On the Campus

Villains sitting on a platform with the ladder up sawed off.

Politics This Week: Nothing a Little Genuine Competition Couldn’t Fix

By Justin Katz | October 21, 2024 |

John DePetro and Justin Katz follow local stories’ thread of RI’s obvious need for political competition.

A Democrat self-interviews

Politics This Week: RI’s Eternal Return

By Justin Katz | May 13, 2024 |

John DePetro and Justin Katz explore recent examples of Democrats setting the stage for themselves.

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…

Parents have a picnic with their alien children

Politics This Week: The Twilight Generation of Political Normalcy in Rhode Island

By Justin Katz | May 6, 2024 |

John DePetro and Justin Katz worry about the significance of creeping lunacy in RI politics.

A water drop and ripples

You can tell how journalists see their role by the stories they cover.

By Justin Katz | May 1, 2024 |

This has become a focus of the Providence Journal’s city reporter: What stories is Russo not covering because she’s spending so much time on this one?  Why is a personnel matter at a private organization newsworthy? As for the content, it finally provides some explanation for a mythical cliché.  I’ve never understood the rule that you…

A weatherman reports a sunny day while it storms outside

Politics This Week: The Era of Messaging

By Justin Katz | April 29, 2024 |

John DePetro and Justin Katz highlight some of the ways the local media and political establishment distort the public message.

A water drop and ripples

The more bucks, the less education.

By Justin Katz | April 22, 2024 |

As shocking videos emerge of progressive fascism showing its antisemitic face, Nick Freitas’s on-point observation here comes to mind: Americans have been had in a major way (this issue not the least), and I’m not sure there’s any way to turn things around.

A farmer in a suit admires his corn with graduation caps

Student loans are another crisis for the benefit of government.

By Justin Katz | March 20, 2024 |

Whatever one’s political leanings, the incentives of government must be understood as simply reality.  Government agencies don’t have to create a product or service that people will voluntarily purchase.  Rather, they must find activities for which they can justify forcing people who are not the direct beneficiaries to pay.  This model is justified, in some…

A water drop and ripples

Plotting degree prices versus earnings 10-years later yields unexpected results in Rhode Island.

By Justin Katz | March 4, 2024 |

This is certainly not where I’d have placed the dots if somebody asked me to guess: That Rhode Island College is the least expensive, and doesn’t seem to produce a great effect isn’t a surprise.  Johnson & Whales, however, is surprising, and New England Institute of Technology is even more so, both in how expensive…

A water drop and ripples

There’s a subtler lesson about the lie of Biden’s loan forgiveness.

By Justin Katz | February 27, 2024 |

Brian’s got this right, but it’s not the entire story: $3.4 million to 450 people is $7,556 each.  That’s not life-changing money; it’s purely a political handout at others’ expense.  Wait until the kids discover how limited this handout is, by the way.  Most of them are actually struggling with their private loans, which tend to…