Two weeks from today, I'll be able to vote for my preferred candidate for president of the United States, for my regional congressional representative, for my local state house and senate representatives, and for various judges and city officials. All of those votes are relevant to my life--but the most ...

About three weeks ago Conor Friedersdorf, a libertarianish blogger for The Atlantic, put up a post about how even those who support most of President Obama's policies, even those who see him as a much better choice for president than Mitt Romney, should refuse to vote for him. His ...

When state Senator Jean Schodorf read the article in Sunday’s Wichita Eagle about her announcement that she’s leaving the Kansas Republican Party, and saw herself quoted as saying “There’s no room for people who actually think in moderation,” she probably shrugged her shoulders, figuring that informed readers will understand ...

So, it's been more than a week since the Supreme Court, against my expectations, upheld the Affordable Care Act by issuing a 5-4 decision in NFIB v. Sebelius. A couple of commenters, both before I left town for the week in which the decision ended up being handed down, ...

The Supreme Court will almost certainly hand down its decision on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act this Thursday. I'm going to be out of town when that happens, camping with my daughters in Oklahoma. So let me get my prediction in now, which some of you already ...

In two days time, I'll be speaking at an event organized by We the People of Kansas, titled "Is Democracy for Sale?" It's an officially non-partisan event--though, given its pretty thoroughly progressive liberal character, I've no doubt that movement conservatives will be thin on the ground. Still, I hope the ...

( I put up this post on my blog last week, a few days after our governor here in Kansas, Sam Brownback, signed into law what is likely to be one of the worst, most destructive pieces of legislation this state has ever seen. Today, a radically shortened version of ...

The November presidential election is still five-and-a-half months away, which means there is still plenty of time for me to change my mind, and then change my mind again. About the likely outcome, of course (though given that I still think, seven months after my last prediction, that Mitt Romney ...

More than a month ago, Peter Levine asked 10 thoughtful questions about Occupy Wall Street. In the spirit of one of the most succinct works of philosophy in Western history, let me provide 11 answers, as 2011 comes to a close. 1) It wasn't just Time magazine; it was a whole ...

My old friend and frequent leftist conscience Matt Stannard has taken to task, in a strong and persuasive editorial, those left-leaning individuals who are cheering for Ron Paul (whom he calls "an opportunistic, dishonest, 76-year-old charlatan") to go the distance in the Republican primaries. The number of these Paul-supporting progressives, ...