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Help wanted sign

Why are so many Rhode Islanders leaving the workforce in the midst of a big recovery?

By Justin Katz | June 17, 2021 |

The headline is, of course, that unemployment dropped to 5.8% in May, from 6.3% in April, which is nice (although it ought to be higher, given that we’re coming out of a pandemic-and-government-driven recession.  But the state Department of Labor and Training’s press release paints a peculiar picture: The number of employed Rhode Island residents…

A streetlight

The state is finally going to start paying for streetlights on its own roads.

By Justin Katz | June 17, 2021 |

One long-time wish list item from Rhode Island cities and towns has been for the state to start taking ownership of the fixtures that illuminate roads the state owns, and it is now doing so.  Of course, with new lighting technology, the savings to municipalities won’t be huge by local-budget standards (averaging a little more…

The BLM flag flown in Barrington, RI

Barrington Town Council members are destroying their community for ideology.

By Justin Katz | June 17, 2021 |

Identity politics is a great destroyer.  Not only does it pit neighbor against neighbor based on superficial qualities like skin color, but it acts as an ideological litmus test.  To its practitioners, one either bends the knee or is non-personned as a “hater.”  Look at what’s happening in Barrington. This is from a Sarah Doiron…

A black bear

Speaking of the danger of doom and gloom and issue-based propaganda…

By Justin Katz | June 16, 2021 |

Assuming the Associated Press’s science writer, Seth Borenstein, is accurately conveying the methodology of a study proclaiming that 37% of “heat deaths” around the planet were “caused by higher temperatures from human-caused warming,” the project seems problematic on its face: Scientists used decades of mortality data in the 732 cities to plot curves detailing how…

No Tolerance for Ignorance sign

A step in the right direction on campaigning via school lists.

By Justin Katz | June 16, 2021 |

Legislation from Democrat state Senator Leonidas Raptakis (S0089) and Democrat state Representative Patricia Serpa (H5830) begins to address the abuse of school information: The General Assembly tonight passed legislation sponsored by Sen. Leonidas P. Raptakis and Rep. Patricia A. Serpa which prohibits the use of a school district’s listserv to distribute any political advertisement, invitation,…

The sun rising or setting

Misplaced doom and gloom predictions can be self-fulfilling prophecies.

By Justin Katz | June 16, 2021 |

For a little lunchtime reading on a sunny day from the American Institute for Economic Research, Joakim Book highlights how little people (perhaps educated people, especially) really know about the progress humanity has made: Gapminder routinely asks 12 questions (sometimes with a thirteenth question on global temperatures, which most people tend to get right) about…

West Warwick Public Library

West Warwick public library gives drag queens a privileged position.

By Justin Katz | June 16, 2021 |

The opposition to the upcoming drag queen story hour in West Warwick was unanimous at the library’s trustee meeting Monday night, according to Larry Gillheeney, on Ocean Stat Current, but the event is still on.  The library’s official statement on its Facebook page raises some disturbing questions: Over the past few days, there have been postings…

Cooling towers at Brayton Point

Unions are like the modern version of the the Medieval Church.

By Justin Katz | June 15, 2021 |

Something about the way labor unions are acting in the United States these days reminds me of the Catholic Church during a phase when it was ripe for criticism.  From a Stephen Moore essay in The Epoch Times in April: Last week, the United Mine Workers of America union endorsed Biden’s energy policies. Yes, you read…

Pickpocketing in Oliver Twist

“Tax the rich” often merely means “tax the elderly.”

By Justin Katz | June 15, 2021 |

With inside-government special interests who profit from higher taxes engaging in expensive campaigns to (you guessed it) increase taxes, the Pioneer Institute in Massachusetts makes an important observation: National data from the U.S. Treasury Department show that the majority of taxpayers earning more than $1 million in a year did so only once over a…

Flier for the Zinn Education Project day of action

As usual, the Left scandalizes on the Right what the Left is actually doing.

By Justin Katz | June 15, 2021 |

For a week or so, the big political scandal in Rhode Island involved government officials, journalists, and a talk radio host questioning whether South Kingstown mother Nicole Solas was in league with some national organization on the issue of Critical Race Theory (CRT).  The evidence suggests that she was not, but look how differently left-wing…