Millennials have been a major driving force in politics, especially in recent presidential elections. Since 2008, about half of voters under 30 went to the polls, making up nearly one-fifth of the total vote cast. Coincidentally, they heavily favored Obama, support that tipped several large battleground states in his favor. That may be about to change by the end of 2014.

In my last column, I wrote of the Executive Branch's responsibility to enforce all laws passed by the legislature. Failure to do so means that the executive (whether governor or president) is not doing his or her job. However, I was at dinner the other night with a friend who studies constitutional law when she posed this question in response: If a law is passed by the legislature that is in clear violation of the U.S. Constitution (or even a state constitution), does the executive have a responsibility to still enforce the law?

I know what you are thinking; how can something be more equal than something else? It is a good question because that would be impossible. If two things are equal, the value of neither can be greater nor lesser than the other -- they have the same value.  Equal protection under the law, for instance, should mean that everyone has the same protections under the law and that it neither favors nor discriminates against one group over another. The law treats every citizen of the state equally -- or should.

Wars are won on the home front. We learned this in World War II. The soldiers fought bravely and hard, but what really won the war was the economic and industrial power that translated into planes and tanks and ammunition. And the great amplifier of our economic strength was sacrifice, both voluntary and enforced. People could not buy anything they wanted whenever they wanted it.

In Missouri, the state House of Representatives recently and overwhelmingly passed a bill that would compel law enforcement officials to get a warrant before tracking a person's electronic mobile device(s).

As we turn into the new age of ushered equality, questions of how equal Americans are continue to persist. Gender inequality, according to the president, is still a major issue concerning the United States. In Obama's State of the Union speech he said, “Today, women make up about half our workforce. But they still make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns. That is wrong, and in 2014, it’s an embarrassment.”

Voting technology has come a long way. For the ancient Athenians it entailed dropping black and white rocks into clay pots. Today, voting technology in the U.S. is largely contingent upon proprietary code, developed and owned by private enterprise. This begs the question, "Is this working for voters?"

This week the Colorado Department of Revenue released tax figures for the state's first month of legal recreational marijuana sales and they are already comparable to tax receipts from alcohol sales, delivering on the promises of marijuana activists that legal marijuana could mean big revenue for state governments.

Recently, news headlines have surfaced about a 7-year-old boy and his parents' fight to be allowed access to the experimental drug CMX001 to fight off a viral infection which spread due to a bone marrow transplant, weakening his immune system. Tears and tempers ignited worldwide attention on Internet news sites from Chimerix's (the manufacturer) initial denial of “compassionate usage” of the drug. Joyful shouts of praise followed just days later when the company reversed its decision. Was it the right decision?