Statehouse Headliners: Immigrant child detention — what can government do?
In this Statehouse Headliners, the government’s options for detaining children of illegals, why “zero tolerance,” and the seriousness of the immigrant smuggling network.
Finance Commissioner Greshin: A stronger, more sustainable education system
For 20 years, we’ve been serving, on average, three fewer students every day. Our student-to-staff ratio has decreased from about seven kids for every one adult to four to one. And, property tax rates have increased almost every year. These trends will continue, unless we act to reverse them.
Hansen: Vermont’s new health insurance mandate a step backward
Don’t we have the right to make our own life decisions? Montpelier says no. Our political class finds the clarion call of collective responsibility more seductive than personal liberty.
Leaked memo reveals extent of Steyer’s involvement in the anti-Exxon campaign
Billionaire activist Tom Steyer and his multiple environmental groups might have been more involved in the campaign to take down ExxonMobil than previously thought, according to a leaked memo The Daily Caller News Foundation obtained.
Seattle City Council repeals tax on jobs a month after unanimously approving it
The tax on jobs faced significant pushback from the city’s employers, including large corporations such as Amazon and Starbucks, that threatened Seattle’s economic growth.
Keelan: Requiem for democracy
The town of Bennington, one of Vermont’s oldest and most historic places, deserves better than to have only 6 percent of its registered voters come out to vote. I hope that we are not ready to have the pallbearers of the casket of democracy be the lobbyists, bureaucrats and politicians.
Southern Poverty Law Center pays out millions to group it wrongly labeled bigoted
The controversial Southern Poverty Law Center has reached a settlement to anti-extremist organization Quilliam resulting in an apology and a $3.375 million payment for wrongly naming the group and its founder as anti-Muslim extremists.
Germany won’t meet its global warming targets despite spending $200 billion on green energy
The German government admitted it won’t be reaching its lauded emissions target, an embarrassment for a country that has spent billions in an effort to become an international leader in renewable energy.
Obama campaigns against gerrymandering despite using it to prop up his political career
Democrats, with the aid of Obama and former Attorney General Eric Holder, were expecting to better themselves in upcoming mid-terms and in 2020 by changing the way maps districts are redrawn.
Sports tickets, other freebies for FBI leakers raise ‘bribery’ issues, legal experts say
The Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General noted that “dozens” of FBI agents had contact with the news media, and many were taking sports tickets, golf outings, and other gifts from reporters to whom they were leaking unauthorized information about a criminal investigation.
Obamacare’s constitutionality comes into question again
In February, Texas and several other states filed a lawsuit alleging that, by reducing the Obamacare tax to zero, Congress eliminated the only basis on which the Supreme Court had upheld the constitutionality of Obamacare. A sine qua non of a tax is that it generates revenue, Texas argued, and Obamacare will no longer do so.
Shareholder grills CEO of Dick’s Sporting Goods for anti-gun policies
An investor confronted the CEO of the Dick’s Sporting Goods chain at an annual shareholders meeting in Pittsburgh, blasting the retailer’s recent restrictions on gun sales and its anti-gun advocacy.