The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador—known as AMLO—has entered a crash course on the ravages of populism and statism. To finance the increase of redistributive programs without damaging public finances, AMLO was determined to combat the theft of …
Trump’s Wars After Mattis
Despite President Trump’s generally bad policy and potentially authoritarian behaviors outside democratic norms, it took his order withdrawing U.S. forces from Syria and his plan to halve the number of American troops in Afghanistan to really rile the Washington establishment, …
Should California Lower the Bar?
Last year the pass rate for California’s bar exam, by some accounts the nation’s toughest, was 40.7 percent. Law school deans are now pressuring the state Supreme Court, which sets the standard for the exam, to lower the passing score. …
Many Different “Problems,” Identical “Solution” in Every Case
Terrible working conditions Lots of poor people Industrial and financial instability Economic depressions that won’t self-correct Inadequate supplies of “affordable” housing Widening economic inequality Racial and ethnic discrimination “Market failures” of many kinds Environmental degradation Threatened or disappearing species of …
Red Seals in the Sunset
Back in 2010, fisherman Larry Legans was having some luck on the Sacramento River, not far from the state capitol, when a sea lion began raiding his catch. Legans duly shot the animal, for which he faced three years in …
The Wasteful Priorities of Bureaucrats
We can learn a lot about the priorities of bureaucrats by what they choose to prioritize when they are forced to make choices in spending taxpayer dollars. For example, the U.S. State Department is one of several agencies whose operations …
The DEA’s New $42,595 Vacuum Cleaner for Spies
The various branches of the federal government sometimes spend taxpayer dollars in very strange ways. And though strange often turns into a synonym for wasteful, that isn’t yet clear from the following report, by Quartz‘s Justin Rohrlich, on the special …
Corruption Is Inherent in the Government Education System
Violent criminals have always been (former California governor) Jerry Brown’s favorite candidates for pardons, but on his way out the door, Brown saw fit to pardon Bill Honig, once the subject of a gushing profile in People magazine. The former …
Teen Vaping Is Bad, but the Alternative Is Worse
In July 2017, the Food and Drug Administration enacted a comprehensive plan to regulate tobacco and nicotine products. The goal of this plain was “to better protect kids [from nicotine addiction] and significantly reduce tobacco-related disease and death.” Although most …
FDA Approves Record Number of Generic Drugs in 2018
In the 2018 fiscal year, the Food and Drug Administration set a record by approving and tentatively approving 971 generic drugs, including a record-breaking month with 110 generic drug approvals in October. This eclipses the previous record set in 2017 …
The Vice in Vice
Viewers with more than a passing familiarity with Republican national politics over the past thirty years are likely to leave theaters with mixed feelings (at best) after seeing the Golden Globe award-winning movie Vice. The narrative film by Adam McKay (The …
Ipsos Affluent Intelligence: Affluencers And The Power Of Authentic Influence
There’s no argument that the marketing and media world is more complex, complicated and challenging than ever. Issues such as media fragmentation; the unending decline of mass media; digital media supply-chain problems; and the growth of ad blocking software have …
