Notice the book titles on Burns’ coffee table, and the pictures over the mantle!

h/t Politicalwire.

While the wind is honking early this semi-stormy morning, the significant weather from Hurricane Sandy will be the when the moon tide high hits later tonight. The full moon high tide typically causes a little flooding all over the Ocean State; couple that with the wall of water a hurricane pushes along and we’ve got cause for concern for our coastal areas…

…In the meantime, enjoy the breeze and if you can make it down to see the surf, I’ll see you at the beach!

There are, at least, two local progressive news blogs here in Rhode Island covering communities that could get whacked by Sandy … here’s how Progressive Charlestown and Portsmouth’s HardDeadlines are covering the storm.

You’ve got to wonder how the prolonged storm will affect the last week before the election … Will Obama have opportunity to look presidential? Will Mitt Romney say something to again prove how out-of-touch with real people he is, or will the media just focus on that he would cut funding for disaster relief efforts? If Sandy hits the city hard and avoids the more rural portions of the district, does that give Brendan Doherty an advantage, or a disadvantage?

One way Sandy will affect campaign: the debate today between David Cicilline and Brendan Doherty has been cancelled … the ProJo Political Scene team has a debate schedule here for the rest of the week.

If you’re already looking forward to post-campaign politics: Scott MacKay details how the real political drama will come in January, when a dramatic federal deficit reduction tool kicks in right when the Bush tax cuts expire … if you think the Frankenstorm has been over-hyped, wait till the political writers start focusing on that one!

If you look at the polls swing states, particularly Ohio (in other words the states that actually decide the presidency), Obama still has a pretty cozy advantage.

Did you think Romney 47 percent comment was the biggest blunder of the 2012 election season … this list of the 10 biggest gaffs of the campaign ranks it third: check out which two edged it out here.

Talk about paving paradise to put in a parking lot … here’s a for, well, a parking lot.

Today in 1929: Black Tuesday. The stock market crashes as thousands of investors lose billions of dollars … my question: where did it go?

The Atlantic may think Gina Raimondo is a brave thinker for slashing the retirement security of state workers, but it seems to me the political popularity of pension reform is waning  … consider this page A1 quote  in today’s Projo on Cranston Mayor Allan Fung’s attempts to cut local pension benefits: “This problem was created by the city, not by the retirees.”

And consider also that both David Cicilline AND Brendan Doherty both said the state would have done well to negotiate pension reform rather than act unilaterally … but then again Doherty is a pension recipient, reports RIPR. The state pays him $97,859.44 annually to be a retired cop.

On Smith Hill, it turns out, transparency and open government tend to have a liberal bias. I’m not surprised.

Speaking of government secrecy, Bob Kerr offers some sage words for any public official who wants to keep something on the quiet: “…as long as the details are kept under wraps, questions will remain. And those questions will be answered at the bar and on the radio and in all kinds of places where people have nothing to go on but their belief of how things work in Rhode Island.”

Again, the typically conservative ProJo editorial board endorses a progressive for U.S. Senate; today it’s Rhode Island’s own Sheldon Whitehouse.

FYI: the bear seen in Cranston probably wasn’t the same one that was seen in the EG/NK area. For one thing, there is virtually no way for wildlife to commute between the two areas in question. For another, it’s not like we are talking about a singular Sasquatch here folks. It’s a bear, they live here and look for food this time of year. Secure your garbage cans, be prepared to take their picture from a safe distance and get on with life…

Things are looking pretty good for Democrats’ chances of taking control of the Senate, says the NYTimes … but native Rhode Islander Jennifer Duffy is quoted as saying not to count out the GOP yet…

I have to disagree with the Romney logic that microwave ownership is a sign of wealth … to the contrary, I’d argue that microwave ownership is a sign of poverty.

And here’s an indicator in the presidential campaign: Bruce Springsteen endorsed Obama in Ohio this week while Mitt Romney won the coveted endorsement of Meatloaf. In case you’re keeping score at home, Springsteen is famous for singing about the plight of the working class … Meatloaf, on the other hand, is best remembered for signing about indiscretion and regret.

Today in 2001, George W. Bush signs the Patriot Act into law.

The two candidates for Senate had no shortage of differences in their first debate last night – you can read about it here, or watch the full thing here. Most interesting to me was Hinckley’s notion that the United States should no longer be tasked with serving as the world’s super power when it comes to global politics.

Progressive Portsmouth blogger John McDaid was at the debate … here’s what he writes.

Speaking of Sheldon, he’ll be at the Wild Colonial tonight for Drinking Liberally … hope to see you there.

And speaking of Barry Hinckley, doesn’t he remind you a little bit of Bobby Newport?

Mitt Romney may have given a shout out to the Ocean State during the POTUS debate Monday night, but he conveniently neglected to mention that his plan would cut funding to Rhode Island’s Medicaid program.

If Michael Woodmansee doesn’t want to vote, well that’s his right too … I have to wonder why he changed his mind…

Something I missed from Tuesday’s ProJo profile on Abel Collins: it said he was not invited to the WPRI debate because he didn’t score high enough in polls. In fact, WPRI chose not to tell the public why it didn’t include him (and CD1 candidate David Vogel) in their debates. The ProJo corrects the error today. It’s troubling enough when the market’s most trusted TV station can keep a candidate out of a debate, but it’s double trouble when the paper of record doesn’t know why…

WPRO’s Matt Allen has some questions about undecided voters … Saturday Night Live has some answers, humorously disguised as questions:

Here’s a profile on Winter Hames, the liberal Democrat from Narragansett running against popular Republican rookie Dawson Hodgson.

Bob Kerr’s column calls George McGovern “the man we should have listened to.”

File these two stories under the media doing good work: The Des Moines Register chastises Obama for not going on the record with them … and here in Rhode Island the AP and the ProJo join with the New York Times to sue the Catholic Church, which doesn’t want the public to know what happened with a woman’s will, whose niece claims she was defrauded.

Just in case there was any doubt in your mind, it’s all about Ohio. Says Nate Silver: “…Ohio is central enough in the electoral math that it now seems to matter as much as the other 49 states put together. I am not sure whether I should be congratulating you or consoling you if you happen to be reading this in Toledo.”

Today in 1940, Hugo Black’s Fair Labor Standards Act becomes law, it codifies a 40-hour workweek, an eight-hour workday and rules for overtime pay. Black went on to serve on the Supreme Court.

The economy is more than unemployment numbers, GDP and stock prices; it is a measure of our quality of life and participation in society. Let’s start looking at some of the issues that will have a profound impact on our economy and way of life in the future.

First, let’s take a quick trip in our “Way-Back” machine. Clean Water Action hard-wired it into all of our office computers a couple years ago. It is a useful tool for providing some context for the campaign rhetoric we are forced to consume every four years.

Here is an excerpt from a May 2008 speech by The Maverick, John McCain:

We stand warned by serious and credible scientists across the world that time is short and the dangers are great. The most relevant question now is whether our own government is equal to the challenge… In the years ahead, we are likely to see reduced water supplies…more forest fires than in previous decades…changes in crop production…more heat waves afflicting our cities and a greater intensity in storms. Each one of these consequences of climate change will require policies to protect our citizens, especially those most vulnerable to violent weather.

What a prediction! Can you imagine a Republican Presidential nominee uttering such words? But would he propose a solution to such a national issue?

 To lead in this effort, however, our government must strike at the source of the problem… We know that greenhouse gasses are heavily implicated as a cause of climate change. And we know that among all greenhouse gasses, the worst by far is the carbon-dioxide that results from fossil-fuel combustion… We will cap emissions according to specific goals, measuring progress by reference to past carbon emissions. By the year 2012, we will seek a return to 2005 levels of emission…by 2020, a return to 1990 levels…and so on until we have achieved at least a reduction of sixty percent below 1990 levels by the year 2050… And in pursuit of these objectives, we cannot afford to take economic growth and job creation for granted. A strong and growing economy is essential to all of our goals, and especially the goal of finding alternatives to carbon-based technology. We want to turn the American economy toward cleaner and safer energy sources

Doth my eyes deceive? Was that a plan to address carbon emissions? How would a Democrat respond to such specifics? An upstart Senator from Illinois said this:

And in the long-term, few regions [speech was in Miami] are more imperiled by the stronger storms, higher floodwaters, and devastating droughts that could come with global warming. Whole crops could disappear, putting the food supply at risk for hundreds of millions. While we share this risk, we also share the resources to do something about it. That’s why I’ll bring together the countries of the region in a new Energy Partnership for the Americas. We need to go beyond bilateral agreements. We need a regional approach. Together, we can forge a path toward sustainable growth and clean energy. Leadership must begin at home. That’s why I’ve proposed a cap and trade system to limit our carbon emissions and to invest in alternative sources of energy. We’ll allow industrial emitters to offset a portion of this cost by investing in low carbon energy projects in Latin America and the Caribbean. And we’ll increase research and development across the Americas in clean coal technology, in the next generation of sustainable biofuels not taken from food crops, and in wind and solar energy.

Despite my dismay that President Obama has maintained radio silence on how he will reinvigorate the debate around a cap-and-trade system and reducing carbon emissions, the President has taken action to warrant a reelection endorsement by the environmental community. A short comparison of President Obama and Governor Romney provides the following:

•  Obama’s EPA negotiates with the auto industry to raise fuel standards vs. Romney’s claim that the EPA destroy’s jobs.
• Obama’s EPA begins to limit greenhouse gas emissions from power plants vs. Romney’s belief that protecting the planet hurts our families.

The President is only one piece of the puzzle. We need a U.S. Senate that is willing to take action. Addressing climate change is not just about wind turbines and solar power; it is about protecting American people and society. Weather patterns are continually more hostile for a much of American and global temperatures continue a steep rise, threatening our ocean and marine habitats. It is for a new path.

No one sums up progressive values quite like the Dalai Lama. The Associated Press quotes him as saying, “We are part of humanity. Their problem is my problem. Their happiness is my happiness. We have to look to the interests of others.’’ You can read Steve Ahlquist’s story here.

Another well-spoken progressive, Bruce Springsteen, says conservatives will try to suppress people’s right to vote in an attempt to get Obama out of the White House. The Boss writes in his endorsement of Obama, “I believe that all of us, of whatever views, should be opposing these anti-voter, anti-citizen efforts.”

Speaking of being a well-spoken progressive, the Dalai Lama does not curse when speaking in public.

Abel Collins’ campaign must be fuming about this one: the two WPRI employees most responsible for keeping him out of its debate both got promotions this week, according to RIPR.

Here’s an interesting dilemma: should convicted murderers be allowed to vote? Pressing the issue this campaign season is Rhode Island’s most despised child killer Michael Woodmansee, reports the ProJo.

Tiverton Patch picked up on my post about Justin Katz being too religious and right-wing to be relevant on the Tiverton School Committee.

From the files of etch-a-sketch politics, former Providence Journal reporter Steve Peoples, who now covers the Romney campaign for the Associated Press, writes, “On immigration, taxes and women’s issues, Mitt Romney is abandoning his “severely conservative” talk of the Republican primary season and moving sharply to the political center as he looks to sway on-the-fence voters in the campaign’s final three weeks.”

And this, from the files of deregulation is dangerous.

Today in 1988, sit-com “Roseanne” debuts on ABC. Was this the last time a TV show featured a working class family? Here’s how History.com describes the half-hour comedy:

The show was considered groundbreaking for its realistic portrayal of a working-class family and the issues they faced. Barr’s portrayal of the loud, abrasive, overweight Roseanne Conner was a sharp contrast to the stereotypical TV housewife in the mold of Leave It to Beaver’s June Cleaver and The Brady Bunch’s Carol Brady.

When video of Mitt Romney dismissing the “47%” recently surfaced, shockwaves pulsated throughout American political society. Liberal pundits reacted with breathless glee to the Republican nominee’s gaffe, while working-class voters reacted with breathless outrage to the perceived uber-insult. Liberals and conservatives alike asked if Mitt’s misstep meant political suicide, if his comments were extreme enough to bring a crashing end to his campaign.

Romney’s potentially mortal sin was the following statement:

“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. There are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent on government, who believe that, that they are victims, who believe that government has the responsibility to care for them. Who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing.”

Accusing such a large portion of working-class and middle-income Americans of laziness and freeloading rightfully offended the masses of hard-working Americans who don’t fall in the ‘top-53%’ income bracket.

Depicting Americans who toil frantically to make ends meet, have seen any sense of personal opportunity fade in an economy torn down by unscrupulous Wall Street bankers, and who utilize government programs to maintain the basic necessities for their families as irresponsible mooches is despicable and absurd. It is the typical victim-blaming of the wealthy who plunder and then chastise the plundered for their misfortune. More specifically, the typical victim-blaming by rich Americans who have seen their incomes soar in previous decades on the backs of working Americans whose wages have stagnated and living conditions plummeted. Quite simply, blaming poor Americans for their plight is generally wrong; it was wealthy bankers who tanked the economy and greedy corporations who have refused to share the expanding profits American workers have produced.

The only problem with the shock and outrage at Romney’s “47%” comments is that the notion of the freeloading poor is nothing new to this presidential election season. In fact, victim-blaming akin to Romney’s comments has been a staple of both parties campaign rhetoric throughout their campaigns. Both candidates have consistently, implicitly and explicitly, excoriated the poor for their own poverty. Both parties’ national conventions contained countless testaments to the rags-to-riches ‘American Dream’—Read: those who work hard will inevitably prosper (see Michelle Obama’s Convention speech, for example).

Both candidates engaged in a one-upsmanship on who champions Welfare-to-Work programs more aggressively—Read: who can claim the trophy of having booted more lazy poor people off of Welfare. And Democrats and Republicans alike have repeatedly deployed the tropes of government ‘hand-outs’ and ‘dependency’. From Paul Ryan’s latest Town Hall rant (“We’re worried about more and more people becoming net dependent on the government than upon themselves) to Barack Obama’s Convention speech (“We insist on personal responsibility and we celebrate individual initiative…We don’t want handouts for people who refuse to help themselves, and we don’t want bailouts for banks that break the rules”) both campaigns have routinely, and without any significant backlash, painted a picture of a lazy, free-loading American underclass.

So what made Romney’s 47% comment different? Why the sudden outrage over what has become staple rhetoric this election season? Romney crossed the line because the latest accusatory insult lobbied at the American poor unavoidably included poor and working white Americans. While it goes unsaid in our culture of ‘post-racial’ political correctness, there is little doubt as to the skin color of the free-loading lower class that politicians and pundits frequently chastise: black and brown. The staple conservative image of the single mother who has irresponsibly had too many children, chooses not to work and lazily weans the social welfare system via food stamps and Welfare—the ‘Welfare Mom’— is undeniably meant to be African American.  The bipartisan calls to confront the self-imposed ‘culture of poverty’ that allegedly hold poor communities down is never meant to suggest images of poor white communities, but always poor black communities. Recently, Romney has uncontroversially run ads attacking Obama’s Work to Welfare record stating, “You won’t have to work. You won’t have to train for a job. They just send you your welfare check.” Blaming less fortunate Americans for their own poverty and accusing them of lazy free-loading is commonplace from most politicians in both major parties, but it is almost always implicitly targets poor black Americans. But no matter how you do the math—blacks represent around 12% of the American population, and even add the Latino population at around 16%—Mitt’s 47% includes a sizable chunk of the white American population. Victim-blaming and condescending self-help lectures get tossed around regularly and without controversy, but always part of a racist discourse directed at black Americans.  Romney changed the tune, crossed the line and provoked outrage when he included white Americans as part of the parasitic poor.

A recent study by Princeton Professor Martin Gilens obliterates any doubt as to the racist implications of the Welfare and ‘hand-out’ discourse. While 71% of Americans polled favored spending on “Social assistance for the poor,” 71% also oppose spending on “Welfare.” How can such a large majority of Americans contradictorily support spending to help the poor but oppose the program that does just that when called by a certain name? In a word, racism. “Welfare” conjures up images specifically of poor blacks in a way “Social assistance” does not. Blaming blacks for their own poverty and labeling them as undeserving of assistance holds public credence in a way that doesn’t fly for whites.

Romney thus bungled one of the classic American conservative political strategies. Scapegoating African Americans as such is tried and true, as wealthy classes in American history have repeatedly used racism to divide and conquer. From the implementation of racial codes in the southern colonies in response to cross-racial uprisings such as Bacon’s Rebellion (in which white indentured servants and black slaves joined forces), to the Republican Party’s infamous ‘Southern Strategy’ of using racism to usurp Democratic control of the South, to the incessant anti-‘handout’ rhetoric of Paul Ryan, wealthy whites have long sought to gain the allegiance of working class whites via racism.

Class hostility from working class whites could be avoided, class solidarity amongst working class whites and blacks could be preempted, and class dominance maintained so long as working class whites blamed their problems on blacks rather than the wealthy. That this strategy remains alive and well today was beautifully displayed in recent comments from the extremely conservative Republican Senator from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham: “The demographics race we’re losing badly…We’re not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term.” By expanding his verbal attack to whites, Romney inadvertently broke the mold and pissed off the same white working class whose allegiance he needs to be elected.

It is for this reason that conservatives also reacted with disappointment to the ‘47%’ comments. Recognizing that Romney had blundered the classic formula, fellow Republicans quickly distanced themselves from the presidential candidate and many spoke ominously about the comments’ potential effects on his candidacy. Ultra-conservative Fox News columnist Charles Krauthammer laid into Romney:

“He said 
these are people who consider themselves victims. Now, that’s not a very 
smart thing to say. It’s not even accurate. And you don’t win an election 
by disparaging just about half of the electorate. So simply as a matter of 
appealing to the electorate, the way he put it was about the worst possible 
way.”

Former George W. Bush speechwriter and Republican Party activist similarly thrashed Romney, writing, “Mitt Romney has just committed the 
worst presidential candidate gaffe since Gerald Ford announced in 1976 that 
there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.” Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal, certainly no populist champion, concluded, “An intervention is in 
order. Mitt, this isn’t working.” Similar denouncements appeared in conservative publications far and wide, from the WSJ to Fox News to Bloomberg Businessweek. The severity of Romney’s misstep was immediately apparent to all. Accusations of free-loading, dependency, and entitlement are fine in American politics, but extending such claims beyond African Americans and to white Americans is off limits.

Hopefully Romney’s comments do torpedo his campaign and Americans will reject his haughty elitism in electing Barack Obama come November. For the true progressive, however, that is not enough. Progressives must reject the victim-blaming ideology whenever the wealthy use it to justify their exploits, not only when it is leveled at white Americans. Americans should react with the same revulsion piqued by Mitt’s ‘47%’ whenever ‘Welfare Mom’, ‘culture of poverty’, or other popular ‘free-loader’ diatribes implicitly blame African Americans for their poverty. White workers must react with equal outrage when similar conservative attacks attempt to single out black workers as lazy free-loaders. Progressives should demand that Democrats stop using these tired and racist tropes, stop implying that we live in a perfect meritocracy through incessant ‘pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps’ rhetoric, and start aiming their fire at the real causes of American poverty sitting on Wall Street and in corporate corner offices. Mitt’s comments were offensive, but if we continue to allow similar ideology to go unchallenged everyday, elites will continue to thwart the creation of a powerful progressive movement using the great wedge of racism.

It seems RI Future and RIPEC agree on at least one thing. “Rhode Island does not have a clear vision of how to expand its economy or a governmental structure that helps create jobs, encourage companies to expand, attract businesses and develop workers’ skills,” reports the Providence Journal about RIPEC’s report on the EDC this morning. We may not agree what to do about it, though. We think the state should invest more heavily into this sector.

The Cranston School Committee last night agreed to petition the state legislature to lift the state ban on father daughter dances. The reality is few people are actually worked up about this and the name isn’t a longstanding tradition in Cranston. It’s just about local Republicans trying to drum up animosity using the ACLU as their boogieman.

Good luck to Central Falls City Councilor James Diossa, who launches his campaign for mayor today.

Here’s Gina Raimondo on NPR’s Talk of the Nation yesterday talking about Rhode Island’s early effort to reform public sector pension benefits.

URI professors, who are teaching without a contract right now, are among the lowest paid college professors in the region, according to the ProJo this morning … yet political pressure from the Chafee Administration prevented them from getting an already-agreed upon pay raise. Stay tuned.

Here’s why Romney is losing.

Hilarious Saturday Night Live skit on some of the questions undecided voters are still asking.

On this day in 1957: “Under escort from the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division, nine black students enter all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.”

And on this day in 1690, the first newspaper was published in the new world. It was called Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick.

Brendan Doherty has distanced himself from Mitt Romney’s politically devastating comments about the 47 percent, according to the Providence Journal.

“I don’t agree with Mitt Romney’s characterization,” Doherty said in a statement to the ProJo.

Exactly what part of Romney’s diatribe against income tax-less moochers with no personal responsibility Doherty disagrees with wasn’t clear. He didn’t actually talk to the reporter, John Mulligan, rather Doherty just sent a press release about it, it seems.

But at least Mulligan got a release. I made several overtures to the Doherty campaign and they ignored them all. (And Dave Layman and I are friends!) It’s almost as if Doherty disdains progressives the way Romney does the 47 percent.

What is clear is what Doherty, who has endorsed Romney for president, has said about him in the past: “Mitt Romney is a proven leader who will stand by his convictions while seeking consensus to find real solutions to the daunting challenges facing our nation.”

It’s hard to make the case that Romney is a consensus builder after he got caught on video saying “my job is is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

It’s also going to be hard for Doherty to make the case that he doesn’t share Romney’s belief that poor people are lazy and lucky. Especially when he then campaigns with other right-wing Republicans like Devin Nunes, about whom Democratic Party spokesman Bill Fischer said, “Nunes has described Medicaid as a program ‘imposed on the poor’ and has stood with Paul Ryan in support of radically altering the safety net for our seniors.”

Similarly, Doherty wants to repeal Obamacare but extend George Bush’s tax cuts for the rich.

Doherty may say he doesn’t agree with Romney’s off-color comments about the 47 percent, but if elected you can bet he would vote as if he agrees with them.

So far I haven’t heard anything from the Republican candidates running in Rhode Island. I left Dave Layman, from Brendan Doherty’s campaign, a voicemail. I just now left a message for Mike Riley, who is running against Jim Langevin. Patrick Sweeney, spokesman for Barry Hinckley, said he would email a statement by 3 pm, though I haven’t gotten anything from my inbox yet.

According to The Hill, Scott Brown, a Massachusetts incumbent who needs to defend his seat against middle class champion Elizabeth Warren, said, “That’s not the way I view the world. As someone who grew up in tough circumstances, I know that being on public assistance is not a spot that anyone wants to be in. Too many people today who want to work are being forced into public assistance for lack of jobs.”

And according to the Hartford Courant, Linda McMahon said, “I disagree with Governor Romney’s insinuation that 47% of Americans believe they are victims who must depend on the government for their care. I know that the vast majority of those who rely on government are not in that situation because they want to be. People today are struggling because the government has failed to keep America competitive, failed to support job creators, and failed to get our economy back on track.”

She actually posted her statement to her website, but she also has a history with the idea that 47 percent of the population doesn’t pay income taxes. Red the Courant story for details.

Would someone please let me know if the GOP congressional candidates from Rhode Island decide to speak up about this issue? Since both are accused of being too conservative for Rhode Island, and because Romney’s comments shined a light on what many liberals and moderates fear most about conservative Republicans, I think we should know what Brendan Doherty and Barry Hinckley think of Romney’s comment.

I’ll update this post if and when they speak on the matter.