The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission recently announced it plans to significantly increase, in some cases quadruple, setback rules limiting where oil and gas can be harvested. Though the regulatory agency claims to be championing public health and safety, its proposed setbacks are completely arbitrary and would all but kill the state’s energy industry...
Despite the hardships many have faced—and continue to face—because of the pandemic, local entities across the state still asked voters on Election Day to approve a bundle of bond propositions totaling approximately $12.8 billion. But just as many individuals and families were forced to trim their budgets, voters told Northwest ISD to do the same....
The COVID-19 pandemic has hit Hispanics particularly hard. The reasons for this range from language barriers to higher rates of comorbidities. Combine this with another disturbing trend—4,200 children in New York alone have lost a parent to COVID-19, putting a quarter of them at risk of going into foster care—and a crisis is becoming clear....
When police encountered George Floyd, they unknowingly met someone who had lost his restaurant job amid a pandemic-triggered shutdown and suffered from many preexisting medical conditions. We don’t know if Floyd would have survived the arrest if he were perfectly healthy, but we know that being poor is a disadvantage in the justice system and that incarceration exacerbates health...
Election results in Texas and other states carry an important lesson that will impact U.S. elections for many years to come: the prediction that Democrats will benefit from the growing diversity of our population is flat-out wrong. The White percentage of the U.S. population has been shrinking for years and will continue to do so, demographers tell...
Ronald Reagan once said, “Government’s first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.” But as the COVID-19 pandemic continues, local governments seem to have forgotten this principle. At the beginning of the pandemic, the implementation of new rules and restrictions, like social distancing guidelines, advanced a meaningful public health objective. But after...
You don’t need to be a cartographer to look at the county map of the 2016 presidential election to see that there is a political divide between dense urban areas and rural America. This chasm will almost certainly be on display again as the results roll in on Election Night. Media reports on criminal justice...
I have asthma. Once a month, I’d trudge to the pharmacy and plunk down a $20 copay for my Advair maintenance inhaler. I had a Preferred Provider Option (PPO) insurance plan—a beautiful 80/20 plan with unbelievably low premiums, deductibles, and copays thanks to a generous benefits package from my former employer. Now I find myself...
With the Texas economy reeling in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting statewide shutdowns, economic recovery will be the top issue for the upcoming legislative session. Key to any attempt at recovery will be determining how much the state should spend. The prosperity of many Texans at stake and the Texas Legislature...
America voted. Now the results will be determined by a combination of local election officials, state officials, corrupt urban political machines, targeted mass violence, lawyers, judges, and even Congress. Added into the volatile mix will be a thoroughly partisan and untrustworthy legacy media, social media giants, and even hostile foreign powers. It is 2020, after...
We don’t yet have a vaccine for COVID-19, but there is an antidote for mistrust and misunderstandings in the justice system. What if we could improve the quality of communications between police officers and others in positions of authority — and those over whom they exercise it? Progress requires a communications paradigm that is courteous...
For elections in these tempestuous times, we must ensure that it’s easy to vote, yet hard to cheat. We must also remember that our institutions are strong, and will endure. This year commenced with the impeachment of the President. The impeachment and trial ultimately resulted in no action, yet it served to further increase partisan...