- This is just the most classic sort of boneheaded government screw up type of story.

We got a tip.

Someone said, "Did you hear about the state room rug?"

I said, "What?

And said, "They have put in the wrong state seal "in this 70 something thousand dollars rug."

- The rug, Zambarano Hospital, vanity plates, the bridge, U-hip cooler and warmer, it's like, what are we doing here?

And welcome into this episode of Lively.

I'm Jim Hummel.

We appreciate you joining us.

Joined this week by Boston Globe Columnist Dan McGowan and Ted Nesi, politics and business editor at WPRI.

- Reunion.

- Yeah, gang back together - Here we go, like the gang is all back together.

Here we go.

Is Rhode Island state government competent?

It's a question one of our panelists asked in his weekly column over the weekend, and while there are thousands of state employees who do hard work and good job every week, the history of ineptitude with major projects or initiatives leaves a lot of taxpayers wondering.

So this was all precipitated by your colleague, Tim White, did a story.

Well, you set the table.

He did it on a rug, a $70,000 rug, that they got wrong.

- Yeah, I mean, this is just the most classic sort of boneheaded government screw up type of story.

We got a tip.

Someone said, "Did you hear about the state room rug?"

I said, "What?"

And said, "They have put in the wrong state seal "in the 70 something thousand dollars rug."

And obviously, it was gonna be pretty easy to check that out.

Sure enough, we sent a photographer up, he doesn't see the seals at first, then he realizes they've put area rugs from Job Lot on top of them, lifts it up.

Sure enough, it says, "The state of Rhode Island "and Providence."

Someone clearly got confused about what had been removed by voters-- - Providence plantations.

- Exactly.

- Right.

- And we asked, they said, "Yes, it was a human error."

They won't quite say whose fault it was.

We're gonna order a fix and cut that part out for $3,000, but it just, we-- - For $3,000, so that means the error was somebody told them to.

- Yeah, someone within state government clearly made this error because otherwise, of course, you'd be charging the rug company and blaming them, even though they won't tell us who, and you've done a million stories like this too, Jim.

There's something even more tangible about this than the payroll W2 issues with the $95 million enterprise system.

Something about it's so, it's a rug.

It's so simple to people that they get more frustrated, I think, with this kind of screw up.

- Yeah, and then people are really outraged by how much it costs to replace the Job Lot with the Job Lot replacement there, and so, yeah, no, I think you're right.

I mean, one, it's a perfect television story, right?

We've all done that kind of story.

- The big reveal.

- It's such a good story and it does, I think it does kind of, you know, it affirms a lot of people's kind of beliefs in government that there is an incompetence problem.

Is it the biggest story in the world?

Should someone lose their job over it?

I mean, I guess it depends on exactly how the mistake gets made, but probably not, right?

Mistakes do happen, but yeah, it doesn't make everybody look very good, and certainly as we head into a governor's race, it's gonna be another issue that Helena Foulkes can kind of capitalize on.

- But I think the thing that drives people crazy is, and this is what happened with the Washington Bridge, seemingly and other personnel rules, but nobody gets suspended, nobody loses their job, nobody gets fined.

Hey, you did that.

We're gonna take a little outta your paycheck.

So I understand that's probably not the way you should do it, but the message would be there needs to be accountability.

- Yeah, there's a quality control problem, I think, in government more so than there is massive incompetence, and then often, by the way, we always mistake incompetence for corruption, right?

It's easy to jump to lots of conclusions, but I think that there is a lot of quality control issues in government, and you see this with the payroll system screw up.

You've seen this with U-hip over time where there are people.

I mean, we're all getting emails when it comes to like the payroll system.

We're all getting emails from people from insiders and state government who are saying, hey, we told the state this was gonna be a problem.

Our employees weren't ready yet.

Remember, a lot of these employees, in that case, are going for, you know, from paper time sheets through a computer system.

- Well, by the way, I think we just had a massive computer system rollout screw up in the Raimondo administration with U-hip.

- U-hip.

So it's even more-- - Excuse me.

Rhode Island Bridges now.

- Right, we've renamed it.

- Don't call it U-hip.

- So it's even more surprising to find people who are currently working had good reason to say, okay, these computer things can go really sideways.

We gotta be so buttoned up, and then they have the first issue.

Don't forget, this started with they couldn't get their accounting done last fall, and then the payroll issues began, and now the W-2s, which by the way, still aren't fixed as we sit here today.

- And it came from the Rhode Island umbrella company.

- [Ted] The umbrella company, exactly so.

- So let's talk about the specifics about that.

So this was something they felt they needed to update, they needed to just get a better system supposedly.

- Yeah, I mean, a lot of state, and this is true in corporations too, are often running older legacy, sometimes mainframe computer systems that there's like one guy left who knows how to program them, and they know they need to evolve to something newer, and in theory, it could work better, but in practice, these transitions are just very, very difficult, and so as they've tried to get their $95 million they've spent to move all the accounting, payroll, finances, everything into this new system, and it's just, it's been screwed up multiple different ways and very hard to fix, and it's gone on for months now.

So I think the point I was trying to make in the column was this is not a low tax state.

We're not California.

We're not the highest tax state, but people, I think, feel like, well, what am I getting for the amount of money?

- Where's the minimum level of competence?

- Yeah, yeah, and I mean, I think it's a completely legitimate complaint.

Now, again, you step back and you say, I always think about when Michael Bloomberg was mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, a billionaire who was like one of the most efficient men in America, couldn't fix all of New York's problems.

- Couldn't control government, right, yeah.

- True.

- So I'm not quite sure that Dan McKee is gonna fix all of Rhode Island government or Helena Foulkes, for that matter, by the way.

Still, I go back to that quality control thing.

You kind of wish there were more eyes on on these things, there were maybe more people listening.

Sometimes you wish problems were addressed before Ted Nesi breaks it in his column or on TV, and unfortunately these things blow up, and again, they're gonna be headaches.

- We all know from our reporting, government takes the path of least resistance sometimes.

So if sometimes difficult decisions or you need to shake it up or maybe suspend somebody, that's just not the first go-to.

Then we read, Patrick Anderson had a great article about Zambarano Hospital, which I kind of outta sight outta mind.

They have a hundred million dollars rehab, new building, it's all of a sudden 300 million now.

How does that happen?

- Yeah, I mean, this is one of those things.

I mean, you're seeing this particularly with big infrastructure type projects, costs going up, whether it's schools in Warwick, or the Zambarano situation.

I mean, look, everybody at the beginning wants to say, we want something shiny and new, and we wanna really limit the cost to it, and then what ends up happening is costs go up and then there's a news story about it.

- Well, and I just think there's a very corrosive cycle of, I don't know, of officials or what.

Let's put out the lower cost version of this project, even if we're not quite sure this is gonna be it.

Well, all that does is it triggers another news cycle later when they have to raise the cost of further-- - [Jim] Or change orders in the middle of the-- - Or change orders, - No one likes that.

- and no one likes that, and the public gets more frustrated, and by the way, and also, you still haven't gotten the thing people actually want.

People don't want floating budget documents on the hospital.

They want a new hospital.

That frustration is very tangible.

We're in age where people are so cynical.

Public people are getting their information from all these different sources.

I think the cost of this incompetence is higher in this era than maybe it was in previous ones when there was a little more like baseline of trust in the public, and look, it's very hard.

State government's a sprawling enterprise that's wrapped in knots with rules and red tape, but if you don't have people on it constantly to try to keep the trains on track, they go flying off the rails.

- Yeah, and I mean, I think at the end of the day, we're always looking for whose head's gonna roll, so to speak, and I think there has been a lack of that.

Occasionally you do see someone, I always think about Elizabeth Roberts when it comes to the U-hip situation during the Raimondo administration, - No but Depino got-- - No but DePino was some.

- But that was probably the highest profile person - The marketing director - ever to lose their job.

- after cooler and warmer.

- Oh yeah, oh, cooler and warmer.

I forgot about cooler and warmer.

- The thing is is, though, let's say you are not the high profile person, obviously Director Alvini, Peter Alvini, being the person who was not pushed out necessarily, at least not for a long time, but below that, I think a lot of people in the public are watching Lively Experiment or Lively are saying, oh, why aren't everybody being fired?

Well, I mean, who exactly are you gonna fire and what will it make everybody feel?

There's gonna be mistakes in government no matter who is there.

- Yeah, but I would love to hear, listen, this was our mistake, and we are holding this person accountable, and we're gonna give a report.

Maybe we're not gonna name names, but this is how this happened.

Was it simple human error?

Because we all know, we walk into the State house, because it's in the architectural, they haven't been able to figure out how to take plantations outta the rotunda.

So they have a rug over it, because you don't wanna be chipping the marble away, right?

- Right.

- They're working on that now.

So I'm not sure.

We have to see where that project goes, 'cause they were in there measuring the other day.

Someone told me they saw-- - Cost over on that we don't know about?

- It could be, and so yeah, I think Dan's point is true.

You don't wanna just be like a Facebook commenter about these stories.

Like imagine yourself trying to, in the department administration, trying to run again a sprawling state government, a million people doing different things.

That said, I do wonder if, you know, Jim Langevin just had that report, is this a place where like AI will, Maura Healey in Massachusetts just put Chat GPT into every state office where you put your order for the rug through.

I'm not kidding, Claude or Chat GPT, and they say, are you sure you want it to say State of Rhode Island and Providence?

Maybe there will be improvements.

- There'll be fewer typos in press releases, right?

- Right.

- It's like spell check for government.

- It is, yeah.

- One thing I was thinking as I drove in today, we have the big stuff, Zambarano, U-hip, the Washington Bridge.

If you can't do the small stuff right, how can you do the big stuff right?

Vanity plates in Rhode Island.

- Oh yeah.

- Yeah.

- Do you remember they had a lawsuit several years ago because somebody put what was perceived as a profanity, and then they said they won the lawsuit, and then the DMV said, we need to analyze this.

It's been four years.

- I'll give you another one, the truck tolls.

Putting aside whether you like truck tolls or not, the state won the lawsuit, - When are they coming back, yeah?

- needs the money, literally, the Washington Bridge is one of the bridges being tolled, and yet they can't get it turned back on.

They say, well, the turnpike authority, - well, because the technology - and the technology.

- they have to update, 'cause they've sat for four years.

- Which they said a few months, maybe that's reasonable.

We're now over a year, and again, it's not even to blame a human being so much as what is going on with the systems that everything just, things go sideways.

It drags on.

I think that is where the frustration comes from in the public.

- Yeah, I mean, it does, and it will become, right, the natural thing is it's going to become a big issue in the governor's race, I think, this year.

I think you're gonna see Helena Foulkes very much just pound the sand on the idea that the McKee administration is incompetent.

Of course, the McKee administration's going to pound the sand on her being an opioid dealer, essentially.

- But is that gonna stick?

- I think it does.

I think it matters, and I think in a moment where, to Ted's point, that where there's a lot of distrust in government, if you're constantly reminded with millions of dollars of TV ads that, hey, this rug screw up or the bridge, those kind of things, I think, yeah, it does build a case for that, oh, hey, we might need a replacement.

Now we are gonna be here three years from now in the Foulkes administration if she's the governor and there's gonna be a screw up here or there as well.

- Beyond her control.

- Exactly.

- And where do you think it's gonna fit into the election?

- Well, now the upside for Governor McKee is that this is a democratic primary, not a general election, and democratic primary voters are instinctually more positive toward government.

That's the party of let's expand government, let's do more, and so he might-- - Tolerate screw up.

- Yes, honestly, yes.

I think more of a feeling, more likely to say, well, this is a hard job.

I feel bad for public workers if something went wrong, et cetera.

I'm not saying every voter feels that way, by any means, but you might get more of a hearing for that than you would in the November election in the Democratic primary, but we've stacked up a lot of challenges here.

This is what happens to governor.

I mean, look, I remember Alan Fung haranguing Gina Raimondo about U-hip, and in the end, obviously it wasn't enough, but these screw ups that people remember do become powerful political issues.

- You can see the political commercial right now.

They listening to Lively, all they have to do is tick off, the rug, Zambarano Hospital, vanity plates, the bridge, U-hip, cooler and warmer, boom, boom, boom, 30 seconds.

It's like, what are we doing here, right?

- Yeah, yeah, I mean, you just nailed it.

I mean, you probably should get sent a check from one of the campaigns or something like that.

- Helena Foulkes, happy to help out at any advice we can.

All right, well, we will keep an eye on that.

Supreme Court Chief Judge Maureen Goldberg will soon join a spate of judges who have retired over the past year across all levels of the court system.

Their replacements will have a significant impact on the direction of the judiciary for the next generation.

She's the headline, but I think the subtext on this is you have a chief judge who's 77.

You have another judge who's been there a long time, Bill Robinson, William Robinson, who's in his mid-eighties.

So you gotta figure these are gonna be major decisions, whether it's Governor McKee or if he stays or a new governor potentially in November.

- Yeah, I mean, you're gonna have a major, you're gonna have the majority of the courts flip over at some point in the next, what, five or six years?

- Because there are only five people on the Supreme Court.

- Yeah, and potentially in the next two years, right?

I mean, you could see more changes before the end of this year in some ways, but what does it mean for the way the judiciary works?

I'm not so sure.

I mean, this is not quite like the United States Supreme Court.

- Supreme Court, yeah.

- What is interesting, of course, and we're gonna talk about it, is whether or not house Speaker Joe Shekarchi actually pursues the Goldberg spot, and I think he certainly is leaving himself open to wanting to do it.

I'm uncertain that he'll actually pursue it, and the reason, my only thought process on it, is the number one thing we all thought when he was thinking about running for governor was he wants a sure thing.

Now this is a sure thing, but what he hates almost as much as not having a sure thing is the criticism that comes on Lively from Ted Nesi, from Dan McGowan, from Jim Hummel, from whoever else, about, boy, what an insider job.

This looks so terrible, and he will face a lot of the bad, look, this is a guy who never thought he was gonna be a judge and then potentially to be a Supreme Court justice.

I think he'll have to weigh that.

- Yeah, you're already hearing it outta Roger Williams Law, former Dean Janoski and others are saying this is not, you know, John Marion from Common Cause I'm sure is gonna be weighing in about, you know, Rhode Island took a lot of steps after the scandals of the eighties and nineties to try to depoliticize the judiciary to some extent.

Obviously that has not taken that much between the creation of magistrates, and you see just now with Mike McCaffrey's appointment and his secret swearing in, but putting the house speaker inevitably in a State House deal on the Supreme Court would lead to a lot.

Now I will say the State House doesn't always care about backlash, right?

- That's right.

Like all you need is to make sure you have enough votes in the house, enough votes in the Senate, and the governor who will do it to put Joe Shekarchi on there if he wants it.

- But I think your point is spot on, because look, Shekarchi's a nice guy.

He is done great.

Is he the best lawyer?

Is he the best legal mind?

He's no Clarence Darrow.

I mean, no offense to him, but there are a lot more people out there who would be more qualified to be in the Supreme Court, and it would always be seen as the payoff for stepping out of the race, - [Dan] Yeah, I mean, we can't be naive.

- whether that's true or not.

- We can't be naive to not acknowledge that politics plays a role in every single judicial appointment, always, right?

There are plenty.

If you're the best lawyer in Rhode Island, chances are you're making millions of dollars.

You don't even wanna be a judge, right?

- Right.

- Yeah.

- So there's always that factor, but yeah, I do think it's something that speaker Shekarchi would really have to deal with.

He would face a lot of scrutiny.

Now if he wants it, I think he gets it.

This is generally considered the House's turn when it comes to this appointment, and if he wants it, he certainly has the votes in the House.

I think he would probably get it, but it is a matter of does he really want this?

And as somebody who loves being in the game, does he want to get out of the game politically and completely?

- Yeah, going to the ivory tower effectively on benefit street.

I mean, and also how-- - Because you would never probably leave that seat to run for a Senate, right?

- Probably not.

I mean, Bob Flanders did and left the, you know, I remember-- - I should say Bob Flanders left first to make a lot of money.

- Yes, well, I was gonna say, because he was making more money.

- Well, he was frustrated, 'cause he was always on the dissenting side of the opinion.

- Yeah, right, and then he was supposed to get the federal judgeship and then Chaffe lost and all that, but I think part of it too is how political does Joe Shekarchi want?

I mean, you can write a pretty naked political story here where he cuts a deal with Dan McKee, you're gonna get the Democratic Party endorsement, and I'm gonna be on the Supreme Court or something.

I'm not saying they're gonna do that.

I'm not even sure they want to do that, but it's a powerful chip that's now in Governor McKee's hands.

It's in the hands of the Senate as well about who we're gonna support, and of course, the House.

I'm sincerely curious whether this goes.

This is all interesting, but I don't know at all yet.

I don't have a sense yet if we're headed down this road for sure.

- We were hearing Mike McCaffrey, the former Senate Majority Leader, for years, and it's funny that there's been this delay, and then it's like, oh yeah, Mike McCaffrey and all of a sudden, so you wonder, well, that was for some vote three years ago, - Well, there weren't, - and eventually we'll make you a judge, and it's taken time.

- Remember, there weren't that many openings for a while, and then there's just been this kind of, - Right, this floodgate, yeah.

- the floodgate of it.

So that is part of it, but yeah, I mean, in the case of Mike McCaffrey clearly leaving the Senate, and he had a wink and a nod that he was gonna get this - [Jim] Eventually.

- or he's gonna have a very good chance to get this.

We sat down with the Senate leadership months ago, and they were very clear, we support Mike McCaffrey for this long before Dan McKee actually appointed or made the nomination, and so they went through the process, and they got the votes, but yeah, I mean, again, Mike McCaffrey, same question, is he the most qualified person ever to get it?

I don't know.

- But I also think what you do politically and then when you're, it's almost like when you're running for president and then you are president, it's a lot.

Running and governing are two different things, and the whole deal about they were worried about, there were some people worried about, his stance on abortion and other things.

I think a lot of that goes out the window, because you gotta rule on the law.

I think most judges don't let their, most judges these days, don't let their politics seep into their lawyering.

- Interestingly, some of the same people who are complaining about the politics of who gets appointed are complaining about the personal politics of the appointee, right?

- Right, right.

- So the game being played and then it's saying, well, he's anti-choice or something like that.

That means he shouldn't be on a district court judgeship.

I mean, it's a legitimate debate, and it was the one that was had.

I don't know that it's gonna be a factor in decisions.

- Yeah, I mean, it is maybe a chance for Rhode Island to have a broader conversation about where judicial reform, judicial appointments, stand.

I mean, again, in the nineties, this was a big issue.

I mean, you covered this, Jim.

- The judicial nominating commission, 'cause it used to come right out of the general assembly.

So a lot of former state reps and senators were there.

Now they go to the judicial nominating committee, which is politics of its own.

What's your choice?

In North Carolina, they elect the judges.

I mean, so how do you raise money?

That's a whole different-- - But we would've a great time covering judicial elections in Raleigh.

- Can you imagine?

Oh my goodness, the research you - Yeah, I mean, look - Would have to do.

- at the money import.

I think it was Minnesota last year where Musk got involved in the money that pours in.

Also, you can't take the politics out of politics and out of government and even the law.

You hope, even if someone is a politically appointed pick for the judge once the robes are on, as you say, Jim, sort of they try to truly be a judge.

They think of the great judges of history and want to aspire to be like that, but-- - But you think of Sandra Day O'Connor, who was picked, supposedly, as a conservative.

She was not what Reagan turned out, and Amy Coney Barrett shown a little bit of that.

So whatever.

Let's shift gears just a little bit, general assembly.

I think the real main event is gonna be the whole act on climate and energy because Governor McKee's now saying, we want affordability.

We wanna roll back some of these things.

You got a lot of people in the chamber who voted on that and are gonna dig in their heels.

Where do you see this going?

- I think it's fascinating.

I mean, I think you could argue it's a bigger fight he's picked than the millionaire's tax, the governor rolling out these rollbacks in renewable energy, and the governor's, we actually had the governor on Newsmakers two weeks ago now, I think, and he thinks he has a very common sense argument to people.

We can't afford, in an era when the federal government is hostile toward renewable energy, the state just can't afford the commitments it made during Biden administration.

- Working across purposes then.

- Right, exactly.

Everything's more expensive, et cetera.

They have estimates that this will save a billion dollars that would otherwise be going into bills over the coming years, but as you just said, the environmental lobby, very powerful.

It's also an emotional issue for a lot of Democrats.

There's a deep, like, and there's an emotional concern around climate change and environmental and voting to when if environmental groups are saying to you, you're hurting the environment.

You're not a true climate warrior if you vote for this stuff.

That's gonna be a powerful argument.

So I actually am not, but then they have constituents who are getting these bills who are saying, hey, I can't afford it.

So the the tension is really real here, and I'm super curious, and it's all really within the Democratic party.

- Yeah, people like climate change may kill me 50 years from now.

I won't be here, but I gotta pay my electric bill next month.

- Well, and I think Ted put it well here.

Dan McKee believes he's got the common sense solution here, which is, hey, I signed the act on climate.

So I'm good on the issue when it comes to if you're trying to make the case to an environmentalist, but the average person that's looking at their energy bills is on my side.

We need to make some limited changes here or there, and I think he's betting that it's gonna be hard for Helena Foulkes to come out and say, I want your energy vote to be higher.

Certainly, none of the Republicans are gonna make that case, and so the question comes in the legislature, especially now that Joe Shekarchi is not running for governor, is how much are the leaders willing to kind of move on the issue because they're hearing from constituents or are they willing to stick a thumb in the governor's eye and say we're gonna hold firm, and then that creates more tension there.

- And it's the politics side policy-wise, it's a very real issue.

- Oh yeah.

- I mean, energy is very expensive in New England.

We are not building a lot of capacity on the natural gas side.

The Trump administration is trying everything it can to block the offshore wind expansion efforts.

Look across the border.

Maura Healey's struggling with this in Massachusetts as well.

There's a big fight on Beacon Hill.

Sierra Club wants the head of the environment committee sacked in the House in Massachusetts for trying to do some of this.

So this is really a tough issue, I think, in blue states where the commitments to the environment a lot of Democrats have are in conflict.

As much as people will say, well, green energy will bring it down eventually.

Right now, people's bills are high, and how do you square that circle?

And talking points aren't enough right now.

I think that's the problem.

- And then the conversation has come full circle to nuclear, right?

- Yes, right.

- Right.

- I mean, who would've thought after Three Mile Island and they took Seabrook down and all that?

But where do you put it?

I mean, particularly in state like Rhode Island.

We tried down in South County all those years ago.

I guess the question I have is we have heard nothing on this from Helena Foulkes, right?

Nobody has, and you would think, she's the declared candidate.

Somebody should go and say, what do you think?

Should we roll these back?

And then ultimately, who holds the cards?

Joe Shekarchi.

- As often.

- Neither one hasn't expressed an opinion, right?

- No, they've been very, very quiet about this.

I mean, Joe Shekarchi-- - Let the governor take the flack, right?

- Yeah, and Joe's had other things going on.

Maybe I'll run for governor.

Maybe I'll be a judge or not.

- Maybe I'm measuring my robes, right?

- Yeah, but one, we should ask Helena Foulkes.

That's a legitimate point for-- - Not that I'm telling you how to do your job, but - No, and I'll tell you, the other place where I'd like to see some weighing in would be from the congressional delegation, right?

- [Ted] Where is Sheldon Whitehouse?

- Yeah.

- I mean, this is always a fascinating for me.

If Senator Whitehouse believes, it's kinda like the old politics stops at the water's edge on foreign policy.

He believes climate advocacy stops at the water's edge in some ways around-- - The rising water's edge.

- Yes, remember when he got all mixed up on the Burville power plant - Right, right.

- after he told me he wasn't gonna weigh in, - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- but then they didn't wanna say not weighing in meant he wasn't opposed, - I remember that.

- and now with this, he's gonna say, this is for the state to figure out, I love clean energy, et cetera, et cetera.

Right, exactly, and so I get it.

The delegation doesn't wanna get mixed up in state level politics, - That's a little disingenuous, don't you think?

- [Ted] but yeah.

- I'll say it.

Maybe you won't, but I will.

- No, it is disingenuous.

It clearly is, and it's one where you can fine.

At the end of the day, it's gonna be state leaders that are gonna make this decision, but how can you be the face of climate change in the Congress and not have an opinion on what's happening in your backyard?

- Has he started reading the room a little bit?

Isn't he backing off a little bit on the climate change speeches?

Has he acknowledged that he's like gotta focus on a couple other things?

- I'd say no.

I will say to Senator Whitehouse is in his defense, or at least to his side of the argument, he's been trying for a long time to find different ways to talk about it, pointing to things like property insurance going up, trying to argue, this isn't just a, he jokes about it, like this isn't about save the polar bears crap he said to some Washington reporter recently, but I think he is realizing he's losing the argument inside the Democratic party nationally about whether this should be a front-and-center issue, and he's trying to kind of run a rear guard action saying, talk about it as a cost issue, talk about it's raising people's costs, but yeah, this is an uncomfortable spot for him.

- [Jim] Final thought on that?

- Yeah, I mean, Senator Whitehouse has that tricky situation where he, in his heart and in his head, believes he's on the right side of history, but he knows he's losing in the moment, and so it's a tough thing to tangle with.

- He's also not worried about his electric bill, right?

- Right.

- I mean, it's like when congress shuts down, they get their health insurance.

There's a little bit of a disconnect between Main Street and the White House - Yeah, I think that's fair.

- and Congress.

All right, let's go to outrageous and or kudos.

Ted, what do you have this week?

- I forgot what my, I had an outrage on the wing and I've lost it.

You go first.

(laughs) - You go first.

We're calling an audible here.

- I've never had that happen here.

- Oh my goodness.

- Exactly, what was it?

- Usually if, hey, listen, Lively panelists know you gotta come six deep.

- Yeah, exactly.

- Just in case somebody steals your outrage.

What do you got?

- So last week, I was at the Providence College, St.

John's basketball game where Duncan Powell and the Friars kind of attacked Bryce Hopkins, but the fallout from that incident, and there was big story in the New York Post about Providence College is an embarrassment.

- It's a hard foul.

- It was a hard foul.

Was it dirty?

Yes, was it a hard foul?

Yeah, was it unfair?

All those kind of things, and we're Providence fans.

Again, I was in the crowd.

Were the fans a little bit unruly?

I saw some beers being thrown, things like that.

Yes, Fans were a little bit obnoxious.

That is the truth about Providence College basketball fans, and they are a little bit obnoxious, but this is not a shut the program down kind of problem.

- These people apparently never watched the Big East 30 years ago, right, - Right, there's been fights-- - where those kind of fouls were, you know Patrick Ewing, whatever.

- Exactly.

- All right, you get the last four to five seconds, yes.

- My outrage?

Let's go back to the rug.

We asked them when we asked to look into it for it, - The rug, it's the rug.

- [Ted] Can you send us like whatever order form we sent in for the rugs, - Yeah.

- we can just see - Got it right here.

- what we wrote?

Exactly, and they said, oh, we'll need a full public records review before we can give that to you, and we haven't gotten it yet a week later.

The biggest story in the world?

No, but in a way, that's why it's an outrage, because just hand it to, okay, redacts the name - And then it's done.

- of the employee who signed it and then it's done, but its-- - What do you bet they invoke the 20 day extension?

- Oh, they probably will, Jim.

They probably will, and also again, you wonder why the public's so cynical when they're like, oh, they're keeping secret the order form for a rug they screwed up.

Come on.

- It's awful.

All right, Ted, and it's nice to get the band back together.

- It is, it is.

- Yeah, yeah.

- It's a Channel 12 reunion.

All right, thank you for joining us.

Be sure and check us out on Facebook, X, Instagram, and on the Ocean State Media YouTube channel.

We'll see you here next time on Lively.

(upbeat orchestra music) - [Promoter] Lively is generously supported in part by John Hazen White's Lookout.