John Loughlin, candidate for RI-01 (Patrick Kennedy’s seat). His website is here:

We have more on the way from CPAC.

Moe Lane

PS: Crossposted to Moe Lane.

Central Falls Rhode Island - School Superintendent Fires All Unionized High School Teachers.

This is what I get for watchin’ NASCAR all weekend (GO JAMIE !!!)…. I missed a real good story - The Providence Journal is one of the left-of-left rags I look through daily for laughs (Kennedy Country).

Thanks to the one and only Dr. Rusty Shackleford at The Jawa Report for the tip off………

http://www.projo.com/education/content/central_falls_teachers.1_02-13-10_A8HEI7Q_v61.3a65218.html

Under threat of losing their jobs if they didn’t go along with extra work for not a lot of extra pay, the Central Falls Teachers’ Union refused Friday morning to accept a reform plan for one of the worst-performing high schools in the state.

The superintendent didn’t blink either.

After learning of the union’s position, School Supt. Frances Gallo notified the state that she was switching to an alternative she was hoping to avoid: firing the entire staff at Central Falls High School.  In total, about 100 teachers, administrators and assistants will lose their jobs.

snip

In an interview, Jane M. Sessums, union president, said the union intends to fight the terminations, although she was not ready to say how.

==============

Got a feeling I know how.

Ms. Gallo best get some armed security and get it pronto.

Someone else besides me please keep an eye on Central Falls Rhode Island……. for cars exploding, body parts in local ponds, heads on signposts, the odd purple shirt…… the usual.

By the way, the extra work requested of the teachers was about 25 minutes, plus maybe spending some time with the students during lunch.

Oh the horrors.

Kenny Solomon
DC Works For Us
www.dcworksforus.com

That’s the word that’s going down on the street:

A Democratic official says Rep. Patrick Kennedy has decided not to seek re-election for his seat representing Rhode Island in the U.S. Congress.

The official spoke to The Associated Press only on the condition that his name not be used because he was not authorized to speak ahead of the official announcement.

[snip]

Patrick Kennedy has been in and out of treatment for substance abuse since crashing his car outside the U.S Capitol in 2006.

Interesting that the Kennedy name is no longer sufficient to protect its holders from premature leaks like this.  Also interesting that this is happening; then again, his numbers were abysmal.  They were so abysmal that GOP challenger John Loughlin might even be disappointed about this, although… no, I doubt it.

More here: apparently, Kennedy felt the need to take his life in a ‘different direction.’  I would be cruel about my suggestions of where that different direction might end up going - but I just noticed something about this video I did a while back:

The Democrats are starting to run out of sitting Congressmen featured in it who’ll still be sitting Congressmen, starting next January.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

The law professor, William Jacobson, who blogs at Legal Insurrection has set his sights on unseating Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D) of Rhode Island in the 2010 midterms. Patrick Kennedy is the son of the late US Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts. Professor Jacobson, who hails from Rhode Island, is a big Scott Brown supporter. As a fellow New Englander, I’d like to offer my own explanation of how Patrick Kennedy is going to lose his seat in Rhode Island this fall.

Our President and his friends on the left will be glad to know that I’ve boiled my theory down to five simple points which can hopefully be understood by every knuckle dragging troglodyte conservative in all the bitter, gun-clinging, bible clutching, flyover red states like… Massachusetts.

Here goes…

1. Scott Brown won every Massachusetts town on the Rhode Island border except one.

2. Scott Brown won more than 50% of the Massachusetts towns that border Connecticut.

3. On February 4th, less than three weeks after Scott Brown’s stunning Massachusetts victory, Patrick Kennedy referred to Brown’s win as “a joke.”

4. Rhode Island news outlets are already reporting on Patrick Kennedy’s vulnerability.

5. Rumor has it that a well known politician is planning to run against Patrick Kennedy and he’s very popular with the people of Rhode Island. Perhaps you’ve heard of him.

Buddy Cianci has had his share of troubles as a politician but a majority of citizens in the Ocean State absolutely love him. As the Mayor of Rhode Island’s capital city of Providence for over 21 years, Cianci was incredibly effective. He has the trust of Rhode Island voters and tremendous name recognition.

If Cianci chooses not to run, the anti-incumbency wave that recently helped carry Scott Brown to victory will most likely defeat Kennedy anyway. When I recently covered a “campaign school” in the Boston suburb of Braintree, I met more than one attendee from Rhode Island.

If the rumor is true and Cianci decides to run, I suspect most Rhode Island voters will be asking themselves only one question this November.

Patrick who?

Cross posted at Mike LaChance.

(H/T: Hot Air & JammieWearingFool) A lot of the focus of this article is on the abysmal performance of Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D, RI) in it - when asked if he deserved re-election, only 35% of his constituents said ‘yes’; 28% said ‘no,’ and 31% asked ‘what are our options?’ - and we’ll get back to it (and John Loughlin, who’s running for the job) in a moment.  But I would like to highlight these two paragraphs about Sheldon Whitehouse:

Just 33 percent approved of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse’s job performance, down 11 points from a mid-December Brown University poll.

Fleming said a factor may have been the senator’s controversial December statement that floor opponents of health-care reform were fueled by fanatics, “right-wing militia” and Aryan support groups that hate President Obama.

The NRSC would be well-advised to start atoning for its error in 2006 by finding an acceptable candidate to oppose this fellow in 2012.  And by ‘acceptable’ I don’t mean ‘acceptable to the NRSC.’

Read More →

Perhaps you should read the title again.

From the floor of the United States Senate, today Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse proclaimed as much about opponents of health care, including his Republican colleagues inside the United States Senate.

The President of the Senate let him get away with it.

Senator Whitehouse specifically said, “They are desperate to break this president. They have ardent supporters who are nearly hysterical at the very election of President Barack Obama. The birthers, the fanatics, the people running around in right-wing militia and Aryan support groups, it is unbearable to them that President Barack Obama should exist. That is one powerful reason. It is not the only one.”

There you have it — gone are the days when Democrats compared American soldiers to Nazis on the floor of the Senate. Today, Democrats condone one of their own calling, from the floor of the Senate, the majority of American citizens Aryan hate mongers rooting for the assassination of the President of the United States.

And yes, Whitehouse was referring to the majority of American citizens. How do I know? Because every single poll is showing the majority of Americans opposed to this health care deform legislation. Whitehouse labeled everyone opposed to the legislation as racist hatemongers rooting for bullets against the President.

That is sad, sick, pathetic, and should be condemned by every other Senator.

In fact, you should call your Senator at 202-224-3121 and ask if he condemns Senator Whitehouse for saying, from the floor of the Senate, that opponents of the Democrats health care legislation want Barack Obama to be assassinated — the only clear interpretation of his remarks.