“Where have you gone, Bob Woodward? Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.” I asked that question in January, repurposing a Paul Simon lyric to implore the dean of American political reporters to help us make sense of the mess that is the Trump White House. On Tuesday, Woodward finally came through. That was […]
Op-Eds
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Kavanaugh sides with the agenda of the wealthy
A short time ago, I was proud to stand with my union sisters and brothers in Lewiston when we joined together for the Western Maine Central Labor Council’s Labor Day barbecue. I could feel the energy in the air. Working Mainers — and working people across the country — are mobilizing in an historic wave […]
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Administration vows to protect Americans from International Criminal Court
WASHINGTON — Should an unaccountable United Nations court, created by a treaty to which the United States is not a signatory, and that the Senate has not ratified, be allowed to investigate, try and imprison American citizens? Unfortunately, this is no longer a theoretical question. In November, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court […]
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Protest is as American as football. Why doesn't Trump get it?
The tang of fall is nearly in the air. The summer is all but over. Football season is here. Are you ready for some . . . culture war? This war may feel unending, but it only began a little more than two years ago. During a preseason game on Aug. 26, 2016, Colin Kaepernick, […]
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Let the madness begin
For the next 51 days, we’ll be in the midst of Silly Season, the biennial statewide election campaign. You’ll see and hear things you don’t see and hear the rest of the time. Silly as it may seem at times, the election is sacred to our democracy. If we have a civic equivalent to attending […]
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How about Medicare Advantage for all?
A resurfaced Barack Obama has uttered those three little words: “Medicare for all.” Does that mean that the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, was a bad idea? Not at all. The ACA was a triumph in that it cut the number of uninsured Americans by 20 million. And it hardened the idea that no American, […]
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Legacies of America’s financial crisis
WASHINGTON — Ten years after the 2008-09 financial crisis, we’re swamped with studies and reminiscences. What are the legacies of the crisis? How long will they endure? Are they accurate — or just convenient scapegoats? Here are three takeaways. (1) We can no longer rule out another worldwide depression — something akin to the Great […]
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Obama sinks into partisan demagoguery
WASHINGTON — When Barack Obama took the oath of office as president in 2009, George W. Bush wished him well and left the political stage, determined to never publicly criticize his successor. It is a vow he kept for the entire eight years of Obama’s presidency. Indeed, Bush has given only one political speech since […]
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Future looks promising for blue collar workers
The economic recovery is really beginning to reach into Trump country. The president is famous for his extravagant promises, involving, invariably, the biggest and the best. The landscape is littered with examples, although he never promised to create blue-collar jobs at the fastest clip since 1984, something he achieved in the first half of 2018. […]
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A better test for balanced reporting
A prediction. When the history of this era is written, when future generations wonder how a mostly educated and largely literate nation became mired in “truthiness,” when they ask how we became so mentally muddled that we lost the ability to identify facts and the capacity to care, they’ll find many culprits. They’ll blame Fox […]