Justin Katz
Apparently, I’m not the only resident of Tiverton who knows that something wicked is this way coming: The Rhode Island budget deficit will bankrupt the state in just a few years. I wonder if most of the state’s citizens are aware of just what this means: • Governmental collapse. • Extreme cuts in essential services, such as…
As it happens, I agree with Jonah Goldberg’s response to conservatives who are concerned about the reemergence of the term “progressive” as a trick to maneuver opponents into the rhetorical position of “against progress”: Re: the need for conservatives to come up with their own label. No thanks. Sure, I’d like to have “liberal” back…
Well, look, clearly it was wrong of the city fire department — with its openly devout Christian fire chief — to order its men to participate in a faith-based parade during which they were subjected to aggressive and offensive suggestions as to their own religions… oh, wait a sec; that’s not how the story goes:…
I’m not sure why the Providence Journal is making such a big deal about public workers’ overtime. My understanding is that such employees’ benefits packages cost significantly more than 50% of their salaries, so it’s cheaper to have them work extra hours than to bring on somebody new to share the workload. If there’s a…
It is certainly worth reminding ourselves that parents, as a group, bear some of the blame — most of it — for children doing poorly in school. But inasmuch as parents don’t draw government salaries, receive paid days off, or claim retirement benefits for their efforts, the public rightly makes schools an area of particular…
Of course, I’d argue that moral laws would forbid abortion whatever the father’s opinion, but I’m sympathetic to the incremental gain that some Ohio lawmakers are seeking: Several Ohio state representatives who normally take an anti-abortion stance are now pushing pro-choice legislation – sort of. Led by Rep. John Adams, a group of state legislators…
A quick online search didn’t lead to the actual documents, but based on the Providence Journal story about the various legal briefs filed in the case of Rhode Island’s granting a same-sex divorce, it appears that just about everybody argued predictably, mainly based on broader perspectives than the narrow question facing the court. The one…
These two items aren’t directly related, but reading them in close proximity to each other, I discerned some dots that could be connected. First is RI Senate Majority Leader Teresa Paiva Weed’s defense of the General Assembly’s failure to reform our state’s fire code: Following enactment of the new code in 2003, the Senate has…
Tom Shevlin sees Big Brother in the arrival of E-Z Pass: … a recent ABC survey found that almost three-quarters of Americans support expanding our surveillance apparatus including eighty six percent of Republicans who support Rudy Giuliani and over seventy percent of registered Democrats. So what’s the big deal? Why care? Because America was founded…