Taxes & Spending

Tracking Trends: Brownsville-Area Governments

Are Brownsville-area governments treating taxpayers well? To answer that question, I recently gathered data from several different sources—including the U.S. Census Bureau’s Population Estimates; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index; Texas Comptroller of Public Account’s Tax Rates and Levies; and Texas Education Agency’s Student Enrollment Reports—to determine the 5-year growth rate of population...

January 2, 2025

Energy & Environment

Offshore wind energy under Trump

Industry has a history of overpromising and underdelivering. Liberals are worried: Will President-elect Donald Trump succeed in killing the offshore wind energy industry? “I believe this is a tipping point for the offshore wind industry in America,” said Robin Shaffer, president of Protect Our Coast NJ, according to The Associated Press. “They have been given a glide...

January 2, 2025

Foreign Policy

Report: China Rapidly Builds Up Weapons And Psychological Warfare Operations

China’s military buildup and cognitive warfare strategy are clear indications of its intent to defeat the U.S. and its allies by any means necessary. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is undertaking an unprecedented military buildup aimed at challenging America and its allies, particularly in the Indo-Pacific. And, like Nazi Germany’s buildup in the 1930s,...

December 30, 2024

Local Government

Public Signals Strong Support for Regulatory Reform

A new poll conducted by Baselice and Associates suggests that the public strongly supports regulatory reform and rightsizing Texas’ administrative state. The poll, which surveyed 801 voters from November 25 to December 2, 2024, illuminates public sentiment in 3 areas: ensuring clear and easily accessible rules; establishing objective and transparent reviews; and enabling modern and...

December 18, 2024

Other

Winners, Losers & Drones

Every Friday morning at 8:30 a.m., I join the Cardle & Woolley show, Talk 1370 Radio, in Austin to pick the week’s top Winners & Losers, which has gotten a lot easier since November 5 — just put President-elect Donald Trump at the top of the winners list. Time Magazine has named him Person of...

December 13, 2024

Economy

Team of Reformers

What a difference 8 years makes. Donald Trump has announced his cabinet nominations and senior staff at breakneck speed, revealing more than 50 picks in the first month since the election. Despite a small stumble, Trump rolled out his team of reformers to perfection. Perhaps the onslaught has prevented the media from attempting to pick...

December 13, 2024

Border Security

Trump can fix the illegal immigration crisis and make them pay for it, too

Illegal immigrants get nearly $9,000 a year each in subsidies from US taxpayers but Trump can change that. Republican South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the incoming Senate majority leader, announced that defense and border security will be the Senate’s first order of business when the new Congress convenes in January. Using the reconciliation process, Thune aims to...

December 9, 2024

DEI & CRT

Supreme Nonsense

Yesterday, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor dismissed the horrific and permanently life-altering harmful results of transgender medical procedures on minors by comparing them to the side effects of taking aspirin. “Every medical treatment has a risk, even taking aspirin. There’s always going to be a percentage of the population under any medical treatment that’s going to suffer...

December 5, 2024

Border Security

Securing the border: La Frontera Esta Cerrada

Texas can continue to safeguard its citizens—and its sovereignty, an appeals court has ruled. Last week the great State of Texas secured another victory in court. The Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Texas has the right to build its concertina-wire border barrier, and to continue to deter illegal immigration into Texas, without federal agents tampering...

December 3, 2024

Technology

How Corporations Rob Americans Of The Joys Of Fixing Their Own Property

At the heart of the Right to Repair movement is human agency — the agency to use your property as you see fit. I recently built a coffee table. This was my first foray into woodworking, so the table is far from perfect — with slight asymmetries and an uneven finish. A level would tell...

December 2, 2024

Criminal Justice

The Prosecution Of Daniel Penny Is A Soviet-Style Attack On The Right Of Self-Defense

The prosecution of Daniel Penny fits a pattern that the Soviet-era Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn would have recognized and detailed. American justice has become politicized — a weapon against enemies with hall passes for favored groups. Attorney General Merrick Garland, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, and dozens of big city, George Soros-funded leftist district attorneys...

November 27, 2024

Election Integrity

Why the Left hates election integrity and the secret ballot

The Left’s practices are less about counting every vote than about creating systems vulnerable to manipulation. They’re still counting ballots in Pennsylvania and California – or, more accurately, they’re still finding ballots. In Pennsylvania, three Democratic counties defy their liberal state Supreme Court by counting ineligible ballots. The pool of bad ballots isn’t enough to overturn the election for...

November 22, 2024