Justin Katz
On various issues of public controversy recently (notably transgenderism), some conservatives have suggested that forcing the population to assent to outlandish propositions is the point. Whether changing how society thinks about a particular matter is the central goal or incidental, progressives want to train the public to accept reality as whatever the activists say it is.…
Steve Ahlquist has a strange explainer on Uprise RI about how Barrington got away with implementing a minimum wage policy for municipal workers: State law passed during the regime of House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello prevents municipalities from raising the minimum wage within their borders. But the state cannot prevent individual cities and towns from establishing their…
Criticisms of Allan Fung among Rhode Island Republicans have always struck me as either too demanding for purity or else founded in personal animosity (albeit perhaps with some justification… I don’t know). He was a solid Republican mayor and, from what I could see, a reasonably loyal member of the party. Given the GOP’s position…
In fact, in my admittedly short experience with whiskeys, it may be my favorite of any style. (Subject to revision, of course!)
John and Justin cover the controversial topics in Rhode Island politics today.
Ryan Rappa thinks the Fed is going to have to make debt relief part of any plan to control inflation. Actually, I should specify that whoever wrote his commentary’s headline thinks that, because Rappa’s essay mainly just ruminates about the problem. The closest he comes is this: This risk is multiplied by other forms of…
Following up on a question I sent to the state Department of Health, spokesman Joseph Wendelken tells me that instances of people being hospitalized while testing positive for COVID, but for whom COVID is entirely unrelated to the reason they’re in the hospital, account for only about 6% of the number. The question gained increased…
Thinking about Governor McKee’s (let’s just say) uninspiring leadership on COVID in preparation for my weekly conversation with John DePetro, I wondered why we can’t just follow the obvious path of sanity. Never in my life have I heard so many people talking about believing science and engaging with concepts of risk and mitigation, but…
As the editor of the Rhode Report puts it while linking to this story, “This is what is important to the morons of the Democrat Party”: As of January 1, restaurants across Rhode Island are no longer allowed to give out single-use plastic straws unless a customer asks for one. Violators will get warnings for…
Most people with whom one speaks on an unseasonably warm winter’s day in New England will not express despair. There’s a reason defenders of the status quo bring up weather as an alternative reason to taxes and regulations for why people leave the region. Of course, every development can have its dark lining if that’s…