There has been near unanimous support, in the media, for a law making its way through Congress that would protect journalists from revealing confidential sources. And this scribe is inclined to cheer on the bill. But there's an interesting contrary view at Slate from Jack Shafer who notes that the proposed law is not an out-and-out shield: it would simply force the government to show why reporters should be required to testify about sources - a hurdle, he suggests, that is quite surmountable.

This just in from the Boston Globe:

After months of speculating, Curt Spalding, the longtime executive director of Save the Bay in Rhode Island, has just been named New England’s U.S. Environmental Protection Agency chief.

Spalding was considered a strong candidate, but pundits were placing bets on Charlie Lord, who helped found Boston College’s Urban Ecology Institute or David Cash, Massachusetts assistant secretary for policy at the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs.

I've written a cover story for today's Phoenix on a topic that has fascinated me for years: the lifestyle center. It is a faux Main Street - essentially the mall, gone outdoors - that raises all sorts of interesting questions about public and private space.

With the real Main Street in decline, can we really form community in a place built around brand identity? Is there something odd about living in a condo above the Gap with a view of Cold Stone Creamery? Should we be concerned that the new public square doesn't allow for anti-war protest or, even, skateboarding? Or should we be embracing a walkable, green space in the heart of sprawling suburbia?

Republican victories in gubernatorial contests in New Jersey and Virginia yesterday were striped across the nation's newspapers this morning. The GOP and some in the press were quick to label the results a rebuke to Obama.

Late-breaking results of a special Congressional election in upstate New York that went to the Dems has clouded the picture, though.

Maine voters overturned same-sex marriage legislation yesterday in what is, undoubtedly, a blow to the national movement for gay nuptials. And the vote could have some impact in Rhode Island which, until yesterday, was the only New England state that failed to recognize same-sex marriage.

Momentum matters in politics, after all.

The new elizabethroberts.org is downright Obama-like in look and feel, with a tagline - "restoring hope in Rhode Island" - to match. Providence City Councilman and would-be mayoral candidate John Lombardi's site, unveiled earlier this year, also emulates the president's new media politics.

Look for more of the same, as Rhode Island gears up for its first true social-media election next year.

Steve Peoples has a story in today's ProJo about a questionable move by the Moderate Party to swell its bank account. Party Chairman Ken Block donated $10,000 to the party's state committee in September, meeting the maximum allowed under state law. A few days later, he donated an additional $10,000 to the Barrington Moderate Town Committee, which then redirected the money to the state committee, circumventing the limit.

In my piece on the Rhode Island Tea Party a couple of weeks back, I wrote a bit about the tea party movement's uneasy relationship with the GOP - here and nationwide. The movement, a collection of ideological purists, have been quick to criticize the Republican Party for its role in expanding federal spending in recent years.

The chatter around the ProJo in recent weeks was that finances at the paper's Dallas-based parent company, A.H. Belo, might brighten a wee bit with the third-quarter earnings report. Those numbers were released today and, well, they could've been worse. From the Providence Business News:

DALLAS – The Providence Journal’s parent company, A.

Tom Heslin, executive editor of the Providence Journal, opened his speech before Common Cause Rhode Island last night with an amusing tale of his first reporting job at the York County Coast Star newspaper in Maine and spoke of a small abbreviation that appeared on the front of the broadsheet: THWTB. It stood, he said, for "The Hard Way's The Best."

You've seen the ads, perhaps, touting Target 12's biggest investigation yet. Here's the scoop on the story, to run at 11 o'clock tonight: it's a look at state workers, tasked with investigating unemployment fraud and phony disability claims, running personal errands on state time.

Oh, the irony.

Investigative reporter Tim White tells N4N that he's been contacted by state police, who have opened an investigation based on the station's work.

Patrick Kennedy and the Catholic Church got in an ugly spat over health care reform last week. And the diocese has invited Kennedy in to meet. From the Congressman's office, a letter back to the church. An olive branch? Sort of:

Thank you for your letter requesting a meeting with me to discuss the church’s position on comprehensive health care reform.

Lincoln Chafee's name recognition and Bush-bashing appeal should, in theory, put him in a strong position for the gubernatorial race. But can he put together a winning coalition?

Liberal blogger Matt Jerzyk writes of a left less-than-impressed with Chafee's performance at a gathering of progressive activists last night - and less-than-impressed, in general, with his candidacy.

This just in from the Secretary of State's office on the race to succeed State Representative Elizabeth Dennigan, who has stepped down to challenge Congressman Jim Langevin:

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Secretary of State A. Ralph Mollis announced today that just three of the four candidates who filed to run for Elizabeth Dennigan’s former House seat have officially qualified to appear on the Dec.

E.J. Dionne, one of the most incisive political observers in the land, will be speaking in Rhode Island in a week-and-a-half. This just in from former Brown political science professor Darrel West, now with the Brookings Institution in Washington:

Washington Post Columnist E.J. Dionne will deliver a lecture on “The Good News: The Future of Religion is Not Extremism” at 6 p.