August 26, 2014 – RI Future

August 26, 2014August 28, 2014

Lies, truthiness and one-liners: Democrats debate for governor

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After a summer of spending millions to attack and fact check each other in TV commercials, the three leading Democrats running for governor took the opportunity to do so once more at their last debate before the primary.

“My campaign alone has created more jobs in Rhode Island than Narragansett Beer,” Clay Pell quipped of Gina Raimondo’s pseudo-claim in a TV ad that her venture capital investment in Narragansett Brewery helped create more than 1,000 jobs in Rhode Island.

This was the line of the night. But a close second was when moderator Tim White pushed back about Pell’s talking point about not taking any money from lobbyists or PACs. White pointed out that Pell is independently wealthy and that several high level NEARI employees are volunteering their time for him. Rarely does a debate moderator win applause, but this was a question begging to be asked that was unlikely to be addressed by any candidate.

The big lie of the evening came courtesy of Raimondo when she was accused of standing with Wall Street. She replied, “I’m from Smithfield, I’ve never worked on Wall Street.” Wall Street, of course, in this context, is not a physical address.

Angel Taveras’ watershed moment may have been when he asked the TV camera “would you hire someone who has had nine jobs in eight years?” He spent much of the debate on the attack against both Pell and Raimondo, but did not – notably – dispute Pell’s claim to be the “progressive Democrat” in the race.

The surprise of the evening, for me, was that all three pledged to support the primary winner. It may be a good exercise for all Democrats to spend a few minutes each day until the primary envisioning their preferred candidate campaigning for the others, and vice versa.

August 26, 2014

Video: Common ground found at Israel/Gaza forum

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The one thing that virtually everyone who attended last night’s forum, Understanding the Israel/Gaza Crisis, is that the subject is extremely difficult to talk about without extreme emotions hijacking the discourse. Many of us, said moderator Reverend Donald Anderson, executive minister for the RI Council of Churches, have family or friends living in harms way in Israel or Palestine, so this is a hard topic to not take personally.

These concerns did not stop Rabbi Jim Rosenberg, retired spiritual leader of Temple Habonim in Barrington, or Martha Yager, of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), from wading into such treacherous waters as they engaged in an open dialog exploring many sides of the complex issue. Sponsored by the East Bay Citizens for peace, over eighty people attended the event and many posed challenging and interesting questions.

Rabbi Rosenberg began the forum by reading from a piece he had written for the Jewish Voice entitled, “What happens to a dream deferred?” written when the present conflict was just getting under way and the death toll was not quite so high. Rosenberg finds hope in “human solidarity” expressed in small actions of peace between Israelis and Palestinians. “…most Palestinian Arabs and most Israeli Jews contain overflowing reservoirs of human compassion,” he said. “The current nightmare has been brought about by the failure of decent citizens and their governments to condemn and to curb the actions of the lunatic fringe of both societies.”

Martha Yager, who recently visited Gaza as part of an AFSC staff visit sees the issue through a pacifist lens. She decried the militarization of the Israeli economy and pointed out that Palestine is not technically a nation. It is difficult for what passes as government in Palestine to provide national leadership. The occupation of Palestine by Israel is pervasive, and any move towards peace, according to Yager, must begin with an understanding that the occupation is itself a form of violence. “People have a right to resistance,” she declared.

The questions from the audience were pointed. A lawyer specializing in human rights work asked Rosenberg if he believed that Israel, with its greater military and political power had an obligation to use its power to end the occupation. Rosenberg did not hold out hope for an end to this conflict in his lifetime, or in the lifetime of his children. Another audience member took issue with Yager because she had not, in the audience member’s opinion, pointedly condemned the actions of Hamas. Yager assured the audience that she is no friend to Hamas, describing the political party’s rise to power as a protest vote on the part of the Palestinian people.

What might be most surprising to those who follow the terrible and seemingly perpetual tragedy in the Middle East is how much common ground actually exists. Both sides in the conflict and everybody present at the forum last night want peace. Only the most extreme elements on both sides deny that the two state solution provides the best hope for peace.

You can watch the entire forum here:

August 26, 2014

Don’t waste your vote on Todd Giroux

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In every election, there are fringe candidates who end up on the ballot and pick up a few votes from confused voters or those who, for whatever reason, think “none of the above” is their choice.

In the hotly contested 2014 Democratic primary for Governor on September 9, we have one of the fringe candidates in Todd Giroux. Though he is currently polling at 1.4%, the three principal contenders, Clay Pell, Gina Raimondo and Angel Taveras, are all running within 6 points of each other.

Giroux’s numbers, whatever they turn out to be, will not get him elected, but could hurt the real candidates.

Before you throw your vote away on Todd Giroux, let’s take a closer look at him.

Todd Giroux emerged onto Rhode Island’s political stage two years ago when he challenged incumbent Senator Sheldon Whitehouse in the 2012 Primary. I will never forget Giroux’s speech to the State Convention. It was a 15-minute ramble during which Giroux shared his muddled vision of a future.Then came Giroux’s punchline. He told the Convention delegates – and I swear I am not making this up – he would be willing to drop his primary challenge to Senator Whitehouse in return for the state party giving him the House District 68 seat in the RI House of Representatives held at the time by Richard Morrison of Bristol.

I remember the stunned silence as Convention delegates tried to absorb this blatantly illegal deal offer. No one was willing to nominate Giroux. As it turns out, that was the high-water mark of Giroux’s 2012 campaign because he failed to collect enough signatures on his nomination papers to get on the ballot.

In 2014, he is running for Governor, perhaps because running for Governor takes less signatures than running for US Senate. Giroux did not repeat his 2012 mistake by speaking before the 2014 State Democratic Convention. However, he has been attending most of the debates and, to my surprise, some media outlets are actually treating him as a serious person.

They have even allowed him to repeat campaign centerpiece – his pledge to create a billion dollar fund to provide the capital to expand business in Rhode Island. He plans to take the billion dollars out of the state public workers’ pension funds.

This plan is illegal. You can’t just grab a billion dollars from anybody’s pension fund to finance some hare-brained scheme. Pension laws are crafted to prevent exactly that sort of abuse.

But I have seen no one in the media call Giroux out. Instead, they simply run his campaign pledge as if it was nothing out of the ordinary, when in fact, it is not only illegal but reckless.

Giroux has also been working to build an ultra-right base by showing up at gun rallies, opposing all gun restrictions, including those on automatic weapons.

He calls himself a “Liberty Democrat” and told California-based right-wing GoLocalProv pundit Arthur Schaper:

“I understand the constitution and property rights. There are many politicians negotiating away our freedoms, liberties, and playing politics with our economic conditions. I am working here to defend property rights.”

Giroux’s campaign positions also include a mishmash of populist talking points against Wall Street that almost convinced Schaper that Giroux wasn’t a right-wing “Liberty” type after all, but didn’t seem serious enough to dissuade Schaper from singing his praises in GoLocalProv.

Giroux gives his occupation as contractor, but he’s had his troubles with that, too. His company, LG Painting, was hit with a string of lawsuits, civil judgments and complaints with the RI Contractors Board. He ended up turning in his license in 1999. He went into Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation in 2010.

He has set up a new contracting business, Giroux General Contracting, and has already racked up four charges of negligent work and breach of contract at the RI Contractors’ Board.

Todd Giroux has the Constitutional right to run for public office if he chooses. There is always a market for a “none of the above” candidate. But Giroux is, in my opinion, a dangerous guy who says crazy things like looting public pensions to fund his schemes and asking the Democratic State Convention for a bribe.

The September 9 primary vote for Governor is likely to be very close and the outcome is vitally important for Rhode Island’s future. Don’t throw your vote away by voting for a clown candidate (and perhaps encouraging him to keep running in the future).

Personally, I think Clay Pell is far and away the best choice, but if you can’t decide whether to vote for him, as I wish you would, or for his opponents Angel Taveras or Gina Raimondo, it would be better if you voted for nobody for that position, rather than Todd Giroux.