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Different perspectives

It's easy to be critical about the way your community looks, or the people who have been elected to govern it or those who have been appointed to be in charge of services ranging from the streets to the water system, from the sewer system to garbage collection. If you have any doubts about that, all you have to do is visit a restaurant, a doughnut shop or any place that has more than just a couple of seats and where you can find a cup of coffee any time between 5 a.m. and about 11 a.m. There, you will likely find a group that has been meeting in the same place at the same time for a ...

Gary Franks: Lightning will not strike twice in Maine as Platner steps down

Thank God lightning will not strike twice the same spot - in reference to the character issue. Maine's Graham Platner was a seriously flawed Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate despite first being the choice of many Democratic leaders in the state and in Washington. It took repeated charges of sexual abuse to get Platner to step down as the party's candidate. Yet there was a part of me that "did" want him to be the Democratic nominee. It would show once again that the obvious was, well... obvious (like former President Joe Biden's declining cognitive abilities while in office). My ...

Veronique de Rugy: What a 700-Year-Old Fresco Can Teach America

There are moments when history reaches across the centuries with startling clarity. Standing in the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena, Italy, and looking at Ambrogio Lorenzetti's "Allegory of Good and Bad Government," I had one of those moments. Nearly 700 years old, the series of fresco paintings includes a depiction of a bustling city that illustrates the effects of good government, as well as representations of the decay that results from arbitrary and unjust rulers. The visual treatise on political economy holds important lessons for us today. Lorenzetti's city isn't thriving because its ...

Josh Hammer: The Return of Socialism and the GOP’s Golden Opportunity

The Democratic Party has come a long way since Bill Clinton was president -- and not in a good way. In 1993, the first year of the Clinton presidency, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) introduced legislation to end automatic birthright citizenship for the children of illegal aliens; today, Democrats routinely call to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement and advocate for illegal alien suffrage. Clinton famously called for abortion to be "safe and legal but rare"; today, Democrats prefer to "shout your abortion" as a perverse badge of honor. On marriage, Clinton signed the Defense of ...

Let’s live up to what the Founding Fathers wanted

As our country celebrates not just any Independence Day, but the 250th anniversary of one of the boldest declarations in human history, the festivities give us an excellent opportunity to look back on two-and-a-half centuries of this American experiment and check ourselves against what the founders hoped they were setting in motion. Draped in red, white and blue and surrounded by flags and fireworks, it is easy to forget how we got here and why we are free to celebrate as flamboyantly as we’d like. Richard Henry Lee made the motion to declare independence in June 1776, but ...

Time to be patriotic

We're very near the end of June, and, since 4:24 a.m. on June 21, we have been able to officially say we are in the summer season. That means July 4 is right around the corner. This year's celebration will take on extra meaning — we will be celebrating the 250th anniversary of the country's founding. Patriotism will be on full display during the next week or so, and we will be seeing more and more red, white and blue; more flags will be flown; and more fireworks will be exploding in our neighborhoods. And why not? Milestones like the semiquincentennial don't come around that ...