Trump makes his final mid-term pitch

Who wants to visit an authoritarian America?

Trump tanks tourism.

Brynn Tannehill

One of the peculiarities of being an American is the widespread national conviction that America is the best at everything.

This is particularly true of Republicans and MAGA, self-identified “real Americans” who consider anyone criticizing the US to be a commie traitor.

Trump takes this a step further by declaring anything he touches to be the biggest, best thing ever. He is convinced he has made America great again, and that the whole world now respects and fears the United States accordingly.

This is, of course, complete nonsense.

Since Trump has returned to office, global approval of the United States has plummeted. This is seen as far back as polling data from early 2025, and it’s likely much worse now.

When Pew Research asked people across 36 countries this spring if they trusted various world leaders to do the right thing, Trump was trusted least — less than Putin, Xi Jinping, and Netanyahu. Gallup found that world opinion of the United States has fallen to its lowest point in 20 years.

Ouch. 

Public Service announcement

Ukraine defends the US from Russian election interference

 And this is how Trump retaliates

And there's a lot of truth to this:

Who did this?

URI Metcalf Institute’s Fall Lecture takes participants outside to experience the North Woods Field Guide with DWELL Lab

Immersive two-part walk and zine-making event on Oct. 14 

By Abbie Lahmers

The URI Metcalf Institute’s fall lecture takes
participants outside to experience the North Woods
this October. (URI Photo / Abbie Lahmers)

The University of Rhode Island’s Metcalf Institute concludes its 2026 Annual Public Lecture Series on Wednesday, Oct. 14 with their Fall Lecture, straying from the lectern this year to bring participants on a walk through the North Woods, followed by a conversation and hands-on zine-making activity with DWELL Lab.

URI’s North Woods serves as a teaching forest and site for field research on the Kingston Campus as well as an important communal space. Ellie Lin, an illustration student at RISD who worked with DWELL Lab this summer through the Rhode Island NSF EPSCoR’s Summer Undergraduate Research Fellow (SURF) program, will lead participants through the Narragansett Story Walk, exploring the rich ecology and human history of the North Woods.

RISD artist Ellie Lin has created a field guide
to the North Woods and will present it as part of
an immersive walk and zine-making
event at URI on Oct. 14.

Lin sees the event as an opportunity to “bring people together through storytelling, community, and local ecology.” Sketching, journaling, and reflecting is encouraged during the immersive walk and materials will be provided. 

The event will continue at Toray Commons with a conversation, reception, and zine-making workshop.

In a conversation moderated by Metcalf Institute Executive Director Fara Warner, Lin will be joined by URI’s Madison Jones and Stephanie West-Puckett, with Bonnie Phillips ’88 of ecoRI News, to discuss the creation of the first edition of the “North Woods Field Guide.” 

The guide, which is part of the bigger North Woods Project, is funded by a Rita Allen Civic Science Media Grant. Expected to be released in print and digital forms this fall, it will contain a collection of scientific, creative, and journalistic writing and imagery that covers animals, vegetation, flowers, minerals, and other elements of the woods.

“I’m excited to walk with folx in the North Woods and discuss how queer genres, specifically zines and community-authored field guides, can make civic science communication more accessible and inclusive,” said West-Puckett, associate professor of professional and public writing, who’s leading the creation of the first North Woods Field Guide. Jones, associate professor of science communication and director of the DWELL Lab, shared that he looks forward to talking about outdoor education. “Field notes are an exciting way to connect as writers with our local environments and communities,” he said.

Just leave those kids alone!

Far-right legal group lodges federal complaint against North and South Kingstown’s transgender student policies

Steve Ahlquist

Jocelyn Foye, Executive Director of The Womxn Project

“I want to bring to the Commission’s attention that Rhode Island is consistently on the radar of the Moms for Liberty hate group organizing that’s going on across the country,” said Jocelyn Foye, Executive Director of The Womxn Project, speaking before Thursday’s meeting of the Rhode Island Commission on Prejudice and Bias. 

“While every nonprofit has the opportunity to do whatever they want with their messaging and the way they behave, I’d like to draw attention to some extremely prejudicial behavior that’s now being specifically targeted at trans students in North Kingstown and South Kingstown.”

Specifically, Executive Director Foye was there in response to a complaint filed by America First Legal Foundation with the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Education, “calling for a federal investigation into Rhode Island’s South Kingstown School District, alleging that its policies directing staff to facilitate students’ ‘gender transitions’ without parental notification are unlawful.” The America First Legal Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit far-right public interest organization founded in 2021 by white nationalist Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy.

This complaint follows a similar complaint the group made against the North Kingstown School District on July 22. Both complaints allege that the current school district policies regarding transgender and gender-expansive students violate the law, when in fact the policies comply with local, state, and federal law, as determined by the Rhode Island Department of Education and the Rhode Island District Attorney’s Office.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Moms for Liberty leader Jasmine Roy (R) is running against local state Representative Megan Cotter for House District 39 covering Richmond, Hopkinton and Exeter. Roy is supported by the ultra-rightwing League of RI Businesses that also supported Rep. Tina Spears' opponent, sex crimes defense lawyer Leah Boisclair.  - Will Collette

Bobby Kennedy's HHS publishes "study" linking support for LGBTQ+ rights and political violence

“I have rarely read a report that has come out of the government that is so clearly politically biased,”

This story was originally reported by Orion Rummler and Jasmine Mithani of The 19th. Meet Orion and Jasmine and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy.

A new study from the Trump administration is sending alarm bells through pro-democracy groups for its potential to fuel a crackdown on Americans who support LGBTQ+ rights — or anyone with left-leaning views. 

Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a study that reaches a dramatic conclusion: Those who support transgender people may be more likely to justify political violence. The study also claims that those who agree with statements like “all political conservatives are fools” or “anyone who opposes gay marriage must be homophobic” may also be more likely to support political violence. 

Experts have serious doubts about the study’s findings and major ethical objections to its methodology. They say that it builds on previous pseudoscience about trans people and, ultimately, they are concerned about how the Trump administration plans to use it. 

Chariho Committee Declines Legal Opinion on Barring Transgender Girls From Girls' Sports

Culture war pounds on

Adriana Vossari, RI & Local Government

No change to Chariho athletics policy. The committee declined to pay for a legal opinion, and no policy was placed on a future agenda.

A Chariho Regional School Committee member's request for a paid legal opinion on prohibiting "biological males from participating in biological female sports" failed at Tuesday's meeting, with only three members raising their hands in support.

According to the school committee's published meeting recording, the request came during the meeting's final item, when the chair asked members for future agenda items or legal opinions. A member said he wanted an agenda item to implement such a policy "in accordance with the recent United States Supreme Court decision." He also asked for a legal opinion on whether that federal decision overrides Rhode Island law, saying, "I think that federalism trumps Rhode Island law."

The committee, which oversees schools serving Richmond, Hopkinton and Charlestown, did not adopt or debate any policy language. Only the request for a legal opinion was put to a vote.

Why did no one challenge this?

Honor Life of Gloria Steinem ‘By Organizing’ for Rights, Equality, and Freedom

“Thank you, Gloria, for showing the world what it means to speak up for women’s equality.”

Jon Queally for Common Dreams

Progressive advocates, lawmakers, veteran journalists, labor leaders, and champions of feminism on Thursday are mourning the death of trailblazing women’s rights activist and author Gloria Steinem, who has passed away at the age of 92.

Steinem, regarded as an icon of the second-wave feminism that emerged in the 1960s and 70s and co-founder of Ms. Magazine, was known for decades as a leading voice on reproductive rights, women’s equality at work, and gender equity across society.

According to her representatives, Steinem died Wednesday at her home in New York City, surrounded by loved ones. An exact cause of death was not given.

“Gloria’s near-century on earth was years well-lived, and she continued working for equality until the very end,” read a message posted to her Instagram account.

“Gloria’s greatest gift was her ability to listen to others, to make others feel seen and heard,” the message continued. “Her words, actions, and example gave people permission to be their truest selves. Gloria lived true to her independent spirit, always with curiosity and a great sense of humor.”

A life well lived

Who are the winners in this culture war?

The defense of transgender student rights shifts, once again, to the Westerly School Committee

Steve Ahlquist

Dozens of people attended the August 19 meeting of the Westerly School Committee to advocate against agenda item 12d, “Request of Counsel to seek written opinion from Rhode Island Attorney General’s Office regarding SCOTUS Decision as to transgender athletes.” The decision is West Virginia v. B.P.J., in which the United States Supreme Court upheld state laws, such as West Virginia’s “Save Women’s Sports Act,” that banned or restricted transgender women athletes from participating in women’s school sports teams on a 6-3 vote.

You can watch the relevant parts of the School Committee meeting here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltJLTv1o0g8

“You folks who came to the mic tonight wondering who put this item on the agenda,” said Westerly School Committee member Peter Nero. “It was me. The reason I put it on the agenda is that I want final clarity on where Rhode Island law stands, and I want the Attorney General to put that in writing, because I don’t want to have any more of these long nights… Bottom line: I wanted clarity on this so we don’t have more meetings like this, and we put an end to this now. That’s why it’s on the agenda.”

The long nights Committee member Nero is referring to are likely the meetings where the school committee takes up potential changes to their Transgender, Gender Nonconforming & Transitioning Students Protocol and a large number of people fill the room to advocate for transgender student rights.

Committee member Timothy Killam seemed exasperated. He wanted to talk about what he considered the positive things happening in Westerly, like the opening of a new school in a couple of weeks. “Why are we going around in circles about this instead of talking about some forward progress? In my opinion, we have a protocol in place. We don’t have a problem right now. Why are we taking the time about this?”

Committee member Killam sought to assure the people in the room that they had misunderstood the agenda and that nothing would be decided during the meeting. “I want you all to understand: if you read the agenda, we’re not voting on anything today,” said Committee member Killam. “That was never on the agenda. And if you interpreted it that way, you are incorrect. No vote is being taken tonight. Period. There is not. It was simply a statement to ask for something in writing.”

Seventeen minutes later, the School Committee voted 4 to 3 against seeking an opinion from the Attorney General. Later in the meeting, Committee member Angela Goethels apologized for her yes vote, saying that upon further reflection she was against it.

Ahead of the vote, when asked about seeking a written opinion from the R.I. Attorney General’s Office about the status of the State Law regarding transgender students, Attorney William Nardone said, “I’m not sure what you want me to ask the Attorney General. If you want me to ask him for ‘his opinion on a decision,’ frankly, I would be embarrassed to send that letter to the Attorney General…”

The “clarity” desired by Committee member Nero doesn’t exist, opined Attorney Jennifer Wood, who has decades of legal expertise in the education space.

“I wasn’t going to comment tonight because I saw that you didn’t have an agenda item that you were voting on this evening - although it ended up being voted on - and I didn’t want to attenuate further what has been a painful and difficult conversation for your committee over several evenings,” said Attorney Wood. “And I definitely never wanted to discourage anyone from seeking an opinion from the Attorney General. I would never be so arrogant as to suggest that that should not be done.

“I appreciate the desire for clarity and finality on this issue that this committee and that a lot of others in the community are yearning for. I am here to share the bad news that it is not yet available. [In the] West Virginia v. BPJ case, the Supreme Court ruled narrowly on one aspect of the issue that relates to transgender athletes’ participation in sports. But on page three of the decision, in footnote number one, it’s quite straightforward: Brett Kavanaugh, writing the majority opinion says, [paraphrasing] ‘We’re not deciding most of this issue in this decision. All we’re saying is that the 27 states who have state law that permits the exclusion of transgender women in women’s sports, they can do that. And the 23 states that do not have state law, and among them, Rhode Island, states that permit the participation of students in sports teams that are aligned to their gender identity can also do that. We’re not opining on that today. We weren’t asked to; it’s not in the case, and we’re not doing that.’ Then they, in the footnote, the court further excludes: We’re not talking about trans men participating in men’s sports.

“So the clarity and finality that I think everyone wants isn’t there.”

Public Testimony

Public testimony lasted over an hour. Every person who spoke was there in defense of transgender students. Here are some excerpts, edited for clarity:

Trump to HIV and Cancer Patients: Get Back to Work

Priorities

By David Dayen

This piece is part of our Trump’s Beautiful Disaster series about the consequences of the mammoth budget law, one year later. You can see all stories in this series here.

Yesterday was the 61st anniversary of the signing of Medicare and Medicaid, a promise by the government to at least care for the oldest and most vulnerable people in our society. Today is the deadline for public comment on a rule that could force severely ill patients with cancer, HIV, and other ailments to get out of their hospital beds and go to work if they want the government to keep that promise.

The new rule, which was spurred by cuts to Medicaid in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) but was not required in the text, adds a layer of bureaucracy for “medically frail” individuals who got a statutory exemption from the law’s new work requirements for health coverage. 

Medical frailty has long been a concept in Medicaid, giving patients suffering from serious conditions the ability to access coverage. But the administration’s interim final rule published last month said that not only would individuals have to exhibit one of the medically frail conditions, but their condition would have to “significantly impair” their ability to work.

“That’s not an existing standard, and there’s no data source for that information,” said Jennifer Wagner with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP). This means that states, which are partners in Medicaid, will have to establish an entire regime for verifying “significant impairment” on the fly, and justify it to a federal government that is quick to say that anything resembling expansion of assistance to the poor is actually fraud. “There’s language in the [rule] that says ‘we will hold states accountable’ if they don’t follow this unclear definition precisely,” Wagner said.

So people with serious medical maladies—osteosarcoma patients suffering severe bone weakness, for instance—will have to jump through very undefined bureaucratic hoops to “prove” they cannot work 80 hours a month, with the risk of a coverage loss if that’s denied. Even a temporary coverage gap could be serious. “They will die, they will become sick,” said Carl Schmid, executive director of the HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute in Washington. “That’s why we pushed so hard for the exemption, because we know the ramifications of people losing access to health care.”

Schmid cited estimates that 145,000 Americans living with HIV could be affected by the change. About 40 percent of all Americans with HIV rely on Medicaid, according to Schmid.

A high T, low IQ military is the last thing we need

Maybe Pete is taking TOO MUCH testosterone

Sabrina Haake

On July 21, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine appeared before the Senate Appropriations Committee, hats in hand. The war in Iran has depleted key weapons stockpiles, reducing U.S. inventories of interceptor missiles and stealth cruise missiles to less than half and costing over $37 billion to date. 

To the naked eye, these expenditures against a nominal force reflect waste and incompetence: disastrous mismanagement of an undefined, intractable, and escalating war.

Hegseth expected lawmakers to correct his urgent shortfall, but wouldn’t correct, clarify or explain his own obviously false claims about Iran. Hegseth’s early-in-the-war announcements that Iran’s military had been dismantled, “destroyed and made combat ineffective,” while claiming “historic and overwhelming victory” were obviously untrue, but on July 22, the GOP-led House put another $1 trillion in Hegseth’s hands anyway. 

Not only did the MAGA wing reward Trump’s incompetent war in Iran with a massive spending boost, it codified Hegseth’s rebrand of the “Department of War,” snuck in Trump’s voter suppression bill, and blocked hormone therapy coverage for gender care just as Hegseth is braying about increased testosterone levels.

Arming a blowhard who delivers culture war braggadocio instead of sober analysis is not confidence inspiring, it’s irresponsible. It’s also dangerous as hell.

Hegseth’s bloodlust

As a Fox News commentator, Hegseth lobbied hard for presidential pardons for war criminals, leading Trump to fully pardon a Lieutenant convicted of murdering two Afghan civilians, and a Major who admitted to the CIA that he killed someone off base in 2010 and buried his remains. 

For his own activities in Iraq, Hegseth kept a ‘kill board’ totaling up his kills, including dead civilians, providing context for his bloodlust today (“maximum lethality not tepid legality”) and his disdain for restraint (“stupid rules of engagement.”)

Hegseth seems to be grooming U.S. servicemembers for war crimes by modeling how rules and laws do not apply. 

Added to over 200 extrajudicial killings in South America, he bombed a school in Iran, killing175 grade-schoolers, and is now bombing Iran’s civilian energy infrastructure and water desalination facilities, more war crimes. Millions of Iranians are living under fire in nightmarish hellscapes, compounding anti-American hatred sure to outlast Trump for generations.

This is the same idiocy that blames other countries for climate-change induced wildfires, while pouring gas on the flames. But of all the mistakes, bloodlust, and incompetence displayed to date, none is more dangerous than Hegseth’s new experiments with testosterone.

Westerly culture war erupts again

After victory for trans student rights in Cumberland, all eyes turn to Westerly

Steve Ahlquist

Credit: Mel Woods/Xtra

As the Cumberland School District wrestled with and ultimately declined to pass changes to its transgender student policies last week, Westerly School Committee Solicitor William Nardone provided a freewheeling and imaginative overview of a recent United States Supreme Court decision, West Virginia v. B.P.J., regarding the eligibility of transgender athletes in female sports at last Wednesday’s meeting during his “solicitor’s report.”

In the decision, SCOTUS ruled that under Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause, schools may maintain women’s and girls’ sports teams based on “biological sex.” The decision permits—but does not strictly mandate—the exclusion of trans girls from female sports, said Solicitor Nardone. The solicitor advised the School Committee that the district should align itself with the court’s decision, even though the ruling did not affect Rhode Island General Laws or the Department of Education’s mandated Guidance for Rhode Island Schools on Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Students.

Nardone went even further than the court’s decision, interpreting the ruling’s “umbrella” to apply to spaces such as locker rooms and bathrooms. Christian nationalist Committee member Peter Nero was quick to point out the difficulties of enforcing a ban based on “biological sex,” noting that birth certificates can be legally altered in many states. Solicitor Nardone dismissed the concern and noted that the Supreme Court decision does not address the issue of verification, and that the “day-to-day” policing of the policy is up to the district administration.

Committeemembers Seth Logan and Lori Wycall cited Mirabelli v. Bonta, the case that was at the center of the kerfuffle in Cumberland. Unaware that Cumberland would conclude that altering their policy was, at the very least, premature (if not dangerous for the health and well-being of students), they suggested the district ensure parents are informed if a student begins to socially transition at school (that is, adopt names, pronouns, or the dress of a gender different from the one assigned at birth. Committeemember Logan is fairly new to the Committee, but Committeemember Wycall has long wanted to impose policies to discriminate against trans children. (See: here, here, and here.)

Though the opponents of trans girls playing sports couch their arguments in terms of competitiveness, safety, and fairness, their true agenda is Christian Nationalism, complete with Christian prayers and Bibles in public schools.

Committeemember Peter Nero formerly served as the Superintendent of the Cranston Public Schools until his retirement in 2012. During his tenure, an atheist student, Jessica Ahlquist (full disclosure, Jessica is my niece), was a plaintiff in a successful case brought against the city by the RI ACLU to remove a Christian prayer banner from the auditorium wall of Cranston High School West:

“We wanted to keep the banner,” said Committeemember Nero at Tuesday night’s meeting. “We thought it was the relic. It was Christian, and I’m a practicing Catholic, so I didn’t find a problem with it. We ended up getting a pro bono [lawyer] from the Diocese, but the [ACLU] won the case…

“…if the Supreme Court was empowered back in 2012, that prayer banner would still be up … because you can see now they’re putting Bibles in some schools, Bible studies… I had the prayer banner cut down from the wall, and I’ve had it hidden. And someday, if [the Supreme Court] turns that around, I’ll have it put back up.”

Here’s the transcript of the relevant parts of the committee meeting. You can watch the video here.

He could also try balloon animals

June 6: Pride in the Park

South County Rising calendar of PRIDE events

Trump appeals decision protecting trans kids at Rhode Island Hospital

Leave trans kids ALONE!

By Alexander Castro, Rhode Island Current

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed notice blocking a federal attempt to secure transgender youths’ medical records.

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.