RI General Assembly-R. Grad of Brown & URI; MA, BSN, BA, RN. Mother of 3, Wife, Writer/Editor, Nurse, Educator, Lover of creatures big & small. ⚓️❤️RI
Warwick, RI
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One of my most favorite people in life, and quite possibly the smartest person I've ever known, has a print of this hanging on his office wall. I leave it here for your interpretation, in light of the recent political upheaval in my home state of Rhode Island.
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Bckground: Growing up under Polish Communism: Born in 1976 in Poland, artist Pawel Kuczyński spent his early childhood under strict communist rule and experienced the imposition of martial law in 1981. He grew up surrounded by violent protests, secret underground newspapers, and the Solidarność(Solidarity) labor union movement that fought against the regime… his work is often interpreted as how easily populations sacrifice their ultimate freedom for short-term or minor comforts.
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Representative Marie Hopkins retweeted
@LoughlinRI1 is talking about REDUCING energy bills and @Sabina_Matos is justifying an INCREASE.
They are speaking two different languages.
The truth is that the electorate can’t tolerate the expense of our energy policy. @LoughlinRI1 understands that and is promoting policy that is rooted in reality. He knows that energy policy, above all else, must bring prices down.
Matos, on the other hand, is doubling down on an economically crippling policy that is rooted in unrealistic expectations and places the burden directly on every family in Rhode Island.
We deserve leadership that is smart, pragmatic and understands the impact that policy has on all of us.
It’s time to get @LoughlinRI1 elected.
Rhode Island’s two candidates for lieutenant governor sparred Friday on 12 News. Watch the full debate in the latest episode of Newsmakers, airing Friday at 6:30 p.m., Sundays at 5:30 and 10 a.m., and any time on the WPRI 12+ TV app. @tednesi @timwhiteri
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Representative Marie Hopkins retweeted
2017: Austin spent $35 million on homelessness. 2,036 homeless counted.
2025: $118 million. 3,238 homeless.
Spending more than tripled and homelessness went up 59%.
If you service the homeless lifestyle, you will get more of it.
The NGOs that run this system get paid by the problem of homelessness, so they have no reason to end it -- in fact, their only incentive is to make sure the problem grows.
The NGOs end up increasing the number of homeless people they manage, because that’s the only way to increase their revenue! Incentives drive outcomes.
“Homeless” is a propaganda word used to describe people on the street who are mentally ill or severely addicted to drugs. The word implies that this is someone who fell a little behind on their mortgage payment and they’re one job offer away from getting back on their feet, which is obviously false if you’ve ever tried talking to a “homeless” person in SF, LA, NY, Austin or anywhere else.
The honest reality is that we need to bring back asylums for extreme mental illness or drug addiction for those who are a serious danger to themselves or others.
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*Modern Crap that pisses me off for 1000, Alex:
By what authority does this person think that they have the right to undermine Steinbeck's intent of depicting evil in one of America's most profound literary tomes? By what authority?!
Cathy Ames was written as allegory for the harshest, most inhumane, monstrous side of humanity. It EXISTS and he showed it to us. It is key to understanding the entire novel, right up to the heavy final word.
Steinbeck purposefully wrote a character who is evil. It is key to the book. No! He did not write a wounded, sympathetic woman... he wrote a devil.
& The book is clear-- no sympathy for the devil.
Steinbeck: “I believe there are monsters born in the world to human parents."
Steinbeck: "[...] so one may be born without kindness or the potential of conscience."
This doesn't ask the reader of viewer to look for the "backstory of what made them this way" the entire point is that some souls on earth are foundationally born evil, born with no soul. The entire novel resides on that premise.
This Netflix series is a rewrite of intent.
In the novel Cathy is a “psychic monster” with a “malformed soul."
We are *not supposed to sympathize, because if we do, we lose sight of the theme: TIMSHEL.
Look at the evil in history: the psychopaths, the sociopaths, the despotic leaders? There are bad people in this world - not "made bad" but born bad. Such was Cathy, and Steinbeck needed to draw that line from the moment he introduced her. She was BORN bad. Steinbeck made us look.
The audacity that this Hollywood writer thinks she should change Steinbeck? It's like making stick figures out of the Sistine Chapel. Could our collective cultural
IQ sink lower?
Shame.
Charlie would not approve. (And if you get that obscure reference... we are now best friends.)
The new series “East of Eden” doesn’t try to make the character Cathy Ames “a monster,” Florence Pugh says. It was “my job to try and get you guys to sympathize and maybe fall in love with her a little bit,” Pugh adds.
theatln.tc/65NUk0Q9 #TAF26
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In an interview that landed in the news today, this incredibly young arrogant Hollywood writer (the benefit of nepostism as her dad produced/filmed the original) said, "perhaps we should consider that evil people are not so different from ourselves."
Excuse me. I need to breathe.
The arrogance.
Hollywood is trash. Turn off your TV. Read. Read a book. Please Read This One. 🥲
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Fact is, many people have come here illegally. Some know this Biden loophole was a kind of cheat code and a historic privilege and they are diligent and working hard to create a life.
Then, there are fools like this young man. He had a choice. We should never have given him that choice.
I want my liberal friends to please recognize and acknowledge the difference.
Communities are NOT safe if we cannot vet newcomers. That's why we have immigration laws-- Someone's baby is dead because we failed to draw any lines at all.
What is the number? What is the number of deaths that progressives are willing to tolerate before they say, yes, yes, we DO have to do things differently??
My mother's heart aches to think of the pain of another mother.
I will only respond to thoughtful replies. I'm not picking a fight.
I extend my compassion every day.
BREAKING: Federal law enforcement sources confirm to @FoxNews that the suspect arrested for stabbing two UMass Dartmouth football players over the weekend, killing one, is a Nigerian national who had been in the U.S. illegally as a B-2 visa overstay, but was shielded from deportation by the Biden administration in 2022 when they granted his request for “deferred action” (a discretionary choice by the U.S. government to delay deportation). He then applied for deferred action again in 2025, and the Trump administration approved it and again shielded him from deportation.
Chukwunonso Uzoma David Uzoma Eze was taken into custody by police in Providence, RI after the stabbings, which happened in the parking lot of a lounge, and he is now charged with murder.
Full immigration history, courtesy of DHS source:
“Chukwunonso Uzoma David Uzoma Eze, a Nigerian national first entered the United States on March 18, 2015, at Boston Logan International Airport on a B-2 visitor visa. He later obtained two approved extensions of that nonimmigrant status: one filed Sept. 17, 2015, and approved Feb. 5, 2016; and another filed March 18, 2016, and approved June 8, 2016. He applied for deferred action, which was approved Sept. 21, 2022.
On Aug. 24, 2023, he applied for employment authorization. That request was rejected Sept. 25, 2023. On Feb. 10, 2025, he filed two applications: one for employment authorization based on deferred action, which remains pending; and another for deferred action, which was approved Oct. 8, 2025, and is set to expire Oct. 7, 2027. On Sept. 21, 2026, the Bristol County Sheriff’s Department in Massachusetts arrested him on a fugitive-from-justice warrant.”
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Currently reading "Confrontational Politics" by California State Sen. Bill
Richardson.
His stance is this: conservatives historically practice fair debate, trying to logically respond to every single question; while liberals skillfully deflect and pivot arguments. One cannot respond to every side-quest your opponent throws into the arena: these fundamental argument styles are discordant.
Redirection works-- and liberal politics lean into this tactic-- because the observing public doesn't ever catch the switch and scores the net balls.
He suggests conservatives lean into confrontation instead of the diplomacy that is hard-wired into our ethics... because oppositional viewpoints are not playing by our rules of debate conduct.
It's been an interesting read. I'd admit he is slanted/ but that admission would negate his whole theory of landing the point. So instead, I'll say: in your face.
Half way through. Hand me a book. I'll read it.
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Personality is a spectrum. It exists on a bell curve. There are outliers.
The outliers of any group should not control the group, nor should they be given too much weight. There are always extremes, and there are always blurred tails. Yet, social science studies often promote the scattered points as statistically relevant. They are not.
#stats101
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It’s getting weird, part infinity:
Last Ditch is a small lesbian bar trying to stay open. It was built as an inclusive space. That space is being treated not as compassionately inclusive, but rather as public property.
The loudest bully described in the Globe piece is a male who identifies as a lesbian. That is not a small detail. A man claiming lesbian identity in order to enter and dominate a women’s sexual and social space is a predatory red flag. The owners should take that person out of the conversation. From the article, we see that he is (quite literally) tormenting them.
Women need some female-only spaces: sports, dressing rooms, and yes, even lesbian bars. Gays and lesbians fought for decades for rights they deserve. Women fought for rights they earned. Some people want or may need exclusivity.
This is also a hospitality business drowning in debt. KN-95 masking 7/days week for bar patrons is not CDC guidance for ordinary immunocompromise. Bone-marrow transplant and intensive chemo are not bar regulars on a Saturday night. If Last Ditch cannot survive as a women-only room, the pragmatic option is to become a regular bar that welcomes everyone. That saves the business, though loses the safe space. Frankly, that's the only other (albeit imperfect) option.
The rest of the story writes itself: clown college; an apology attacked for missing Instagram alt-text; Zoom called ableist; “all are welcome except cops,” a white owner called Racist for merely saying sorry; a gentle licensed therapist accused of being a state agent who will hospitalize everyone? And, nobody talks like a first-year gender-studies seminar unless they are performing.
When “one big tent” becomes absolute chaos, we get stories like this. In no surprise to me, my husband thought the story was a hoax.
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A lesbian bar in Greenfield eased its stringent mask mandate, a decision that has splintered the queer community in the city and beyond. trib.al/FyZjBWs
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I am tired of heavy words being thrown around casually. It negates their LITERAL meaning through concept creep.
Genocide
Racism
Nazi
Violence
Trauma
Extremist
“Literally Hitler”
Colonizer
If you look at the words that have undergone the most concept creep, the pattern is hard to miss. Most of the expansion has come out of psychology, education, social science, and activist spaces that lean left. The right does it too sometimes. They just do it less often and with different words.
They want “atrocity words” that carry emotional weight because emotion is a persuasive argument. Until it isn’t. Until the words become routine and meaningless.
Once a concept leaves academic and professional language and enters everyday jargon, it means nothing to anyone. All tissues are Kleenex. That’s about where we are. The TikTok of downsizing our language.
As a writer who is kind of obsessed with the specific, chosen meaning of words, this breaks my heart. It also angers me. We should all be capable of a little nuance.
When we blur the value and meaning of words, we eventually erase the value and meaning of words. Some of those words above are radioactive. They are grave and costly. They should be used sparingly.
We are doing real, historic harm.
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Anyone care to weigh in on this article? Thank you.
Normie RI media stenographers would’ve breathlessly reported this as an “anti-Trump climate resiliency investment." But mega lefty @GB_C50 dared to give us AI and actual TRUTH.
RI is poised to finance over $200M for other states' green energy - and not a single wire touches RI.
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Representative Marie Hopkins retweeted
What Rain ? Door knocking with the Young Republicans getting it done
@LoughlinRI1 Barbara Quigley for Rep 22 Warwick @RIGOPNCM @RhodeIslandGOP
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Representative Marie Hopkins retweeted
I'LL SAY IT AGAIN:
IT SHOULD BE ILLEGAL to charge a $3.50 "processing fee" when paying a bill online.
Automated payment portals eliminate paper billing, manual sorting, and physical bank deposits for the business.
They cut their operational overhead to near zero, then bill you for the server that does their bookkeeping.
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