Justin Katz
Anybody who’s truly interested in the immigration debate should skip Charles Bakst’s typically useless column in yesterday’s Providence Journal and turn instead to the Money & Business section, in which one can read John Kostrzewa’s inquiry into the difficulties that the E-Verify mandate imposes on businesses: To try to sort out some of the issues,…
What a jumble has politico-economic thought become in America! It’s as if so much access to information (and ability to propagate it) has served mainly to allow us all to slip into ruts of prepared thoughtlines. Consider this interesting comment from Evan, at RIFuture (emphasis added): What most “free market” bozos ignore is that most…
Not unlike other wealthy faux-populists who wish to manipulate poor and working class citizens for their own aggrandizement, Barack Obama apparently thinks that the change that will bring unity will entail an optimistic lunge past some of those wicked security blankets… you know, like religion: You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania,…
I’ve most likely been overstating the number of Tiverton teachers who stand to lose their jobs if the union remains implacable. Thirty-four notices of potential layoffs went out to meet a deadline; one position was eliminated in the school budget as passed; so I’ve been saying that intransigence might result in the actual layoffs of…
By way of a general observation, it occurred to me earlier this week that the extra opportunities and services for which so many Rhode Island parents pay the private school premium were offered as part of my New Jersey public school education back in the ’80s. In terms of current, local events, I don’t think…
Two bits of testimony from Tuesday’s opinion pages are worth reading if you missed them. The firstL comes via Ed Achorn: MIKE HAMEL grew up in Providence. He went to work at the age of 16 at Regal Plating on South Street, drying the jewelry produced at the plant. He has been working ever since.…
This passage from the latest Rhode Island Catholic column from the consistently insightful Fr. John A. Kiley is worth sharing: Somewhere towards the end of the last century, Fear of God yielded to fear of alienation. Not a few prelates, priests and parents have been profoundly afraid to speak up lest they lose their audiences.…
Latino Public Radio Chairman Pablo Rodriguez offers his own version of “un pueblo unido no mas sera vencido” (emphasis added): I want to believe the governor when he says he is not anti-immigrant. However, his concept of the immigrant community stands in stark contrast to the realities of families and relationships. Thousands of small businesses…
Credit is due to the editorial writers of the Rhode Island Catholic for the following: Unfortunately, many groups and individuals have failed to grasp the call for calm and constructive dialogue on this serious issue. Last week at the Rhode Island State House, while an immigrant group loudly protested Governor Carcieri’s actions, they also stormed…
Not only are disposable diapers not taxable, not only do diaper services generate individual income, not only are they taxed via that income and other methods, but apparently diaper services are less expensive in the first place: For Representative Handy, who apparently has trouble with numbers, that means on average that it costs a mother…