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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…

Dan McKee gets vaccinated

How Science Should Inform Masking and Distancing Decisions

By Justin Katz | July 28, 2021 |

McKee has announced a “recommendation” to mask children in school, but he should remember that science is only a process for limiting (but not eliminating) human error in observations and analysis.

Goya Attended by Doctor

Are colleges beginning to train a generation of anti-science doctors?

By Justin Katz | July 28, 2021 |

Local news media has taken an obvious turn in the past few years, and at least part of the explanation appears to be a new generation of journalists who simply don’t believe in objective reporting — or at least they do believe that some social “truths” around identity are just so clear that it isn’t…

Federal Reserve balance sheet chart

An institution like the Fed has to have internal disagreement.

By Justin Katz | July 27, 2021 |

A recent staff article on the website of the American Institute for Economic Research captures a very dangerous marker of the society the United States elite have come to inhabit: Economist Judy Shelton has a crackerjack column in tomorrow’s Wall Street Journal on the lack of intellectual and policy diversity at the Federal Reserve. She…

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We have to be aware of the narrative involved in the Providence car chase controversy.

By Justin Katz | July 27, 2021 |

John DePetro has some details about the Providence police’s car chase of a BMW with three teens shooting BB guns out the windows: Following this incident, the Providence Police began reviewing the circumstances of the arrest of one of the vehicle’s occupants, including any injuries sustained and the use of force involved. Late last week,…

Policeman

Elorza and Paré don’t seem to see the cliff they’re walking along.

By Justin Katz | July 26, 2021 |

Having not seen video of the incident, nobody should be assuming that Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza and his public safety commissioner, Steven Paré, are exaggerating when they say, as Steph Machado reports for WPRI, that these officers used excessive force: The arrests of the two 15-year-olds and one 16-year-old took place in the early hours…