What kind of town are we?

Here in Livermore Falls, we are embarking on one of the oldest debates in our nation. What is the scope of government, and how should we pay for it?

Obviously on a local government scale, our scope is more limited than on a national scale.  There are services the town provides that are dictated by law, and there are services the citizens have decided are valuable to them as a community.

As an administrator, it is my duty to ensure the people are paying the best price to provide the best service.

Obama tries faith angle in fight over health care

The fight over health care took the most interesting turn last week. President Obama briefly switched from wonkish frippery about bending cost curves to speaking of faith. Reaching out to progressive faith leaders in two massive conference calls, Obama insisted that God was on his side. Expanding health care fulfills a "core moral and ethical obligation that we look out for one another ... that I am my brother's keeper, my sister's keeper."

It's too early to get cold feet on Afghanistan

 

Even before Afghans went to the polls last week, Americans were getting queasy about U.S. involvement in Afghanistan.

At this writing, the election results are still unclear. But with 60,000 U.S. troops in the country and a chance that their commanders will request more, a recent Washington Post-ABC poll indicated 51 percent of Americans said they believed it was not worth fighting a war there. Seventy percent of the doubters are Democrats, which must give President Obama pause. And only 24 percent of Americans would back sending more forces.

Budget deficit projection goes beyond comprehension

Remember when the deficit was so bad that Democrats said we (or more accurately the Republicans) were placing a terrible burden on our grandchildren?

That was several trillion dollars ago. Democrats now appear perfectly fine with extending the growing deficit and national debt to their great-grandchildren. Perhaps politicians think they will never be held accountable three generations from now because they won't be around to explain to those not yet born why they refused to stop our financial hemorrhaging.

There are times when we need to hear a 'no'

 

You are one of the biggest stars there has ever been, a star so big the mere sight of you causes hysteria and stampedes, a star so big, other stars turn into gushing fanboys when they meet you.

And there comes a night — another in a long series — when you cannot get to sleep, when you lie abed like any workaday shlub, eyes wide open, mind wide awake, held hostage by the relentless ticking of the clock.

Obama counting on gullibility of American public

The Obama team is saddled with a foundering health-care strategy. But it has a fallback plan — relying on the sheer dimwitted gullibility of the American public. How stupid do they think we are?

Stupid enough to think that a new $1 trillion health-care entitlement is just the thing to restore the country to fiscal health.

Stupid enough not to know that almost every entitlement known to man has cost more than originally estimated, with a congressional committee in 1967 underestimating by a factor of 10 Medicare's cost by 1990.

Afghan woman are still wanting for civil rights

Last spring, I wrote from Kabul about the controversy over a law that would have restored Taliban-style restrictions on women and legalized marital rape.

President Hamid Karzai remanded the law for further study after an international furor. But late last month, with an eye toward gaining conservative religious votes in Friday's presidential election, he quietly issued the law without resubmitting it to parliament.

Obama's shooting star is quickly burning out

Seven months after taking office amidst a religious-like faith that he was the one (or even The One) we had been waiting for, President Barack Obama is beginning to resemble a shooting star.

Distances that divide us can't be measured in miles

Our story so far:

Last year, Barack Obama was elected president, the first American of African heritage ever to reach that office. If this was regarded as a new beginning by most Americans, it was regarded apocalyptically by others who promptly proceeded to lose both their minds and any pretense of enlightenment.

Sit back, and enjoy

This weekend's balloon festival has the potential to teach us some important lessons in community development. We learn first that success relies on good planning and teamwork to manage logistics and many moving parts. And second, that even with all I's dotted and T's crossed, outside forces can still throw a wrench in the works and impact the outcome.

How the games came to Maine

The passing of one of America's great ladies, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who I was proud to count as a friend, reminded me of the special (no pun intended) connection between her and the state of Maine.

For it was she who not only created, guided, and devoted her life to the Special Olympics, as a tribute to her special sister, Rosemary, but she provided the inspiration to a then-young ski area owner in Rangeley to host their inaugural Winter Games in 1973.

Pellet industry takes its safety seriously

The production and use of wood pellets is a significant growth industry for the State of Maine. It is both a source of new, rural jobs as well as a means to preserve existing jobs in logging and related businesses. Wood pellet fuel represents a proven, accessible, environmentally friendly, ultra-low emission solution to what is certain to be an unstable future price of heating oil.

It is a legitimate source of quality employment which will maintain our sustainable harvesting of pulpwood and complement our historically important pulp and paper industry.

Allow the voters to decide tax reform

In the last days of the legislative session, when the tax reform bill LD 1495 was placed before the Senate, I rose to make this statement, "I had longer to read a greeting card than I had this 34-page bill of complex tax code change."

I went on to plead with the majority party to give members of the Senate time to read the bill. The majority leader, Sen. Phil Bartlett countered, "members could read the summary of the bill if they wanted." Since that day, I, along with hundreds of volunteers have launched a citizen's veto to reject this complex law.

Making Lewiston a city of youth

I am proud to call Lewiston my home. I was born in Lewiston, and have spent the best years of my life in our city. My work with the city has been very rewarding, especially my tenure on the Lewiston Youth Advisory Council.

Democrats' deck is being stacked with race cards

What if America transcended race, and Barack Obama wasn't invited?

The question comes to mind as cries of racism grow ever louder from Obama's supporters.

No one should be surprised. Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, liberal Democrats have to accuse their opponents of racism. Indeed, somewhat to their credit, fighting racism -- alas, even where it doesn't exist -- is one of the reasons they became liberal Democrats in the first place.

No guns at political events is freedom from fear

Those of us living in the Rocky Mountain region are steeped in America's famous gun culture — and we therefore know well the binary debates surrounding the Second Amendment. Firearm enthusiasts — the vast majority of whom use weapons responsibly — believe the Constitution protects their right to bear arms. Gun control advocates counter that the Constitution doesn't give anyone the inalienable right to wield automatic weapons that can kill scores of people in seconds.

Health care is the War of 1812, all over again

PORTADOWN, NORTHERN IRELAND - For the past month I have watched British media report and comment on the American health care uproar. American cable networks are also available here. The back-and-forth reporting and commentary resembles a replay of the War of 1812, this time with verbal salvos.

A stirring session of serving in Augusta

Last November, the people of Lewiston entrusted me to serve them in the Maine House of Representatives. It has been an honor and privilege to represent Lewiston in Augusta and I will continue to work as hard as I can to be a thoughtful and effective advocate for the city.

The other N-word roars back in a sick world

I hope this column makes you sick.

See, we'll be talking about Nazis, something many of us are doing lately. Indeed, just this week a fellow named Joseph e-mailed me about a caller he heard on a radio show. The man, vexed over health-care reform, likened President Obama to Adolf Hitler. Asked why, he said, "Hitler took over the car companies, then health care and then he killed the Jews."

Said Joseph: "I almost swerved my vehicle off the road when I heard that."

Populist uprising refuses Dems demands for silence

The best moment of almost every YouTube video of the raucous town-hall meetings on health care is the same: It's the nonplussed look on the face of the senators and congressmen who have rarely suffered such indignity. Be assured: No one talks to them that way in the "members only" elevators in the U.S. Capitol.

John Hughes' films remind us of our intrinsic value

Confidence is a strange and elusive thing. As a nation, we clearly have it in this post-Vietnam age of chest-thumping invasions and flag-pin patriotism. But as humans, we are each, well, human. In our minds' most secret caverns — those shadowy places that stiff upper lips, Botox and sports cars obscure — aplomb is often just a fleeting relief from more constant fear and loathing.

Lacking facts and reason, health-care foes use fear

"Fear is the most powerful enemy of reason. Both fear and reason are essential to human survival, but the relationship between them is unbalanced. Reason may sometimes dissipate fear, but fear frequently shuts down reason." — from "The Assault on Reason" by Al Gore

"I'm afraid of Obama!" — woman at a town hall meeting on health-care reform

I have no opinion on H.R. 3200. Mainly because I haven't read it.

We are being railroaded

Those familiar with the history of development in Lewiston-Auburn know Benjamin Bates and partners in the Franklin Company grew this region through strategic infrastructure investment and good planning.

As we assess where this region is going, it is unclear this generation has an architect for the next era of development for Lewiston-Auburn.

The front on cyber-security

The following editorial appeared in the Kansas City Star on Monday, Aug. 10:

Last month, a surge of cyber attacks temporarily crashed more than two dozen government and commercial Web sites in the United States and South Korea.

Experts described the attacks as minor, but they emphasized a growing threat and offered a reminder for the Obama administration that it should move more quickly on this front. With so much of our lives, histories and finances all online, this is a huge problem.

Column shanked Maine golf

We are writing in response to the Aug. 4 column by Kalle Oakes about the state of golf in Maine.

Obviously, he's spending too much time at the office and not enough time at golf courses to know what he's writing. That's evidenced by the fact the Sun Journal didn't even bother to attend the Maine Junior Golf Championship, held at nearby Val Halla Municipal Golf Course in Cumberland.

There was a painful absence of press at the junior championship, where more than 130 boys and girls vied for titles in four different divisions. The level of golf was good.