The Natural Gas Innovation Act, or NGIA, is yet another example of Orwellian doublespeak. Rather than being about innovation in natural gas, the NGIA’s provisions are about the replacement of natural gas. And like renewables in electricity, the replacements...
Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0) (https://flic.kr/p/2qjKAnK) On July 1, news broke that a three-person panel containing Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison had pardoned a man who had been convicted of repeatedly raping a...
Two women from Philadelphia pled guilty this morning to Medicaid fraud at the federal courthouse in downtown Minneapolis. Your correspondent was there. Cynthia Allen, age 62, and Candice Langley, age 46, each pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit...
Maria Virginia Lopez Herandez, age 47, pled guilty this afternoon in federal court in downtown St. Paul to one count of illegal immigration. Your correspondent was there. Technically, Lopez, of Mexico, pled guilty to the misdemeanor charge of improper entry of...
“Ideas have consequences.” – Richard M. Weaver (1964) “The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men,...
The almost 500,000 students in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) will all experience a dramatic technological shift this fall. The California district just announced a first-in-the-nation overhaul of their policies regarding screen time in the...
Moktar Hassan Aden, age 30, pled guilty to one count of wire fraud this morning at the federal courthouse in downtown St. Paul. Aden was one of four men indicted last September for defrauding Medicaid’s Housing Stabilization Services (HSS) program out of $2.5...
One in three Minnesota children now receives coverage through Medical Assistance, the state’s Medicaid program. This is not a sign of policy success or expanded compassion. It is a clear warning that Minnesota has drifted from promoting stable families,...
Proponents of rent control often tout its progressive effects. By effectively capping what “wealthy” landlords can charge, rent control redistributes income to “low-income” renters. — albeit indirectly. But what if that was not entirely the case? Rent control...
Recent advocacy around solving non-fatal shootings in Minnesota led to my invitation to paticipate in this week’s Niskanen Center Third Annual Criminal Justice Convening in Savannah Georgia. The event brought together nearly 70 research, advocacy, and policy...