Not For Nothing

Langevin to Chair Armed Services Subcommittee

David Scharfenberg — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 22:01:00 GMT

This just in from Representative Jim Langevin's office:

Congressman Jim Langevin (D-RI) today was named the new Chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces after a vote of the committee’s Democratic members. Langevin will replace former Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher, who was recently confirmed as the Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security.

“It is an honor to be chosen by my colleagues to continue the great work of my colleague Ellen Tauscher,” said Langevin. “I look forward to addressing the critical national security issues facing the subcommittee, from nuclear non-proliferation efforts to our space and missile defense programs.”

The Strategic Forces Subcommittee has jurisdiction over ballistic missile defense including the National Missile Defense shield; the Department of Energy’s defense capabilities and all nuclear weapons; space programs; and intelligence policy and national programs including the Defense Intelligence Agency

Langevin returned to the House Armed Services Committee in January and has taken a leave of absence from the Homeland Security Committee. He also serves on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Committee on the Budget.

Whitehouse Defends Sotomayor

David Scharfenberg — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:45:00 GMT

On the eve of confirmation hearings, Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is defending Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor from Republican attacks. From his remarks on the Senate floor today, as reported by The Boston Globe:

"Like millions of Americans, I have been inspired by her personal story. Frankly, it gives me goose bumps to think of that little girl growing up in the projects in the Bronx and growing into the woman we see before us now at the top of the legal profession, with a career of exemplary conduct, exemplary academic achievement, exemplary judicial experience already behind her. It is really a great story of American discipline and achievement," he told his colleagues.

"Unfortunately, critics of Judge Sotomayor’s confirmation have unleashed an avalanche of innuendo meant to weaken the case for her confirmation. These criticisms began among the right-wing talking heads, but unfortunately some of them are now voiced by my Republican colleagues here on the floor. Indeed, rather than waiting for the hearing to ask her about her record and her judicial philosophy, a number of my colleagues have come to the floor to attack her and her nomination."

Report: Emma Watson to Attend Brown

David Scharfenberg — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 16:52:00 GMT

A little celebrity gossip for those inclined to such things (and who isn't?). According to Associated Content, British actress Emma Watson, of Harry Potter fame, may be attending Brown University in the fall.

Her co-star Daniel Radcliffe apparently gave up the goods.

British actress Emma Watson may be attending Brown University in fall 2009. According to Just Jared, Emma Watson had wanted her college choice to remain a secret for now. She explained that she wanted the process to be normal, and that she didn't want to walk in and see Harry Potter posters everywhere. Daniel Radcliffe, however, spilled the beans, also mentioning her GCSE scores which had three A's and seven A*'s. Daniel Radcliffe described Emma Watson as "incredibly academic."

He's Ba-aack

David Scharfenberg — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:47:00 GMT

Former Cranston Mayor Stephen P. Laffey, Republican provocateur, is back. Thought to have left the state after his decision, several months ago, to skip the governor's race, he shows up again today in the Providence Journal with a typically inflammatory op-ed accusing state lawmakers and Governor Carcieri of shepherding through an unsustainable budget that amounts to fraud. Could he be reconsidering his hasty exit from Rhode Island politics?

Here's an excerpt from his piece:

Let’s be frank. This fraudulent budget now puts Rhode Island on the road to collapse. Only, unlike California, whose comptroller has put out a loud warning, the Rhode Island populace will have to wait to be “surprised” when Rhode Island is about to miss payroll. The similarities between Rhode Island today and Cranston in 2002 before I became mayor are eerie. The lies were plentiful then and near bankruptcy ensued.

So while fraud is being perpetrated against the Rhode Island public, let me tell you the truth: The deficit could be north of $800 million and is leading to insolvency. The pension system is still broke and can only be saved by turning all accounts into 401(k)s. (See my March 5 Commentary piece, “Time grows short for our poor state.”)

The elected officials who signed off on the budget have all committed fraud.

After our leaders have sent signals for years that they do not want any real tax base in Rhode Island, guess what? There isn’t any. Governor Carcieri’s signing of the budget, despite any cockamamie reason he may give, transmits another signal to everyone outside the state that this nonsense is what Rhode Island deems true, and sends another death blow to both economic development and to the state Republican Party.

Phoenix Editorial: McNamara's Lessons

David Scharfenberg — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:24:00 GMT

Lost in the Michael Jackson mania of recent days: the death of Robert McNamara, architect of the Vietnam War. This week's Phoenix editorial suggests a lesson, in McNamara's failures, for an Obama administration still coming to terms with Iraq and Afghanistan. From the editorial:

As secretary of defense under President Lyndon B. Johnson, Robert McNamara prosecuted the Vietnam War on a day-to-day basis, just as Donald Rumsfeld orchestrated the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq for George W. Bush. The details may appear strikingly different — a Communist threat in the jungle as opposed to an Islamist menace in the desert — but the rotten policy core has a painful consistency: miscalculation fortified by rampant arrogance.

McNamara's death on Monday at age 93 should serve as a prompt, a trigger, for President Barack Obama and his foreign-policy team. It presents an unspoken invitation to consider the common denominators of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam.

New Executive Director For Providence Community Library

David Scharfenberg — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:40:00 GMT

Providence Community Library, the nonprofit group that has taken over the city's nine branch libraries, has named a new executive director, Ann A. Robinson.

For 135 years, the nonprofit Providence Public Library group ran the central library and the city's nine branch libraries. But after a very public feud with Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline over funding and PPL plans to close several branches in the face of a tight budget, the Providence Community Library is now in charge of the branch libraries. The PPL continues to run the downtown library.

Here's the release:

After an extensive national search for a library director, Providence Community Library has hired Rhode Island native Ann A. Robinson to supervise its new nine-library system, formerly part of Providence Public Library.

Having most recently served as the Associate Head Librarian of the Worcester Public Library for eight years, Robinson has experience working in a city similar to Providence in size and diversity of population.

A graduate of Clark University, Robinson earned her library degree at Simmons College and was a social worker for a decade before beginning her library career in 1987 as director of the Bancroft Memorial Library in Hopedale, Massachusetts. Over the next twenty years, she gained considerable experience in many areas of library administration as she moved to progressively larger cities with more complex library systems.

Maureen Romans, co-chair of the PCL Search committee that recommended Robinson to the PCL Board, commented, “Despite receiving applications from across the country, we found Ann Robinson to be the person best suited for Providence. We are delighted that she is from the area and will understand our needs.” Robinson was raised in Pawtucket, and her family moved to Providence in 1971. Robinson reflected, “In the early 1980s I had the pleasure of introducing my two-year-old niece to the Rochambeau Library and was thrilled when she wanted to return over and over again.”

"I look forward to working with Ms. Robinson and the Providence Community Library as we preserve the core mission of the former Providence Public Library” said Mayor David N. Cicilline. This work is tremendously important to the residents of Providence and especially our children.”

The executive committee of the Providence Community Library board was especially impressed with Robinson’s leadership style and management strengths. PCL President Marcus Mitchell believes that her “experience in administration, team building and outreach, along with her focus on running a customer centered library, will serve the city of Providence well.”

Ann Robinson will start work next Monday, moving into temporary administrative quarters at South Providence Library. “I commend the dedication and hard work of all those who were determined to safeguard neighborhood library service,” Robinson said. “As Executive Director of the Providence Community Library, I look forward to building on Providence’s tradition of excellent local library service by working towards the goal of providing easy access to a high quality, responsive, community library system.

Selling the Washington Post

David Scharfenberg — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:45:00 GMT

Strong editorial in the Wall Street Journal today deriding The Washington Post's embarassing attempt to sell access to the paper and administration officials at a "salon" on health care at publisher Katharine Weymouth's house.

The episode is, of course, a sad commentary on the state of the American newspaper. But as the Journal editorial notes, it also says something larger about our culture.

Even worse were the lame excuses offered by the paper's brass, who blamed one another after the embarrassing story broke and immediately cancelled the get-together. The flier hadn't been properly "vetted," they said. Ms. Weymouth had been out of town. Plus assorted other feeble explanations.

If this was a slip it was a Freudian one, the kind that tells us something true and revealing about what is going on inside.

We are living, after all, in a sort of conflict-of-interest golden age. Professionalism is for sale almost wherever you choose to look. Among the forces that most conspicuously drove the late real-estate bubble, for example, were appraisers and bond rating agencies that apparently decided to put themselves on the market.

The city of Washington is an extreme case of this marketized world. The capital swarms with hired guns, payola pundits, and think tanks on a mission. Every bad idea that has ever appealed to the funding class is well-represented here. And with the coming of the health-care debate, as the Post itself has noted, the entire apparatus has swung into well-compensated action.

Reed, Whitehouse Push for a Second Stimulus Not Getting Far

David Scharfenberg — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 21:24:00 GMT

Rhode Island Senators Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse are among those suggesting that a second stimulus package may be necessary. But the idea does not appear to be gaining much traction - not yet, anyway. Aides on the Hill, according to Washington publication Roll Call, say there is little appetite for another huge outlay, especially with a crowded legislative calendar.

“The reality is we’re four months into the [first] recovery act, which is designed to work over two years,” said a House Democratic aide. “We’re not going to drop everything tomorrow” to do another stimulus bill.

Similarly, a Senate Democratic leadership aide said Monday the resolve against doing another stimulus in that chamber is firm.

“Bailout fatigue has settled in — and it would be very difficult to get such a bill through the Senate,” the aide said.

A subsequent Roll Call piece has Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pooh-poohing the idea, even as House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer suggests he is open to the idea.

The New York Times paints a mixed picture on the prospects of a second stimulus. Seems unlikely in the short term, but could be a possibility if the economy continues to ail.

Whitehouse to Remain on Key Committee During Health Care Debate

David Scharfenberg — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 21:00:00 GMT

Al Franken's arrival in the U.S. Senate, after a lengthy legal bout with Republican Norm Coleman, means Sheldon Whitehouse will lose a temporary post with the chamber's Health Committee - eventually.

But the Rhode Island Senator, it seems, will hold onto the job until the panel works out its healthcare overhaul bill. That gives Whitehouse, who has watched his profile expand amid the back-and-forth over Bush-era torture memos, a chance to participate in an even higher-profile debate - and a chance to shape perhaps the most important legislation in a generation.

But a close association with health care reform, as the Clinton-era failure demonstrates, carries a certain amount of political risk, too.

An Independent Run for Governor, Across the Border

David Scharfenberg — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:53:00 GMT

Lincoln Chafee may have some company. Massachusetts State Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill plans to leave the Democratic Party, according to The Boston Globe, in what is widely seen as a precursor to an independent run for governor in the Bay State.

That could mean two credible, independent candidates for governor in New England next year, with Chafee - a former Republican U.S. Senator-turned-independent - expected to make his own run for Rhode Island's top job.

Both candidates would have the advantage of running in states with relatively moribund Republican parties. But there are some marked differences between the nascent campaigns. The two men defected from different parties, of course. Chafee would be running for an open seat, while Cahill would be taking on an incumbent, in Governor Deval Patrick. And if Chafee is seen as a frontrunner - or at least an even-odds possibility - Cahill would be a decided underdog.

Still, the two probable candidacies - however different - say something about the declining influence of the major political parties.

Kennedy to Return to Congress

David Scharfenberg — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 21:37:00 GMT

This just in from Patrick Kennedy's office:

“Tomorrow, I will be returning to Washington to get back to work on the bold legislative agenda set forth by the House leadership – job creation, economic development, green energy, and health care reform. The support and words of encouragement I have received over the past few weeks certainly help to support my efforts in recovery which I take seriously every day. I am feeling healthy and strong, and I am looking forward to continuing my work for the people of Rhode Island’s 1st Congressional District.”

CQ on Patrick Kennedy's Resilience

David Scharfenberg — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:09:00 GMT

Congressional Quarterly, a fave among the Washington set, has a piece on Patrick Kennedy's political endurance amid personal problems. Among those quoted: Darrell West, a Kennedy biographer and former Brown University political science professor who chalks up the representative's survival, in part, to a Catholic culture of forgiveness.

Kennedy benefits from the religious affinities of Rhode Island, West said. The nephew of the only Roman Catholic president in history, Kennedy is a representative in a state where two-thirds of all residents affiliate with the religion, by far the nation’s largest percentage.

“This is a very Catholic state, so voters are used to confessing their sins and asking for forgiveness . . . ” West said. “I think it does contribute to the culture of the state, and in that way, the state is very different from most other places. And I think it’s helped Kennedy, politically.”

More on "Providence Plantations"

David Scharfenberg — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 15:44:00 GMT

And check out these letters to the editor responding to a New York Times piece on the state's proposed name change, including one from David Carlin, former majority leader in the state Senate:

About the possibility that the state of Rhode Island will drop “Providence Plantations” from its official name, you say: “The change would be largely symbolic, since the state’s formal name is so rarely used. It appears on some state stationery and on many documents, like elevator inspection certificates and marriage licenses.”

You did not add that the state’s formal name (“Rhode Island and Providence Plantations”) also appears — far more significantly — in the United States Constitution, Article 1, Section 2.

This raises the question: Can Rhode Island or any one of the other 13 original states (all of them mentioned in Article 1, Section 2) change its name without an amendment to the United States Constitution?

A bit far-fetched, perhaps. But suggests some of the legal morass that could surround the push.

Vowell on "Providence Plantations"

David Scharfenberg — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 15:36:00 GMT

NerdPR afficionados, this one included, know the inimitable Sarah Vowell from her frequent appearances on "This American Life." And the author has been making appearances on the New York Times' op-ed page of late, too. This weekend, a characteristically funny plea for Rhode Island to keep its full name - Rhode Island and Providence Plantations - amid calls to drop the "Providence Plantations" bit over concern that the word "plantations" evokes slavery:

...as New York City’s biggest, or perhaps only, fan of the founding of Providence Plantations, I feel compelled to stick up for its noble legacy of religious freedom.

As your average Rhode Island government spokesman and/or persnickety history buff will point out, in 17th-century English, “plantation” was a synonym for “colony” or “settlement” — just as a legal charter was a “patent” and “whore of Babylon” was a kicky pet name for the pope.

In his farewell sermon to the colonists leaving England to settle Massachusetts Bay in 1630, “God’s Promise to His Plantation,” the Rev. John Cotton evoked the word’s biblical roots, quoting the second Book of Samuel: “I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and I will plant them.”

Providence Plantations’ founder, the young Puritan theologian Roger Williams, arrived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1631. The Boston church immediately offered him a job as a minister, which he turned down because he deemed the congregation not quite puritanical enough. In a community of religious fanatics, the outspoken Williams became the guy who all the other Puritans wished would lighten up about religion.

Williams harangued the Bay Colony’s government for making everyone, even nonbelievers, attend church; he denied a government’s legal authority to prosecute violations of the Ten Commandments having to do with worship, including keeping the Sabbath holy.

He bristled when the magistrates made everyone, even nonbelievers, swear an oath at court; he considered an oath to be a covenant with God and thought that a nonbeliever making a simple pledge to tell the truth in the eyes of God about the 17th-century equivalent of a parking ticket was taking “the name of God in vain.” He wrote of a “wall of separation” between the church and the state long before Thomas Jefferson did, though to opposite ends. Williams yearned to separate “the garden of the church from the wilderness of the world.”

Because he refused to shut up, the General Court of Massachusetts Bay banished Williams from the colony in 1635. Terrified and rejected, he fled south on foot through the snowy wilderness. It was perhaps the loneliest march in American history up until pretty much every day in 1962 that James Meredith walked into the University of Mississippi’s cafeteria for lunch.

Upon his arrival in Narragansett Bay, Williams was supposedly greeted by an Indian who called out, “What cheer, netop?” It was a mishmash of old English and Algonquian meaning, “How’s it going, friend?” Without the friendly aid of the Narragansett, Williams would have surely perished.

He got the tribal chiefs’ permission to live there, and named his new home Providence. One of the Puritans’ favorite words, it conveys the generosity and wisdom of their God while at the same time admonishing lowly mortals to suck it up and accept God’s will even if one had a bone to pick with the magistrates of Massachusetts Bay.

Proud that no money changed hands between the Narragansett and himself, Williams later boasted, “Rhode Island was purchased by love.” By which he meant Providence Plantations! His community would eventually join forces in the 1640s with towns like Newport and Portsmouth on the nearby island known as Aquidneck or Rhode — possibly named for either the Greek isle of Rhodes or the Dutch word for red, not that anyone is sure. The whole shebang appears as the official name Rhode Island and Providence Plantations on the royal charter of 1663.

African and American Indian slaves were eventually forced to work in towns and on farms both in Providence Plantations and on Rhode Island. The ports of Providence and Newport were both major points in the slave trade triangle. In other words, Rhode Island itself has as much culpability in the history of slavery as Providence Plantations. But the supporters of the referendum object to the tone set by the word “plantation,” even though there was no slavery at Providence Plantations’ founding — just one weird white man with a dream.

Williams’s settlement offered what he called “soul-liberty.” A man with the narrowest of minds presided over the most open-minded haven in New England. His own unwavering zealotry made him recognize the convictions of others, however wrong-headed. Others not sharing his beliefs would be tortured eternally “over the everlasting burnings of Hell,” and this, he figured, was punishment enough. And so Providence and its environs soon became a refuge for regional outcasts — Puritan dissenters like Anne Hutchinson who got kicked out of Massachusetts, as well as Quakers, Baptists and Jews. (Newport boasts the country’s oldest, and perhaps prettiest, synagogue.)

In 1663, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations obtained an unprecedented charter from Charles II that guaranteed its residents would not be “molested, punished, disquieted or called in question for any differences in opinion in matters of religion.” This sentiment, written more than a century before the First Amendment, is a premonition of one of the finest ideals of the imperfect country that was to come. If there is anything to be learned from the life of an admirable crank like Williams, it’s just how wise the founders were to link freedom of speech and religion together in one legal guarantee.

Granted, I’m just an out-of-stater living in a city purchased with a measly string of beads and not with love, but I hope the citizens of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations vote against erasing the grandest part of their state’s name from the margins of subpoenas and Web sites. Silent, bureaucratic antiquities have their charms. Even though I would never call Sixth Avenue its official name out loud, sometimes when I’m walking home past those grandiose Avenue of the Americas street signs, I feel a momentary kinship with Peru. That never happens on Third.

Caprio's Steady Push

David Scharfenberg — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 20:54:00 GMT

Lieutenant Governor Elizabeth Roberts was making headlines even before her announcement yesterday that she would not run for governor. There was a high-profile push to hold down health insurance rates and a spat with the governor over a controversial state contract.

Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch, gearing up for a gubernatorial run, has also stayed in the news, of late - taking shots at the health insurance commissioner in the midst of the health insurance rate hike debate and suggesting that his brother might not run for AG when he leaves the post, which did not sit well with his brother's camp.

But the other Democrat widely expected to run for governor, Treasurer Frank T. Caprio, has remained decidedly low key. There is some political logic to the move. While the gubernatorial race is widely considered a toss-up, Caprio can claim an early lead in the polls and in the money game - his campaign says he had about $1.4 million on hand to Lynch's roughly $550,000 at the end of second quarter. Caprio, in short, has more to lose by becoming embroiled in this or that controversy.

But the approach is also a reflection of Caprio's temperament. The treasurer is a steady character. Reserved. Businesslike. Lynch, by contrast, is a fiery figure. And the personality clash should be one of the most inriguing elements of what has become a two-man Democratic tiff.

Will voters want a calming presence in the face of economic crisis, or a battler who can embody the outrage swelling in a state that has lost its moorings? Will economic improvements, in the next year, change the calculus? And which personality would be better suited to take on the mild-mannered Lincoln Chafee, widely expected to run for governor as an independent, in the general election?

Stay tuned.