Blue v. Red
In a post illustrating why he’s risen so quickly to the status of “must read” and why it’s so crucial to have intellectually curious people making their full-time livings investigating state-level politics and government, Ted Nesi responds to my incredulity at everybody’s willingness to accept the pension reform narrative. This is the most important paragraph…
In his Sunday Providence Journal column, Ed Fitzpatrick reviews the passage of pension reform, and I have to say that he contributes to my surreal feeling of different realities based on different narratives: Keep in mind that this isn’t Texas: This happened in Rhode Island, a deep-blue state where unions are considered a legendary force…
After a decade of blogging, the hunt for mainstream media bias gives me about the same thrill as finding three-leaf clovers. Even so, the Providence Journal’s front page declaration in its Sunday edition took me back a bit: “The voice of the masses”? Since Sunday, multiple polls have emerged suggesting that it just ain’t so.…
I never really paid much attention previously to people’s opinions of Froma Harrop and her columns. That is in part because I’ve seen her criticized from both sides of the political spectrum, so how bad can she really be? Well, her column on Wednesday in the Providence Journal sure seemed to make her biases evident.…
I have a friend who is a Pittsburg Pirates fan and I’m constantly shaking my head at the lack of effort that franchise makes to become a championship contender. The reason for this is the Pirates play in the National League Central division, which with its six teams is actually one of the weakest in…
One would think that members of an editorial staff would offer each other the service of gently warning their coworkers when they near the deep end. Or perhaps Froma Harrop is firmly convinced of the approaching death of newspapers and is effectively auditioning for a part in the far-left blind heat machine. Granted, her tirade…
“House GOP vs. America” — that’s quite a headline for an unsigned editorial about the debt ceiling battle. The text below it is the sort of summary of economic assumptions and narrow conclusions about specific issues that is therefore impossible to address without revisiting every particular issue and arguing line by line. For example, writes…
Glenn Reynolds highlights an article in the New York Post that hits some familiar notes: For more than 15 years, New York state has led the country in domestic outmigration: For every American who comes here, roughly two depart for other states. This outmigration slowed briefly following the onset of the Great Recession. But a…
An interesting tidbit from over the weekend is that college professors appear to grade differently based on political affiliation: We study grading outcomes associated with professors in an elite university in the United States who were identified — using voter registration records from the county where the university is located — as either Republicans or…
Longtime readers know that I’ve never been much of a Froma Harrop fan. People who know her assure me that she’s reasonable, but she starts from (what one might call) the flawed premises of the ruling class. Still, when she focused on Rhode Island, at least she articulated a distinct perspective on matters of local…