When it’s time to pay, people don’t really care who collects their taxes. Whether it’s a check to the town office for property taxes, or an additional 5 percent on the bill at a checkout line or a deduction from your weekly pay, it’s all money going out to support the activities of government, either at the state, local or federal levels.

Let us beat the gun-rights crowd to the punch and agree with them right here and now that firearms aren’t the only dangerous devices out there in dire need of greater regulation. It seems that certain types of fireworks may need to be added to that list, too.

When the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum opened 20 years ago, there were questions about its mission and whether it belonged so near the Mall. The events took place in Europe; the victims were concentrated in one ethnic group; was this really an American story?

Law enforcement agencies can’t be expected to stop every terrorist attack, any more than they can prevent every mass shooting.

Nobody likes to wait in an airport line. No one wants his or her flight canceled. It’s bad for business when people spend time sitting in airports when they should be at meetings. It’s no fun to miss important family events.

Crime, mental illness and public safety all are hot-button issues. A bill before the Legislature touches on all three by requiring the state to notify municipalities before it opens group homes for people found not criminally responsible for violent acts.

The House passed a new cybersecurity bill last week, and the accompanying report emphasizes what many corporate and government experts know only too well.

While there is still a dispute about what exactly was said to a group of unemployment hearing officers at a now-famous Blaine House lunch last month, two things are certain.

The U.S. Supreme Court threw a sensitive issue back to the states last week, and Nebraska is one of many states trying to deal with it.

A major shift in politics seems to be under way. Elected officials and candidates for office are more often being judged not by their accomplishments or lack of accomplishments but by their private lives.