Justin Katz
As he often does, Jonah Goldberg captures something almost intangible, but true, with this: Ramesh asked yesterday: “I’m not quite sure why so many liberals are spluttering with rage over the Republicans’ failure to go along with their stimulus ideas.” He then went on to provide perfectly rational explanations for why liberals should still be…
I’m not a fan of top-down consolidation — at least not in Rhode Island. It’s not as if our system consists of a competent, efficient state-level government attempting to stay afloat on a roiling mass of expensive, unruly municipalities. The whole beast’s cancerous throughout, and the more diseased flesh we graft onto the heart, the…
I’ve been getting notices of an RI Senate Judiciary Committee hearing concerning three marriage-related bills on Tuesday afternoon, but there’s currently no information online. The Judiciary Committee isn’t on the legislative calendar, and the schedule for the committee lists no meetings. Acknowledging the short time-frame in which they’ve been forced to act, the National Organization…
Part 2 of Tim White’s investigation into misuse of public resources and time in the Providence Sewer Department mainly concerned supervisor Algot Abrahamson’s use of a city truck for a spin to a known gambling house. More intriguing, in my opinion, is the similarity in some of the supervisor’s phrasing to that of Mayor David…
I’m sure Tom Daschle had every intention of filing three years of amended tax returns (one for every year since he was bumped from public office, I believe) whether or not he’d been presented with the opportunity of joining the Obama administration: Thomas A. Daschle recently filed amended tax returns for 2005, 2006 and 2007…
I’m increasingly noticing the degree to which procedural minutia affect the balance of power in the disputes resolved among the lower tiers of government. The reality was stark at the last financial town meeting in Tiverton, but even in the day-to-day operations, one must weave through various traps and catches in order to bring about…
Slipping from 5.2% to 10%, Rhode Island led the nation in unemployment growth: The rise in Rhode Island’s unemployment rate led the nation last year, according to new data from the U.S. Department of Labor. Only North Carolina, where unemployment grew by 4 percentage points, and Nevada, where it increased by 3.9 percentage points, approached…
The scythe has come out in the Cranston school department: Gifted and talented programs? Gone. Middle school sports? Gone. Music lessons for children who want to play stringed instruments? Gone. These programs and others are among the casualties in the budget proposed by Schools Supt. M. Richard Scherza for the coming fiscal year, and the…
The article quotes scientist after scientist declaring that “this means we must act quickly,” but it seems to me a forced reaction to the new information: Many damaging effects of climate change are already basically irreversible, researchers declared Monday, warning that even if carbon emissions can somehow be halted temperatures around the globe will remain…
It’s difficult not to rub one’s eyes and look again: Despite crippling losses, multibillion-dollar bailouts and the passing of some of the most prominent names in the business, employees at financial companies in New York, the now-diminished world capital of capital, collected an estimated $18.4 billion in bonuses for the year. That was the sixth-largest…
