Ripple
Consider two general principles of political theory while reading this: 1) Government starts by telling the people how much money it needs and then proceeds to collect it, not the other way around. 2) The less competitive political races are, the more incentive those who are predictably elected have to spend money on corruption and…
This ad for Rhode Island’s CollegeBound Saver fund promotion looks like a sleazy investment ad because it is: Around $22 million in administrative fees from the program go to the private companies that handle the money and the state. This isn’t necessarily corruption, per se, but we can put it in the questionable bucket of…
I’ll stipulate that comedian Sebastian Maniscalco’s story about a kindergartener who identifies as a lion is likely not true, but the exaggeration provides a useful framing, nonetheless: One of the kill-move cheats of progressives is to pose the question, of these identity politics instances, “How does it affect you?” Appealing to Americans’ live-and-let-live sensibility, that…
It still seems like a waste of resources, to me. Here’s his tweet from May, when he announced his continuing fundraising: There’s no pressure, here. Once people have that initial burst of “right on” feeling, such billboards become part of the background. When I looked into billboards years ago, they were about $10,000 per…
Arthur Brooks offering the graduates of Providence College positive life advice: You can get rich by telling people that they’ll be happy if they drive a certain car. You can get elected President of the United States by convincing people that their lives will make sense if they just get angry and hateful enough about…
This is a belated acknowledgment that Ben Shapiro is exactly right about the Jerry-Springer-esque catfight in Congress last month: If we don’t like what we’re seeing in Washington, D.C., the only durable solution is to ensure it isn’t representative. But just like the brawls on that famous gawker show, untangling ourselves from this mess is…
I’m a little delayed in reacting to this, but it isn’t encouraging news: State Rep. Patricia Morgan, who is one of two Republicans running in Rhode Island’s U.S. Senate race this year, has declined to debate her opponent in the primary, 12 News has learned. … “We need our party united for when Ray drops…
Two things occurred to me when I saw this aerial video of a wind turbine blade graveyard in Texas: First, this sort of thing already exists for 20-year-old turbines in an industry that is supposedly just getting started as a major industry. What sort of acreage will we be talking as we approach the…
I’m tempted to modify this message, just a bit, by suggesting that this is always the choice:
We’re in heavy times, these days, what with our system of government collapsing around us, so sometimes we need a change of soundtrack or cinematic distraction. Finding new entertainment, however, has become more-difficult, too. Very little music feels fresh, and movies are terrible. On those rare occasions that I’ve thought to watch a new movie,…