As John DePetro says, paying outgoing Department of Health Director Nicole Alexander-Scott $46,000 per month for three months as a “consultant” by way of ushering her out the door “is absolutely outrageous.”
On a first pass, it makes one wonder what was really going on behind the scenes. How did she have the negotiation leverage to get that much taxpayer cash? Maybe she knows some dirt, or maybe merely threatening to badmouth Governor Dan McKee was enough. Or maybe he’s just not a strong leader, so he assuaged his guilt with the handout.
On a second pass, one realizes that this is emblematic of a weakness of government as a service provider. Without competitive constraints, it’s just so easy to use more money to make difficulties go away. This is a central reason we pay so much for government. Something went wrong? Throw money at it. Facing a difficulty replacing an executive who isn’t performing as desired? Throw money at her.
After all, there are so many people who think that they’re getting money thrown at them that they’ll keep the scheme going.
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Here’s state senator and progressive candidate for lieutenant governor Cynthia Mendes:
It’s Monday in #RI. Our hospitals are packed. Our teachers are afraid to go to work today because of raging COVID cases in our schools. Our students are terrified of putting their families in danger by going to school. Teaching & learning shouldn’t be this risky or traumatic!
Are people really living like this? Honestly, I haven’t seen it. As fearmongers like Mendes insinuate themselves into government offices, we really do undermine the health and prospects of our state and nation.
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U.S. Senator from Rhode Island Sheldon Whitehouse gets a call out in Lora Ries and GianCarlo Canaparo’s Heritage essay about a turn of the Biden administration and Congressional Democrats toward suppressing their domestic opposition:
Sens. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, and Richard Durbin of Illinois described parents’ participation in school board meetings as violent, suggested that parents are domestic terrorists, and asked Olsen why his National Security Division isn’t investigating.
Those who’ve had an eye on such developments for a while might feel the tug of familiarity. The same thing happened just before the Obama IRS began illegally targeting conservative groups in order to disrupt their political activism. Whitehouse played a similar role then, too, making dark insinuations about his Tea Party opposition as cover for a government agency to abuse its power and become a fascist agent of political suppression.
This time, however, it’s not merely IRS agents slow-rolling the paperwork of activists opposed to their political party; it’s the Justice Department creating yet another unit tasked with investigating, probably framing, and prosecuting those who might be politically problematic:
During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last week titled “The Domestic Terrorism Threat One Year After Jan. 6,” Assistant Attorney General Matt Olsen, who oversees the Justice Department’s National Security Division, announced that he created the domestic terrorism unit in response to the elevated threat of violent domestic extremism.
Olsen said he is focused on the threat of Americans “motivated by racial or ethnic animus” and those who “hold anti-government or anti-authority views,” as if challenging the government or those in positions of authority was somehow a dangerous thing in and of itself. In contrast, the assistant attorney general barely gave lip service to foreign terrorist groups such as ISIS and al-Qaeda.
As Ries and Canaparo suggest, everybody knows that this is a partisan exercise. The Biden administration won’t be investigating the anti-government rhetoric and violent attacks from Black Lives Matter and Antifa. At its most innocent (which isn’t very innocent), the objective is to find (and set up) right-wing kooks for public displays that taint all conservatives and further the ludicrous, inverted talking point that voting for Democrats is a firewall against fascism.
More broadly, acting on this mandate, an increased Stasi force will use the power of government to collect intelligence on and otherwise disrupt grassroots groups and mainstream conservative organizations that become too successful for the rulers’ tastes.
This sort of thing once would have set off alarm signals for Americans across the political spectrum, but with progressives in control, half the country has decided that winning is more important than rights or integrity.
Featured image by Devin Kaselnak on Unsplash.
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On WNRI 1380 AM/95.1 FM, John DePetro and Justin Katz discuss:
- Democrats and Republicans bust out some moves for CD2
- McKee delivers an ad-copy State of the State
- Filippi responds with hints of a possible GOP future in RI
Featured image by Ardian Lumi on Unsplash.
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Anybody else getting the feeling that there’s some deliberate initiative going on under the skin of public education that we only see here and there when it bursts out into a blemish? Here’s one such pimple, from Timothy Duffy, who is the head of the state association for school committees:
Most teachers are white. Most students aren't. https://t.co/1djropayMv
— Timothy Duffy (@Dubhthaigh) January 23, 2022
Duffy’s association exists to advocate for the unique interests of Rhode Island’s school committees. Whether or not you agree with me that such organizations are harmful to the civic health of our state, perhaps you’ll join me in wondering how harping on the race comparisons of teachers and students serves Duffy’s clients.
I bet there are some very interesting communications floating around that would only be included in an Access to Public Records Act request by accident.
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Because Democrat Governor Dan McKee has been so broadly disappointing from a moderate-to-conservative perspective, this is encouraging news:
For the first time in the state’s history, a Rhode Island governor has officially recognized the last week of January as “Rhode Island School Choice Week.” Gov. Daniel McKee recently signed a proclamation recognizing School Choice Week (Jan. 23-Jan. 29) and how every Rhode Island child deserves an effective education.
The link goes to a PRNewswire story, which means it’s a generic story that a public relations team has written for any news organization that subscribes to the wire. What’s strange is that I’ve only come across the story, or its “historic” content, at organizations in Idaho (KPVI, linked above) and Texas (in the Kilgore News Herald).
Maybe our local news organizations in Rhode Island just haven’t gotten around to posting the story yet because they intend to do some original reporting to make a feature out of it. Or maybe, on behalf of the state’s most-powerful special interests, they don’t want to make school choice seem like a normal thing that people across party lines and ideological divides support and that might offer disadvantaged communities a way out of the systemic racism of progressive governance.
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Here’s a line worth teasing out from Ted Nesi’s latest roundup column:
NEARI union leader Bob Walsh said he is considering a run, adding, “I am also weighing what is best for the Democratic Party to keep this seat in Democratic hands.”
Yes, the answer is obvious, but it’s worth pausing to ask: Why is the head of a teacher union in the news expressing overriding concern for the interests of a particular political party? To ask is to answer. Perhaps that’s why the local media never asks.
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It doesn’t make much sense to me. We’ve got a small state that isn’t terrible for traffic, despite being densely populated. You’d think local authorities could keep the roads in order.
But there it is: According to WalletHub, the Ocean State is the second-worst state for drivers in the country, after Hawaii.
- Cost of Ownership & Maintenance: 4th worst
- Traffic & Infrastructure: 4th worst
- Access to Vehicles & Maintenance: 5th worst
If it weren’t for the 7th best safety, we’d certainly be dead last.
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Looking for something to do at The Vets in Providence one of these weeks?
Tickets are widely available for the Rhode Island Philharmonic’s performance of Scheherezade on Saturday, February 12. Angelique Kidjo the next evening? Pick your section. The next weekend, the multiple shows of Trolls Live! have plenty of seats available. If you’re in the mood for some comedy, Tim Dillon can fit you in any section except right in front of the stage on Thursday, February 24.
But if you’re interested in hearing a lecture by Canadian psychology professor Jordan B. Peterson on February 17, find yourself a scalper, unless you can morally claim the very last wheelchair space (with companion).
Even stranger than the fact that a conservative academic like Peterson would have the hottest tickets in Democrat-dominated Rhode Island is the fact that nobody seems to be noticing. It’s been a big story in the Ocean State, recently, that the increasingly radical University of Rhode Island revoked largely ceremonial honorary degrees previously bestowed on Rudy Giuliani and Michael Flynn, but here’s a professor who just published an essay renouncing his prestigious fully tenured professorship at the University of Toronto who is selling out speaking engagements in midsized performance venues even in New England, and somehow that’s not a story.
But what a story it is! If you’re not aware of the Peterson phenomenon, you can’t possibly understand even half of what is going on in our society right now.
In a nutshell (and with a little bit of my own, ahem, interpretation), progressive education and media have left several generations so insecure and deprived of meaning that a psychology professor who put his foot down against compelled radical speech and then began publishing books describing “rules for life” became one of the most famous people on the planet.
Rhode Island journalists will inform the public when some third-tier Democrat spins through the state to collect donations from wealthy partisans. One might think — if one weren’t paying attention — they’d be scrambling for tickets and backstage access to catch a hint about why one of our state’s major venues is sold out this particular Thursday night in February.
Featured image of the Veterans Memorial Auditorium.
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Current Legislation, Concerns & Issues (1/10/22) from John Carlevale on Vimeo.
Host Richard August reviews with Representative Susan Donovan recent legislation and current concerns and issues of the past legislative session. This includes pay equity, a privacy bill relating to health care, child opportunity centers, gender conversion therapy for minors, affordable housing, the safe school act, non-gender specific rest rooms, the nursing home equity staffing act, an African American history curriculum and more.
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