Author: John Frary

The Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee have sent a letter to the White House asserting that “the security and humanitarian crisis now unfolding in Afghanistan could have been avoided if you had done any planning.” This puts the Democratic administration on notice that it will have to defend itself. This is what happens when you have more than one political party in a country. It’s called partisanship. The Democrats’ partisan instincts would normally incline it toward those familiar slogans about “moving on” and getting back to regular government business, but the Afghan debacle will not allow that. The…

My previous column promised an examination of the competence displayed in resolving the Kavanaugh question. I can begin this examination by saying that Sen. Susan Collins stands out for a stellar display of competence. On the evening of her announcement, a newly termed-out legislator called me in an exultant mood. A Collins-skeptic of long standing, he could not stop praising her presentation. He went on so long I had to shut him down to get some sleep. On the Saturday that followed I read the transcript of her speech and took a look at the video. It wasn’t just that…

The editorial board of the New York Times, an authoritative source for Left-Lurcher thinking, explained what’s at stake on July 6. The title of its editorial, “Democrats Do Not Surrender the Judiciary” reveals a vital leftist conviction. In their view, the United States Supreme Court belongs to either the Democrats or the Republicans. It does not belong to that vague entity conventionally called “the American People.” In July the editorial board believed the Democrats had scant hope of denying President Trump a second Supreme Court appointment. They feared the consequences. His nominee, they warned, “will lock in a 5-to-4 conservative…

E.J. Dionne recently penned “The Grassroots Revolt Against Kavanaugh,” datelined Portland, Maine, September 13. This got my attention at once. I have come over the years to rely on E.J. as a concise and accurate guide to the current concerns of our liberal intelligentsia. I’ve never claimed that this famous journalist is stupid. I only claim that his self-awareness deficiency is so dire that he often simulates stupidity remarkably well. His column argues that “exceptional dangers require exceptional and sometimes unusual responses.” He discovered some unusual grassroots responses at a Portland phone bank on September 11. It will surprise no…

On Sept. 17, 1787 the Constitutional Convention completed its final draft. In September 2018, Americans have had multiple opportunities to watch the Senate Judiciary Committee dealing with our supreme legal legacy. It’s appropriate to celebrate the upcoming Constitution Day by comparing the Founding Fathers’ work with the exertions of the Senate’s best legal minds in the year 2018. In Philadelphia, the debates routinely drew on precedents, comparisons and analogies from the histories of England, the Roman Republic, the Greek city-states and “early modern” Europe. We have no evidence that modern day senators understand any of that stuff, yet some among…

This year’s voting will be more exciting than usual in Maine. The Democrats are eager to regain control of the state government and resume its pace of growth. Republicans are hoping for an extension of the LePage reforms. The Maine Peoples Alliance, having failed in an all-out effort to win Lewiston’s mayoral office, is hoping to create a Referendum Party by drawing from out-of-state funding to pass boob-bait like Question 1. These issues will attract most of the state’s political energy, but national factors and long-term consequences make the Supreme Court of the United States United States (SCOTUS) nominations far…

In December 2012, after the The Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre on December 14, Stephen Hunter, a Pulitzer Prize-winning former film critic of the Washington Post, scorned “….the orgy of recrimination, faux solemnity and glycerine tears of the past few days on the issue of ‘What can we do?’” This struck me as a bit too cynical. The horror and revulsion was genuine (how could it be otherwise) and unadulterated among politically inattentive people. But politicians, pundits and guilty bystanders who are perpetually attentive to political combat (e.g., me) can’t escape reflexive political calculations. It has become lodged deep in our…

James D. Herbert’s Feb. 11 column in the Portland Press Herald, “Are We Just Another Echo Chamber?” drew less attention than one might think having been authored by the University of New England’s president. It evoked just eighteen comments and a single letter of support. The column argued that the political right’s characterization of American Academia as “plagued by liberal bias and elitism” has merit, and undermines public confidence in institutions of higher education. He supports his first thesis by citing studies documenting an imbalance in academics political views and partisan identification, e.g., a 2016 survey of over 7000 professors found that…

Next year by this time, we can expect a complete list of declared candidates for the governor’s office. We already have the first entries among Republicans. Mary Mayhew showed up first. The personal and professional attacks against her are already underway and will accumulate steadily over the next twelve months. The rumormongers are talking about Garrett Mason, Josh Tardy, Ken Fredette, Charlie Summers, Rick Bennett and Mike Thibodeau, but they have filed no papers and made no commitments as of this writing. Some of those who have not made up their mind may want to see what Susan Collins decides…

Does Paul LePage ever feel as if he’s being continuously dive-bombed by a rubber duck? This question was provoked by the 884th bombing run by Bill “Stuka” Nemitz on July 27. His column, “Bad call by LePage on cellphones, driving. Common sense says the two don’t mix, but tell that to the governor,” starts off in familiar fraud-mode by implying that our governor advocates driving while using a cellphone. He does not. Following his usual custom, the Press Herald supercolumnist illuminated his advocacy for increasing government controls on the citizenry with an emotional personal anecdote. He describes how he nearly…

The New York Times reported at the beginning of 2017 that George Orwell’s ‘1984’ is suddenly a best-seller. Prof. Stefan Collini, of the University of Cambridge, explained to the NYT that readers saw a natural parallel between the book and “the way Mr. Trump and his staff have distorted facts.” Since Orwell is back en vogue, it’s appropriate to remind readers that he liked socialism a lot more than he liked the common run of socialists. In ‘The Road to Wigan Pier’ Orwell writes, “there is the horrible–the really disquieting–prevalence of cranks wherever Socialists are gathered together. One sometimes gets…

I’ve known Portland Mayor Ethan Strimling since 2005 when I met him at the State House during an interview with Sen. Joe Perry (I liked Joe more than any other Democrat I met in Augusta). Strimling, the former Senator, appeared in the office and Perry introduced us. I told Strimling at the time that, although I did not choose to actively socialize with blood-thirsty Bolsheviks, there was no reason we couldn’t be civil. He agreed and we went our separate ways. Some years later, he invited me to become one of his many Facebook friends. I consented and we exchanged…

Now that Maine’s Government shutdown has been shut down, it’s appropriate to examine the drama’s plot, cast of characters, scene-setting, dialogue, and special effects. This may be the appropriate, but I’m not the man for the job. The mere enumeration of these components already bores me. More, the drama ran its course so quickly that most citizens never noticed anything going on, so no one will pay attention to an extended exposition anyway. I followed the play act by act, scene by scene, so I’m able to offer a concise summary. Republicans negotiated with Democrats, Democrats negotiated with Republicans, the…

In November 2008, the Democrats elected a president and captured Congress with eight new senators and 21 new representatives. Their party controlled state legislatures in 27 states, including Maine. Pessimistic Republicans prophesied liberty’s retreat, the Constitution’s doom, the erosion of national sovereignty, federal apple-pie inspectors invading every kitchen, and a multitude of other disasters. Optimists looked desperately for a glimmer of hope. The first glimmer appeared on February 3, 2009. That was the day Lance Harvell won a special election in Maine’s 89th District to replace a liberal Democrat who had just taken over as Maine’s Attorney Journal. Although he won…

Mainers seem to take voting more seriously than citizens of other states. Our 2014 voter participation topped the nation at 59.3 percent. We beat the next highest, Wisconsin (56.9 percent), handily and ran way ahead of the 36.3 percent national average. Voters in conservative Texas (28.5) and liberal New York (28.8) appear woefully apathetic by comparison. We deduce a relationship between high participation rates and Mainers’ attraction to measures designed to improve the democratic process. The latest such measure concerns “Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV).” The Maine Ranked Choice Voting Initiative, known as Question 5, was approved last November by a margin of 52…

Rep. Heather Sirocki, R-Scarborough, is clearly among the straightest of all straight arrows in our state’s legislative quiver. She would not flinch from being the single vote for or against a bill in the whole House, regardless of political risk. I’m categorically certain that her motives for sponsoring LD 850 had nothing to do with expediency. I’m equally certain that Rep. Lance Harvell’s lone Republican vote against her bill was principled rather than expedient. I can attest that he shares my respect for Representative Sirocki in full measure. The legislation would prohibit lobbyists, state employees, executive branch officials or members…

Interesting how the Democrats’ “Opportunity Agenda” converges with the British Labour Party’s recently leaked “transformational programme.” Although it’s generally acknowledged that Jeremy Corbyn, the Labourite leader, is a warm admirer of socialist disasters like Venezuela’s “Bolivarian Socialism,” the word “socialist” appears nowhere in Labour’s draft manifesto. Nor does it appear in the Democrats’ Opportunity Agenda despite the popularity of a certain self-described “Democratic Socialist” in their ranks. Actually, mainstream Socialist plans for ownership of the means of production were abandoned forty years ago. “Statism,” the drive for perpetual governmental expansion, has replaced it. The Opportunity Agenda and Labour’s draft manifesto agree…

FACT: Connecticut’s current budget year is deep in the red and next year’s deficit has risen to $2.2 billion. FACT: Governor Malloy asserts that Connecticut depends too much on its wealthy residents and wealthy residents are leaving. FACT: Paul LePage is not planning to move to Connecticut and run for governor in 2018. FACT: On Sunday, May 8 Rep. Maxine Waters received wild cheers at an MTV Awards Ceremony. FACT: No kidding, it was recorded live. FACT: In 1939, the U.S. Department of the Interior warned that American oil supplies would last for only another 13 years. FACT: The U.S.…

Almost 40 years ago, the Hoover Institutions’ Policy Review journal published a letter I wrote criticizing surveys published by several reputable political scientists. They showed that most Americans objected to higher taxes but also wanted the government’s services. The survey data seemed solid enough, but their analyses were defective. They argued that since the voters wanted both lower taxes and undiminished government services, what they really wanted was higher taxes. It made no more sense than altering the “people want to have their cake and eat it too” cliche to be “people want to have their cake and eat it too,…

It’s generally recognized that Angus King’s political persona is a geometrical miracle, all surface and no depth. But when we study the skill with which he decorates this surface, we see something more impressive still. If disingenuity was an art, Angus King would be its Michelangelo, and connoisseurs of the disingenuous are hailing his April 4 announcement as a masterpiece. Any fair-minded person studying the explanation he gave for voting against Neil Gorsuch must agree; Maine’s junior senator deserves to be crowned King of the Artful Dodgers. The state’s GOP Executive Director Jason Savage will receive no invitation to the…

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell intends to secure 60 votes for President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, before the scheduled April 8 vote. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer threatens a filibuster if the Senate does not approve the nomination with 60 votes. McConnell has said that Gorsuch will be confirmed “one way or another,” implying that he intends to use the “nuclear option” to break the filibuster. However the Gorsuch struggle plays out, it will not end the struggle for a United States Supreme Court majority. The March Judiciary Committee hearings have been a rehearsal for debates in the full…

Any members of the Senate Judiciary Committee interested in SCOTUS nominee Neil Gorsuch’s judicial and constitutional philosophy will find a vital source of information in Natural Law and Natural Rights by John Finnis, Professor of Law and Legal Philosophy at Oxford University. I struggled with these pages to satisfy my curiosity, but my effort has little relevance to the debate about the nominee’s fitness for the United States Supreme Court. No senator has read the volume, nor will they. You don’t need constitutional expertise to sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee, but you do need expertise in political calculations to…

As recently as 2009, America’s liberals could look to a glorious future. Barack Obama, newly installed in the Oval Office, promised an American transformation. Democrats held 257 seats in the House of Representatives. There were 60 Democratic senators. There were 29 Democratic governors and the party held 56 percent of all seats in the state legislatures. Better yet, they could look forward to an inevitable progressive triumph. This was guaranteed by “The Emerging Democratic Majority” by Ruy Teixeira and John B. Judis. Its pages, complete with lots of cheerful statistics, showed how the nation’s Afro-American/Hispanic/Asian demographic destiny would guarantee perpetual…

After predicting that President Trump’s inaugural speech would include something about “bringing the nation together.” I have sifted through the official transcript for a complete collection of his unity themes. There was a lot of turbo-charged we’s throughout his speech: “We, the citizens of America, are now joined in a great national effort to rebuild our country and restore its promise for all of our people. Together, we will determine the course of America and the world for many, many years to come. We will face challenges. We will confront hardships. But We will get the job done…We are one…

A “factoid” is not a piece of trivia. A factoid is a falsehood, or part of the truth, that is treated as fact. Thomas Sowell, my favorite living economist, announced his retirement in 2017. It seems appropriate to memorialize him with this Dec. 6 quote, “One of the most zealous crusades of the Left has been to prevent law-abiding citizens from having guns, even though gun-control laws have little or no effect on criminals who violate laws in general. You can read through reams of rhetoric from gun-control advocates without encountering a single hard fact showing that gun-control laws reducing…

When our side wins, democracy happens. When our opponents win, democracy fails. The rule cited above does not explain every possible reaction to electoral outcomes, but it explains so many that we can never ignore it. Even though criticism of the Electoral College has never been a Democratic Party monopoly; current agitation for Electoral College abolition emanates from frustrated Democrats. Their abolitionist enthusiasm is clearly inspired by Hillary Clinton’s failure to snatch the presidency from the talons of the Trump Tower Gargoyle. Richard Lempert, a Senior Fellow at the liberal Brookings Institution and a faithful Democrat, takes issue with the…

In November, the Trump-Pence ticket carried the Electoral College by 74 votes out of 538. They won the election. The Clinton-Kaine ticket received a higher popular vote total. They lost the election. Republicans see no problem with this outcome. Resolutely partisan Democrats see a huge problem. They are convinced that their candidate has been cheated by the Constitution. What’s worse – much worse – is the candidate they hate more than any candidate in history is going to occupy the Oval Office after January 20, 2017. Unable to abolish Donald Trump, they begin to dream of abolishing the Electoral College with…

SNIFFLEGATE? The September 26 presidential debate stimulated intense, even violent, disputes about the meaning, or even existence, of a series of “sniffs” allegedly emitted from behind the podium adorned by Donald “The Donald” Trump. Some attendees insist that the Republican candidate sniffled 37 times. Other estimates run from six to 60. Dr. Howard “Howling Howie” Dean, MD speculated about cocaine addiction. The Donald denied sniffing at all; blamed the microphone; accused the mainstream media of systematic deception, and denied that he ever sniffled, not then, not ever; pointing out that “Sniffling is for losers.” The most memorable line in the…

Ancient wisdom assumed that any bird would have sense enough to avoid a trap set right in front of it. The Maine AFL-CIO, Maine Education Association, Maine Parent Teacher Association, Maine State Employees Association, Maine Small Business Coalition, Maine People’s Resource Center and the Maine People’s Alliance (MPA), in contrast, are betting that the average Maine voter’s intelligence falls well below the Biblical bird-brain standard. If their gamble succeeds, the “Maine Public Education Surcharge Initiative” will pass on November 8. The official ballot summary sounds harmless, even beneficial: “This initiated bill establishes the Fund to Advance Public Kindergarten to Grade 12…

On Monday, August 1, Rep. Shadracch Abednego (R-God’s Mills) proposed that Maine enact an annual Patriarchy Day to celebrate man’s achievements and mourn his sufferings at the hands of the enemy sex. His list of achievements runs to 38 pages. The list of grievances runs to 85. Representative Abednego agrees that the lists were significantly skewed, but points to twenty-first century America’s intense competition for Number One Victim status. He does not wish to see his ‘Brothers’ cede that battlefield. On August 3, the University of Maine at Beans Corner became the first institution of higher education in the United…

Interested in the “Final Draft To Advance Progressive Democratic Values”? Readers fluent in Albanian will recognize some elements plagiarized from the 1984 platform of the Partia e Punës e Shqipërisë. In an ideal world, all faithful Democrats would study their party’s official platform. In the real world none will be interested enough to slog through the whole fifty-one pages. In an ideal world, Democratic candidates would formulate their campaign strategies in conformity with their party’s platform. In the real world, candidates spend more time attacking the opposing party’s platform than boasting about their own. Platforms are written by committees made…

Is Hillary Clinton 5 feet 8 ½ inches tall as some websites claim or 5 feet 6 inches as others assert? The true number is important to the aggrieved and increasingly activist vertically-challenged Americans who believe it’s just as important to have a “sawed-off” president as it is to have a female in the Oval Office. Republicans suspect that the 5′ 6″ figure is just another Clinton vote-grabbing fiction. Good News from Baltimore: Reuters reports that the number of uniformed officers in the city fell 6.1% last year, and from January to June 9 this year, the force shrank by…

As Krysta Lilly has already pointed out in a Lewiston Sun Journal column, Michael Bloomberg has already spent over $3,000,000 to promote a citizen’s initiative designed to disarm Mainers. It has been assumed for some time that he aims to spend $5,000,000 altogether. Of course we are all feeling grateful for Mayor Mike’s generosity. But some must feel a little puzzled as well. Bloomberg was born in Boston. He didn’t go to college here. He owns homes in New York City, Westchester, Long Island, Bermuda, London, Colorado and Florida but not so much as a lean-to in Maine. He’s never…

“You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear; To-morrow I’ll be the happiest time of all the glad New-year; Of all the glad New-year, mother, the maddest merriest day; For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, or maybe King o’ the May.” Maya Dillard Smith, interim director of the Georgia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, resigned on May 31 after she encountering three “transgender” young adults over six feet with deep voices. She claims her two elementary school age daughters “…were visibly frightened, concerned about their safety and left asking lots of…

Tragedy cast a dark shadow over the first of four Preakness races at the Pimlico course on Saturday, May 21. Homeboykris won the first race at 9-1 odds and promptly died after leaving the winner’s circle. Pramedya collapsed in the middle of the fourth race with a broken left front leg and was euthanized on the track. Although America’s indolent and incompetent mass media have yet to notice it, many conservatives and left-lurchers view these equine tragedies as flickering rays of hope. Word reaches me from my network of confidential informants and agents that growing numbers of depressed and anxious…

This November, Maine voters will decide on an initiative to provide further public education funding through an additional surcharge of 3% on certain taxpayers beginning January 1, 2017. The official ballot summary can be found here. Early this year, Ballotpedia.com identified the following referendum promoters: Maine AFL-CIO, Maine Education Association, Maine Parent Teacher Association, Maine State Employees Association, Maine Small Business Coalition, Maine People’s Resource Center and the Maine People’s Alliance (MPA). Objective observers (e.g., me) are beginning to wonder whether the MPA is a front group for the Maine Democratic Party, or if the Party is a front group…

April fool’s month starts off briskly on opening day: President Obama coins a new euphemism when he referred to an American air strike as a “kinetic action.” As we all know, air strikes are terrifying, destructive, bloody, and loud, while “kinetic actions” are merely kinetic. White House officials suppress French President François Hollande’s phrase “Islamist terrorism” in the official video clip of a meeting in Washington. A group of Stanford Review students issued 15 demands including the demand that “the Administration immediately accept the aforementioned demands.” Demand #12, “that Stanford base grades only on attendance records in class, since all other measures are discriminatory,”…

On April 15 Nathan Strout’s “Fuzzy Math in Push for Raising the Minimum Wage” questioned how deeply the Maine Peoples Alliance (MPA), its allies, co-conspirators, dependents and servants have researched the economic consequences of raising the minimum wage. His conclusion: “Ultimately, this minimum wage initiative is based on nothing but wishful thinking and arbitrary numbers.” It grieves me to do this, but I must disagree with my young colleague’s conclusion. The MPA has done all the research necessary to tell them the minimum wage polls well. For example, a 2013 Gallup Report told them that, “With momentum building at the…

On March 23, Barack Obama, unique among American presidents for his fluency in Austrian, stopped off in Buenos Aires to assure Argentinians that the average American is shamefully ignorant of foreign languages. Our president understands how to spread goodwill everywhere. People all over the world take pleasure in knowing they are superior to Americans. Argentinians, unlike Americans, are fluent in Spanish and proud of it. Anders Breivik, who murdered 77 people in July 2011, is suing the Norwegian government over his treatment in prison. He’s only five years along on his 21-year sentence and faces sixteen years of isolation, unable…

Word reaches us that Rep. Demosthenes Platterbaff (D-Twin Peaks) is preparing a bill to establish a ‘Dirigo Flag Amendment, Revision and Correction Commission” (DFARCC). Representative Platterbaff is troubled by his recent discovery that Maine’s state flag depicts two male figures and no women at all. He suggests, as an urgent stop gap, that the legislature immediately identify one of the two as a transgendered female. A half dozen House members, affiliated with the Maine Polygendered Alliance (MPA) adamantly oppose any and all provisional half-measures. Half of them propose a new flag incorporating two women, two transgendered whatevers, and two men.…

Will 2016 turn out to be as silly as 2015? The early signs are promising. A Socialist almost won Iowa’s Democratic contest. The most unpopular Republican in the U.S. Senate caucus turned out to be the most popular Republican in the Iowa caucuses. The Republican who came in third is being hailed as the winner. Some person resembling Donald Trump gave a gracious concession speech in Iowa, complete with kind words to his competitors and even to Iowa’s voters. Hard-core Trumpsters weren’t fooled. Despite that man’s close physical resemblance. they know their hero doesn’t lose, can’t lose, despises losers and…

In October 2006, The Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program published “Charting Maine’s Future: An Action Plan for Promoting Sustainable Prosperity and Quality Places.”  It was impressively produced with many fine pictures of trees, lobster traps, potatoes, Mainers at work and Mainers looking rustic.  It was nicely laid out with many instructive graphs and charts.  Governor Baldacci described it as a “blueprint for Maine’s future.”  Copies were placed in the hands of every sitting legislator. Did they all read it?  Not a chance.  Did anyone read it?  The evidence is uncertain.  There’s a phrase found in German naval communiques which has…

In December 2015, the Republican majorities in Congress reached agreements with their Democratic colleagues and President Obama to increase the federal deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars.  Democrats were thrilled by spending increases all across the government.  Republicans were pleased with special interest tax breaks.  Many tax payers were pacified by assurances that no one will have to pay for all these thrills and pleasures.  That’s the responsibility of the nation’s creditors, whoever they are. Earlier in December, Generation Citizen announced the launching of New York’s Vote16USA, a drive to lower the voting age to 16.  The objective is…

There’s no way we can know at this point, but it’s quite possible that 2015 will look like a pretty good year when January 1, 2017 comes around. The year just beginning will bring more terrorist plots and attacks. That much is certain, but we have yet to see whether they are more numerous and bloodier. Politicians will be arrested, indicted, exposed, sentenced and ejected from office, but will there be more or fewer? The stock market moved briskly upward last year, boosting my own annuity quite nicely, but 2016 may remind us that the stock market always jumps before…

In 2016, Maine may become the first state to adopt ranked choice voting (RCV) for its state and national elections. Advocates for a referendum to approve this electoral procedure submitted the necessary signatures to Maine’s Secretary of State on October 19th. Under RCV rules, voters are able to rank candidates in order of preference. When there’s no majority winner, those rankings can be used to elect a candidate by combining strong first choice support with broad second and third choice support from across the electorate. Voters have the option to rank as many or as few candidates as they wish…

There are three possible answers to this question. In Greek mythology, Proteus was a prophetic old man of the sea who could assume all sorts of shapes to escape if some nosy busybody tried to get answers out of him. There are two zoological answers. The first describes a slimy, blind amphibian that dwells in dank caves along the Adriatic Coast. The second describes a school, hive, or herd of zealous Leftlurchers who dwell in Amherst, Massachusetts and sometimes assume the shape of the Piper Fund, sometimes that of the Proteus Action League. In 1995 the Amherst Proteus assumed the…

Mainers for Accountable Elections, operating as a front for Maine Citizens for Clean Elections (MCCE), is the organization that collected signatures to put Proposition One (aka, Question One) on November’s ballot. Their pitch, that we must get money out of politics so the Voice of the People may be heard in all its purity and perfection, is welcome to many. It seems appropriate to give some attention to the Mainers for Accountable Elections/MCCE funding sources. Rep. Joel Stetkis, a carpenter from Canaan, has undertaken the investigation unaccountably overlooked by Maine’s vigilant mainstream media. He points out that a man named…

FIRST: HAS THE CLEAN ELECTIONS LAW IMPROVED LEGISLATION? The Maine Clean Elections Act (MCEA) went into effect for the 2000 elections when half the Senate and 30% of the House were elected with MCEA funding. In 2002, the percentages were 77% and 55% respectively. These totals are cited on The Maine Citizens for Clean Elections website as evidence that the Act was working. How so? We read that it “…allows anyone with enough community support to run for office, regardless of economic background or access to wealth. Before the law was passed, candidates would either spend their own money or…

Last Thursday I helped enhance Maine’s reputation for hospitality by hosting Carly Fiorina at the Sable Oaks Marriott in South Portland. There were a number of reasons I undertook this task. I had already planned to to contribute to the Maine Heritage Policy Center (HHPC) and when they invited Carly Fiorina to be their keynote speaker I leapt at the chance to welcome her. As I told her at the reception I’ve waited fifty years for a presidential candidate with a background in Medieval History. She took the news calmly—not a sign of girlish excitement. I admired  her self-control. I…

On June 29 the Central Maine Papers published a column in which I suggested the Democratic Party should officially apologize for its leading role in supporting slavery and later segregation. I was inspired to write this by the “Burn the Stars and Bars” frenzy prompted by the Charleston slaughter. I remembered that when the Democrats last held a majority in the Senate they passed a resolution apologizing for the United State Senate’s record on race policies. Since it was the Democratic senators from the “Solid South” who took the lead in defending slavery and later the segregation policies imposed by…

Late in July, Senator Angus King took a bold position on the Iran nuclear deal. The column’s title tells most of the tale: “Congress needs to carefully review Iran nuclear agreement.” This will please those among us who think careless, slipshod reviews are a lousy idea. Building on this promising beginning, Maine’s junior senator goes on to explain how he plans to work his way to a decision about the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) negotiated with Iran. He tells he plans to read the document word for word, noting questions, observing the data, studying the analysis. More, he…

My friend and fellow conservative M.D. Harmon wrote a June 13 column in the Central Maine papers entitled “Something Rotten on Campus.” This rot a growing hostility to over-free free speech, i.e., to speech which escapes the ever-narrower boundaries set by prevailing leftist opinion. The column’s description of campus free speech restrictions draws on testimony from liberals, e.g., from several popular comedians never associated with conservative views, to a liberal journalist famous for explaining why he hated George W. Bush, and to a couple of vulnerable liberal academics. As it happens I am just now reading Kirsten Powers’ The Silencing.…

Jon Stewart has spent some time on his “Daily Show” scorning Paul LePage. Yet Stewart and our governor have something important in common. They both admire Philip K. Howard’s most recent book, The Rule of Nobody: Saving America from Dead Laws and Broken Government. When I gave Paul the book last month he noted the insert on its cover containing Stewart’s warm praise without comment, and turned immediately to the index and bibliography. This is what knowledgeable “expert readers” do to form an idea about where an author is coming from. Intrigued to read that Howard, a one-time adviser to Al Gore and much admired by liberals like Stewart, had…

Now that Mrs Clinton has openly disclosed her intention to run as a Democrat, it is appropriate to establish a few rules for keeping coverage of her candidacy civil and steering the discussion away from irrelevancies. One: The Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation is an unselfish philanthropic concern devoted to defending women world-wide and serving as a vital hub for economic and cultural exchange. Two:  Contrary to earlier State Department criticisms, Morocco, Colombia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman are all woman-friendly vital hubs for economic and cultural change, as well as havens of civil righteousness. Their contributions to the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation…

“No lesson seems to be so deeply inculcated by the experience of life as that you should never trust experts. If you believe doctors, nothing is wholesome: if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent: if you believe the soldiers, nothing is safe. They all require their strong wine diluted by a very large admixture of insipid common sense.” —-Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury The noble lord learned a thing or two about experts during his thirteen years of service as Prime Minister of Great Britain. Even so, he could not have foreseen how the breed multiplied…

“As the body of rules grows, the legal landscape becomes more thickly populated and harder to traverse. Concealed declivities, sudden detours, arterial congestions, unexpected cul-de-sacs, puzzling signs, and jarring encounters abound.”—Peter H. Schuck Schuck’s  Why Government Fails So Often: And How It Can Do Better first appeared in 2014, so it was not the inspiration for Paul LePage’s 2010 hope to make it a rule for the legislature to deduct two old laws or rules for every new one it adds. Our left-lurching friends will see the  governor’s ambition as further evidence of the unquenchable malice of the Blaine House…

Mike Tipping is communication director of the Maine Peoples Alliance (MPA). As such, his primary  mission is to expose Paul LePage as a man devoid of good will, accomplishment, competence, intelligence, and even humanity; a man who has never done any good, never wanted to do any good, never done anything right, and never had a kind thought. In Mike’s world, located in a galaxy far, far away, the MPA owns all “People” copyrights and patents. Republicans, Tea Partyers, and LePage supporters are not People at all, but just a bunch of persons. It’s fair to point out that, like…

Given the traditional tripartite choice—animal, vegetable or mineral–there’s a solid consensus about Mike Michaud’s identify. Apart from a few violent partisans who opt for vegetable the consensus comes up animal. Moving into the subdivisions of “animal” we find consensus disintegrating into chaos. Our media, usually so mutually supportive, can’t seem to decide whether he’s a moderate Democrat, a conservative Democrat or a Blue Dog Democrat. Sometimes the same news source uses the terms interchangeably. Conservatives see a blue dog on short leash held in the Nancy Pelosi’s manicured hand. Others see a double-blank domino without stable characteristics. Republicans make much…

By John Frary — Last year presidential consigliore John Podesta snarled that Republicans “are facing a second term against a cult worthy of Jonestown.” He apologized shortly after. I can only guess, but my intuition advises me that he was not regretful about slandering the Republicans or the Tea Party “cult.” I suspect a sudden memory of the connections between the “Reverend” Jim Jones and the Democratic Party motivated his retreat. The history of the People’s Temple and California’s liberal Democrats is relevant to a “scandal” recently manufactured by Maine People’s Alliance Miscommunications Director Mike Tipping. A 2012 article in…

As we have seen from Mike Michaud economic plan for energizing Maine’s economy, upyanking the economically undertrodden, rescuing the middle class, curing the ills, and cultivating carnations on the sidewalks along Congress Street, the Democrats have warmed to the word “invest” and grown chill to the word “spend.” Cynics, Republicans, and citizens blessed with IQ scores north of 85 sense that this is a reaction to the average voter’s growing distaste for governmental extravagance. In fairness we have to recognize that a growing number of liberal legislators are genuinely convinced of their innate talent for investment. We assume “innate”  since…

Our state’s media have looked upon Mike Michaud’s “Maine Made” economic plan and found it good. One newspaper editorial saw an “ambitious, comprehensive business and investment plan for Maine that calls for a dramatic rethinking of our approach to economic. development.”  Paul Merrill, the  WMTW political reporter told us that unidentified “analysts” say it’s “more specific than Eliot Cutler’s and more realistic than Paul LePage’s.” Readers can check on the document here if they wish to make their own analysis. I’d be surprised—astonished—if more than a hundred Mainers actually went there to read Mike’s 33-page snoozer. Your average politician produces such…

Jesus wants Maine’s House of Representatives to expand Mainecare coverage. We know this because. Diane Russell (D-Portland) mounted her pulpit last week to preach the gospel according to Mathew 25-31-46. She prophesied salvation and eternal bliss for some of her colleagues; the fiery pit and eternal torment for others. More explicitly, she assigned places in heaven to her Democratic brethren and hell for most of the Republicans. I must advise my literal-minded readers that Maine’s House doesn’t actually have a pulpit. St. Diane carries a metaphorical pulpit wherever she goes. Nor did she explicitly predict the ultimate destination of her…

THE ZEUS OF FRANKLIN COUNTY That would be me. It turns out that I have the power to raise what is being called a “spits-storm” (readers are free to substitute a consonant if they wish) in Franklin County. Now I propose to quell it by a single Zeus-like gesture, i.e., this column. At its deepest level this odd episode reflects the difference between those who believe in building a political party from its foundations up, or from a weathervane down.  I prefer the latter, referring to foundations constructed of clear principles. I’m a Republican because I believe that conservative principles…

On January 15 the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) produced its “Review of Terrorist Attacks on U.S. Facilities in Benghazi, September 11-12, 2012. It’s a nominal 85 pages long (some passages are blacked out for security reasons, some pages are left blank). There are fifteen member of this committee, seven Democrats, seven Republicans, and one “Independent.” The party in the majority controls all committee assignments and makes sure that it has majority control of each committee. The Democrats are in the majority and the “Independent” they chose as fifteenth man is Angus King. Readers can make their own deductions.…

Mark Giangreco, my new friend at the Democratic Governor’s Association (DGA), just sent an e-mail urging me “to join Mike Michaud and the DGA to tell Governor LePage to support Medicaid expansion TODAY!” Mark tells me our governor has it in his power to “give health care to thousands of people in need.” The DGA’s message fluctuates between pathos and indignation: “If you think the weather has been cold this week, it’s nothing compared to the thousands of uninsured who have been left out in the cold by Tea Party governors. Maine’s Paul LePage is refusing to allow federal Medicaid…

Mark Giangreco, my new friend at the Democratic Governor’s Association (DGA), just sent an e-mail urging me “to join Mike Michaud and the DGA to tell Governor LePage to support Medicaid expansion TODAY!” Mark tells me our governor has it in his power to “give health care to thousands of people in need.” The DGA’s message fluctuates between pathos and indignation: “If you think the weather has been cold this week, it’s nothing compared to the thousands of uninsured who have been left out in the cold by Tea Party governors. Maine’s Paul LePage is refusing to allow federal Medicaid…

The Honorable William S. Cohen and Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.) had a conversation at the Collins Center for the Arts on November 7. Bill Cohen followed Maine’s tradition of political moderation by not saying anything particularly interesting or original. Wyoming’s former senator was a lot more interesting. For one thing his feet are phenomenal. Never seen the like. They were up on the stage at eye level directly in front of me. Prodigious fifteen and half, triple-H shoes—couldn’t take my eyes off them. I only mention this because the journalistic convention has long been to remark on his towering height…

“RE: Changes to the 2014 Verso Health Benefits Program,” a memo sent to all employees of Verso Paper from Kenny D. Sawyer, V.P. Human Resources. The VP explains “…our benefits team has worked closely with our health care providers to mitigate increased costs…” of the Affordable Care Act of 2010. Let’s savor that phrase for a moment—“mitigate increased costs.” Here are some other key phrases in the document: “…implement a resulting premium increase…” “…decreasing our health care offerings…” “…co-insurance payments will be adjusted from 90% to 80%…” “…increase in out-of-pocket maximums…” “…you will see a premium increase around 3.5%…” In…

A new best seller, This Town, by Mark Leibovich presents some interesting points of comparison with Senator Olympia Snowe’s Fighting for Common Ground: How We Can Fix the Stalemate in Congress. Leibovich, The New York Times Magazine Washington correspondent, makes only one passing comment about the bipartisan divide that troubles Olympia. He quotes Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), who explained that the “power of anxiety, worry and fear leads politicians in contemporary Washington to cling to the safest, most conventional methods of staying in power.” Easiest among those methods is the embrace of rigid partisanship which, as the senator tells him, “usually signals a…

Danny Kanner, Lis Smith, Mark Giangreco, and Governor Peter Shumlin, my new best friends at the Democratic Governor’s Association, have sent met me a stream of e-mails ever since I checked the DGA website a few weeks ago. You couldn’t call our friendship really intimate, since they price it at only three dollars. This is the minimum sum they are requesting to fight off the “radical right-wing extreme of the extreme fringe groups” making war on women, gays, Barack Obama, and Terry McAuliffe. My DGA friends express particular concern about the negative ads directed against Terry, their candidate in Virginia.…

By Prof. John Frary — I was amazed to hear recently about a wealthy New Yorker who converted all his assets into stocks in cutting-edge green energy companies. The boldness, even recklessness, of this decision dazzled me. Then I learned that he was a legislator and amazement ceased – I knew then the story was false. Elected officials don’t invest their own money in risky ventures. They invest the tax payer’s money. Mind you, anyone who invests in a wind or solar power company that succeeds in producing electricity at competitive rates without subsidies will make a pile, but the…

The Democratic Governor’s Association (DGA) has posted petitions to “Stop the LePage Agenda” in every political website I regularly read, from Daily Kos (dailykos.com) on the Left to “Pajamas Media (pjm.com) on the Right for weeks now. The signatories are offered an opportunity to “tell Governor LePage to stop his extreme right-wing agenda and start standing up for hardworking Mainers.” If we took this message seriously we would have to believe that sometime around the year 2009 Paul LePage got bored managing Marden’s Surplus and Salvage and decided he could have more fun raising property taxes, attacking public workers, and raising health…

“Stop Paul LePage’s Agenda! Governor Paul LePage’s extreme policies have hurt Mainers. During his term as Governor, Paul LePage increased property taxes, attacked public workers and is responsible for raising the cost of health insurance in rural Maine. Maine can do better! Use the form at the right to tell Governor LePage to stop his extreme right-wing agenda and start standing up for hardworking Mainers.” This “petition” advertisement, paid for by the Democratic Governor’s Association (DGA,) has been  popping up on Internet news sites for weeks. It has even shown up on conservative sites, like  lucianne.com, which includes the FraryHomeCompanion.com in…

By Prof. John Frary On January 9 of this year the National Taxpayer Advocate released her Annual Report to Congress. It is intended to identify the most serious problems facing America’s taxpayers and is available to millions of people athttp://www.taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov/2012AnnualReport . The Advocate, Nina Olson, delivers her report directly to the House Committee on Ways and Means and the Senate Committee on Finance without prior review by the executive branch. Members of those committees will study it carefully and consider its recommendations for reforming America’s income tax system. The media will give it a central place in the national discussion on…

By Prof. John Frary “It’s time to talk about gun control.” This was the title of a Washington Post editorial published on December 14. The editors acknowledge objections to exploiting tragedies for political purposes, but argue that there has been too little said or done on the issue and the time has come. The time has come because “… the country would be safer with fewer guns … that it is not the Second Amendment but political cowardice that precludes sensible regulation.” Talk, of course, has been flowing fast and furious (lots of furious) across the nation. In Maine Ethan…

By Prof. John Frary Maine Wire columnist Most people know about the vanguard of the union-busting gang. They’ve seen the videos of corporate thugs in tasseled loafers beating up peaceful picketers and photos of Exxon vice presidents hurling bricks at white-haired school-marms. Members of Maine’s Mural Majority still grieve over the sacred icons removed from the office of the state’s labor department by the Blaine House Brute. (If anyone’s still interested, those fateful murals now live somewhere in California under an SEIU mural protection program disguised as table-runners.) What most people don’t know is how deep and pervasive this union-busting…

By Prof. John Frary Maine Wire columnist On October 22 at a forum the candidates for U.S. Senate explained their respective positions on the Affordable Car Act (a.k.a. “Obamacare”). Angus King answered that it was not perfect but he supported it. In 1994 he wrote:  “I must confess to considerable skepticism about the idea of turning our entire medical system over to the state….I am not confident that our political system will be able to provide the discipline to control health care costs….What has the government (national or state) done so well lately that makes us want to give them…

By Prof. John Frary Maine Wire columnist Unlike Chellie Pingree and Angus King, Congressman Mike Michaud and his challenger, Maine Senate President Kevin Raye, have sprung from the sacred soil of the State of Maine, although both are a bit tainted by associations with Washington, D.C. In the absence of any question about the authenticity of their Pine Street State credentials, there is some competition of their competing claims to being regular guys. The Raye campaign has a TV ad showing a couple of elderly ladies disapproving of one of Mike’s congressional perks, a leased auto. They are shown concluding…

By John Frary Party platforms, particularly state party platforms, do not typically represent the views of a party’s elected officials or those of all registered Republicans or Democrats. They represent the views of a party’s activists. Since no party ever achieves a majority based exclusively on the votes of its purists and activists, successful candidates never use platforms as campaign operating manuals. They must pay attention to a wider range of opinions—and to various interest groups, if they hope to win a majority. This is why political professionals, professors and most pundits are dismissive of party platforms. In 2010 the…

Editorial by John Frary Al Diamon informs us that his contacts in Maine’s media universe do not welcome the Maine Heritage Policy Center’s new press agency, The Maine Wire. They don’t regard it as a “credible source.”  When the Great Beard of Hernia Hill tells us what’s on the minds of Maine’s media we pay heed.  No one knows more of its works and days than he. This raises a question: to what and to whom do “main stream” journalists turn for credible sources? Pay attention to the state and national press and you will find that journalists regularly rely…