September 2013 – RI Future

September 30, 2013September 30, 2013

Atheist extremist?

“Without a doubt, there is no better example than Steve Ahlquist of an atheist on a crusade.”

-Travis Rawley, Catholic Extremist

ahlquist-150x150 Two different conservative, Catholic bloggers have taken me to task this week for my public advocacy of secularism, Humanism and atheism. On Channel 10 News Conference Justin Katz referred to me as an “atheist extremist” and in the same weekend Travis Rawley called me an “atheist agitator” and asked, “Why, again, is Steven Ahlquist even speaking?”

When one talks about extremism, whether in a religious or political context, one is usually referencing the subject’s proclivity towards resorting to violence. Muslim extremists might fly planes into buildings. We use the modifier “extremist” to differentiate these people from the vast majority of Muslims who are peaceful, decent people. Christian extremists might shoot abortion doctors, and again, we use the modifier to differentiate these criminals from the vast majority of decent, peaceful Christians.

What exactly do “atheist extremists” do that differentiates them from average, peaceful atheists? Apparently they writes for RI Future, and espouse unpopular opinions about religion and religious privilege in our state. Sometimes they write letters or editorials to the Providence Journal, or go on television to defend and promote their views.

That’s it.

No body count and no death and destruction result from the actions of these atheist “extremists.” Just the peaceful and not so easily ignored voice of a growing number people who are pointing out that when it comes to religion and supernatural belief, “the emperor wears no clothes.”

In Rhode Island, conservative religious voices are extremely active and almost impossible to escape. They literally shook the dome of the State House in their fervor to oppose marriage equality this year, on two different occasions. The Catholic Church maintains at least one lobbyist to the General Assembly, a Catholic priest who also sometimes leads our legislators in prayer. With 113 seats in the General assembly, there is not one legislator that publicly identifies as atheist or Humanist. On talk radio avowed Catholics John DePetro and Dan Yorke entertain Bishop Thomas Tobin as a frequent guest. Tobin is the local leader of a church that claims 44% of Rhode Island’s population as members. A free news-monthly, Good News Today, claims a circulation of 16,000 and there are two entire channels on Cable Access devoted to religious broadcasting.

Given the multitude of voices extolling the putative virtues of faith, supernaturalism and religion, why do so many conservative voices worry about the comparatively few voices, like mine, that advocate for reason, naturalism and secularism? Some think that religious believers are afraid of the truth, that their faith is weaker than they pretend it is and that plagued by doubts, religious believers secretly worry that atheists might just be right, and that there really is no God.

I disagree with that assessment. Right now, the only real critique of conservative religious values and their corrosive effect on our political discourse is coming from progressive atheists, Humanists and liberal religionists who are unafraid to speak up. The critiques generated by progressive atheists do not speak so much to policy as they do to the very foundations of conservative religious philosophies, rejecting outright such theological ideas as original sin and human depravity, doctrines of salvation and and the existence of natural law as a foundation for our ethics.

Rejection of these religious ideas have implications for our society when it comes to dealing with poverty, crime, punishment versus rehabilitation, birth control, marriage rights, public schools, medical care and virtually any other politically contested issue, including all human rights.

If, as conservative bloggers and commenters maintain, I am indeed an extremist and agitator, then so is every person in Rhode Island who has ever written a blog post, appeared on radio or television, written a letter to the editor or commented on the web about any religious or political issue. If we really want words to have meaning and value, we should use them carefully and avoid such loaded terminology.

September 30, 2013

Taibbi on TV: pension deform is wealth transfer to Wall St

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In October of 2011, when Rhode Island’s ruling class was drooling all over Gina Raimondo’s efforts to deform public sector retirement plans, a group of outcasts were occupying Burnside Park to call attention to Wall Street greed.

Two years later, Rolling Stone has a blockbuster story focusing on Raimondo and Rhode Island’s pension deform called: “Looting the Pension Funds: All across America, Wall Street is grabbing money meant for public workers.” If you haven’t read it yet, you should. Or, at least watch Matt Taibbi talk about it on Democracy Now!.

He calls the COLA freeze “wealth transfer from teachers, cops and firemen to billionaire hedge fund managers” and calls John Arnold, the moneyman behind EngageRI, to “the new Koch brothers figure.”

He also says, “Pension funds are sort of the last great big unguarded piles of money in this country and there are going to be all sort of operators who try to get their hands on that money.”

The solution that a lot of Wall Street-funded think tanks are coming up with is to get higher returns by putting these funds into alt investments like hedge funds and in a lot of cases what i;m funding is that tee fees that states are paying for these hedge finds and new type of alt investments are actually roughly equal to cuts they are taking from workers.

In the state of Rhode Island, for instance, they’ve froze the cost of living adjustment and frozen COLA roughly equals the fees they are paying to hedge funds in that state. So essentially it’s a wealth transfer from teachers, cops and firemen to billionaire hedge fund managers.

September 30, 2013September 30, 2013

‘Dollarocracy’ is government by wealth

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The political power grab by corporate America was first conceived of in the early 1970’s by soon-to-be Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell in a now-infamous memo to the US Chamber of Commerce. “It is time for American business — which has demonstrated the greatest capacity in all history to produce and to influence consumer decisions — to apply their great talents vigorously to the preservation of the system itself,” he wrote.

Then, once a member of the high court, Powell gave his affluent allies a very powerful tool to use toward this goal in his majority opinion for First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, which fgave corporations a right to spend money in politics and was used as the foundation for the Citizens United decision that extended that right indefinitely.

Thus, Powell is in many ways the godfather of what authors Bob McChesney and John Nichols named their new book, and what they say the American experience is currently mired in: Dollarocracy.

“A democracy is the rule of the people,” McChesney says. “It means everyone is equal with an equal amount of power. Dollarocacy is rule by money. Those with lots of money have lots of votes and those with no money get almost no votes.”

Unlimited, anonymous money drives campaigns and funds so-called think tanks that drum up positive public relations for corporate interests. Voting rights are being effectively rolled back through ID laws and other extra-legal efforts such as poll monitoring. And at the same time, newsrooms – the traditional watchdog of political malfeasance – are shrinking and don’t have the resources to vet campaign commercials and think tank propaganda.

But McChesney and Nichols not only point out the problem in their new book. They also offer solutions.

“We have to take lead in breaking out of this trap and find an alternative,” Nichols said. “And not by tinkering around edges of the crisis they have created. Our job is to address the crisis head on. Not talk about candidates and parties but to talk about fundamental structure of government and media.”

As has occurred during other great American epochs, a Constitutional Convention is needed to make some fundamental changes to how government works, they said, to address money in politics and voting rights.

“There are ways to make this country’s governance a reflection of what the people want,” Nichols said. “It’s not hard. First off you get the money out, people are crying out for that. If we make movement s towards small d democracy and create a system where ideas matter more than dollars, then I dare say we can reach out to our tea party friends because they not getting what they want from the Koch Brothers.”

Nichols and McChesney will be at Brown on Wednesday to discuss the ideas in their new book, which you can buy here:

Dollarocracy: How the Money and Media Election Complex Is Destroying America

When: 7:00pm Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Where: Smith-Buonanno Hall, Brown University, Room 106

95 Cushing St. (corner of Cushing and Brown)

Admission: FREE

September 30, 2013October 4, 2013

The TPP is coming

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The future is pushing through the gates of congress and it’s horrendous. No Homeland Security for this. Remember the classics: Soylent Green & Blade Runner? Well this ain’t a movie, folks, but the white hats we need to count on may just be surprising ….

This week, the president is going to urge congress to relinquish their responsibility for fully considering the implication and the intention of international treaties by “fast-tracking” the Trans-Pacific Partnership Treaty. With “fast-track” authority, the president, not Congress, would control the legislative process and allow passage of the most secretive piece of legislation in recent history – maybe ever.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership, is a “free trade” agreement that has less to do with tariffs than with changing our world as we know it. Study of hundreds of pages of complex issues would be limited to a few days and debate would be limited to a few hours. No amendments would be allowed, only an up or down vote. And that vote may be happening as I write this. If the president gets his way, I sincerely believe the Trans-Pacific Partnership, “NAFTA on steroids,” could be the coup de grâce for our already feeble government.

Negotiations for the TPP have been going on for the last 5 years, but members of Congress, small business leaders and the media have been shut out. Unlike past treaties, the business of the TPP is BIG business and is strictly limited to the BIGGEST of the big. And their deliberations are being held behind closed doors and chain linked fences with a strong cadre of security police to guard them.

Negotiators consist of representatives from 600 of the largest international corporations and trade officials from countries of the Pacific Rim: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand. Peru, Singapore, Vietnam and the United States.These are the original 11 members. Recently Japan, the world’s largest gas importer, has indicated interest.

It has been touted as simply another free trade agreement to counter the growing exporting power of China, but it is something far greater and grander, since only 5 of the 29 articles in this “free trade” treaty actually relate to trade. It seems to be the ultimate wet dream of the international corporate elite. And, ironically, word is that it may eventually include China as well.

Why NAFTA on steroids? While NAFTA gives authority to international corporations to sue any city, state or country that passes laws that hinder them from doing any kind of business: water rights, food safety oversight, fair labor practices, environmental protection, and responsible financial practices, just to name a few, for financial damages resulting from income lost due to being kept from raping & pillaging people and the planet, (cf. suits in progress in Quebec by a corporation claiming $ billions in lost revenue because of the province’s anti- fracking law and the new one that pharmaceutical giant, Eli Lilly just launched: an investor-state attack on Canada’s medicine-patent policy. Lilly is demanding $500 million dollars in damages). These are before civil courts now.

Thankfully, doors and chain links and guns are no barriers to people of conscience, and someone inside was appalled enough to start leaking information. According to this source, if the TPP becomes law, it would create new corporate tribunals made up of lawyers from international corporations. These “judges” would hear the cases and rule on them. If they rule for the corporation, the only way for the judgment to be overturned is if it is unanimously voted against by of all of the signatory nations.

When the leaks began, a group of concerned organizations got together under an umbrella called openthegovernment.org and sent a letter to President Obama. It is so brilliant that I include the first 4 paragraphs. You can read the rest on their website.

February 28, 2012
Dear President Obama,

As organizations dedicated to government openness, scientific integrity and accountability, we are writing to urge you to increase the transparency of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiating process. Currently, without any public access to even the most fundamental draft agreement texts and other documents, important policy decisions that may significantly affect the way we live our lives by limiting our public protections are being made by executive branch trade officials.

On your first day in office you committed to creating an “unprecedented level of openness in Government.” Recently, your Administration co-launched the Open Government Partnership, a multilateral initiative that aims to secure concrete commitments from governments to promote transparency and empower citizens. You also have said that your transparency initiative will extend to the Office of U.S. Trade Representative. Administration officials have repeatedly stated that the administration will conduct the most transparent international commercial negotiations ever with inclusion of all stakeholders to ensure that the TPP FTA will meet your goal of a “high standards worthy of a 21st century trade agreement.” We support all these goals.

However, multiple aspects of the current negotiations process utterly fail to meet these standards. Instead of new levels of transparency, the process has instituted unprecedented levels of secrecy. Indeed, the extreme secrecy surrounding the process was lauded by a U.S. trade lawyer and former U.S government trade official involved in decades of negotiations: “This is the least transparent trade negotiation I have ever seen,” said Gary Horlick at a Global Business Dialogue Forum on the TPP FTA in late January.

At a minimum, your Administration should provide access to the negotiating texts of the pact’s various chapters for all congressional staff, the public, and the press. Such transparency is standard practice for trade negotiations. The World Trade Organization posts negotiating texts on its website for review, and negotiating texts were also made available on the recently-completed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). However, this practice has not been adopted, to date, in the context of TPP FTA talks. Indeed, to the contrary, parties signed a Memorandum of Understanding 2010 imposing heightened secrecy for the process.

It was signed by 23 organizations, from the American Association of Law Libraries through the Washington Coalition for Open Government. Obviously, it fell on deaf ears. Because President Obama speaks Orwellian: ‘openness is …’

By January 2013, even Ron Kirk, Obama’s handpicked U.S. Trade Representative quit. He told Reuters that:

“If the contents of the Trans-Pacific Partnership were known, it would not be passed because it would be so unpopular.”

And this June , after her repeated petitions to study the treaty were denied, that fearless Senator from Massachusettes, Elizabeth Warren, wrote an open letter to Ron Kirk’s proposed replacement, U.S. Trade Representative, Michael Froman concerning the TPP:

“ If transparency would lead to widespread public opposition to a trade agreement, then that trade agreement should not be the policy of the United States.”

We hoped for so much, in 2008. I now believe that although his appointments of Arne Duncan to destroy public education, sending the Health Care Bill with the Single Payer option to “Bought” Baucus’ finance committee, and Summers and Geithner to continue the pillage of Wall street, could be nothing in comparison to the potential of damage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership in trampling on the rights of “we the people” in creating laws to protect ourselves. Could Mr. O’s sudden passion for fast-tracking this trade agreement have any connection to his political mama, the newest Secretary of of Commerce? http://www.truthdig.com/report/print/obama_did_it_for_the_money_20130507 Whatever is the reason for his push, this betrayal of the peoples’ interests could be his greatest.

Ironically, our best hope, for now, may be the obstructionist 113th congress, bless ’em. But be forewarned, even if it is postponed for this congressional session, the threat of the TPP will remain.

You can join me in writing letters and calling the president and congress and just bearing witness. Also talk to people and pass the word forward. You’d be surprised how many informed people don’t know. Check out MoveOn.org for the October 18th rally at 4pm in Providence.

Get informed – Threats Posed by TPP – TradeWatch.org

More Power to Corporations to Attack Nations

Read how foreign corporations would be empowered to attack our health, environmental and other laws before foreign tribunals to demand taxpayer compensation for policies they think undermine their expected future profits.

Threats to Public Health

U.S. negotiators are pushing the agenda of Big PhaRMA – longer monopoly control on drugs for the big firms. This would mean millions in developing countries are cut off from life-saving medicines & higher prices for the rest of us.

Bye Buy America & Jobs

Read how special investor protections incentivize offshoring by providing special benefits for companies that leave. Plus, TPP would impose limits on how our elected officials can use tax dollars – banning Buy America or Buy Local preferences.

Undermining Food Safety

TPP would require us to import food that does not meet U.S. safety standards. It would limit food labeling.

Son of SOPA: Curtailing Internet Freedom

Thought SOPA was bad? Read how TPP would require internet service providers to “police” user-activity and treat individual violators as large-scale for-profit violators. Plus, TPP would stifle innovation.

Financial Deregulation: Banksters’ Delight

TPP would rollback reregulation of Wall Street. It would prohibit bans on risky financial services and undermine “too big to fail” regulations.

Also, I heartily recommend Lori Wallach of Tradewatch discussing the TPP at a PDA event and available on You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV9tEdMGp-k

There are worldwide threats equivalent to the TPP.

Europe’s equivalent is TISA, that unlike US, has sparked massive protests under the banner of the OWINFS.org:

“The ‘Our World is not for Sale’ (OWINFS) network is a loose grouping of organizations, activists and social movements worldwide fighting the current model of corporate globalization embodied in global trading system. OWINFS is committed to a sustainable, socially just, democratic and accountable multilateral trading system.”

These great people and their organizations, at least, give me hope.

Peace.

Lisa Roseman Beade

September 29, 2013September 30, 2013

Coach makes 26 times what childcare providers earn

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The income gap between those who entertain the affluent and those who provide childcare services for poor and middle class parents and their children is massive, according to the Providence Journal. By way of comparison, URI basketball coach Danny Hurley’s state subsidy is more than 26 times larger than what the average community-sponsored childcare provider earns.

Hurley earns $600,000, Politifact RI confirmed, making him the highest paid state employee. Earlier in the week, a page 1 story compared the starting salaries of teachers to the childcare providers who will most certainly earn a little bit more if and when they sign their union cards.

If you read really, really far down into that story, you’d have learned that the average pay these providers earn is $20,028.86.

According to the Providence Journal:

The state paid the licensed childcare providers $23,028.86, on average, last year, in amounts that varied from the $224 paid to a woman on Hunts Avenue in Pawtucket, to the $76,991 paid the top-earner.

It would appear that many of the people paid by the state to take care of other people’s children are, themselves, poor enough to qualify for financial assistance from the state and federal government.

The ProJo has dedicated a lot of time and energy to these childcare providers, many of whom it reports are poor. Why? The editorial page won’t run anything from advocates of the organizing efforts and the news coverage reads as if it was reported by Fox News (I would absolutely positively welcome any disinterested parties to weigh in on this).

The Providence Journal isn’t the only well-heeled local organization to take an intense interest in this unionization effort. So has the Freedom for the Prosperous, a public-sector despising local think tank that purports to care for Rhode Islanders economic well-being. By way of comparison, I would love to know how much both of these two groups have invested in their campaigns to call attention to 600 people who earn on average $20,000 getting a raise.

Whether it’s how much we pay a basketball coach, how much childcare providers earn, or why the ProJo and the Freedom for the Prosperous spend their time and money on certain topics, it’s all evidence that modern American capitalism seems to reward making more money rather than adding value to the community.

Ed note: For clarity, I think Danny Hurley is both an awesome basketball coach and well-worth $600,000 a year to Rhode Island taxpayers. I passionately believe the childcare workers who take care of poor and middle income children have among the most crucial roles in our community – they are helping out with the kids who have a high likelihood of falling through the cracks and every additional penny we invest in this function will reap huge though often invisible dividends for taxpayers AND the citizenry.

September 29, 2013

Call to Worship: Time Capsule

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From its inception the Religious Society of Bell St Chapel; a Unitarian Universalist congregation in the west end of Providence has been dedicated to each persons free and responsible search for truth and meaning .

Below is a excerpt from a pamphlet published by the congregation in 1934.

The Religious Fellowship

Of Bell Street Chapel

Its Purpose – Its Nature – Its Message

The purpose of the Bell Street Chapel Fellowship is to deal in plain terms with the supreme things in human life as measured by the rational conclusions of science and history.

It is religious, not in the traditional, but in the ethical and scientific sense of the word – religious because it is an earnest and constructive movement devoted to the service of man in all that makes for the elevation and realization of his ideals.

This society has no fixed creed, because it recognizes the undeniable right of every man to think his own thoughts, and because it is unequivocally pledged to the support of truth as discovered by the growing intelligence of man. It has guaranteed to its minister perfect intellectual liberty, for the reason that to deny the teacher freedom to speak his idea of the truth is to deny men freedom to hear the truth.

The Sunday morning service is devoted to the work of educating the people to think for themselves, and to think rationally. No person can be free from political and religious oppression and corruption if he is either opposed to, or incapable, of free thought. This service, therefore, seek to lead people from the narrow, stilted, conventional path of humble submission to the authority of others out upon that broad highway where real men and women walk, with heads erect, fearlessly thinking out things for themselves.

The simple devotional service, with an address by the minister is held in the Bell Street Chapel, off Broadway, every Sunday morning at 10:00 o’clock. All persons who are interested in an intelligent faith and commonsense religion are invited to attend.

The Religious Fellowship

Of Bell Street Chapel

Its Purpose – Its Nature – Its Message

The purpose of the Bell Street Chapel Fellowship is to deal in plain terms with the supreme things in human life as measured by the rational conclusions of science and history.

September 27, 2013September 29, 2013

Is school asking students to worship government?

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“That doesn’t really seem to make much sense to me,” Steve Ahlquist said to Justin Katz’ frankly ridiculous notion that Cranston West is asking students to worship government rather than God with its replacement for the prayer banner.

Here’s the video … and god bless you if you know what Katz is talking about:

News, Weather and Classifieds for Southern New England

Sometimes I wonder if Justin Katz would argue that the sky was yellow and the sun blue if he thought it might advance the conservative agenda.

September 27, 2013

If Board of Ed doesn’t talk NECAP, the people will

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Rhode Island is going to debate using the NECAP test as a graduation requirement with or without RIDE and the Board of Education. Not only are activists hosting a panel with a RIDE staffer on Wednesday, but three state legislators are holding a similar forum on Monday night.

Representatives Maria Cimini, Providence, Frank Ferri, Cranston and Teresa Tanzi, South Kingstown are hosting an event called: “Great Futures for ALL Rhode Island Students: Keeping the Conversation Going”

“Join us for a community discussion of your concerns about using the NECAP as a graduation requirement and how we can work together to build a better future for Rhode Island students,” says a Facebook event. And here’s a flyer:

On Wednesday, an event at Warwick City Hall pits one member of the Department of Education with five people generally opposed to the NECAPs or high stakes testing. It’s great that RIDE is sending someone but their role is actually to facilitate this kind of debate about their policies.

Other than that, this has pretty much been RIDE’s stock response to the NECAP debate:

September 27, 2013September 27, 2013

Rent is STILL too damn high in Rhode Island

The rent in Rhode Island is STILL too damn high, according to a another new report from HousingWorks RI.

Every few months RI Future gets to write this worn out bad joke of a lede. And while it might be because we are lazy writers, it’s not because HousingWorks RI has nothing better to publicize. This is a serious issue in the Ocean State that isn’t being adequately addressed; it gets studied and reported about but then largely ignored by the rest of the political process.

The most recent study focuses on how much economic activity is sacrificed for unaffordable rental rates, as reported by the Providence Journal. Ted Nesi graphically shows the vast income inequality between Rhode Island’s towns and its cities with this chart on how much it costs live in each RI municipality.

You can read the entire report here.

September 27, 2013September 27, 2013

Raimondo, American LeadHERship PAC: ‘hundreds of Joe Mollicones’

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Politifact did itself great credit this month by calling out the “American LeadHERship PAC” — the political action committee concocted to support the prospective gubernatorial campaign of Wall Street acolyte Gina Raimondo — on its shameful hit-piece about her likely Democratic opponent, Providence Mayor Angel Taveras. The PAC’s prospectus implies the preposterous slander that Taveras is to blame for a downgrading of Providence’s bond ratings. Any Rhode Islander old enough to, as they say, remember where 38 Studios “used to be” surely knows the real story:

As Politifact writes: All three downgrades occurred about two months after Taveras took the oath of office — and only after a committee of financial experts empaneled by Taveras found and disclosed that the city had a $110-million structural deficit. (A structural deficit is a built-in long-term gap between revenue and expenses.)

The structural deficit, equal to one-sixth the size of the budget and aggravated by a depleted rainy day fund, was inherited from Taveras’ predecessor, David N. Cicilline. In his final months in office, as he was campaigning for his current seat in Congress, Cicilline declared that the city was in “excellent financial condition” — an assessment that he apologized for after winning his new political office.

Thick in cynicism but bereft of wit, ALP and Raimondo are devious enough to warp the truth but too dense to notice the sharp irony at hand: ALP will strive to leverage the bond downgrade deception (and surely many others to come!) into even more campaign funds for Raimondo — who’s spent her tenure as Treasurer paying court to and benefiting from the largess of a shockingly broad swath of the architects of the financial crisis of 2007–tbd. That of course being the very same crisis that helped compel the Providence downgrading that Raimondo’s backers so tactlessly tag onto Taveras.

Raimondo’s supporters insist: “We’re really nice guys.” But would you vote for a gubernatorial candidate whose campaign was backed by hundreds of Joe Mollicones? That’s precisely what they demand.

Under the contemporary economic predicament it is possible for an earnest person to push solemnly for modest pension reforms, lamenting all the while that the detritus of the demolition of our economy rolls downhill to states and cities. Recognizing that so many very wealthy, ever greedy people who run our economy and government wrecked it for the rest of us, even while making it impossible to institute appropriate fiscal policies that might have blunted the impact on the likes of you and me — on our parks, roads, schools, buses, pocketbooks, bellies, and so on. Working people aren’t to blame for the deficits, but cities and (especially small) states only have a few tools in their kits, so: tradeoffs, tough choices, and all that.
That stinks, but fine.

But that’s not at all what Raimondo’s been up to. Rather, she has networked her way into the closed chambers of precisely those same wealthy, greedy people (and is no doubt quite impressed by herself for having pulled off such a feat from her modest perch in a down ballot office in the smallest state).

First, Raimondo convinced Wall Street’s 1% to pay for a secretive propaganda campaign to advocate for deep cuts in the state pension system. Doing so garnered her effusive praise from right-wing stalwarts: from the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, to the National Review, to Rhode Island’s own tiny Tea Party, which congratulated Raimondo for her “true leadership” as General Treasurer. Then there are the fetes by the likes of ALEC, the Manhattan Institute and the Hedge Fund Industry Awards (for running one of the hedge-fundiest of mid-sized public pensions).

Unfortunately for Rhode Island’s working stiffs, Raimondo’s “true leadership” consisted of slashing benefits even for already-retired seniors on fixed incomes while sending millions of Rhode Island taxpayer dollars to pay the bloated fees demanded by her hedge fund manager friends — for which she’s even been derided in the pages of Forbes Magazine.

Their palates now whetted, Wall Street is lining up to pay for her hoped-for ascent to the state’s highest office. The names that pop out during just a cursory review of the hundreds of people who’ve max-ed out to her still-unannounced gubernatorial run represent a who’s-who of Washington-to-Wall Street revolving door corruption in the extreme.

-Pete Peterson, the billionaire former Chairman and CEO of Lehman Brothers, who now runs the foremost Social Security and Medicare “reform” “think tanks” in Washington, DC, urging the slashing of benefits from these and other programs that are critical for middle class and poorer Rhode Islanders.

-All of the dearest relatives of Robert Rubin, America’s #1 most “Corrupt Capitalist” and the revolving door poster child who oversaw the deregulation of Wall Street during is tenure as Treasury Secretary — between the obligatory stints at Goldman Sachs and Citibank.

-John Arnold, a billionaire Houston-based former Enron energy trader who funds anti-worker campaigns across the country. Read Salon’s recent write-up of Arnold here.

–Securities and Exchange Commission target and former administration official Steve Rattner, another exemplar in extremis of Washington-to-Wall Street revolving door crony capitalist corruption.

Few states have been more harshly impacted than Rhode Island by the of the instantiation of the the will of the global financial elite: from NAFTA’s expediting the decline of the local manufacturing industry, to the outsized local impact of the housing/mortgage crisis and broader economic collapse. If Raimondo’s benefactors get their way, Rhode Island’s relatively aged population will endure the slashing of Social Security, Medicare, and other programs on which they rely; even the modest banking reforms urged by Dodd-Frank will fail to be implemented, and we’ll remain exposed to future cycles boom and (in Rhode Island mostly) bust.

These people and institutions give her money not for concern for the people of Rhode Island, but because under the reign of the Rhode Island proto-Romney, our bright blue state will bleed as the proving grounds for further right-wing financial “innovations”. And because she will serve as a trusted sycophant to Wall Street’s wizard’s should she ever (God forbid) realize her ambition of achieving federal office. Let’s please not let that happen, no matter the deceitful propaganda onslaught that she and her Wall Street backers and the shameful LeadHERship PAC will surely be foisting on Rhode Islanders in months to come.

September 26, 2013September 27, 2013

Rolling Stone on RI: ‘Looting the Pension Funds’

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When Wall Street broke the American economy, the Pew Center for the Public Trust told Rhode Island and others it was the retirees’ fault. So we cut their salaries and transferred the savings to the same sector that broke the economy in the first place. That’s how renowned Rolling Stone journalist Matt Taibbi describes the Ocean State’s 2011 pension cuts.

The blockbuster article accuses Raimondo of transferring wealth from local retirees to Wall Street tycoons, which has become an increasing narrative about the rookie general treasurer since Ted Seidle exposed her reliance on hedge funds.

Today, the same Wall Street crowd that caused the crash is not merely rolling in money again but aggressively counterattacking on the public-relations front. The battle increasingly centers around public funds like state and municipal pensions. This war isn’t just about money. Crucially, in ways invisible to most Americans, it’s also about blame. In state after state, politicians are following the Rhode Island playbook, using scare tactics and lavishly funded PR campaigns to cast teachers, firefighters and cops – not bankers – as the budget-devouring boogeymen responsible for the mounting fiscal problems of America’s states and cities.

It also ties together the Pew Charitable Trust and former Enron trader and Engage RI financier of working together to overstate the “unfunded liability.” This is especially interesting because legislators, experts and reporters all relied on research done by the Pew Center during the lead up to the pension legislation.

In 2011, Arnold and Pew found each other. As detailed in a new study by progressive think tank Institute for America’s Future, Arnold and Pew struck up a relationship – and both have since been proselytizing pension reform all over America, including California, Florida, Kansas, Arizona, Kentucky and Montana. Few knew that Pew had a relationship with a right-wing, anti-pension zealot like Arnold. “The centrist reputation of Pew was a key in selling a lot of these ideas,” says Jordan Marks of the National Public Pension Coalition. Later, a Pew report claimed that the national “gap” between pension assets and future liabilities added up to some $757 billion and dryly insisted the shortfall was unbridgeable, minus some combination of “higher contributions from taxpayers and employees, deep benefit cuts and, in some cases, changes in how retirement plans are structured and benefits are distributed.”

What the study didn’t say was that this supposedly massive gap could all be chalked up to the financial crisis, which, of course, had been caused almost entirely by the greed and wide-scale fraud of the financial-services industry – particularly with regard to state pension funds.

A study by noted economist Dean Baker at the Center for Economic Policy and Research bore this out. In February 2011, Baker reported that, had public pension funds not been invested in the stock market and exposed to mortgage-backed securities, there would be no shortfall at all. He said state pension managers were of course somewhat to blame, but only “insofar as they exercised poor judgment in buying the [finance] industry’s services.”

In fact, Baker said, had public funds during the crash years simply earned modest returns equal to 30-year Treasury bonds, then public-pension assets would be $850 billion richer than they were two years after the crash. Baker reported that states were short an additional $80 billion over the same period thanks to the fact that post-crash, cash-strapped states had been paying out that much less of their mandatory ARC payments.

So even if Pew’s numbers were right, the “unfunded liability” crisis had nothing to do with the systemic unsustainability of public pensions. Thanks to a deadly combination of unscrupulous states illegally borrowing from their pensioners, and unscrupulous banks whose mass sales of fraudulent toxic subprime products crashed the market, these funds were out some $930 billion. Yet the public was being told that the problem was state workers’ benefits were simply too expensive.

It concludes:

The bottom line is that the “unfunded liability” crisis is, if not exactly fictional, certainly exaggerated to an outrageous degree. Yes, we live in a new economy and, yes, it may be time to have a discussion about whether certain kinds of public employees should be receiving sizable benefit checks until death. But the idea that these benefit packages are causing the fiscal crises in our states is almost entirely a fabrication crafted by the very people who actually caused the problem. It’s like Voltaire’s maxim about noses having evolved to fit spectacles, so therefore we wear spectacles. In this case, we have an unfunded-pension-liability problem because we’ve been ripping retirees off for decades – but the solution being offered is to rip them off even more.

It’s well worth a read if you still don’t understand how Raimondo used pension cuts to enrich Wall Street or if you still don’t understand how the the 1% wants pension funds to fuel their continued economic growth.

September 26, 2013September 26, 2013

Sheldon’s 9 reasons to care about climate change

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Just in case you needed any further evidence that climate change is real and that Sheldon Whitehouse is one of hippest people on The Hill, Rhode Island’s junior senator authors a listicle on Buzzfeed called, “9 Reasons I Care About Climate Change – And You Should Too.”

Complete with animated gif’s like this one that show what the Capital City will look like when the sea level rises:

September 26, 2013September 26, 2013

Amazing Grace at Providence College

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What high school senior would want to go to college where you can’t even discuss the not-at-all controversial issue of marriage equality? No-brainer or not, let’s give PC Provost Hugh Lena credit for allowing a students to hear a lecture the church doesn’t agree with.

“I know that the events of the last few days have engendered a great deal of discussion on our campus, from alumni and friends of the College, and from the media,” he wrote in a statement. “I hope most will agree that rescheduling the event as it was originally proposed is the proper course of action for the College to take.”

“I want to let you know that the event is being rescheduled with Dr. Corvino and Sherif Girgis, a Ph.D. student in philosophy at Princeton University and a J.D. candidate at Yale Law School. Both individuals have agreed to the event and the likely date will be sometime in the spring semester. We will keep you apprised as soon as we have the details finalized.”

One of the best parts of the Catholic faith is not its rigid reliance on ancient dogma, but rather its belief in forgiveness. In that spirit, please enjoy one of my favorite renditions of one of my favorite songs:

September 25, 2013September 25, 2013

RIDE to participate in NECAP debate

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RIDE has finally decided to participate in the statewide debate over high stakes testing as Andrea Castaneda, the staffer in charge of school performance, will participate in a panel discussion with advocates against the NECAP graduation requirement.

She will be joined by Jim Vincent, of the Providence NAACP, Rick Richards, a former RIDE accountability specialist and JoAnn Quinn, of the Autism Project, Ron Wolk, former vice president at Brown University and founder of Education Week Magazine and Bob Mattis, director of special education at St. Mary’s Home for Children.

It is being organized by Jean Ann Guliano and Bob Houghtaling, both of whom have been vocal opponents of the new graduation requirement. Houghtaling and Richards have both authored posts for RI Future on the NECAP test.

It will be at Warwick City Hall at 6:30 on Wednesday, Oct. 2.

Initially, the event was to be held in East Greenwich but school officials asked Houghtaling to hold it elsewhere. Houghtaling works for the town in the East Greenwich schools. Guliano and Quinn are both East Greenwich residents. Houghtaling invited Education Commissioner Deborah Gist, who declined to attend.

Here’s the press release sent from Guliano:

In response to the vigorous statewide debate over the use of the NECAP test as a high school graduation requirement and a broader national debate over standardized testing, two youth advocacy groups have planned a community forum to discuss the issue.

The forum is scheduled for this Wednesday, October 2nd at 6:30 pm and will be held at Warwick City Hall in the Council Chambers.

A number of panelists will present views on the issue from a variety of perspectives. Audience members will then have an opportunity to ask questions of the panelists.

Forum organizer, Bob Houghtaling, a Warwick resident and the Director of the East Greenwich Substance Abuse program stated, “This is an extremely important issue affecting all students. Parents, students and educators have many concerns related to the use of standardized testing and are seeking more dialog on the issue.”

September 25, 2013September 26, 2013

Why libertarians should defend me

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If tea party extremists ran Rhode Island I would still be a fugitive from justice.

North Kingstown conservative Doreen Costa brought the Providence Journal’s attention to my traffic stop last weekend. But she also voted against the reason for my traffic stop during the last legislative session. According to a police report, I was detained because an East Greenwich officer noticed I wasn’t wearing my seat belt while we were both stopped at a red light. Costa voted against a bill that allows police officers to make a traffic stop based primarily on not wearing a seat belt.

According to State House lawyer Richard Raspallo:

“Doreen Costa voted against the primary seatbelt bill 6/29/2011. She again voted against removing the sunset on 5/9/2013, and against the Sub A (lowering the fine to $40.00) that passed after the bill came back from the Senate on 6/28/2013. I believe she agreed with the lowering of the fine, but since she was against the primary seatbelt law to begin with, she voted against the bill as a whole, not really against the idea of lowering a fine alone.”

Earlier this year, she told Matt Allen: “We have to stop controlling every single move we make in this state,” she . “If someone wants to get in the car and not buckle up, that’s their responsibility. The government can’t be controlling what people want to do.”

Justin Katz, who first publicized my run-in with The Law, was also a strong opponent of seat belt violations being a reason for police to pull over a driver – and he’s pointed out to me several times that a more libertarian society would have done me well. Perhaps, though one barometer will be whether or not I learned me lesson.

Katz, to his credit, has been really respectful and very professional throughout my public shaming. It was a good get on his part, and I can’t say I wouldn’t publicize his arrest either. He even wrote on his blog that I’m not a terrible person … or at least not based on my public record, I’m not!

With the possible exception of the recent drug charge (depending on your politics), progressive blogger Bob Plain’s rap sheet is essentially a story of failure to comply with rules and hardly indicates a criminal mentality. It is, rather, evidence of the obstacle course of compliance that modern life has become.

I’m not sure how I feel politically about a seat belt snafu being a primary offense but we both agree that drug laws should be reformed. Maybe RI Future and Anchor Rising can find a way to work on that issue together?

September 25, 2013September 25, 2013

TPP would be ‘truly unprecendented secrecy’

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The progressive community in Rhode Island has been noting with increasing concern the secrecy surrounding negotiations for the “Trans-Pacific Partnership” or the TPP, a proposed new trade agreement with countries all over the world.

According to this Alternet article, the pact would be “so intrusive that it would even limit how governments can spend tax dollar” is near completion and likely to be passed without members of the U.S. Congress and Senate knowing what it contains?

It is a case of “truly unprecedented secrecy.”

Therefore, it was with great relief that we read Senator Elizabeth Warren’s letter to the prospective U.S. Trade Representative, Michael Froman, on the lack of transparency of those negotiations. At last, a legislator was courageous enough to bring this enormous elephant into the room of public discourse!

From leaked information over the last three years it has become clearer and clearer that, as it stands, TPP will be a giveaway to corporate interests on an unprecedented scale and will undermine any remaining power the federal government retains in regulating issues of labor and food/pharmaceutical/water safety as well as oversight of the financial industry. Senator Warren puts the situation succinctly:

“If transparency would lead to widespread public opposition to a trade agreement, then that trade agreement should not be the policy of the United States.”

We in the progressive community implore Rhode Island’s congressional delegation to take this matter seriously and join with Senator Warren in calling for transparency from the Obama administration on an issue that will profoundly affect the global economy for decades to come.

To: The Honorable Senators Reed & Whitehouse; Representatives Langevin & Cicilline
From: Constituents of Rhode Island
September 18, 2013:

We are writing about a matter vital to the interests of the work you are doing to bring jobs and prosperity back to the state of RI.

In June we outlined for you the danger we saw in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)—the new “free trade” agreement. The negotiations for the TPP have been conducted for the last 3 years without congressional or public input or participation.

In that letter we referred to the extreme secrecy in which negotiations were being held; secrecy even from members of congress. We quoted Senator Elizabeth Warren in her open letter to prospective U.S. Trade Representative, Michael Froman,
“ If transparency would lead to widespread public opposition to a trade agreement, then that trade agreement should not be the policy of the United States”

She wrote this letter after she and Alan Grayson asked to read the treaty. (Of the two, only Rep. Grayson was allowed to read it, because he agreed to sign a statement promising not to talk about what he had read. One wonders whether Sen. Warren’s letter was due to her refusal to sign such a promise)?

Today we are even more concerned because this week the Obama Administration is expecting the Congress to grant the President “Fast Track” authority on the TPP. As you are well aware, with fast tracking, the President, not Congress, would control the legislative process for the TPP. Study time would be severely limited and “Debate” would last a few hours. No amendments–only an up or down vote–would be allowed.

According to Lori Wallach of Tradewatch.org, trade officials have revealed that, as currently negotiated, the TPP would give foreign and multinational corporations wide and unprecedented power, (essentially nullifying the power of the U.S. congress), in any number of areas by filing claims against us before an international corporate tribunal, over any national or state regulations and laws they claim might infringe on profitability–attacking protections for the environment, employees, and consumers in areas such as food and water safety, access to medicines and human rights and internet freedom as well as financial ovewrsight. This should be totally unacceptable to you, as it is to us. TPP would ban buy American and completely reverse all of your recent hard work in bringing jobs home to RI.

All such international partnerships should be open to full debate, committee review, and public input. Therefore we strongly urge you to vote against fast tracking the Trans-Pacific Partnership as well as voting against this so-called treaty that goes far beyond trade issues. Thank you.

Sincerely,
Lisa Roseman Beade
RIPDA

September 25, 2013September 26, 2013

Providence College nixes lecture on gay marriage

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In what can only be called a blow to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry, Providence College has rescinded an invitation to philosopher John Corvino of Wayne State University because his lecture would be in support of marriage equality and “Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles.”

Corvino is a nationally known proponent of LGBTQ rights, and frequently engages in friendly debates with marriage equality opponents such as Maggie Gallagher, former head of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM.) In the interest of balance, Corvino had arranged for Dr. Dana Dillon, from Providence College’s theology department, to follow his presentation with a short talk on the Roman Catholic Church’s position on marriage. Provost Hugh Lena, in canceling the event, nixed this idea, saying, “it is simply not fair to [Dr. Dana] to give her less than one week of preparation opposite someone who has been lecturing on this issue across the United States for years.”

As Corvino points out in his response to Provost Lena,

As a fellow scholar I am offended on Dr. Dillon’s behalf. If she felt unprepared to respond, she could easily have declined. For her provost to declare her unprepared, however, is an affront to scholarly autonomy and academic freedom.

Also, Corvino maintains,

It also does not speak well of Provost Lena’s confidence in his philosophy and theology departments that he believes that no one there can persuasively articulate the Catholic position on marriage with a week’s notice.

Corvino may have a point here. During the public testimony phase of this year’s marriage equality debate in both the State Senate and the House, doctors and professors of philosophy and theology spoke five times. Their testimony was often off-topic, rushed and confusing. Professor Matthew Cuddeback, Dr. Gary Culpepper and Dr. Giuseppe Butera presented theology, philosophy and sophistry as a muddled, incoherent mess of unconvincing and unpersuasive ideas.

What these videos demonstrate is that John Corvino’s hunch that Provost Lena lacks confidence in his philosophy and theology department’s ability to articulate cogent and on point arguments against marriage equality may be right on target. If the three representatives of Providence College who testified at the State House are among the best Providence College has to offer, Provost Lena may be right to to believe, as Corvino suggests, that “no one there can persuasively articulate the Catholic position on marriage with a week’s notice.”

PC’s cancelation of John Corvino’s appearance highlights the difficulty if not impossibility of presenting both a “well rounded” and “religious” education. The two ideas work at cross purposes, forming an almost irresolvable paradox. As Corvino states it, towards the end of his response,

My impression, however, is that Providence College actively avoids the airing of views that challenge the Church’s traditional teaching on marriage. The provost seems to want to have it both ways: the appearance of a commitment to vigorous academic dialogue, combined with an isolationist approach to disfavored views; in other words, a Catholic identity defined primarily by what it excludes rather than what it includes.

I suspect the true reason John Corvino is not being allowed to speak at Providence College is because Provost Lena knows what most of us already suspect: Opponents of marriage equality don’t have any good arguments. Their theological concepts might sound good to their fellow Catholics (though polling data indicates otherwise) but what possible argument can be made, in a free society that values freedom of conscience and separation of church and state, for imposing one person’s theology on someone else? Rather than playing a losing hand, Lena decided to tip over the card table while complaining about the unfairness of the rules.

Truth Wins Out has condemned the dis-invitation of John Corvino, and are asking people to “Please give Dr. Hugh Lena a piece of your mind and tell him to invite John Corvino back to Providence College to speak about marriage equality.” You can email Provost Lena at hlena@providence.edu

September 25, 2013September 25, 2013

Nichols, McChesney talk ‘Dollarocracy’ at Brown

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There’s a great free event at Brown next Wednesday, about the biggest threat to American democracy — and how we can fix it. It’s cosponsored by a number of great orgs, including mine: Demand Progress.

Join Nation magazine DC correspondent/MSNBC contributor John Nichols and renowned communications scholar Robert McChesney for a discussion of their new book:

Dollarocracy: How the Money

and Media Election Complex Is

Destroying America

When: 7:00pm Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Where: Smith-Buonanno Hall, Brown University, Room 106

95 Cushing St. (corner of Cushing and Brown)

Admission: FREE

When President Barack Obama was reelected, some pundits argued that, despite unbridled campaign spending, here was proof that big money couldn’t buy elections. The exact opposite was the case. The 2012 election was a quantum leap: it was America’s first $10 billion election campaign. And it solidified the power of a new class in American politics: the fabulously wealthy individuals and corporations who are radically redefining our politics in a way that, failing a dramatic intervention, signals the end of our democracy. It is the world of Dollarocracy.

Event cosponsored by Brown Democracy Matters, DemandProgress.org, and RI Progressive Democrats of America.

September 24, 2013September 24, 2013

Bloody primary or People’s Pledge?

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Maybe we’ll be served well by a bruising Democratic primary. Maybe all the money of the potential principals and their allies will be lined up and thrown against each opponent with the intent to grievously wound. You know, we may well be served by the millions spent in pursuit of a bully pulpit with a veto pen.

Perhaps, as our brawlers approach the fight, Rhode Islands will find assistance in the camps who hurl barbs and provocations; each one doing their be impression of Muhammad Ali. And when they finally go up against one another in the ring; and the victor emerges; bloody, battered, and bereaved; perhaps no Republican will rub their hands in glee.

Maybe voters will forget, between mid-September and early November, the worst of the primary campaign. Perhaps, in that brief October and a half, those of us with nothing more than a vote and an opinion will ignore the accusations, insinuations, and outright lies. Because regardless of who wins, at their hearts and on the ballot they’re still the same shade of blue; and whether it’s one or the other, their money is just as green.

And perhaps it will not come to pass, that talking heads, radio braggarts, and vain bloggers such as I will not cry out “Civil War!” as we are prone to do. Perhaps in will not happen that in 2018, the pundits will not say, “Rhode Island has not elected a Democratic governor in 24 years,” and they will not nod their heads so sagely.

Or… Or maybe reason and sense will come to our would-be leaders. And instead of behaving like two Cold War commanders; locked in Mutually Assured Destruction, each attempting to win with a devastating first strike; they’ll have a moment of sanity, as they so often have appealed to us to find within ourselves.

Then they might set aside whatever distaste for one another they might have, and meet, and take a People’s Pledge. And they could tell us that unaccountable money has no place in the Rhode Island of today, and should that vile spending find its way into our small state the benefactor will donate a sum to charity. And so those who would assist one candidate by tearing the opponent down will find that their sword cuts both ways.

Perhaps our two popular leaders, will set aside the instruments of pain and division which we know have been gathered. And instead of a campaign waged with slings, barbs, and arrows, maybe we’ll be served with one of ideas and vision. And instead of arguing about a Rhode Island which we refuse to let rest in its grave; our once and future leaders will of one yet to be born, built by the heroes we can be, and fit those Rhode Islanders yet to come.

For the past is already done, and the present’s about to be. But the future’s yet unwritten, and that’s all the truth I see.

September 23, 2013September 23, 2013

The difference between religion and government

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When people use the word religion, they need to be precise. Merriam-Webster cites at least four different definitions of the word, and some people, either through ignorance or in an attempt to deceive, confuse the meanings in an attempt to score rhetorical points.

A case in point is Justin Katz, who recently commented in the Providence Journal forums about the new prayer banners installed at Cranston West High School.

Katz’s view is that a secular banner proclaiming various feel-good school-spirit slogans has replaced the “God” of the original banner with a new religion, the “State.”

Note the duplicity here. The first definitions of religion, “the service and worship of God or the supernatural” or “commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance” has been equated with the fourth definition, “a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith.” Note that Katz’s sloppy definitions have allowed him to move from the supernatural to the secular in what can only be seen as a category error, and a poignant demonstration of the fallacy of equivocation.

Katz expands on his view on his blog, Anchor Rising, where he says (italics mine),

In this case, it is the government school, itself, that is the source of morality, with the “creed” going so far as to express belief in the school as if it is some sort of deity.

and

If anything, the new version is even more of “an establishment of religion.” The original involves an expression of religious belief only by the insinuation that praying to a Heavenly Father implies belief in Him. The new version involves repeated statements of explicit beliefs that the government is imposing on the students whose education it controls.

Katz has made a career out of maintaining that a rejection of religion must automatically make one a member of the religion of Government. In May of this year he published “Catholic and American in New England” which ran in the ProJo as an editorial, and I felt compelled to write a response to his position, also as a ProJo editorial.

Talking about Rhode Island’s then recent passage of marriage equality, Katz interpreted secular laws as religious edicts, saying,

In the case of marriage, with narrow exceptions, the state government has essentially issued a command: “Thou shalt treat same-sex relationships as equivalent to opposite-sex relationships.”

As I pointed out,

In contrasting secular law with religious commandments Katz is forcing a choice: either the church sets the parameters of the state, or the state has de facto become the church. Under Katz’s formulation their can be no separation of church and state, no renderings to Caesar that which is his or unto the government its due. There is only one supreme authority, and a choice must be made.

Secular speech, by the government or anyone else, is not religious speech, no matter how much much we torture the definitions of our words. If Katz is right, then the founding fathers, and specifically the authors of the First Amendment, are idiots for having written “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” because under Katz’s formulation all laws, and even ideas written on a secular banner hanging on the wall of a high school auditorium, are religious in nature.

This is a useful idea, I suppose, if one wants to abolish the concept of separating church and state and establish some sort of Catholic theocratic rule here in Rhode Island, but most of us, I am sure, prefer to deal with a government that gets its orders from the people, not from a church hierarchy that pretends to get its orders from God.

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