The disease experts and the panic-pushing media initially scared the pants off California’s 40 million people with their predictions about the death toll of the coronavirus pandemic.

For years the major health care policy debates in Washington and state capitals have been distorted by the fact that one of America’s best known and trusted advocacy organizations, AARP, has functioned largely as a lobbying and PR front for the country’s biggest health insurer, UnitedHealth.

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The rose bush outside our kitchen window is telling a different story this spring.

He’s stuck in the basement of his home in Wilmington, Del., unable to engage in traditional campaigning, soak up the cheers of raucous rally crowds or impress audiences with knowledgeable and insightful policy pronouncements.

The murder hornets don’t stand a chance.

Thank you, Class of 2020! It’s an honor to be delivering your college commencement address, even with this awkward Zoom connection. Testing…

My mother texted me a photograph on Sunday. That doesn’t sound like a newsworthy occasion, but mom had never texted anything to me or anyone else, ever. It was a photo of the flowers I sent her for Mother’s Day. The picture was a little grainy and out of focus, but that’s what a 15-year-old …

LITTLE ROCK — Disruptions in the food supply chain affect more than the quantity of products on the grocery store shelves. They have forced Arkansas cattlemen and farmers to make financial decisions today that will affect the supply and demand of food over the coming months and years.

LITTLE ROCK — Today I’d like to talk about our COVID-19 testing and a new partnership with the Arkansas Community Health Centers.

We are only five months into 2020, but it is safe to say the coronavirus crisis has made this year unlike any other in our lifetimes.

Jasper High School Principal Jeff Lewis shared with me this past week a letter the school received from the state commending it on its academic performance and recognition as a leader in education innovation in light of its limited resources as a campus within a rural, consolidated school district.

One of my biggest pet peeves: people who can’t hold up their end of a conversation.

The U.S. women’s national soccer team just scored a spectacular own goal in California U.S. District court. Their lawsuit, contending they were underpaid in comparison with the men’s team, was rejected in a summary judgement.

Murder hornets. (Not to be confused with their close relatives: accessory-to-murder hornets, involuntary-manslaughter hornets, justifiable-homicide hornets and turning-state’s-evidence hornets.) Killer hornets. Asian giant hornets. Or the more politically correct Continent Which Must Not Be …

No matter how beaten down American workers are or how dim their employment prospects, the White House and Congress continue their relentless insistence on importing hundreds of thousands more foreign-born workers. At the same time, legal immigration remains mostly unchanged, and annually add…

If a tree falls in the forest – or, as the case may be, if Joe Biden conducts a virtual town hall – and there’s no one to hear it, does it make any noise?

A month ago I said it will be the public that makes the decision to reopen America, not the government.

There are many things I love about my country. But “rugged individualism,” when taken to its extreme, does not make my list. Nor does religious zealotry, when its practice threatens the welfare of other people.

Dear Ms. Beardsley,

I have been trying to do my civic duty. I stay more than 6 feet away from most people. I live alone, so my trips to the store are surgical strikes. I have social distanced from vulnerable friends and relatives, mastered the art of Zoom and Facetime, and learned to make my own damn coffee.

LITTLE ROCK — Arkansas is gradually opening up businesses and public activities, under careful monitoring by public health officials to avoid bringing on a second wave of the coronavirus.

LITTLE ROCK — May is National Foster Care Awareness Month, and today I’d like to thank our foster families and all the people who work so hard to put our neediest children in homes and other safe settings.

The coronavirus quickly forced us to change our daily lives, most notably by introducing us to the concept of social distancing. Since we first learned of this method to safeguard ourselves and protect others against the disease, medical experts have also switched the terminology to physical…

Thank you, Class of 2020! It’s an honor to be delivering your college commencement address, even with this awkward Zoom connection. Testing…

To say that I am notoriously skeptical of the #MeToo movement is an understatement.

In the outside world, the COVID-19 pandemic is highlighting our divisions.

After the COVID-19 crisis ends, an enterprising business student could make quite a name for themselves by looking at the role the U.S. telecommunications industry played in helping Americans through the pandemic. It’s quite a story and it needs to be told.

“Look around me/ I can see my life before me/ Running rings around the way / It used to be…” – Crosby, Stills & Nash

SOMEWHERE ON THE APPALACHIAN TRAIL – We’d been climbing steadily uphill for 25 minutes, a deceptively arduous mille. The sweat was pooling in the small of my back. And my breath came deep and even against the climb, as I planted one foot ahead of the other on the rocky trail.

The United States is in the process of destroying its health care system via lockdown. By ordering that all but emergency medical treatments and procedures cease in the name of preserving health system capacity, we have emptied out hospitals to gird for a wave of COVID patients that never came.

Just hours after President Trump announced an executive order that would pause most immigration to the U.S. during the current high unemployment period, he abruptly shifted gears.

I don’t know what daily life is like during our Great National Shutdown in states like Pennsylvania, where I hear golfing is verboten, all liquor stores are closed and masks must be worn into retail stores.

Americans have a tendency to think we react well in emergencies. There is this sense we rise to the occasion, without whining and with that strength of character vouchsafed us from our immigrant ancestors.

April is normally a time when I look forward to the gloomy clouds of winter being replaced with the brilliant sunshine and bright flowers of spring, but this April looks very different from the past. While we are usually united in our battles against allergies and pollen, this year we are al…

LITTLE ROCK — The next few weeks will determine whether Arkansas moves forward or backward on the way to re-opening businesses.

Governor Asa Hutchinson announced this week that Arkansas will begin reopening businesses in phases. This is great news for our economy, but it doesn't mean everything will immediately return to normal. We must continue following the governor’s guidelines as instructed.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) administers the largest integrated health system in the country. There are over nine million veterans enrolled in the VA health care program, and it is vital to meet their needs in the midst of a pandemic.

LITTLE ROCK – This has been a good week in Arkansas. We have made progress in containing COVID-19, so I was able to announce some good news about our path back to normal.I announced we would allow the limited re-opening of restaurants, state campgrounds, fitness centers and gyms, and hair sa…

After careful consideration and prayer, my wife and I decided against homeschooling our three daughters when they reached school age, mainly because we recognize our pedagogical limitations­ – and we value our mental health.

Governor Tom Wolf closed the schools in Pennsylvania for the rest of the academic year. That’s his prerogative, I suppose, and I know there are legions who support his decision. There are certainly those who think he has taken the right steps in keeping our children, teachers, administrative…

Not even a global pandemic can keep us from another battle in the long, bitter, and ever more disconnected from reality net neutrality wars. The FCC just closed yet another comment period in this seemingly never-ending saga, and the usual left-wing groups used it to beat their usual drums.

In times of great peril, the American people usually put their differences aside, pull together, and find ways to keep moving forward. Unfortunately, the latest crisis is an exception.

Social distancing has changed nearly everything about American life, from the way we shop for groceries to the way we worship and go to school. One of the things it hasn’t changed, unfortunately, is the scourge of gun violence.

“Never in history has such ruination – physical and moral – been associated with the name of one man.” – Sir Ian Kershaw, English historian.

During these unprecedented times, American businesses and health care workers have diligently worked to stop the spread of COVID-19 while still making efforts to keep our economy up and running. In March, to supplement these efforts, Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic S…

LITTLE ROCK — When Arkansas makes it past the peak of the coronavirus outbreak, restrictions on businesses and social interactions will be loosened carefully, always with the goal in mind to prevent a second wave of the pandemic.

LITTLE ROCK — Today I’d like to talk about our plans to shift our economy out of low gear as we look to life after the worst of this health crisis has passed.

An important program to help Arkansas small businesses remain operational during the coronavirus pandemic and viable in the future just received additional funding. Congress passed, and the president signed into law, the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act, which allo…

I used to enjoy mowing the lawn. Now it agitates the heck out of me.