"People of the Philippines, I have returned. By the grace of Almighty God our forces stand again on Philippine soil."

(Editor's note: Fifth in a series)

Rock City has established a community partner for each of its annual special events, and during the fall season's Rocktoberfest, it partners with the MaryEllen Locher Scholarship Foundation during Breast Cancer Awareness month.

More unites us than divides us. That was evident on the Democratic candidates' debate stage last week. But, as the contenders pointed out, common values also are evident across our country.

Tennessee and Hamilton County residents were forced to stand by and watch some of our leaders make shameful votes on our behalf on Wednesday.

Tennessee's population is one of the nation's sickest, and we lead the country in kicking kids off Medicaid — in our case, TennCare, the state's insurance for the poor. We also are 10th in the U.S. for residents who in debt because of medical costs.

You didn't need to be an expert on health care, you didn't need to have a degree in economics and you didn't need to be knowledgeable about government bureaucracy to know what was being said from 2007 to 2009 could not possibly be feasible.

The campaign to destroy Chick-fil-A has returned.

Democrat Joe Biden's presidential campaign machinery has been working overtime lately. While its public face was promoting its candidate, its private one has been in damage control.

I am not one of the nervous Nellies who believe that Democratic candidates shouldn't dream big and pitch big, transformational ideas. I'm not one of those who believe that Democrats should negotiate with themselves so that they present only incremental half measures in the name of practicality and perceived ability to implement.

Last Thursday and Friday, two important Americans bore witness to the state of our nation.

Twice near the start of the last Democratic presidential debate, George Stephanopoulos of ABC News tried to pin Elizabeth Warren down on whether her vision for Medicare for All would require a middle-class tax increase.

With three polls showing her in the lead, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, may soon eclipse former vice president Joe Biden as the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The ridiculous number of candidates on the Democratic stage Tuesday night created a fundamentally misleading aural and visual impression.

"I have seen the future, and it works," the left-wing journalist Lincoln Steffens famously declared, after observing Bolshevik Russia in its infancy.