Property theft is a serious offense that should be treated as such. However, Kentucky’s threshold by which theft escalates from misdemeanor to felony has not been amended in over a decade and is outdated due to inflation. Meanwhile, the state’s corrections facilities are stretched and overcrowded, with the seventh highest incarceration rate in the country—the...
From 2012 to 2020, mail-in ballot use in Texas grew from 204,000 to about 1 million, a quintupling of mailed votes. This suggests Texas is moving from an excuse-required to vote by mail state to a de facto vote-by-mail state, all without a change in the state’s election code. Why does this matter? Because voting...
Everything that’s wrong with the H.R. 1 election takeover bill can be summed up with the propagandistic misnomer the Democrats have labeled it with—the “For the People Act.” It undermines the very right it purports to uphold, a citizen’s right to have a say in our representative democracy. Enabling fraudulent ballots to cancel out legitimate...
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner tweeted out a bold statement on Tuesday: “We don’t have voter fraud in Texas…” It was part of a longer tweet, which continued, “but we did have massive systemwide grid failure, statewide power outages, bursted water pipes, no water and high electricity bills. Um. Now I understand why some elected officials...
In a 2009 episode of HBO‘s Flight of the Conchords, Brian, the fictional prime minister of New Zealand, wants to meet the American president. Unable to convince the White House switchboard operator that New Zealand is a real country, Brian travels to Washington and instead takes a public White House tour hoping for a “chance” meeting with...
In January, police in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas found 19 charred corpses in two burned-out vehicles. The initial investigation showed they had been shot first, then set aflame. They were migrants, many from Central America, on their way to Texas. One of them was Marvin Alberto Tomás — “Lefty” to his friends. He left his family in Guatemala...
Indiana’s 2021 legislative session showed promising efforts to reform the criminal justice system and promote public safety, with lawmakers introducing several important bills. In particular, this session brought opportunities for the state to improve initiatives protecting women in prison, but these attempts ultimately failed when lawmakers hit the halfway marker of the 2021 session. As...
Video from a Jan. 5 officer-involved shooting won’t be made public until April, the Austin police say, because on top of everything else, it got cold in Texas in February. According to a police statement, “due to recent city of Austin weather-related closures, APD will not be releasing the video during the initial 60-day timeframe.”...
A year ago, Texas governments were making it up as we went along. Officials responded to COVID-19 by upending our lives, shutting down the economy, and closing schools. Parents became teachers and grocery store stockers became vital front-line troops. Governments further closed bars, mandated masks, and enforced stringent measures that chipped away at our fundamental...
If a U.S. president can be impeached twice—even with the second trial coming after he leaves office—Abraham Lincoln can be assassinated a second time, with the second attack coming on his reputation. This posthumous attack comes from the woke luminaries heading up the San Francisco Unified School District, which recently decided to rename its schools formerly known...
The government response to COVID-19 has mostly been a failure. Theatric, yes—see New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Emmy. Symbolic, yes. But there is no evidence shutdowns did anything but deepen the economic suffering, increase suicides, and prevent lifesaving medical tests and treatments. With the exception of former President Trump’s effort to speed research, approval, and...
Debates about Montana’s budget often invoke bitter contention over spending cuts, but miss an opportunity for consensus on limiting spending growth. Most Montanans I grew up with would likely agree our government should spend within its means and not tax too much. Those who drafted Montana’s constitution wisely required governments to balance budgets for that...