Why conservatives love Tulsi Gabbard so much

There is a Democratic candidate running for president right now, and she is very liberal. At a press conference where she stood next to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, this candidate made clear that she supports a Green New Deal. “I am proud to stand here together with our friends, our allies, our colleagues,” she said, “to fight […]

Now showing: The theater of the absurd

There is a place, ladies and gentlemen, where magic happens. It is a place where men and women parade around on a stage and recite lines they memorized in their head, and try to make you feel like what they are saying is natural and spontaneous. A place where people are playing characters for the […]

Why are we so afraid of speech?

Principles are pretty easy to have. It doesn’t take much effort to say that you believe in things like free expression, multiculturalism, religious tolerance, a limited government, social justice or fiscal austerity. All it takes is a broad philosophical agreement with the tenets of those principles. The problem, though, is that living out those principles […]

Joe Biden and the art of pretending you are something that you are not

As a general rule, I try to avoid actually watching political debates anymore. They have long since stopped being either useful or meaningful, and the media’s obsession with them as some kind of important guidepost for the campaign is as disappointing as the event is predictable. Still, considering that the Democrats have now had something […]

Here’s to the next hundred years, Maine

Welcome, friends, to the new year. Welcome, too, to the new decade. That’s right, we are now in the roaring 20s. Again. And while we are at it, welcome to the 200th year of Maine’s existence. That’s right, this year — technically on March 15, which is the date that Maine was admitted to the union […]

The 2019 Conifer Awards

Call me conservative, but I love tradition. And there is no finer tradition on these pages than the month of December, when I get to make predictions for the coming year, and — as I’m about to do now — I hand out superlatives for the year that was. 2019 came and went all too […]

Jared Golden’s dangerous impeachment gambit

I’ll start with an admission: I genuinely like Jared Golden. To be clear, I view the manner in which he was elected to Congress to be repellent and illegitimate and I think that Bruce Poliquin should be the 2nd Congressional District representative right now. But Golden is a really decent person. He is pleasant, and […]

20 bold predictions for 2020

I will begin this annual tradition of mine by acknowledging a failure of my final prediction of 2019. You see, in last year’s column, I told you that this year I would simply do a top 10 list of my predictions, as the number of required predictions each year was getting unwieldy. Alas, there is […]

Beware of more new taxes when the Legislature returns to Augusta

Lawmakers want your money, and they never stop wanting your money. At any given opportunity, they will dream up new ways of identifying it, taking it from you, and then using it. When they can’t get it, they just take it from you anyway by spending money they don’t have and covering it with debt. […]

Giving thanks for the world we live in

This week, people across Maine and across the country will come together and celebrate Thanksgiving. There will be turkey, there will be gravy, there will be stuffing, and there will be endless debates about which side dish or dessert really belongs on the table. There will also, undoubtedly, be some ridiculous squabbles over the state […]