Editorial cartoon for Wednesday, May 24

Margaret McRae: LD 1639 is a bad move for patients and nurses

LD 1639 (“An Act to Address Unsafe Staffing of Nurses and Improve Patient Care”) removes nurse autonomy to make the necessary decisions to provide safe, effective, quality care. It essentially reduces every patient and every nurse to just a number by mandating nurse-to-patient ratios. These ratios are not evidenced based and do not take into account the patient as an individual.

Maine food assistance fundraiser brings over $60K

AUGUSTA — Maine State Credit Union, local hunger organizations and the community joined together April 22 at the 18th annual Maine State Credit Union FeedME 5k at Capitol Park. Over $60,000 was raised to help 30 local organizations provide food assistance to local Mainers in need. The approximately three-mile walk was along Augusta’s Kennebec River […]

George Ferguson: Uninsured dental costs are too high

I have two relatives who went to a dentist office (it’ll go unnamed) who were charged, in my opinion, a ridiculous price for work done. First one had a cavity that would have cost him over $300 but, because of his great dental insurance, only cost him $185. The second one had a tooth extraction […]

Cynthia Stancioff: Carbon fuels should be priced to reflect true cost

Mark Gongloff’s Bloomberg opinion piece (“Natural disasters are the new normal,” May 15) painted a powerful picture of the growing costs to our entire society from weather-related disasters that are accelerating with planetary warming, which continues unabated due to continued burning of fossil fuels. The true costs of burning fossil fuels have not been reflected […]

Editorial cartoon for Tuesday, May 23

Clarence Page: Justice dies when politicians turn vigilantism into a campaign stunt

New York’s justice system must decide whether Daniel Penny was criminally “reckless” or just trying to help. The system needs to seek justice, not just revenge.

Froma Harrop: America needs both parties to secure the border

Democrats have started, and Republicans are invited.

Austin Bay: South Korea bets arsenal ships will give North Korea and China second thoughts

Take a very large but comparatively inexpensive civilian commercial ship. … Now pack the ship with vertical launchers and several hundred long- and mid-range missiles capable of destroying enemy shore targets and perhaps enemy surface ships. Add short-range air and missile defense weapons and presto, enormous sea mobile firepower bang for the buck.

Cal Thomas: Biden vs. Coolidge at Howard

These two commencement addresses at Howard University — one from President Biden, the other from President Coolidge — sound as if they could have been reversed. Biden’s speech might have been more fitting in 1924 and Coolidge’s in 2023. One was full of praise and optimism about the future and the value of African Americans; the other was depressing and invoked a false indictment of America from a president who ought to know better.