As the nation observes the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday as a federal holiday for the 15th year, all people in every state should read this defining speech, delivered in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 28, 1963. I say to you today, my friends, that… Read More
Maine’s two senators both announced they would support John Ashcroft for attorney general without waiting until the Senate Judiciary Committee has conducted its confirmation hearing. Their early decisions weren’t needed and raise questions about the openness of the Senate process. Sen. Susan Collins met with… Read More
Rep. Joseph Bruno, the House Republican leader, is among the large and, it is hoped, growing number of lawmakers who recognize that Maine’s approach to taxation is more a haphazard collection of exemptions, credits and breaks than a coherent policy. Several weeks ago, before the… Read More
New committee assignments for Maine’s senators are a sign of their growing stature in national politics and a reason for Maine to expect greater influence over issues in the next congressional session. Sen. Olympia Snowe leaves Armed Services for Finance, the Senate’s premier committee. The… Read More
An annual study of federal taxes vs. federal payments to the states shows Maine along with Vermont as the only northeastern states to have surpluses from the exchange. The difference in Maine, according to Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, is worth $1,324 per person in areas… Read More
Maine should have been out of the retail liquor business years ago. Gov. Angus King has been turned down again and again on this issue, but this year the governor seems even more serious about it and the Legislature should go along with him. Maine’s… Read More
With new supporters, a filibuster-beating head count and momentum on his side, Sen. John McCain says he will make campaign finance reform the Senate’s first business after the presidential inauguration. President Bush, though cool on the subject, would do well to listen to the Arizona senator on this… Read More
Linda Chavez assured her own departure as nominee for secretary of labor when she failed during the initial vetting process to tell George Bush’s team about her harboring and, essentially, employing an illegal alien in the early 1990s. But she was correct Tuesday about the “search and destroy”… Read More
Taken on their own, the twin problems of struggling small farmers and seniors lacking in good nutrition point to an obvious solution. But in the whirl of Washington problems and studies showing all kinds of things, to match these two and simultaneously create a solution that works for… Read More
A little over a year ago, the Maine Public Utilities Commission wanted to make sure that the merger between CMP and Energy East didn’t result in a loss of service to CMP customers. The commissioners “don’t want them to become more efficient by laying off all their linemen,”… Read More
For all the large problems with health care coverage in the nation, here is a small but important one that could be solved tomorrow. About 18,000 kids in Maine are without insurance, but more than half of those could get free or greatly reduced coverage. Hospitals across the… Read More
The U.S. Senate is a singular institution in American government. It is the only body of elected officials, from local school board on up, that is constitutionally exempt from the Constitution’s precept of one person, one vote. It has, through the wisdom of the Framers and two centuries… Read More
In his campaign, President-elect Bush defined himself as a uniter. Overall, his now-compete list of Cabinet appointments, though decidedly and unsurprisingly conservative, left him ample room to provide unity. His selection of Linda Chavez to head the Labor Department is the glaring exception, a nomination almost calculated to… Read More
Had a member of an environmental group said it, a comment about genetic engineering of the nation’s food would have been passed off as just so much hyperbole to enhance the latest membership drive. But this is from William Brown, science advisor to Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, on… Read More
Even though Medicaid uses a higher portion of the Maine budget than the program does in other states, Maine lawmakers would be making a mistake if they thought Medicaid’s rapidly rising cost here is unique. The Medicaid budget has shot up nationwide for a lot of reasons, including,… Read More
Hardly anybody likes to dial a telephone number and wind up talking to a machine. State Sen. R. Leo Kieffer, of Caribou, absolutely hates recorded messages and so-called voice mail, and, in his final term last year, he decided to do something about it. Mr. Read More
A National Missile Defense System, formerly known as Star Wars, seems on its way to early deployment, whether it works or not. President-elect Bush is all for it, and the key national security team he has selected seem unquestioningly in support – with one possible exception. Read More
Traffic on I-95 has gone up by 20 to 30 percent on much of the route since 1990, according to a recent story in The New York Times, and it jumped from 139,00 vehicles per day to 292,000 just south of Washington, D.C. But at Medway, it rose… Read More
In presenting his budget yesterday, Gov. Angus King confronted some of the same conditions he saw when he took office six years ago: There’s a shortfall to make up, agencies will have to be more efficient and legislators must be persuaded to keep new demands at a minimum. Read More
The first numbers of the 2000 Census were released last week, a broad overview of population trends during the last decade that will be used to reassign congressional seats among the states. There were no surprises – the big winners were the South, the losers in the North. Read More
At New York City’s prestigious Dalton School, 36 percent of kindergartners are considered to have learning problems. In affluent Greenwich, Conn., 19.8 percent of students are learning disabled. Between 1980 and 1998, the number of students enrolled in special education in New York City more than doubled. In… Read More
In killing the program that would have allowed for the reimportation last week of prescription drugs from Canada, Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala said drug imports cannot be a substitute for a drug benefit in Medicare or in state-run programs. She is right about that, but… Read More
Some legislators seem tempted to make a foolish move as they struggle to balance the state budget in a slowing economy. They are said to consider raiding the $50 million endowment created last year to finance laptops for Maine students. Much study and some restructuring… Read More
Once again, just like clockwork, it’s New Year’s Day. Once again, in a wave sweeping across time zones, the world has counted backward from 10. Celebrants have wished each other the best and meant it, at least for as long as the cup of kindness brims. Parades march… Read More
Newly imposed federal charges against Maine electric utilities could cost consumers approximately $22 million monthly and achieve exactly nothing, according to the Maine Public Utilities Commission. The commission, along with Central Maine Power, Maine’s public advocate and the trade organization, the Industrial Energy Consumers Group, has asked federal… Read More
Barring the sort of miracle that seems to be the Holy Land’s past but not its present, Bill Clinton soon will join the club of former American presidents who tried and failed to advance peace in the Middle East. No president has tried harder or risked failure at… Read More
A potentially growing federal surplus would give President-elect George Bush room to enact the 10-year, $1.3 trillion tax cut on which he campaigned, especially if he is willing to put off plans for the partial privatization of Social Security. But how he passes such a tax cut –… Read More
Every year around this time, Mother Nature plays a cruel trick on unsuspecting fishermen, snowmobilers and other recreationalists who misjudge the thickness of the ice on Maine’s lakes and ponds, strike out, often alone, and plunge into water cold enough to cause hypothermia in minutes. Read More
Americans are an accepting people. No better proof of that comes in the aftermath of the presidential election. An election too close to call was called, there was unprecedented court intervention in the political process, the winner in the Electoral College is not the winner of the popular… Read More
George W. Bush’s nomination of John Ashcroft for attorney general probably will be confirmed, despite the controversy it has triggered and despite the knife-edge party division of the Senate. Presidents usually get their way with Cabinet appointments. The Senate usually respects the decision of a… Read More
When Congress mandated the nationwide conversion to digital television back in 1996, it was supposed to work something like this: The new standard would provide the public choices in free over-the-air broadcasts to rival cable and satellite; consumers would be so enamored of the lifelike pictures and sound… Read More
Now that a Wal-Mart developer has decided to withdraw, at least temporarily, its plans in Bangor for a Supercenter, the city has a chance to address the concerns from a large and growing number of residents about this and similar developments. A place to start is with the… Read More
It is nearing the end of the second millennium of the Christian era. The Roman legions once garrisoned in Palestine long ago returned to dust. But the passing of scores of generations of common men and of hundreds of kings and tyrants and presidents has… Read More
After 10 years and a near record-setting number of public comments, the U.S. Department of Agriculture last week released its final standards for organic food, an important measure for Maine’s many organic farmers. The standards are a welcome sign that the federal government listened seriously to the concerns… Read More
Experiments are valid only when they have a possibility of failure, so it is not so surprising when the results scientists hope for are not produced by their work. But when that work is with children and smoking, and the experiment goes over 15 years and costs millions… Read More
As of last Friday’s deadline, 2,340 bill titles were submitted for consideration by the 120th Maine Legislature when it convenes in January. That’s a lot of legislation, but it is considerably less than the record-breaking 3,000 the 119th started with and it is a welcome sign that incoming… Read More
If any lawmakers thought the switch from a regulated electricity market to what passes for a deregulated one was going to be easy, they kept the idea to themselves. But even the most dedicated realist must have been surprised by a recent federal ruling that intentionally brings electric… Read More
Maine mourns and adds three more to the gravestones lining the coast that read, “Lost at sea.” Those three young mussel fishermen who went down when their trawler foundered off Jonesport were living a life that is independent, invigorating, usually rewarding and always dangerous. They… Read More
With a more realistic plan for introducing zero-emission vehicles to its market, California earlier this month set a high but achievable standard for cleaner cars nationwide. Maine’s Board of Environmental Protection, expected to meet today, should continue this state’s practice of using the California standards for both low-… Read More
Wealthy summer people and their high-priced lawyers have been struggling for months in a dispute over a large proposed dock in Somes Sound on Mount Desert Island. William P. Stewart has spent several million dollars building a showplace summer home near the mouth of the… Read More
Coal-fired power plants are the largest single source of mercury pollution in the country. They are also unregulated when it comes to this toxin, making the Environmental Protection Agency’s announcement last week that it will begin to limit mercury emissions much-needed and overdue. Supporting these restrictions beyond the… Read More
A valid concern voters had about candidate George W. Bush was his lack of expertise in foreign policy. It is a shortcoming common among governors who run for president and one the Texas governor readily acknowledged and promised to overcome by surrounding himself with experts. Read More
A Bangor group that tried to calm tensions and sort out highly conflicting views of a plan for a methadone treatment facility here could agree to a fair and reasonable compromise today, ending eight months of divisive debate. The subcommittees of the Special Committee on Opiate Addiction deserve… Read More
Despite a tight state budget expected next year, Education Commissioner Duke Albanese did the right thing this week by proposing that Maine stay on track for recovering K-12 funding lost to communities in the early 1990s recession. His recommendation that General Purpose Aid to Education be increased by… Read More
President Clinton has just completed his third and final official trip to Northern Ireland. It was a well-deserved victory lap, despite an outcome still in doubt. It was a mission of large-scale hope, sandwiched between two small incidents that illustrate the resilience of despair. No… Read More
Aside from the rights and wrongs of it, the long struggle over the vote for president has been by far he best of quite a string of media spectaculars. Each of them – the Gulf War, the O.J. Simpson trial, the Monica Lewinsky and impeachment… Read More
If the speeches Wednesday night were a measure of the possibilities for political common ground, the long presidential campaign and the prolonged vote count that followed merely reinforced and ultimately reflected the national feeling that the bitter ideological divide of recent years will no longer be tolerated. But… Read More
Asked to judge the impossible, the U.S. Supreme Court chose a winner in the presidential race Tuesday using the arguments convenient to the ideology of the court’s majority. Though the language of its opinion attempted to rescue the dignity of the court from the partisan divide, justices will… Read More
Since the November election, the attention of Maine, as the rest of the nation, has been upon Florida and its curious elections practices. That’s understandable, but now, with the show apparently over, it is time to look within and make some needed electoral adjustments here at home… Read More
Certainly, Gov. Angus King and the Maine congressional delegation are right to press a reluctant Congress to substantially increase heating assistance for the poor, as they have done in recent weeks. But Maine can do even more to ensure that the money it does receive goes further. Read More
Just a few years ago, U.S. Senate centrists seemed like a warm-up act for “Survivor” – more and more of them were disappearing from the island of bipartisanship and it was hard to see a point in their rituals of meeting and policy discussions. Earlier this week, however,… Read More
The greatest danger for the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday seemed to be that it would make a decision the public would fail to see as reasonable. Saturday’s 5-4 split already had shown signs that political ideology could creep ahead of an interpretation of the law for the nine… Read More
When viewed with the cynicism customary in politics, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s stunning announcement Saturday that he will resign and call a snap election for the office within 60 days might seem chicanery of the highest order. Under Israeli law, only sitting members of the parliament can… Read More
Back in September, as evidence mounted that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers fudged data used to justify a $1.1 billion navigation project on the Mississippi and Illinois rivers, a small bipartisan group of senators called for sweeping reform of the increasingly large, powerful and unaccountable agency. The… Read More
Let’s start with an anecdote. Back in Jimmy Carter’s administration, the Central Intelligence Agency was all set to try out one of its bright ideas. The CIA had decided to infiltrate a nice, harmless Washington organization called the Hospitality Committee. Its members, mostly wives of officials like senators… Read More
The court cases decided yesterday in Florida were as muddled as anything could be in the close election for the nation’s next president. Though rulings earlier in the day from circuit courts suggested that it was time to begin the process of transferring power from one president the… Read More
Given that there are either seven or 11 or 14 access points along the Allagash Wilderness Waterway, depending on who is counting, the one at John’s Bridge between Eagle and Churchill lakes has attracted an inordinate amount of attention. That is in part because this access, long in… Read More
At first, it seems contradictory that the Maine Attorney General’s Office would seek to expand voting rights by expanding the conditions under which voting rights can be denied. Given the contradictory way society deals with the mentally ill, it may be one of the few things that makes… Read More
Representatives from more than 100 nations today are expected to finish negotiations that will implement the 1998 Rome Treaty on an International Criminal Court. Though the United States was reluctant to become full partners in the treaty that emerged from extensive talks two years ago, President Clinton should… Read More
Making changes to Maine Public Radio’s schedule has been a much more thoughtful process than has been suggested by many in this newspaper. We are continually trying to refine our schedule to increase the value of it to our listeners, while satisfying the needs and… Read More
Although it lasted a mere 7 minutes, 10 seconds, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s address to a joint session of Congress on Dec. 8, 1941, is regarded as one of the most passionate speeches in American history. Some historians question whether a war-anxious FDR really was surprised by Japan’s… Read More
At his inauguration last week as president of Mexico, Vicente Fox promised his country the end of corruption, better education, more attention to human rights, environmental protection and economic progress. His ability to accomplish the impossible is enhanced by his already strong record regarding the improbable. Read More
Do you remember way back when the presidential candidates were talking about Social Security instead of chads and butterfly ballots and vote counting? And do you remember those rosy campaign promises to let people take back part of their Social Security tax payments and invest… Read More
To the old quip that success in life largely consists of choosing your parents carefully, a new study of higher education adds that academic success might depend on picking your home state with equal care. Measuring Up 2000, from the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education… Read More
With a membership of 17 Republicans, 17 Democrats and one independent, the incoming Maine Senate faces an unusual challenge in which cooperation is not just desirable, but a necessity. The power-sharing agreement worked out late last week by Senate leaders – Republican Richard Bennett, Democrat Michael Michaud and… Read More
The Bangor City Council will consider reducing the number of polling places now that it has ordered a special election for next March to fill the unexpired term of former Mayor Michael Aube. Though the concern over the cost of the election is appreciated, the confusion such a… Read More
Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer posed the most appropriate question yesterday when the court heard arguments from the lawyers of George Bush and Al Gore. Justice Breyer asked at one point whether the court’s intervention would change anything in the protracted presidential election – “Would there be any… Read More
Three Ellsworth boys are giving another shove to their lobbying effort to promote Gov. Angus King’s proposal to give laptops to seventh-graders. Tom, John and Dan McClellan , students at the Bryant E. Moore School, are mailing the governor petitions bearing the 200 signatures they… Read More
Right between the U.S. Naval Academy’s “Anchors Aweigh” and the University of Southern California’s “Fight on For USC” sits “The Maine Stein Song,” No. 6 on the all-time top 10 list of college songs, according to William E. Studwell, who has written a couple of books on the… Read More
The Knight Foundation Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics first convened in 1990 after a decade on which big-time college sports had been rocked by recruiting and academic scandals. After six years of peering under rocks and poking around in some very dark corners, the commission disbanded after convincing the… Read More
Three years ago the State Planning Office neatly captured the shortsightedness of sprawl on a personal level when it offered the following example. A young couple, one working in Augusta, the other in nearby Hallowell, decides to buy a house in the area. They notice that the property… Read More
Something new has been added to this Saturday’s holiday arade. Instead of the usual Christmas procession, this one will be a “Festival of Lights” for everyone. When the Bangor Rotary Club organized the parade this year at the request of the city, it decided wisely… Read More
Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien won his gamble Monday, with his Liberal Party picking up parliament seats in an election called 31/2 years into his five-year term. But even as voters, particularly in the eastern half of the nation, reaffirmed his party’s policies, conservative opponents in the west… Read More
Nine months after Gov. Angus King asked Maine to wait on major overhauls to its health care system while a commission of well-informed novices looked over the problem, he delivered this week the entirely expected. The final report from his Blue Ribbon Commission on Health Care is an… Read More
Climate change expert Robert Kates writes in the most recent Maine Policy Review that global warming “is occurring. Its effects are already observable, it will likely increase, and most of it will be due to increased greenhouse gasses. … The costs of preventing warming are mixed and the… Read More
The next Congress – newly balanced and itching for a fight – will need a lot of help to avoid the bitterness that seems the inevitable legacy of this historically ugly election. Such help may at hand with a new and rosy surplus projection by the Congressional Budget… Read More
The last time Maine heard of an encouraging proposal to place a seasonal sports dome over half the football field at the University of Maine, it was a balmy September and winter seemed many months away. UMaine officials at the time were gently rejecting a generous offer from… Read More
Maine Insurance Superintendent Alessandro Iuppa recently proposed changes to health care coverage that would allow insurers to charge higher prices to the sick and lower prices to the healthy; charge higher prices to those with unhealthy lifestyle choices or in dangerous occupations; drop individual plans; and largely drop… Read More
Change may be inevitable in all things, including radio programming. The angry public response to recent changes in Maine Public Radio programming suggests it sometimes also can be inexplicable. Those changes, essentially a downsizing of the station’s commitment to classical music, will become apparent next… Read More
Though Republican mud-slinging from the whiny James Baker to the well-organized spontaneous rallies of the faithful masses make the decision much harder, Vice President Al Gore should retract his commitment to continue fighting over Florida ballots and announce that he will not press beyond Sunday evening. Mr. Gore… Read More
Christmas season is officially here, and Maine even has had a couple of snowstorms and recent flurries to prove it. Before the shopping and partying frenzy overtakes us, let’s remember those who cannot afford the presents that most people take for granted, who struggle to put food on… Read More
American presidents have had a hard time dealing with Vietnam. Franklin Roosevelt made a stab at helping it toward independence, but Harry Truman didn’t follow through. Dwight Eisenhower backed French colonialism until it collapsed. John Kennedy cautiously began the American military intervention. Johnson escalated the war, destroying his… Read More
Harriet Beecher Stowe moved to Maine in 1850, with her husband, Calvin Ellis Stowe, a professor at Bowdoin College. In Brunswick, she wrote her famous “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and many stories about New England life, including “The Pearl of Orr’s Island” (1862) and “Oldtown Folks” (1869). The latter… Read More
The next time the nation’s secretaries of state get together the conversation likely will not be about Florida’s lousy voting system but about how, under the right circumstances, the same election gridlock could occur in just about any state. But Congress could change that, without taking the drastic… Read More
Maine has taken the lead in helping families put aside money for college and at the same time save on their taxes. But not enough Maine families know about it and take advantage of it. Here’s the way it works: You go to a participating… Read More
For a fleeting moment Friday, it appeared as though the race for the presidency might end at yesterday’s hearing before the Florida Supreme Court. Then came the weekend, an avalanche of briefs, motions and new accusations from both sides, and the distinct possibility tat the finish line won’t… Read More
The King administration had the right idea reently in trying to persuade the federal government to store the 260,000 pounds of mercury from HoltraChem’s closed plant in Orrington. Though unsuccessful, the request highlighted the need for the country to develop a safe way to collect this heavy metal. Read More
When James Russell Wiggins died early Sunday in his farm home in Brooklin, American journalism lost one of its greatest editors. He was one of the last of the independent-minded editors whose strength of character and outspoken manner made their newspapers leaders in reporting the… Read More
Maine Maritime Academy’s ambitious $21 million fund-raising goal announced last week was a welcome sign that this important part of Maine’s education network has big plans for its future. The academy has a worldwide reputation for producing excellent ship’s officers and engineers, but is too often overlooked in… Read More
The announcement this week that federal agencies will list wild Atlantic salmon in eight Down East Maine rivers as an endangered species was no surprise, nor was the derision with which the state’s political leaders greeted it. With that out of the way, it is now time to… Read More
Although it is increasingly difficult to view Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as anything other than an agent for conflict, his recent support for a proposal to bring U.N. observers to East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank hints at a capacity, however slight, for restraint. In a region… Read More
President Bill Clinton begins his visit to Vietnam with a clearly stated goal – to help the United States see Vietnam as “a country not a war” – but a mixed agenda muddles the sort of relationship that might emerge from his trip. Rather than trying to settle… Read More
Bangor city councilors Monday are expected to hear plans for a major addition to Bangor High School. It is a plan they should welcome as an affirmation that this successful school has many more years ahead as a leader in academics. Built 35 years ago,… Read More
A legislative committee this week recommended taking away drivers or hunting licenses of students caught phoning in bomb threats to schools, a post-Columbine phenomenon that is as creepy as it is pointless. Overall, the panel’s punishments seem fair, but it would be best if the punishments persuaded the… Read More
Just in time for Bangor’s nonbinding vote on a proposed methadone treatment facility, an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine last week took up the subject of methadone and the new opiate-dependence fighter, buprenorphine. Though it did not consider the dispute in Bangor directly, its conclusion… Read More
With Florida’s recount deadline past and the threats from the Gore and Bush camps piling up faster than votes did for Pat Buchanan, Florida Judge Terry Lewis needed to act decisively to protect the integrity of the voting process. Instead, he ducked the issue, sending it to Florida’s… Read More
This is shaping up as the year to look at political systems, to see if they are working right. With all six Maine referendum items gone to defeat in this latest election, it is time for another look at our state’s referendum system. The problem… Read More
With their lawyers busy fighting over the ballot count in Florida, can George Bush and Al Gore agree that the part of the election system that should be examined first is not the Electoral College but the ballots themselves and the procedures used to safeguard them? They should. Read More
Despite the mounting anxiety, confusion and anger, the closeness of the presidential election should teach Americans one fundamental lesson about democracy: Every vote counts. Or, in certain Florida counties, every other vote. . googletag.cmd.push(function () { // Define Slot var slot_sizes = [[300,250]]; var new_slot_sizes… Read More
Up until a very specific moment some 65 million years ago, dinosaurs had every reason to believe they ruled the earth and always would. Funny the difference one meteor can make. Dinosaurs are being compared to dot-coms quite a lot these days. The outsized beasts… Read More