(9.17) Steven Brown of the Rhode Island Chapter of the ACLU invites everyone to celebrate the U.S. Constitution. Writing for RI Future; This Wednesday marks the 227th anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution by 39 delegates of U.S. Constitutional Convention and the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island is celebrating with a …
(2.11) This Tuesday dozens of major websites and organizations, including Demand Progress, are joining together to demand an end to mass spying. They range from the left (sites like Daily Kos) to the right (the Koch Brothers’ group FreedomWorks) with plenty in between. Together they wield a tremendous amount of influence. On Tuesday we are …
(12.7) Well here’s a hot tip from the folks at Bell Street Chapel — who are working hard to grow membership and increase community engagement — about their auction tomorrow. Check it out: From a signed Red Sox baseball to stunning photography, from neighborhood restaurant gift certificates to rides to the airport, from the ballet …
JP Morgan looks close to settling with the Justice Department, says the New York Times. JPM would pay $13 billion in penalties that follow from the bank’s shady mortgage lending, which helped to precipitate the financial crisis and make the lives of tens of millions of people completely miserable. It would be the largest fine …
Politifact did itself great credit this month by calling out the “American LeadHERship PAC” — the political action committee concocted to support the prospective gubernatorial campaign of Wall Street acolyte Gina Raimondo — on its shameful hit-piece about her likely Democratic opponent, Providence Mayor Angel Taveras. The PAC’s prospectus implies the preposterous slander that Taveras …
Raimondo And American LeadHERship PAC Insult Our Intelligence Read More »
There’s a great free event at Brown next Wednesday, October 2nd, about the biggest threat to American democracy — and how we can fix it. It’s cosponsored by a number of great orgs, including: Brown Democracy Matters, RI Progressive Democrats of America, and mine, DemandProgress. When President Barack Obama was reelected, some pundits argued that, …
Kudos to Rep. Cicilline for his vote in support of Justin Amash’s (R-MI) amendment to curtail the NSA’s regime of domestic surveillance. Meanwhile, Rep. Langevin took a disappointing vote, as activists came up just short of overwhelming the efforts of the NSA, White House, and others to continue collecting Americans phone records and other data. …
Beth will not be so psyched that my first post in a couple of months violates our no-Kickstarter rule, but so it goes. (Hi, Beth!) Did you know that the first hotel housekeeper to hold public office is on the Providence City Council? A film team led by Margo Guernsey — an awesome left-labor organizer …
New Documentary About Councilwoman Carmen Castillo Read More »
We are deeply saddened by the passing of Demand Progress’s Aaron Swartz. Friends and family have issued a statement and created a memorial page, here. Aaron was a dear friend, and an ideological brother in arms. buy viagra from india As others have spoken to at great length, he was indeed a passionate advocate for …
Demand Progress's Statement On The Passing Of Aaron Swartz Read More »
(12.13) Apologies: This post originally stated that the dinner was tomorrow, Wednesday, while it’s actually on Thursday. Jobs With Justice is scrappy, but one of the most important and effective activist organizations in Rhode Island. The campaign they helped lead in support of a living wage ordinance in Providence is one of the reasons I …
This is cross-posted at Naked Capitalism. It’s an $80 billion beat that only a handful of people are covering. The New York Times published an expose this week on Texas’s regime of business incentives, but for anybody who pays passing attention to so-called municipal and state economic development schemes, there wasn’t much news: Our states …
The Low Anthem are a wonderful folk rock band who tour the globe but call Providence home. This Saturday they reopen the Columbus Theater on Broadway for the first of what I hope will be many, many shows and communitarian happenings. (I’m pretty sure the last formal-ish show I saw in there was by Lightning …
An Interview: Low Anthem On The Columbus Theater Grand Reopening Read More »
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(9.27) UPDATE: UPDATE: Huffpo covers our detain-a-friend Facebook app and previews the Reddit discussion here. ORIGINAL: We’re organizing an “Ask Me Anything” conversation on Reddit this Thursday at noon with journalist Chris Hedges, Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg, other plaintiffs, and the lawyers in the anti-“indefinite detention” lawsuit. You’ll be able to join the conversation here. Indefinite detention …
Join Chris Hedges, Daniel Ellsberg For Discussion Of NDAA Lawsuit Read More »
We just won the lawsuit against Obama et al over the indefinite detention provisions of the fiscal 2012 National Defense Authorization Act. These provisions represented a blatant violation of due process and First Amendment rights, and plaintiffs argued that they were already having a chilling effect on journalists and activists. The NDAA included a clause which afforded …
Get ready for a rant. I managed to engage in far less blogging than I’d hoped to over the course of my four days in Charlotte. Here’s what I was left with: The convention had its moments, for sure: What I heard of Elizabeth Warren was very good, certainly by the standards of what you …
My Trip To Charlotte (Or A Rant About The State Of The Democratic Party) Read More »