In Depth

Hillary Rodham Clinton II

By Marc Comtois | June 20, 2005 | Comments Off on Hillary Rodham Clinton II

To further enable investigation, here is the rundown on Sen. Clinton provided by Project Vote Smart. Concerning “Issue Positions,” one will be confronted by this disclaimer: In 2000, this candidate was contacted repeatedly over several weeks by Project Vote Smart staff members and by prominent political leaders, and asked to do the right and honorable…

Hillary Rodham Clinton

By | June 20, 2005 | Comments Off on Hillary Rodham Clinton

National Review Online has an interview with Edward Klein, author of the new book on Hillary Rodham Clinton entitled The Truth About Hillary: What She Knew, When She Knew It, and How Far She’ll Go to Become President. The interview attempts to get beyond/behind the recent controversy about an excerpt from the book. Those of…

Public and Private Unions

By | June 19, 2005 | Comments Off on Public and Private Unions

Robert Whitcomb, of the ProJo editorial page, has written an editorial entitled Public and Private Unions, which includes this excerpt: I write as an ex-member of three unions, in one of which I was grievance chairman. Private-sector unions, such as these, are different creatures from public-sector unions. In the private sector, the complexity, churn and…

Happy Father’s Day, Dad!

By Donald B. Hawthorne | June 19, 2005 | Comments Off on Happy Father’s Day, Dad!

I am fortunate to have been blessed with a wonderful Dad. And on this Father’s Day, his special day, I want to pay a special tribute to him. Dad, who turned 80 last month, grew up in the Depression years. It was kids from his high school class year of 1943 who joined the World…

How Public Pensions Make People Well-Off at Taxpayers’ Expense

By | June 18, 2005 |

Here is another editorial entitled Government pensions fund second careers about the outrageous problems with public sector pensions: Manchester Town Manager Steven R. Werbner has applied to become Tolland’s (Conn.) town manager, and he’d probably be a fool not to take the job if it is offered, because if he goes to Tolland, Manchester will…

What Do These Comments Say About Our Culture in Rhode Island?

By | June 17, 2005 |

It often seems like a culture of fear and intimidation pervades Rhode Island. As I have spoken out publicly during my tenure on the East Greenwich School Committee and during the years since then, the single most frequent comment town residents have said to me was “We agree wholeheartedly with you but we cannot speak…

Anti-establishment RI voters

By Marc Comtois | June 17, 2005 | Comments Off on Anti-establishment RI voters

I’m trying to figure something out here. President Bush, and RI Republicans running for statewide office, generally run very strong in South County. According to a report, South County is among the nation’s leaders in marijuana “consumption.” Given that smoking pot is (I think) safely associable to anti-establishment behavior and that South County votes for…

We Are Paying Quite a Price for Our Historical Ignorance

By Donald B. Hawthorne | June 17, 2005 |

David Gelernter of Yale has written this editorial: …Our schools teach history ideologically. They teach the message, not the truth…They are propaganda machines. Ignorance of history destroys our judgment. Consider Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill), who just compared the Guantanamo Bay detention center to Stalin’s gulag and to the death camps of Hitler and Pol Pot…

Rhode Island Politics & Taxation, Part XX: Defining a Core Problem in Rhode Island

By | June 17, 2005 |

Solving a problem first requires acknowledgement of the problem’s existence followed by having the will to fix it. Rhode Island resident Thomas Wigand offers a compelling view of what is structurally wrong in our state in his editorial entitled Public-sector lords, Social-Security serfs: Czarist Russia was inhabited by a subservient class, called serfs, the fruits…

Warwick Teachers’ Union Throws Public Tantrum

By | June 17, 2005 |

This latest response by the Warwick teachers’ union reminded me of when our children were quite young and did what kids that age do when they don’t get their way – throw a tantrum: The Warwick Teachers Union, responding to what it called a School Committee “ultimatum” over the issue of retroactive pay, says it…