Having expressed deep skepticism, to the point of opposition, concerning the possibility that Allan Fung might run for governor again, I thought I should note that his running for the Congressional seat that Democrat Jim Langevin is opening up would be a very different matter:
Former Cranston Mayor Allan Fung, a two-time Republican nominee for Rhode Island governor, said Wednesday he is considering a run to succeed retiring Democratic Congressman Jim Langevin.
Langevin’s bombshell announcement Tuesday has quickly turned Rhode Island politics upside down, with phone lines lighting up about potential candidates who might seek to fill the seat.
In Congress, the radicalism of his wife, Barbara Ann Fenton-Fung, in the state General Assembly would be only of tangential relevance, and in any event, he’d be working among strong Republicans.
Local Democrat partisans and progressives will try to undermine his campaign by claiming that a vote for Fung would be a vote to return the House of Representatives to the national GOP (which they constantly proclaim to be scary). The thing is: that’s the most-likely outcome whoever Rhode Island sends to D.C. From the perspective of Rhode Island’s interests — as distinct from the Democrats’ interests (and they are distinct) — having a single Congressman or Senator in the majority party could only be helpful.
Even from a progressive standpoint, having another Republican in the Capitol with a home-state incentive at least to listen to Democrats would be a plus when the GOP is in the majority.
Unfortunately, the Rhode Island electorate seems to have stopped being strategic or reasonable about fifteen years ago, so the fact that having a full set of Democrats in our delegation only really benefits the party may not matter to voters (or to the people filling out their mail-in ballots).
Featured image by David Clode on Unsplash.
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This is a couple months old, but with continued pressure for booster shots, it continues to be on my mind:
… the recommendations — even those approved unanimously — mask significant dissent and disquiet among those advisers about the need for booster shots in the United States.
In interviews last week, several advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and to the Food and Drug Administration said data show that, with the exception of adults over age 65, the vast majority of Americans are already well protected against severe illness and do not need booster shots.
All the advisers acknowledged that they were obligated to make difficult choices, based on sparse research, in the middle of a public health emergency. But some said they felt compelled to vote for the shots because of the way the federal agencies framed the questions that they were asked to consider.
I’m not anti-booster, but it’s difficult to feel like we’re getting straightforward medical advice, these days.
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Maybe some people collect them or leverage them for some purpose or other, but honorary degrees from colleges and universities have always seemed pretty useless and ceremonial to me — like a certificate to thank a person for participating in an event.
With the latest radical move from the University of Rhode Island’s new president, recently imported from Australia, I’d say honorary degrees have become something worse than useless. Accepting an honorary degree from URI now gives ideological fascists a whip with which to embarass you someday if the political winds shift:
The University of Rhode Island’s new president is asking the board of trustees to revoke the honorary degrees awarded to Michael Flynn and Rudy Giuliani because the two men no longer reflect the institution’s values and standards.
The recommendation by URI President Marc Parlange, who arrived here in August, is an about-face from former URI President David M. Dooley, who did not forward a recommendation to the board of trustees regarding Flynn’s honorary degree.
Well, I’ve got an earned degree from URI, and the institution clearly no longer reflects my values. In sharp contrast with the prior two presidents, since he arrived, Parlange has gone on a hard-left sprint. It’s anti-intellectual, ideological, and embarassing, and I can only hope that he finds reason to move on soon.
The two of my four children who are old enough both applied to URI but with each, I’ve been increasingly less supportive of it as a choice. For the next two, I’ll recommend avoiding contributing so much as an application fee to the culturally destructive and politically divisive institution.
This is regretable. We visited the campus over the summer, and I had the expected wave of nostalgia. If I’d known the place was about to fall into the darkness of ideological ignorance, I’d have taken more pictures. Of course, I was already too late to view the iconic Student Union mural pictured as the featured image of this post, which had already been covered up for the cultural pogrom of aggressive over-sensitivity.
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Rick Moran asks that dangerous question:
So what happened to these older, primitive societies — the Clovis people and others who were clearly present in North and Central America before modern Native Americans? They no doubt had what they considered “their land” to hunt and forage. Who stole it from them and wiped them out?
It’s not a simple question because there are so many holes in our knowledge of early North Americans. There may have been tribal conflicts, and there may have been tribal marriages. The DNA record is silent about land claims, but is that really the point?
Moran goes on to note that indigenous people on other continents (including white ones) were similarly displaced and then displaced again. We don’t like to admit it, these days, but that’s how history has worked everywhere. It shouldn’t be forbidden to consider that the Americas were not some land of purity until the arrival of Columbus.
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Brian Gottstein notes that Washington, D.C., is requiring proof of vaccination for various purposes, but also photo ID to validate that the vaccine card holder is in fact the person named on it:
[Open full post]Hold on a minute! Wasn’t it just a few short months ago—as the battles over election reform raged in the states—that we were told requiring photo ID to vote was racist and discriminatory because black folks couldn’t get IDs? In fact, it was considered so racist that businesses, sports teams, and celebrities boycotted entire states.
Now, by the left’s own definition, Washington just instituted a whole new level of systemic racism. And it’s certainly affecting the black population—the district’s largest racial group—disproportionately.
One day, somebody will publish a thick collection of documents written by those who have been awakening to, and warning about, wokeness. Jordan Peterson’s open letter explaining his resignation as a tenured professor will be among its pages (if anybody can afford the rights!). Some will scoff at Peterson, but this document is the most famous professor on the planet denouncing higher education as “a stunningly corrupt enterprise.” That’s stunningly significant.
Peterson extrapolates from his perspective in the ivory tower to issue a much broader warning, concluding thus:
And all of you going along with the [Diversity, Inclusivity, and Equity IDIE)] activists, whatever your reasons: this is on you. Professors. Cowering cravenly in pretence and silence. Teaching your students to dissimulate and lie. To get along. As the walls crumble. For shame. CEOs: signalling a virtue you don’t possess and shouldn’t want to please a minority who literally live their lives by displeasure. You’re evil capitalists, after all, and should be proud of it. At the moment, I can’t tell if you’re more reprehensibly timid even than the professors. Why the hell don’t you banish the human resource DIE upstarts back to the more-appropriately-named Personnel departments, stop them from interfering with the psyches of you and your employees, and be done with it? Musicians, artists, writers: stop bending your sacred and meritorious art to the demands of the propagandists before you fatally betray the spirit of your own intuition. Stop censoring your thought. Stop saying you will hire for your orchestral and theatrical productions for any reason other than talent and excellence. That’s all you have. That’s all any of us have.
The DIE activists (as Peterson rearranges the acronym) have no power but what we’re deceived into granting them, and we shouldn’t grant them any. As the professor explains, their ideology is poisonous and destructive; it is precisely an intellectual virus, either emerging naturally or deployed against us like a psychological weapon.
We need many more prominent intellectuals to take the risk of writing such alerts, because Peterson’s and Bari Weiss’s resignation letter from the New York Times are not enough.
Featured image by Dom Fou on Unsplash.
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You can’t help but be moved by stories like this. Similarly, you can’t miss the political reasons they aren’t more widely spread.
[Denisha] Merriweather’s future looked bleak. “Teachers would sigh when I walked through the door,” she said of the district schools she attended. “Another Merriweather,” they would judge. “My family name was not that bright,” she explained. The young child was on a familiar path of academic deficiency, hopelessness and missed opportunities that plagues many urban, low-income youths who are floundering in government-run schools. “Another Merriweather” was set to be a statistic.
But that’s not what happened. Merriweather went to live with her godmother who heard through her church community about a nearby private school. It was too expensive for her guardian to afford, but the family learned of Florida’s pioneering tax-credit scholarship program that expands education choice for income-eligible students looking to exit district schools.
The politics of this aren’t difficult to trace. The entire education establishment, from the administrative bureaucracy to the teachers unions, aligns with the Democrat Party, which is now fully built upon the premise that anything important should be run by government.
On the other side — whether you see it as cynical or as sincere — a foundational premise of economic freedom align with political incentives to make the Republican Party the party of school choice. That suite of policies most benefits the families that are the most stuck, which tends to mean those who are disadvantaged, among whom minorities are disproportionately numbered.
Yet, Democrats need minorities for votes and as political cover for their elitist policies, so evidence that school choice levels the playing field must be discounted or suppressed.
The gravity of this particular issue may be a central reason “anti-racism” and critical race theory are suddenly everywhere — with dogged support from teachers unions. Minorities must have their attention refocused on a “systemic racism” phantom that keeps them reliant on the very groups who are oppressing them.
In its broad strokes, this strategy is so obvious it’s difficult to imagine what could make people see it if they haven’t already.
Featured image by Redd on Unsplash.
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Brad Polumbo conveys a should-be-unsurprising finding from an MIT study:
The federal government has spent an astounding $42,000 per federal taxpayer on so-called “stimulus” efforts since the pandemic began. Where did all that money go? Well, as it turns out, one of the biggest stimulus programs, the Paycheck Protection Program, failed miserably. …
The analysis shows that even though 93 percent of small businesses received loans from the program, only between 2-3 million jobs were preserved. The program spent an astounding $170,000-$257,000 for each job it helped preserve! That’s, erm, a lot more than most of those jobs even pay.
Moreover, the study finds that only 23 to 34 percent of the program’s dollars went to workers who would’ve otherwise lost their jobs—meaning the vast majority went to “business owners and shareholders.” (Oh, and a whole bunch was lost to fraud, too).
Some business owners got to take some nice vacations with the money, that’s for sure.
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I’ll be honest. Facing a massive imminent bill for a prematurely failed septic system while I’m in the midst of a career adjustment and at a high-water mark for higher-education expenses spanning generations, news about a state-administered federal program to hand out up to $50,000 to homeowners initially felt like an opportunity:
The newly opened Homeowner Assistance Fund Rhode Island, or HAF-RI, was rolled out by Gov. Dan McKee’s office Monday morning. The $50 million available in Rhode Island is part of a $9.96 billion pot of federal funding included in the American Rescue Plan Act last March. …
Eligibility for HAF-RI depends on household income, with limits ranging from $90,850 for a one-person household to $171,300 for an eight-person household. To qualify, a homeowner must own and occupy a one- to four-unit dwelling in Rhode Island; have experienced a financial setback related to the pandemic since mid-January 2020; and have an original mortgage balance below $548,250.
Hand over some information and get a check. Nice and easy.
While homeowners are at it, they can get around mask shortages by calling up Uncle Bradon:
You can now get rapid COVID-19 tests delivered right to your door for free, but what about masks?
The Biden Administration plans to announce Wednesday that they will provide 400 million Americans with free N95 masks.
The masks are coming from the Strategic National Stockpile, which has more than 750 million of the highly protective masks on hand. They will start shipping by the end of next week and will be available at pharmacies and community health centers.
Free masks. Free tests. Free money.
Conservatives tend to respond to these stories by noting that nothing is free. Somebody is going to pay for all these handouts. But to me, the handouts themselves are starting to feel like a bigger problem — even if they were free. I kinda wanna feel like an adult, y’know? If I can’t make my situation work, maybe it would be better for me to have to take responsibility and make some big-boy decisions, about both the things I spend money on and the activities by which I try to provide value to others.
Maybe we shouldn’t make the temporary declaration that few of us are “essential” into a deep cultural theme.
From our perch in Rhode Island, this growing sense that maybe we shouldn’t want things to be free couples with daily reminders that government is failing massively at everything that is supposed to be its responsibility. Politicians are committing to debt on our behalf in order to give us handouts that deprive us of our responsibilities in order to distract us from the fact that they can’t live up to theirs.
Even if they somehow manage to avoid the economic ruin that common sense would predict from such a strategy, the cultural and psychological harm is going to rival that of the more-direct elements of our COVID response.
Featured image by Daniel Lee on Unsplash.
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