Terror Close to Home
What to know: Islamist organizations are operating all over Texas and the U.S., reports show.
The TPPF take: We must broaden our threat perception. Terrorist organizations are here, not merely “over there.”
“With Texas Shia charities, mosques and imams advocating and fundraising for foreign, violent political movements; visas issued to imams involved with U.S.-designated terror groups; and terror financiers such as Zaidi already back out on the streets, there is clearly more for the federal government to prosecute,” says TPPF’s Sam Westrop. “In most cases, we do not require new statutory tools to tackle these problems; we simply need the federal government to pay closer attention to the enormous variety of American Islamist threats, and better enforce existing law.”
For more on Islamism, click here.
Power Play
What to know: Landowners are teaming up to fight planned high-power transmission lines through their properties.
The TPPF take: Our research shows these 765-kV lines can be avoided by building reliable generation near demand centers instead of more wind and solar.
“Texas’s generation capacity needs to roughly double by 2038, whether or not the 765 kV lines get built,” says TPPF’s Brent Bennett. “The lines cut the amount of new generation needed by about 3%. They don’t change the energy mix in any meaningful way, except to enable more wind and solar growth. They don’t move prices. But building gas generation near where the demand actually is, especially in fast-growing West Texas, gets the same reliability outcomes at no greater cost, without any of the lines.”
For more on transmission lines, click here.
Grade Inflation
What to know: The Boston Globe acknowledges that Massachusetts has a big problem with grade inflation in its colleges and universities.
The TPPF take: The Boston Globe is right.
“Grade inflation is no harmless campus eccentricity,” says TPPF’s Tom Lindsay. “It is a slow-motion catastrophe that has turned college transcripts into worthless Monopoly money, robbing students of genuine learning and crippling workforce competitiveness.”
For more on grade inflation, watch this.