Bangor right to raise minimum wage
I’d like to express my gratitude to the seven members of the Bangor City Council who voted in favor of raising the city’s minimum wage. The effort took months of hard work and perseverance. Councilor Joe Baldacci deserves special recognition for spearheading the measure, as do councilors Gibran Graham and Sean Faircloth for supporting and advocating for the ordinance from Day One.
Representatives on both sides of the issue made key concessions, and all councilors acted professionally throughout the process. We should be proud to be represented by such an outstanding group of individuals.
Jonathan Stanhope
Bangor
Jimmy Carter a hypocrite
Hooray to Howard Segal for outing former President Jimmy Carter in a Dec. 14 blog post as a hypocrite, fraud and, as I would say, a racist.
Carter has long criticized Israel at every opportunity, always unreasonably. How ironic that medication developed in part in Israel has made him ” cancer free,” as he believes.
I wonder how many other Americans, who shout loudly and viciously about Israel, also are “disease free” or alive because of medication and surgical procedures developed in part or in full by Israelis. Or how many parents, critical of Israel, whose sons’ lives have been saved on the battlefield because the American military uses Israeli bandages?
When will people learn that Israel is not the enemy, only ignorance and prejudice are. And people who all too easily blame their own failings on a convenient scapegoat.
Sharon J. Kobritz
Bangor
Segal’s baseless attack on Jimmy Carter
The BDN does itself a great disservice publishing Howard Segal’s blog. His latest missive trashes former President Jimmy Carter. His post opens with a story on Carter’s character, in which he supposedly carried empty suitcases as a prop when returning to the White House to demonstrate himself as a common man. But that story comes from the book “In the President’s Secret Service,” written by Richard Kessler, which the Washington Post called “ National Enquirer-style gossip.”
Segal’s argument then pivots into an indictment of Carter’s Middle East policies, including allegations he was the “recipient of Saudi dollars,” who “does not, of course, criticize any other Middle Eastern country but only Israel.” But Carter has stated that one of two obstacles to peace in the Middle East were Palestinians who “react [to the confiscation of their land] by honoring suicide bombers as martyrs … and the killing of Israelis as victories.”
Segal seems more interested in ad hominem attacks than fact as he continues to trash the former president’s veracity because Carter recently claimed he was “ cancer free” when he likely meant his cancer was in remission.
Tom Myette
Southport
Carbon tax will curb climate change
As the BDN wrote in a Dec. 10 editorial, “There’s a strong case for action before the consequences become even more universally and dangerously tangible.” Now that nearly 200 countries promised in Paris to act to reduce emissions, the big question is, “What steps will they take to keep the promise?”
One possible step was suggested in June by six large European oil companies: price carbon, a step also suggested by Citizens’ Climate Lobby. The Citizens’ Climate Lobby urges Congress to enact legislation to charge a fee for carbon emissions, 100 percent of which would be returned as dividends to American households.
Too many people consider carbon pricing as partisan, even though such action is being urged by many economists and scientists across the political spectrum. Four former Republican EPA administrators wrote in a 2013 OpEd to The New York Times that “a market-based approach, like a carbon tax, would be the best path to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”
The good news is members of Congress are finally giving serious thought to pricing carbon. Maine’s independent Sen. Angus King wrote to a constituent that “the EPA’s Clean Power Plan is a great first step, but it only regulates carbon from one sector, electricity generation. … Despite the great individual success [of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative] I believe there is an important role to be had for a national carbon reduction initiative. … A fee on carbon may be a fair and equitable way to achieve this goal.”
Fern Stearns
Hallowell