Chris Young, a pro-life activist, tragically passed away last night after delivering this testimony to the House Committee on Judiciary on the Fetal Heartbeat bill.
The all-powerful director of the R.I. Department of Transportation, Peter Alviti, has invoked the authority granted to him by Gov. Gina Raimondo and General Assembly to double the toll rate at Oxford Street overpass. The increase is justified by a nebulous, internally-concocted cost-benefit formula.
I am reminded of the very telling testimony of one Mike Riley, my friend and the former head of the Connecticut Motor Truck Association, who joined us in opposition to RhodeWorks before the House Finance Committee back in 2015.
He stated: “Methinks your director protests too much. He wants way too much authority and you ought not give it to him. You ought to stop. You ought to think about this. Remember the highway intersection sign: Stop, look and listen.”
With the General Assembly’s self-proclaimed “firewall” against car tolls currently taking on water, the recently-announced move by RIDOT to “nationalize” the R.I. Turnpike and Bridge Authority, and this latest toll increase maneuver, I urge Rhode Islanders to “stop, look and listen.”
Methinks (MeKnows) you are next on the establishment’s “cost-benefit” menu. After all, the formula is very simple: your cost will always be to their benefit.
The common interests of labor unions and progressives are draining the Ocean State of its lifeblood.
Some days watching the news can seem like a punishment because there is little that reflects common sense.
Guest: Terrence Gray, Deputy Director, RI Dept. Environment Management, dem.ri.gov
Host: John Carlevale Time: 30 minutes
TCI is a multi-state effort of transportation, energy and environmental agencies to work collaboratively to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through fees. The model is a “cap and invest” approach which Gray explains will generate revenue which will be invested in more environmentally friendly systems to cut greenhouse gasses. The challenging question is: Will these fees levied at the petroleum produces increase the cost of gasoline and diesel fuel?
Increasing sexual activity among school-aged children in Massachusetts (or Rhode Island) would help Planned Parenthood develop life-long customers.
Results from neither Newport schools nor regionalized schools justify Portsmouth abandoning its stable situation.
Despite heavy regulation of home gun-making already on the books, Rhode Island’s legislature is seeking to turn law-abiding hobbyists into criminals.
Like leaders in Communist China, Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo wants to manipulate the market to advance her own political goals and power.
The well intentioned but hasty, ill formed Opioid Stewardship Act passed by Rhode Island lawmakers last session is now creating medication shortages and chaos within our healthcare community instead of properly addressing the problem.
First Circuit Court Decision Stokes Urgency to Pass Truck-Only Tolls and Begin Gantry Roll-Out
Dead wrong as she may be, at least Governor Gina Raimondo made a decision and stuck with a plan. Her indecisive counterpart next door in the Nutmeg State, Ned Lamont, seems to change his mind on how and who he will toll on a weekly basis.
Governor Lamont’s latest maneuver has Connecticut poised to pass truck-only tolls as emergency legislation in the wake of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision last week giving jurisdiction on the American Trucking Associations’ challenge to RhodeWorks truck-only tolls back to the federal court.
In an interview Sunday, WTNH’s Chief Political Correspondent, Mark Davis, asked Lamont the following:
One year ago today, five weeks after the election, I asked you if you were still committed to the trucks only tolls, you said you were. About six or eight weeks later you changed your mind and included passenger cars. Last month, you went back to trucks only. Don’t you think that’s a problem for a Governor and a politician?
Freedom isn’t free. East Greenwich needs an engaged citizenry to ensure liberty is preserved, not just for us but all those that come after. We are merely stewards of our community, and it is our sacred duty to take care of it.
Once again, the RI Ethics Commission proves there’s a big loophole in the Code of Ethics for elected officials who earn their livings working for government agencies.
The public events during East Greenwich’s Veterans Day activities did not match the reverence remembered from childhood or that the day deserves.
Rhode Island’s ban on flavored vaping shows a mentality that Rhode Islanders increasingly want to escape.
I’m constantly confused by politicians who think that their election also comes with honorary degrees in medicine, education, commerce, and the like… that upon their election, they have a right to appoint themselves as doctor, teacher, etc., to their constituents. Most of our elected officials are purely bought and sold tools of one lobby or another. They know no more than you or me.
Informed adults don’t need this kind of micro-supervision. Vaping has allowed me to get away from cigarettes, and I imagine the hundreds of thousands or millions of vapers in New England resent having their legal sources of vaping suddenly cut off with no compelling research into the public health effects of the habit.
This ban is a terrible trend by our governor. What she isn’t considering are the local small businesses she is destroying. There are plenty of online sources (for now) which will take more money out of RI. And, even more crucially, those who use vaping as a safer alternative to smoking will be forced to return to tobacco products. Maybe Governor Raimondo has missed the tax dollars from each pack of cigarettes purchased in RI.
The messages she is sending, of government overreach and a total lack of consideration of the ramifications of her edict, are yet another nail in this beautiful state’s casket. The R and I are, increasingly, standing for Really Idiotic.
Once our son is done with high school and Boy Scouts, we are fleeing. In search of freedom and some self-respect.
In a stunning decision, the Portsmouth Town Council voted 7-0 on June 24 to enter into discussions with Newport for joining the two high schools into a unified system. The proposal by Newport School Superintendent Colleen Burns Jermain had been rejected by the Middletown Council.
We have been down this road before. This decision reverses a May 2011 unanimous vote by the Portsmouth School Committee to end discussions on regionalizing all three of the Island’s districts and reject any regional approach.
Americans should keep their eyes open during Gay Pride events and consider how they fit within our society.
Legislation exempting the first $25,000 of military retirement income for veterans over 60 years old would be a good start toward recognizing their service.
House Bill 5893 is the Electronic Data Privacy Act and is crucial for the Rhode Island General Assembly to pass into law. If passed, the bill, sponsored by Minority Leader Blake Filippi, would prohibit any government entity from accessing electronic devices without search warrants. If the state does not pass this bill, it will have violated spirit of the Fourth Amendment, which guarantees our right as citizens from unlawful searches.
This is a technology filled era, and our Fourth Amendment protections should not be exempt when it comes to computers, phones, tablets and any other technological devices which have personal information within them.
If Rhode Island does not pass this common sense legislation, we will not only have a failed economy, we will be one step closer to failing and uphold the principles of the United States Constitution.
Absolutely no one should be searched, or have property seized without probable cause. The Fourth Amendment in the Bill of Rights is arguably our most important. We all want privacy, and we all hope that any law enforcement treats us as we feel we should be treated.
The Fourth Amendment, I would argue, is a even more fundamental than the First or Second Amendment, because if we lose our right to be protected from unlawful searches, we will lose our privacy. Then it is only a matter of time before we lose our rights to speech and firearms.
This bill to protect electronic privacy is crucial to our children’s and their children’s future. We have watches that can make phone calls now; imagine the technology they will possess. Personal property is personal property even when it is in digital form.
If we are going to search, seize, arrest, and convict someone, we must always go through proper due process. If we lose the Fourth Amendment, therefore, we might as well abandon the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution, too.
This bill must be passed and be signed.
Protecting the Second Amendment on a macro scale can start in a small New England town hall.
The opioid epidemic is a widespread, complicated problem, and only a collective effort will begin to solve it. The healthcare community and lawmakers need to work in tandem to find policies that effectively lessen opioid abuse while still keeping our state’s economic health as well the health and safety of the patient in mind. It’s unfortunate, however, that Senate Bill S0798, the Opioid Stewardship Act, fails on both accounts.
If fences make good neighbors, it is because they are markers of our mutual acknowledgement of the other’s liberty and dignity.
Two Providence residents offer Mayor Jorge Elorza alternatives to selling off the city’s assets to back-fill pension obligations.
Why would Rhode Island Democrats insist on allowing bigotry to be a justification for killing an unborn child?
Currently, RIDOH has a database, called Kidsnet, and your child’s information is there forever without your consent. This database has all children enrolled in it, and it’s likely you’ve never heard of it and now they are planning to grow it to everyone.
Perhaps chairwoman would be the more appropriate term, as two of the five announced candidates seeking to serve as the next chair of the Rhode Island’s Republican party are women. A fairly broad diversity of personal characteristics, philosophies, and histories will be presented to central committee voters at the party’s scheduled March 30 election.
On numerous occasions Planned Parenthood has been exposed doing things that most people would consider horrific. Each of these times it has been evident that Planned Parenthood stands not with women, but themselves, so why would any woman of good reason stand with them.
Pro-lifers from around the State came together in unprecedented fashion to defend the unborn and express opposition to radical abortion legislation.
The National Academy of Sciences’ Transportation Research Board (TRB) recently met to assess whether changes to truck size and weight (TS & W) should be implemented. The nation’s scholars, engineers and infrastructure “wonks” came away from the conference with a consensual determination that there was not enough data to support changes and that further studies were needed before any revisions were made to either decrease or increase the allowable dimensions and weight on America’s highways and bridges. In fact, the group spent significant time developing a plan for future research on the TS & Weight issue because there are information gaps and inconsistencies in studies.
So why are DOT leaders around the country yelling “fire in the theater” as they pin the trucking industry with the ills of our infrastructure?
Another Hispanic woman from Providence expresses her disappointment in Mayor Elorza’s abortion testimony.