Due to declining  student populations in public colleges and universities around the country, budget cutbacks have had a serious impact on education. Libraries and staff are particularly vulnerable, affecting the vital help students need from the valuable services libraries provide. How important? The nation’s second president, John Adams, believed education was so important that he included a clause in the...

As the Senate trial of President Trump comes to its predicable conclusion, Senators are taking time to address their colleagues (really constituents) on the Senate floor to explain their reasoning behind their upcoming vote on Wednesday. Alaskan Senator Lisa Murkowski, one of three Republicans who were considering a call for both witnesses and White House documents (both were refused by...

“As long as the world shall last there will be wrongs, and if no man objected and no man rebelled, those wrongs would last forever.” – Clarence Darrow This is a case about truth and lies; right and wrong. At the conclusion of the White House defense team’s arguments on behalf of President Trump, the revelations by former National Security...

After all the denials and a White House dream team of TV star lawyers who have stated in their opening arguments on Saturday that President Trump’s purpose in withholding aid to Ukraine had not been conditioned on an investigation into former Vice-President Joe Biden, his son Hunter and other Democrats, The New York Times reports (Jan. 26) that the president...

As I write this commentary, I’m watching Chief Justice John Roberts ask all 100 Senators to stand and take a special oath for the Impeachment Trial of President Trump. “Do you solemnly swear that in all things appertaining to the trial of the impeachment of Donald John Trump, president of the United States, now pending, you will do impartial justice according...

(With apologies to Stephen Vincent Benét) It’s a story they tell about a land that occupied the smallest place in a once powerful nation. Now, all that power was concentrated in one spot and one group whose fear of losing their authority was so great that they succumbed to the most corrupt individual between heaven and earth. So powerful, they...

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”   — George Santayana, Spanish philosopher At the most critical juncture of the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy was facing the very real possibility of nuclear war with Russia. In a speech to the American people, Kennedy details the crisis and expresses his desire for full and complete denuclearization....

As a New York Times editorial (Jan. 3), cogently puts it: “The real question to ask about the American drone attack that killed Major General Qassim Suleimani was not whether it was justified, but whether it was wise.” Several years ago at Christmas time, I gave some money to a homeless man sitting in front of the local post office....

Imagine a Country where everyone is respected Where human rights are basic rights A place where citizens work together Interconnected and interdependent, like a family.   Imagine a Nation whose greatest asset is diversity Where equal opportunity and individual freedom live Whose strength lies in faith and self-reliance A people that values its principles over its privileges.  » Read more about:...

We’re all looking for positive stories. This editorial — from The New York Times, Sunday March 7, 1954, under the title, “The ‘Positive’ Story” — is more a warning to President Eisenhower, and offers many parallels to today’s headlines. What many were unaware at the time, Eisenhower had already begun a stealth campaign against the demagogic Senator Joseph R. McCarthy,...