With the economy working very well for some and not at all for others, a targeted approach is required.
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.
View from Away: Another court decision weakens the Voting Rights Act
A federal appeals court panel handed down a decision last week that would hobble enforcement of the Voting Rights Act by holding that only the U.S. attorney general, not aggrieved citizens, can file lawsuits to enforce one of the landmark civil rights law’s key protections. The Supreme Court, which has a checkered history when it […]
Commentary: Put public health on the ballot
The recent election results in Kentucky, Ohio and Virginia were more than a victory for abortion rights because it was not just abortion that was on the ballot. The debate over reproductive health care is part of a larger conversation about public health itself, and the rights our government should be ensuring to quality, affordable […]
Commentary: I am nine months pregnant and living in Gaza. Will my baby first hear my voice or bombs?
I am 26 years old and about to give birth in Gaza. I am terrified. Nine months ago, my husband, our 3-year-old daughter and I were all filled with joy, and began planning a beautiful future for our small family in a loving home in northern Gaza. I was excited to experience motherhood again. We […]
Commentary: Home-schooling is now mainstream. True school choice must include support for it
I do not recall my exact reaction when my husband suggested that we consider home-schooling our children. Laughter seems plausible, particularly since we had no children yet when he casually worked its mention into our conversation. But my sense of home-schooling at that time was mostly that it was for families on the cultural fringe […]
Our View: Mills administration is failing in effort to fix child welfare system
The state’s ability to recognize children in peril and act on their behalf is getting worse.
View from Away: Trump’s dangerous ‘vermin’ speech would have been at home in Nazi Germany
It is a full-time job to call out every one of Donald Trump’s lies and efforts to divide this nation, but his “vermin” address on Saturday deserves special attention. The ex-president and leading Republican candidate for 2024 dishonored military veterans and further tainted his political party with a hate-filled Veterans’ Day speech featuring words that […]
Carl P. Leubsdorf: 60 years ago, in Dallas
It was one of those mild November days, typical of Washington autumns, the temperature pushing 70. Because I worked nights, I was trying to nap between picking up the 3-year-old at play school and her older siblings at 3. But excited voices interrupting the music on my favorite oldies station jostled me awake, talking of […]
Commentary: The Supreme Court finally has a code of ethics, but it has a fatal flaw
Although it is welcome and overdue that the Supreme Court finally adopted an ethics code for its justices on Monday, the approach is seriously flawed in that it includes no enforcement mechanism. Instead it continues to leave it to each justice to decide whether to be recused in a particular case. Until Monday, every judge […]
Commentary: American Muslims and Jews must stand together amid tragedies in Middle East
Two years ago, the two of us, a Muslim-American woman, and a Jewish-American man, wrote a book together, arguing that American Muslims and Jews cannot afford to allow the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to divide our faith communities here at home. We believe in that principle today as much as we did then; but as we watch […]