Mainers making their way through the lengthy Nov. 7 statewide ballot may come to a surprising conclusion: that the four constitutional amendments they’ll consider are considerably more interesting than the four rather tedious initiated referendum questions that precede them. Question 3, which envisions scrapping Maine’s century-old private but publicly regulated electric companies, Central Maine Power […]
Doug Rooks
Posted inOp-Eds, Opinion
Douglas Rooks: Pine Tree Power’s Question 3 provides no real answers
If the sole opinion poll to date is accurate, voters will reject Question 3. If they do, we can focus on the real need: a public power authority to govern generation.
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Posted inOp-Eds, Opinion
Douglas Rooks: In absence of peace, war becomes inevitable
While understandably focused on the war itself, we shouldn’t forget decisions — mostly those by Israel, the region’s dominant military power — that helped bring it about.
Posted inOp-Eds, Opinion
Douglas Rooks: The dire consequences of hero worship in politics
Donald Trump has been indicted in four different jurisdictions on a whopping total of 91 felony charges. The only president, present or former, to have faced any such charges, he’s nonetheless tightened his grip on the Republican Party. Meanwhile, Joe Biden, who defeated Trump in 2020 by seven million popular votes and 306-232 in electoral […]
Posted inOp-Eds, Opinion
Douglas Rooks: One party owns shutdown politics
The facts are simple. Only Republicans have ever shut down a federal or state government, and only Republicans think it’s a good idea.
Posted inOp-Eds, Opinion
Douglas Rooks: Indigent defense needs help right now
Over the past four years, Maine’s system for representing indigent defendants in criminal cases has been in crisis. But since the pandemic, and its aftermath, it’s really become two crises. Unfortunately, the agency in charge — the Maine Commission on Indigent Legal Services (MCILS) — is only working on the system’s long-term problems, almost completely […]
Posted inOp-Eds, Opinion
Douglas Rooks: Hospitals also part of health care dilemma
I used to think the gold standard for American health care reform would be a “universal” or “single payer” system similar to Canada’s, where everyone is covered, there are no bills to consumers, and government directs spending to providers. Canada’s system is called Medicare. It started when our Medicare did, in 1965, and become nationwide […]
Posted inOp-Eds, Opinion
Douglas Rooks: Biden’s big deal on Medicare prescription drug prices
President Biden announced the first price negotiations over 10 super-expensive Medicare drugs last week through the Inflation Reduction Act as if it were a big deal. It is. In fact, it’s the first time since the program’s creation under Lyndon Johnson in 1965 that Democrats have struck a major blow toward reducing the program’s costs […]
Posted inOp-Eds, Opinion
Douglas Rooks: Labor on the cusp of revival
Since Democratic President Grover Cleveland signed the law proclaiming Labor Day in 1894, the holiday’s significance as a unique American observance has waxed and waned. Lord knows it’s time for a revival and one might — just might — be here. There are signs. President Biden is the first self-proclaimed friend of labor in the […]
Posted inOp-Eds, Opinion
Douglas Rooks: The stark contrast in style of two young Maine Democrats
Congressman Jared Golden has stirred up a late-summer kerfuffle with a social media post concerning his earlier vote against President Biden’s student loan debt relief package. Maine’s 2nd District representative was one of only two House Democrats to oppose the plan — later struck down by the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority — and he was, […]