Originally published on FoxBusiness.com , July 13, 2023 by Kristen Altus, as … Rhode Island ‘horror’ bill a ‘test run’ for more Democrat-led states, experts warn Rhode Island to charge freelance, independent workers a $50 annual fee to retain status One Democrat-led state has passed a law that adds costly registration fees and privacy concerns […]
Watch Dr Skoly’s exclusive interview on In The Dugout, here State of R.I. relents, Dr. Stephen Skoly finally free to return to providing critical care for his patients. After five and a half months of not being allowed to work, Dr. Stephen Skoly has emerged victorious. The Ocean State Current has obtained a copy of […]
The rule changes proposed last week by the RI Department of Health (RIDOH) are nothing but a blatant power grab, even as state health officials hail it as a major step towards returning our state to normal. Technically, the recommended provisions would amend R.I. Gen. Laws Chapter 23-17 and § 23-17.7.1 to make permanent new […]
The innocently named “2021 Act on Climate”, H5445, has been ominously rocketing through the General Assembly. It passed the full House on March 23 and the full Senate is scheduled to vote on it this afternoon. If it passes, it will have cleared the General Assembly and presumably be sent straight on to Governor Daniel McKee for his action within seven (ten?) days.
Informally dubbed “Rhode Island’s Green New Deal”, H5445 would mandate the reduction to zero by 2050 of greenhouse gases in Rhode Island – a goal that could only be accomplished by eliminating the use of all fossil fuels and transitioning entirely to renewable energy sources, wind and solar; i.e., from reliable, reasonably priced energy sources to intermittent, exorbitantly expensive ones. More about it here, including why the effective date of substantial implementation would be 2026, not thirty long years from now.
But perhaps we are missing something. Have proponents of the bill answered the critically important question about cost of implementation?
Take action now! Add your voice to the many thousands who have asked Governor Dan McKee to live up to his promises as an advocate for the small business community, to take decisive action to relieve businesses of excessive green mandates and to ensure our state’s long-term viability by VETOING Rhode Island’s Green New Deal.
A full on assault against the average Rhode Island family is rocketing through the General Assembly. The Ocean State is quickly moving to put our own version of the Green New Deal into law. We need you to take action immediately to voice your opposition to it, before it is too late. Click here now to say NO to this far-left radical scheme from the land of make-believe.
This, along with the TCI Gas Tax, will paralyze our state. As we struggle to recover from the pandemic, it should be inconceivable that state lawmakers would choose NOW to consider an additional 30-40 cents per gallon gas tax increase or impose a radical, prohibitively expensive energy scheme.
Yet, the price of gasoline could soon rise (even more than it already has) if a new stealth carbon-tax scheme – the TCI Gas Tax – is implemented … a move that would necessarily increase costs on families and business, driving more people out of our state. The House of Representatives will vote on House Bill 5445 this Tuesday. This version of the state’s green new deal has already passed the RI Senate.
Even if you have contacted lawmakers already, we need you to take action again to oppose RI’s Green New Deal: Click here to contact lawmakers to say NO to the TCI Gas Tax and H5445, Rhode Island’s Green New Deal!
The simple form, once completed, will automatically send an email to the Governor and to legislative leaders telling them to reject the regional gasoline cap-and-trade scheme and RI’s Green New Deal.
Tell them today that you stand against these radical energy schemes. Thank you for taking action, and remember that your voice counts.
On its one year anniversary, it would be irresponsible not to look at the effectiveness of the COVID-19 lockdown. Florida and California vividly demonstrate that the answer is “completely ineffective”: the two states have had similar outcomes to very different approaches, making it clear that lockdowns did not and do not work to slow or stop the spread of COVID-19.
What about Rhode Island? Well, we locked down. And we have the third highest COVID-19 deaths nationally.
Lockdowns, even if they worked exactly as hoped, were never a good solution because of the enormous public health and other consequences they inflict. One year later, it is clear, as they do not achieve even their hoped-for goal, that they are entirely destructive with zero public health benefit.
Now, let’s look at where Rhode Island stands on the original reason for a lockdown: two weeks to flatten the curve and not overwhelm hospitals. Below is the trend of Rhode Island’s hospitalizations; specifically, Column U, “Currently Hospitalized” of this sheet:
4/28/2020: 375 (Spring, 2020 peak)
12/15/2020: 516
1/25/2021: 380
3/9/2021: 141
By this original goalpost, Rhode Island can open up fully, now. (Please stop with the agonizing and ineffective baby steps.) More to the point, the state never needs to lock down again for this (or any) reason. This is because, to her credit, former Governor Gina Raimondo set up COVID-19 field hospitals. While they were recently shut down because COVID-19 cases have dropped markedly, they will remain in place in the event of a surge.
The evidence and observed science one year into COVID-19 lockdowns is blaring and indisputable: they do not work. All states can and should open up immediately, fully, without restrictions – including nursing homes with reasonable protections. Refusing to do so is to deny the plain evidence and prolong the needless suffering and very serious health and other consequences of lockdowns.
Rhode Island’s government is failing on every level. You’d think a news media that’s serving the public would be behaving as if that were the case.
Perhaps this isn’t the time to be throwing roadblocks in front of the U.S. economy? Nah. It isn’t the progressive puppeteers who’ll suffer.
If the Public’s Radiiiiio wants to serve the public, its reporters should begin digging into the actual story of small business in RI, although it’s one where the Secretary of State and the political establishment will have to be challenged rather than simply cited as if they’re experts by virtue of their political success.
The shocking words they admit they can’t say publicly… were just made public. They say, if YOU heat your homes or drive passenger cars, YOU are the “bad guys.”
Whether it is “you,” “the person up the street,” or “the senior on fixed income”… the radical environmentalists who support TCI say it is you who they want to “turn the screws on” and “point the finger at,” so they can “break your will” to force you to “stop emitting.”
See the alarming video of the MA Undersecretary for Climate Change talking about the abusive TCI scheme: https://youtu.be/muxVGmgykA4
Learn more by clicking here now to read about how the TCI Gas Tax is bad for Rhode Island families.
Count me among those somewhat surprised to learn that the electric grid of the State of Texas, perhaps best known for oil production (and proud of it), incorporates wind turbines in its electric grid. In fact,
… wind generation ranks as the second-largest source of energy in Texas, accounting for 23% of state power supplies last year
But as you have probably seen, this “green energy” source has turned into a big Achilles heel for Texas’ electric grid in the cold front that has descended on that state and much of the country. As of yesterday,
Frozen wind turbines have caused almost half of Texas’s wind generation capacity to go offline in the midst of an “unprecedented storm”.
The Lone Star state is under a state of emergency after freezing conditions swept the region, causing dangerously icy roads and leaving nearly 3 million people without power.
Update: frozen wind turbines led to a drop in Texas’ wind power from thirty one gigawatts to six and there are currently 3.4 million power outages. The situation is getting worse, not better.
Texas, and other states, has resorted to rolling blackouts. In below-freezing temperatures, this is literally a life-threatening situation for states like Texas which rely on electricity for heat (and lots of other critical activities).
A small but vocal group of advocates, promoted by many gauzy-eyed members of the mainstream media, have for years been pushing to transition to green energy away from fossil fuel.
Rhody Reporter Diana Lozowski takes a look at how the State’s Bureaucracy has morphed what could have been a simple licensing process using existing procedures into yet another feast for connected insiders. In short, You Gotta Know a Guy. Too bad that kind of overhead drives up the price. Too bad that those in the most need have to overpay because of cost structures designed to feed insiders. The surprising conclusion: At least it’s available now to those in need.
California’s response to COVID-19 has been to lock down and lock down hard. The harshness of its lockdown is confirmed by its decimated economy and heavy out-migration.
Ten months later, California currently has the second highest average daily cases per 100,000 in the last seven days per the CDC. A couple of weeks ago, it was at the top of the list. Rhode Island, also a state which misguidedly chose to lockdown, is currently fifth highest.
Lockdowns, even if they worked exactly as hoped, were never a good solution because of the enormous public health consequences they inflict. Now California’s experience confirms indisputably that lockdowns do not work to stop or slow COVID-19.
And a study just released via Newsweek confirms this.
A study evaluating COVID-19 responses around the world found that mandatory lockdown orders early in the pandemic may not provide significantly more benefits to slowing the spread of the disease than other voluntary measures, such as social distancing or travel reduction.
As she edges out the door, Governor Gina Raimondo has admonished us to “stay the course”. Meaning stay locked down. She is bewilderingly putting on auto pilot a completely failed, highly damaging public policy.
When asked whether he will continue the state’s lockdown, incoming governor Dan McKee has stated (I believe on WPRO radio), “The infection rate is going to drive that”. In light of the complete disconnect between lockdowns and the infection rate, I would respectfully urge him in the strongest terms to re-examine that course and not repeat the mistake of his predecessor of disregarding the data and evidence. He has no obligation to continue any of her policies – but particularly one that has so obviously failed.
One can agree or disagree with the governor’s strategy for handling COVID-19, just as one could agree or disagree with socialists and trade unionists when the Nazis came for them, but we shouldn’t give over our civil rights in the bargain.
The governor gave herself unprecedented power to make us do and not do things for our own good (from her perspective) with COVID-19, and there was never any reason to believe she would restrict that philosophy to the pandemic if she could get away with pushing the envelope. Well… she’s pushing the envelope.
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.
The full release and analysis of detailed testing data could be critical in shaping more focused and less intrusive COVID-19 restrictions for Rhode Islanders.
This data, which measures “viral load” (how much of the virus is present) and which is routinely collected by labs that conduct COVID tests, can be critically important in determining both public policy and individual regimens. Take action now to demand it.
The Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity has launched a new campaign, sending over a sixteen hundred pre-written emails (in just days) to officials petitioning the state to take action to collect and publish this vital cycle threshold data.
We have good news to share… they have taken the first steps in making a small portion of this data available. Our campaign is clearly working, but we need full transparency on this critical information.
You can take action by clicking on the link here now. Don’t wait, because your voice is powerful and it will make a difference for the people of Rhode Island!
My weekly call-in on John DePetro’s WNRI 1380 AM/95.1 FM show, for November 30, included talk about:
I’ll be on again Monday, November 30, at 12:00 p.m. on WNRI 1380 AM and I-95.1 FM.
The Governor needs to stop trying to control our lives.
On the latest episode of our Mikes with Mics, nationally renowned epidemiologist, Dr. Andrew Bostom, explained that an “un-hysterical” analysis of the data does not support the Governor’s actions, which he called “bogus.”
Eight days ago, this is where Rhode Island stood with hospitalizations, the original and only goal of the lockdown. Now Rhode Island is seeing an uptick in COVID-19 cases. Good time to update, especially with a press conference by Governor Raimondo coming up shortly.
At 168 “Currently Hospitalized”, we are still less than half the peak in late April of 377. And Rhode Island hospitalizations were not overwhelmed even at this peak. In fact, the Governor Raimondo herself stated mid-April that the need for hospital beds would peak in late April or early May and that Rhode Island was not going to see a worst case scenario. She was correct on both points. Nor has Rhode Island come close to the peak for hospitalizations
Yet despite achieving this goal, Governor Raimondo, with the express consent by inaction of Speaker Mattiello and Senate President Ruggerio, has inexplicably not lifted the onerous and damaging lockdown of Rhode Island.
Moreover, as we are now seeing in Europe, lockdowns do not work to stop the disease.
Yes, we need to be vigilant. Vulnerable populations must continue to take steps to protect them and we all need to be thoughtful of our interactions with them. But let’s also not overreact.
By continuing to impose what has now been demonstrated to be an ineffectual (yet highly damaging) measure to suppress spread when the singular goal of the measure was achieved six months ago, our state leaders are flexing power in a way that is completely detached from facts, science and data. This is, accordingly, an an abuse of power and an overreaction, the result of which, intended or not, is to punish Rhode Islanders in the short and long term for something that is beyond our control.
What does perhaps the most important COVID-19 data point show and say about the case for continuing Rhode Island’s lockdown?
RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity CEO Mike Stenhouse speaks with nationally renowned conservative Stephen Moore about economics, President Trump, and politics.
If we continue to accept the governor’s proclamations passively, or even with support, part of the blame for consequences falls on us for our silence.
At each step, the imposition of new rules and technology seems minor and maybe justified, but eventually, the people find themselves tangled in a network of regulation and taxation.
Governor Raimondo and her merry band of magic Appointees focus on the true danger in Rhode Island — not roudy rioters carrying signs that threaten to burn down the country, but college kids who aren’t voluntarily living as if in an open-air prison.
As compliance inspectors fan out across the state and the state spends money to remind Rhode Islanders to follow the rules, Governor Raimondo shows by example that the rules don’t apply to everybody equally.
Three weeks ago, Rhode Island Women for Freedom and Prosperity conducted a survey of its Members and Supporters about COVID-19 and Rhode Island’s response. The fifth and last question of the survey was the option to offer a comment on the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown.
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.