Regulation

Man hiding money behind his back with his fingers crossed.

Politics This Week: Tales from the Everything’s Personal State

By Justin Katz | April 25, 2023 |

John DePetro and Justin Katz discuss how personal relations, feelings, and drama pervade Rhode Island government in every aspect.

A man holds a red smoke signal on ice

Politics This Week: The Insiders’ Clear Messages

By Justin Katz | March 14, 2023 |

John DePetro and Justin Katz interpret the unmistakable messages of RI insiders’ actions.

Governor McKee and a relevant screenshot

Governor McKee Refuses to Explain Highly Selective Enforcement Against Dr. Skoly

By Monique Chartier | February 16, 2023 |

Late last month, Dr. Stephen Skoly’s legal team, New Civil Liberties Alliance, filed a response to the State of Rhode Island’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit he had filed for “arbitrarily and unlawfully” ending his surgical practice and for violating his First Amendment rights.

Image of COVID as planet Earth

Governor McKee Declines to Comment about 854 Unvaccinated Health Care Workers

By Monique Chartier | March 13, 2022 |

We recently learned, deep in a Rhode Island Department of Health report, that as of last month, 854 unvaccinated healthcare workers have been permitted to continue to work without medical exemption in violation of the state’s vaccine mandate.   Major credit to Dr. Andrew Bostom for finding and publicizing this remarkable and disturbing document. Further…

Hospital beds

The hospital merger controversy is our second warning.

By Justin Katz | February 18, 2022 |

Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha isn’t wrong to be concerned about a lack of competition in healthcare in our state, but our selective acceptance of market forces is going to start killing Rhode Islanders: Attorney General Peter Neronha on Thursday rejected the proposed merger of Rhode Island’s two largest hospital groups and joined a…

Piles of paperwork

Biden’s giving proof there’s more than one way to raise taxes.

By Justin Katz | January 26, 2022 |

The American Action Forum draws our attention to the massive increase in the cost of regulations Americans have experienced over the past year, mostly going into effect this month: With more than $201 billion in costs, the Biden era to-date far outpaces its predecessors, with more than three times the costs of Obama’s first year and…

A nurse sitting in a doorway

RI really needs to understand the nursing shortage.

By Justin Katz | December 10, 2021 |

As government officials and the mainstream media debate whether to insist that the people they rule wear masks wherever we go, the constantly growing burden of regulations on the healthcare industry seems never to come into question.

Emotions with masks and shades

Don’t worry! The science has studiously avoided figuring out how harmful masks are to children.

By Justin Katz | December 9, 2021 |

Is it just me or do the people who support mask mandates seem deliberately to be avoiding the points that those in opposition are actually making? At some point after my post responding to his call for a statewide mask mandate, Boston Globe reporter and columnist Dan McGowan tweeted a link to the CDC’s (incredibly one-sided)…

A water drop and ripples

Who knew elected officials’ constituents were literally chickens?

By Justin Katz | December 8, 2021 |

I’m torn between assuming that chickens must have really strong lobbyists and thinking voters need to begin questioning the priorities of the people they’re putting in office: Neighboring states soon could see an influx of shoppers in search of eggs if Massachusetts lawmakers don’t come to an agreement on a new animal welfare law. New…

A water drop and ripples

A mandate for algorithm-free social media might not be the answer.

By Justin Katz | November 19, 2021 |

I’m not sure this is the way to a solution: A bipartisan collective of House lawmakers introduced legislation on Nov. 9 that would require Big Tech providers such as Facebook and Google to allow users to opt-out of content selected by algorithms, providing additional transparency regarding content. The measure, dubbed the Filter Bubble Transparency Act…