The Environmental Protection Agency has sent its replacement for the Clean Power Plan to the White House. We don’t know what’s in it (it won’t be released until the White House has a chance to review it), but we know what should be and what shouldn’t. The new plan should restore the rule of law...
My grandmother on my mother’s side was born on Zakynthos, a small Greek island in the Ionian Sea. I was raised Greek Orthodox and will always remember her telling me the story of the patron Saint of the island, Saint Dionysius. A man approached Saint Dionysius begging for his help because he had just committed...
Service industry workers — wait staff, bartenders and the like — are experts in free-market economics. They enjoy immediate and tangible reward for their hard work in the form of tips, and the best servers can make hundreds of dollars per shift through hard work, positivity and attentiveness. When they aren’t feeling it, the effects...
Today, college students are saddled with more student loan debt than ever before in American history. The average student loan debt for 2017 graduates was over $39,000, which is a six percent uptick from 2016. Students owe nearly $1.5 trillion in student loan debt. According to the website, StudentLoanHero.com, student loan debt now runs $620 billion higher than...
2018-07-Testimony-Testimony Before the Matagorda Co Commissioners Ct-ACEE-Gonzalez by texaspolicy on Scribd
The Supreme Court will hear its first oral argument during the October 2018-2019 term in the case of Weyerhaeuser Co. v. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which involves a smorgasbord of issues focusing on whether a federal government agency has unbridled discretion to make land use decisions that adversely impact landowners throughout the nation. If newly...
Passing criminal justice reform is a bit like painting a house: Sometimes, another coat or two of paint may be needed in a few spots. This is the case with Alaska and Senate Bill 91, which has been clarified during the past two legislative sessions but remains a landmark accomplishment that put Alaska’s corrections system on...
A federal court’s recent ruling in favor of New Jersey’s cash bail reform should embolden lawmakers’ efforts to re-center their criminal justice systems on public safety. U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a lawsuit against the state of New Jersey in which a bail bond company maintained that a violent offender was denied his...
During his trip to Europe, President Trump criticized Germany, Europe’s most populous democracy and pivotal NATO ally as being “totally controlled by Russia.” And, if that wasn’t clear enough, he reiterated this by saying, “Germany, as far I’m concerned, is captive to Russia … So we’re supposed to protect Germany, but they’re getting their energy...
The shale revolution in the Permian Basin of far west Texas is breaking record after record for oil and gas output. The Permian’s energy breakthrough in shale is right now transforming global energy markets and fueling economic growth in the United States. Perhaps even more importantly, it’s beginning to lessen the dependence of not just...
This Monday, commissioners on the Matagorda County Commissioners Court will consider subsidizing Peyton Creek Wind Farm. The Court should consider the cost to residents and the benefit they will receive in return. Experience from those already living in the shadow of wind turbines indicates that the costs usually outweigh the benefits. Chapter 312 of the...
The principle of innocent until proven guilty is a bedrock of America’s criminal justice system. However, the favor that courts and prosecutors continue to lavish upon pretrial detention and our bail system has eroded that same bedrock of our justice system, and imposed significant costs to local taxpayers. What does pretrial detention entail, and what...