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What makes The United States so impressive is that our head of state defends the right to speech with which he disagrees, or at least he is supposed to if he does the only job to which the founders asked him to swear an oath – “to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

A thoughtful reflection on American optimism in the face of political extremism, government overreach, and global instability. Drawing from history, leadership, and culture, this blog explores how restraint, civic courage, and faith in democratic balance remain essential to preserving America’s ideals—especially when optimism feels hardest to hold.

AI isn’t just coming for entry-level jobs—it’s coming for all of us. What began as a slow, inefficient business deal collided with a startling realization: AI now delivers instant, accurate advice across finance, sales, therapy, creativity, and more. Faster than people, cheaper than professionals, and always available, AI signals massive economic disruption long before any “end-times” scenario arrives.

Happy Thanksgiving. This year, like all years, the same unwritten rule will apply around the Thanksgiving table. Don’t talk politics or religion! This year, just maybe, that rule will be even more important.

Economic populism is not conservative; it’s inflationary. This week, President Donald Trump floated two insanely bad ideas. The first was once again suggesting the idea of using tariff revenue to issue rebate checks of $2,000. The second was the idea of a 50-year home mortgage.

Perhaps no lyric ever written so succinctly sums up my belief in the idea of America more than these words from that song. Those words cut through me harder than they normally do. We’re losing who we are. The list of things we’ll do is getting longer and the list of things we won’t, shorter. This week, 42 million Americans are facing their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits running dry because of the shutdown.

Once the customer, the American citizen in this case, has grown accustomed to a government service, it is hard, and in many cases unfair, to take it away. And it doesn’t matter if that service provided or right granted is Social Security, Trump-era tax cuts, Affordable Care Act subsidies, or reproductive rights. No one likes having something and then having it taken away.

I am reminded daily that real life, done well, can be instructive for our politics and that real life, done poorly, mirrors our politics.

I started this piece eight hours before Charlie Kirk was murdered and I finish it now while the manhunt for his killer is still underway. We do not yet know the motive. We do not yet know the shooter’s mental condition. We do not yet know the shooter’s political affiliation. And while we soon will, I fear the truth will not stop some from advancing theories of their own.

In our nation, we often value toughness more than gentleness. We like our leaders tough. We like our athletes tough. We like our movie protagonists tough. We don’t even mind when they are flawed. Flawed is fine; we all are. But I feel we used to gravitate toward tough guys whose compass still pointed somewhere toward fairness and compassion.

The President of the United States of America brazenly and unabashedly, in the plain light of day and not in some smoke-filled back room, called for gerrymandering to retain the Republican majority.

You can tell a lot about a person, a media company, or a nation by the things he or it chooses to prioritize. For a person, priorities...

An airport run and the Big, Beautiful Law have me thinking about perspective.   We human beings are a funny lot. We can lift each other...

I started this piece a few days ago on what would have been my father’s 90 th birthday. He’s been gone too long, so long now that even...

The world is a dangerous place. And every now and again we are reminded that it is a truly blessed and prosperous nation that has the...

Fifty thousand more American families will feel the pain of losing a loved one to a bullet this year. This topic is as important as it gets.

Last fiscal year, our federal government took in $5 trillion dollars but spent $7 trillion. It spent 40% more than it had available to...

Thirty-two minutes, that is how long it takes to read the United States Constitution and its 27 amendments. Article II, Section 1 of the...

On July 21, 2005, shortly after the horrific terrorist bombings on the London transportation system that killed 52 people and injured...

My blog has been quiet this week and not for lack of things to talk about. I have a dozen pieces in the works, all on important topics....