Quick Read
As the COVID-19 pandemic ebbs, state government has been slow to give up its enhanced powers (and may never give up their easy access to them, now that they’ve got a feel for them). But COVID-restrictions have come with other benefits for government insiders — most especially the ability to keep the public at arm’s…
How about a fun, wonky post? The featured image that you see is a Tax Foundation map ranking states by the percentage of their infrastructure spending that is funded by user fees. In the Tax Foundation’s views, higher user fees are preferable: Both the federal government and the states raise revenue for infrastructure spending through…
According to Rhode Island’s Secretary of State, Rhode Island’s campaign-like pursuit of people to fill out the U.S. Census paid off, and Rhode Island will remain doubly represented in the U.S. Congress for another decade. If my large family’s being caught at home during COVID was decisive in this result, I apologize to the rest…
No matter how one feels about state and local government’s involvement with various schemes to find public-private partnerships to develop parts of Pawtucket, a recent lawsuit by one property owner, of the recently-more-famous Apex building, raises an important point. Eli Sherman reports for WPRI: On Wednesday, the owners issued a blistering statement, painting themselves as…
Nonviolence Institute Executive Director Cedric Huntley’s incredible honesty is refreshing, in an article by Amanda Milkovits for the Boston Globe: “In Rhode Island, it’s not the police killing our children. It’s Black and brown children killing each other,” said Cedric Huntley. “And the community is traumatized.” Just in the last week of what’s becoming a violent…
Did anybody have “USPS as spy agency” on their list of revelations for 2021? That’s what Tim Pearce reports for The Daily Wire: The United States Postal Service (USPS) is running a “covert operations program” monitoring Americans’ social media accounts for “inflammatory” posts. The program is carried out by the USPS enforcement arm, the United States…
That thought occurred to me while reading Brian Trusdell’s summary of a Rasmussen poll for Newsmax: Preventing cheating in elections is more important than expanding ways to vote, according to a majority of likely voters, who by a large margin also believe voter identification laws are not discriminatory, according to a Rasmussen poll. Moreover, most Americans…
It’s hard to believe we’ve all been at this for about twenty years, now. Many of us owe that unexpected blessing to the influence of Glenn Reynolds’s Instapundit. Let’s hope the social media disruption of blogging is coming to an end, or at least reaching a renegotiated balance, bringing us back to our founding ideals…
It looks like June may bring a return to something like normalcy in Rhode Island. As WJAR reports: Starting May 7, mask wearing guidance will change from required to recommended outdoors within 3 feet, but still required indoors. Capacity limits will be raised to 80% across the board the same day, but with 3-foot spacing…
Mike Stenhouse’s In the Dugout show today included guests Republican Representative Brian Newberry and Dr. Andrew Bostom, the first defending his civics education legislation and the second talking COVID matters. Note, in particular Newberry’s defense of his bill on the grounds that concerns expressed on the show yesterday by Stanley Kurtz were about “implementation,” not the…
