Written

A water drop and ripples

What’s going on in Pennsylvania?

By Justin Katz | November 7, 2022 |

Am I crazy to think it’s just too coincidental that one of the key battleground states for control of Congress is having this sort of unbelievable electoral complication? Some of Pennsylvania’s largest counties were among those working Monday to help voters fix mail-in ballots that have fatal flaws such as incorrect dates or missing signatures…

Thomas Eakins Cowboys in the Badlands

A careful look at gun-control rhetoric shows where it’s going.

By Justin Katz | November 4, 2022 |

Here’s a noteworthy WPRI headline: “‘Speechless:’ 7-year-old child brings gun to Boston school.” Must be all those Republicans who control the city! Out of curiosity, I went in search of information about how strict Massachusetts’s gun-control laws are and found myself reminded of that old Weezer song about unraveling a sweater:  “If you want to…

Joe Biden's smile.

The damage Biden does with his self-congratulatory rhetoric is even more than it seems.

By Justin Katz | November 2, 2022 |

Many in Rhode Island are too steeped in the mainstream narrative to even consider such a thing, but Joe Biden is, in his way, nastier, more divisive, and more destructive of our civic norms than what Democrats claim of President Trump.  In fairness to Biden, however, his is just an exaggerated and less competently executed…

A water drop and ripples

Our political impressions of violence might be a lot like pockets of traffic.

By Justin Katz | October 31, 2022 |

I just saw a formerly conservative pundit agreeing with an always ridiculous advocate for rule by “experts” that the right is more prone toward and tolerant of violence. I honestly cannot understand how anybody could believe such a thing. I mean, we could maybe have an interesting conversation about tendencies toward what we might call…

A toy school bus

Something’s puzzling about Rhode Island’s SAT scores.

By Justin Katz | October 31, 2022 |

Why are Rhode Island parents so lackadaisical about the poor value they’re getting from the state’s government schools?  As Dan McGowan reports, SAT scores are down from where they were before the pandemic, and they were already low compared with those of neighboring states: Math (minimum score of 530 out of 800): 25.3 percent English…

A water drop and ripples

Watching both sides run with their narratives of the Paul Pelosi attack is amazing and disturbing.

By Justin Katz | October 30, 2022 |

One despairs of our ever coming together if we live in two separate realities.  Many details of the attack don’t make sense, starting with the fact that the Pelosi’s home is apparently so vulnerable and the fact that calling somebody a “friend” to 911 is apparently a code that we’re all supposed to know, let…

A water drop and ripples

Here’s one thing that’s feeling very familiar about the Paul Pelosi story.

By Justin Katz | October 29, 2022 |

As with myriad issues, many of them related to COVID-19, we’re seeing an instant demand that we accept the approved narrative so zealously that confounding details cannot be considered, with disagreement, or even doubt, being framed in entirely partisan terms.  This doesn’t necessarily mean the 180-degree opposite narrative is correct, but it does mean we…

A water drop and ripples

I’m seeing a lot of RI Democrats insisting that GOP rhetoric is causing violence.

By Justin Katz | October 29, 2022 |

I’m also seeing RI Democrats attempting to raise money with emails saying things like: Ashley Kalus is no imaginary monster … We have to stop her from gaining any power in Rhode Island and trying to drag us back into a terrifying past with less freedom. Remember that the people who write these messages probably…

A water drop and ripples

Just a few months ago, a progressive group was paying people to stalk Supreme Court justices.

By Justin Katz | October 29, 2022 |

One person was seeking Justice Kavanaugh with a gun.  It is perfectly reasonable to ask, “what about,” now, as progressives and Democrats behave as if an attack on the Speaker of the House’s husband is not only the most outrageous event in recent memory, but also a direct consequence of “MAGA Republican” rhetoric.

A pipe winds along a landcape

Natural gas price increases show what happens when we’re prevented from coordinating.

By Justin Katz | October 28, 2022 |

A recently released book by Gale Pooley and Marian Tupy, Superabundance, explores the amazing fact that the prosperity and the availability of scarce resources is proving only to increase as the population grows.  Their most fundamental argument is that people have value.  Every child added to the world increases the wealth of all of us. The authors…