This year’s Portsmouth Institute conference, next weekend, addresses “Catholicism and the American Experience,” a subject for which Rhode Island has provided fertile ground.
From my guest contribution to today’s Nesi’s Notes: Real dangers and disapproved behaviors, and moral and political weaknesses are certainly all factors in the debate over arming campus police officers — and what a taboo against arming police officers, on campus or at any educational institution, misses.
Reactions to school choice legislation in the General Assembly raise the question of whether “public education” really means the system by which the public educates itself.
Chafee switching to the Democratic party and what that means for Taveras and Raimondo.
Sgt. Gregory A. Belanger
Sgt. Charles T. Caldwell
Staff Sgt. Joseph Camara
Spc. Michael Andrade
CW5 Sharon T. Swartworth
Capt. Matthew J. August
Sgt. 1st Class Curtis Mancini
Master Sgt. Richard L. Ferguson
Lance Cpl. Matthew K. Serio
Lance Cpl. John J. Van Gyzen IV
Sgt. Christopher S. Potts
Lance Cpl. Holly A. Charette
2nd Lt. Matthew S. Coutu
Cpl. Brian R. St. Germain
Staff Sgt. Dale J. Kelly
Sgt. Moises Jazmin
Lance Cpl. Eric P. Valdepenas
Sgt. Michael R. Weidemann
Spc. Agent Nathan J. Schuldheiss
Sgt. Kyle J. Harrington
Lt. j.g. Francis L. Toner IV
Pfc. Kyle J. Coutu
Staff Sgt. Thomas H. Oakley
Sgt. Michael F. Paranzino
Spc. Dennis C. Poulin
Spc. Dennis P. Weichel Jr.
Lance Cpl. Abraham Tarwoe
Sam Howard misses the point of questions about who the RIGOP is and who is to blame for both its trouble’s and the state’s.
No Feeding at the State Trough, Except For…
The Reputation of the EDC
Coventry’s Latest Crisis and “Fiscal Stabilization”
Legislative Budget Increase and the Mid-Year Shortfall
The question of blame for Rhode Island’s political culture requires an accurate view of how politics (and media) operates in the state. It’s not sports or business competition; it’s life.
The national scandals facing the Obama administration arguably point to the underlying causes of Rhode Island’s economic troubles.
Rep. Larry Valencia’s question on the relative morality of different taxes points to the question of how tax policy decisions should be made.
The nature of a decision-making body is determined by who wins out when the majority of a body wants one thing while the leader, who is just a single member, wants something different. In a democratic process, you get one answer. In a dictatorial process, you get another. The rules of the Rhode Island House of Representatives have a process to protect what is supposed to be the democratic nature of the body, the discharge petition. Though they are rarely used, there is no reason why they shouldn’t be.
A “surveillance state” doesn’t just snag those who are overtly criminal, and it can affect a society most profoundly by adding risk to creativity.
Alternate Title: An Analysis of the Government Reorg that’s Supposed to Make RI a Better Place to do Business
Bottom Line: If Rhode Island’s technocratic elites and supposedly “pragmatic” policy advocates don’t believe that same-sex marriage and commuter rail to Wickford are sufficient cornerstones of a sound economic policy, they either need to change the mind of the leader promoting that strategy, or find a leader with a better economic development strategy to support. Creating an undergovernor to implement a set of priorities different from those held by the real governor isn’t the answer. Also: Who exactly is the constituency for keeping the Economic Development Corporation as is? This is a real question, that I’m not sure of the answer to.
Click here for the details of what’s in the proposals. Click here for the beginning of the analysis.
Some policy strategists on the right are looking to behavioral science for ways to use government to encourage preferred behavior, but conceding the appropriate role of government to manipulate has an intolerable cost.
A professor of “religion in public life,” by his flawed analysis of regional religious affiliation and same-sex marriage, nonetheless raises some interesting points.
A politically correct American Left encourages Americans to turn their eyes away from horrors that illustrate that which euphemisms cover, whether it’s infanticide or global jihad.
A Competitive Enterprise Institute video showing unions’ harmful effects on “The Life of Julius” cites a study by the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity.
The City of Central Falls, emerging from bankruptcy, is apparently being run by a crew of young adults with a compelling vision for the city that might not be plausible if public dollars weren’t so easy to acquire.
The urge to be normal has been exploited in the push for same-sex marriage, and it won’t stop there.
Amendments to Rhode Island’s proposed same-sex marriage law will give its religious freedom provisions roughly the same scope as the laws in most other states that have authorized SSM by statute — except Rhode Island will still be the only state that dictates to “religious institutions” what they must do to retain “exclusive control” of their religious teachings. What would Roger Williams think of that?
The World Bank’s deadline for solving global “extreme poverty” echoes a charity proposed by Herman Melville’s Devil, with a lesson that applies the world over.
Video of security personnel emptying a suburban home of its residents in order, ostensibly, to search for the fugitive terrorist in Boston raises questions about the nation’s slide away from the Constitution.
A short story from December 2001 is once again (or still) relevant, in the wake of the Boston Marathon terrorist bombing.
Anchor Rising has joined the Ocean State Current for a joint venture combining their content at the same online location.
Justin responds to a Providence Journal article that he finds indistinguishable from what an official government communications team might have produced.
The father of Governor Chafee’s preferred “three Ts” strategy for economic development is beginning to see the limitations and damages of it. A strategy of freedom first would better serve the people of Rhode Island.
An article not about what it’s about; sequester demagoguery; softening kids for “effort shock”; and the rise of grassroots fascism.
Extremely thin ridership on the Wickford Junction train points to the same conclusion as everything else in Rhode Island: Government needs to let the economy happen.
