What would your “What I Did on My Summer Vacation” essay look like? More to the point, what would Congress’ look like? While the House and the Senate adjourned for all of August (and had little to show for June and July), the White House was hard at work addressing the crisis at the border....
When your favorite tool is a hammer, every project looks like a nail, and apparently, a similar rule holds true for local government. When said government’s favorite tool to get its way is threatening residents with ruinous, unconstitutional fines, its response to every problem is to threaten them with even larger, more ruinous—and more unconstitutional—fines....
Earlier this year, my mother made a hard choice. After reviewing her medical history with her physician, she chose to have a preventative double mastectomy and hysterectomy. Her employer-based insurance did not question the procedures. Four months later, her incisions began opening and her physician determined she needed a second, outpatient surgery. While recovering in...
A box of cereal has been collecting dust in my small apartment pantry for seven months. I have no attachment to this box; I simply neglected to throw it out once it went stale, and it’s now a fixture of my residence. Under Texas Family Code 102.003 (a)(9), if this cereal box was a sentient being and...
Message to Texas workers: Relax. You’ve earned it. Just like in years past, this Labor Day weekend is your chance to stay in, grill out and unwind. But perhaps even more so than before, it’s important that we also think about the prosperous economic times we enjoy — and the knife’s edge that prosperity rests...
Last week, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it had finalized new federal regulations governing the detention of migrant families who enter the country illegally. These regulations replace the Flores Settlement Agreement, a court agreement that has governed national policy for the detention of minor children for more than two decades, and preserve its substantive provisions protecting the...
If you think the title’s question is silly, you’re right. But here’s the problem: Increasing numbers of college students today would unhesitatingly respond, “Hell, yes!” to the query. Could it be because that is what they are being taught? I first learned of this misconception about slavery about three years ago, when a professor published the...
Everything old is new again, at least at the G-7. The seminal G-7 meeting was convened in 1973 over energy issues. Now, nearly half a century later, leaders of the world’s seven largest economies gathered again, and once more, energy was a key topic. But the G-7 also discussed how to reduce inequality among nations....
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Georgetown, Texas – population 75,000 – was to be the new poster child of the green movement. Environmental interest in Georgetown’s big push to generate all of its electricity from wind and solar power was amplified by three factors: the town and its mayor were nominally Republican; Georgetown is...
The four strongest large metropolitan areas for job seekers, with nonfarm employment up by at least 3% in the 12 months ending in July are Orlando, Florida; Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas; Seattle, Washington, and; Houston, Texas. The top four large metropolitan areas with more than a million nonfarm workers are in states without an individual income...
When Americans who are on welfare get a job and no longer need public assistance, we rightly celebrate that. Similarly, are we also willing to acknowledge when Americans on community supervision have proven to be exemplary and no longer need the long arm of government around their neck? The issue of when the system’s mission...
Diane has gone to hundreds of doctors for her psoriasis since 1963. As she has gotten older, she has developed other illnesses and visited more physicians, adding to her health record portfolio. What she has also developed, unknowingly, are mistakes in her medical record. After a doctor reviewed her records at one of her regular...