In my column last week, I wrote about 30 ideas that could help stem the ever-rising tide of gun violence in the United States. The ideas ranged from background checks and waiting periods to a ban on military-style weapons such as the AR-15 and large capacity magazines. Generally speaking, as someone who worked on the background check […]
One. Strengthen background checks and close the loopholes that allows someone to buy a gun without one. Two. Ban high-capacity magazines that enhance the killing power of semi-automatic weapons and reduce the need for an attacker to reload to continue on a rampage. Three. Require gun owners to be licensed. Four. End so-called “constitutional carry.” If […]
Democracy is under attack in the United States. A recent US Senate Intelligence Committee report found that it’s likely all 50 states were targeted by the Russian government in 2016 as part of that country’s efforts to influence our elections. While there’s no direct evidence that votes or election data were changed, the implications are staggering. […]
There are certain tasks most of us will face, assuming we have the good fortune to live long enough. One of those is cleaning out the house of our parents – perhaps the house where we grew up. My mother, Louise Farmer, died in October 2015, and I have put off dealing with her house […]
Republicans are facing a self-inflicted calamity with a lawsuit that puts at risk the health care coverage for millions of Americans. And they are doing it just in time for a contentious US Senate race in Maine and a presidential election. On Tuesday, the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit – a conservative court […]
If you’ve ever given money to a political candidate, then you know that we just ended the quarter – and started a new fiscal year – for campaigns ranging from town council and mayor right up to president of the United States. The deadlines are arbitrary to most of the real world. There’s nothing magic […]
I wanted to write about women’s soccer this week. On Friday, Team USA will play France in a highly anticipated match up of giants in the FIFA Women’s World Cup. The US women’s national team is an inspiration, not only for what they are doing on the field, but also for their fight to ensure that women’s national team athletes […]
Kids in Maine are doing better in a lot of important ways. And it’s not an accident. Smart public policies are making a real difference in the lives of Mainers, including our youngest residents. Earlier this week, the Maine Children’s Alliance and the Annie E. Casey Foundation released the annual KIDS COUNT Data Book, which […]
My mother, Louise Farmer, died in October 2015, but she was gone a long time before that. She had Alzheimer’s disease – a cruel bastard that robs people of their memories and their lives. That same year, according to The Washington Post, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer made a startling discovery after reviewing insurance claim data: “The […]
As Maine inches toward ending another legislative session with little to no progress on the deadly issue of gun violence, even as 12 more people are dead from a mass shooting in Virginia Beach, a student-led movement should be forcing us all to confront our own complicity. Twenty years after the mass shooting at Columbine […]
