When I worked with the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity, we would periodically get tips from people about problems or corruption in our state, but the tipsters would very rarely volunteer to step forward. They feared, with good reason, audits, safety reviews, property inspections, and other forms of government harassment. Silence and toleration has long been a constant and low-level concession that we make to get by in the Ocean State.
When we require government approval for a huge percentage of our life and work activities, its officials have many screws they can tighten to force us to comply with their wishes, to accept their corruption, and to make an example of us. The smell of this state of affairs is very strong in the case of Cranston dental doctor Stephen Skoly.
With a test proving that he had natural immunity to COVID-19 and a policy of taking extra precautions during the pandemic, Dr. Skoly declined to be injected with one of the new vaccines. So, the state shut down his practice, depriving his patients of care and his employees of their jobs.
Now, the state Department of Health (DOH) appears to be working with the state Department of Labor and Training (DLT) to deprive Dr. Skoly, himself, of unemployment benefits, despite his having long paid into the system:
The RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity has obtained copies of notices from DLT to Dr. Skoly, citing “Voluntary Quit” and “potentially fraudulent activity” as reasons why his claims for unemployment benefits were “disqualified” … even though another government agency was directly responsible for Skoly’s unemployment status.
It was initially communicated by a DLT official that Skoly’s original benefit denial was in error … and would soon be remedied. However, it appears RI DOH has since over-ruled the DLT, as part of its effort to destroy Dr. Skoly for daring to exercise his first-amendment rights.
In some ways, this unreasonable, even fanatical, treatment has defined much of the government’s response to COVID-19. A fearful constituency very much wants to know that government has the power to force people to comply. Another powerful incentive can be found in officials’ need to reinforce their prior decisions with all subsequent ones so they can’t be challenged and create an aura of blame.
If we could expect that the lesson being made of Dr. Skoly will mean that the impositions go no further than the vaccination he refused, that would be bad enough, but nobody should trust that to be the outcome. More likely, the logic of power will dictate that individuals will have to make greater and greater concessions until we’re all wishing we’d stopped the process at an earlier milestone, like the persecution of a Cranston dentist.
Featured image of Dr. Skoly’s office building from Bing Maps.
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We can probably expect outcomes like that described by Hank Berrien in the Daily Wire to become more and more common:
In November, a University of Pennsylvania swimmer who swam for the men’s team for the previous three years swam for the women’s team, dominating the competition.
Lia Thomas formerly used the name Will Thomas. Swim Swam reported on November 20 that Thomas “blasted the number one 200 free time and the second-fastest 500 free time in the nation on Saturday, breaking Penn program records in both events.” Thomas “swept the 100-200-500 free individual events and contributed to the first-place 400 free relay in a tri-meet against Princeton and Cornell,” the outlet reported.
Pushing the envelope of fantasy over reality, Thomas (pictured here) gushes that “being trans has not affected my ability to do this sport.” Yeah, no kidding.
This reminds me of the time, in 2003, a pair of young, intelligent, fit, wealthy, white, and well-traveled men won the reality show Amazing Race around the world and tried to make it into a story about how anybody can overcome challenges because they were gay. How much obviousness are we going to be expected to pretend is not obvious?
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That’s the finding of a study by criminologists at several universities:
“Although the total reduction in homicide is roughly equal across Black and white victims, the decline in homicide is twice as large for Black victims in per capita terms,” the team said. Researchers on the project include Professor Benjamin Hansen of the University of Oregon, Emily Weisburst of UCLA and Aaron Chalfin at the University of Pennsylvania.
On average, across the 242 cities studied, one black resident’s life is saved for every 10 to 17 newly hired police officers.
This means, one, defunding the police is a reckless and counterproductive for activists concerned about minorities. It also means, two, that the total number of police killings of black Americans, whether excusable or inexcusable, is dramatically overbalanced on the positive side of the ledger.
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Writing for Uplift Legal Funding, Leesa Davis took data produced by the Biden administration as part of its infrastructure presentation and compared it with total miles of roadway in each state, creating a rank by the percentage of roads in “acceptable condition. Take a bow, government of Rhode Island: once again, you’re number 1 for being worst!
In fact, Rhode Island is the only state in the United States for which more roads are unacceptable than acceptable, with 49.7% acceptable. Next lowest is New Jersey, at 53% acceptable, and on the other end of the scale is Idaho, with 96.4% of roads in acceptable condition. As shown in the following chart, the curve is pretty sharp. By the time the list gets to the fifteenth-worst roads, in Missouri, over 75% of the roads are in acceptable condition.
What’s more, this creates a hidden tax. According to Davis, people driving in Rhode Island are seeing their commute times increasing, and they pay $845 per year on average to make up for poor infrastructure with additional damage and wear to their vehicles.
Rhode Island is a small state whose infrastructure should be relatively easy to manage and access. Materials can be centrally stored; crews can be easily deployed.
Moreover, the Ocean State’s taxes are already high, so government’s defenders can’t possibly argue that residents are refusing to fund the state at a level that would allow the maintenance of roads.
So where is all the money going? Why do we tolerate the rip-off?
Featured image by Justin Katz.
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On WNRI 1380 AM/95.1 FM, John DePetro and Justin Katz discuss:
- Homecomings and principals in Warwick
- Untimely street closures in Providence
- Raimondo’s trailing PR machine in the Cabinet
- GOP legislators call for election audits
Featured image by Austin Distel on Unsplash.
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ecoRI news celebrates activist Brian Wilder for spending his time harassing Chase Bank. Apparently, by treating energy companies as, you know, real businesses, the bank is “funding mass extinction and the climate crisis.” Who knew?
The fossil fuel industry may not give climate advocates a second thought, but it is harder for banks to shake off bad publicity. That is why Wilder, a Cranston resident, and fellow activists, such as Elizabeth O’Connell of Warren and Diane Hill of North Kingstown, often appear outside pro-petroleum banks or visit their branch lobbies — to let these institutions know their investment choices are helping to endanger the environment and public health.
The wasted human energy, here, is staggering, but it pales in comparison with the harm that would be done if these protests were more successful, from the civic principle that seeks to deprive people of the ability to conduct business to the terrible cost for American families of skyrocketing energy bills.
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According to a chart published as part of WPRI’s report on the increase in victims of shootings in Providence, the city has regressed nearly to its 2015 level after steadily falling until 2020. The number hit a low of 35 in 2019 and then more than doubled in 2020 and has increased from that point in 2021.
In looking to explain the numbers, an analyst might ask what changed in 2020 for such a stark rebound in shootings, and what has happened in 2021 that might expand on that? Here are the results for some keyword searches in section of the article that explores the data and the reasons for the increase:
- COVID: zero
- Pandemic: two, with one reference to the decline prior to the pandemic and one reference to gun sales during the pandemic
- Lockdown: zero
- Unemployment: zero
- Jobs: zero
- School: zero
So, we see a massive increase in shootings during a year when the government forcibly locked down the economy and closed the doors of schools, and that fact features not at all in the news story. In fact, the only explanation for this mysterious turn of events comes from the city’s police chief, Hugh Clements: the number of guns. That’s it.
Maybe I missed something, so let’s try some more keywords:
- Black Lives Matter or BLM: zero
- Defund (as in “defund the police”): zero
- Riot: zero
- Protest: zero
- Bail: zero
- Prison (as in “released early from prison,” see here and here): zero
So, a year of anti-authority riots and early release from prison in a COVID-related panic also doesn’t merit consideration as a contributing factor in the spike of shootings.
How about another set of keywords along a slightly different line:
- Gang: one, but only to describe the circumstances of the single most-violent day
- Drug: zero
- Immigration: zero
A conspicuous increase in gang-related activity in Rhode Island amounts only to context in the article, and the Community Safety Act that Providence passed for woke reasons in 2017, making it more difficult for police to keep track of gangs gets no mention at all. And a wave of illegal immigration, which certainly includes gang members and which may be connected with mysterious midnight flights of young adults into Rhode Island could not be further removed from the article.
We could keep going. Terms like “family” and “father” appear only incidentally, not as factors that might help explain increases in violence.
In short, this sort of reporting is worse than simply publishing a chart of the data because it distracts attention toward the government’s preferred explanation, probably to protect favored politicians and a favored ideology. Indeed, the name of the city’s mayor, Democrat Jorge Elorza, is kept well away from the description of the problem, only appearing so as to blame guns and take credit for spending the federal windfall.
Featured image by Brock Wegner on Unsplash.
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This is just a little too neat and tidy a resolution to the story of government incompetence in Providence mentioned in this space yesterday:
The construction company responsible for the closure of a Providence street lined with small businesses during one of the busiest shopping days of the year has been fined for working without a permit.
It’d be interesting to trace the history. I could see the city generally letting permits slip, except where it becomes a political liability.
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John DePetro caught a curious tweet from Rhode Island’s radical Congressman, Democrat David Cicilline:
These smash and grab retail crimes are outrageous! Retailers & small biz have suffered enough from pandemic. Shoppers shouldn’t be terrorized by these criminals. Thx. to police for all they’re doing!
John notes the contrast with Cicilline’s usual rhetoric and speculates:
Perhaps this could be a sign just how nervous democrats are about 2022 and how the Progressive tone of the party is causing panic. There is rumor a Progressive female candidate may challenge Cicilline in a Democrat primary.
I’m not sure Cicilline would react to a progressive primary challenger by moving to the political right, but his party has gone so far left that any moderation at all feels almost like a party switch.
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Difficult as it may be to believe, the general treasurer of Rhode Island, Democrat Seth Magaziner, proposes to address the inflation wrought by the policies of Democrat White House occupant, Joe Biden, by — get this — flooding the market with easy cash and imposing price controls.
Each of Magaziner’s suggestions can be debated on its own merits for goals having nothing to do with inflation, but packaging them together specifically so as to address rising prices suggests a person without even passing familiarity with economics and the workings of money. One way or another, inflation means too much money chasing too few services and products. Adding more money to that equation will only make inflation worse.
Buying gift cards for all families with income up to $125,000 per year (!!) would mean fewer people feel the need to conserve or adjust their appetites to reflect the real availability of food. Prices will go up, and the most disadvantaged people will have an even harder time meeting their needs.
The same is true of Magaziner’s targeted-pandering suggestion of suspending the sales tax during this holiday gift-giving month. At this point in our tax regime, decreasing the government’s take is always a good in itself, but reducing prices by eliminating a portion that has nothing to do with production won’t help with inflation. Retailers will tend to increase prices to match what consumers had proven they were willing to pay. This may send some signal to producers to increase their output, but are toys really an area of specific concern, here?
Magaziner’s third proposal — imposing price controls on medicine — may not directly inflate the currency, as the two other parts of his plan would, but it would likely distort the market and perhaps reduce the supply. Prices are information, and the government risks massive harm if politicians assume the signal is always that some greedy executive wants more money.
Drug price increases could indicate that the manufacturers need to send the signal to their own suppliers or the labor market that they need more resources. They could indicate that innovators are coming up with new medicines that are expensive to research. Or they could indicate that many more people want the drugs than manufacturers can satisfy, so high prices force people to make more-careful decisions when balancing medicine against other things on which they might spend their money; the people in most desperate need will tend to choose the drugs, an option they might not have if people who didn’t need them as badly bought them up because they were cheap.
Whatever the specifics of current events may be, a civilization cannot address inflation by alleviating its symptoms. Attempting to do so can destroy the civilization as government pours more and more medicine down their people’s throats, making the sickness worse.
Of course, it may be that General Treasurer Seth Magaziner understands the likely effects of his policies very well but simply doesn’t care. He sees an opportunity to pander, so he’ll take it and (presumably) hope that reality intervenes with some stroke of luck to avoid the foreseeable consequences, or at least to provide some scapegoat to bear the blame.
Featured image of a Great Depression bread line from flickr.
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