Media prophet Marshall McLuhan revolutionized our understanding of communications in the 1970s when he observed that “the medium is the message.” For the terrorists of Hamas, murder and medieval slaughter are clearly the medium. They are also the message. The Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel was so horrific that it was not immediately apparent...
Earlier this year, the Texas Legislature passed a new law (Senate Bill 2038) giving residents trapped in the extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ) “an exit strategy through either a petition or election process.” The law originated, in part, from concerns that “residents and property owners [were] subject to the regulatory authority of municipalities in the extraterritorial jurisdiction”...
Austin’s costly and controversial transit plan, Project Connect, is in the news again, after a group of area residents filed a lawsuit “arguing that the current plan is so different from the one presented to voters in 2020, that it should be put to the vote again.” To press home that point, the lawsuit offers...
The temperatures are dropping in Texas—and so is our ability to rely on wind and solar. A power plant closure in East Texas could make things worse. Fresh off a grid-straining summer, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) is preparing for potential energy emergencies this winter with an expensive plan to secure additional power...
A recent Inside Higher Ed article (IHE) on the college accreditor, SACS (Southern Association of Colleges and Schools) reveals—albeit, unintentionally—a great deal about the disconnect between the higher-education establishment and the rest of the country. Half puff-piece, half press coverage, the article anguishes over “the political trials of a Southern accreditor,” and especially its longtime...
The following commentary is published on Thursdays as part of TPPF’s subscriber-only newsletter The Post. If you would like to subscribe to The Post, click here. Shortly before the end of the third special session, House Public Education Committee Chairman Brad Buckley released text of a proposal that has become the House version of the...
The goals of President Joe Biden’s administration are lofty: among them, nationwide vehicle electrification within 20 years. To reach that goal, the administration has recently proposed new fuel economy regulations that will help ensure that 67% of new passenger cars sold are electric vehicles by 2032. The problem is that this green dream is physically impossible to achieve...
In August, I wrote that “local governments everywhere seem to be scheming over how to get a big cut of your [property tax] relief,” and that bond elections and voter-approval tax rate elections (VATREs) were 2 main ways this erosion could happen. Well, with the November election cycle officials concluded, it’s possible to take stock...
Editor’s Note: This commentary was published in Arabic. This is a translation. For decades, American foreign policy toward Iran has been caught in a complex web of outdated assumptions and misaligned goals. The United States has traditionally treated Iran as a rational player within the regional and international system, a fallacy that has cast its...
The tumultuous nature of recent elections, particularly the 2020 presidential race, showcased the critical need for attention to election administration. In 2020, the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), along with writers at The Federalist, had their social media posts flagged, suppressed, and even censored by a government-nonprofit-industry taskforce supposedly designed to combat election “misinformation” from foreign powers....
On Tuesday, Texas voters went to the polls to say YEA or NAY to 214 separate new debt propositions worth $26.2 billion (principal only). Based on a cursory review of the official and unofficial election results, it is clear that most of the borrowing was approved. Using the Bond Review Board’s bond election database, we’ve...
On Tuesday, Texas voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 4, a constitutional amendment to increase the residence homestead exemption for school district purposes from $40,000 to $100,000. With 99% of precincts reporting, voters approved of the measure by a margin of 83.4% vs. 16.6%. The passage of Proposition 4 cements the Legislature’s $18 billion tax relief package,...