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Store signage

Why does Brianna Henries want to make life worse for working Rhode Islanders?

By Justin Katz | March 14, 2022 |

I’ve been trying to figure out which is the case:  Either politicians have developed such thorough contempt for the people that they assume we’re complete fools whom they can deceive with impunity or we’re allowing people to gain public office whom a healthy civilization would have kept well away from the controls. The problem goes…

Image of COVID as planet Earth

Governor McKee Declines to Comment about 854 Unvaccinated Health Care Workers

By Monique Chartier | March 13, 2022 |

We recently learned, deep in a Rhode Island Department of Health report, that as of last month, 854 unvaccinated healthcare workers have been permitted to continue to work without medical exemption in violation of the state’s vaccine mandate.   Major credit to Dr. Andrew Bostom for finding and publicizing this remarkable and disturbing document. Further…

Great Depression bread line

Today’s wasn’t a very good employment report for RI.

By Justin Katz | March 11, 2022 |

Almost since I began keeping an eye on it, the unemployment rate has primarily been a means of disguising the underlying weakness of RI’s economy.  With the latest iteration, the AP writer seems to accentuate the positive, but you don’t have to dig far to see the negative — as far, say, as the state…

A model house and key

Statistics come up short for charges of racism in housing.

By Justin Katz | March 11, 2022 |

A lack of housing is a problem, and racism is simply wrong, so we have powerful emotional incentive to join the two matters into the story we tell about our society.  In a more-specific way, advocates and researchers have even more-powerful economic incentive to do so.  In that space, as with “equity audits” in schools,…

Neon mushrooms

We should more hallucinogenics toward legalization.

By Justin Katz | March 9, 2022 |

For the record, I’ve never tried hallucinogenic drugs.  Even as a reckless teenager who was otherwise open to self destruction, I knew myself well enough not to roll the dice on that experiment. This disclaimer is context for my agreement with progressive Democrat state representative Brandon Potter’s proposal to move toward decriminalization of psilocybin, which…

Teacher and students

School districts still have illegal provisions in their contracts.

By Justin Katz | March 9, 2022 |

The RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity has localized a study from the Mackinac Center finding that some school districts in Rhode Island continue to have provisions in their teacher contracts that don’t reflect the right of teachers to work without joining the union and requiring express consent to enroll them: According to the Mackinac…

A water drop and ripples

Paying your debts is social justice.

By Justin Katz | March 8, 2022 |

Maybe I’m just entering that late-middle-age phase, but it seems to me that younger adults — or all of us, with reference to times that were before our time — too infrequently understand the experience of the past.  Consider this find from Tim Worstall for Accuracy in Media: A new piece from Teen Vogue says that…

A water drop and ripples

Why not just leave anachronistic “plantations” in place where it’s historical and difficult to remove?

By Justin Katz | March 8, 2022 |

Patrick Anderson follows up on the state’s ongoing efforts to change its official name everywhere, following a constitutional edit during the last election: You don’t have to look too hard to find the words Providence Plantations on state buildings, a year and a half after Rhode Island voters deleted them from the state name. The…

A man fuels his car

Don’t let them spin away the pain they’re infliction on Americans.

By Justin Katz | March 8, 2022 |

Gas prices have hit record highs in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, according to AAA.  We’ve achieved and exceeded the pain some of us remember all too well from the Obama years: In one week, Rhode Island gas prices rose 58 cents and Massachusetts saw a growth of 54 cents. AAA Northeast says Rhode Island’s average…

A water drop and ripples

Funny how we’ve forgotten why the state took over Providence schools.

By Justin Katz | March 7, 2022 |

It’s depressing to say, but it looks like the anti-reform strategy of the teachers unions and other special interests succeeded.  From the beginning, it was clear that the plan was to delay and obfuscate attempts at correcting the unforgivably terrible performance of Providence schools until the attention of the public moved on. For some reason,…