while learning more about the people running to represent our communities.   Neighbors, friends and family are welcome to join.   SIGN UP HERE

Get your yard sign! 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.

RI judge tosses Trump’s latest attempt to reconfigure federal homelessness programs

Rhode Island beats Trump in court again over program to house the homeless

By Nancy Lavin, Rhode Island Current

A Rhode Island federal judge has again blocked the Trump administration from siphoning federal funds from no-strings-attached housing for formerly homeless individuals.

In a pair of identical, 10-page orders issued Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Mary S. McElroy wrote that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) violated the federal Administrative Procedure Act by attempting to divert $4 billion in federal fiscal 2026 grants from “Housing First” programs. 

As the name suggests, the model prioritizes providing a stable living environment for people who have lived on the streets or experienced mental illness before addressing their health, education and social services needs.

Twice in the last seven months, federal housing officials have sought to reallocate federal grant funds, shifting money away from permanent supportive housing programs to transitional housing and other short-term programs. The original, November 2025 federal memo prompted a pair of lawsuits by community advocates and state officials, also heard separately before McElroy who determined the Trump administration overstepped its authority and struck down the proposed funding restrictions.

South Kingstown Council Demands State Police Remove Flock Camera It Learned About From News Story

Charlestown says it has no Flock cameras and doesn't want any 

Adriana Vossari, RI & Local Government

The town's seven Flock Safety license-plate cameras are scheduled for removal August 17-18. A separate state police camera at Route 2 and Route 138 has been operating since July 4, and the council has now formally asked that it be taken down.

The South Kingstown Town Council voted to send a letter to the superintendent of the Rhode Island State Police demanding removal of a license-plate reading camera that state police installed in town in July, after council members said they learned of it from a news story rather than from their own police department.

The vote came at the council's August 11 meeting, according to the South Kingstown Town Council's published meeting recording. It landed roughly two weeks after the council voted on July 27 to terminate the town's own contract with Flock Safety, the vendor whose cameras read and log vehicle license plates for use in investigations.

EDITOR'S NOTE: In a separate article by Alex Nunes for the South County Star, Charlestown Town Council President Deb Carney said unequivocally “There are no Flock cameras in Charlestown,” and “As of today the State Police have no plans to put a Flock camera in Charlestown.”

Charlestown recently reported the theft of a URI research camera to monitor beach and surf conditions. The town stated this was NOT a Flock camera. Carney reiterated, “So the key takeaway — there are no Flock cameras in Charlestown.”  - Will Collette

August 29: Join with the Hopkinton Dems

And be thankful

Support for caregivers and partners of people with dementia

Police have used Flock cameras to stalk their exes, track abortion patients, and spy on protesters

Cops Abusing Flock Surveillance Cameras

Brett Wilkins

Here's a Rhode Island. CLICK HERE to download
RI ACLU document

A new database launched on August 12 that details more than 100 cases of alleged abuse by law enforcement officers using Flock Safety’s nationwide camera network is adding fresh urgency to the growing backlash against automated license plate readers.

The database, published by the Institute for Justice (IJ)—a libertarian nonprofit public interest law firm based in Arlington, Virginia—documents “romantic stalking, wrongful stops and detentions, non-law enforcement use, and other types of misconduct.”

“Automated license plate readers (ALPRs) were sold to American communities as a targeted tool for catching car thieves and finding missing people,” IJ said in an introduction to the database. “What they actually purchased has grown into something far broader and more frightening: an AI-powered network of cameras that photograph and log the movement of every driver who passes, whether or not they are suspected of any crime.”

Tracking the Trump administration’s favors to the pesticide industry

He kept his promises to them

Stacy Malkan 

The pesticide industry has spent decades building a highly effective influence operation in Washington D.C., shaping how pesticides are regulated and how American agriculture operates. Its political influence did not begin with the Trump administration and has extended across both Republican and Democratic administrations.

But over the past 18 months, the Trump administration has delivered a string of victories to the pesticide industry that could reshape pesticide use and public health protections for years to come. 

This tracker documents the Trump administration’s favors to the pesticide industry since January 2025. 

Personnel is policy: The Trump administration has filled many key posts with pesticide industry allies. U.S. Right to Know identified 26 administration officials with ties to the pesticide industry’s lobbying or legal network, including 11 political appointees at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, where former chemical industry lobbyists now occupy the four highest-ranking positions overseeing federal pesticide regulations. 

More PFAS pesticide approvals: In July 2026, EPA approved three new pesticide active ingredients that many scientists classify as PFAS, bringing the total number of PFAS pesticides approved since November 2025 to five. PFAS “forever chemicals” are highly persistent and linked to serious health problems including cancer, birth defects, hormone disruption, liver and thyroid disease. Many scientists and regulators classify PFAS as substances containing at least one fully fluorinated methyl or methylene carbon atom, but EPA uses a narrower definition adopted in 2023 that excludes compounds containing only one fluorinated carbon.  

Weakened endangered species protections: In July 2026, the Trump administration completed changes to Endangered Species Act regulations – including rescinding the longstanding regulatory definition of “harm” – that could make it easier for the EPA to approve pesticides with fewer safeguards for threatened and endangered species. 

Legal triumph for Bayer: In June 2026, the Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration and Bayer in a 7–2 decision likely to block thousands of state-level lawsuits alleging that Bayer failed to warn consumers that Roundup causes cancer. The ruling gives greater legal weight to EPA’s approval of pesticide labels, making it harder for injured people to argue under state law that a manufacturer should have provided stronger warnings than EPA required. For decades, state failure-to-warn claims served as an independent check on EPA pesticide approvals, allowing juries to hold manufacturers accountable even when EPA had approved a pesticide label. The Court’s ruling narrows the pathway through which injured Americans can sue corporations that cause harm. 

Bottom of Form

Donald Trump has made US$2.2 billion in his second term.

Is this normal?

Benjamin Quail, Queen's University Belfast

At the end of June – in the run-up to America’s celebration of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence – Donald Trump staged the White House’s first-ever professional sporting event. And while the UFC Freedom 250 evening of mixed martial arts was ostensibly part of the July 4 jamboree, Trump took the opportunity to promote his family’s business interests.

Fighters were paid bonuses in US$1 stablecoins, the cryptocurrency owned by the Trump family, while the event itself cost a reported US$60 million, much of which was taxpayers’ money.

The US president’s ability to make money while in office has been a focus of attention since his financial reports for 2025 were made public at the end of June. His reported revenue jumped from US$622 million in 2024 to US$2.2 billion in 2025, the first year of his second term.

While he and his family claim that there is no conflict of interest, there is little doubt that Trump has been able to profit from his position. But how does his financial gain as president stack up with some of his recent predecessors?

The Kennedy family were famously wealthy. The family’s patriarch, Joseph Kennedy, put some of his money into trusts for his children, allowing John Fitzgerald, Robert Francis and generations of future Kennedys to pursue politics without financial worry or conflicts between business and public service.

Kennedy’s successor Lyndon B. Johnson owned significant land and a small media empire in Austin, Texas with his wife Lady Bird, all of which was put into a blind trust and officially controlled without the Johnsons’ involvement while he was in office.

During the 1972 election cycle, Time magazine reported that incumbent president, Richard Nixon had improved his finances by just over US$300,000 during his first presidential term, noting that he was “not yet a millionaire”. Most of Nixon’s financial assets were tied up in property and his civil service pension.

Jimmy Carter’s famous peanut farm assets were put into a trust when he won office, and he left the presidency in $1m of debt following droughts in Georgia. Ronald Reagan, who succeeded Carter and was not a businessmen but a film actor-turned-politician, came to office with some assets. His assets – valued in 1981 at about US$4 million, mainly made up of his two properties – were also held in trust while he was in office.

George W. Bush made almost US$15m selling his stake in the Dallas-based Texas Rangers baseball franchise in 1998, while he served as governor of Texas. Barack Obama earned money from royalties on book sales while in office, but both he and Bill Clinton have amassed considerable wealth since leaving office.

None of these presidents appeared to leverage their presidency or their image to earn money while in office in the way that Trump has during his second term. Instead, they tended towards waiting until the post-presidency years.

Kennedy, Oz Contend Fraud Crackdown, Not Skyrocketing Prices, Led Millions To Leave Obamacare

Peddling a fairytale

By Julie Appleby

The Trump administration credits its fraud control efforts for the disappearance of millions of people from Obamacare rolls rather than a sharp rise in premiums — a claim disputed by policy experts that glosses over the reality that many more Americans now find themselves without health insurance.

Enrollment in Affordable Care Act plans fell by nearly 3 million this year to about 19.2 million, following steep premium increases by insurers and the Republican-led Congress’ unwillingness to extend more generous premium subsidies. 

On average, ACA customers pay $178 a month in premium payments this year, a 58% increase from 2025, according to KFF, while their deductibles — the amount consumers must pay annually before insurers pick up their share — have climbed 37% to nearly $3,800 a year.

Looking for fraud? Start here.

“These are real people who are now forced to make impossible choices,” said Annalyse Keller, a spokesperson for Keep Americans Covered, a large coalition of lobby organizations for the healthcare industry, including insurers and patient advocacy groups.

But a Department of Health and Human Services report released in June, written mostly by Donald Trump’s political appointees and allies, asserts that 5.6 million people were fraudulently enrolled in ACA plans in 2025, and that the Trump administration removed 2.9 million of them — the same number as the 2026 drop in enrollment.

Republican Florida Senator Rick Scott
ran the biggest Medicare fraud in history

There’s little dispute that the ACA suffers from some fraud, as do most government programs. The administration said it has taken actions to tighten the enrollment process to thwart brokers who fraudulently enroll people without their knowledge.

For example, the administration in August 2025 halted a Biden-era initiative that allowed low-income people to sign up for coverage year-round. 

Regulators also have removed 1.5 million people since 2025 for reasons such as not meeting a requirement to file their taxes over two years or being concurrently enrolled in another health program, such as Medicaid, which is not allowed.

But health policy experts say that the administration is overstating the extent of ACA fraud and that the HHS report relies on debatable assumptions, such as that all sign-ups under the year-round enrollment program for low-income people were potentially fraudulent. ACA enrollment fell off a cliff because of escalating prices for insurance plans, policy analysts say, which the administration’s done nothing to stem.