Monique Chartier
[Note: the Devil’s Advocate signed in for this post to write the concluding paragraph.] From today’s Woonsocket Call: A move by the General Assembly to grant a waiver of the traditional waiting period for disaffiliating from a political party could put more voters at the polls for Tuesday’s Democratic Primary for the late Roger R.…
Both the Providence Journal and A.R. commenter Ken have erroneously amplified the amount of power the Executive Branch possesses over the state budget – more specifically, its control of the amount of local aid that will be disbursed from state coffers. This week in an article about current events in Woonsocket, the Providence Journal asserted:…
Actually, lots of junk – in this case, operation of the Central Landfill – has turned into real, if unauthorized, treasure for a few public officials. Susan A. Baird covers this investigation in yesterday’s Providence Business News: Preliminary results from the state’s ongoing examination of the R.I. Resource Recovery Corporation raise “serious concerns about how…
While David Richardson, owner of Rhode Island Refrigeration on Branch Avenue in Providence, went over the line in asking to see the social security card of someone in his shop speaking a language other than English, his action on this and prior occasions is understandable. It stems from frustration with a government which has carried…
Senator Hillary Clinton has proposed Senator Barack Obama for the vice presidential spot (with her as the presidential candidate) not once, but twice. And former President Bill Clinton has been talking up a Clinton/Obama ticket as “unstoppable”. Today, Senator Obama declined the number two spot, pointing out With all due respect, I have won twice…
Woonsocket Mayor Susan Menard will be retiring on June 15. The Providence Journal got that much right. And they kindly mentioned her accomplishments. What they left out was that an ethics complaint had been filed against her this week. Yes, the same newspaper that repeatedly and breathlessly speculated about some not-so-nefarious reasons for Bev Najarian…
Governor Donald Carcieri has proposed that cities and towns hold public hearings on the terms of labor contracts before committing to them. Governor Carcieri wants to force municipalities to hold public hearings to review tentative labor agreements before they are finalized, a move that union officials yesterday said would lead to harassment and unnecessary political…
Using formulas and data provided by Jason Furman of the Brookings Institution, Slate has created a nifty delegate calculator. [Pretty picture only; please click on the link to access the calculator.] Slate’s Chadwick Matlin and Chris Wilson have plugged in the delegates from states which have yet to hold their primaries and, at 4:36 this…
In 2002, Mwai Kibaki was elected President of Kenya primarily on an anti-corruption platform. Once in office, he appointed as Kenya’s Permanent Secretary to the Office in Charge of Governance and Ethics (an anti-corruption czar) a man named John Githongo and specifically included his own government in Mr. Githongo’s purview. This week on The Interview,…
The broad based tax proposal predicted by many has reared its ugly head on Smith Hill. House Bill 7873, introduced by Representatives Slater, Segal, Ferri, Diaz and Almeida on Tuesday, would lower the state sales tax from 7% to 4.5% but apply to just about every service offered in the state, as well as food…