I had to cancel several indoor ticketed January events, because Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee announced he was going to sign an executive order in the coming days that would impose yet another indoor mask mandate. To my surprise, according to the RI state website, a medical exemption would still apply.
Hi Ocean State Current: I wanted to share my story with you about my experience with the healthcare mandate. I was a school social worker in a local public school for the past 4 years. I worked in person most of this pandemic, supporting the children, teachers and community. In my previous school, the teachers […]
While upgrading EV charging infrastructure may sound good on the surface to some: giving electric car owners more places to charge their glorified go-karts, it does nothing more than help the state’s wealthy. Looking at RI’s median household income of $67,167, a large majority of RI residents cannot afford an electric vehicle, making the spending virtually useless.
The “anti-fascists” (Antifa) take thuggishly to the streets to maim people who are protesting big-government tyranny. And the “anti-racists” – often under direction of Critical Race Theory – come to all types of broad conclusions based entirely on the color of people’s skin.
There isn’t a student within the Providence school system – long controlled by union-Democrats – who can read.
Yet, the recently replaced principal of Hope High School, Matthew Buchanan, writes in the Boston Globe how concerned he is with the skin tone of the people replacing former administrators.
As Catholic men with a sense of mission, we can find ourselves feeling overwhelmed by a seemingly impossible situation in our country and Church, brought upon by years of stupidity and sin. Here is the answer.
It is commonly accepted that an effective vaccine for COVID-19 will save lives.
The vaccine, be it BioNTech’s, Moderna’s, or any other pharmaceutical intervention, will most effectively bring an end to the COVID era. The “science” needed to bring this intervention into the world is astounding, with tens of thousands of test subjects undergoing trials for each version. Months and months and months of careful testing, and yet A SINGLE ADVERSE EVENT among any of the study participants halts the progress. One event. Savings lives is critical, so long as no harm is done in the process.
Simultaneously, governments all over the world have become obsessed with their own interventions. The non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) range from mask mandates, to required testing, to full scale economic lockdown. In the most extreme, China even resorted to welding people into their homes.
There has been no shortage of speculation that the lockdowns have caused harm. The argument has always been that they save lives by mitigating spread, but there really has not been comprehensive proof of that. Florida and California, two comparable states in climate and demography, have had comparable disease spreads with remarkably different approaches to inhibiting its residents. In other words, the NPIs adopted by California, draconian in some respects, have not proven any more effective than the “control group”…Florida’s non-interventionist approach.
Veterans Day this year brought back memories of Christopher Reed’s time in the service.
The Rhode Island Trucking Association (RITA) made a conscious effort to never publicly target recently-ousted Speaker of the Rhode Island House, Nicholas Mattiello.
We are living through one of the most peaceful times in human history. Given the tumult of 2020, it is easy to lose perspective. The number of people living in poverty is plummeting – globally. And even with a pandemic raging, we are seeing extraordinary advances in our ability to fight disease. Whether together or apart, we will soon see the arrival of Thanksgiving – a pause to give thanks, and maybe gain some perspective.
Before we arrive at this pause, we have an election to endure. The Gaspee Project board is committed to advocating for free market principles and supporting conservative candidates. These principles lead to more freedom. Freedom leads to prosperity (jobs). History has shown this to be true.
Conservatives believe in the individual rights and a free society. This is why private property and a limited government are so important.
Are local hospitals withholding life-saving measures and allowing some babies to die?
So far this year, this is what your state government has produced. If you want to talk about business as usual, well here it is.
For many Black people in this country over the age of forty, the fear of losing the progress we’ve gained keeps us tethered to the abuser we were forced to wed.
It’s time for the people of Rhode Island to demand that Governor Gina Raimondo and her left-wing colleagues explain why the white people and others in this state are expected to fall on their knees to apologize for something they did not do.
I have been close to these budgets. Very close.
A “lack of funding” cannot be the culprit for every decision from local officials that change services or reconsider programming. When a 1% or 2% fiscal nudge in anything is blamed, I seriously question the competence and/or the integrity of those using the argument.
The toppling of statues won’t complete the neo-communist objectives, the radical restructuring of American life. But it’s not without purpose. And this is only the beginning.
As conservatives… and anybody who believes in the American dream… take one hit after another in Rhode Island, the answer is right in front of us.
The list of scandals against which left-wing insiders should have to defend themselves continues to grow, according to James Mageau.
The Minneapolis policeman is entirely responsible for his actions, and justice should be served, but that doesn’t mean that political rhetoric didn’t play a role in George Floyd’s death.
With a reasoned approach to reducing the state budget and freeing businesses from unnecessary constraints, Rhode Island can recover from our virus-induced economic malady.
It is clear to anyone paying attention that Anarchists are opportunists. The tragic and unjust death of Mr. Floyd was the catalyst to attack our very institutions, disrupt our lives and cause racial conflict.
Days after an executive order from the governor forbade gatherings, the East Providence police shut down a church despite voluntary plans to limit risks.
Progressives’ dedication to narrative over facts ensures that we’ll keep seeing incidents transformed into social turmoil.
A Rhode Islander who caught COVID-19 in Wyoming experienced a miraculous recovery from the edge of death after doctors used hydroxychloroquine.
In an open letter to Governor Gina Raimondo, religious leaders in Rhode Island begin to insist that engaging in religious worship is not a non-critical leisure activity, but an essential activity for human life.
I applaud the decision makers, at all levels of government, that quickly responded to the medical crisis. But health issues only represent one component of the challenges in front of us. We all hunkered down for weeks to ‘flatten the curve.’ Our common goal was to ensure that, as a community, we had enough hospital beds for those most vulnerable. Well, we’ve flattened the curve. (And we know now that the survival rate of COVID-19 in the United States is almost 95%.) Why then are governments having a hard time moving to the next stage during this time of testing? I can only believe that most people were more familiar with the fears and responses to the medical side of the crisis.
Let’s explore the impact on small businesses. Almost half of all employees in the United States work for a small business. In fact, 96% of Rhode Island businesses are small businesses. They are the engine of our economy. Business owners can feel in their bones, the impact of this shutdown on Rhode Island. We owe it to the rest of the citizens of Rhode Island to communicate this feeling.
The budget for next year is one of the worst produced in the last twenty years. This budget is characterized by the Council’s complete lack of interest in reducing costs to prepare for the economic downturn and its continuing emphasis on the growth of Town government. In fact, the only changes over a routine year are using the Fund Balance to provide revenue for routine spending and to cover any shortfalls in State funding. Currently the budget is at the Provisional stage and there are further votes, but significant changes after this point are rare.
The budget that begins next July 1 has a residential property tax increase of 4.43% at a time when the unemployment rates for Portsmouth taxpayers are probably at least 16%.
“Non-essential” businesses in Rhode Island remain shut down by order of Governor Gina Raimondo even as unemployment filings shoot up and COVID-19 projections drop markedly. While much of trucking has not been directly impacted by the shutdown order, as an industry that interacts with all businesses in Rhode Island – manufacturing, farms, restaurants, small shops, big box stores – trucking has a unique position and voice as Rhode Island looks to re-open.
The governor has said that she doesn’t know what regulations will be issued to allow businesses to re-open. But this is quickly and easily fulfilled: the state simply need to tell all businesses to follow the manufacturers’ lead and take the same pledge that was exclusively afforded to this sector several weeks ago.
The world will demand (and deserves) accountability from the coronavirus’s country of origin, China, but imposing a cost will bring the global community into a perilous dance.
The world is forever changed, the questions are how it has changed and how we must adapt to deal with it.