On TV every defendant gets a trial. But in real life, trials are rare.

Columns & Analysis

Published
March 21, 2022

On TV every defendant gets a trial. But in real life, trials are rare.

For many, the jury trial represents the cornerstone of criminal justice itself: a truth-seeking mission that allows a person to be judged by a panel of peers. But trials have become rare. Around 97 percent of all criminal cases don't go to trial but instead end in guilty pleas, most of them the result of a bargaining process driven by prosecutors with the power to coerce defendants into giving up their right to a trial.
Published
March 21, 2022

The Fed is basically just guessing about interest rates

Monetary policy is much less precise than we'd like to believe. We can't even be sure what a neutral rate would be. People would probably be disturbed if they knew how poorly economists understand how changing interest rates feeds through markets and ultimately affects inflation and unemployment.
Published
March 21, 2022

The Fed and China go to war against different foes

The benefits to the global economy from these twin assaults are substantial — if central bank Chair Jay Powell and People's Bank of China Governor Yi Gang get it right. China is trying to stave off an economic and financial winter.
Published
March 20, 2022

Mary Callahan: Mainers need a paid family and medical leave program right now

Every business owner should have the ability to put the well-being of themselves and their employees first without risking their business, and every employee — regardless of how small their employer is — should be able to take time off to care for a newborn child, recover from an illness, or stay home to care for a sick family member. Ensuring staff is healthy and happy is critical to the success of any good business.
Published
March 20, 2022

Froma Harrop: Has Ukraine made us hit bottom on our addiction to oil?

It is said that alcoholics often need to "hit bottom" before they will make the necessary changes to kick their craving. The crisis in Ukraine has made us hit bottom on our addiction to oil. It is best for humanity's survival, and the planet's, that we kick it now.

Published
March 20, 2022

Cal Thomas: The woman and the post office

The woman at the post office worries there are insufficient numbers among the young and even millennials to guarantee our freedoms will be extended. Sadly, she may be right.
Published
March 20, 2022

Rev. Stephen Carnahan: Ukraine’s refugees deserve our action and compassion. So do those already in our midst

Maine’s asylum seekers and other immigrants have also fled violence and threats to their families' safety and well-being. Just as we want to support those fleeing Ukraine, we can take actions to support those building new lives here. That includes ensuring they have access to housing, health care and other basic needs.
Published
March 20, 2022

Leonard Pitts Jr.: A war against your lying eyes

Truth is hard, but QAnon is easy. And defending truth grows harder still, not only in Ukraine, but also in Lafayette Square, where journalists were gassed, in Ferguson, where they were arrested, in Minneapolis, where police shot one in the eye. This, as some of us wait for John F. Kennedy to return from the dead and Donald Trump to be restored to the White House. All of which makes it difficult to have any sense of remove from Moscow’s war on reality.
Published
March 20, 2022

Rich Lowry: Ron DeSantis and the new Republican Party

There's a new combativeness that is clearly a reflection of how Donald Trump underlined the power of cultural issues and changed the rules around how you deal with controversy — by doubling down and hitting back harder.
Published
March 19, 2022

Froma Harrop: Two stories of survival: A century and world apart

The Endurance crew were explorers and scientists who volunteered for an exciting mission to explore the ice cap at the South Pole. Ukraine's people never asked to undertake the suffering under Russian President Vladimir Putin's cruel and insane campaign. But as Ukrainians die in the thousands, they show no signs of ending their resistance.

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