The following appeared in Friday’s Washington Post: Sen. Kamala Harris, D-California, a freshly minted presidential candidate, sketched an appealing picture of Medicare-for-all at a CNN town hall recently. Yes, she said, the plan would require doing away with insurance companies. But, she argued, who would miss them? “Who of us has not had that situation […]
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Tunnels undermine reason for border wall
By Brian Klaas Special To The Washington Post After caving on the shutdown, President Donald Trump continues to insist that American taxpayers shell out $5.7 billion for a border wall (or is it a fence?) that he promised would be paid for by Mexico. There are many reasons to oppose Trump’s quixotic demand for a […]
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Remembering the Cal Ripken of Maine's civic affairs
The entire state — and for that matter — much of the national legal community — lost one of its greatest all time trial attorneys last week with the death of Portland’s Ralph “Ike” Lancaster at the age of 88. As federal Judge William Kayatta observed, “No Maine trial lawyer has ever risen to such […]
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A plea for fair comment
This is a column about this column. Particularly, this is about responses and reviews of this column. Another View is penned by a small group of writers who are hard-working, thoughtful, earnest and, yes, conservative. They are truly grateful for the opportunity to present a conservative view in newspapers which, typically, have a dominant liberal […]
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The deep meaning of Groundhog Day
Today is Groundhog Day. It is the day when many eyes will turn to Gobbler’s Knob, a wooded hill a couple of miles outside Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. A man in a top hat will pull a hibernating groundhog out of a simulated tree trunk. If the rodent sees his shadow, then we’ll have six more weeks […]
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Is 'assimilation' a thing of the past?
The worst thought crime is the one you don’t realize you’re committing. So it was with NBC News legend Tom Brokaw, who — for good reason — didn’t understand that assimilation is now a third rail of American politics. A few days ago, he caused a furor with comments on the venerable Sunday news program […]
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U.S. economy’s slow growth rate carries risk
WASHINGTON — At the start of every year, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) publishes its annual “The Budget and Economic Outlook,” a tome full of statistics, tables and charts. Frankly, it’s easy to get swamped by the numbers. To make sense of the report, I’ve selected five takeaways that capture the main points. (1) The […]
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President can win on border security
WASHINGTON — Having lost the government shutdown standoff, President Trump has also lost his leverage. But there is one way he can get it back. Democrats are standing firm in opposition to a border wall, but they have also been at pains to argue that they are not weak on border security. House Speaker Nancy […]
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America's Venezuelan policy options outlined
During a Jan. 27 White House press briefing addressing U.S. economic sanctions imposed on Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro’s regime, reporters noticed national security adviser John Bolton idly clasping at his side a notepad containing the handwritten phrase: “5,000 troops to Colombia.” Reuters reported it was “not clear if disclosure of the notes was intentional, and […]
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Government officials need to feel the pain, too
Next time, they should redistribute the pain. That’s an expression Martin Luther King used — he credited Jesse Jackson — in the 1968 Memphis sanitation workers strike as he urged boycotts and other forms of economic coercion in support of the strikers. Those men had been suffering alone, he said. Now, let the whole town […]