Even though there’s a pandemic happening, Dallas ISD is asking voters to support to a jaw-dropping $3.7 billion bond to fund campus improvements, new schools, and security and technology purchases. This request comes just five years after voters approved a $1.6 billion bond in 2015 for similar projects. The sheer magnitude of the district’s proposed...
While celebrating Independence Day this weekend, most of us will make special time for family and friends—and, I hope, spend plenty of time outside. If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that our greatest treasures in life are not material things, but people. Our families, our friends, our neighbors and yes, even strangers, are crucial...
It was an evening like any other. While relaxing on the couch with my husband, feeling my 33-week-old son bumping around in my belly, I absent-mindedly tapped on a new message in my inbox and read “Climate Change Can Pose Pregnancy Risks, Study Finds.” As if pregnancy isn’t already fraught with enough anxiety. Despite the...
At the birth of our Republic, we fought a war to gain sovereignty over the right to vote and determine our destiny as citizens. Yet, as we celebrate the 244th Fourth of July, we find ourselves on the threshold of surrendering our rights anew, throwing away our right of self-determination by accepting unsecure elections. A...
Three Montana moms won a significant victory for their children—and others—at the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday. The High Court ruled that the state’s ban on their use of public school scholarship funds at the school of their choice—which happened to be a religious school—was unconstitutional. In 2015, the Montana State Legislature created a tax...
Monitors appointed by a federal judge in connection with an ongoing lawsuit over dangerous conditions in the Texas child welfare system released a new report on the state’s progress in reforming the system. The 363-page report recounts the apparent failure of the Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) to make the structural and operational...
Blessed are the virtue signalers, for they shall inherit political favor. The Methodist Church’s British financial arm recently announced it had sold its shares in three major oil producers, worth over £17 million, and is considering divesting itself of additional fossil fuel holdings. While progressive Christians and the secular Left hail the slowly growing coalition of...
Faced with the inability to slap the wrists of citizens themselves for not wearing masks in public, local officials in Texas are beginning to resort to the next best thing in an effort to halt the spread of coronavirus: penalizing businesses instead. Bexar and Hidalgo counties—along with the city of Austin—have entered executive orders authorizing...
Despite ongoing economic carnage (the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic), Dallas ISD appears poised to ask voters to support a mammoth $3.7 billion bond package—“the largest bond request by any type of taxing entity in Texas history.” The district hopes to use these borrowed billions to build “[n]ew and more efficient security technology, 14 new...
Throughout the government-ordered shutdowns to address the novel coronavirus, many people are concerned about the unintended health consequences, both physical and mental, from these measures. Public health experts have raised concerns about increasing drug and alcohol overdoses during the pandemic and shutdowns. There is evidence that economic downturns can increase risky behaviors like alcohol and drug consumption, and we’re in dismal...
On Elections, beware of good intentions with bad consequences. Harris County sent applications for ballot-by-mail to all residents age 65 or older, regardless of whether they had requested one. While its intentions might have been to keep senior citizens safe, its actions will cause more harm than good. An unsolicited ballot in the mailbox could...
The determining factors to voter turnout are enthusiasm and trust in free and fair elections. Enthusiasm comes from the candidate and the campaign and from the citizenry’s concerns and convictions. Turnout is also influenced or disincentivized by difficulties accessing the polls and when there is a confusing elections administrative process, including delays in results or...