From DC to Kansas, culture war issues are topping the conservative agenda. Many conservatives are advocating restricting speech in schools to ban something called “critical race theory” (CRT).   CRT isn’t a theory like, say,…

I consider myself a lay historian who talks way too much at dinner parties, leading with questions like, “Do you know that the Erie Canal is the reason Manhattan became the economic center of America?”…

Last week, President Joe Biden set an example that all of us — Democrat and Republican alike — should embrace. It wasn’t so much what he did — ordering U.S. intelligence agencies to take a…

“My Republican colleagues will not talk about Medicaid expansion. They just won’t. I don’t understand it.” So said first-term Representative Christina Haswood this past week during a discussion of the 2021 legislative session, responding to…

Imagine you are flying over Europe in a European air carrier on your way home from a Greek vacation in the post-coronavirus era. Suddenly, your plane does a 180-degree turn and lands in Minsk, Belarus.…

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia congresswoman who has made herself the face of Republican lunacy, was roundly flayed over the weekend for a TV appearance in which she equated a mask mandate on the…

It may seem impossible to imagine now, but there was a time not long ago when Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell were angry with Donald Trump. It was just after the invasion of the Capitol…

Even in today’s bitterly divided politics, certain trends still get bipartisan support. A case in point is  “2+2” college education.  Advocates believe that most students should enter the university having already completed the first two…

Kansas dodged a bullet: There won’t be a law requiring public school students under the age of 12 to submit to NRA indoctrination. House Bill 2089, passed by the legislature but vetoed by the Governor,…

On May 7, the atmosphere at the statehouse felt like one of those unforeseen pivotal moments — where things fraught with controversy just seem to come together.  It happened through a surprisingly broad collaboration on…