As we noted, Federal Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is fond of taking trips on private jets funded by taxpayers. As the nonprofit Americans for Public Trust revealed, Secretary Buttigieg has taken at least 18 trips on private jets funded by taxpayers, including a trip to Montreal, Canada, to receive an award. The Secretary’s response to a recent railway incident also deserves a closer look.
The Independent Institute’s Williamson Evers and other past top U.S. Education Department officials are chastising an accrediting agency, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS), for attempting to block the creation of a new school based on free inquiry within the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Samantha Aschieris helpfully catalogs some hard questions following the flight of a Chinese spy balloon over the United States. Except for the matter of whether the overflight was somehow an “error,” these all deserve serious attention. As investigators should understand, the five queries do not exhaust the mysteries about this balloon.
Questions flew Thursday as the Chinese spy balloon that floated last week above the U.S. was the subject of a hearing by a Senate subcommittee.
History has always produced masterful rogues who seek riches by swindling others. During the 18th century Scotsman, John Law, a gambler who killed a man in a duel over a married woman, escaped from prison, and in 1716 wound up in France and established the Banque Royale that could print money to pay government expenses. Law created the Mississippi Company that issued shares with proceeds going directly to the French government to pay down debt. Throughout Law got a cut of the action that allowed him to buy estates, mansions, and diamonds and declare himself, “the richest man who’s ever been.”
President Biden has given his 2023 State of the Union Address. In it, he failed to even mention the nation’s biggest fiscal problem—the skyrocketing cost of the national debt occurring on his watch.
Recent rainstorms caused flooding and power outages across northern California but also helped replenish the state’s water supply. On the other hand, as many Californians learned, storms can also reveal government incompetence.
The recent incident involving Tyre Nichols received national attention and sparked discussions about systemic racism. But the Nichols case did not have the typical ingredients to fit into the narrative of systematic racism. Nichols was black, but all five officers involved in his arrest were black too—there was no Derek Chauvin figure.
Eighteen percent of U.S. workers are bound by noncompete clauses in their employment contracts, according to a story by Dave Michaels and Ryan Tracy on p. A4 of June 9th’s Wall Street Journal. Lina Khan, the anti-Big Tech chairperson of the Federal Trade Commission, says that she wants the FTC to take steps to restrict private businesses’ use of such contractual provisions on the grounds that they “can stifle competition for talent.”
The federal government has plans for a new headquarters complex for the FBI on three sites in Virginia of 58, 61, and 80 acres. That amounts to twice the size of the Pentagon building, which accounts for 29 acres plus a five-acre courtyard. The new FBI headquarters would also surpass the Russian Kremlin, which contains government offices, the presidential residence, auditoriums, an arsenal, a museum, and several churches, all in slightly more than 66 acres.
