Under the Government’s Wing

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.

RI Policy on Transgender Students: Ed Commissioner, RIDE, Governor Mum So Far

By Monique Chartier | September 18, 2023 |

Current Rhode Island public school policy on transgender and gender nonconforming students was formally passed as a regulation in April 2018 by the Council on Elementary and Secondary Education and then-Education Commissioner Ken Wagner under the authority of the governor. Anchor Rising made the following inquiry by e-mail last month of the Rhode Island Council…

A woman walks in a smokey alley

Politics This Week: Stories of Absolutely No Interest (To the Media)

By Justin Katz | September 11, 2023 |

John DePetro and Justin Katz tease out multiple stories that the local media could investigate to generate interest (but probably won’t).

John Kerry: Zero Emissions by China and US (and Rhode Island) Not Enough

By Monique Chartier | August 1, 2023 |

Last week came the good news (for our electric bills) that Rhode Island Energy, formerly National Grid, had declined the Revolution Wind 2 offshore wind proposal. A week prior, John Kerry, President Biden’s Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, departed from China without accomplishing his mission; namely, to … use climate co-operation to redefine their [US…

A wind farm at sea

Rhode Island Energy (National Grid) Correctly Nixes Revolution Wind 2

By Monique Chartier | July 23, 2023 |

A lot going on, I know; e.g.,everybody good with their nomination signatures to get on the CD1 ballot …? But I didn’t want to let this go by without flagging. Citing “higher proposed contract costs”, Rhode Island Energy, formerly National Grid, announced Tuesday that it declined the Revolution Wind 2 offshore wind proposal, the sole…

A water drop and ripples

Michael Munger’s reference to Bastiat’s proposal to grow the French economy by burning Paris is a worthwhile reminder.

By Justin Katz | December 27, 2022 |

For that lesson alone, readers should give it a few minutes.  But this paragraph near the end captures something far more intimately relevant to our times than even Munger may have intended: Once you are duped into believing destruction is productive, almost everything that a rational public policy would label as a cost becomes, by…

A water drop and ripples

We’ve entered the pervasive-rent-seeking phase of our nation’s decline.

By Justin Katz | July 28, 2022 |

Something about this story feels profoundly discouraging to me: Forty Rhode Island business owners traveled to Washington D.C. last week as part of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Summit to meet with hundreds of officials to discuss how to boost access to capital, child care and government contracting. Katie Schibler Conn, owner of KSA…

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…

Piggybank with mask

Imagine no special-interest feeding frenzies.

By Justin Katz | March 4, 2022 |

Look, I know this is normal and human, and I wouldn’t actually fault the people involved, but for a little Friday-afternoon fantasizing, let’s imagine this not being the case: When Rhode Island received its $1.13 billion slice of federal American Rescue Plan Act funds, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make tangible investments across the…

Let’s Hear ALL Information about Omicron, Even the Positive

By Monique Chartier | November 29, 2021 |

A new variant of COVID-19, Omicron, (don’t ask what happened to Xi!) has been identified in South Africa. It took only a ten second search to find this important and comparatively positive information about Omicron. Omicron is reported to be seven times more contagious than the Delta variant and yet in the last two months,…