Contributors
CONTRIBUTORS
Scandals, real and imagined
By Joel Achenbach, The Washington Post on May 18, 2013, at 8:32 a.m.
I was 12 years old during Sam Ervin’s Watergate hearings, and watched them over the course of a long, hot summer, a time when I seemed to register the startling fact that my parents weren’t infallible and grownups did not necessarily know more about the world than I did. Watergate ...
CONTRIBUTORS
Five steps to remedy IRS wrongs
By Cleta Mitchell, The Washington Post on May 17, 2013, at 8:15 a.m.
We have witnessed remarkable performances this past week in the unfolding drama involving the Internal Revenue Service. First, Lois Lerner, director of the agency’s Exempt Organizations Unit, apologized for the agency’s targeting of conservative groups based solely on their political views, saying (falsely, it turns out) that the unlawful actions ...
The MaineCare black hole
Here is a fact that is simply inarguable: Maine hospitals are owed $450 million. Here is another fact that is inarguable: That debt was caused by an expansion of MaineCare, which is Maine’s version of Medicaid, without accompanying state resources devoted to paying for the additional coverage. Even the most ...
DANA MILBANK
US president passerby is asleep at the wheel
By Dana Milbank, The Washington Post on May 16, 2013, at 1:17 p.m.
President Passerby needs urgently to become a participant in his presidency. Late Monday came the breathtaking news of a full-frontal assault on the First Amendment by his administration: word that the Justice Department had gone on a fishing expedition through months of phone records of Associated Press reporters. And yet ...
CONTRIBUTORS
Stand up for education, vote down LePage budget
By Victoria Kornfield on May 16, 2013, at 12:32 p.m.
As a retired educator and a parent, I know how important it is to provide children with high-quality education. Mainers agree that education is vital to our future, and our state budget must reflect our shared value. Investment in our schools benefits students, parents and our communities. My experience at ...
CONTRIBUTORS
Obama’s self-inflicted scandal
By Richard A. Epstein, Foreign Policy on May 16, 2013, at 8:13 a.m.
Forget Afghanistan, Syria and the war or terror. President Barack Obama’s administration now finds itself embroiled in a three-front domestic war that threatens to undermine public confidence in the U.S. president’s ability to lead the nation. The first of these, which has yet to quiet down, is the enormous dispute ...
CONTRIBUTORS
Help businesses cut costs with energy efficiency
By Ray Levesque, Dan Brooks and Matt Damon on May 15, 2013, at 5:37 p.m.
We represent three of the 252 Maine businesses that wrote to the Legislature’s energy and utilities committee, to urge it to adopt policies to increase Maine’s use of cost-effective energy efficiency. Doing so will lower energy costs, protect and create jobs, and improve Maine’s economy by keeping more of our ...
CONTRIBUTORS
Feds should ask local fishermen how to manage fish stocks
By Robin Alden on May 15, 2013, at 1:15 p.m.
Anyone paying even casual attention to news about New England’s fishing industry knows that the federal government’s efforts to manage our nation’s fisheries have not served small coastal fishing communities well. Last week, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration in Washington, D.C., convened experts from around the country, some of ...
CONTRIBUTORS
Working moms deserve a break
By Sara Gagne-Holmes and Eliza Townsend on May 15, 2013, at 11:26 a.m.
On Mother’s Day, moms across Maine were treated to breakfast in bed. They received cards, chocolates, flowers, a quiet hour or two and the love and appreciation that all mothers deserve. Thousands of Maine moms, however, also went to work to pay the rent and put food on the table ...
CONTRIBUTORS
Fight, flight or freeze: Understanding mental, physical effects of trauma
By Natalie Feulner, BDN staff on May 15, 2013, at 10:01 a.m.
Substance abuse and mental health issues are often linked, underlying the fact that good health requires people to take care of both their physical and emotional needs, according to Angela Fileccia, a licensed clinical social worker with Summer Street Health Center in Bangor. With one session left to go in ...
CONTRIBUTORS
Angelina Jolie’s brave decision
By Amanda Hess, Slate on May 15, 2013, at 8:23 a.m.
Angelina Jolie published a piece in the New York Times Tuesday about her decision to undergo a preventive double mastectomy last month. As a carrier of a gene mutation called BRCA1, Jolie cut her chances of contracting breast cancer from 87 percent to under 5 percent by undergoing the procedure. ...
KATHLEEN PARKER
Benghazi redacted
By Kathleen Parker, The Washington Post on May 14, 2013, at 11:24 a.m.
Mistakes were made. This, we are supposed to accept, is the conclusion to be drawn about the terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya, despite congressional testimony Wednesday suggesting that significant efforts were made to camouflage those mistakes. As Democrats and Republicans alike know all too well: It’s always the cover-up. Yet ...
CONTRIBUTORS
Grading schools based on conservative ideals
By Lynne Miller on May 14, 2013, at 11:02 a.m.
With the release of letter grades for Maine’s schools, Gov. Paul LePage unveiled yet another aspect of his misguided plan to reform education in the state. Looking to Florida as a model, he and his education commissioner assigned each school a grade on a scale of A to F and ...
CONTRIBUTORS
Accepting federal health care dollars will strengthen Maine
By John Schneck on May 14, 2013, at 10:51 a.m.
This year, Maine has a chance to take a major step forward in health insurance coverage. The federal government, through the Affordable Care Act, will pay for Maine to cover nearly 70,000 more of its citizens. Democrats in the Legislature are moving forward with a bill that would accept these ...
Cartoon reaction: How you graded LePage
On May 1, I posted a cartoon online and in the print edition of the BDN entitled, “Grade the governor.” The response has been overwhelming. Thousands of readers viewed the cartoon online, and more than 100 took the time to buy a stamp, clip the cartoon from the print edition ...
CONTRIBUTORS
How the IRS handed the Tea Party its biggest victory yet
By David Weigel, Slate on May 14, 2013, at 10:03 a.m.
Tom Zawistowski lived the classic Tea Party origin story. He started a business. He raised a family. Then came 2009 and the Obama presidency, and he discovered politics from the couch of his Portage County, Ohio, home. “Quite frankly my wife and I were apolitical people,” he remembers. “Glenn Beck ...
CONTRIBUTORS
Reject LePage’s tax shift to property owners
By Christopher G. Lockwood on May 13, 2013, at 1:12 p.m.
Gov. Paul LePage’s recent letter to municipalities regarding his budget proposal to suspend the legally required municipal revenue sharing program raises a number of questions. In his letter, the governor says he cannot further reduce spending on core state services, so he chose to suspend municipal revenue sharing — and ...
CONTRIBUTORS
How parents can help schools succeed
The grades given to Maine schools by Gov. Paul LePage bring to the forefront issues that have been present for some time about disparity among Maine schools. The criteria of the grading system is narrowly conceived, at best, but no one seems surprised that the grades generally align with socioeconomic ...
CONTRIBUTORS
Constitutional officers should be accountable to Maine voters
By Andre Cushing on May 13, 2013, at 1 p.m.
Maine’s official state motto is Dirigo, which means “I lead.” The phrase is a fitting one for a state that prides itself on its independence. But in one case, we are leading in the wrong direction. Maine remains one of the only states to have its constitutional officers elected by ...
GWYNNE DYER
The future of 3-D guns
By Gwynne Dyer on May 13, 2013, at 11:23 a.m.
The story so far: Cody Wilson, who describes himself as a “crypto-anarchist” and almost certainly wears a Second Amendment belt-buckle, had a bright idea early last year. No government could ever oppress its people again, reasoned the 25-year-old law student at the University of Texas, if everybody in the world ...
Police seeking tips about pickup truck possibly connected to Glenburn teen’s disappearance
Since 1971, seven Maine children reported missing have not been found
Authorities ask for volunteers in search for missing Glenburn teen Nichole Cable
A letter to Michelle Obama in light of military sex assault epidemic
Scandals, real and imagined
IRS targeting
Manchester 15-year-old off to impressive start for Earnhardt Jr.’s JR Motorsports
Houlton council, community still concerned about costly Millar Civic Center
For those who are too fat for Abercrombie and Fitch
Kitchen Nightmares meltdown or: How to lose an argument online
Market Basket in Biddeford starts hiring 300 workers
Arguments over gun control and abortion will never be settled
