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Connecting today’s news with the research & opinion you need.
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Breaking the Bonds

What to Know: Today marks the World Day Against Trafficking in Persons.

The TPPF Take: Texas has the second highest rate of human trafficking in the United States, and the number of identified cases rises each year.

“The number of human trafficking victims continues to rise each year, with an estimated 313,000 victims in Texas at any given moment, a quarter of which are suspected to be children,” says TPPF’s Nikki Pressley. “Given the current economic crisis caused by government responses to COVID-19, the risk of individuals falling victim to human trafficking for the purpose of compelled labor or commercial sex acts is at an all-time high.”

Foul Ball

What to Know: A Washington Post editor is demanding that the Texas Rangers baseball club change its name, saying the storied law enforcement agency has a history of racism.

The TPPF Take: One TPPF intern’s family has its own history with the Rangers—and he says keep the name.

“My great-great uncle, General Francisco Coss Ramos, was chased by them,” says TPPF’s Garion Frankel. “Yet later generations of my family, like other Texans, have been protected by the Texas Rangers. Cancel culture does not seek to tell a nuanced version of history. Instead, it deprives society of its heroes and writes an entirely different narrative.”

Economists Call This an ‘Incentive’

What to Know: Joe Rogan can save more than $13 million in taxes if he moves to Texas from California.

The TPPF Take: It’s not just the tax savings (though that helps). It’s also the freedom.

“According to a poll in late 2019 from U.C. Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies, 74 percent of California’s very conservative voters say they’re looking into moving, with 84 percent of those citing California’s increasingly hostile political monoculture as their rationale,” says TPPF’s Chuck DeVore, a former California assemblyman. “Which makes sense. California is fast becoming what it claims to hate: conformist.”