Last Thursday, my wife and I were scheduled to fly to D.C. for a friend’s daughter’s wedding. Wednesday around midnight,…
Browsing: Commentary
Where I grew up in northern Minnesota, it’s easy to see the impact that economic hard times leave on disadvantaged…
Several factors contribute to soaring gasoline prices, but the greed of oil barons is an unlikely explanation no matter what President Joe…
In the aftermath of widespread pandemic-era learning disruptions, many parents and community members are seeking more information on what is…
According to the American Legislative Exchange Council Center for State Fiscal Reform, Maine is currently ranked 44th in the nation in…
On June 17, I attended the COVID-delayed swearing-in ceremony for my successor as United States Attorney for the District of…
In recent weeks, our hearts have been broken and our consciences racked by the awful massacre of elementary school children…
Since President Joe Biden took office office early last year, America’s long-term budget deficit has grown by $2.4 trillion. But that…
In what appears to have been little more than a political litmus test of party purity, Democrats in Cumberland County…
The rise in consumer prices has rightly received a great deal of attention, as inflation hovers around 40-year highs. Everyone…
Last week, the Maine Democratic Socialists of America rushed to file paperwork with the City of Portland that set in…
Is it possible that despite the mounting evidence against them, some lockdown enthusiasts are still unwilling to let go of…
It is illegal and unacceptable for law enforcement officers to use excessive force. It’s relatively easy to state that general…
For John Lewis, his local school district’s decision to enact hybrid learning during the COVID-19 pandemic made finding a work-life…
President Joe Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure bill apportioned $1.2 trillion for such projects as roads, bridges, and airports. But it also designated $65 billion “to…
Throughout the pandemic, few things incited more discord than the mandated use of facemasks as a preventative measure to reduce…
The recent mass shootings at the Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo, New York and the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas were…
Last month, the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced it is developing “product standards to prohibit menthol as a…
Government policies fail and create problems in the real world every day. But most Americans are so busy in their…
Shame used to be a relatively simple thing. You did something wrong. You knew it. It was a self-evident truth:…
Over the past two years of social and economic disruption, U.S. education has experienced an extraordinary transformation that can best…
There are a lot of benefits to the New England Clean Energy Connect – benefits we’ve heard a great deal…
On May 14, 18-year-old Payton Gendron traveled more than 200 miles from his hometown to a predominantly Black neighborhood of…
If you’ve ever been to the state of Oregon – home of the “other” Portland – you only need to…
Americans are already struggling under the weight of crippling inflation, from skyrocketing gas prices to exorbitant grocery bills. And even…
It wasn’t long ago that Democrats were claiming that the For the People Act, the Freedom to Vote Act, and the John Lewis…
It’s been two week since a federal court threw out the CDC’s transport mask mandate, to the glee of some…
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is moving fast to close off what seems to be the last remaining legal…
Harm reductionists praise Maine’s new Good Samaritan law. I’m not sure it’s deserved. I will explain why because I don’t expect anyone…
Sometimes I have to remind myself how good we Americans have it because—let’s face it—there is a lot of bad…
Maine is embracing new California-style laws aimed at reducing restrictions on new housing. It could soon run into some of…
A new study recently published by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) found that students with greater access to…
On April 18, Florida federal Judge Kathryn Mizelle invalidated the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) order requiring that passengers wear masks on…
Bureaucrats cling to power. It’s their institutional predisposition. So it was no surprise on Wednesday when the Department of Justice…
The last couple of years have been a revelation when it comes to public health measures for battling COVID-19 and…
Last week, while driving toward the peninsula on Outer Congress Street around Craigie Street, I passed a seemingly able-bodied woman…
Last week, LD 2003, a bill sponsored by Speaker Ryan Fecteau to reform local and state-level housing policy, passed engrossment votes in…
Mainers deserve access to high-quality health care with an affordable price tag. Following the events of the last two years,…
Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, even alarmist government officials like Dr. Anthony Fauci have admitted that it’s time to…
The trend of people quitting Portland government (councilors Nicholas Mavodones, Jill Duson, Spencer Thibodeau, city manager Jon Jennings, police chief…
Tax Day is a fitting day to revisit where our tax-and-spend ways have gotten us. When the president’s own stimulus-spending…
Inflation has surged across much of the developed world in the past year as COVID-19 lockdowns eased and pent-up demand…
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), an electric vehicle requires six times the mineral inputs of a comparable internal…
(If you read my column “Have We No Recourse?”, this column is intended as a sequel to that one.) To…
US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data now show fentanyl overdose to be the top cause of death…
How can we end the cycle of recrimination from which we are suffering and restore faith in our government? We…
Another day, another alarming inflation metric. We just got the numbers for the Personal Consumption Expenditures index (PCE), the Federal…
It’s hard to decide who is worse, actor Jussie Smollett, who faked a racist and homophobic attack in order to…
Over the last year, frequent communications from University of Maine System leaders Chancellor Malloy and UM/UMM President Ferrini-Mundy endorsed “equity”…
Mandatory motor vehicle inspections already cost Mainers $14 million and countless hours of wasted time every single year, but just…
Despite inflation running at a 40-year high, the Biden administration is pushing ahead with plans to hike wages for federal…
As a physician – one who has dedicated his career to treating lung diseases – it has become clear to…
Early in the coronavirus pandemic, I asked a simple question. Could Sweden’s laissez-faire approach to the coronavirus actually work? Unlike…
In December of 1994, a United States Capitol Police Officer shot and killed Marcelino Corniel in front of the White House. Corniel…
President Woodrow Wilson wanted a professional bureaucracy that was apolitical. The theory sounded great but was unfortunately based on a…
Ten months ago, Jeremy Siegel issued a dire warning about the trajectory of prices. “The money supply since the beginning…
Weakness is a contagion. Years in the future, when the historians are done analyzing our present moment, they may well…
Ghislane Maxwell’s attorneys say that three jurors concealed their experience of sexual abuse. One described in an interview with the…
This article is excerpted from LiberatED, a weekly email newsletter where FEE Senior Education Fellow Kerry McDonald brings you news…
On Feb. 25, the CDC made its expected announcement that it was updating its framework to monitor and contain COVID-19.…
I was working on several items closer to home but events in Ukraine overtook me. Last week was one of…
One day I’m reading an internal memo commissioned by the Democratic Party to provide advice to dealing with Covid policy.…
Russian soldiers flooded into Ukraine Thursday under orders from President Vladimir Putin, threatening to obliterate a peace that has existed…
One of the basic functions of government is to right wrongs. When all else fails, we resort to the legal…
At a “ladies night” fundraiser in Toronto in 2013, an up-and-coming politician was asked which nation’s administration he admired most…
Antitrust is a hot topic in Washington lately. The pervasive reach of big technology companies into our personal lives and…
On February 2nd, the 2022 Walk-for-Vets kicked off in Augusta. People are walking 2.2 miles in 22 states for a 22 day-long…
Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban recently announced his latest, ground-breaking innovation, and it’s one that should catch the attention of Americans.…
The New York Times Style Section’s Modern Love column on February 13 was entitled “What Is Black Love Today” and described as…
A new study published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) supposedly shows that wearing a face mask in public…
The dominoes are falling. In just the last month, public leaders of numerous (though not all) European countries, the nation of Israel,…
Central Maine Power provides electricity about 80% of residential customers in Maine, including my house. Factors that influence electricity consumption include the size of…
It takes incredible arrogance for lawmakers and bureaucrats to assume they know what’s best for us. But that quality—arrogance—is precisely what we’ve seen since the start of the pandemic.
We’re into year three of the COVID-19 pandemic. From mask mandates to vaccine passports, government restrictions on our liberties remain…
On January 27, Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen Breyer formally announced his intention to resign at the end of the current term…
It wasn’t long ago that “normal” schooling meant public school, understood as some variation on the theme of classes punctuated…
Can we do anything lawful and legitimate to “protect, defend, and preserve” America as we know it? I don’t know…
Last week, Democrats brought to the Senate floor The Freedom to Vote Act and The John Lewis Voting Rights Act.…
On Saturday, newly minted Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, declared an end to mask mandates in the state’s public…
On Wednesday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provided new research showing that, during the recent Delta…
On January 12, while driving, I listened to the Maine CDC’s weekly COVID-19 briefing conducted by Maine DHHS Commissioner Jeanne Lambrew and…
Last week, the US Census Bureau released its “New Vintage 2021 Population Estimates” for the United States and surrounding territories.…
The optimistic scenario goes like this. America shakes off what remains of the pandemic in the coming months without the…
In the Washington Post on December 18, three retired generals wrote that they are concerned about the military staging a coup in…
The NCAA on Thursday released its new COVID-19 guidance for winter sports, and the guidance contains some important news. As…
Yesterday, the first legislative day of the second session of the 130th Legislature, majority Democrats moved to return to remote…
Last year on January 6, I took the day off to go skiing with my son. We got up early…
It’s 2022 but you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s still 2020—especially if you have children enrolled in K-12 district schooling.…
Every holiday season, Senator Rand Paul honors the fictional Seinfeld holiday “Festivus,” an annual airing of grievances, with a report…
In its December 1st editorial, “Some serious crimes still go unreported,” the Press Herald writes that recently released crime statistics…
Elon Musk made a bold claim on Twitter on Tuesday. The Tesla founder said he would “pay more taxes than…
The current Portland City Charter Commission is worse than the 2009-10 one. The last one was prompted by widespread dissatisfaction…
The most widely-used metrics of consumer price inflation are hitting their highest levels in decades, with the Consumer Price Index…
“Attacks on me are, quite frankly, attacks on science,” said Anthony Fauci to widespread ridicule or approval, depending upon which…
Earlier this year, schools around the country received more than a hundred billion dollars from the federal government—American taxpayers, in…
Governments around the world took drastic measures in 2020 in hopes of slowing the spread of COVID-19, in many cases…
In late November, the Revenue Forecasting Committee (RFC), a branch of the Maine Legislature’s Office of Fiscal and Program Review,…
My son recently underwent what was once a common rite of passage: his first job. He now balances the demands…
President Joe Biden once bizarrely remarked on the 2020 campaign trail, “Milton Friedman isn’t running the show anymore.” It shows.…
Last month, inflation in the US reached 6.2%, the highest year-over-year increase in more than three decades. Measured via the Bureau…