But one quick clarification first, Katz says “guns are not designed to be used in crime.” True, but they are designed to cause violence. And that’s why the sale of them should help prevent violence.

News, Weather and Classifieds for Southern New England

But back to the interesting philosophical divide though: Katz says the intent of taxes is to infringe. I think he’s wrong about that. And my great fear is that he knows it, but he is going on TV and the internet and purposefully lying about this as a means to an end: to convince the public to shrink government. (More likely is that he’s just become so entrenched in his cause that he’s not able to see the other side of the coin clearly.)

At the end, he explains how he thinks government works: “This is the problem with government and progressive policies in general. You’re not saying hey this is a good thing, let’s feed people, let’s get people jobs, let’s protect people from guns. You’re saying this is my priority I’m going to take your money and give it people I know and trust to do things I want done. That’s not the way the country is supposed to work.”

Progressives certainly are saying the first part that. Our government is too but it can defend itself (if it wants to). As for the latter part of his statement, he’s just got his pronoun wrong. Here’s the corrected quote of how our government actually works:

“We are going to take our money and give it to people we known and trust to do the things we want done.”

News, Weather and Classifieds for Southern New England

Remember way back in the days when we feared Mitt Romney might become president and, if he did, he would cut public funding to PBS? Well Rhode Island already beat Romney to this nightmare scenario for liberals … WSBE Ch.36 is being transitioned off the state payroll beginning this month, reports Bill Rappleye of WJAR, and the local PBS affiliate now has about two years to become self-sustaining or else…

WSBE’s budget was dramatically cut in the 2012 state budget and both Gov. Chafee and the legislature should strongly consider reinstating the funding next year. Are there perhaps some potential synergies with Capitol TV? It’s easy to see why the mainstream media wouldn’t give much coverage to public broadcasting cuts, and WJAR deserves credit for reporting this story. It’s also easy to see why publicly financed television is important, in light of WPRI’s decision to keep Abel Collins out of its televised debate.

Speaking of WPRI, the other local TV station reports that state legislative leaders sometimes drive state vehicles to private events. It’s a well-reported story and plenty newsworthy but I often find myself wishing that Tim White would use his considerable investigative prowess to shed light on more meaningful issues than publicly-funded company cars and state workers who take long lunch breaks – like this one, for example. My guess is this type of red-meat-for-Republicans reporting is being driven by the same corporate forces and trickle down mentality that kept Collins out of the debate and thought Rhode Island needed a show catering to corporate executives…

And speaking of red meat for conservatives … Woonsocket voted to make school committee members appointed rather than elected officials. Town councilors and municipal officials across the state are no doubt jealous of the control the city just wrested away from the school department.

Look for financially-struggling West Warwick to be the next to consider this huge change in how local public education is managed.

Might Hurricane Sandy be the bellwether that gets Rhode Island to act on climate change? EcoRI runs a great piece that makes the case it should … meanwhile legislative heavyweights Sen Josh Miller and Rep. Chris Blazejewski are teaming up to study the effects of climate change on the Ocean State.

Here are some of the best overreactions to Obama being reelected. Though my favorite wing nut of the week is the Montana legislator who asked for his salary in gold and solver coin.

If you don’t think Republicans’ war on taxes is a part and parcel of class warfare, famed GOP strategist Lee Atwater might agree with you … but, then, he seemed to think it was part and parcel of a race war!

On this day in 1776, a British newspaper reports that former friend to England Ben Franklin has taken up with the revolutionaries in the American colonies…

“All three of us should be debating,” Langevin said. “The voters on election day are going to be confronted with three options. If they aren’t hearing from all three candidates in the debates, it deprives the voters.”

Mike Riley declined to comment on the matter. A campaign staffer said to me, “We don’t make statements to your blog.”

WPRI will hold a televised debate on Tuesday night between Langevin, the incumbent, and Republican candidate Mike Riley, who is largely financing his own campaign. Collins was not invited to participate. WPRI General Manager Jay Howell declined to comment on why Collins wasn’t invited.

Phillipe and Jorge reported last week that they believe WJAR may invite Collins after all. They wrote, “P&J have a feeling that situation may change.

Abel appeared on Channel 10’s News Conference last Sunday by himself, with both Langevin and Riley apparently standing up host Jim Taricani. Reports from those close to the event said that Our Jimmy was less than amused (read: furious), so after Collins’s solo performance, look for a quick JARhead ‘sorry your invitation got lost in the mail’ weaseling.”

Collins has started a petition drive asking WPRI to  include him in the WPRI debate.

Maybe it’s because Riley has the endorsement of one of the two major parties and Collins doesn’t. But that logic can be countered with the reality that Collins, a social and economic progressive, is far more in political step with the average Rhode Islander than is Riley, who is a far-right wing radical more akin to Ron Paul than John Chafee, so maybe that’s not it either.

The reality is TV stations owe their allegiance to ratings rather than democracy, and at the end of the day they are going to do whatever they need to in order to get the most amount of people to watch.

To that end, maybe a petition spreading around the internet imploring WPRI to allow their audience to see how Collins’ ideas stand up to Langevin’s and Riley’s.

According to a Phillipe and Jorge column this week that brought a ton of attention to the two TV networks blacklisting of Collins, they think WJAR will eventually invite Collins to their debate.

All three candidates are invited to both the Rhode Island Public Radio/ABC 6 and the WPRO debates.

Of course, I think Collins should be invited to all the debates. In fact, I’d like to see him and Riley one-on-one. I think that would show which one of these two Langevin challengers is the fringe outsider.

Thanks to Jim Taricani for having Justin Katz, of the Prosperous Rising wing of the local blogosphere, and me on WJAR’s 10 News Conference this week. We had a good talk about economic development in Rhode Island and whether or not there is a role for government in it; David Cicilline’s reelection campaign and what will define that race; the pre-Paul Ryan POTUS outlook and even a little bit of how we can foster a healthier political debate in Rhode Island.

Here’s the video:

A couple quick thoughts on the show:

• Taricani said Justin and I are “arguably two of the most important bloggers in the state.” I wouldn’t argue that, but I do think we are the two most influential independent and ideological news gatherers/synthesizers around.
• Does Justin really think Anthony Gemma’s campaign is all just a conspiracy to give David Cicilline a good news cycle? I hope not, but it doesn’t bode well for Gemma that his campaign can be confused with a conspiracy theory!
• I said I think the Dems will grab back control of the House. I suppose I should have said they *can win back Congress. They’d need to pick up 25 seats and there are about 50 up for grabs.
• Somewhere Barbara Haynes and Paul Giammarco are cringing listening to all my “ya knows…”