Written

Reporters taking notes

The new generation of reporters is turning their craft into a propaganda practice.

By Justin Katz | August 5, 2021 |

An article bylined by Alexandra Leslie and Melanie DaSilva for WPRI is a perfect illustration. The headline is, “McKee signs multiple bills supporting women’s health, equity.”  No ambiguity.  No clarification that this is politicians’ intention.   It’s presented as a simple fact about the press conference. The article summarizes five pieces of legislation without offering a…

The Providence teacher contract estimate should be 144% higher than stated.

By Justin Katz | August 4, 2021 |

It’s a positive thing that state law requires municipalities and school districts to provide cost estimates for the contracts they’re about to approve (even if they tend to issue them when it’s pretty much a done deal), and it’s good that the state hasn’t tried to slip through a transparency loophole in negotiating its contract…

A GPS map

Even pilot programs for a mileage tax are too much.

By Justin Katz | August 4, 2021 |

The Democrats’ infrastructure bill in the U.S. Senate would shove the camel’s nose into the tent. Mark Tapscott reports for The Epoch Times: Buried in the “Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act” in the U.S. Senate is approval for the Department of Transportation (DOT) to test a new federal tax on every mile driven by individual Americans.…

Newport Superior Court

Our legal system has developed a systematized path to eliminate our right to self governance.

By Justin Katz | August 3, 2021 |

At the core of our very ability to call our system a “representative democracy” is that we write down rules by which we all must abide.  New rules can be implemented and old rules can be repealed or amended, but the more fundamental it is, the more difficult it is to change.  Thus, bureaucrats can…

A solar farm in the forest.

It’s starting to seem like the solar industry is a gift to the Chinese coal industry… as well as slavers and dictators.

By Justin Katz | August 3, 2021 |

Rick Moran writes for PJ Media: Manufacturing solar panels is a dirty business. Starting with the raw mineral quartz, the refining process produces a highly toxic substance, silicon tetrachloride, that some manufacturers simply end up dumping. Huge amounts of power and heat must be used to manufacture the photovoltaic cells. Since most solar cells in the…

News story image of Chatham, MA

Ideology is preventing us from getting the real story on COVID-19 variants and vaccination.

By Justin Katz | August 2, 2021 |

They say of the Soviet Union propaganda outlet, Pravda, that it contained some real news; one just had to know how to parse it and understand where news was being hidden. Such is the case with all of the mainstream news media outlets, these days.  You’ve probably seen the headlines about “74% of infections in Massachusetts…

Broken windows after BLM riot

Why has our political establishment taken the causes of violence off the table as topics?

By Justin Katz | August 2, 2021 |

If you want an example of how a monolithic progressive political culture leads to deterioration, look to violence in Providence.  Over this weekend, the formerly peaceful city experienced a gun murder, a mass shooting of five people (perhaps related to the roving groups of ATVs and motorbikes), and four separate stabbings, and almost no politicians…

Construction workers reviewing a site

Expensive Statistical Analysis Doesn’t Justify the Systemic Discrimination of the State

By Justin Katz | July 30, 2021 |

Introducing discrimination into state contracting based on “equity” demands will create dreams deferred.

Elorza confronts McKee

McKee’s classic union ploy with the Providence teacher contract isn’t progress; it’s an 11%-plus pay goose.

By Justin Katz | July 29, 2021 |

Or at least it’s only progress from the perspective of government insiders for whom a comfy working relationship is the only real goal.  Unfortunately, that’s the perspective that tends to set the tone for news coverage and public discussion. Tweeting about his first-to-go-live Boston Globe report on the deal, Dan McGowan used that very word,…

Protesters holding up Q cutouts

One has to ask: whom does promotion of QAnon benefit (besides Cicilline)?

By Justin Katz | July 29, 2021 |

My latest article for Accuracy in Media is on the curious hop-skip-jump from the Biden administration to progressive activists to youth publications to Democrat fundraising around the supposed threat of QAnon: Media Matters’ dubious methodology hasn’t stopped Democrats and their supporters in the mainstream media from taking political advantage. Just before the election, national and state-level…