Republicans lost a House seat they had held for years in upstate New York over Rep. Paul Ryan’s radical proposal to change Medicare from a government program to one managed by private insurance companies. That…

Crime rates across the country dropped significantly last year and are at the lowest point in 40 years. Crime experts are baffled. Why, they are asking, are crime rates, including robberies and other thefts, dropping…

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, one of Obama’s holdovers from the Bush administration, warned Congress and the nation against cutting defense spending too aggressively in the quest to reduce the deficit.America’s military might and its global…

Not to brag, a voice in the back of the bus said, but “this is the fifth end-of-the-world I’ve survived.”Clearly, using the Bible to predict when this old globe will disappear in a ball of…

The Kansas Arts Commission still dangles over oblivion’s pit, with only the most slender chance of survival.Gov. Sam Brownback asked the Legislature to accept his desire to eliminate the commission and back the  creation of…

Tuition at the six state universities will rise in the fall because the state Legislature didn’t fund them adequately. As the increases were announced, Regent Tim Emert of Independence said he wasn’t surprised. University expenses,…

It is important, Gov. Sam Brownback said, to promote tourism in the Flint Hills, therefore I have more than doubled the area in central Kansas which is off-limits for wind farms.It’s the “therefore” in that…

A presidential candidate can’t think like an analyst or a college professor, Newt Gingrich said a day or two ago, because those folks can say what they think.This perceptive comment came after Gingrich said what…

When Kansas lawmakers finished their budget work this year, leaving it in required balance without a tax increase, an analyst noticed that the poor will suffer most from the cuts. The same observation can be…

In the last week two concerned citizens, Mary Kay Heard and Donna Houser, have contacted the Register to express their dismay that the Kansas Arts Commission may be eliminated by Gov. Sam Brownback, despite the…