37th vote on Obamacare
Three years ago, over strong Republican opposition, Congress passed and President Obama signed into law a historic health care reform bill. Opponents of the bill took their case all the way to the Supreme Court…and still lost. And later today, Republicans in the House are going to vote for a 37th time to repeal all [...]
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 [...]
Happy Earth Day, RI from Sheldon Whitehouse
Happy Earth Day, Rhode Island … to celebrate: enjoy some outside time. Or, if you’re stuck in front of a machine all day, at least enjoy this great piece by our own Senator Sheldon Whitehouse: I’m working with Rep. Henry Waxman and other colleagues in Congress to draft legislation to put a price on carbon. [...]
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 [...]
Save Saturday Delivery
Thousands of jobs in Rhode Island would be in jeopardy if conservative forces in Congress successfully shut down Saturday delivery of the mail, said local post office employees at a recent rally at Garden City in Cranston to call attention to the issue.
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Commonsense Gun Laws
The horrific images from the shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School are still seared into our minds – of six-year olds fleeing from danger, law enforcement officers overwhelmed with emotion, and parents grieving for loved ones taken from them forever. President Obama’s powerful words after the shooting spoke directly to the soul of a [...]
Americans Call for Tax Increases on the Wealthy
House Republicans may not want to see taxes raised on the rich, but the American people sure do. Reporting from outside the Capitol building is Graham Vyse, a former Chafee communications staffer who is now a grad student at American University’s Journalism and Public Affairs program.
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 [...]
Doherty Shows Uncommon Lack of Integrity in Bid
Intergrity. Really? INTEGRITY. Mr. Doherty’s latest attack ad on television towards Congressman David Cicilline is loaded with insinuation, negative innuendo, a bit of or no truth at all. Remember, Mr. Doherty approved this divisive negative ad. I was also recently subjected to a robot-call – a female spewing half-truths and innuendo in a very snide [...]
Abel Collins for Congress
For progressives living in the Second Congressional District, there’s no tougher choice on this year’s ballot than deciding whom to vote for in the race between Jim Langevin and Abel Collins. Both are sufficiently liberal to warrant your support, but they represent opposite extremes of the left side of the of the state’s political spectrum, [...]
David Cicilline Wins Debate Against Brendan Doherty
David Cicilline said Brendan Doherty would side with conservative House Republicans if elected to Congress and effectively do damage to social security and Medicare, while Doherty said he would be his own man who would work to protect social security and Medicare. Can both be true? Cicilline may have made such a point at the [...]
Still Waiting for Doherty’s Uncommon Integrity
Aside from holding political persuasions that would – in my opinion – be bad for Rhode Island, Brendan Doherty may well be a good, honest guy. I don’t know as I haven’t met him. But I do know this, his campaign for Congress is not exhibiting “uncommon integrity” as the Republican often claims. In fact, [...]
New Comments