Random stuff I find interesting and you may not.
It took Carlos Pena decades to build his local business after immigrating to North Hollywood, California, from El Salvador. It only took a few hours to destroy it. While Pena is the one who created NoHo Printing & Graphics, where he fashioned commercial signs and banners, T-shirts, headshots, and other products, he is not the … Read more
The proposed amendment is extreme in ways the average voter would not know simply from reading the text. Direct democracy is a bad way to write a constitution. Consider the deceptive ballot measure to change Ohio’s constitution that will be put to voters this November. Special-interest groups like the ACLU and Planned Parenthood have officially … Read more
Libs of Tiktok’s Chaya Raichik went to California Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell’s office to confront him over campaigning with Stacie Laughton, the first openly transgender lawmaker in the US, who is facing federal charges in connection with sexual exploitation at a daycare center. Swalwell (D-CA) attended campaign events with the former New Hampshire state representative. … Read more
If Iran is going to help Russia destroy the world’s food supplies, then let Iran pay the price for it. The Russian military has some peculiar priorities when it comes to choosing targets in Ukraine: pregnant women and newborns, the hospitals that serve them, churches, and, this week, grain terminals, the last being part of … Read more
Local libraries have become a fierce battleground in the cultural revolution sweeping America. “Drag Queen Story Hour” and the promotion of pornographic materials in children and teens sections have prompted parents around the nation to push back—and some families to withdraw entirely. In fact, last week saw an entire state withdraw. The Montana State Library … Read more
And not just in areas where crime is commonplace. Much of the criticism of the changes in the criminal-justice system has been focused on the decriminalizing of errant behaviors and the lack of serious responses to the gun violence that plagues many urban black neighborhoods. What is largely ignored is the breakdown in lawful behavior … Read more
Lordstown Motors’ bankruptcy is just the latest twist in a sad, sordid saga of wasted taxpayer money. Electric-vehicle startup Lordstown Motors has filed for bankruptcy protection, becoming the latest cautionary tale for states’ efforts to conquer the economic realities of global marketplaces through the use of economic-development subsidies. The recent announcement that the artisanal-EV-pickup-truck manufacturer … Read more
We have previously discussed how activism in the media and corporations has triggered increasing public backlash. Social agendas have undermined trust and profits, but the pressure to pursue those goals remains high regardless of their cost. The same appears to be true for higher education. Universities and colleges have been criticized for purging their ranks … Read more
Out of millions of square feet in federal property holdings, many agencies are sitting at or below 25% capacity in their physical office footprint. The space-to-occupancy ratio at agency headquarters has worsened in the last few years, as many agencies embraced hybrid work and increased telework for their employees. It would be easy to blame … Read more
It’s a familiar program. And it will result in higher prices, slower growth, and fewer jobs. Politics is sometimes little more than marketing. As evidence, behold the sudden use of the term “Bidenomics” by Democrats to describe administration policies of the past few years. Indeed, what’s being branded as “new” is nothing but the same … Read more
It’s no secret that Americans today are required to fork over more on healthcare services than ever before. In 2021, U.S. healthcare spending grew to $4.3 trillion, or $12,914 per person. This marked a 2.7% year-over-year increase and brings aggregate spending to 18.3% of GDP . Pharmaceuticals are a key factor behind the rise in … Read more
The median resident of Southern California takes zero transit trips annually, and only 2 percent of the region’s population frequently uses mass transit. The last time I considered using public transit was in San Francisco last month, where I dreaded the thought of climbing up the long incline from Chinatown to Nob Hill. I decided … Read more
Only two blocks from the White House, a small museum in an elegant Beaux Arts mansion draws our attention to one of the deadliest ideologies of all time: communism. The Victims of Communism Museum opened only last year after decades of thoughtful planning, and the care that went into the project shows. Visiting the museum … Read more
The case for school choice is simple and straightforward. Government schools receive record amounts of taxpayer money and do a relatively poor job of educating children. There are many reasons for the failure of government schools, including natural government inefficiency, but the main reason is probably that the system is controlled by teacher unions. Indeed, … Read more
In Israel, Inga Avramyan, 80 years old, died under a collapsing ceiling. The elderly immigrant from Armenia heard the sirens warning of an Islamic terror strike, but did not reach the bomb shelter in time because she was trying to help her disabled husband make it along with her. Sergei, Inga’s husband, had lost a … Read more
While the eyes of the nation are on San Francisco’s proposal to pay every black person $5 million in reparations for an estimated total cost of $175 billion, Motor City won’t be left behind. Last year, 80% of Detroit voters in a 78% black city cast their ballots in support of a reparations commission. That … Read more
Washington, DC, needs an emergency supply of snazzy sandwich boards announcing, “Will Legislate for Food.” A hunger crisis on Capitol Hill gave congressional leaders no choice but to trample the Constitution. Thanks to a backroom deal, House members can now claim automatic reimbursement of $258 a night for lodging expenses and $79 a day for … Read more
Angela Davis was a dedicated fangirl of Soviet dictator Leonid Brezhnev and cult leader Jim Jones. So why is she presented to children as a hero? Every day, my son, who is in seventh grade, sees a quotation from Angela Davis painted on his school’s wall: “Radical simply means grasping things at the root.” (The … Read more
The bad European decisions keep on coming. Earlier this month, Germany closed the last of its nuclear power plants. It did this after being obliged by the Ukraine crisis to fire up mothballed coal-powered electricity generation and deferring the planned closures of other coal plants. Annalena Baerbock has one eye on Moscow as Germany’s foreign … Read more
The upcoming ruling by the US Supreme Court on racial preferences is certain to ignite yet another divisive debate about whether or not a person’s ethnic heritage should determine their treatment by the state and major institutions. After steady progress towards “race-blind” governance, the notion of equal treatment is disappearing in a frenzy of ethnic … Read more
The high school graduation rate in Washington, D.C., is climbing. However, student school performance seems to be falling dramatically. While more and more seniors graduate high school, test scores are down and absenteeism is up. According to a recent report from the D.C. Policy Center, graduation rates at D.C. public schools and public charter schools … Read more
In a short 1814 fable from Russian poet Ivan Krylov, the Inquisitive Man spends three hours at a natural history museum and tells his friend he “saw everything there was to see and examined it carefully” and found it “all so astonishing.” The friend then asks what he thought of the elephant. The man retorted: … Read more
As federal spending continues to rise, accumulated federal debt will soon reach all‐time highs relative to the size of the economy. Federal debt held by the public will hit 107 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2028, surpassing the previous peak after World War II. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) often highlights the rising … Read more
In 2007, I wrote a piece called “Taiwan’s Two Dozen: Who will dare have relations with Free China?” The piece is not available on the Internet, or at least I have not been able to call it up. Perhaps craftier Googlers than I can do so. Anyway, at the time, those 16 years ago, Taiwan … Read more
Leftists should be nice to rich people people because those entrepreneurs, investors, and business owners are the ones financing the federal government. However, there are too few rich people to finance a European-sized welfare state. Dan Mitchell Explains Why Class-Warfare Taxation Can’t Finance Big Government [L]ower-income and middle-class taxpayers are going to get … Read more