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Advice for US Senate candidate

National Columnists

Now that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has roundly defeated incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in the Republican runoff primary for Cornyn's U.S. Senate seat (Paxton won by 25 percentage points), the real battle begins. Paxton's opponent on the Democrat Party ticket is James Talarico, a former teacher and member of the Texas House of Representatives who holds a master of divinity from the Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Politicians routinely ignore the extent to which their religious faith is inconsistent with their personal behavior or their policy prescriptions. But Talarico is ...

Ballot measure extends state's taxing power.

National Columnists

Californians will face two competing tax measures this November. The first is the Billionaire Tax Act, a onetime, 5% levy on the accumulated net worth of the state's richest residents. Lesser known is the Retirement and Personal Savings Protection Act, which would draw constitutional lines around what Sacramento can and cannot tax, prohibiting new levies on retirement accounts, personal savings and individually owned assets and banning retroactive taxation. Everyone with even just a little bit of money set aside – not just the California billionaires targeted by the wealth ...

Celebrating 250th birthday with some thoughts

National Columnists

This summer, the United States celebrates its 250th birthday. In 1776, few people believed this new version of self-government would last. After the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin was asked what kind of government the Founding Fathers had created. "A republic," he replied, "if you can keep it." If... It's rare that a new form of government lasts dozens of years, let alone 250. How did America do it? In my new video, people give reasons: "In the U.S. Constitution, you see a lot of phrases like 'Congress shall not ...' or 'No law shall be passed ...

Letter to the Editor: Don’t sit this one out

Letters to the Editor

Thomas Jefferson said “We do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.” On June 9th North Dakota will conduct its statewide Primary election. If the past is any indication, “the majority who participate” as Jefferson mentions, may only be 11% of eligible North Dakota voters. Since 2000 North Dakota has averaged a disappointingly sparse 22% turnout for the June Primary Election. Said a different way, nearly 80% of eligible North Dakotans have stayed home and remained silent when it comes to electing their mayors, their city councils ...

Golden state no longer land of dreams

National Columnists

Many years ago, sometime after Ronald Reagan replaced Pat Brown as governor of California, I was driving up the coast from Los Angeles to San Francisco and visited Hearst Castle, William Randolph Hearst's epic mansion in San Simeon. It was state property then, donated by the Hearst family, and the uniformed guide struck me as knowledgeable, competent and proud of her work. Some time later, I wrote articles arguing that California, not yet the highest-tax state but never a tax haven either, was proof that big government could provide competent services. For a generation under ...

Taxpayers defrauded of billions of dollars

National Columnists

At first, it didn't sound right. Someone must have miscalculated. How could there be so much fraud that has robbed taxpayers of billions of dollars without anyone seeming to notice? Worse, it appears they didn't seem to care. Vice President JD Vance convened a meeting on Tuesday of his Task Force to Eliminate Fraud. Fifteen Republican attorneys general showed up. Almost two dozen Democrat attorneys general didn't come, citing short notice. Their invitations went out on Friday, so they probably had a good excuse. Vance urged all of them to help in rooting out more fraud than has so far ...