If reelected, former President Donald Trump, vows to carry out the “largest domestic deportation operation” in U.S. history and he claims that the Biden-Harris administration “is letting millions of people from jails, from prisons, from insane asylums, from mental institutions, drug dealers pour in.” It’s a ridiculous claim, as PolitiFact and many other fact-checkers have […]
Ben Bragdon
Staff Writer
Ben Bragdon is managing editor of the Sun Journal. Prior to that, he was deputy managing editor for news at the Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel. Ben was previously editorial page editor for those newspapers and Central Maine Sunday for more than 10 years. Before that, he was managing editor for weekly newspapers at Current Publishing in Westbrook. He began his career as a reporter at the Piscataquis Observer in Dover-Foxcroft and editor at the Moosehead Messenger in Greenville. He has a bachelor’s degree in history from Boston University.
Posted inKennebec Journal, Maine, Morning Sentinel, News
State urges precaution as mosquito-borne encephalitis found in horse in Somerset County
The case was the latest positive test in what has been an active season for mosquito-borne illness, officials said.
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Posted inOp-Eds, Opinion
Commentary: Harris’ price controls won’t tame inflation
Right problem, wrong solution. It’s one of the most familiar stories in politics. Thanks to inflation, every American is paying higher prices for groceries and housing than before the pandemic. But politicians’ proposed solutions would make those problems even worse. The right solution is to attack inflation’s root cause, a money supply that ran amok […]
Posted inOp-Eds, Opinion
Commentary: Netanyahu’s conflicts of interest are hurting Israel
There’s no job on earth less attractive than being a head of state forced to decide between cutting a hostage deal with terrorists that risks encouraging repetition, or consigning innocents to be murdered. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows this dilemma better than anyone. To get a single soldier back in 2011, he traded more […]
Posted inOp-Eds, Opinion
Commentary: Why Trump’s politicking at Arlington National Cemetery should disgust every American
Former President Donald Trump did something breathtakingly cynical, certainly immoral and probably illegal the other day. In other words, it was Monday. Trump used an appearance on the hallowed grounds of Arlington National Cemetery, a resting place for many who honorably served their country, to make a campaign video. Trump was ostensibly at Arlington to […]
Posted inEditorials, Opinion
View from Away: Why the Fed shouldn’t stop worrying about inflation
At the recent central-bank symposium at Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell delivered a widely expected message on interest rates: “The time has come for policy to adjust.” He all but confirmed that the Fed would cut rates by at least a quarter-point when its policymakers next meet in September. A modest cut makes […]
Posted inOp-Eds, Opinion
Commentary: Workers are bearing the brunt of extreme heat
Ronald Silver II, a sanitation worker in Baltimore, won’t be spending this Labor Day weekend with his family. On Aug. 2, during a sweltering 100-degree heatwave, Silver died while working a shift in a city garbage truck. His death was preventable. In July, following worker complaints, Baltimore’s inspector general reviewed conditions in the city’s Department […]
Posted inOp-Eds, Opinion
Commentary: The Trump/RFK Jr. alliance is weird, but here’s how it might work
In an election cycle that can only be described as stranger than fiction, things have just gotten impossibly weirder. Longtime Democrat-turned-independent candidate for president Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dropped out of the race and endorsed none other than Donald Trump. The move wasn’t totally unexpected; both campaigns have been hinting at it for days, and […]
Posted inOp-Eds, Opinion
Commentary: The weight-loss drug revolution exposes the weakest links in our health care system — drug pricing and insurance
It’s rare that a drug can have such a pronounced effect that its immediate benefits translate into health care savings for years, even decades. To the wonder drugs Harvoni and Sovaldi, which wipe out hepatitis C, we can now add the weight-loss medicine Ozempic and its cousins Wegovy, Mounjaro and Zepbound. These drugs have shown […]
Posted inOp-Eds, Opinion
Commentary: Identifying division is easy; finding points of agreement is difficult
Negative campaigning is increasing in volume and nastiness every election cycle. Campaigns are based on a “divide and conquer” strategy, pitting citizens against each other. If you ask most political operatives why this is the case, they’ll tell you it’s because it works. It drives donations, volunteer engagement and turnout. And while I won’t debate […]