Law and Order

A water drop and ripples

Federal government data simply can no longer be taken at face value.

By Justin Katz | October 16, 2024 |

I realized this when watching Democrats’ repeated proclamations about jobs numbers during the Obama years only to see those numbers quietly revised the following month, almost always with the revision making touted jobs disappear, rather than quiet corrections representing improvements. Now, it seems crime data has the same partisan infection.  All year, we’ve been hearing…

Tow truck driver in a suit sleeps at the wheel by the side of the road

Politics This Week: Leadership Asleep at the Wheel

By Justin Katz | September 30, 2024 |

John DePetro and Justin Katz review some of the ways in which Rhode Island’s priorities are out of whack.

A water drop and ripples

Our national police force is starting to remind me of the Rhode Island mob.

By Justin Katz | September 3, 2024 |

Mark Steyn raises the peculiarity of the mysterious deaths of two businessmen who actually managed to beat the U.S. Department of Justice’s process-is-the-punishment racket.  Apparently, the statistics suggest that the DOJ way overcharges its targets in the hopes of pushing for a settlement:  “95 percent of cases are won by prosecutors, 90 percent of those…

A horse-riding general leads his troops off a cliff

Politics This Week: Breaking from the Top

By Justin Katz | May 21, 2024 |

John DePetro and Justin Katz look for the realities behind the headlines in Rhode Island.

A water drop and ripples

Keep an eye on the progress of violence.

By Justin Katz | May 8, 2024 |

Note something about the riotous behavior reaching American campuses, as Ted Gehring spotlights, here: The last go-round of riots took place mostly in urban areas, this one has been on campuses. Granted that they’re often in urban areas, but their attack on colleges seems like the revolutionaries’ taking another step.  One or two more and…

A water drop and ripples

Questions get complex when you upend social (and biological) fundamentals.

By Justin Katz | May 8, 2024 |

This video of a police interaction with a young couple entered my awareness at a moment of reduced willpower, so I watched it.  Although it escalates from a towed car to an arrest and flirts with even more-dangerous outcome, the entire twenty minutes is primarily a display of young adults, feeling their economic oats, whose…

A water drop and ripples

Are these the consequences of sanctuary state policies?

By Justin Katz | April 15, 2024 |

This seems kind of like an important story, but despite some weeks, I’ve seen nothing on it elsewhere: The problem with our current media situation is that, whether Callahan’s assessment about sanctuary state policies is fair or not, we know for a certainty that we’ll only ever hear that it is not fair from the…

The Independent Man facepalms

Politics This Week: Looters in and out of Government

By Justin Katz | September 18, 2023 |

John DePetro and Justin Katz review the political talk of the week.

Rhode Island map, featuring neighboring states.

Does Providence Owe Narragansett $16.7K or Does Narragansett Owe Providence $1.1M?

By Carroll Andrew Morse | August 1, 2023 |

Do we have a test case, for bringing this session’s Supreme Court’s ruling in Tyler v. Hennepin County to Rhode Island? In Tyler v. Hennepin County, in a refreshingly short 9-0 opinion, the Court ruled that when local governments seize property over unpaid taxes, they are only entitled to keep what was owed. So after…

Justice for Jeann Lugo Despite the Defamatory Video

By Monique Chartier | April 27, 2023 |

Jeann Lugo was acquitted in November of simple assault against Jennifer Rourke at the State House melee last June. The other criminal charge against Lugo, disorderly conduct, had been dismissed in August. Now a three member panel of police officers, in a process arising out of LEOBOR, has unanimously voted to set aside the firing of…