John Baer

1 month ago | pennlive.com | John Baer

U.S News & World Report’s annual ranking of the 50 states once again shows Pennsylvania way down the list – at a gloomy, dreary, dull and drab #41. The good news is there are worse states. Alabama, Mississippi, West Virginia, to name a few. The bad news is we dropped a spot from last year when we snagged a cheerless, dismal, bleak and grim #40. We’ve fallen ever since U.S. News started its rankings in 2017. That year we came in at a more or less expected mediocre #30.

1 month ago | pennlive.com | John Baer

Two things -- rustlings on the hustings for Campaign `28, and the pains of the state budget process -- could cost Gov. Shapiro ground in early positioning for a White House run. While other potential Democratic candidates are out and about, in the news, pushing themselves, Shapiro’s facing (at least) two months trapped in the hamster wheel of passing a Pennsylvania budget. The annual fiscal plan is due June 30. Negotiations are starting.

1 month ago | pennlive.com | John Baer

John Baer is the Keystone State’s most recognized government and politics columnist. Sean Simmers | [email protected], I know this sounds like I’m drinking from the Fountain of Fake News, but I think Donald Trump could help rebuild public trust in media. Why? Because perhaps for the first time, more people, including his voters, see in their own lives, with their own eyes, that things he’s saying can’t be trusted.

2 months ago | pennlive.com | John Baer

John Baer is the Keystone State’s most recognized government and politics columnist. Sean Simmers | [email protected] Donald Trump’s January Inaugural Address when he declared in the first sentence, “The golden age of America begins right now,” I’ve asked five questions each month. On everything from immigration and the economy, to DOGE, to plans to rip up grass for a patio in the White House Rose Garden (because whose rose garden is it anyway?).

2 months ago | ourcommunitynow.com | John Baer

Share The recent removal of nearly 400 books from the U.S. Naval Academy library is ideological censorship, wrong, foolish and demeaning. It’s wrong because it’s based on extending President Trump’s January 29 Executive Order -- Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling -- to include U.S. military academies. The academies are not high schools; certainly not elementary schools. They’re known for rigorous academic standards and curriculums.