"And so, the educated middle class — the job creators and civic leaders — have been packing up and going, leaving behind a less educated and more easily manipulated electorate."

Am I to assume - according to Ed - that if I'm not a "job creator or civic leader" then I am an easily manipulated uneducated boob?

Everybody was not born to create jobs or lead. Many find productive, fulfilling lives working for fair wages forty or so hours a week.

Reading things like this makes me wonder just who is easily manipulated.

I said it before and I'll say it again:

"We Get the Government We Deserve!"

And they say the left is elitist?! Besides being wrong, I say Ed needs to come down to the south side some time and actually meet those poor folks who he thinks don't know nothing without the upper middle-class there to lead them. What a crock.

Maybe Ed's hoping his whining will be rewarded with an executive position at Belo HQ in Dallas.

Yeah, you commenters above are right. RI doesn't have any kind of unemployment problem. RI isn't in the top 3 in the nation. There are abundant jobs in RI. Anyone who wants a job can have one. No employers have moved overseas or to more business friendly states. I must have been confused when I saw all those numbers before. Thanks for clearing that up.

Patrick, I think you missed the point. Maybe you have been manipulated.

Not at all. He's saying the job creators have left the state. You countered by looking at an n of one (you) saying that because you have not been manipulated and you still live in the state, the premise is wrong.

Also furthering the argument of my manipulation, there's a strong likelihood that I'm outta here too this summer. Get me over the line into the great state of MA. Heh, who'd have ever thunk that someone might move to Mass to get away from too much liberalism?

Achorn is the only person of reason at Projo. He said no more than what I've been saying and others I know have been saying. As long as the liberal 'others' continue to vote the same officials to do the same job, the rest of us, the normal ones, will have to suffer the end results while we stand on the state line and way bye-bye to jobs, growth and taxpayers. That leaves 'us' to take up the slack.

I've called Tom Heslin to complain about the obvious left leaning liberal bias from several of their columnists.

Apparently, he must also be a member of the General Assembly.

Number of calls returned: 0

Ed Achorn's wife was involved in a very questionable "educational"enterprise that wound up hurting some high schoolkids who'd been promised scholarships-Achorn acted as if he didn't know what was up.Not believeable.
Achorn always seems to have a holier than thou position on issues.As much as I tend to disagree with Russ,maybe his comment in this thread has some merit.
For my money,Amanda Milkovits is the best journalist at the Projo.I realize that is faint praise.

I agree with the previous post: Achorn lost most if not all of his credibility with me when he failed, and has continued to fail, to address the multifarious acts of truly remarkable dishonesty committed by his wife Valerie Forti in her role with the now defunct Educational Partnership -- one of whose funding partners was the Providence Journal! Achorn obviously knew about her behavior and looked away -- he gained financially from her actions as her spouse.

Also agreed: Kudos to Amanda Milkovitz, for among other things her story some months ago about the Mass. attorney/MBA who moonlighted as a hooker and called the police when a john assaulted her. Evidently the clueless hooker/attorney never heard of Google, among many other things. Look for the hooker/attorney's new name soon in the name-change section of the legal notices.

As for your comments about the complacent RI electorate, William Collins wrote a fascinating piece a few months ago in his blog (RI Observer) that seemed to argue that educated outsiders are coming into RI and are prompting change that the established locals have to date failed to initiate. So according to Collins, there may be some hope for the future in RI after all.

Abigail, Amanda has some good and some bad. The article about the escort/lawyer should never have published her name. Regardless of how you feel about the kind of work she was doing, she -was- working legally, paying taxes on it, and had incorporated her business. She basically did her due-diligence in making sure she was following the law. By publishing her name, the paper likely kept a dangerous man on the streets (since the escort/lawyer decided to drop charges to avoid more press), and ruined a law-abiding woman's primary career (law).

Now that the law is changed, I could understand publishing the names of sex workers who are picked up on stings, but not those who -call the police- on violent criminals who are attacking them.

Same goes for the husband-and-wife duo who helped identify the Craigslist killer. They were operating legally, and they helped put a murderer behind bars. It shouldn't have been a story that their names were revealed.

That escort and the craigslist-catchers are heroes in my view, they stepped-out from the shadows and risked public scrutiny to keep dangerous felons off the street. Would you do the same in their position?

"Achorn is the only person of reason at Projo."

It is all relative. I have had no respect for the Projop since the Cianci trial. The writers repeatedly mentioned that they were "shocked". Where were they when all of this was going on. If they were doing their jobs at all, they must have known. If they didn't know, they weren't doing their jobs.

I was especially amused at their "shock" that the tow operators are paying off. The city/state pays 4 times what AAA pays, and they can make money off AAA. Believe me, tow operators pay off in every city, insmall towns it is "gifts" rather than cash. Why do the legislatures permit rates 4 times AAA, well, you might say it is "funding" or "revenue enhancement". But every government entity allows premium rates for "police work".

All of this being common knowledge,available in any barroom, where was teh Projo?

Huh, for years Ed Achorn kissed House Speaker Bill Murphy's arse. Just sheer coincidence that in the very week Achorn's good buddy steps down as House Speaker Eddie suddenly finds religion when it comes to the General Assembly.
Much like his newspaper Ed Achorn has zero credibility.

Where was the ProJo?
Simple: the hacks in Dallas cut its newsroom in half. Any problem you have with the ProJo can be traced back to decisions made at the corporate level in Dallas.

Corporate boardroom in Dallas has nothing to do with the blatant lack of "journalism" at the ProJo.
State House "reporter" (lol) Kathy Gregg is a Democratic party call girl and long before Belo bought the farm.

Haha-Tim,you got it-Gregg jumped on John Loughlin's case faster than Rhoda Perry would jump on a cream filled tart.