Patrick Laverty
My, how quickly Governor Chafee can change his opinion on things. First, on January 10th of this year, his office issued a press release that began: Governor Lincoln D. Chafee Announces New Transparency and Accountability Initiative, Signs Supporting Executive Order Providence, RI – In his continuing efforts to promote open and honest government in the…
Amazing. If you need any better illustration of the mindset of certain individuals (read: not all) in Rhode Island government, this article from W. Zachary Malinowski at the Providence Journal yesterday is about as clear as you can get. Moreau’s brother, Frank, said the coziness of small-city politics led the ex-mayor astray. “People that got…
I hope everyone was able to keep safe and as warm as they could through the storm. The cleanup has begun, and even probably ended in many towns. However in some places, we hear about the plows’ inability to keep up and even still some people complaining that their road hasn’t seen a plow yet.…
Since the topic of straight-party voting has come up, of course there are those who want the option to stay. They believe that if I don’t want to use it, I don’t have to, but why take it away from those who do want to use it? Hey, great question. Let’s answer that. Because many…
We’ve written about this multiple times before, banning the master lever, also known as straight ticket or straight party voting. It’s that option at the top of a ballot where you can simply connect one line and vote for every candidate on the ballot affiliated with that party, in partisan races. I believe this should…
First a disclaimer. I’ve been asking questions about this and trying to get information from various sources, but I think the questions coming from me, a known conservative, leads the receiver to believe I’m being sarcastic with my questions. I’m not. I’m being truly honest, as is what I’ll state below. The same-sex marriage bill…
It seems the RI Republicans in the State House might be finally stumbling on to an idea they can hang their hats on. Eliminating the state sales tax. Granted, it’s one that they may be simply saying “me too” on as the RI Center for Freedom and Prosperity suggested this back in June. However, that’s…
As if we needed any further evidence of how messed up our Congress is, we certainly got that yesterday with the news that Congressman David Cicilline is being appointed to the House Budget Committee. Wow. The very same David Cicilline who left Providence in “excellent financial condition” which I assume means only a $110M deficit.…
When I was in graduate school, I had my first experience with a “closed shop”. I had borrowed enough money to pay for my tuition but didn’t do the usual thing that students do, and borrow enough for things like rent and food. So I had to find a job, and one that was fairly…
First of all, if you do a job for an agreed-upon price, you should get paid for doing the job. However, I think the coaches at East Providence High School are handling this the wrong way. In Saturday’s Providence Journal was a story about the EP varsity sports coaches walking out on the kids due…