One of the joys of writing for the public is that, occasionally, the public contacts you. If it’s on Twitter, you learn not to take it personally—especially if the tweeter is anonymous. Same with email—sometimes the responses are supportive, sometimes they’re not. And almost always, anonymous comments tend towards the downright hateful or weird. Over...
Today, the Texas Public Policy Foundation filed a second lawsuit on behalf of Michigan clients who are in trouble with the township of Canton for clearing a 16-acred lot—their own land—of brush, dead trees and undergrowth so they could start a Christmas tree farm. The township said they violated a tree ordinance and initially sought...
Bob Dylan said it best: “For the times they are a-changin.’” It used to be that cities had their way at the Texas Capitol. By wielding local control as a cudgel, city officials and their favorite trade association expertly advanced their agenda and killed any bills that threatened their power or revenue. But no longer....
Let’s be clear, the Affordable Care Act was never about reform of health care it only reformed health insurance. Care is something different, and if we’re going to evaluate the ACA fairly—and honestly debate alternatives—our focus must be on how much care people are getting. Healthcare systems exist to optimize the health of individuals through timely access to...
Dark horse presidential candidate Sen. Kristen Gillibrand, D-N.Y., recently unveiled her “family bill of rights,” a plan she claims “will lift many of the financial burdens on families and help level the playing field for children” within her first 100 days as president. Unlike the actual Bill of Rights, Gillibrand’s proposal expands the role of government while...
Just one day after the conclusion of the 86th Texas Legislature, Hank Whitman announced that he will be retiring as commissioner of the Department of Family and Protective Services at the end of this month. Appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott in 2016, his tenure as the head of the state’s child welfare agency was a...
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics issued its May jobs report Friday morning, estimating that nonfarm payrolls went up 75,000 with the unemployment rate holding steady at 3.6%, remaining at low levels last seen in December 1969. The Hispanic unemployment rate remained at a record low of 4.2% in May while the unemployment rate for workers without...
A series of three seemingly unconnected events over five days in Ohio and California hint at a fundamental political realignment, underscoring the fragility of the American left’s coalition going into the 2020 election. There is a growing, and likely irreparable, rift between elite progressive environmentalists who are accustomed to dominating the narrative within the Democratic...
Los Angeles has a growing problem with diseases borne by both flea and feces. An LAPD officer was just diagnosed with typhoid fever along with two more from the same workplace displaying symptoms. Meanwhile, cases of typhus, caused by a different bacterium, have soared in California from 13 in 2008 to 167 in 2018. In addition, there have...
Within the broad sphere of the criminal justice system, it is perhaps understandable that physical entities — predominantly state prisons, but also increasingly county jails — have received most of the scrutiny among the reform-minded. Rapid growth in prison and jail populations, driven in large part by “tough on crime” sentencing policies that emphasized carceral sanctions for...
Too many students feel afraid to speak honestly on campus for fear of offending someone, a new national survey of college students says. University censorship regimes are teaching some students not only to live with but to embrace the conformism of thought inculcated through university speech codes, speaker dis-invitations, “safe spaces,” “trigger warnings,” and campus...
Pension Tracker, a project of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research led by former California State Assemblyman Joe Nation, Ph.D., is out with its updated assessment of the nation’s unfunded state and local government pension fund liabilities. It’s not a pretty picture—especially if you live in Alaska, California, Connecticut or Illinois where your per...