What is a 501c(4), how do they affect local politics?
Speaking on the Senate floor yesterday, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is helping to raise a long overdue conversation in American politics, and it’s closely related to the IRS scandal. The role 501c(4) groups play in politics. Read his speech here, or watch it below (John McDaid of Hard Deadlines has a great piece on it here): [...]
‘God won’t save us from climate catastrophe’
Best progressive Rhode Island headline of the day comes courtesy of the Huffington Post: “Sheldon Whitehouse: God Won’t Save Us From Climate Catastrophe” Michael McCauliff’s lede was pretty great too. WASHINGTON — God will not save us, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) declared in a Senate floor speech on climate change Wednesday that sounded more like [...]
Elizabeth Warren: pensions for middle class workers
Are pensions coming back into fashion? Perhaps, said progressive hero Senator Elizabeth Warren who was in Providence last night at a fundraiser at the Convention Center for her Senate Banking Committee colleague Jack Reed. Hailed as one of Wall Street’s worst nightmares and the intellectual godmother of Occupy Wall Street, Warren told me that public [...]
Minimum wage hike good for economy, taxpayers
If corporate America was still run by businessmen like Henry Ford, we probably wouldn’t need to have a minimum wage law. Ford, said Congressman Jim Langevin recently, “wanted his workers to earn a wage that was sufficient for them to buy an automobile that he produced. He recognized with a strong middle class, with a [...]
David Cicilline and the anti-poverty agenda
I seem to remember a time when people actually cared about poverty, when poverty was something that society actually wanted to alleviate, when poverty was the social ill and not poor people. That unfortunately was a long time ago. Almost 15% of Rhode Islanders live in poverty, close to 155,000 of our mothers and fathers, [...]
Making It In America
As many RI Future readers may already know, I joined House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer and other House Democrats to announce the Make it in America plan – a comprehensive series of legislative proposals that will help reinvigorate American manufacturing and put men and women across America back to work in the kinds of good-paying [...]
David Cicilline Signs Grayson-Takano Letter
Thank you Congressman Cicilline for standing up against cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security! When Barack Obama proposed cuts to Social Security in his current budget, progressives were horrified. Fortunately, in the First District of Rhode Island, we have a congressman who opposes this dangerous unraveling of the New Deal. David Cicilline has signed [...]
RI Supports Fred Ross Sr. For Presidential Medal
Google may be taking flack from the conservative blogoshpere for honoring Cesar Chavez on Easter, but no such criticism from this site for Rhode Island’s congressional delegation’s collective decision to support the man who mentored Chavez. All four members of the delegation have signed onto letters asking President Obama to award Fred Ross Sr. a [...]
In Budget Vote, Cicilline Betrays Progressives
As I predicted on Tuesday, Congressman Cicilline voted against the Progressive Caucus’s budget on Wednesday. For a vice chair of the Progressive Caucus, this is a major break—especially after Rhode Island progressives have made it very clear they do not want Cicilline to abandon House progressives. This is a tough vote for Rhode Island progressives [...]
Budget Vote Doesn’t Mean Cicilline Isn’t Progressive
Congressman David Cicilline’s office confirmed he hasn’t signed the Grayson-Takano pledge to oppose “every cut to Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security benefits” and that he is “leaning” against supporting the progressive Back to Work budget proposal being supported by the Progressive Caucus in the House of Representatives. (Instead he may support the more moderate House [...]
Will Cicilline Abandon Progressives On Budget?
Many progressives worked hard to reelect David Cicilline. I spent a lot of my summer and fall knocking on doors for him instead of helping out progressives in tight General Assembly races. When everyone was piling on Cicilline a year ago, we were defending him. We took a lot of flack, but we knew that [...]
Whitehouse’s Week That Was In Washington DC
It was a busy political week here in the Ocean State, and it was for those who represent us inside the beltway, as well … off-shore drilling, climate change, carbon pollution, the debate on how to control gun violence, the budget process and much more… Senator Sheldon Whitehouse managed to stay involved in all of [...]
Cicilline To Paul Ryan: ‘My Question Is A *Factual* One’
This is exactly why Rhode Island reelected Congressman David Cicilline: so we would have someone who would stand up to Paul Ryan. From The Hill today about his bizarrely inappropriate budget proposal: “Ryan this year made a concession to conservatives and moved up the date when his budget balances.” Paul Ryan making a concession to [...]
Delegation Supports Think Progress’ Wish List
Rhode Island’s entire congressional delegation supports Think Progress‘ new wish list of progressive policy proposals to get passed. Gone from the list is the Violence Against Women Act, which Obama signed into law yesterday … thanks Sens. Reed and Whitehouse and Congressmen Cicilline and Langevin, for supporting it! Here’s the newly revised list, in case [...]
Sen. Reed Calls For Federal Minimum Wage Increase
Sen. Jack Reed are Tom Harkin of Iowa are sponsoring legislation to raise the federal minimum wage $10.10 in 2015. “Raising the minimum wage is vital because too many people have been left out of the economic recovery,” Reed said in a press release. “The stagnation of earnings in the face of soaring prices for [...]
Cicilline On Sequester
Congressman David Cicilline was on MSNBC yesterday and spoke about the sequester’s effect on the nation’s economy and politics in the nation’s capitol. “I think everyone understands this isn’t the way to do budget cuts,” he said. Watch the whole thing here: RIPR has more.
Buffett Rule Is Back
The Buffett Rule is back in play inside in the beltway. Author of last year’s signature piece of progressive legislation in Congress, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse announced today that his 2012 Paying A Fair Share Act, aka the Buffett Rule bill, will be a component in Senate Democrats plan stave off the sequester. It’s a common-sense [...]
Sheldon Introduced Two of 2012 Most Important Bills
How important was the Ocean State’s own Senator Sheldon Whitehouse to the national progressive agenda in 2012? Two bills he sponsored in the year that was were flagged by ThinkProgress as being among the five most important pieces of legislation blocked by Republicans. Whitehouse’s DISCLOSE Act (which RI Future was the first news organization to [...]
Songs of Rage
“What do I know that would cause me, a reticent, Midwestern scientist, to get myself arrested in front of the White House protesting? And what would you do if you knew what I know?” With these questions James Hansen opens his riveting presentation Why I must speak out about climate change on TED. Hansen, whom [...]
Whitehouse: GOP Holding Middle Class Hostage
“Republicans fighting for millionaires and billionaires is not a new story,” said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse on the floor of the US Senate yesterday. It happens to be the current story too. Well, in the case of the fiscal cliff, House Republicans are actually fighting for the 2 percent, or the affluent American families who earn [...]
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