Justin Katz

A giant mime shushes an empty legislative chamber

Politics This Week: Believing Your Own Eyes

By Justin Katz | June 13, 2025 |

John DePetro and Justin Katz confirm people with common sense aren’t crazy.

Children dance near a burning RI State House

Politics This Week: RI as Accountability-Free Zone

By Justin Katz | June 3, 2025 |

John DePetro and Justin Katz highlight the benefits (to insiders) of an accountability-free state.

Elites stand on a people pyramid

Politics This Week: The Usefulness of Victims

By Justin Katz | May 29, 2025 |

John DePetro and Justin Katz notice some of the ways in which Democrats leverage pain and suffering.

A water drop and ripples

Solutions in education require clear understanding of roles.

By Justin Katz | May 20, 2025 |

Some weeks ago, social media was full of comparisons of educational results in Mississippi and wealthier states, with the key detail that the numbers were adjusted for poverty.  Elsewhere on the landscape of public debate, progressives were asserting that the effects of hunger on students’ ability to learn make it obligatory for schools to supply…

Valari Lawson sells hotdogs from a food truck edited from NEARI to RI Senate

Politics This Week: Special Interests on Special

By Justin Katz | May 19, 2025 |

John DePetro and Justin Katz review RI political news.

A water drop and ripples

There’s a curious silence about the RI Foundation’s racist grants.

By Justin Katz | May 19, 2025 |

I happened to mention this story to a young Rhode Island teacher the other day, and she knew nothing about it: We first learned of [the Rhode Island Foundation]’s practices when Legal Insurrection Foundation (LIF) challenged a program funded by RIF at the Providence Public School District (PPSD) called the Educator of Color Loan Forgiveness…

Politicians party on a plane while the landscape burns

Politics This Week: Politicians Get Around

By Justin Katz | May 14, 2025 |

John DePetro and Justin Katz discuss Rhode Island political news.

The cooks take control of the vessel

Politics This Week: When the Bit Players Take Control

By Justin Katz | May 6, 2025 |

John DePetro and Justin Katz marvel at the deteriorating state of RI’s leadership in government and media.

A water drop and ripples

Companies on the leading edge of tech don’t want to be a city’s “flagship company.”

By Justin Katz | May 5, 2025 |

Sometimes I wonder how much of what we perceive as bias in the mainstream media is simply a lack of the sort of experience that leads to perspective.  I have in mind a February column in the Boston Globe by Dan McGowan, which he presents as an “open letter” to Hasbro making the case for its…

A water drop and ripples

Rhode Island is a congested place… and for what?

By Justin Katz | May 5, 2025 |

The American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) uses GPS data to rank metro areas’ traffic congestion based on how quickly trucks can pass through them.  Providence, Rhode Island’s, peak average speed slowed by 18%, and our ranking jumped 15 slots to 25th worst in the country.  To be sure, much of the problem was the Washington…