After planned blackouts to reduce wildfire risk left almost 2 million people without power in Northern California, politicians and bureaucrats scrambled to lay blame. Blackouts have a powerfully toxic political legacy in California. In 2000 and 2001, a series of blackouts and price hikes amidst a botched partial deregulation of the electricity market was a...
As San Antonio city leaders prepare to vote on the Climate Action and Adaptation Plan (CAAP) this week, one topic has been missing in the discussions about the Alamo City’s future: cost. Local business leaders, including the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce and several of the city’s largest employers, have voiced opposition to the plan...
The FBI released its annual crime report a few days ago, showing the violent crime rate has dropped 4.6% since President Trump took office. Had the violent crime rate in 2018 remained at 2016 levels, almost 58,000 additional murders, rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults would have occurred. The major property crime rate has also continued its steady...
Throughout the Democratic presidential primary process, candidate after candidate has promised voters the moon. Long on aspirations — and short on details of how to pay for them — the debates so far are a contest of who could out-promise whom. All the high-profile proposals, especially Medicare for All and the Green New Deal, would...
The power is out in Northern California. More than 1 million Californians are now without electricity, one of modern life’s essentials that is frequently taken for granted. The blackout was done on purpose—to prevent sparks from powerlines that could ignite deadly wildfires. Before planned blackouts are through in two or three days, as many as...
“Save the Planet, Eat the Children,” reads a T-shirt at a congresswoman’s townhall. Meanwhile, a teenager skipping school and in obvious emotional distress makes the Nobel Peace Prize shortlist for berating world leaders about a supposedly looming mass extinction. The most privileged generation in human history — enjoying the longest, healthiest, wealthiest, and most comfortable...
They’re used to finding bodies in Brooks County, Texas. It’s nothing new: They have discovered the remains of over 650 dead migrants in this part of the Lone Star State since 2009. Brooks County Sheriff Benny Martinez estimates that for every body recovered, there are five others that are never found. That means he suspects...
California’s elected officials’ oil policy can be summed up as: leave it in the ground or under the ocean, and, if it must come into the state, don’t use pipeline or rail. The result of this policy is predictable—an increasing number of crude oil tankers are making their way to California from overseas to meet...
Carl Icahn, one of America’s most well-known investors, has summoned the movers, joining what, in an average year, adds up to almost a half-million New Yorkers looking for a better place to live. As with the largest share of former Empire Staters, Icahn is moving to Florida, a state with no personal income tax. Icahn...
More than half of California voters have thought about moving out of state, according to a new poll from the Institute of Governmental Studies at U.C. Berkeley. A full 74 percent of the state’s very conservative voters say they’re looking into moving, and 84 percent of those cite California’s political culture as their rationale for leaving. Unsurprisingly,...
“Founded in 1989 with the spirit forged in 1836”—that’s what the cornerstone at the Texas Public Policy Foundation says. Of course, 1836 is the year Texas won its independence from Mexico and became a Republic; the year Texas became Texas. What many don’t know, but should, is the spirit of Texas predates the Alamo and...
A U.S. district judge today dismissed a lawsuit brought by Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey and New York against the big tax cut signed into law by President Trump in December 2017. Judge J. Paul Oetken has been a U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York since President Obama appointed him in 2011. The case, State...