Last week, Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas arrived at the University of Notre Dame to speak about the Declaration of Independence. Speaking invitations like this that Thomas accepts are few and far between. Anyone who cares about our country and listens to this address will wish that he would agree to speak more...

Deterrence is the ancient ability to scare somebody off from hurting you, your friends or your interests -- without a major war. Desire peace? Then be prepared for war. Or so the Romans believed. It's an easily understood concept in the abstract. But deterrence still remains a mystical quality in the concrete since it is only acquired with difficulty and yet easily forfeited...

The battle over the federal debt ceiling that's currently being fought by government officials and legislators is yet another example of the political posturing that's so prevalent these days. On one side, you have Democrats, who believe that the debt ceiling should be increased automatically or removed altogether, no matter what level of debt Uncle Sam accumulates, and that it should be done with the support of Republicans. ...

Nonunion workers make up nearly 90% of the U.S. workforce. President Joe Biden is stabbing them in the back. The massive $3.5 trillion budget bill Biden and Democratic lawmakers are trying to ram through Congress discriminates against nonunion workers and even forces some of them to pay higher taxes than union workers...

September marks Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, and it provides us with an opportunity to rally around the common goal of preventing suicide in our communities. The issues that divide us have received national headlines, but the issues that lead to death by suicide are ones that we must all face equally. ...

It's one of the strange ironies of American politics. Few things are as politically polarizing as foreign policy, and yet it's on foreign policy where the differences between the parties are often narrowest. Indeed, viewed from abroad, our allies and adversaries often think that the biggest problem with any new administration is the continuity of U.S. policies, not the change in direction...

The United Way has been a key national partner of Labor for nearly 80 years. The past two years, working people have faced unprecedented challenges as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Millions have lost jobs and fallen sick while thousands have died and millions of working people suddenly feared they could not feed their families. ...

First of all, in my opinion this should not be politicized nor made into a way of "exclusion" for what is not a "one-size-fits-all" mentality. But, since it has, I'll say the following: I hear words like "q-anon" and "flat-earther" lumped together with anyone, for whatever reason, who has not taken a shot for COVID yet...

After listening to all of these politicians say that Biden's vaccination mandates are unconstitutional, I have to ask: Where in the Constitution does it say a president has no right to try to save American lives? The greatest threat to our country is not climate change. ...

Students at Jackson Junior High School recently had an important learning experience while doing good for others. Eighth-grade students participated in a food-packing event through Feed My Starving Children. The Christian nonprofit sends meals around the globe to impoverished areas where food insecurity and malnutrition -- concepts the students learned about in their advisory class -- are a real life experience. ...

Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas is indisputably good at one part of his job -- always referring to the migrant surge at the border as a "challenge" and never a "crisis." He visited Del Rio, Texas on Monday and refused to use the offending word about more than 10,000 Haitian migrants huddled under a bridge, living amongst trash with insufficient food and water in sweltering heat...

The following questions were asked in a letter to the editor by Gary Hill in the Sept. 16 Southeast Missourian. These answers were provided by city staff in conjunction with the mayor and members of your city council. ...

A Cape Girardeau fiddler and manager of local brewpub recently took home awards from the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri. Steve Schaffner received the Otto F. Dingeldein Award. Schaffner is the director of the Southeast Music Academy but is probably more known for his musical stylings on the fiddle and as a former faculty member at Cape Girardeau Central High School, where he led the orchestra. ...

We are in the midst of redesigning the digital platform for the Southeast Missourian, and feedback has been coming in about what people want to see. It's not too late for you to join us with your thoughts. Go to semissourian.com/thefuture to sign up...

The scientific method used to govern much of popular American thinking. In empirical fashion, scientists advised us to examine evidence and data, and then by induction come to rational hypotheses. The enemies of "science" were politics, superstition, bias and deduction...

Democrats are ready to raise taxes. They want more revenue, in part to fund an out-of-this-world amount of new spending. Some simply want to soak the rich, as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., plainly signaled at the Met Gala by wearing a white dress with "TAX THE RICH" scrawled across it in red paint. ...

A lot of us were drafted into the Army back during the Vietnam war, and when we went through basic training, we were vaccinated for about every disease known to mankind. I remember on one occasion we were told to get in line and walk between two medics, who were giving shots in both arms at the same time. They were using air guns, and if you flinched at the wrong time, the high pressure would slice your skin. Several of us came away with bloody arms...

The Cape Girardeau City Council will take a second vote Monday evening on whether to spend $9,600 in American Rescue Plan (ARP) funds for professional counseling benefiting those in public safety. If approved, $6,100 would be appropriated for the Cape Girardeau Police Department while the city's fire department would receive a $3,200 appropriation for such services...

In 1983, Tom Cruise starred in the film "Risky Business." It's about wealthy parents in Chicago who go on vacation and leave the house under the stewardship of their high school-age son. In short order, the boy throws a wild party, and the rest of the film is about the chaotic fallout...

On Nov. 2, the voters of Cape Girardeau are being asked to approve a use tax (internet sales tax). To enable me to be an informed Voter, I would appreciate answers to the following questions. 1. What is a use tax (internet sales tax)? 2. Is this a new tax?...

It's your right to eat undercooked chicken. It's not a business' right to serve you that undercooked chicken. If you don't understand how that analogy applies to the federal vaccine mandate then you should sit in the woods waiting for a tree to fall so you can blame some conspiracy theory on why it made a sound...

Maybe President Biden should handle COVID-19 the way he's handled Afghanistan. It's a strange thought, given how badly he botched the U.S. withdrawal. But at least Afghanistan Joe had a clear idea about what we needed to do. COVID Joe has no such exit strategy. He's making it up as he goes...

Benjamin Franklin was right about death and taxes, but new taxes only become inevitable when a Democrat is elected president, and here we are. The House Ways and Means Committee released an outline of tax proposals to offset President Biden's jaw-dropping spending plans, and it's the expected assortment of tax increases on business and the affluent that Democrats like to pretend can fund a social welfare state of the sort that Bernie Sanders has long pined and advocated for...

Southeast Missouri's big outdoor music event of the year returns this weekend. Following a one-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Shipyard Music Festival will be held Friday and Saturday outside Century Casino in Cape Girardeau. The two-day music festival, produced by rustmedia, features 18 bands -- a mix of nationally touring acts and local talent. ...

I am unvaccinated. I feel as if I can no longer remain silent because myself and others are being marginalized. We all have a right to self determination. I am not anti-vaccine, but I do have significant concerns about the safety and effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccination...

"How easy it is, in times of ease, for us to become dependent on our routines, on the established order of our day-to-day existence, to carry us along." These words greeted subscribers to the monthly spiritual magazine Magnificat 20 years ago, on the morning after the 9/11 attacks on the United States. ...

Why don't the anti-vax folks look at the side effects of actually getting COVID rather than the side effects of the vaccine? Yes, the vaccines have some side effects, but COVID has many more -- including death! People have long term lung damage, dementia-like symptoms, chronic fatigue, migraine headaches and loss of taste and smell with COVID. I would risk the side effects of the vaccine over COVID any day...

The SEMO District Fair kicked off over the weekend in Arena Park and will continue through Saturday. Following the last year’s cancellation because of the COVID-19 pandemic, organizers expect plenty of enthusiasm for this year’s installment of the annual eight-day festivities...

California once was run by conservatives and mostly centrist Democrats. True paleo-liberal governors such as Pat Brown greatly expanded the welfare state. But they also believed in pushing integration and building freeways, dams, aqueducts and power plants, while preventing forest fires, directing the mentally ill into state hospitals, and ensuring the state enhanced the housing, timber, oil and gas, nuclear and agricultural industries...

Not too long ago, supporters imagined Joe Biden might be the next LBJ, and perhaps they were right — just not how they thought. Biden bears no resemblance to the Lyndon B. Johnson who entered office after the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963 with a 75% approval rating and over the next couple of years passed a raft of historic legislation. No, if there’s any comparison it is to the LBJ who by 1967 had seen his approval rating dip underwater in a deeply riven country...

The Democratic Party is rolling out its left-wing big guns to go to California to support Gov. Gavin Newsom in the recall election scheduled for Tuesday. In California, the bluest of blue states, where, in 2020, challenger Joe Biden defeated incumbent President Donald Trump by a margin of almost 2-1, the polls are within the margin of error showing Newsom holding on in the recall...

I find it ironic that many anti-vaccine people justify their choice as a matter of exercising and promoting "freedom." I say this is ironic because remaining unvaccinated is contributing to an erosion of freedom for virtually everyone in our society. ...

Exactly 10 years ago, economist Michael Clemens published a paper in the prestigious Journal of Economic Perspectives called "Economics and Emigration: Trillion-Dollar Bills on the Sidewalk?" He urged fellow economists to consider a paradigm shift in their research about immigration. Though economists had mostly neglected the global economic losses caused by migration barriers, the existing estimates "should make economists' jaws hit their desks."...

Many of us alive on Sept. 11, 2001, remember where we were and what we were doing when terror struck America's homeland. Much like the death of JFK or the attack on Pearl Harbor for earlier generations, 9/11 is a defining moment in America's history and our personal lives...

The 18th-century English philosopher Jeremy Bentham came up with the idea of the panopticon, a prison designed to allow all the prisoners to be observed by one guard. What even Bentham couldn't conceive of, despite his creative musings about schemes of perpetual surveillance, was a society like contemporary Australia...

You want me to take the vaccine? Mail it to me and I'll vaccinate myself and mail back the paperwork stating I'm fully vaccinated. You trust me, right? It's just like mail-in voting. Here is something to ponder. The same government that took 20 years to replace the Taliban with the Taliban is now fighting a war with COVID...

Like everyone under the age of 50, I was born after Roe v. Wade. It's worth reflecting: If our parents knew what we'd experience in life and the mistakes we would make, would they have decided not to have had us? Terrorist attacks. A global pandemic. ...

We've used this space on more than one occasion to advocate for COVID-19 vaccinations. It's the best way to move beyond the pandemic. But for those already infected, there is a treatment available that can help keep the most vulnerable out of the hospital and avoid serious complications. It's called a monoclonal antibodies (MAB) infusion...

I got back to the U.S. from my honeymoon on Sept. 10, 2001. My wife went straight home to Washington, D.C, to start her new job at the Justice Department. I went to Washington state, where we'd gotten married, to retrieve our dog Cosmo, whom we'd left with family. I was in a hotel room in Pendleton, Oregon, when I saw the first reports of a plane hitting the World Trade Center. I used something called AOL Instant Messenger to tell my co-workers to turn on the TV...