There was a time in America when someone could give a bag of cash to a congressman and call it a campaign contribution without any limits or record of the transaction.

It’s important to remember why parents support their kids in their athletic endeavors: We want them to have fun with sports, as well as learn lessons about physical fitness, the value of teamwork and the rewards of sacrifice. We want them to learn about how to handle winning and losing when nothing really important is at stake.

Reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act is a critical task that merits thoughtful attention. It’s distressing — even sickening — that debate about this landmark law has devolved into one more election-year grudge match between Democrats and Republicans shamelessly using gender to try to score political points.

Inspectors general serve an invaluable purpose in government, ferreting out waste and corruption and exposing internal wrongdoing.

So it is not shocking that D’Amboise led all comers in fundraising, gathering $609,830 as of the last report, with most coming from wealthy out-of-state donors. That is also not a surprise. As popular as Snowe has been in Maine, she is unpopular in some conservative circles where she is labeled a RINO — Republican […]

The NATO summit is providing confirmation for what many Americans have suspected for some time regarding the war in Afghanistan: It is coming to an end with an outcome much less desirable than what had been promised when the first troops arrived a decade ago.

Vladimir Putin is meant to stand for stability, and he used his inaugural address to pledge to strengthen democracy. In fact, his presidency represents a threat to both.

So what is it about Hillary Rodham Clinton’s stint as U.S. secretary of state that gets people all riled up? Crises averted? Dictators stared down? Pacts signed? Diplomacy accomplished?

Anyone who wonders why the national approval rating for Congress hovers around 10 percent should consider the latest gambit by House Republicans.

While Maine still lags the region in the number of people with college diplomas, there is some good news this spring.