A Blog Called Hope

The gov sat down to dish a little yule-tide joy with The Pawtucket Times’ Jim Baron on the night before Christmas..In a story that mostly focuses on the challenges facing Rhode Island in the new year, Carcieri offered the following:

“There are some cases where individuals are dependent upon the state, people with disabilities, seniors in nursing homes, people who are very poor,” he noted. “The debate, and I think it is a policy discussion, is where do you draw that safety net.” Once you draw that line, he added, you have to find a way to take care of the people on the other side of it.

Who wants to take a guess at what he’s REALLY saying? You can catch the rest of the story here.

Steve Kass just doesn’t get it.
Every couple of weeks the folks at The Journal manage to squeeze another gem out of Gov. Carcieri’s communications director, who recently waxed poetic to Political Scene on all the reasons why he doesn’t think it’s important or plausible for the administration to communicate with a Democratic Lt. Governor.

From today’s ProJo:

Asked what difference it might have made in the handling of the storm if Carcieri had had a lieutenant governor of his choosing back in Rhode Island, Kass said: “If you’re the governor and the lieutenant governor is part of your team and you have philosophical similarities, etcetera, it’s easy for the governor to be out of the country or out of state and his right-hand guy is in charge and there is no political stuff going on between the two, which there always is in this state.

“Would you run your company with one guy at the top and the deputy is trying to get his job? It’s just not good. … I don’t know why Rhode Islanders like that.”

That’s about as intellectually dishonest of a characterization as you’ll ever see. Kass would like us all to believe that if Republican Kerry King had been elected lt. governor, he’d have no interest in the succeeding Carcieri. Yeah, right….ok?

We thought you’d enjoy some of Dan Yorke’s commentary from earlier this afternoon.

Head’s up! Tomorrow morning at 8:30 a.m., Governor Carcieri will be “available” to answer your questions on The WPRO Morning News Show, with John Depetro. Call (401) 438-9776 and share with the Governor some of the things that went through your head while sitting in four to six hours of traffic last Thursday.

In a tersely written press release issued earlier today, the Rhode Island ACLU affiliate called on Gov. Carcieri to withdraw a brief submitted to the Supreme Court in which he express an ardent opposition to marriages of same sex spouses.

This is from the ProJo blog.

The local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union announced today it’s called on Governor Carcieri to withdraw a legal brief submitted for a state Supreme Court case that could decide if a lesbian couple married in Massachusetts could divorce in Rhode Island.

The ACLU said it and three other organizations sent a letter to the governor because the “strong opposition to same-sex marriage contained in the governor’s brief — written by an out-of-state private attorney — has been widely noted.”

In a news release, the ACLU specifically says it’s focusing on the governor’s “inexplicable attack” on Rhode Island’s “no-fault divorce laws.” The ACLU quotes the brief asserting that no-fault divorce has resulted in “more children ill equipped to cope in a world already fraught with problems” and even that it’s led women to take “steps to protect their human capital by entering the work force and pursuing education.”

In response to that, the ACLU news release said it knows there are “some people out there who long for a return to the ‘idyllic’ 1950s when women knew their place was in the kitchen, but we do not expect to hear echoes of it emanating from a gubernatorial court brief.”

If the brief is not withdrawn, the ACLU says, then “we request that [the governor] formally clarify your position on these issues.”

Here’s the rest of the story.

You might remember we ruffled a few feathers in the Gov’s office last week when Chairman Lynch called Carcieri out for essentially using taxpayer money to advance his own personal, political agenda.

Yeah, we get it, governor, you’re against marriage equality. But did you really have to use $15K in taxpayer money to make your point? The answer of course, is no. So if you get a second and feel like sounding off, you can always give the governor’s office a call at 222-2080. Tell him you don’t think it’s appropriate to use your money to fund his political fight. Hey, and if you’re really lucky, they’ll let you talk to Steve Kass.

This just in from the ProJo Blog…

Governor Carcieri will appeal to the state Supreme Court a judge’s ruling last week that he must take the stand at the criminal trials of seven Narragansett Indians arrested in a state police raid on a tribal smoke shop in July 2003, arguing that his testimony is not relevant to the cases.

Judge Susan E. McGuirl ruled in Providence County Superior Court Friday that the tribal members’ lawyers could call the governor to testify. She said the defendants’ rights to due process outweighed the governor’s claim of executive privilege, particularly since he made numerous public statements following the raid.

The judge limited any questioning to the instructions Carcieri gave Col. Steven M. Pare, then superintendent of the state police, in the days leading up to the raid.

“Governor Carcieri’s conversations with Col. Steven Pare have no relevance to the criminal charges against the seven defendants,” Michael Maynard, the spokesman for the governor, said in a statement. “The Governor believes that there is nothing that he could say that is in any way relevant to the charges of resisting arrest and disorderly conduct, which is what this trial is about.”

The governor is stuck and he knows it. He knows what he said in the days after the smoke shop raid, and he knows that he’s been caught in a lie. Col. Pare testified in open court that he was given no order to withdraw if the State Police encountered resistance. But as we all know, that contradicts what the governor said during his initial press briefings. The governor’s staff is desperate to keep him off the stand, and, if you knew what they knew…who could blame them?

Chairman Lynch sits in studio with WPRO’s John Depetro this morning to discuss the governor’s use of taxpayer money to support his right-wing political agenda. If you agree, like we do, that this was a gross abuse of the governor’s authority and a misappropriation of your tax dollars call into the show by dialing (401) 438-9776 or 1-800-321-9776.

Here’s the story from today’s ProJo.

The details of the arrangement were released yesterday shortly after Lynch filed an open records request with the governor’s office regarding Bopp’s work. Lynch asserted that the brief was filed to promote Carcieri’s personal views and should have been paid for with personal money.

“We all know what the governor’s position is on these issues,” Lynch said. “I don’t think it’s appropriate [for him] to use state tax money to advance his own personal opinion on this issue.”

The governor’s office has responded (finally) and you’re not going to believe what they had to say.

No, Mike, it has nothing to do with the Governor voicing his personal opinion. As Chairman Lynch said earlier today, if the governor wants to oppose marriages of same sex spouses, that’s his right. He just can’t stick the taxpayers with the bill.

What bill?

Per WPRO AM, Spokesguy Mike Maynard says the governor’s office expects to receive a bill of “no more than $15,000.” for the Bopp brief. 15 large for a document that was less than 40 pages long?? That’s about $416 a page! Sounds like good work if you can get it. The governor has no official role in the matter that was considered by the Supreme Court.

So, at the end of the day, he doled out $15 grand to a ring-wing Republican buddy to publicly state something everyone already knew: The governor opposes marriage equality!

The bottom line is simple. The governor is using taxpayer money to advance his own personal, political agenda. It’s wrong. It’s an abuse or power. And we’re going to make sure Rhode Islanders know about it.

No, we’re not talking about a Hanson comeback tour…

Today Rhode Island Democratic Party Chairman Bill Lynch filed a Freedom of Information Act request with Governor Carcieri’s office seeking details of how much right-wing Republican attorney James Bopp was paid to file a friend-of-the-court brief with the Rhode Island Supreme Court on behalf of the governor.

“The governor is using taxpayer money to advocate his personal opinion, and whether you’re for or against marriages of same sex spouses, you have to be outraged by that. This is nothing less than a gross abuse of the governor’s authority, and I believe Mr. Carcieri should be held accountable,” Lynch said.

Bopp has been a zealous defender of right-wing candidates and special interest groups charged with skirting and sometimes shattering campaign finance and election laws. In fact, as the chairman points out in today’s release, Bopp was the man picked to represent Carcieri and the Rhode Island GOP for committing the most egregious violation of campaign finance law in the state’s history.

Some of Bopp’s other notable clients have included the Christian Broadcasting Network; Traditional Values Coalition; the Christian Coalition, as well as the Republican parties of Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Texas, and Vermont.

In June, Chairman Lynch questioned the governor’s management ability after a story in the Providence Journal exposed another no-bid deal engineered by the Carcieri administration that could end up costing the taxpayers close to four million dollars. No one in Carcieri’s office could explain how Sutherland Asbill, a high-profile Washington law firm, was picked to handle the state’s case against Southern Union, who the state contends is responsible for an environmental nightmare in Tiverton.

And while the administration has still failed to fully explain why there was no public bidding process in the Southern Union case, Carcieri’s own ties to Bopp and Bopp’s backing of GOP presidential wannabe Mitt Romney (who Carcieri supports), may offer insight into how and why he got the job.

The Boston Globe has a short piece today about Gov. Deval Patrick’s idea to study free public education for Massachusetts residents from age three all the way through community college.

Just like his effort to bring biotech jobs and research to the Commonwealth, this latest idea shows broad vision and a recognition that investment, particularly in higher education, can pay long-term dividends to a state’s economy.

Oh, and in case you were wondering….By comparison, Gov. Carcieri, who in addition to going back on his word to boost Hope Scholarships by $20 million, also enacted some of the highest tuition increases in our state’s history last year.

In the days following the state police raid of the Narragansett Indian smoke shop, Governor Carcieri repeatedly insisted that he ordered the state police to avoid physical confrontation with tribal members. But earlier this afternoon, retired State Police Col. Steven Pare told a court that he never received such an instruction from the governor.

Attorney William Devereaux: “…never said withdraw if the resistance is not manageable?”

Col. Steven Pare: “No, he did not.”

Attorney William Devereaux: “Did he (Governor Carcieri) ever use the word withdraw?”

Col. Steven Pare: “Not that I recall, no.”

Call us crazy, but we’re more inclined to believe the colonel.