Attention: Faux News viewers

It’s True, Cable News Basically Brainwashes You, And It’s Totally Legal

By S. Longfellow

It has long been debated whether or not the news you are watching is informing us or brainwashing us. Are we watching it because we agree with the opinion bias, or is the opinion bias of specific cable news shaping our own thought process?

Well, Gregory J. Martin of Emory University and Ali Yurukoglu of Stanford University through the National Bureau of Economic Research have just issued a Working Paper which looks at that very topic.

Slattery takes over as CCA Party Treasurer

Displaces Mainelli

By Will Collette

According to an organizational amendment filed by the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA Party) with the Board of Elections, ex-Charlestown Town Council member “Deputy” Dan Slattery is now the Treasurer of the CCA Party.

He replaces Leo Mainelli who recently won office as Charlestown Town Moderator and probably needs the time to study and learn the manual covering his extensive duties and responsibilities as Moderator.

The CCA Party is generally secretive about its structure, membership, decision-making process and meetings, operating more like a secret society or a cult than the political party that has run Charlestown since 2008.

They are at pains to note that they only reveal what they must to comply with the Board of Elections rules for political action committees (PACs). No announcements have been made by the CCA Party of changes to their leadership on their official website.

Slattery was also recently appointed to the Charlestown Budget Commission, which will also give him (and the CCA Party) even greater control over taxation and spending policy for the town. The CCA Party-led town government has raised property taxes each and every year they have been in control and with Slattery on the Budget Commission, expect a whopper of an increase for 2015.

UPDATED: CCA files changes to report showing who REALLY owns the CCA Party

UPDATED: CCA Party changes its financial disclosure report to include more non-residents.
Most CCA Party funding comes from out of state

Who says Charlestown's non-residents don't have the right to vote?
They vote early and often and OWN Charlestown town government. They've 
turned Charlestown into a government subsidized retirement village where, 
as Ron Areglado says, they can spend their time in quiet contemplation. 
Of their wealth.

By Will Collette

UPDATE: As of this writing, the CCA's final pre-election campaign finance report due on Tuesday, has not been posted. It is listed as "status pending."

However, the CCA Party did file two documents amending the report they filed on October 7 (click here for that report). 

These amendments show even more non-resident funding, boosting the CCA Party's total to more than 60% coming from outside of Charlestown.

Continue on for the new donor list reported in the CCA Party's amended report.

The truth about the Master Lever

“Straight Ticket Voting” NOT very useful to local Democrats

By Will Collette

From the 2010 Rhode Island ballot. DON'T use this if you want to be
100% certain your vote will count for local candidates.

One of the enduring beliefs of the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA Party) is that straight party voting, often called “the Master Lever,” puts them and other political organizations not recognized as statewide political parties at a terrible disadvantage. They say it gives an unfair disadvantage to Democrats and that, they say, is undemocratic.

Like so much the CCA Party believes, the truth is different than what they believe.

November 4 will be the last time Rhode Island voters will have the option to use the “straight ticket voting” option. Its anachronistic nickname, the “Master Lever” harks back to the days when we had voting machines where you flipped levers.

The straight party voting option means that by marking one arrow, you can vote for all the candidates of the party of your choice, whether that’s the Democratic, Republican or Moderate Party. Or at least that’s what most voters believe.

The Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA Party) has been campaigning against the so-called Master Lever, following the lead of CCA leader and Town Council member Dan Slattery’s mentor, former Moderate Party leader Ken Block. The CCA Party has argued long and hard that the Master Lever unfairly benefits Democrats.

They get no argument from Charlestown Democrats who also supported an end to the master lever, or from Rep. Donna Walsh (D) and Senator Cathie Cool Rumsey (D) who both voted to eliminate the master lever.

However, what the CCA Party seems to have missed is that they have also benefited from straight-party voting. 

How the CCA Party won the 2012 election

Understanding the Charlestown Citizens Alliance, Part 2

By Will Collette

Click here for Part 1

Prepare yourself for a deluge of CCA Party lies and fear-mongering
For more cartoons by Joel Heller, click here

After the Charlestown Democrats failed to wrest control of Charlestown town government from the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA Party) in 2012 despite a good slate and effective fund-raising, I spent a good deal of time thinking about how the CCA Party did it.

Town Democrats ran three candidates for Town Council and four candidates for the Planning Commission and managed to get one candidate elected for each body – Paula Andersen for Council and Brandon Cleary for Planning. 2012 was the first time since 2004 that Charlestown Democrats ran a serious endorsed slate (the Mageau slate in 2006 were not endorsed).

Rep. Donna Walsh was the town’s top vote-getter (2547 Charlestown votes), swamping her two Charlestown-based opponents Tina Jackson and Kevin Prescott, although it helped that both had extensive criminal records.

Charlestown went heavily for Cathie Cool Rumsey, helping her to defeat incumbent Republican Senator Frank Maher. Charlestown voted by large margins for President Obama, Senator Whitehouse and Congressman Langevin.

Democratic votes were great in three out of Charlestown’s four electoral precincts, where Paula Andersen, Donna Walsh, Cathie Cool Rumsey, President Obama, Sen. Whitehouse and Rep. Langevin won by good to excellent margins. 

Only Precinct Three which includes Charlestown’s wealthiest neighborhoods (East & West Beach, Quonochontaug, Shady Harbor, etc.) was a glaring weak spot for the Democrats. Ironically, Cathy and I live in the third precinct.

Looking strictly at the numbers, it was like that crass old joke about the Lincoln Assassination (“Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?”) because in the end, the CCA Party still firmly controlled all the levers of power in Charlestown. 

If you analyze the Charlestown elections in 2008, 2010 and 2012, you can pretty much figure out how the CCA Party plans to win in 2014 – through lots of out-of-state money, fear-mongering and lies, and an effective get-out-the-vote (GOTV) effort, especially in Precinct #3.

VIDEO: Lying — what is it, truly?

It’s what happens when CCA Party leaders move their lips

To see more Bizarro comics, click here

Posted by Martin Gardiner, Improbable Research

Perhaps it’s not all that widely appreciated that many philosophers have serious problems with lying. For it seems that despite the rampant ubiquity of lying, there isn’t as yet a general agreement amongst philosophers as to exactly what it is.

As the authors of a new paper in the journal Philosophical Psychology point out : “… a number of philosophers have proposed several different and incompatible definitions of lying.”

Perhaps what’s needed is an empirical investigation into the concept of lying – and just such an undertaking has been undertaken by Dr. Adam J. Arico and professor Don T. Fallis from the University of Arizona, US. It’s entitled:  ‘Lies, damned lies, and statistics: An empirical investigation of the concept of lying’. 

Tina Jackson admits ethics violation

Another fine added to the others arising from her 2012 campaign

Also: Jackson stiffs Charlestown Fire District on taxes - Dec. 10 tax auction

Tina Jackson: admits she violated Ethics law

By Will Collette

In the 2012 campaign, Republican Tina Jackson of Charlestown ran against incumbent Democratic state Representative Donna Walsh for the right to represent all of Charlestown and Block Island, plus portions of Westerly and South Kingstown.

Jackson got thumped. Voters chose Donna Walsh’s proven record of long and faithful service to the community over Tina Jackson’s long and impressive record of arrests and convictions for drugs, bad checks and assault that was revealed in the Westerly Sun and GoLocalProv.

Jackson later was picked by the outgoing Republican state Party Chair to pull a coup d’etat over the existing Republican Town Committee. Jackson’s attempted takeover of the Charlestown Republicans was based on a claim they were not duly registered, even though they were, and that they were inactive, which they weren’t.

RI Ethics Commission rules Tina Jackson violated state ethics law

GOP candidate for state Representative racks up more violations

By Will Collette

When you've been arrested and convicted for as many crimes as 2012 Republican House candidate and Charlestown Republican activist Tina Jackson has, obeying civil regulations and government rules seems to hold little meaning.

I recently reported that Jackson has now failed to file the last five campaign finance disclosure reports and now owes fines of just under $1600 to the state Board of Elections.

I just received a letter from the RI Ethics Commission notifying me that they have upheld my complaint against Jackson for failing to file the required annual financial disclosure form that all candidates for public office must file. Though that complaint took a while to reach that point, this one was a slam dunk since (a) Tina Jackson was a candidate for public office (and her campaign committee is still active, according to the Board of Elections); (b) candidates must file financial disclosure reports and (c) she didn’t.

Election 2014 launched with big campaign donation from Gentz

New York money manager also adds to the CCA Party’s coffers.

By Will Collette

Even though the next election is more than a year and a half away, the Charlestown Citizens Alliance is already starting its major fund-raising.

In the 2012 election cycle, more than 60% of the CCA Party’s funding came from out-of-state donors who were misleadingly listed on the CCA’s campaign finance reports as Charlestown residents. The CCA Party used the addresses of their "summer cottages" as their home addresses.

Most of the balance of the CCA Party budget came from major donations from its well-heeled supporters, most of whom live south of Route One. I documented this in detail in “Who Owns the CCA?”

The new quarterly campaign finance reports have been filed and they show this pattern is continuing.

The CCA Party report, filed on April 13, shows the CCA has a cash balance of $4,439.70. The CCA collected $1,000 from Tom and Mary Lou Gentz. Gentz, a former health insurance executive, is also Town Council president and a steering committee member for the CCA Party. The Gentzs own two residences off West Beach Road assessed at a combined total of $1,249,200.

DUI Suspect to Police: ‘I Ran For God Damn Congress!’

Former congressional candidate Michael G. Riley, 56, is charged with resisting arrest and drunken driving early Wednesday morning in Narragansett.

By Stephen Greenwell in the Narragansett-South Kingstown Patch

Michael G. Riley, 56, of 444 Ocean Road, Narragansett, a former Republican nominee for Congress, was arrested at about 2 a.m. Wednesday by Narragansett police and charged with drunken driving and resisting arrest, both misdemeanors, and cited for refusing to submit to a chemical test.

According to Narragansett Police Department reports, patrolman James M. Fitzgerald was monitoring traffic from the parking lot of Maridee Bait and Tackle at about 1:45 a.m.

Was there voter fraud at the RIGOP Convention?

Did Charlestown GOP votes make the difference?

By Will Collette

The successor to State Republican Chair Mark Zaccaria was supposed to have been picked at the GOP State Convention on March 21^st, but Zaccaria declared the convention vote was nullified.

It seems that Mark Smiley beat Zaccaria’s hand-picked successor Dan Harrop by one vote.

However, when all the votes were counted, according to ABC6 and WPRO, there were 187 votes cast, but only 186 delegates who were registered to vote. WRNI reports the vote was a 94 to 93 vote, also in favor of Smiley over Harrop, and says the whole scene was “chaos.”

Based on the closeness of the count and this disparity, Zaccaria said that the parliamentarian recommended voiding the vote. 

Smiley declared winner after "investigation"

Compounding the chaos - and the bad media coverage that came from it - apparently Zaccaria decided to switch gears over the weekend. On Sunday afternoon, he announced in an e-mail that upon further "investigation," Smiley was the winner after all.

This closely fought battle to become the next captain of the RIGOP Titanic is rumored to be one of the reasons why Mark Zaccaria stuck his beak into Charlestown’s Republican politics. As I reported, Zaccaria recruited defeated state Representative candidate Tina Jackson to “re-organize” the town Republican Committee without consulting with the duly elected members of that Committee to find out if they wanted to be re-organized.

For the truly stupid

New and Improved!

By Tom Tomorrow

See how by clicking here.

“To the Victors Go the Spoils”

CCA packs Chariho School Committee with another acolyte

By Will Collette

First, my thanks to my colleague Tom Ferrio for his live coverage of tonight’s Town Council meeting. My Cox internet connection is having “issues,” so I just didn’t have enough bandwidth to catch it.

Overall, the Council agenda was pretty light compared to last month when the Council needed two full three-hour sessions to complete its business. 

Tonight, they finished up with 15 minutes to spare.

The big item, at least to me, was the Council’s action on who to name as the replacement for recently resigned Chariho School Committee member Andrew McQuaide. There were three contenders but only one person could be named.

Their ultimate decision led to the title of this article, “To the Victors Go the Spoils,” a phrase uttered in 1828 by New York Senator William L. Marcy to explain the right of President Andrew Jackson to appoint anybody he wanted to, no matter how unqualified or sketchy, by right of winning the election. The "spoils system" - today, we also call it "patronage." 

Tina Jackson does it again

The “savior” of Charlestown Republicans screws up her own organization – for the second time

Tina Jackson (left) claims to be the fishermen's friend...but keeps
mismanaging their organization

By Will Collette

For the second time, failed Republican candidate for state Representative (District 36) Tina Jackson has had the corporate charter of her lobbying organization revoked by the Secretary of State. Click here.

Jackson was hand-picked by out-going state GOP chair Mark Zacarria to run against incumbent Rep. Donna Walsh (D). Jackson’s campaign blew up after the Westerly Sun revealed Jackson has a long criminal record, arrested multiple times for DUI, passed forged prescriptions for narcotics, assault and battery, passing bad checks, etc. Jackson was beaten two to one by Donna in the general election.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Coup attempt on GOP Town Committee

Plus, Tina Jackson cited for multiple campaign finance violations

Jackson violated campaign finance law

By Will Collette

NOTE: this article originally ran on Saturday, pre-scheduled before the lights went out. Since most Charlestown readers probably missed it on Saturday, here it is again.

Tina Jackson, who has been pushed by state GOP chair Mark Zaccaria to take over Charlestown's Republican Town Committee has some more messy fallout to explain from her failed attempt to unseat state Representative Donna Walsh.

We've just learned that Jackson has a long string of campaign finance violations and the fines for those violations are increasing daily. This is hardly a great shock, given Jackson's long criminal rap sheet and wide-ranging legal problems, all of which came out during her campaign.

Inexplicably in view of this public record, out-going GOP Chair Mark Zaccaria picked Jackson to spearhead a "reorganization" of the Town Committee which was to begin at a February 4 meeting at the Breachway Grill.

But there was minor hitch - the GOP Committee members had already reorganized the town committee for the new term at a meeting on January 30. Five of the nine members who had filed their paperwork last summer and were duly certified to service called the meeting where Gregg Avedisian was elected as the new GOP town chair.

Does Charlestown have a voter fraud problem?

Charlestown’s voter registration numbers raise that question.

By Will Collette

"I'm entitled"

In the 2012 election, 4,177 votes were cast in Charlestown for President.

According to Charlestown Town Clerk Amy Weinreich, who also heads the town’s Board of Canvassers, Charlestown has 6,309 registered voters. That gives us a turnout rate of almost  two-thirds of registered voters, which is highly commendable.

But how many of those 4,177 voters in the November election were actually eligible to vote in Charlestown? 

Theoretically, under the state’s controversial new Voter ID law, all of them should be legally eligible to vote, or else they would have been busted by our eagle-eyed poll workers.

However, some troubling evidence raises doubt about whether everyone who voted was legally eligible to vote.

Senator-elect Cathie Cool Rumsey among 24 new legislators to be sworn in

2013-2014 General Assembly session opens January 1

Cathie Rumsey will be sworn in as a new
Senator and will represent the northern half
of Charlestown

Editor's note: in addition to Cathie Rumsey, one of Charlestown's Town Solicitor's, Bob Craven, will be sworn in as the new State Representative for House District 32 (North Kingstown)

STATE HOUSE – The 2013-2014 session of the Rhode Island General Assembly is scheduled to begin on Tuesday, January 1, when the 75 members of the House of Representatives and the 38 members of the Senate are sworn into office. The membership includes 16 new Representatives and eight new Senators.

The opening-day session of both the Senate and the House of Representatives will begin at 2 p.m. Rhode Island Secretary of State A. Ralph Mollis will deliver the oath of office in separate ceremonies in the two legislative chambers.

Top Ten stories of 2012

Fear, lies, bugs and class war topped the bill in 2012

By Will Collette

Of course, 2012’s big stories covered in Progressive Charlestown are the 2012 election, the scandal over the attempted YMCA Camp caper, the “Kill Bill” Campaign mounted by the CCA against former Town Administrator Bill DiLibero, Hurricane Sandy and the battle over who controls Ninigret Park.

While these are certainly stand-outs among the 1900 articles we ran in Progressive Charlestown during 2012, many of these top stories were actually composites of many distinct topics. Plus, there are other stories as well that make the Progressive Charlestown editors’ Top Ten Picks for 2012[1].

Many obstacles to a Charlestown Indian casino

Ten reasons why a Charlestown casino isn't going to happen

By Will Collette

As I predicted, the Charlestown Citizens Alliance has sounded the alarm that the Narragansett Indian Tribe wants to build a full-scale resort casino in Charlestown. They sent out an e-bleat on Tuesday warning Charlietowners that Armageddon in the form of a casino in Charlestown is coming when the Senate votes on the “Carcieri Fix.” (Click here to read my earlier article that explains what the Carcieri fix is.)

This is a screen shot of the CCA's proposed e-mail text

The CCA wants you to send an e-mail to the RI Congressional delegation and the Governor. See the text of the message they want you to send (left).

It’s a bad e-mail message, not only because of the bad grammar, but also because it isn’t true. The “Carcieri Fix” does not “allow tribal gambling in Charlestown” and does not “otherwise supersede the RI Indian Land Claims Settlement Act.”

Life's little ironies

Count of absentee ballots bumps Dan Slattery out of Council Vice-President position

Paula Andersen bumps Dan Slattery out of
the Council Vice-Presidency

By Will Collette

In new vote tallies posted by the Secretary of State's office on Thursday, the order of finish in the Charlestown Town Council race changed, with Democrat Paula Andersen catching and passing CCA's Dan Slattery to become the second-highest vote-getter.

Here the irony: one of the four poorly conceived Charter Revisions approved by the voters makes it mandatory that the second-highest vote-getter be given the Council Vice-President position, even if he, or in this case, she is in the minority on the Council.