Amidst all the other things parents have to worry about, they’ve been bombarded with a message on fentanyl that’s only half-right: it’s dangerous (yes!) and the main threat has become multicolored (not quite). Easily identified by its bright, colorful pills, rainbow fentanyl is a marketing gimmick with dangerous consequences. But at least, it is a...
“Nothing can stop the attack of aircraft except other aircraft.”—U.S. Army General William “Billy” Mitchell. This statement by an early American air power expert became reality through the Five Power Naval Limitation Treaty. Governmental regulations often do the opposite of what lawmakers intended. The Five Power Naval Limitation Treaty is a poignant example. Despite its...
Not many years before Texas A&M University was founded by the Legislature in 1871, then-U.S. Sen. Sam Houston remarked, “I will say, without vaunting, that Texas has yet to learn submission to any oppression, come from whatever source it may.” But what if Texas imports its oppression—on purpose? That’s what environmental, social and governance (ESG)...
Just a few miles away from my hometown, three migrants and one suspected smuggler were killed during a DPS pursuit today. Yesterday, 13 migrants, including two small unrestrained children, were discovered following a high-speed chase in Arizona. Last week, DPS Special Agents in Laredo discovered 50 migrants, including seven minors, concealed in a Conex container....
In response to the highly consequential censoring of the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story, Democrats contend that the backlash surrounding this decision confirms that society needs more moderation and censorship in order for democracy to thrive. After all, to them, “the First Amendment isn’t absolute.” But free speech absolutist Elon Musk has something...
This past summer the Texas electric grid sustained 11 new all-time peak demand records. We were able to manage our way through the record setting temperatures and demands for electricity in large part due to conservative operations of the grid and changes enacted by Gov. Greg Abbott and the Texas legislature. Long term, however, we...
On Wednesday, the Legislative Budget Board (LBB) met to adopt a spending limit to govern how fast the next two-year budget will grow. The biennial ritual is performed in service of observing the state’s two primary spending limits, one constitutional and the other statutory. More specifically, those limits are: “the Article VIII constitutional tax spending...
While it’s understandable to get riled up about the latest outrage on campus, there is some potential good news that we shouldn’t fail to notice: After decades of continuously increasing, college tuition now appears to be trending down. While the level of tuition may still be too high (decades of sustained increases will do that), it is...
Once again, California is showing us the future — and it’s wracked with labor strife, high prices, government bloat and abject failure. And nowhere is this more apparent than in California’s government education system. Some 48,000 unionized graduate student workers at 10 University of California campuses went on strike three weeks ago, demanding “significantly higher wages, expanded childcare...
It has been observed that if California Gov. Gavin Newsom learned that the University of California system included professors and staff who persistently engaged in pushing free-market, merit-based achievement, and pro-capitalism messages, he would shut them down immediately. If he found out that the administrations of state colleges and universities were almost exclusively made up of individuals...
“I’m sorry, officer, I didn’t see the speed limit,” has never been a legitimate legal defense. We might say it when we get pulled over, hoping for leniency, but it’s never been a real excuse. Ignorantia juris non excusat: Ignorance of the law is no excuse. That’s a doctrine almost as old as laws themselves....
One thing to be thankful for this Thanksgiving is that it took the Pilgrims only a year or so to figure out that socialism was bad, both for individuals and communities as a whole. Four centuries ago, William Bradford, the first governor of the Plymouth Colony, stated flatly in his history of Plymouth that the Pilgrims had been wrong to think...