I was sitting in the dentist chair the other day and looking at the window on the horizon, just beyond my feet. My eyes went to the molding surrounding the window, causing me to ponder several things. Who came up with that molding design? How many linear feet or miles of it have been produced? Where was it first made? Was it first made with a router head or a specialized block plane? How many router heads of that shape have been made since the first one?

When our forefathers founded our great nation, they penned that individuals are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights” in the Declaration of Independence. Included in these unalienable rights is our most fundamental right: the right to life. 

A recent report from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) sounds the alarm: America’s power grid is becoming dangerously unreliable. The nation is hurtling toward a future where rolling blackouts and power shortages will be the norm rather than the exception.

• “[Americans] have had to live through 20-percent inflation under President Biden. They understand what [Elon] Musk is doing. They understand spending on porn and wasting taxpayer money."

“The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip,” Trump announced Tuesday. Once redeveloped and under an American flag, he added, it could become “the Riviera of the Middle East.” The news shocked the world, but not Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who stood by the side of the president and smiled.

AI is a powerful force shaping America’s economic future, and mastering it ought to be a key component of our national security strategy as well. But we should not rush blindly into this brave new AI future without being aware of the ways that AI is blinding us.

Colorado voters are waning in their support for the Democrat Party, a new poll finds, as immigration and the economy continue to be top concerns.

The Trump tariffs are designed to stem the flow of fentanyl from China to Canada and Mexico and into the United States. They “contain clauses suspending a duty-free exemption for low-value shipments below $800 that is widely seen as a loophole that has allowed shipments of fentanyl and its precursor chemicals into the United States.”

News coverage on ABC, CBS, and NBC spent 46 minutes and 32 seconds covering Trump’s Jan. 6 pardons but only three minutes and 32 seconds on Biden pardoning his family. Overall, Biden has pardoned and commuted sentences for a record 4,245 criminals, including 37 murderers on death row. Some of these individuals are mass murderers, child rapists, and torturers who then murdered their victims, and many have never expressed remorse.

This week, I was congratulated on my "recent retirement." Only one problem: I have not retired and have no plans to do so. But after 45 consecutive years in the print industry – and in damned near every capacity at one time or another – the thought has crossed my mind, as former West Union newspaperman Herb Lax used to say.

I am writing to inquire about a particular aspect of Senate Bill 56, which addresses the taxation of adult-use marijuana. I understand that the bill proposes the allocation of marijuana tax revenue to go to the state's general fund. However, I am concerned about this approach and would like to seek clarification on why this decision was made.

Ten-year old Joey was excited to go to school this day. The theatrical director would cast children for parts in the annual school play. Joey bounded with confidence he would be chosen for a part. Mom was not so sure. She dreaded the director would reject Joey because he was different than the other students. Joey had Down Syndrome and mental disabilities.

The American energy sector — powered by innovation and good-old-fashioned free market economics — has been driving down carbon emissions cheaply and effectively before the Paris Agreement was a twinkle in climate activists’ eyes.

A graduate of The Citadel, a prestigious military college in South Carolina, Rashid Ellis has served on the Secret Service’s Counter Assault Team, an elite unit that provides tactical support to the president of the United States. Ellis went on to serve on the Presidential Protective Detail, a top assignment protecting presidents and their families.

By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist

Prologue