Progress on California Drought

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The scene was bleak on April 1 as California Governor Jerry Brown attended the annual snow measuring ceremony at the top of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Where the crowd would normally stand atop six feet of snow for the ceremony, they stood upon dry grass. This year the Sierra Nevada mountain range had the lowest ever recorded cover of snow on April 1 since measurements began in 1950. Statewide snow measurements for the rest of the Sierra Nevadas showed 5% of the average snow cover for this time of year, providing a foreboding warning to Californians to reduce their water usage.

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Concealed Carry at College

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Nevada, Florida, Texas, and Montana are among several states considering bills that would allow concealed weapons on college campuses. In Texas a bill passed the House and will move onto the Senate, and in Florida a bill cleared two Senate committees. If passed, the bills would allow those over the age of 21 that have a concealed carry permit to have weapons on campus. Allowing guns on college campuses would increase violence and the potential for tragic events. 

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Review: Body and Soul

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Last Tuesday, Hamilton welcomed Gloria Greenfield to present her latest film, Body and Soul: The State of the Jewish Nation. Greenfield has worked in publishing, marketing, and management for over thirty years prior to founding of Doc Emet Productions in 2007. Greenfield, with Doc Emet Productions, dedicates her work to the advancement of a Jewish identity and advocation for the Jewish state. Greenfield has produced and directed three films since 2008. The event, sponsored by the Alexander Hamilton Institute, was well attended by Hamilton students, alumni, and faculty. 

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Clinton Revisionism

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Let us start with an obvious fact: Bill Clinton is a repulsive person.  No, he’s not repulsive because he balanced the federal budget, reformed welfare, signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or repealed Glass-Steagall.  Bill Clinton is a bad person because he is the personification of rape culture and the living, successful embodiment of almost every harmful patriarchal structure we are taught to revolt against.  

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Amtrak Subsidies

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Since its formation in 1971, Amtrak has been criticized for catering to neither the traveling public nor the taxpayer. Amtrak is unique in that it has cost the government over $45 billion in subsidies over the last 44 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), a non-partisan agency. Matthew Sabas of the Manhattan Institute concluded that much of the waste is due to “unprofitable routes, overstaffed trains, and the mismanagement of its food services.” Sabas was not the first to point out Amtrak’s excessive spending and waste. In 1985, Tom Wicker wrote in the New York Times that David Stockholm (then-Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)) “threw a tantrum the other day before a Senate subcommittee.” Stockholm said, “If senators did not have ‘the courage, the foresight, the comprehension’ to ‘pull the plug’ on what he called an ‘irredeemable’ Amtrak rail passenger system,” American taxpayers would have to continue to foot the bill. Stockholm was right. Amtrak still relies on public money. 

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