RI Political Corruption
Judging from the Providence Journal’s letters section, social work students at Rhode Island College have been given the assignment of denouncing Bill Felkner’s January 13 op-ed. Amanda Eyes is the latest “candidate for a master’s degree in social work” to make the opinion page, and she contributes the following interesting statistic: The problem with dialogue…
Yesterday’s Political Scene shouldn’t fly under the MLK Day radar: Sen. John J. Tassoni Jr., D-Smithfield, was paid $92,606 last year as senior business agent for the largest state employees union: Council 94 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. Senate Majority Whip Dominick Ruggerio, D-Providence, was paid $181,041 in salary and…
Kenny Cicerone, whom I mentioned last week, has some specific allegations against local politicians in North Providence (with details likely to be found on his Web sites) and a question that Anchor Rising readers might be able to answer: How does an individual or group go about filing ethics complaints against elected officials?
Any softening of Rhode Island’s new wish-list fire code are welcome, but this seems a little too typical of the state’s operating practices to inspire comfort: Senate President Joseph A. Montalbano testified at an open hearing on the code regulation changes that was held last September, to re-emphasize the Senate’s position that the code changes…
In mid-November, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Rhode Island applied for a 12% rate increase of its direct pay (i.e., non-group) products. Public hearings have been under way. On December 13, 2007, US Attorney Robert Clark Corrente announced that as a part of Operation Dollar Bill, his office had reached an agreement with Blue Cross…
And the people who keep digging. That’s what my latest Providence Journal piece is about. As I said the other day: We’re in a race to move the state toward change before the four groups I describe in the op-ed manage to force too many others beyond its borders.
Maybe we can plug the state deficit with Ethics Commission fines: The Ethics Commission voted yesterday to prosecute state senator and union official Frank Ciccone on two charges, but dropped five other charges that his votes in the General Assembly amounted to ethics violations because they benefited unions he works for. The decision means that…
A sure indication that Rhode Islanders are in for a beating? The folks who are in a position to ease the pain of our collapse and recovery have to “talk” about stuff like this: William R. Guglietta, chief legal counsel for the House Democratic majority leader, is tentatively scheduled to be sworn in as chief…
Could there be a better expression of Rhode Island’s erroneous mentality than EMT’s comment to Marc’s post on the triple-dipper union fireman? So why is this only OK for union presidents who don’t rock the boat? All you conspiracy theorists REALLY believe that Cicilline didn’t feed this straight to the Journal, who are trying to…
A gentleman by the name of John B. Webster has identified a line of business he thinks will be successful in Rhode Island: providing “incarceration assistance” to white collar criminals. From the Chicago Sun Times… When John B. Webster was convicted in 2001 for lying to the FBI, he lost his law license and his…
