Sit back, program in hand, to watch hottest show in Maine – the Republican primary race
All the world’s a stage, even Maine.
Wondering what the biggest political drama will be in 2018? Marijuana? MaineCare expansion? Ranked-choice voting? No. These are big issues but not the biggest. The Oscar nominations for political drama will, of course, have nothing to do with public policy but rather with celebrity and personality. The big political story of 2018 will be elections. Who wins, who loses and all the salacious details that now accompany every topic in the public discourse.
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2018 will be a good year for Pats, women, Generation Z
With 2017 winding down, here are my plucky predictions for 2018.
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Holiday wishes range from easier-to-open packages to warmer spirit
The hardest thing to open may be a closed mind, but a half-gallon of orange juice from Whole Foods is a close second. This Christmas Eve, at the top of my wish list is an antidote for “wrap rage,” the increasingly familiar phenomenon of heightened levels of anger and frustration resulting from the inability to open packaging. Clamshells are for clams! Nobody should need a weapon to open a Christmas present or their anti-anxiety medicine.
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Kudos to three conservatives for moral leadership
Deplorable Roy Moore lost his special election for the U.S. Senate in Alabama on Dec. 12, the first day of Hanukkah, and oy vey, how far we have fallen into the abyss that his defeat is considered a miracle.
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While many grow less merry, Trump brings tidings of great joy for just a few
Christians today light the candle of love in celebration of the second week of Advent, a season of getting ready for Christmas. Each Sunday for the four weeks preceding Dec. 25, purple candles symbolizing hope, love, joy and peace are lit and special prayers said in anticipation of receiving the most sacred of gifts. This year, that gift is a tax cut for fat cats.
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Only postmortem will reveal viruses hiding in Republican tax bill
The tax bill coming out of Washington reminds me of the degenerative disease NFL football players get from repeated blows to the head. We won’t know the truth about it until it’s too late.
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Republican tax plan won’t benefit many Mainers
Remember Question 1 on Maine’s November ballot, which wanted us to give one guy – Shawn Scott – the exclusive license to operate a York County casino so he could get richer? That’s what the Republican tax overhaul plan coming out of Washington looks like – except instead of one guy getting all the money, it’s 1 percent of the population.
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Dunlap can sue, but election commission was always a sham
The federal lawsuit brought by Maine Secretary of State Matt Dunlap demanding prompt communication from and meaningful participation on the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity – which is studying nothing, in order to give advice to President Trump, who will ignore it – expends a lot of taxpayer money and judicial resources, but at least it’s deductible.
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If any solace can come from frequent violence, it’s a reminder to live for now
The 11 deaths in New York and Colorado last week in random acts of violence were both dizzying and a slap in the face. My son recently started a job not far from the site of the terrorist attack in lower Manhattan, and my daughter goes to school near Thornton, Colorado, where a gunman shot three people in Walmart. The unrelenting and unabashed look at how our fleeting and fragile lives are at the mercy of madmen has had a small and surprising effect on my psyche. The imminence of death by sociopath is not reassuring, but it has adjusted my focus on life.
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Independents should quit posturing
Sure, we could have a people’s veto of the law overturning the ranked-choice voting referendum, but that seems like a lot of work. If the goal of ranked-choice voting is to shake up a system that keeps sending guys to the Blaine House who can’t muster a majority of the vote, maybe there’s a simpler solution. Maybe the 370,000 so-called independents could show up and vote in the primaries so the people elected to govern the masses are better qualified and committed to doing so.
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