Our Veterans Need More Than a Day; They Need a Career

BY THOMAS A. KENNEDY America is home to 21.2 million veterans — men and women who were willing to risk their lives for our country. Unfortunately, many of these veterans face a daunting personal battle here at home: finding work. According to the labor department, more than 700,000 U.S. veterans are currently unemployed. This simply […]

Letter to the Editor: WHAT ABOUT ABORTION?

To the Editor, There is a story this week, something dealing with a baby found wrapped in a plastic bag at a cardboard recycling plant across the river. It is said by government officers that it will be investigated and treated as a homicide. The investigation has now led to Spring Valley. But isn’t abortion […]

Don’t Blame the Cargo: Improve Railway Safety

By Robert L. Bradley Jr. On a cool night in July, 73 pressurized oil tankers began an unmanned descent into the tiny town of Lac-Megantic, Quebec. The Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway train cars detached from their locomotives, barreled four miles downhill, and exploded in town. Forty seven people perished. The annihilation was so complete […]

How a Federal Drug Discount Program Really Works

BY TED SLAFSKY Merrill Matthews’ Nov. 16 opinion column on the 340B drug discount program, “Congress Tries to Lower Drug Costs and Raises Health Premiums Instead,” arrives at a myriad of wrong conclusions. Mathews has a long history with the insurance industry that routinely raises health care costs and points the finger elsewhere. It would […]

Congress Tries to Lower Drug Costs and Raises Health Insurance Premiums Instead

BY MERRILL MATTHEWS If regulators seem confused about how to implement a health care program as vast and sweeping as ObamaCare, maybe, just maybe, it’s because they know how badly they’ve bungled smaller and simpler health care reform efforts — especially a particular drug discount program. Prior to 1990, many drug manufacturers voluntarily discounted their […]

Big Brother Has Arrived

Big Brother Has Arrived

BY DIANE DIMOND So, George Orwell was off by 29 years. In 1949, Orwell’s masterpiece novel, “1984,” wove a tale about a fictitious shadowy world in which government surveillance was ubiquitous, public mind control was an open secret and independent thinking was labeled and prosecuted as a “thought crime.” The tyrant in control was the mysterious being called Big […]