DES MOINES – Everyone wants a turn in the spotlight. Small states and smaller towns in particular position themselves as, say, the World’s Sock Capital (Fort Payne, AL), Artichoke Capital (Castroville, CA) Paddlefish Capital (Fort Thompson, SD). Indeed, you could excite spouse and family by saying next year’s vacation will be to world capitals. Even [...]

Any day now the Roberts court will release its Affordable Care Act ruling. It could be 5-4 against all or some of Obamacare, or as much as 6-3 in favor. Some people see Anthony Kennedy as the swing vote and that of course is possible. I’d look to Chief Justice John Roberts instead. I think [...]

When Warren Buffett invests, investors pay attention. So when the Oracle of Omaha recently put his Berkshire Hathaway money into newspapers, it was bound to cause others to take a second look at this neglected financial sector. And a good thing, too. Newspapers are too important to the health of communities for them to be [...]

While waiting for a plane in Dallas airport I read the New York Times staggering article that suicides among active-duty military personnel have eclipsed the number of troops dying in battle. These suicides among soldiers while still on active duty are “just the tip of the iceberg,” said Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of Iraq and [...]

Thank you, David Carr, of The New York Times, for clarifying for me how I got the idea that race had figured in the fatal encounter between George Zimmerman and his victim, Trayvon Martin. I must have gotten the idea through the process of osmosis that comes into play when a major news organization broadcasts [...]

Apparently, the New York Times has not heard that newspapers today are dead or dying. Or maybe the Times benefits from comparison because so many newspapers are in decline today — not a surprising outcome when loyalty to readers is outweighed by fealty to share holders and bondage to Wall Street analysts and predictions on [...]

In the midst of campaigning in the presidential primary in his home state of Pennsylvania, Rick Santorum on April 10 suddenly dropped out of the contest. My initial reaction: poor poll numbers must have done it. After all, Santorum was counting heavily on Pennsylvania to propel him back into the race against Mitt Romney. As [...]

To hear the NCAA tell it, the organization must resent the fact that Phi Beta Kappa pre-empted it by 130 years in creating an academic honor society in 1776. For the NCAA – the National Collegiate Athletic Association, founded in 1906 – is loudly proclaiming the intellectual mantle for itself. Its insistent, mess-up-your-head assertion of [...]

“The House Republican leader on Sunday flatly rejected a short-term, bipartisan Senate measure to extend a payroll tax break and unemployment insurance, setting the stage for a bitter year-end collision and the potential loss of benefits for millions of Americans. “In an interview on ’Meet the Press on NBC, John A. Boehner, the House speaker…..” [...]

As American troops prepare to head for the exit in Iraq, pundits prepare to critique the war. Let me contribute my two cents worth: the war was a spectacular failure for the vaunted American system of checks and balances. The only checks in evidence were those written to pay for the trillion or so dollars [...]