Stonewalled
What to know: The city of Conroe is stonewalling residents interested in learning more about how and why officials are using Flock surveillance cameras. In response to a Public Information Act request about the matter, city officials want to charge “$1,200 to release the information.”
The TPPF take: Governments use many different tactics, including excessive cost estimates, to prevent the disclosure of public information. That’s wrong.
“The opening preamble to the Texas Public Information Act promises that ‘each person is entitled…at all times to complete information about the affairs of government and the official acts of public officials and employees.’ Unfortunately, many governments today violate that promise by charging excessively, delaying repeatedly, and appealing relentlessly to slow or stop the release of public information. We must get back to full and complete transparency,” says TPPF’s James Quintero.
For more on the Public Information Act, click here.
The Ten Commandments
What to know: Texas can post the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled.
The TPPF take: Without a shared cannon—which includes biblical passages such as the Ten Commandments—we will have no republic.
“In recent years, this impulse to use the public education to shape the morals of citizens has not abated, but its end goal has changed,” says TPPF’s Matthew McCormick. “Progressive partisans now wish to replace a unifying civic nationalism in education, under the guise of ‘representation,’ with a pluralism whose main objective is to document every sin and grievance against the United States. This pluralism, of course, is a sham meant to bring into being a new unitary vision that is antithetical to America.”
For more on civic education, click here.
https://thecannononline.com/without-a-shared-canon-we-will-have-no-republic/
The Dinner Table
What to know: Fewer and fewer Americans are eating their meals together, data shows.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/14/25percent-of-young-americans-aged-18-to-24-eat-every-meal-alone.html
The TPPF take: Americans lost something important when we stepped away from the dinner table.
“Families that eat together tend to see better educational and personal outcomes, along with lower rates of depressive symptoms among children,” says TPPF’s Hannah Bruck. “Researchers have tried to pinpoint why. Across studies, a few patterns consistently emerge. Positive outcomes have been observed for families that turn off the TV, model healthy habits, serve higher-quality food, keep the atmosphere positive, involve kids in preparation, and don’t rush. None of these are complicated. All of them require one thing: time together.”
For more on eating together, click here.
https://thecannononline.com/what-we-lost-when-we-left-the-dinner-table/