Justin Katz

A man in multiple poses of consideration and doubt.

Politics This Week with John DePetro: Politicians’ Reluctance to Do Their Job

By Justin Katz | August 17, 2022 |

John DePetro and Justin Katz review the many ways Rhode Island’s government officials refuse to do address the basics of their jobs.

A Christian mug with colored pencils and an apple

The administration is raiding the homes of political opponents as well as Catholic schools (in a sense).

By Justin Katz | August 12, 2022 |

Maybe my brain is excessively wired to see connections and patterns, but the raid on President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home and the Biden administration’s efforts to bully Catholic schools into promoting radical sexual ideology seem very much connected. Rod Dreher gets us most of the way there, in an essay titled “Trump & Our Late Roman…

Help wanted sign

What’s up with gas demand?

By Justin Katz | August 10, 2022 |

The economic news is peculiar, lately.  Inflation is high, and the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) is shrinking.  Yet, government data shows a strong increase in payroll jobs in the most-recent month.  It’s difficult to know which side of that “yet” the following news supports, or whether it helps explain how all of the above…

Allan Fung and Kevin McCarthy in Jamestown 2022

RI Republicans must stop taking an apologetic stance.

By Justin Katz | August 9, 2022 |

As long as I’ve been paying attention to politics in Rhode Island, mainstream Republicans have given the impression that they are ashamed of their affiliation — that they just found the ruling Democrats to be so off-base and corrupt that they needed a different option, and the GOP was the only viable one.  This isn’t…

A locked luggage box

Politics This Week with John DePetro: Political Honesty in Hiding

By Justin Katz | August 8, 2022 |

John DePetro and Justin Katz call out the ways RI politicians are hiding from reality.

A woman dances around a fire

Just a little shift in perspective goes a long way on climate change fear.

By Justin Katz | August 5, 2022 |

An underappreciated risk laps at the legs of our advanced knowledge.  When people didn’t know why things were happening in the world around them or how to predict change, they just dealt with them.  They invested some energy in a relationship with gods in the hope of exerting some control on their environments, but mostly,…

A water drop and ripples

Monkeypox may prove the cost of woke restrictions on acceptable observations.

By Justin Katz | August 4, 2022 |

As local media sources have started to track instances of monkeypox in our area, I’ve wondered how many Rhode Islanders know that it is mostly (although not entirely) a venereal disease spreading mostly among gay men.  Except, as Rod Dreher points out, that’s not a fact to which we’re permitted to react: Scott Gottlieb, former…

Cooling towers at Brayton Point

Energy and the environment are not separate stories.

By Justin Katz | August 3, 2022 |

When discussing public policy, responsible politicians, journalists, and members of the public should never separate the issues of energy and the environment.  They are a single, nuanced, and extremely complicated issue.  Absent this imperative, Democrat Governor Dan McKee feels free to brag about his environmental policy thus … “Over last 16 months my administration has…

A behind the back cash bribe

Politics This Week with John DePetro: A Boughten Government

By Justin Katz | August 2, 2022 |

John DePetro and Justin Katz comment as the Rhode Island campaign season heats up.

Rock quarry scene from Breaking Away

A note about being a genuine cutter…

By Justin Katz | July 30, 2022 |

The secret is that we can always be geniune.