Monthly Archives: May 2019

A rare victory for ballot initiative reform

Late last week the Maine Legislature, for a change, did something that I am very happy about. They took action to reform Maine’s broken initiative and referendum process. That process is — as I have argued for years — hopelessly broken. Even those who routinely vote yes on certain referendum questions will admit that they […]

Is age an issue in the 2020 presidential campaign?

Most people don’t know this, but President Donald Trump is the oldest person ever elected to a first term as president. He was 70 years old when he was inaugurated (a year older than Ronald Reagan), is 72 years old today, and will be 74 on Election Day of 2020. Were he to win, he […]

Elections have consequences

In this column, I’ve been writing an awful lot about what the new administration of Gov. Janet Mills and her allies in the Legislature have been doing. A few weeks ago, I wrote about the foolish financial decisions being made in Augusta, highlighting the fact that those decisions will likely cause tax increases, and at the […]

Let teachers teach, and pay the best ones

It is pretty hard to find someone more sympathetic to the plight of teachers than me. My wife’s profession is elementary education, where she has worked for years as a teacher in kindergarten through second grade. I’ve seen the struggles she goes through up close and personal for years. I’ve been in her classroom with […]

Desire for escapism fuels success of superhero films

Like the rest of America, I spent last weekend at a movie theater with two of my kids, watching the latest Marvel movie, “Avengers: Endgame.” This is a movie that in a single weekend made $357 million in the United States, and $1.2 billion globally. There is little doubt, at this point, that it will end […]