The local pols were all snug in their beds, while visions of plush campaign checks danced in their heads. You can follow me through the week on Bluesky, threads and what we used to call the twitters. My column is taking next week off — happy holidays! — so this missive will next materialize on Jan. 3. Thanks for following me and my reporting in 2024. Here we go.
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1. STORY OF THE WEEK: Ken Block makes the point in his book Disproven that Social Security numbers — because of lax cyber-security — are close to useless as a secure personal identifier. Many of us have received multiple notification letters from companies and service providers about a data breach. But the cyber-attack revealed a week ago on RI Bridges, the state’s portal for health and benefit programs, represents a major problem for Rhode Island and potentially hundreds of thousands of residents, mostly vulnerable people. As TGIF was going to press, many questions remained unanswered, including when the cybercrime group Brain Cipher will release a trove of personal data or whether that can be prevented from happening.
The same group disrupted more than 200 government agencies in Indonesia earlier this year. But the global scale of flawed cyber-defenses is of little consolation back in Rhode Island, particularly after a series of warnings going back to at least 2019, when Dennis Hoyle, the previous auditor general, said the state’s approach posed a risk of unauthorized or inappropriate changes to IT applications. After the Washington Bridge saga dominated the local news in 2024, the cyber-crisis is another blow to confidence in state government and an additional headache for Gov. Dan McKee. During a Smith Hill news conference this week, McKee and the state’s top digital officer, Brian Tardiff, said it was not yet known how the breach happened, and they placed responsibility on Deloitte Consulting, since it manages RI Bridges. McKee said Deloitte did an effective job with the state’s Medicaid recertification. But the outfit was also faulted during the Raimondo administration for extensive problems with UHIP, an earlier iteration of the health and benefits portal. The state has continued to rely on Deloitte, paying the company many millions of dollars, and now the personal data of a huge number of Rhode Islanders hangs in the balance.
2. CYBER-WORLD: Former U.S. Rep. Jim Langevin, who developed an early interest in cyber-space and is now the distinguished chair of Rhode Island College’s Institute for Cybersecurity and Emerging Technologies, is among those encouraging Rhode Islanders to freeze their credit and use multi-factor authentication as a way of protecting their online data. In an interview with my colleague Luis Hernandez, Langevin noted, “Whether it’s state government, municipal government, non profits or businesses, they’ve got to be right 100% of the time. The bad guys only have to be right once to get in and potentially carry out a ransomware attack or steal data. So it’s best to be proactive and protect yourself ahead of time.”
3. SPARKS IN THE RACE FOR GOVERNOR: The approach of 2025 signals the on-ramp for the next race for governor — and Gov. Dan McKee, Helena Foulkes (who almost beat McKee in 2022) and House Speaker Joe Shekarchi (who is waiting in the wings if McKee doesn’t seek re-election) are each booked for Political Roundtable appearances early in the new year. A lawsuit announced this week by the office of U.S. Attorney Zachary Cunha quickly became grist in the nascent campaign season. In short, the civil complaint alleges that since 2013 (a time that overlaps with Foulkes’ tenure), Woonsocket-based CVS “knowingly filled prescriptions for controlled substances that lacked a legitimate medical purpose, were not valid, and/or were not issued in the usual course of professional practice,” including “dangerous and excess quantities of opioids.”
A day after the story broke, McKee, in a statement distributed by his campaign called the allegations in the lawsuit “deeply disturbing …. The DOJ suit strongly suggests that CVS executives also jeopardized the wellbeing of an important Rhode Island employer as their alleged actions reaped devastation on many of our families and even caused deaths. As Lieutenant Governor, I led a joint effort of Rhode Island’s cities and towns to successfully sue drug manufacturers and achieve substantial compensatory damages.”
In her own statement, Foulkes responded, “Governor McKee is trying to distract from his failed leadership on the Washington Bridge crisis and the cyber attack affecting countless Rhode Island families by misrepresenting facts about one of our state’s largest employers. As President of CVS Pharmacy from 2014 to 2018, I led a team which confronted the opioid crisis head-on, implementing strict controls that cut opioid prescriptions by 45%. Instead of solving our state’s challenges, Governor McKee would rather exploit a crisis for political gain.”
4. SMALL WORLD, PART I: During former AG Patrick Lynch’s law office holiday party on Thursday evening, Foulkes and Cunha — the head of the office bringing the suit against her former employer — were standing back to back for a time, with Foulkes seemingly unaware of her proximity to Rhode Island’s top federal prosecutor.
5. SMALL WORLD, PART II: This week marked the anniversary of when Gina Raimondo, via video announcement, declared in 2013 her first run for governor and when I scooped on Kate Coyne-McCoy’s creation of a super PAC that supported Raimondo in 2014. To mark the occasion, I tweeted a circa-2013 video of Raimondo cooking a torta margherita with Mary Ann Esposito. (Longtime Raimondo-watchers will recall that the first winning campaign for a woman governor in RI also included a recipe for meatloaf.) As culinary coincidence would have it, Coyne-McCoy previously worked with Esposito’s son, Chris, at EMILY’s List. He is now a partner with The Dover Group, a Democratic direct mail and strategy shop.
6. SMALL WORLD, PART III: Matt Bucci, best known as a former aide for U.S. Sen. Jack Reed and Gov. Raimondo, and who cut his teeth working for former Lt. Gov. Charles Fogarty, is a grand nephew of former LG Thomas DiLuglio, who died this week at age 93 (Bucci’s grandmother, Norma DiLuglio, the wife of the late state Supreme Court Justice John Bourcier, was DiLuglio’s sister). Buccii is now a managing director and COO for corporate affairs for Blackstone.
7. THOMAS DILUGLIO: Former ProJo political columnist M. Charles Bakst, via Facebook, offered this recollection of the former state official: “Democrat DiLuglio, a lawyer, was one of the brightest pols I ever covered, but also one of the most enigmatic. Very personable, yet shy and mercurial, famous for appearing at political events and disappearing in the blink of an eye. Though no fan of the Providence Journal, he took a liking to me – he was a fellow Brown alum (an all-time track star there) – and we managed to get along even as we sparred as fellow panelists on ‘A Lively Experiment’ on the PBS station. In 1984, as his eight-year tenure as lieutenant governor under Gov. Joe Garrahy was drawing to a close, he told me he wasn’t interested in being remembered. But he did briefly return to the public spotlight in 1992 for his role in arranging the surrender of Joe Mollicone, the notorious banker who’d been on the lam. The press was camped outside of DiLuglio’s Johnston home, but I got through to him on the phone. It was something of a coup for me, not that he was eager to say much about the Mollicone surrender. Indeed, the thing I remember most about the conversation is its edge – between playful and hostile – reminiscent of his attitude toward journalists when he was at the State House. At one point, fearing a question would get him upset, I prefaced it by saying, ‘Don’t get mad at me and don’t yell at me.’ There was no answer, just a pause. He finally said, ‘You said don’t get mad at you and don’t yell at you.’”
8. HOUSING CRUNCH: With the median cost of a home approaching the once-unimaginable sum of $500,000, Rhode Island will soon be leaving 2024 as it came into the year — with a huge housing crisis that inhibits economic growth and consumes a disproportionate share of income for many people. Melina Lodge is executive director of the Housing Network of Rhode Island, and she’s encouraged by how housing has risen to the top of the state’s agenda in recent years. During an interview on Political Roundtable, Lodge also cited how almost 66% of voters supported a $120 million housing bond in November. That spells broad public support for more housing, she said, including in Johnston, where 60% of voters backed the bond. But the housing issue gets framed differently in different contexts, and the clear need for more housing in RI and elsewhere, isn’t always enough to overcome local opposition to particular proposals.
9. VULNERABLE KIDS: My colleague Olivia Ebertz reports on an agreement between the state and federal prosecutors over the care of children in psychiatric wards: “The consent decree requires the state to hire a third-party consultant to oversee a restructuring of this psychiatric care — a process which the U.S. Attorney’s office will oversee. It also requires the creation of a stakeholder advisory group, which will continue to observe the state’s Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) to ensure it is not isolating children without a medical need. As part of the agreement, a compliance officer will supervise the state and if they find the DCYF is continuing to keep kids isolated without a medical necessity, the state will be found in contempt of the court.”
10. CONGRESS: A federal government shutdown looms, as some lawmakers object to how Friend of the President-elect Elon Musk was able to sink a budget deal with a few Xs.
11. HOLIDAY HOOTCH: An adult beverage or two can help to brighten the season. However, even though alcohol is the most-abused substance in the U.S., with devastating results, William Brangham of the PBS NewsHour reports that a promising treatment for alcohol abuse is barely being used.
12. LOCAL MOTION: Nickel Boys, the celebrated adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s book, was directed by RaMell Ross, a professor of visual art at Brown University, and one of the stars, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, is a Brown alum.
13. DRONING ON: Given the widespread availability of drones, and the general lack of inhibition about using them, it seems surprising that bigger concerns did not emerge before a recent series of sightings in the Northeast. Back in April, U.S. Sen. Jack Reed warned that the U.S. and its troops abroad were vulnerable to low-flying drones. Reed’s office said the National Defense Authorization Act voted on this week includes provisions aimed at improving the response. Amid questions about the recent drone sightings, Reed sponsored a bill with Sen. Gary Peters, Democratic of Michigan, meant to enhance the ability of law enforcement to detect and counter potential drone threats.
14. BACK ON TOP: The Independent Man has returned to his roost.
15. KICKER: Yeah, we’re a little state with big problems, we need a new bridge, our cyber-security has a leak, Hasbro might be going, we need a more multifaceted economy, and so on. But how many states figure as a measuring unit for an iceberg on the move? Can we monetize this by selling naming rights?
