On WNRI 1380 AM/95.1 FM, John DePetro and Justin Katz discuss:
- Alviti spins the public
- Tidewater costs coming in
- Providence City Council’s odd clerk hire
- Non-accountability at 360 High
- ABC6 unionization push toward the end
- Silence on illegal immigration
- Crowley in the club
- Ken Block alone
Featured image by Justin Katz using Dall-E 3 and Photoshop AI.
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When I see statements like the following (from a former Bernie Sanders surrogate, in this case), my reaction is usually, “Fair enough, but then what”?
So what’s the alternative? If we move toward the single-payer, government-managed system Dr. Dooley likely supports, then it’ll be politicians and bureaucrats rather than doctors. And even in the case of doctors, if other people are going to be made to pay for people’s healthcare, how do we ensure that doctors are not driven by ideology or some other non-medical incentive? They’re human, too.
“Just make it so” just does not work.
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A truism about government used to be heard periodically: A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have. That saying’s a bit dark, though, and makes its point in an extreme way that younger Americans who’ve been raised with an implicit trust of big government might reject out of hand.
Here’s a milder version that everybody should at least consider: If the government provides you services and pays for all your needs but makes your life more difficult and takes more of your wealth, the only thing that changes is your dependency on government.
Of course, the unspoken bargain in the minds of many who support larger government is that they will get more of what they need at the expense of other people who don’t need what they have. For now, however, simply encouraging thought about tradeoffs would be a helpful step.
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Among my frustrations with social media in recent years has been the way my streams become filled with content in which I have minimal interest — like Democrat propaganda — because people share it in disbelief. The frustration is primarily with the realization that people apparently believe in completely incompatible realities, which is what motivates the counter-sharing: How could anybody believe this stuff?
Consider the constant and asserted-with-conspicuous-confidence statements about the strength of the economy. No matter their origin, statements about “historic employment,” with an assertion that a particular politician or party is wholly to credit, ought to be received like claims of The Best Deals Ever!™ Maybe there’s a kernel of truth to such statements, but there is always nuance, and usually a trick. In the case of government — which employs the economists providing the data — additional scrutiny is necessary.
So, when one comes across commentary offering the necessary corrections and caveats, like Peter St. Onge on recent job statistics, his rhetorical question comes immediately to mind: “How do they get away with it?”
Another “Blockbuster” Jobs report.
Courtesy of the most creative statisticians government money can buy.
Half the jobs are fake. The other half are government jobs. And there’s been zero new jobs for native-born Americans since… 2018
We’re in an election year, with man experiencing obvious mental decline (from a pretty low baseline) in the White House, and the regime media is insisting that his opponent would be a dictator of historic proportions. I’m therefore inclined to believe standards go out the window for government data sources. But still… do they really expect reasonable people to believe them?
Immigration has been another example. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is claiming illegal immigration is going to boost the economy, and partisans have been proclaiming the benefits of Biden’s open borders. It’s not reasonable, though, to take projections a decade in the future as evidence that something has had a positive effect. At best, the attitude should be of hope for silver linings.
Even so, though, this Democrat talking point contrasts sharply with the simultaneous deployment of a ploy to make it seem as if Biden is urgently attempting to get control of the border but is being thwarted by Congressional Republicans who won’t give him more authority and money. This political maneuver is so breathtakingly cynical one finds it difficult to believe even those who take it up can believe what they’re saying, their apparent sincerity notwithstanding.
At least, when talking points become that transparent, they provide opportunity to spot the underlying strategy. Here’s the reality: all these hard-to-believe claims are not meant to be believed, certainly not by anybody who is persuadable. They are meant to provide cover for people who desperately want to vote for Democrats, no matter what, but whose common sense (and consciences) might be finding conformance an increasingly difficult lift.
The Party has to keep enough of them onboard to get within the margin of fraud during the election, so it will throw whatever excuses might work at them.
Featured image by Justin Katz using Dall-E 3 and Photoshop AI.
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As business-as-usual as it may be, we shouldn’t become numb to Rhode Island’s base-level corruption, as Democrat House Speaker Joseph Shekarchi demonstrates here:
Charitable contributions are wonderful, but this photograph raises some questions. Is that his official State House office? Is that a personal check, a gift from his campaign, or a taxpayer-funded legislative grant? What’s with the attached business card? Was this a donation or a transaction?
It’s difficult to speak out as if against donations to children’s sports leagues, but that’s an indication of the evolved cleverness of the corruption, not the importance of doing so. A state in which his sort of thing was considered inappropriate would be far less corrupt across the board.
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The quotation John pulls from the article is worth highlighting:
The disregard of the law is only an incremental worsening of the problem. Teachers’ going on strike (especially for crass considerations like even higher pay and benefits) has always seemed shocking to me and one of the reasons their unionization seems wholly inappropriate. If they don’t care about the harm that their unions do to children, why should they care about the law?
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On WNRI 1380 AM/95.1 FM, John DePetro and Justin Katz discuss:
- Neronha sees (but won’t fix) healthcare crisis
- Extras for a movie in RI
- Bureaucrats move up at the BOE
- Amore defends ballot harvesting
- Student walk-out
- A constituency for expensive Tidewater debt
- Union-organizing Marxist as the face of gun control
Featured image by Justin Katz using Dall-E 3.
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I used to spend time pointing out the problem with this sort of bean-counting racism (and sexism), but it hardly seems interesting anymore. The findings aren’t meant to indicate anything real; they’re simply intended to promote a simple-minded ideology. We can see this in the fact that the conclusions only ever point in one direction. If there are more white people than their portion of the population, that’s bad. On the other hand, if there are more women or minorities than the population would suggest, that’s good.
It’s heads we win, tails you lose.
In an intelligent, non-superstitious, egalitarian world bureaucrats would be embarrassed to publish such reports, and journalists would be embarrassed to promote them. Unfortunately, we don’t live in that world, and I suppose as people like me tire of pointing out the obvious, younger generations will simply accept the propaganda as facts… until they realize they’ve been swindled.
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Yeah, officials will complain about the danger of uninspected residences, but as somebody who grew up in an era when fiction was filled with secret communities in society’s hidden corners, I have to admit these homeless caves are cool:*
I wonder if there’s anything comparable around here.
* I should specify that the coolness of the residents’ solution is distinct from the apparent necessity for it, which is a problem we should resolve.
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Yes, yes, words get thrown around in state-level politics, but there’s an important lesson in East Providence City Council President Bob Rodericks’s letter asking Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee to declare a state of emergency over the closure of the Washington Bridge between East Providence and Providence:
… East Providence is impacted more than any other community in Rhode Island. Our police and fire departments are stretched to their limits. The necessary repairs or possible bridge replacement will evidently take much more time than originally anticipated. Currently, I am not looking to assess blame, but I believe that the crisis has reached an emergency situation which calls for federal assistance. RIDOT is involved with several projects throughout the state and may be stretching resources beyond reasonable limits.
Accordingly, I respectfully request that you consider enacting a “State of Emergency” declaration. Possibly the US Army Corps of Engineers can expedite the bridge repairs alongside our RIDOT. The Rhode Island National Guard could also help with traffic control to assist with local East Providence Police efforts during peak hours of gridlock. …
Given the profound effect of these circumstances, it’s easy to lose sight of the obvious, and Rodericks hints in its direction. Declaring a state of emergency would be reasonable. Bringing military forces to bear might be extreme, but it’s not laughable. The key observation, however, is that this response isn’t to a natural disaster or enemy invasion. The state of Rhode Island is utterly failing at its most basic functions.
As much as Rodericks distrusts Rhode Island’s ability to resolve this problem on its own, his requests are typical of the Ocean State. He wants to call in the federal government for more resources to keep doing what Rhode Island does. That’s not going to work anymore.
In this Rodericks is nothing if not representative. The rot extends much beyond our government. For all the media coverage of the hours it took the DOT to inform the governor of a dire situation with the bridge, nobody is investigating the underlying problems. Why does Rhode Island not have more-regular bridge inspections? Why does it cost so much and take so long to repair its infrastructure?
Well, the government of our state serves special interests entirely, and the biggest special interest in Rhode Island is its collection of labor unions. Anybody truly serious about fixing things around here — or even just overcoming this one major obstacle — would be calling on the governor and legislature to waive regulations that have nothing to do with safety or a well-run government and everything to do with enabling DOT inspectors to sit in their cars for hours and road crews that can regularly be seen with more workers standing around watching than actually working.
But such problems are untouchable in Rhode Island. Every solution comes with a quiet footnote that the real problems cannot be considered.
Featured image by Justin Katz using Dall-E 3 and Photoshop AI.
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