1. STORY OF THE WEEK: In some ways, the $14.3 billion budget approved by Rhode Island’s House Finance Committee this week is a return to the pre-COVID norm. But in other ways, it’s a …
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By Ian Donnis
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6/16/25
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1. STORY OF THE WEEK: When does the calculus of doing nothing outweigh the value of doing something at the Statehouse? That question will hang over Smith Hill until the resolution of the proposed …
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By Ian Donnis
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6/9/25
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1. STORY OF THE WEEK: When Attorney General Peter Neronha makes a presentation, he really goes to town. A case in point was the news conference in his office Wednesday, about confronting Rhode …
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By Ian Donnis
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6/2/25
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Politicians in the state no longer hide their conflicts of interest. It is probably because the voters have become anesthetized to abuses. Here are just a few recent examples.
Speaker of the …
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By Arlene Violet, Esq.
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6/2/25
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Many American states conduct special observances on the date that they entered the Union under our Constitution. Rhode Island does not. Is that reluctance because of embarrassment over the fact that …
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By Patrick T. Conley
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5/28/25
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1. STORY OF THE WEEK: Three primary factors seemingly fueled Donald Trump’s win for the White House last year -- Democrats’ slow response to voters’ concerns about inflation and …
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By Ian Donnis
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5/19/25
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STORY OF THE WEEK: Legislative leaders in Rhode Island have for years reflexively opposed efforts to raise broad-based taxes. The trend has been more in the other direction, with a four-point cut in …
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By Ian Donnis
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5/12/25
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STORY OF THE WEEK: After Val Lawson won election Tuesday as the new president of the Rhode Island Senate , she faced a battery of reporters’ questions about her dual role as head of that …
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By Ian Donnis
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5/5/25
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1. STORY OF THE WEEK: The unexpected death of Rhode Island Senate President Dominick Ruggerio at age 76 on Monday marks the end of an era in more ways than one. Ruggerio, widely revered by his …
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By Ian Donnis
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4/29/25
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STORY OF THE WEEK: If the sine qua non of President Donald Trump is about pushing boundaries, the apex of that tendency is coming front and center. The showdown over Kilmar Abrego Garcia in …
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By Ian Donnis
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4/21/25
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On April 12, 1861, South Carolinians opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor to begin America’s bloody Civil War and put our Union in peril. Several months later, a Rhode Island woman …
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By Patrick T. Conley
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4/15/25
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1. STORY OF THE WEEK: Decades after supporters lauded the North American Free Trade Agreement as a way to add American jobs, there’s plenty of criticism of NAFTA from both the left and the …
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4/14/25
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1. STORY OF THE WEEK: The mid-term elections of 2026 are almost 20 months away -- and that’s an eternity in politics. But after months of soul-searching after the Democrats’ devastating …
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By Ian Donnis
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4/7/25
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Amazon has a small house for sale, 20’ by 40’, which is larger than the pallets now housing the homeless, with three bedrooms (or choice, like a living room or den if one bedroom is …
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By Arlene Violet, Esq.
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4/2/25
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1. STORY OF THE WEEK: Almost three years have passed since Gov. Dan McKee signed adult-use cannabis legalization into law , and the state has yet to open the application process for handing out …
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By Ian Donnis
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3/31/25
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1. STORY OF THE WEEK: As we roll into the weekend, perhaps you’re savoring the emergence of spring, the arrival of March Madness in Providence, an expected return to form of the Red Sox or any …
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3/24/25
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1. STORY OF THE WEEK: “Don’t tax you, don’t tax me, tax that fellow behind the tree!” -- the timeless aphorism from the late U.S. Sen. Russell B. Long of Louisiana -- speaks …
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By Ian Donnis
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3/17/25
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STORY OF THE WEEK: Tariffs “will always tend to crush the spirit of enterprise and cripple the productive energies of a country.” If that sounds like a gripe from Canadian Prime Minister …
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By Ian Donnis
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3/10/25
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Despite the breakneck pace of President Trump and Elon Musk as they try to remake the federal government, Attorney General Peter Neronha said, “I think you can, for the most part, put Humpty Dumpty back together again.”
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By Ian Donnis
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3/3/25
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Nobody would argue that government is not corpulent and needs a diet, which the President is doing. While scholars are focused on whether much of President Donald Trump’s purge of programs and …
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By Arlene Violet, Esq.
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2/18/25
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STORY OF THE WEEK: Providence is Rhode Island’s ground zero for an array of possible cuts sparked by the administration of President Donald Trump and his GOP congressional supporters. With …
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By Ian Donnis
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2/18/25
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STORY OF THE WEEK: Everyone talks about waste and fraud, but no one does anything about it. That may sum up the view of many, if not most, supporters of President Donald Trump as his administration …
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By Ian Donnis
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2/11/25
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Ian Donnis’ Rhode Island politics roundup for Jan. 31, 2025
1. STORY OF THE WEEK: If the past week tells us anything, here are a few starting points: 1) Democratic-leaning states like …
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By Ian Donnis
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2/4/25
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STORY OF THE WEEK: President Trump ’s use of an executive order to try to eliminate birthright citizenship — a right enshrined in the Constitution not long after the Civil War — …
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By Ian Donnis
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1/27/25
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STORY OF THE WEEK: Gov. Dan McKee had a high-profile platform last Tuesday, using his State of the State speech to assert that Rhode Island is “flipping the script” from some of the less …
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By Ian Donnis
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1/21/25
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