Written

Phil Eil's tweet about Allan Fung

Phil Eil should be honest about the nature of anti-Asian bias.

By Justin Katz | June 7, 2021 |

Phil Eil is a freelance writer and former political editor for the Providence Phoenix, and his response to a recent op-ed by former Republican Cranston Mayor Allan Fung in the Boston Globe is strangely political and bitter: Interesting op-ed from Allan Fung. What I’ve never been able to figure out — and what he doesn’t address in the…

A sonogram.

Will the pro-life wave reach the Ocean State?

By Justin Katz | June 5, 2021 |

The Catholic News Agency highlights an “unprecedented surge” of pro-life legislation around the United States: “The unprecedented surge of pro-life activity in state legislatures this year proves life is winning in America,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List. “The 61 new laws enacted and hundreds of bills introduced include legislation to stop…

A microphone

With Democrats in power, the sobered-up MSM is starting to promise not to beat the public anymore.

By Justin Katz | June 5, 2021 |

At any rate, that’s my interpretation of a moment between MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and CNN’s Jake Tapper that Ben Johnson described on The Daily Wire: “How do we do a better job?” Scarborough asked Tapper. “How do we be more fair to candidates, whether we’re talking about somebody like Hillary Clinton, where we’re getting leaked information…

A credit card

The average Rhode Island taxpayer’s total debt-on-behalf-of-government is just shy of $900,000.

By Justin Katz | June 5, 2021 |

Here’s an eye-popping bit of information from Mark Tapscott, writing for Epoch Times: America’s national debt now exceeds $123 trillion, according to a new report, or more than four times the official figure of $28 trillion, as calculated by the U.S. Treasury Department at the end of March. Federal spending related to the CCP virus pandemic…

Light traffic on an RI highway

Traffic deaths were up by a lot, last year, despite lockdowns.

By Justin Katz | June 5, 2021 |

The Associated Press reports the counterintuitive numbers: An estimated 38,680 people died in traffic crashes last year, the most of any year since 2007, the agency said in releasing preliminary numbers. Final numbers normally come out in the fall. The increase came even though the number of miles traveled by vehicle fell 13% from 2019.…

St. Basil Cathedral on Red Square

It’s strange how our national attitude toward other nations depends on the affections of our chief executive.

By Justin Katz | June 4, 2021 |

In precise Instapundit fashion, Ed Driscoll sums up a recent development in the United States’ foreign affairs posture with the subject, “And Just Like That, Russians Aren’t the Bad Guys Anymore“: … Ted Cruz notes, “[B]asically what Joe Biden has decided is pipelines in America, bad. Jobs in America, bad. Pipelines in Russia, good. Jobs in…

Angelica Infante-Green

The education commissioner should go after the teachers unions for the right reasons.

By Justin Katz | June 4, 2021 |

I’m with Rhode Island Education Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green in believing that negotiating teacher contracts should be a professional endeavor of well-meaning parties and that professional union organizers prevent that from being the case when they aren’t getting their way.  Indeed, from the early months after her arrival in the state, I’ve been saying Infante-Green was…

Silhouette of a stickup

Strong immigration policies limited to orderly entry make the community safer.

By Justin Katz | June 4, 2021 |

Given the evolving mix of news stories in the Ocean State recently — with violent crime involving gangs and/or people with prior arrests, particularly for possession of illegal guns, stretching now from Providence to Newport — one could reasonably expect the trends to continue, with crime becoming an increasingly prominent subject of conversation. With that…

McKee signs nursing home mandates

RI politicians smile as they experiment with your parents and grandparents and planet-leading mandates.

By Justin Katz | June 4, 2021 |

Last week, I worried that the recently enacted “Nursing Home Staffing and Quality Care Act” handed bureaucrats power that they aren’t competent to wield.  This week, news has reached Australia that the Ocean State’s mandates in this area blow the continent-nation’s own version out of the water. Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee (pictured) has signed…

2020 Presidential vote by county

States can become dependent on a higher-up government, too.

By Justin Katz | June 3, 2021 |

An interesting juxtaposition jumped off the list of articles I keep from which to draw posts.  Here’s Brad Polumbo of the Foundation for Economic Education explaining how, contrary to the even-handed stimulus under his predecessor, Joe Biden’s administration’s stimulus strongly favors blue (i.e., Democrat-run) states: “Alignment with the Democratic party predicts increases in states’ allocations…