When Tyler ISD board members on Aug. 23 approved a $500 bonus for teachers who receive their COVID-19 vaccine (and show proof), and when they discussed additional sick leave benefits for those same teachers, they—perhaps unwittingly—undermined the lessons we’ve been teaching our children for generations. “It’s okay to discriminate against certain people” those policies say,...
It’s a truism—yet also true—that collectivism discourages innovation. If one size fits all, as the Affordable Care Act and its proponents insist, then we need not search for other fits—or other solutions. Yet a federal judge in Tyler, Texas has now sided with Texas and innovation in his ruling on a Medicaid waiver program that...
The fiasco in Afghanistan should, by itself, bring a reckoning for the professionals who assured us it was a worthy effort. It won’t. We witnessed the sudden, embarrassing end to a misbegotten nation-building effort costing more than 2,300 American dead and some $2.3 trillion in expenditures for warfighting, civil works projects, the now non-existent Afghan...
By administrative fiat, federal bureaucrats in the Biden administration at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently expanded food stamp handouts by almost 30%. Yes, you read that correctly, your taxes are going to go up to pay for expenditures your elected members didn’t vote on. And the expansion of these handouts from the Supplemental...
As if the $1.2 trillion “infrastructure” bill in Congress could not be worse, a closer look shows that among other bad ideas there is $125 million allocated to fund the creation of pilot programs to evaluate a federal vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax. The idea behind the VMT tax is to tax drivers for every...
The national debt is rapidly nearing $29 trillion, which is 25% more than our entire economy, and is orders of magnitude higher if you consider unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare. This threatens life as we know it and must be addressed now. Since the start of 2020, the debt has increased by $5.2...
How the mighty have fallen. America was on track to be not only energy independent, but energy dominant. Fast forward about a year, and the Biden administration has thrown an anchor around the neck of America’s oil and gas producers, while simultaneously begging OPEC to increase output. What created this ironic predicament? America has unparalleled potential in...
The United Nations’ latest climate change report sparked predictable hyperventilating. You’ve seen the headlines crying, “Code Red for Humanity” and clamoring about “extreme” and “unprecedented” warming likely to be “irreversible” — accompanied by fear-mongering images of raging wildfires and flooded towns. Fortunately, the true state of our climate is far from disastrous. In fact, both climate...
As critical race theory (CRT) continues to plague the nation’s K-12 public schools, parents, school boards, and educators discuss its presence in the classroom. While we should examine the implementation of CRT, we must also trace how this knowledge is transferred to educators. By shedding more light on the origins of CRT, before it reaches...
Right on Crime is expanding with fulltime presence in Mississippi, and I am honored to be heading this effort. My first order of business is to make Mississippi reentry ready. Over the past few years, the Mississippi Legislature has passed practical, conservative criminal justice reforms focused toward improving public safety, but there remains more to achieve. Mississippi...
The Biden administration is at it again, frantically trying to erase Trump-era regulatory reforms without regard for their benefit to the American people. The latest red-tape gambit, a hasty and misguided attempt to delay and ultimately undo a major permitting reform, is not only bad policy, it’s a violation of the public’s trust. The Biden...
Gas prices are climbing back up since pandemic shutdowns and travel restrictions crippled the industry, and Americans are feeling the price at the pump. This week, President Joe Biden’s White House, claiming to want lower gas prices, urged OPEC to get back to pre-pandemic production. That’s right. The president of the United States, the global...