California’s lawsuit against some of the world’s largest oil companies is an important move by the world’s fifth-largest economy to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for decades of climate denial and deception. The suit filed last week against BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil, Shell and the American Petroleum Institute trade group seeks to hold […]
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 inOp-Eds, Opinion
Commentary: How Washington’s $7.5 trillion deficit spending spree is bankrupting America
Polls show that Americans are pessimistic about the economy, with inflation as the top concern. That’s understandable, but do they understand where this inflationary surge came from, and why Washington’s addiction to government spending threatens the future prosperity of the country? That may sound hyperbolic, but consider the numbers. The sum of new spending authorizations […]
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Posted inOp-Eds, Opinion
Commentary: After Jann Wenner’s gaffes, rock music’s famous white men should speak up
When Tina Turner died in May, the podcast “Rolling Stone Music Now” paid tribute, calling her “one of the greatest rock and soul singers who ever lived.” The publication’s admiration is not recent. Although John Lennon was the first cover boy, Turner was placed on the cover for the magazine’s second issue ever in 1967 […]
Posted inOp-Eds, Opinion
Tom Waddell: Far right spreads fear about transgender athletes
To keep their base angry, Christian nationalists have invented a new bogeyman.
Posted inEditorials, Opinion
View from Away: An ambitious push to help small farmers
More than two years have passed since former U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue departed, but the brouhaha he created with one callous comment in the middle of his tenure remains memorable. Perdue, a Trump appointee, visited a Wisconsin expo in 2019, one attended by struggling dairy farmers. When asked about the industry’s future, […]
Posted inOp-Eds, Opinion
Robin Abcarian: Do what’s right for the planet or for your pocketbook? A fast-fashion dilemma
I realized I had a problem with internet shopping the day my 13-year-old niece looked at the packing slip in a box that had just arrived and yelled, “What — $200 for a pair of jeans?!” I can explain. I have never spent $200 on a pair of jeans in my life. Kirkland, after all, […]
Posted inOp-Eds, Opinion
Commentary: Nancy Pelosi and the protracted decay of democracy
Nancy Pelosi recently announced her intent to run for re-election to the U.S. House of Representatives. Pelosi has occupied that seat since 1987. In nearly four-decades of service, she has accumulated political power and financial resources, earned tremendous influence over Democratic policymaking, and advanced the interests of many of her constituents. She has also contributed […]
Posted inEditorials, Opinion
Our View: Attacks on public meetings, elected officials should be met with unified front
The incidents are not pranks; they are meant to shock, disrupt and intimidate.
Posted inOp-Eds, Opinion
Noah Feldman: Republican impeachment inquiry marks low point in history
The decision by the House Republican leadership to open an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden — without any evidence of wrongdoing — marks a low point in the mis-deployment of the Constitution’s mechanism for removing a sitting president. Bad as it is, however, the inquiry itself won’t put the nail in the coffin of the […]
Posted inOp-Eds, Opinion
Commentary: The US and Vietnam should boost their relationship. China looms large
If you were to tell an American in 1973 that there would come a time when a future U.S. president was warmly greeted in Hanoi, he or she might have called you crazy. And yet, that’s precisely what happened last weekend, when President Joe Biden flew into the Vietnamese capital, met with the senior leadership […]