Earlier this week, Zippia, one of the many job search websites out there, released its list of 2018’s 50 worst job markets in America. Only one in Alabama made the list: Anniston-Jacksonville, AL, which came in at number 43. That’s not bad given what we’re told about Alabama and poverty. But it does raise one […]

Troy’s fire department rating will improve this October, which should lower our insurance rates. Fire protection ratings show how markets can ensure the quality of our services. They also provide an example of value creation as opposed to compliance-driven documentation. The Insurance Services Office’s (ISO) Fire Suppression Rating Schedule dates back to 1909. Insurance companies […]

The Secretary of State John Merrill estimated that turnout in yesterday’s primary run-off would be 15-18 percent. Many have pretended that this is a failure of the process, that we should beg people to register and vote. This is a complete misunderstanding of the situation. We do not need to prod people to participate in […]

Like Lucy van Pelt of Peanuts comic strip fame repeatedly pulling the football away from Charlie Brown as he lines up to kick it, Rep. Martha Roby (R-Montgomery) once again has shown you can’t beat her in a Republican primary. Similar to when she defeated “Gather Your Armies” Rick Barber in the 2010 GOP primary […]

Russia meddled in the 2016 election and President Trump’s Director of National Intelligence acknowledges it. Russia wanted Trump to win, Russian President Vladimir Putin even admitted it. This does not mean there was collusion, it does not mean the election was stolen, and it doesn’t mean you have to support Hillary Clinton in 2020 or […]

As a long-time political participant and observer, some 40 years, and all in Alabama, I cannot begin to stress the importance of having a high caliber person to run our Alabama State Senate. Twinkle Andress Cavanaugh is that person. I have known and worked with Twinkle since her days fighting for conservative causes and as […]

Attorney General Steve Marshall and Congressman Mo Brooks (AL-05) have filed a suit against the federal government over how it plans to count illegal immigrants in the 2020 Census. If Marshall loses this case, it could be disastrous for the state of Alabama. Alabama has a lot at stake. If illegal immigrants are counted the […]

During my years working in public policy, there have been a handful of issues that have gotten me fired up. Typically when I tell people about them, they have some level of understanding—a state lottery, education and school choice, taxes and budgets, things like that. These days, when I’m asked about the issue I most […]

Listen to the 10 min audio Read the transcript: BRITISH GOVERNMENT RESIGNATIONS SIGNAL PROBLEMS TOM LAMPRECHT:  Harry, World Magazine is reporting that British foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, who served as the key campaigner for Brexit, Britain’s departure from the European Union, resigned last Monday. His resignation is the latest move threatening Prime Minister Theresa May’s […]

1. Biased FBI agent Peter Strzok has his day of public testimony, little was learned, but Strzok gave the media what they wanted — The FBI agent who worked on both the Hillary Clinton and Trump/Russia investigations wouldn’t answer questions about the Russia probe and may be held in contempt. In the past, he said there […]

Millions of Americans engage in do it yourself (DIY) home improvements. Each summer I choose a project, and about half of the time I actually do it. This year’s project is painting our house’s exterior windows and trim. And yet DIY produces professional angst for me as an economist, because core economic principles imply that […]

Listen to the 10 min audio Read the transcript:         ALAN DERSHOWITZ OSTRACIZED FOR NOT CONDEMNING TRUMP TOM LAMPRECHT:  Harry, I want to take you to an article out of Fox News. We referenced this in a program we did a few days ago. Harvard law professor emeritus, Alan Dershowitz, recently came out in an […]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old New York Democrat, seems to have taken the reigns of the Democrat party. This could get pretty ugly unless we do something about it now. For those of you who do not already know, Ocasio-Cortez unseated Democratic Caucus Chair Joseph Crowley in the Democratic primary for New York’s 14th congressional district. […]

2018 has already been an amazingly embarrassing election cycle for desperate politicians in Alabama. We have already seen Troy King, who was/is a wholly owned subsidiary of gambling interests, accuse AG Steve Marshall of being a recipient of gambling dollars for accepting money from the Republican Attorney General Association, when King was a member of […]

It’s bumper-to-bumper on I-565 headed into Huntsville. Somewhere in downtown Birmingham, a truck driver is cussing how no one will let him merge as I-65 narrows with construction underway at the I-20/59 malfunction junction. A driver of an SUV speeding east on I-10 headed to Gulf Shores with his family has to slam on the […]

Listen to the 10 min audio Read the transcript: PUBLIC SCHOOLS DENY PARENTS RIGHTS TO APPROVE — OR EVEN VIEW –SEX EDUCATION MATERIALS TOM LAMPRECHT: Harry, I’d like to take you to two separate stories, one out of World Magazine and the other out of The Daily Wire but both, however, have the same theme. […]

1. President Trump continues to bang on NATO as he arrives for a summit — As Trump arrives in Brussels for his latest meeting with our allies, he launched an old-school attack about how they don’t pay their agreed upon GDP percentage for national security. He also hit Germany for making deals with Russia while portraying […]

Every person – and more so, if we’re absorbing campaign advertising, every politician – has transgressed. As we all know, some transgressions are easy to atone for and others are not so easy. Political transgressions are, by all accounts, among the most difficult to atone for, but we will see about that in next Tuesday’s […]

During the 2017 special election, the Alabama media was hell-bent on telling Alabama voters that Sen. Doug Jones was a moderate. You could justify not voting for Roy Moore because Jones wasn’t for “full term abortion” (because the phrase doesn’t exist or something). It was a sham and we all knew it, including his enablers in the […]

Listen to the 10 min audio Read the transcript:                         UNION MANDATE STRUCK DOWN BY SUPREME COURT TOM LAMPRECHT:  Harry, one of the final decisions of the latest term of the Supreme Court came out about a week ago. It ruled that government workers cannot be compelled to contribute to labor unions. The 5-4 decision […]

Negative advertising. You know it, you hate it, but it works. For many years in this country, negative advertisements have been splashed across the pages of newspapers, the screens of televisions and radio airwaves. These types of advertisements have become indispensable in the political realm and often lead a candidate to success. As a millennial, […]

Political commentator Jim Hightower wrote a book about politically wishy-washy folks entitled “There’s Nothing in the Middle of the Road but Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos“. If you were writing that book in 2018, you might add Alabama Senator Doug Jones to that title, although it would be a bit wordy. Jones still can’t put […]

The fact that someone serves their time is not an assumption that they’re rehabilitated unless they prove otherwise. No, on the contrary, whenever someone engages in sexually perverse activities and they have been convicted of them, the assumption is that is a heart-soul issue and that doesn’t change without a heart-soul change and that needs to be demonstrated.

PBS published a poignant report last Saturday about poverty in Lowndes County, Alabama, following a recent visit and ensuing report on the same by a Professor Philip Alston of the United Nations Human Rights Council. Alston came to examine poverty in America, and his visit prodded mixed responses. Among the most notable was U.N. Ambassador […]