Marc Comtois
As reported in today’s Providence Journal, thousands of Providence parents “gamble” on charter schools*: That parents are looking for an alternative to traditional public schools is borne out by the numbers: this year, charter schools received 3,454 applicants for 559 openings. The Learning Community Charter School, in Central Falls, had 500 applications for 50 spaces…
Ian Donnis has been admirably ferreting out hints for a while and now the ProJo has a story about it, so I suppose we should mention the likely entrance of former Senator Chafee into the Governor’s race. There.
No deep thoughts to plumb (life can get like that, no?)….but I can offer this from National Review Online: For the Love of the Game: Thirty Major League Baseball fans lay out the reasons for their devotion: WHY I LOVE THE BOSTON RED SOX Walking through a Fenway Park turnstile is the sweetest feeling on…
Steven Stycos at the Phoenix has a good piece explaining the various lobbying influences being exerted at the State House. The focus is on corporations: Last year, the insurance industry was the biggest spender on lobbyists, dedicating more than three-quarters of a million dollars to getting its way, according to a Phoenix review of lobbying…
Mickey Kaus has been on top of “card check” from the get go. His latest takes on some of the media spin regarding the issue: The labor side’s ability to get reporters to use their version of card-check’s controversial secret ballot provisions continues to amaze. Here’s WaPo‘s Alec MacGillis: The bill, first introduced in 2003,…
Rhode Island and Providence Plantations was established by Royal Charter in 1663: Because titles to these lands rested only on Indian deeds, neighboring colonies began to covet them. To meet this threat, Roger Williams journeyed to England and secured a parliamentary patent in March 1643-44 uniting the four towns into a single colony and confirming…
As the older brother of two sisters, the husband of a fine lady who is one of four daughters and the father of two girls…my ears perked up when I heard this. President Barack Obama invoked the travails of women in his family as he signed an executive order on Wednesday establishing a new interagency…
Amidst all of the bad news, there are some encouraging things happening in our state. As reported in the ProJo, Cumberland Mayor Dan McKee recently announced that he is going ahead with his Mayoral Academy. McKee said if his proposal wins approval by the Rhode Island Department of Education and secures $700,000 in state financing,…
We are constantly told by some advocates that there is no “proof” that higher corporate taxes have an impact on where a business chooses to set up shop. Right. The tidy towns and mountain vistas of Switzerland are an unlikely setting for an oil boom. Yet a wave of energy companies has in the last…
Governor Carcieri was on WPRO’s John DePetro show to defend his budget (primarily against the ProJo coverage of it). The ProJo reported that there was a 10% increase in this budget over last, but the Governor explained that the increase is all federal money and most of it is attributable to an increase in unemployment…