Justin Katz

A water drop and ripples

Has anybody seen coverage of this Nicole Solas’s lawsuit?

By Justin Katz | December 22, 2022 |

As readers have surely observed, I’m doing an end-of-year cleanout of my bookmarked links.  Oddly, after a news search on Google and Bing, I’m not seeing any local coverage of this story, reported in the Washington Examiner in August, at all.  Is that correct? Nicole Solas and the Goldwater Institute filed the lawsuit against the South Kingstown…

A water drop and ripples

This is powerful political art.

By Justin Katz | December 21, 2022 |

It’s a shame the mainstream media (extended to glossy magazines) has no space for illustrated commentary as powerfully accurate as this. We’re so comfortable these days that progressives can exist many layers of abstraction removed from the consequences of their policies and therefore enact policies that roll painfully downhill while undermining real progress.

Cash, cuffs, and the American flag

The federal government is sowing the seeds of our division.

By Justin Katz | December 21, 2022 |

I’m midway through reading a book about the psychology of changing your mind, and the author apparently sees understanding the subject as an important tool in overcoming our polarization.  I’ll have much more to say about the book, no doubt, not least to suggest that increasingly subtle psychological manipulation may be causing the polarization.  After all,…

A water drop and ripples

Imagine if real journalists were doing journalism…

By Justin Katz | December 21, 2022 |

From the other side of the election, with the Hunter Biden laptop known to be real, the J6 commission calling for criminal prosecutions, COVID-related decisions coming under renewed scrutiny, and Elon Musk providing revelations about what really went on inside Twitter to support the Democrat Party, it’s worth revisiting J. Peder Zane’s fictional account of…

A water drop and ripples

There’s only one reason to ban bulletproof vests for citizens…

By Justin Katz | December 20, 2022 |

… as New York has done.  It’s to make civilians more vulnerable.  Supporters framed their intention as making bad people more vulnerable to the police, as during mass shootings, but the ban doesn’t apply only to bad actors. As simple common sense, policies designed to make people more vulnerable ought to be approached with suspicion. …

Vilhelm Pedersen illustration of Hans Christian Anderson's The Emperor's New Clothes

Are you represented in the Rhode Island House?

By Justin Katz | December 20, 2022 |

Although the core political story in Rhode Island is inevitably Democrat, this isn’t a partisan post.  The one detail I recall from Amity Shlaes’s book, Coolidge, that detracted from the 30th President’s story was an anecdote from when he was the Republican president of the Massachusetts Senate.  A lobbyist persuaded him to go one way on…

A water drop and ripples

They’re preemptively trying to sell this as evidence of global warming…

By Justin Katz | December 20, 2022 |

… but keep an eye out for claims of increased flooding that could be caused by a wobbling moon (which, if it needs to be said, is in no way related to carbon emissions): Beware, coastal communities. The U.S. is set to face a surge in high-tide floods along its coasts due to a “wobble”…

Monkey statues in see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil poses

Politics This Week with John DePetro: Tricky Positions for Top Pols

By Justin Katz | December 19, 2022 |

John DePetro and Justin Katz discuss the contribution of politicians and the media to the most pressing issues of the day.

A water drop and ripples

When the mainstream thinks they’re counterculturalists…

By Justin Katz | December 19, 2022 |

This tweet from local left-wing writer Phil Eil, quoting WPRO journalist Steve Klamkin, is some months old, but it’s still worth a head-shaking ponder: Is it possible that progressives don’t recognize that their co-ideologues are the ones forbidding a counterculture from forming because they’re in power and don’t want alternative views to be heard?  Is…

A water drop and ripples

Is education the solution to abortion?

By Justin Katz | December 19, 2022 |

Clearing out some links from the past year, I came across this abortion-related interview with URI student Antonia Simmons by The Public Radio’s Lynn Arditi.  This part makes me wonder if maybe all that’s needed is more education about biology: I am a 20 year old woman and I deserve the right to make my…