Marc Comtois
Dean Barnett of the Weekly Standard took in a recent Obama speech and noted that the lack of a teleprompter changed the effectiveness and substance of Obama’s typically soaring rhetoric: The results weren’t just interesting because they revealed Obama as a markedly inferior speaker without the Teleprompter. Obama’s supporters have had ample notice that the…
Income statistics, however, don’t tell the whole story of Americans’ living standards. Looking at a far more direct measure of American families’ economic status — household consumption — indicates that the gap between rich and poor is far less than most assume, and that the abstract, income-based way in which we measure the so-called poverty…
Blogging about Darrel West’s latest poll yesterday, I mentioned that the Clinton/Obama race would probably get the major play. This morning, I see that both the ProJo and Ian at the Phoenix have taken that line and extended it to reporting on the approval ratings of various public officials as well as the right track/wrong…
Darrell West is out with his latest poll. The headline grabber is apparently that Hillary is slightly ahead of Obama with the March primary coming up. Yeah, ok. However, the most interesting and important question is the last (emphasis added for those proposals that met with majority support): The state faces a substantial deficit in…
If your looking for a good quality beer sometime over the weekend, Ian may have some pointers for you as he discusses Rhode Island’s contributions to the burgeoning craft beer movement. He also places craft beer making (and imbibing) into a wider social and cultural context: … the craft beer movement represents meritocracy at work,…
Mitt Romney has “suspended” his campaign (ie; he’s done, via Byron York): I disagree with Senator McCain on a number of issues, as you know. But I agree with him on doing whatever it takes to be successful in Iraq, on finding and executing Osama bin Laden, and on eliminating Al Qaeda and terror. If…
Tough laws in Arizona and Oklahoma are driving illegal immigrants to Texas (h/t): Illegal immigrants are flowing into Texas across its long borders. But they aren’t just swimming across the Rio Grande from Mexico or making dangerous treks through the rugged desert. Instead, a new rush of illegal immigrants are driving down Interstate 35 from…
Both Justin and I mentioned NEA President Bob Walsh’s rather intemperate anti-business comments last week: “We are never going to compete with folks, with employers who are so ridiculous they do not provide retirement security plans for their employees….If they don’t, they are terrible people and they shouldn’t be allowed to exist and that’s always…
The Governor is presenting his 2009 budget right now. Here is the prepared text, the actual components of the budget can be found here. This FY 2009 budget contains general revenue expenditures below our Fiscal Year 2008 spending, both enacted and revised. The reductions in this budget are necessary because our FY 2009 resources will…
I gotta say, even I was surprised to learn that somehow RIPTA depended on Medicaid money to keep running. A federal clampdown on the state’s Medicaid program will cost as many as 18,000 needy Rhode Islanders their free bus passes and will force the state to make up for millions of dollars in lost transit…