Justin Katz
Touching story in yesterday’s Providence Journal: Apparently, the friends of John Cicilline, brother of the Providence mayor, had a little going-to-jail party for him, in order to keep his family from suffering financially from his conviction as a justice-system-manipulating shake-down lawyer. This line added some comic relief: “It was a nice event to help a…
One often hears that the speaker of the Rhode Island House is the most powerful politician (along with the Senate president) in the state, but it takes a while to develop an appreciation of what the means. Here, for one indication, is evidence of their royal ability to dispense paid time off without having to…
An interesting response from rasputinkhlyst to my rejoinder to Crowley: Folks in those states have higher wage and benefit base due to less attacks on workers from right wing nut jobs. Therefore their workers can afford to live there. Salaries for their state workers are higher and the benefits are better in these states. Having…
Although I’m loath to feed his attention addiction, via his recital of standard lefty rhetoric, Pat Crowley raises a point worth addressing: … with the report basing its analysis on taxes as a percentage of personal income per $1000, it totally glosses over the point, which the quoted section above confirms, that our tax burden…
Way back in the early ’80s, HBO used to show video shorts between movies, and one of them (which I only recall seeing once) really made an impression on me. So much so that I’ve found it coming to mind from time to time ever since. Well, wouldn’t you know, YouTube has “Arcade Attack” in…
Lefty Rhode Island wonk Tom Sgouros apparently hasn’t had a chance to review the latest data available from the IRS, because he’s still insisting — as if it’s obvious — that recent upper-income tax cuts are the cause of our current financial woes: Today, though, our fiscal crisis is the result of events very much…
So the contract proposal that some public sector unions recently voted to reject was apparently not a real offer. According to the NEA’s Bob Walsh, it wasn’t the result of “negotiations,” but of a “process by which a memorandum of settlement was reached.” (Note the passive voice.) Presumably, Bob would have been just fine with…
Jessica Knapp’s astonishing comment deserves a bit more attention: As pointed out in the Providence Journal on Saturday, the talks between the governor’s people and union reps were not official negotiations. To claim that they were is a blatant lie. Instead of taking the proper, legal channels, King Don has issued another “executive order.” Utterly…
You know those small portrait pictures that newspapers include with stories after they’ve continued from the first page — so that the reader can gain the context quickly from the familiar faces? Well, seeing Obama’s and Britney’s pictures accompanying the same story in today’s Providence Journal, I wondered how many papers around the country have…
With my children not yet to the age at which I might have to consider battles with their teachers for their young mathematical souls, my opinion of the “new math” isn’t sufficiently strong to inspire rants. Still, such statements as the following raise fundamental questions: One problem, [Pat Cooney, math coordinator for six public schools…