Lane Filler is a columnist and editorial board member with Newsday. He won the Bastiat Prize in 2013, the same year the  editorial project he lead was a finalist for the Pulitzer  Prize. He has covered presidential elections for two decades, and was  a war correspondent embedded with elements of the Pennsylvania National Guard in Baghdad and Kuwait in 2004,  which is far more interesting than the thousands of sewer  board, city council and school district meetings he has covered, not to mention the quilting bees, spelling bees and  killer bee attacks. Now he writes on national politics, education, business, economics and whatever is irritating  him at the moment, which can be a monumental task. A native South Carolinian, he now lives in Holtsville, New York. Filler, 48, is married and has one daughter.