Quick Read

McKee signs gun control bills

Governor McKee’s gun-control photo-op was wildly inappropriate.

By Justin Katz | June 28, 2022 |

The image used as the featured image of this post shows Rhode Island Democrat Governor Dan McKee signing gun control legislation recently at the State House, and even people who support the outcome should be concerned by it. For the good of our states and our country, Americans used to have a clear, if undefined,…

The moment before Lugo strikes Rourke

Will we ever develop the skills to process online political content like Bartholomew’s doctored abortion-protest clip?

By Justin Katz | June 25, 2022 |

First things first: It is very difficult to imagine circumstances that entirely excuse the actions of Jeann Lugo in a five second clip from last night’s pro-abortion rally at the State House.  Lugo is a muscular man with police training.  Striking a woman — progressive candidate Jennifer Rourke — should not be something he would…

A sonogram.

The Supreme Court has undone a travesty of law by overturning Roe v. Wade.

By Justin Katz | June 24, 2022 |

Honestly, I never thought I’d see the day, but the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, which invented a Constitutional right to abortion across the country.  To this day, many Americans don’t realize just how radical the judicial legislation was, making the United States much more extreme than most of the world, with abortion…

Blake Filippi

Blake Filippi is exiting the House, and Rhode Island will come to regret it.

By Justin Katz | June 24, 2022 |

Voters (and other citizens) very often make claims about what attributes they want in elected officials that they do not substantiate with their support.  They say they’d prefer public servants who are not career politicians and who are in it for “the right reasons,” by which they generally mean they are not merely seeking power…

A Providence neighborhood through a Statehouse window

Maybe there’s something to “systemic racism” in Rhode Island.

By Justin Katz | June 21, 2022 |

Shift your focus just a little bit from the standard narrative, and you can only shake your head at the conspicuous omission in Amy Russo’s Providence Journal article reporting that “racial disparities in homeownership are more severe than the national average” in Rhode Island: The report, released Thursday and authored by Brown School of Public Health…

Sabina Matos takes the oath of office.

What does Matos have against the First Amendment?

By Justin Katz | June 17, 2022 |

No sooner do I resolve to take the summer off from social media than the Lieutenant Governor of the State of Rhode Island, Sabina Matos, decides it’s politically advantageous to involve me in her primary campaign to retain her seat.  According to her press release: The Ocean State Current and the Center for Freedom and…

Jose Clemente Orozco, The Clowns of War Arguing in Hell

There is no reasoning with those who will to confiscate law-abiding citizens’ guns.

By Justin Katz | June 16, 2022 |

The idea of “reasonable” and “common sense” gun control laws is becoming an obvious sham.  Reasonable people acting according to common sense differentiate between policies in different states and balance facts such as how frequently a particular type of weapon has been used in crimes in the state where gun-control legislation is proposed and what…

Woonsocket and Cumberland map

Divisiveness and falsehood taint even feel-good student stories.

By Justin Katz | June 15, 2022 |

Stories like this, by Kavontae Smalls in the Atlanta Black Star, should be a more prominent part of local news, giving us all an opportunity to acknowledge and admire the achievements of those with whom we share a corner of the world.  Woonsocket sophomore Mariam Kaba has been awarded a $25,000 scholarship and given $1 million to…

Theodore Gericault, Heroic Landscape with Fishermen

The smart set needs to ponder the value of historical limitations.

By Justin Katz | June 14, 2022 |

An episode of the High Noon podcast featuring Oren Cass brought to mind a point relevant to my break from social media. Cass is, in some respects, a contrarian in conservative circles, expressing some healthy skepticism against the free-market bent of the Right (a bent, to be clear, toward which I definitively incline).  The assumptions of…

A girl on her phone in a digital stream

We’re putting aside social media for the summer.

By Justin Katz | June 14, 2022 |

Sometimes the commentary on social media gives one the impression of an alternate reality. At the highest level, social media is a world of information, which means it can be entirely abstract.  You can say or imagine anything, and the more you live apart from tangible reality, the less what you say and imagine has…