Van Slyke launches comeback with another installment of “Slyke of Hand”

CCA Council candidate deploys her usual mix of twisted history and blatant false statements

By Will Collette

Ruth Platner (l) and Bonnie B. (r)

Former Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA) Town Council member Bonnita B. Van Slyke wants to return to the Town Council by winning the December 2 Special Election to fill the void left by Council Vice President Rippy Serra’s unexpected death. This is her second comeback attempt after her last place finish in a field of ten in last November’s General Election.

During her 8-year run on the Council, she served as CCA founder and de facto leader Ruth Platner’s reliable lapdog, often taking ridiculous positions that Platner herself wouldn’t say publicly.

For background, Ruth Platner uses her perch as chair-for-life of the Charlestown Planning Commission to wield power over land use decisions. When the CCA controlled the Town Council, she used them to rubberstamp her shady land deals.

Platner also used compliant CCA acolytes to publicly promote her more extreme positions. Mike Chambers from the CCA client group, the Sachem Passage Association, used to play that role but in recent years, the job shifted to Bonnie B. especially after she left the Town Council in 2022.

Her positions were so outlandish that I began a popular series I dubbed “Slyke of Hand” to refute, with documentation, her CCA propaganda. Here’s one of my favorites where Van Slyke tries to justify secret shady land deals.

One of my favorites was a yarn she spun having to do with a ladder she bought when she was young. This story is supposed to explain how the CCA-run town government managed to “misplace” $3 million in town funds unnoticed for almost two years but nonetheless needed to put even more taxpayer money in various random surplus fund accounts. Her explanation:

“When I consider what is prudent, I think of the time I rented an apartment on the third floor of a 100-year-old building. The building had no external fire escape and one staircase. The building had survived 100 years; however, I purchased a foldable metal fire escape that could be lowered out a window, hoping that I had planned well enough.”

She had similar explanations for the CCA’s fevered need to engage in shady land deals to expand on Charlestown’s huge stock of open space.

Her most recent efforts have focused on an especially peculiar CCA practice of over-taxing Charlestown property to build up vast amounts of surplus cash. Here’s the backstory:

In 2015, the Platner-led CCA won a squeaker of a victory, winning voter approval by eleven votes to issue $2 million in bonds to acquire land for open space. Van Slyke cites the language of that ballot measure:

“Shall the Town of Charlestown finance the acquisition, preservation or protection of open space or any interest therein alone or in conjunction with federal agencies, state agencies, land conservancies, land trusts or preservation organizations for preservation and approve the issuance of bonds and notes therefor in an amount not to exceed $2,000,000?” [Emphasis added (by the CCA).]

Van Slyke ignores the part of the ballot measure that says “…approve the issuance of bonds and notes therefor in an amount not to exceed $2,000,000.” That’s me adding the emphasis because as a taxpayer and voter, I think part about how the land will be purchased is the essential part of the measure.

Platner giving former Town Council Prez. Tom Gentz
his instructions before a Council meeting
(photo by Will Collette)

After the bond passed, Platner went on a buying spree. But instead of using low-interest bond funding that voters authorized, Platner used the compliant CCA-led Council to do the deals in cash, using uncommitted surplus funds – your tax dollars. Most of Platner’s deals were marked by paying far above the town property assessments.

Van Slyke fuzzes over the over-priced deals by noting matching money from DEM except that the ballot measure calls on the town to seek outside funding and partnerships. This is not some brilliant CCA achievement but represents compliance with the direction of the voters.

For reasons that have never been entirely clear, the CCA drifted into a policy that essentially committed Charlestown to pay for capital investments with taxpayer cash rather than low-interest municipal bonds. Maybe in their personal lives CCA leaders don’t believe in mortgages or car loans. They made it clear they didn’t want to issue bonds, despite voter approval. Maybe it’s about Bonnie B.’s ladder.

I wonder why the CCA fought so hard for that 2015 open space bond measure, given they didn’t want to use it.

Anyway, Bonnie B. now accuses Town Council President Deb Carney of cheating the voters by wanting to issue the bonds that voters approved ten years ago.

Van Slyke herself admits the CCA spent a million bucks buying land without issuing the voter approved bonds. That violates what the voters approved in 2015.

She condemns Deb Carney because Deb thinks taxpayers deserve some payback by putting funds misappropriated by the CCA back into the General Fund. There is NO evidence that Deb wants to spend the remaining bond authorization on anything other than what the voters approved in 2015.

Van Slyke now claims “Certainly, the Town Council should not float a bond without taxpayers being able to vote on whether they approve of $1 million to $2 million in new spending in a general election.”

Bonnie – get your story straight. The voters already approved the bonds in 2015. Issuing a bond to replenish the General Fund simply redresses the CCA’s past financial mismanagement; it's NOT about new spending.

But the truth, however inconvenient, has never stopped Bonnie B. from making false claims.

Yeah, you did

Wednesday presentation in Peacedale by the Tomaquag Museum

Trump offers another proof that he is demented

So what's wrong with this Trump claim?

1. Trump was still President on January 6, 2021. He seems to have forgotten this.

2. Trump appointee Jeffrey Rosen was serving as Trump's acting Attorney General.

3. Trump appointee Christopher Wray was serving as Director of the FBI.

4. Joe Biden was not inaugurated until January 20, three weeks after January 6.

5. Joe Biden had no control over the FBI or Justice Department until January 20.

6. Donald Trump directed his crowd to march on the Capitol and specifically to confront Vice President Mike Pence.

Trump probably expected to win this one, too

Brown University economics professor Peter Howitt wins Nobel Economics Prize

Brown University

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has
awarded Brown University Professor Emeritus
Peter Howitt the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences 
“for the theory of sustained growth through
creative destruction.”

Howitt is a professor emeritus of economics at Brown, where he joined the faculty in 2000. He shares one half of the Nobel Prize with Philippe Aghion of the Collège de France and INSEAD in Paris and the London School of Economics and Political Science in the United Kingdom; the other half was awarded to Joel Mokyr of Northwestern University.

“Over the last two centuries, for the first time in history, the world has seen sustained economic growth,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences stated in its news release. “This has lifted vast numbers of people out of poverty and laid the foundation of our prosperity. This year’s laureates in economic sciences, Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt, explain how innovation provides the impe­tus for further progress.”

Brown University President Christina H. Paxson congratulated Howitt for being recognized with the world’s highest prize for economics.

“We are proud and deeply honored that the work of Professor Howitt, one of our esteemed faculty, has received the international recognition of a Nobel Prize,” Paxson said. “At a time when the role of research in sparking innovation in new technologies is so prominent in discussions about our changing society, I’m sure that people around the world will appreciate learning more about Professor Howitt’s work, along with the contributions of the other prize winners.”

Howitt said that while he was aware of the influence his work with Aghion has had, he wasn’t expecting the Nobel committee to come calling. 

“I didn’t bother to turn my phone on overnight,” Howitt said. “I have no champagne in the refrigerator. So this is all really quite a shock to me.”

He first learned of the prize through several calls from a reporter to his wife's phone. 

“Someone had found a way to reach her,” Howitt said. “It was a number from Sweden. Oh, I said, I think you better answer.” 

Green Tea Shows Promise in Fighting Obesity and Diabetes

Can't hurt

By São Paulo Research Foundation

Green tea has long been valued for its medicinal and antioxidant qualities. 

It has been extensively investigated for its role in metabolic health, particularly in conditions such as obesity and type 2 diabetes. 

Recent research supported by FAPESP (19/10616-5, 21/08498-4 and 23/11295-3) has provided new insights into how green tea works and showed that treatment with the beverage lowered body weight and markedly improved glucose sensitivity and insulin resistance in obese mice. 

These findings highlight its potential use as a supportive strategy in managing obesity in humans.

The studies were led by Rosemari Otton from the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Health Sciences at Cruzeiro do Sul University in São Paulo, Brazil. Otton, who has spent more than 15 years researching green tea, explained that her initial interest arose from questioning whether the common belief in its weight-loss benefits was scientifically valid. Her recent findings were published in the journal Cell Biochemistry & Function.

After Rhode Island’s shoreline access law, what’s next?

"Fire Districts" use guards, and one guy pulls a gun to keep people off the beach

Kristen Curry 

CLICK HERE for the details

URI coastal law expert assessing Rhode Island's shoreline access law in the face of rising seas and eroding coastlines

These recent sunny days bring the last chances to access the Rhode Island coastline before chillier weather sets in, though that won’t keep Jesse Reiblich away. When he’s not in or around the water — as an avid surfer, diver, and sailor — the University of Rhode Island assistant professor is working on a project to assess how effective Rhode Island’s shoreline access policies are, in a project funded by the National Sea Grant Law Center.

An attorney who teaches in URI’s Department of Marine Affairs, Professor Reiblich is writing and presenting on an important topic in the Ocean State: How can access to its shorelines be protected if the boundary is unclear?

Public access to the coast is threatened by a number of factors, including climate change, development, and conflicting coastal uses. Rhode Island’s Constitution guarantees certain coastal access privileges, but these rights have been undermined by judicial decisions that define the “shore” in limited ways.

In response to these discrepancies, Rhode Island’s legislature two years ago passed a new shoreline access law that enshrines the right of the public to access 10 feet above the mark of the last high tide. Professor Reiblich says this new law functions as a coastal resilience law. Now, he’s overseeing a research project aiming to evaluate the new law’s effectiveness, hoping to share research findings with the government agencies responsible for implementing the law.

Along with URI colleagues Melva Treviño Peña and Nathan Vinhateiro, the trio will assess whether the shoreline’s newly defined demarcation is sufficient for ensuring public coastal access and enhancing the public’s ability to access the shore. They hope to determine whether Rhode Island’s “shoreline” definition is legally sufficient or whether a new delineation would be legally preferable, for users, property owners, and regulators, as well as in the face of rising seas, eroding coastlines, and other effects of climate change.

Professor Reiblich believes that Rhode Island stands out within New England for protecting public ocean access: “Rhode Island’s effort to protect shoreline access in this new law and in its Constitution is among the strongest in the region,” he says.

Celebrate today!

To The Fourth Amendment: You Were a Great and Underappreciated Amendment. Now Trump's Made You an Endangered Species

Trump is throwing basic Constitutional rights out the window - and the Republican majorities in Congress and the Supreme Court are letting him get away with it

Mitchell Zimmerman

Suppose the police want to get illegal drugs off the streets, and they believe Black and brown people most likely to be carrying and selling drugs.

One way the cops could go about suppressing drugs would be to stop most of the Black and brown people they see on the streets (at gunpoint, since drug dealers might be armed), lean them up against a wall, frisk them, and search their pockets, wallets and handbags. The police could also force their way into every house on the street to search for drugs.

The great majority of people frightened, humiliated and invaded wouldn’t be criminals. But the police would likely seize some drugs and arrest some dealers.

Can they do that?

The United States Constitution affords a clear answer: No.

The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution provides, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated . . .”

And further: “no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

This means you’ve got a right to be left alone unless the police present evidence showing that there’s a strong chance you’ve committed a crime, and a judge issues a warrant.

The Fourth Amendment was the Founding Fathers’ response to invasive royal officers

How’s the Fourth Amendment doing these days?

Not too well. For years, right-wingers attacked these rights as “technicalities” for freeing criminals when the cops ignored the Fourth. But those who wrote our Constitution knew alleged crime could be an excuse for abuses, and they valued security from searches and seizures highly. Indeed, the King of England’s defilement of such rights was “one of the driving forces behind the American Revolution itself,” the Supreme Court has explained.

“The Fourth Amendment was the founding generation’s response” to law enforcement “which allowed British officers to rummage through homes in an unrestrained search for evidence of criminal activity.”

The abuses that provoked the American Revolution are no longer ancient history. In the name of fighting “chaos” and an imaginary crime wave, Trump has launched a broad assault on the Fourth Amendment as part of substituting a Trump-loyal, federal militarized force for local civilian control of law enforcement.

Trump has openly proclaimed his militaristic intentions, threatening, “Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.” ICE commandos conducted a military assault on a five-story apartment building in Chicago. There was no attempt to persuade a judge that anyone – let alone everyone in the building – was likely a criminal, and no judge issued any warrants.

Trump’s lies and his war against the American people and our Constitution

ICE agents dropped from Black Hawk helicopters onto the roof of the building. Then, as reported by Time magazine, “agents worked their way through the building, kicking down doors and throwing flash bang grenades, rounding up adults and screaming children alike, detaining them in zip-ties.”

The ICE agents seized everyone in the building. They pointed guns in the faces of citizens, handcuffed them and held them for hours. “Photos of the aftermath,” reported Time, “show toys and shoes littering the apartment hallways that were left in the chaos as people were pulled from their beds.”

Trump’s excuses for militarization are falsehoods. For example, a Trump-appointed federal judge recently held that Trump’s claim that Portland, Oregon, was “war ravaged” was “simply untethered to the facts.”

In his September 30th speech to 800 generals and admirals, Trump asserted “America is under invasion from within” and signaled his intent to “use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military.” The Chicago apartment building action occurred the same day, and may be a model of the “training” Trump favors.

When Donald Trump apes George III, we must respond accordingly: No Kings!

In recent months a series of national demonstrations have challenged Trump’s lawlessness under the theme, “No Kings!” Aptly so.

The assault in Chicago was what the Framers of our Constitution feared and what they hoped our Bill of Rights could thwart. But a Constitution is not self-defending.

As Trump muses over an unconstitutional third term (“A lot of people want me to do it”), uses the summary execution of alleged drug smugglers as a model of military power, and invokes pretend uprisings to justify federalizing the National Guard, the danger is real and imminent. But we defeated a King in 1783 and – if we all recognize the danger and are prepared to stand up for our democracy – we can do it again.

Mitchell Zimmerman is an attorney, longtime social activist, and author of the anti-racism thriller Mississippi Reckoning. He's also a longtime contributor to Progressive Charlestown. His writing can also be found on his Substack, Reasoning Together with Mitchell Zimmerman.

Don't be mean

Trump wiped out foreign aid to fight famine and disease and instead, did these favors for foreign friends

MAGA - here's a question for you: Why does Qatar NEED an air force base in Idaho? And why are we giving a country that sponsors terrorism against the US such a base?

Is it possible that extensive conflicts of interests could be behind this deal?

Trump wiped out $60 billion in foreign aid for food, vaccines, medical supplies and infrastructure to poor countries, but found $20 billion for this:

Rooftop solar takes a huge hit from Trump and Congressional Republicans

Rooftop solar is in a slump. Are dark days ahead?

Brian Bienkowski

Solar panels on Greg Sparks’ roof in Davis, California.
(Credit: Greg Sparks)

A decade ago Greg Sparks and his wife put 20 solar panels on the roof of their home in California’s Sacramento Valley, hoping that using sunlight to power their electrical needs would reduce their utility bills and help the planet. 

“My assumption was that (electrical utility) rates will go up,” Sparks said. “And it was just the right thing to do.” 

The panels paid off. Sparks estimates his neighbors now pay about $250 a month for electricity, while his monthly bill is zero. Sparks is one of roughly 1.8 million homeowners who have helped make California a national leader in the adoption of residential solar, typically installed on rooftops.

From 2015 to 2023, California’s small-scale solar capacity, generated largely from residential rooftops and shared community panels on rooftops and solar farms — rose roughly six-fold, according to data from California’s three largest electric utilities. Nationally, small-scale solar capacity grew nearly five-fold over that time frame.  

But while supporters champion the benefits of residential solar, including a reduction in reliance on polluting fossil fuels and lower bills, critics say the systems that save money for individual homeowners cause costs to rise for those without the systems as increased rooftop solar creates challenges for utilities that must maintain the stability of a power grid infrastructure with fewer paying customers.

Now, the popularity of residential solar is seeing a steep reversal due to shifting state and federal policies driven by powerful utility interests. And while some say the decline is simply a mild adjustment, others fear the market for residential solar may be on the brink of a long-term slide.   

Forty-two states saw a decrease in residential solar installs last year, with residential solar capacity down 39%, according to the most recent report from the US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). In the first quarter of 2025, the trend continued: residential solar installs declined 13% compared to the first quarter of 2024. More than 100 solar companies filed for bankruptcy in 2024. 

Public has lost confidence in Bobby Jr.'s CDC vaccine advice

Most people trust medical professionals who have opposed Kennedy

Stephanie Soucheray, MA

A new KFF poll taken in the days after President Donald Trump linked acetaminophen use in pregnancy to autism—and said the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine should be separated into three monovalent (single-strain) shots—shows public trust in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is now at its lowest level since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The poll also showed low support for Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who also made the unsupported acetaminophen (Tylenol) link to autism.

Only 18% of the more than 1,300 adults polled said they have "a great deal" of trust in the CDC to provide reliable vaccine information, while 32% said they have "a fair amount" of trust in the agency—meaning 50% expressed at least some level of trust. In September 2023, 63% of those polled said they had a great deal or fair amount of trust in the CDC, while in July 2025 it was 57%.

However, 69% of parents polled said they trust the American Academy of Pediatrics, and 64% of all adults polled said they trust the American Medical Association. Both of those groups have been removed from federal vaccine working groups this year.

Brown University researcher testifies that non-profit hospitals need to provide more community benefit to compensate for their tax exemption

Lawmakers can ensure that nonprofit hospitals benefit communities, Brown scholar tells Congress

Brown University

More than half of U.S. hospitals are nonprofit organizations, and the total financial value of nonprofit tax exemptions exceeds $37 billion per year nationally. In return for this exemption, the IRS requires that nonprofit hospitals operate with a primary focus of serving the community. But that’s not always the case in reality, said Brown University public health researcher Christopher Whaley. 

In testimony offered before Congress on Tuesday, Sept. 16, Whaley presented his research quantifying the financial value of nonprofit hospital tax exemptions, analyzing hospital use of tax-exempt bond financing and investment income, and examining how those financial advantages influence hospital pricing behavior and community benefit spending. He also shared policy reforms suggestions that could help ensure that tax benefits translate into measurable health care benefits for patients and communities. 

Whaley was among of a panel of experts who testified in a hearing titled “Hearing on Virtue Signaling vs. Vital Services: Where Tax-Exempt Hospitals are Spending Your Tax Dollars,” organized by the Oversight Subcommittee of the U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means. The associate professor of health care policy, who is affiliated with the Center for Advancing Health Policy through Research at Brown’s School of Public Health, was invited to testify given his research on ways to reduce health care costs.

So let's blame Joe Biden

The Trump recession may already be upon us: it is in Rhode Island

by Max Burns, Daily Kos Contributor

A Trump recession is reportedly already crashing down on many American families, and Republicans have only themselves to blame. 

Twenty-two states and Washington, D.C., are experiencing recessions, while another 13 states are flashing serious economic warning signs, according to an estimate from economic research firm Moody’s.

Far from ushering in the new “golden age” he promised in January, President Donald Trump’s scattershot economic policies have pushed the nation to the brink of a crippling recession in less than a year. 

Moody’s finds that both red and blue states are being dragged into these poor economic circumstances, but those two groups won’t hurt equally. Contracting red states, like Iowa and West Virginia, are already struggling to overcome the hangover effects of Trump’s sweeping cuts to federal services. Those states are now more vulnerable to sudden spikes in community need, such as for food assistance, which Trump’s government slashed.

MAGA’s tariff and trade policies have also disproportionately harmed swathes of the GOP’s base, threatening the party’s chances in next year’s midterm elections.