Bill McCollum, Florida’s current attorney general and candidate for governor, recently announced his support for legislation to eliminate teacher tenure and design a pay system for teachers that rewards them for their students’ performance. One of the criticisms McCollum has had on this proposal is that it is an idea promoted by former Florida...
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Facing a budgetary shortfall of between $56 billion to $86 billion over the next two years, a recent article in the Wall Street Journal by Tamara Audi (“Cities Rent Police, Janitors to Save Cash”) documents efforts by municipalities across the nation to stanch red ink by outsourcing the “public” services they no longer can...
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The Washington Post published yesterday the first of three large reports by Dana Priest and William M. Arkin on the dimensions of the gigantic U.S. apparatus of “intelligence” activities being undertaken to combat terrorist acts against the United States, such as the 9/11 attacks. To say that this activity amounts to mobilizing every police officer in...
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The Lighthouse is the weekly email newsletter of the Independent Institute, which I’ve written since at least late 1999. It features summaries of topical commentaries and analysis by our research fellows and announces new Independent Institute books and journals, upcoming events, and academic programs. Its contents should interest all readers of The Beacon. To...
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Few individuals in recent years have had such a profound impact on scholarship, public debate and public policy as has Independent Institute Research Fellow Stephen P. Halbrook. The leading constitutional legal scholar and attorney on the Second Amendment, who has won three cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, Dr. Halbrook has authored numerous seminal...
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This real product is available at BSRemoval.com. You can order the Obama Bumper Sticker Removal Kit (also known as the BS Removal Kit) to send to friends, family, and all those still deluded. Here is the firm’s product description: You were drawn in by the promise of hope and change—so much so that you...
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A new book has rocketed to the the top of my already too-long reading list: Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea. It is already winning praise from across the political spectrum ranging from Richard Epstein, the distinguished professor of law at the University of Chicago to Thom Hartmann, an Air America Radio Network host....
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Dr. Christina Romer of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers claims that three dollar’s worth of personal income was generated by every federal dollar disbursed under 2009’s “American Recovery and Investment Act”. Mr. Obama has been using that “result” to convince naysayers that a second stimulus package is needed to lower an unemployment rate...
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Recent media reports such as the Huffington Post‘s “‘Climategate’ Investigation VINDICATES Scientists, Finds Research Reliable“ claim that an “independent” Climategate inquiry “vindicated” the parties involved. But was the inquiry in fact independent, and how much of an inquiry was actually made? As Patrick Michaels points out, the investigations were not exactly as “independent” as...
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This recent article on Tennessee Republican gubernatorial candidates’ battle to see who can be toughest on undocumented immigrants shows politics at its ugliest: there’s a clearly-defined set of enemies (immigrants!), a clearly-defined and unpopular set of scapegoats (employers!), and a clearly-defined and resonant morality tale (they took our jobs!). It’s a classic example of...
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