Written

Young adults covering each other's mouths

Why are the “most educated” suddenly the most afraid of information liberty?

By Justin Katz | April 18, 2023 |

Observing that a significant majority of Americans now believe the COVID lab-leak theory despite the idea’s having recently been banned on “Big Tech platforms,” Glenn Greenwald recalls a 2021 Pew Research finding that over a mere three-year span the percentage of Democrats who support big-tech censorship had grown from 60% to 76%, and (worse, in…

A masked figure shushes silence

Bud Light has provided a warning case for our culture.

By Justin Katz | April 14, 2023 |

If you pay attention to non-leftwing media and/or haven’t blocked or muted anybody who isn’t progressive on social media, you’re likely to have heard that Anheuser-Busch has taken a huge financial hit after a young marketing executive aligned the company fully with radical gender ideologues by partnering with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, a man whose…

A water drop and ripples

Another datapoint in the anti-Catholic shift of the federal government.

By Justin Katz | April 13, 2023 |

As I’ve said, it’s possible to make too much of such incidents (and politics often seems designed to make too much of them), but they’re worth noting as they happen, nonetheless: In a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, [Republican Congressman from Ohio Jim] Jordan alleged the FBI “relied on at least one undercover agent to…

A child with hands over face.

McKee’s Learn 365 RI education initiative may justify a response of Turn 180.

By Justin Katz | April 13, 2023 |

Whether it’s peculiar or not (given his governance style) the most-conspicuous thing about the Learn 365 RI initiative — for which Democrat Governor Dan McKee has sought (and received) a PR boost — is how undefined it is.  There’s some effort to get municipalities to commit to something, although what that may be isn’t clear. …

A water drop and ripples

The Vermont homeless shelter killing cuts across narrative lines.

By Justin Katz | April 12, 2023 |

As we’re rightly reminded frequently in the face of such incidents, we would err if we overgeneralized from incidents like this one: A homeless woman “was wiping blood off of her hands with a paper towel” after she allegedly killed a homeless shelter coordinator with an ax, police said. Zaaina Asra Zakirrah Mahvish-Jammeh, a 38-year-old…

"Injustice Won't Be Postponed" sign

Seth Magaziner’s gun tweet is a scary symptom.

By Justin Katz | April 12, 2023 |

To solve problems without causing unexpected damage, you have to have some reasonable explanation for the circumstances.  This recent anti-gun tweet from Democrat Congressman Seth Magaziner illustrates how politicians are moving farther and farther away from problem-solving: If you’re accustomed to analyzing data visualizations, it might take you a moment to understand Magaziner’s point.  The…

A water drop and ripples

The U.S. government moves toward state-approved churches.

By Justin Katz | April 11, 2023 |

Conflicts like this can be nothing more than bureaucratic squabbles. They can also be evidence of a move toward a Communist China–esque absorption of religious organizations.  And they can also be mere bureaucratic squabbles that prepare the ground for government absorption of religious organizations. The Archdiocese for the Military Services (AMS) slammed Walter Reed National…

Children at sunset

American kids’ life expectancy isn’t so bad, if all things are considered.

By Justin Katz | April 6, 2023 |

To what extent, do you think, is our current predicament caused by a feedback loop of blindness?  Perhaps the people investigating society’s questions are actually incapable of considering some possibilities for ideological reasons.  They therefore craft policies and advance cultural changes whose outcomes they cannot measure because of the blind spot with which they began.…

A house made of money

Too much single-family housing is not nearly a problem in Rhode Island.

By Justin Katz | April 3, 2023 |

Talk about housing has been all the rage in Rhode Island over the past year.  Unfortunately (and tellingly), it doesn’t seem to be a policy area in which activists, politicians, and journalists believe data ought to be front and center.  Sure, we get numbers about the effects of the problem — housing costs $X; Y…

A water drop and ripples

The bitter taste of Projo alums…

By Justin Katz | March 29, 2023 |

It’s interesting to watch these partisan ideologues bash the newspaper that contributed so much to their careers. One wonders whether they’ve ever considered whether their work-product and the journalistic culture they’ve perpetuated has contributed to the paper’s plight: