Remember when then-Governor Gina Raimondo (a Democrat, if that needs saying) insisted we needed truck tolls to fund her RhodeWorks program to finally fix the state’s infrastructure?  Well…

As with the state’s pension system — which the state went right back to reamortizing as soon as Raimondo left her treasurer role — she’s a master of setting up solutions for which she won’t be around to be accountable.

Underdog sports team hires a beautiful and pop star with a surprising soft side to pretend to date one of its players to boost its ratings, and they wind up falling in love.

I mean, what’s the point?

Not only has Secretary of State Gregg Amore already publicly proclaimed Amo the winner, but by the time of this debate it’s likely more than 30% of all ballots will already have been cast.

Let’s cut to the chase.  Instead of an election, Rhode Island might as well have a sort of electoral college whereby the people who harvest mail ballots each gets a proportional vote in the outcome. It’d be more honest.

From the time he first entered politics in a serious way, we’ve been warned that Donald Trump represented a unique threat that would destroy our country.  This has provided an important lens for evaluating the events that have followed.

For instance, during and after the 2020 election, many of us have questioned the narrative that, “Donald Trump will impose (or would have imposed) dark fascism to our country… but we’re totally not doing anything beyond the usual fair-is-fair rules of elections to elect a visibly deteriorating career politician who was notably corrupt and dishonest even when he was healthy.”

Now, it’s “We will never have a real election or any freedom again if Donald Trump is reelected… but all of these many prosecutions of him (consisting of novel theories and charges that typically don’t result in legal action) are totally not political persecutions, but the straightforward application of the law by the books.”

His detractors seem to think the prosecutions are landing as if they were evidence of the claim of Trump’s unique threat, but I don’t think that’s the picture most Americans think they’re seeing.

The story has moved on since I made a note to highlight this, but it remains an important point, particularly because suggested by a Republican:

Mayor Kenneth Hopkins is on the defense after three City Council members voiced strong concerns about the city potentially using its $6-million share of Gov. Dan McKee’s “Learn365RI” money to buy the iconic − and financially struggling − Park Theatre.

The notion that McKee should be fishing for positive headlines around the state by pretending more government funding of recreational activities will somehow improve education is bad enough.  The idea that the money can be spent on government takeover of deteriorating privately owned properties for some unspecified reason — while arguably completely in keeping with the governor’s true motivation — is beyond the pale.

Whether Hopkins was just freelancing with this idea or had a tacit wink and nod from the governor’s office before the media spotlight hit his window, Rhode Islanders should make it clear that the impulse toward waste and corruption has to stop.  (We should also recognize the value of splitting government between the parties to a significant degree.)

Is the idea to consolidate as much power as possible — both incorporating all areas of society and expanding across geographies — and then put it in the hands of the incompetent and corrupt?  That sure seems to be what’s happening at every level of government.

Among the many reasons for growing distrust of mainstream journalism is its apparently incessant need to make everything an indication of impending doom. (This is true, at least, when mass hysteria is seen to serve Democrats, as with the climate. On matters that point in the other political direction, like illegal immigration and the economy, only good news, if it can be found, squeezes through the guard.)

So, we get articles like Alex Kuffner’s in the Providence Journal, confirming that, “Yes, downpours are getting heavier, and more frequent in RI.”  The article purports to supply the numbers to substantiate this claim, although the cited source does not appear to make them readily available to the public.  One gets the sense, anyway, that the reader is meant simply to acknowledge that numbers are given and accept that they support the claim being stated on their basis without giving them much thought.  Consider this paragraph from Kuffner:

Since 1905, the average number of days per year in the Providence area with more than 1 inch of rain has increased from eight to 14, according to the Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell University. Last year, there were 12 such days. This year, there have been 10 so far.

If the average (over some unspecified time period) is 14 and last year saw 12, it may be that the curve is headed down.  In any event, water is life, and if we can get our acts together, surely we can benefit from this flow of life rather than cowering from it.

Two implications of this recent tweet from Nicole Solas illustrate the danger that begins to fester when the institutions of a state become wholly partisan.

The first implication is that it will be very surprising if the attorney general or anybody else in Rhode Island law enforcement turns up the heat on a Democrat threatening a blacklisted conservative.

The second is, if anything, more disturbing.  As somebody on the upper end of paying attention to happenings in Rhode Island, I’m surprised that I didn’t know about an assault on a sitting state senator that resulted in a probation.  Searches on both Google and Bing produce zero results and, in fact, point instead to the incident in which Rogers knocked out an intruder in his home.

We’re not getting the news, in Rhode Island, and we therefore cannot be said to be making informed decisions during elections.  Deepening the peculiarity is that controversies should be of interest to our fading news media.  It’s like they’d rather destroy their business model then question the Party.

Rhode Island investment expert Michael Riley tweeted a chart recently that rewards closer analysis:

Notice a common theme dividing everything above and below “food and beverage”?  Actually, everything from “housing” up is heavily subsidized, in one way or another, by government, while everything below is not.  Basic economics should lead us to expect that subsidizing things increases the price.

I know of at least one Massachusetts town where these new residents are about to enter an understaffed school system en masse.  Even more, they are getting free preschool and free transportation to preschool, which for residents is an additional cost that some are deciding is too expensive.

We need to understand — and explain to our neighbors as they begin to wonder what’s going on — that Northeastern governments (led by Democrats) don’t think they need us, and they therefor do not represent us. They want to import clients for their services for which they can then seek to bill other people.

This scheme may have worked for a very small number of cities (like Lawrence, MA), but when whole states are scrounging around for people to pay for the services to which officials have committed, people will begin to say “no” in one way or another.

Doublespeak such as that used by Democrat Congressman Seth Magaziner in the following tweet has become so common that we hardly notice it.  He (or a staffer who wrote the post) may not even realize the problem with the word choice (which would make it doublethink, I suppose):

If government supports journalism, it is by definition not independent.  That word, “independent,” may still have a salutary ring in Americans’ ears, but one suspects what Rhode Island’s all-Democrat delegation actually wants is a local media that handles them favorably, or at least carefully, because they are its benefactors.

As is increasingly required, Nicole Solas has gone outside of Rhode Island to bring attention to a problem within the state, writing in Daily Caller:

I pay my pediatrician for check-ups and throat cultures, not ideological finger-wagging about sex education in kindergarten. But at that moment I realized that gender ideology in medicine and education was not about the health and safety of children. It is about people abusing their positions of power to tell parents how to raise their children. It is about authoritarianism.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Rhode Island offers “safe zone training” for healthcare providers, and these stickers identify compliant providers. Critics argue these stickers are mere reassurances of “inclusion,” but my former pediatrician told me the stickers are meant to start conversations with children about gender ideology.

This is straightforward ideological capture of crucial service institutions.  Cult-like ideologues take over key corporate departments, government agencies, and independent associations and push their beliefs down to practitioners.

Nobody should doubt that progressives, even quite mainstream and “moderate” ones, will talk themselves into believing the suffering, and even death, of some children is justified in the service of “inclusion,” which has rapidly come to mean “exclusion of noncompliant people.”

This is precisely the sort of application of supposed common sense without due process that incrementally undermines our rights.

There is no process for a candidate to remove him or herself from the ballot, and as far as I know, there are no standards in law or regulation for the Board of Elections to determine when it can post signage in a polling place discouraging voters from choosing a candidate.  This is very, very dangerous.

Voters can choose to vote for Carlson regardless of his statements, and if they don’t know he’s insisted he’s withdrawn, then maybe they deserve to see their votes thrown away.

Take particular note that Carlson used the word “suspend,” not “withdraw,” in his announcement (which has no legal effect). The BOE should not be doing this.

Keep an eye out for weeds that have purple-spotted stems and white, umbrella-like flowers:

Poison hemlock has made its way to all 50 states, including Rhode Island, except for Alaska, Florida, Hawaii, and Mississippi, so it’s something we’ll all likely deal with at some time or another.

Commonly found in yards and fields, on the sides of roads, and near waterways, poison hemlock is easy to spot. Towering between six and 10 feet, the deadly weed sports purple spots on the stem and white flowers that resemble a tiny umbrella.

As an undergrad, back when the Internet was still brand new, I decompressed by reading through Stephen King books borrowed from the Carnegie Mellon library and noticed something.  One of his recurring techniques was to imagine the familiar as the monster.  Cujo was a dog.  Christine was a cool car.  Firestarter was a little girl.  The title character in Cycle of the Werewolf, which became the movie, Silver Bullet, was the local priest.

As a non-King movie, Child’s Play, showed, the idea caught on, and naturally, artists’ explored the opposite: heroes whose appearances or identities are typically associated with villains.

One of the defining peculiarities of the present day is that this species of literary device has become written into our society and is affecting our ability to assess reality. Consider this headline: “‘Drag Mom’ Who Mentored 11-Year-Old At Satan-Themed Pub Sentenced For 11 Child Sex Felonies.”

At this point, we’re being encouraged to actively suspend our common sense and long social experience to avoid harm before it’s done.  What do we think is going to happen?

As I’ve said, it’s possible to make too much of such incidents (and politics often seems designed to make too much of them), but they’re worth noting as they happen, nonetheless:

In a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, [Republican Congressman from Ohio Jim] Jordan alleged the FBI “relied on at least one undercover agent to produce its analysis, and that the FBI proposed that its agents engage in outreach to Catholic parishes to develop sources among the clergy and Church leadership to inform on Americans practicing their faith.” Jordan further alleged the FBI suggested that “certain kinds of Catholic Americans may be domestic terrorists.” …

In March 8 in testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Wray said when he learned of the memo, he was “aghast.”

Withdrawing a memo after it is released is an easy way to CYA.  The question is how many similar memos are out there unwithdrawn that have simply not been leaked, yet.

The greater concern is that all of these supposed problems go in the same direction, like the incident with the Franciscan Catholics and Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, to which I recently linked.  If these “errors” were ideologically distributed, we could believe they aren’t systemic and targeted.  Instead, it does seem there’s at a minimum an unstated, ideological, and partisan culture in the bureaucracy.

As we’re rightly reminded frequently in the face of such incidents, we would err if we overgeneralized from incidents like this one:

A homeless woman “was wiping blood off of her hands with a paper towel” after she allegedly killed a homeless shelter coordinator with an ax, police said.

Zaaina Asra Zakirrah Mahvish-Jammeh, a 38-year-old resident of Morningside House shelter in Brattleboro, Vermont, wanted to talk to Leah Rosin-Pritchard, a 36-year-old social worker, in the living room, according to a probable cause affidavit. …

After attacking Rosin-Pritchard, Mahvish-Jammeh then turned to another employee and said, “I like you. It’s Leah I (sounds like didn’t like or don’t like). I like you,” the affidavit alleges.

On the other hand, we would err if we didn’t realize that historical narratives can become established because they may have truth.  Sometimes people are in circumstances like homelessness because they have mental problems.  Axes and knives will do in lieu of guns for the purpose of killing.

Conflicts like this can be nothing more than bureaucratic squabbles. They can also be evidence of a move toward a Communist China–esque absorption of religious organizations.  And they can also be mere bureaucratic squabbles that prepare the ground for government absorption of religious organizations.

The Archdiocese for the Military Services (AMS) slammed Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for issuing a “cease and desist order” to Holy Name College, a community of Franciscan Catholic priests and brothers who have provided pastoral care to troops and veterans at Walter Reed for nearly two decades, just before Holy Week.

It’s interesting to watch these partisan ideologues bash the newspaper that contributed so much to their careers. One wonders whether they’ve ever considered whether their work-product and the journalistic culture they’ve perpetuated has contributed to the paper’s plight:

And we definitely should not understand the alternative to be aggression and disregard of others’ humanity.  Still, we have to recognize that it will not stop with the cause of the day.  Just as it did not stop with same-sex marriage, it will not stop with the trans demands.  Similarly, it did not stop when America proved it would put a black man in the White House (why wouldn’t we?), but instead, the racial activists upped their demands and sowed greater division.

On this or that issue, there may be good reasons to accept particular policies, but we have to recognize that it will not stop there, and we’ve very nearly given up our senses of both reality and identity as a nation — which was a shared sense that strove for freedom, no matter what the radicals say.

Woke is a parasitic derivative of Marxism providing cover for dishonesty with the claim that reality is subjective and aggression with the weaponization victim status and the psychological instability of its adherents.  Its purpose is to destabilize our civilization under the theory that a perpetual revolution will somehow boil away the imperfections of society, leaving a communist ideal.

Of course, one complication in defining it is that most woke people lack the historical and philosophical background and self-awareness to understand what they’re doing and are being manipulated by those who do, who have no problem lying as a route to power.