Written

Upward line chart

Taxpayer/voter advocates across RI should prepare to track local budgets very closely.

By Justin Katz | June 8, 2021 |

Over on Tiverton Fact Check, I’ve posted an estimate of the extra revenue the town government may find flooding in over the next year: Along with the increasing cacophony of birds and fireworks, we know we must be well into spring in Tiverton as one hears the familiar calls of the town-government budgeters:  “Raise taxes. We…

Fire report

Is somebody trying to make the fire at the speaker’s law office go away?

By Justin Katz | June 8, 2021 |

John DePetro writes that he’s in communication with a federal officer who claims Rhode Island and Warwick fire officials have been providing misleading information: According to a Federal officer, the Rhode Island Fire Marshall’s office mislead Federal officials as to the suspicious fire May 11 at the law office of House Speaker Joe Shekarchi. The…

Sinking ship statue in a Providence park.

Competitive elections that avoid the downward spiral of radicalism have to be a decision of the voters.

By Justin Katz | June 7, 2021 |

A commentary piece by Richard Pildes, a Constitutional law professor at New York University, should resonate with Rhode Islanders: The dynamics and incentives for candidates running in competitive districts are dramatically different than those candidates face in safe districts. For competitive seats, candidates know they must win over enough voters in the center, who might…

The China Virus

Raimondo didn’t register for the Chinese Communists as they assessed American politics.

By Justin Katz | June 7, 2021 |

Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian’s Axios article on the efforts of a Chinese think tank connected with the Communist Party to analyze United States government at a more-fine level of detail than usual is more than a year old, but I hadn’t seen it: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo mentioned one of the reports in a Feb. 8 speech…

Nicole Solas on Fox & Friends

Nicole Solas only seems suspect from within Tara Granahan’s media bubble.

By Justin Katz | June 7, 2021 |

For twenty minutes of your time, Tara Granahan’s WPRO interview with the South Kingstown mother whom the local school committee nearly sued to stop her from seeking information about their ideological curriculum provides a short lesson in how Rhode Island insiders think. PODCAST: The @TaraGranahan interview with Nicole Solas that everyone is talking about: https://t.co/ci0kpITtTG…

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.…