Quick Read

A young woman shushes

The RI media is deliberately ignoring the most-important story in education.

By Justin Katz | May 10, 2023 |

Announcing the move of his cable news show to Twitter, Tucker Carlson suggests that most of what mainstream journalists report is factually true, but their stories are chosen and constructed so as to paint a completely false image of reality.  Take Rhode Island education as an example. As long as I’ve been following the story, government-run…

Arms hold an anchor above the water

“Pay equity” mandates are another weight dragging down the Ocean State.

By Justin Katz | May 9, 2023 |

Clearing out some old links reminded me that Rhode Island’s “pay equity” statute goes into effect this year, as Jack Kelly wrote in Forbes in late 2021.  While generally supportive of the legislation, Kelly did acknowledge the potential for “unintended consequences”: According to Joshua Nadreau, a partner in the Boston office of the labor and employment…

Lighthouse on Goat Island at sunset with Newport Bridge in the background.

Newport’s character and cost is a matter of choice.

By Justin Katz | April 28, 2023 |

Artsy people’s complaining about gauche wealth-culture is nothing new, but something about this complaint by progressive podcaster and musician Bill Bartholomew struck me as oblivious of the obvious: Working late on Friday to frame out a roof on Ocean Drive 15 years ago, while watching BMWs roll by, I had similar thoughts.  But I also…

Justice for Jeann Lugo Despite the Defamatory Video

By Monique Chartier | April 27, 2023 |

Jeann Lugo was acquitted in November of simple assault against Jennifer Rourke at the State House melee last June. The other criminal charge against Lugo, disorderly conduct, had been dismissed in August. Now a three member panel of police officers, in a process arising out of LEOBOR, has unanimously voted to set aside the firing of…

A dark classroom

Don’t miss the fact teachers unions want standardization… for themselves.

By Justin Katz | April 26, 2023 |

Sometimes the cognitive dissonance from special-interest ideologues’ commentary is so strong it’s difficult to know whether they’re brainwashing, trolling, or both. Consider this tweet from Rhode Island labor union executive and progressive activist Patrick Crowley: Before Crowley moved up the union-organizer ranks and was still specifically with the National Education Association of Rhode Island, I…

An indoor self-storage facility.

Think more deeply about self-storage bans.

By Justin Katz | April 21, 2023 |

Justin Roias — the Providence City Councilor for the ward covering the North End — doesn’t like self-storage facilities. That’s fine, but his response and reasoning raise crucial points of organization and problem solving: I came across Roias’s tweet via Rachel Miller, who is participating in “the effort to update our zoning laws to prohibit…

Young adults covering each other's mouths

Why are the “most educated” suddenly the most afraid of information liberty?

By Justin Katz | April 18, 2023 |

Observing that a significant majority of Americans now believe the COVID lab-leak theory despite the idea’s having recently been banned on “Big Tech platforms,” Glenn Greenwald recalls a 2021 Pew Research finding that over a mere three-year span the percentage of Democrats who support big-tech censorship had grown from 60% to 76%, and (worse, in…

A masked figure shushes silence

Bud Light has provided a warning case for our culture.

By Justin Katz | April 14, 2023 |

If you pay attention to non-leftwing media and/or haven’t blocked or muted anybody who isn’t progressive on social media, you’re likely to have heard that Anheuser-Busch has taken a huge financial hit after a young marketing executive aligned the company fully with radical gender ideologues by partnering with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, a man whose…

A child with hands over face.

McKee’s Learn 365 RI education initiative may justify a response of Turn 180.

By Justin Katz | April 13, 2023 |

Whether it’s peculiar or not (given his governance style) the most-conspicuous thing about the Learn 365 RI initiative — for which Democrat Governor Dan McKee has sought (and received) a PR boost — is how undefined it is.  There’s some effort to get municipalities to commit to something, although what that may be isn’t clear. …

"Injustice Won't Be Postponed" sign

Seth Magaziner’s gun tweet is a scary symptom.

By Justin Katz | April 12, 2023 |

To solve problems without causing unexpected damage, you have to have some reasonable explanation for the circumstances.  This recent anti-gun tweet from Democrat Congressman Seth Magaziner illustrates how politicians are moving farther and farther away from problem-solving: If you’re accustomed to analyzing data visualizations, it might take you a moment to understand Magaziner’s point.  The…