According to a report by the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), the teaching of U.S. history to American students lags behind all other subject matters. The latest NAEP survey finds that proficiency levels for fourth-, eighth- and 12th-grade students are in the 20, 18 and 12th percentile, respectively. Part of this, I suspect, is […]

I would like to personally bop over the head the next Democrat who says that Michael Bloomberg shouldn’t be running for president because he is a billionaire. Let us give thanks that a simple-minded dismissal of rich candidates didn’t sink FDR’s chances. Billionaires are not the enemy. If you believe that those raking in astronomical […]

If the impeachment effort isn’t taking the nation by storm, the Democrats have an answer — blame it on Latin. The use of a Latin term, quid pro quo, is now thought to be a damper on the impeachment cause because it sounds complex and technical. Latin is one of the great legacies of the […]

How will historians in 2060 frame the 2019 Hong Kong crisis? “The first battle of the Second Cold War” is one possibility, though Russia’s 2014 Crimean invasion deserves that cruel award. Perhaps the first Cold War isn’t over. The USSR’s communist dictatorship collapsed in 1991. China’s party tyranny didn’t. In 1989, the Kremlin didn’t order […]

You may trust that Evan Halper is in his own personal hell right now. It’s a place to which all good journalists go when they make mistakes. Which is to say, it’s a place to which all good journalists eventually go. If the error is relatively small, one may spend a day there. If one […]

If you are paying attention to the Washington circus that is the impeachment inquiry into President Trump’s handling of the much maligned Ukraine call, this is what real collusion looks like: a media largely committed to advancing the goal of Democrats to severely damage or remove him from office, a series of at first private […]

The (mostly) charming family movie “Mr. Popper’s Penguins” is about a divorced father living alone in his posh Manhattan digs. Unexpectedly, he receives two boxes of penguins, and chaos ensues. But the 2011 film has a not-very-subtle subtheme: the prominence of future President Donald Trump as the quintessential rich and heroic New Yorker. Popper (Jim […]

Lead poisoning remains a serious risk to many of Maine’s children. Over the past five years, more than 2,600 Maine children were either diagnosed with lead poisoning or were likely to have been diagnosed had they been tested. The devastating effects of lead exposure on children range from developmental delays, to muscular and nervous system […]

Maine has approved a small but welcome health insurance rate decrease for the coming open enrollment season. This is great news for businesses and individuals shopping for health insurance on the Exchange, and it’s a direct result of positive federal action on taxes. Everyone recognizes that taxing health insurance makes it more expensive. Since Congress […]