Here are a few admittedly random opinions and thoughts, more or less collected from my bedside table and pants pockets.If the country in 2016 is to actually debate about whether to send Americans into harm's way in combat in the Middle East, let's remember the words of former Federal Reserve ...
High on most checklists for ensuring a long and healthy life is being married. Marriage is said to bestow protective health benefits, such as low blood pressure and better cholesterol numbers.But does putting a ring on it confer the same well-being to all married couples or even most? No, ...
The recent massacres in Paris and San Bernardino, demonstrated, once again, the so-called Islamic State's ability to win over disillusioned Muslims. Using a mixture of textual literalism of Qur'anic verses, the terrorist group is able to persuade young men and women to pledge allegiance to it ...
WASHINGTON - As the holiday season brings a brief break in presidential politics, the final party debates of 2015 have left the voters to ponder how differently the Republican and Democratic candidates' propose to meet the terrorist threat facing the nation.On the Republican stage, with the ...
An annual study from the University of Michigan-Dearborn highlights cities around the state that are thriving economically, and what they are doing right to improve their business climates.Other communities in Michigan should take a look at what's working in these cities and emulate those ...
Some observations on the 2016 presidential race as we head into the dark period, i.e., the two weeks of Christmas and New Year's holidays in which no one has ever dared, at least in the past, to conduct any polls.Those of us who pick over poll results will have to fly blind until the week ...
"In the depth of winter, when nature lies despoiled of every charm, and wrapped in her shroud of sheeted snow, we turn for our gratifications to moral sources."- Washington IrvingBack before there was cable TV, Washington Irving won the war on Christmas. The great early American writer had an ...
WASHINGTON - When President Obama addressed the nation following the terrorist attacks in San Bernardino, he reiterated the call to resist animus toward Muslims.This was a familiar message - the same we had heard from President George W. Bush following the 9/11 attacks. We aren't at war against ...
Since nearly everyone else seems to be employing "Star Wars" metaphors these days, permit me to use some of my own.To conservatives, the Republican congressional majority was supposed to be the good side of "The Force," as opposed to what they regard as the Democratic "dark side." And yet, ...
History tends to make Democrats nervous about the 2016 White House election. They know that since 1951 and the ratification of the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution - which limits a president to just two four-year terms - there have been seven elections in which the party that has held ...
This is a serious question: Have any of you ever actually been chastised for saying "Merry Christmas" to someone?Since early November, the annual Facebook posts about "not being afraid" to say Merry Christmas or "not being politically correct" by saying Happy Holidays has been put up on ...
All around the political blogosphere you can find folks smacking their lips over the prospect of a "brokered" Republican national convention. They look forward to the spectacle of delegates assembling in Cleveland with no candidate having a majority, of multiple ballots with governors, floor ...
WASHINGTON - As the dust clears from the final Republican presidential debate before the holiday break, there's still no better indication of what the GOP establishment intends to do about Donald Trump's hijacking of the party.The celebrity billionaire, under heavy bombardment especially from ...
In December 2011, the candidate who led in the Iowa polls was not Rick Santorum (who ultimately squeaked out a victory there), nor Michelle Bachmann (who had driven Gov. Tim Pawlenty from the race by winning the Iowa straw poll earlier in the year), nor Mitt Romney. No, the leader was Ron Paul, ...
If we're starting to feel good about the economic revival of Metro Detroit, it's for good reason. Things are improving in the region, and the numbers prove it.The progress is not just concentrated in the central city. While Detroit's comeback is well documented, the 11 counties that make up ...
Political analysis of the Las Vegas debate immigration dust-up between Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio is missing a key ingredient: the money factor.You can read the lips of the candidates till the cows come home. But you'll get to the truth much faster when you learn where pro-amnesty power ...
Five days after the shootings in San Bernardino, California, Jan Larson McLaughlin sat down in her home office on her day off and wrote her weekly editorial for the Sentinel-Tribune, circulation 9,000, in Bowling Green, Ohio.McLaughlin has worked for the newspaper for 31 years, the past 2 1/2 ...
WASHINGTON - Gee, wonder what Hillary Clinton has been up to?If you haven't heard much about her lately, it's because Clinton news has been as scarce as winter weather on the Eastern seaboard. Did somebody say emails? What ever happened to Benghazi? Is she still even running for president?You'd ...
If representatives of the nearly 200 nations gathered in Paris for the UN Conference on Climate Change had instead formed a coalition to fight a real threat - Islamic terrorism - they might have accomplished something useful. Instead, what they came up with is a document that even Secretary of ...
Garrison Keillor is rightly known as an American author, storyteller and humorist who hosts the weekly radio variety show "A Prairie Home Companion," in which he gives his fictional hometown report from Lake Wobegon, "where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking and all the ...