Build Back Better, the centerpiece of President Biden’s ambitious domestic legislative agenda, has become Build Back Later…maybe. What was to have been the administration’s history-making signature accomplishment – a $1.75 trillion expansion of existing social welfare programs and the creation of new entitlements – now lies in ruins and the odds of its resurrection are […]

Get your mask, get your vaccine, get your freedom back So we are two years into a pandemic and we still have individuals who apparently are just incapable of understanding what is going on, no matter what. An example of that was a recent letter to the editor titled “Brunswick council should reject mask mandate.” […]

On Jan. 6, 2021, Democratic Rep. Brendan Boyle was at his desk at the Longworth House Office Building, near the U.S. Capitol, when he heard an enraged mob, fueled by a former president’s false claims of fraud, making its way up Independence Avenue. Boyle and other Pennsylvania lawmakers had been asked by House Speaker Nancy […]

Did you ever hear about “quiet diplomacy?” Maybe not. After all, it’s supposed to be quiet. Also, it doesn’t work, at least not as intended. It is meant to work when countries, facing heavy pressure, change their policies without having to make embarrassing public concessions. It fails when those applying the pressure get nothing for […]

Most people take some time to figure out what they want to do with their lives. Charlie Gordon is not “most people.” He knew he wanted to be a teacher at a young age because he taught swimming while working as a lifeguard during the summer. After graduating from Winthrop High School, Charlie went on […]

For over 100 years, the United States has tried to find a politically acceptable way of providing access to health care to everyone. Early efforts included providing access through shared risk through private insurance, which helped some people. During World War II, employers began to offer private health insurance as a fringe benefit for their […]

We yawn as we drift toward doom. The news is relentless, for those who deign to pay attention. For instance, scientists discovered last month that a massive (and, until now, stable) ice shelf at the bottom of the globe is rapidly crumbling, with serious consequences for us all: “The rapid transformation of the Arctic and […]