Earlier this month, the 2017 National Assessment of Educational Progress, aka The Nation’s Report Card, was released. It’s not a pretty story. Only 37 percent of 12th-graders tested proficient or better in reading, and only 25 percent did so in math. Among black students, only 17 percent tes…
Income tax season is over for another year, meaning most people are no longer thinking about how much Mississippi and Uncle Sam claim from their wages — which, of course, is just how Mississippi and Uncle Sam like it. It’s a natural thing. We look at our checks, not the list of deductions.
If you’re like me, the adults in your life taught you early on, “Don’t talk to strangers.” You may have even heard the phrase, “stranger danger.” The idea is that strangers can harm you in some way. Staying away from strangers kept you safe from kidnapping or something else bad.
When President Bill Clinton signed the welfare reform act in 1996, which he negotiated with then-Speaker Newt Gingrich, the left claimed people would starve. They didn’t. According to the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, between 1996 and 2000, the employment rate for singl…
My brother Matt died of AIDS 26 years ago today, passing away in his bed in my parents’ home in Houston.
As state officials scramble for resources to address infrastructure concerns in the wake of the closure of over 100 Mississippi bridges deemed unsafe by federal authorities, the stance of some of those same state officials on collecting Internet sales taxes seems particularly relevant.
South Dakota has become what South Carolina once was — stubborn, pugnacious and wrong. In 1860, South Carolina became the first state to vote to secede. In 2016, South Dakota’s legislature picked a fight in the hope that the U.S. Supreme Court would reverse a prior decision, thereby handing …
With apologies to Lloyd Bentsen, Mississippians have watched the career of Roger Wicker for a while. Roger Wicker is no Donald Trump.
When World War II ended, Washington, D.C.’s population was about 900,000; today it’s about 700,000. In 1950, Baltimore’s population was almost 950,000; today it’s around 614,000. Detroit’s 1950 population was close to 1.85 million; today it’s down to 673,000. Camden, New Jersey’s 1950 popula…
I recently had the privilege of interviewing Margaret Heffernan. Margaret is incredibly impressive, with a career that includes running five companies in the United States and the United Kingdom, being a college professor, authoring five books, and giving multiple TED Talks. Originally from …
Resolving the conflicts dividing our country will require a devotion to facts, dialogue and compromise.
Mississippi Democrats are hoping for a repeat of the political ‘miracle’ that handed their counterparts in Alabama a U.S. Senate seat last December.
The isolationist spirit — a reluctance to become involved in foreign entanglements — goes back in U.S. history to Thomas Paine and his 1776 pamphlet “Common Sense” and to George Washington’s 1796 Farewell Address.
The last mass protest by Mississippi teachers was in 1985. This year, with summer approaching and the Legislature adjourned, there’s no sense that state teachers will ramp up to march on the Capitol for more pay as their counterparts have been doing in other rural states’ West Virginia, Kent…
It’s often thought to be beyond question that black political power is necessary for economic power and enhanced socio-economic welfare. That’s an idea that lends itself to testing and analysis.
I recently had the opportunity to attend South by Southwest in Austin, Texas for the first time. If you’ve never been, SXSW is a giant festival in downtown Austin that draws in thousands of people. Founded in 1987, SXSW has boasted an economic impact to Austin of over $300 M in past years.
Joseph P. Kennedy used to tell his nine children that it doesn’t matter who you are. It only matters who people think you are. Not a bad motto for America’s most famous family. The battle to control the Kennedy image has waxed and waned for most of the past century, but the field has never f…
Fox News host Laura Ingraham has apologized, as has the network, for nothing more serious than her tweet: “David Hogg rejected by four colleges to which he applied and whines about it. (Dinged by UCLA with a 4.1 GPA … totally predictable given acceptance rates.)”
The recent bipartisan budget agreement, which signals that 12-digit deficits are acceptable to both parties even when the economy is robust, indicates government’s future. So does government’s pregnancy, which was announced nine months ago by this tweet from Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.): “In Am…
On March 21, state Sen. Chris McDaniel sent yet another installment of an email blast for a fundraising come-on he entitled the “Remember Mississippi Moneybomb” in which he seeks $100,000 before a self-imposed “March 31st at Midnight” deadline.
Diversity is one of the most important issues companies are focused on today. LinkedIn recently found that over half of companies say they are very or extremely focused on diversity. This is good news, especially when you consider this. The World Economic Forum recently estimated that it wil…
I don’t mind saying that this column represents a grossly understated review of “Discrimination and Disparities,” just published by my longtime friend and colleague Dr. Thomas Sowell. In less than 200 pages, Sowell lays waste to myth after myth not only in the United States but around the globe.
Because John Bolton is five things President Trump is not — intelligent, educated, principled, articulate and experienced — and because of Bolton’s West Wing proximity to a president responsive to the most recent thought he has heard emanating from cable television or an employee, Bolton wil…
Politicians may disappoint us, frustrate us, or even anger us. But we cannot solve our problems at any level without skilled politicians.
Politicians may disappoint us, frustrate us, or even anger us. But we cannot solve our problems at any level without skilled politicians.
President Trump wants us to believe that the ridiculous 2,232-page spending bill passed by Congress, but unread by most members, is a matter of “national security,” because it has money to rebuild the military. He said he had to sign the bill for that reason, but promised never to sign one l…
State Sen. Chris McDaniel said famously last month that “I’m looking for a fight” in either challenging incumbent Mississippi U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker’s re-election bid, running again for the seat held by U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran (that McDaniel narrowly lost in 2014) if and when he stepped down,…
Here’s a question for you: In 1950, would it have been possible for anyone to know all of the goods and services that we would have at our disposal 50 years later? For example, who would have thought that we’d have cellphones, Bluetooth technology, small powerful computers, LASIK and airplan…
Who wouldn’t like to make more money? If you’ve read my column before, you probably know that I’m an advocate of changing companies every three to five years (for many industries). On top of gaining extra experience, switching has the potential to bump up your pay considerably. But, there ar…
The nature of modern life in the developed world requires that each of us act as if we know a lot more about the future than we actually do. We engage in goal setting at the office; save for the education of just-born children and far-off retirements; fill our calendars with tomorrows and to…
Perhaps Vladimir Putin was using his experience meddling in U.S. elections to meddle in his own. Putin “won” re-election last Sunday with about 76 percent of the vote, not as much as the 99 percent Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein “won” and maybe not as impressive as the nearly unanimous vote b…
During a quiet dinner here at a usually packed downtown restaurant rendered nearly vacant by spring break, I had an opportunity to break bread with one of the most fascinating and controversial figures in American politics in the last half-century — Karl Rove.
Governments routinely behave badly, but sometimes their mean-spiritedness comes to the Supreme Court’s attention. On Tuesday, it will hear oral arguments concerning the constitutionality of measures that California’s government has taken to compel pro-life entities to speak against their own…
Digital marketing is a hot field. It has been hot for more than ten years. I rarely share much about how to move into the field of digital marketing. However, I get many questions about it because a large part of my career was spent as a digital marketer.
Roger Wicker is a pinko. Yes, he claims to be conservative, but every other Tuesday at 5 a.m. he goes to Nancy Pelosi’s house to give her a pedicure. Mississippi’s junior U.S. senator stands in the way of our great leader, Donald Trump. And the flag. Don’t forget, Wicker hates Mississippi’s flag.
One of the unavoidable tragedies of youth is the temptation to think that what is seen today has always been. Nowhere is this more noticeable than in our responses to the recent Parkland, Fla., massacre. Part of the responses to those murders are calls to raise the age to purchase a gun and …
“The war is over.” —Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in Afghanistan (April 2002)
Members of Congress over the years have delegated much of their power to other branches, especially the executive, so that they can escape accountability for tough choices.
On March 1, the state Senate said no to the leadership’s plan to change how state money is distributed to public K-12 schools. Next came the weekend. On March 5, Thad Cochran, Mississippi’s senior and super delegate to the U.S. Senate announced his resignation.
There is deep distaste for the extreme polarization and politicization that our government institutions have displayed.
Anybody else sigh for the day when people ran for high public office based on their accomplishments?
There are a couple of important economic lessons that the American people should learn. I’m going to title one “the seen and unseen” and the other “narrow well-defined large benefits versus widely dispersed small costs.” These lessons are applicable to a wide range of government behavior, bu…
Applying for a job seems like a fair process. You apply online, and if you’re a good fit for the job, the company will give you a call. You’ll go in person for an interview and show your expertise. Then, the company will carefully decide who the most qualified person is.
The April departure from the U.S. Senate of the man who broke the Democratic Party’s lock on federal offices from Mississippi opens the door to a doozy of a summer and fall.
To what shall North Korea’s latest pronouncement to give up its nuclear weapons in exchange for certain “security” guarantees be compared?
Before we discuss violence with guns, I’d like to run a couple of questions by you. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, every day nearly 30 Americans die in motor vehicle crashes that involve drunk driving. What kind of restrictions should be placed on automobile own…
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