Editorials from around New England

Excerpts of recent editorials of statewide and national interest from New England newspapers:

The Providence Journal (R.I.), Aug. 23, 2015

President Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, even in the outline initially revealed to the American people, seemed to substitute appeasement for firmness against an enemy that supports terrorism while vowing to annihilate Israel and attack the United States. It is not surprising that polls show a majority of Americans oppose the deal. But a frightening report by the Associated Press last week cannot help but further erode the public’s trust in the president’s position.

The AP discovered a secret side deal with a U.N. agency that will permit Iran, rather than the watchdog agency, to conduct inspections of a site where it was said to be developing nuclear weapons. In essence, the side deal may permit the fox to guard the hen house at one site.

The president has insisted that the agreement with Iran reached by the United States and five other world powers is built on inspections - albeit delayed ones. But no one has revealed until now a separate bilateral agreement between Iran and the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency that cedes to Iran inspections of that country’s own Parchin site.

As we have noted, the overarching deal that President Obama made public represented a stark departure from his 2012 insistence that Iran abandon its nuclear program.

At best, the deal would seem to only temporarily postpone Iran’s development of nuclear weapons, letting that country conduct research on advanced centrifuges after eight years. After 15 years, Iran would be permitted to produce unlimited nuclear fuel. Perhaps most ominously, it would lift, after eight years, an embargo on Iran’s purchase of ballistic missiles, despite warnings from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and President Obama’s own defense secretary that Iran should not be allowed to buy, share or obtain intercontinental ballistic missiles - which would not be needed to obliterate Israel, but could be aimed at the United States.

Given the stakes and the nature of the agreement, a number of prominent Democrats have broken ranks with the president, including Robert Menendez, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who spoke out last week. “This is one of the most serious national security, nuclear nonproliferation, arms control issues of our time. It is not an issue of supporting or opposing the president. This issue is much greater and graver than that,” Senator Menendez said.

Rhode Island’s two Democratic senators, meanwhile, endorsed the deal last week. In a statement, they said they decided to embrace it after “numerous public hearings, classified briefings, consultation with nuclear experts and discussions with Rhode Islanders.” Reed argued that the deal will give international inspectors “unprecedented access” to Iran to make sure it is complying. (Unfortunately, the AP’s revelation of the secret side deal suggests the inspections may not be as rigorous as one would hope.)

As of now, it appears that Congress lacks the two-thirds majority required to turn back the deal. In that case, we must hope and pray that its advocates are correct - that the relinquishment of economic sanctions and the permission of full-throttled development of nuclear weapons after a waiting period are, as Senator Reed put it, “the most effective means available to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.”

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Portland Press Herald (Maine), Aug. 26, 2015

Maine law allows residents of all ages, from children with epilepsy to adults with post-traumatic stress disorder, to ease the impact of their ailments with medical cannabis. There’s a catch, though: Most Maine hospitals ban the drug for fear of federal penalties, as one patient recently found out when he had to leave his medication behind during a two-week stay at a Sanford hospital.

But both in Maine and nationwide, the outlook for medical-marijuana patients may be growing brighter. Both houses of Congress are poised to take up proposals to end the federal ban on medical marijuana, and passage of the legislation would be a major step forward for fairness and for compassion.

Under federal law, marijuana is a Schedule I drug; it has no known medical benefits and a “high capacity for abuse.” But Americans in Maine and 22 other states have found something quite different: Cannabis helps relieve their symptoms.

For example, Eric Chipman of Sanford, who suffered serious injuries in a 1976 motorcycle accident, uses cannabis to make a lotion. It doesn’t get him high, he says, but it does make it easier for him to use his hands. But Chipman was told he couldn’t use the lotion while he was at Southern Maine Health Care for treatment of a blood infection.

Marijuana is illegal under federal law, so hospitals that allow medical cannabis could lose federal certification and funding. The loss of his medicine delayed his recovery, Chipman said, by making it harder for him to care for himself and get in and out of his wheelchair.

Congress has taken small steps toward addressing the plight of Chipman and the several million other patients like him across the country. Last year, for the first time, the House passed a ban on the use of Justice Department funds to target state-level medical-cannabis programs. This year, the measure was approved again in the House and in the Senate Appropriations Committee, both times by wide margins.

This spending restriction, though, has to be reauthorized every year. Substantive, lasting change depends on passage in Congress of the Compassionate Access, Research Expansion and Respect States Act.

Introduced in both the House and the Senate, the CARERS Act would expand researchers’ access to medical marijuana; reclassify it as a Schedule II drug (a controlled substance that has legitimate medical purposes and can be prescribed); allow doctors to recommend its use to veterans, and make it easier for banks to provide services to the industry.

Making marijuana a prescription drug validates its use and could encourage hospitals to let patients use doctor-recommended cannabis preparations, like tinctures or Chipman’s lotion. It would also allow Maine families to obtain the nonpsychoactive cannabis derivatives that help their children’s epilepsy without having to relocate.

Independent Angus King is a co-sponsor of the CARERS Act in the Senate. Republican Susan Collins backed the one-year Justice Department cease-fire in the Senate Appropriations Committee in June - the same month that Chellie Pingree, D-1st District, and Bruce Poliquin, R-2nd District, voted in favor of it in the House.

Mainers who support the efforts of our members of Congress on behalf of medical-cannabis patients should make their voices heard. Those who are ill should be able to get the care they need, when they need it, and the proposed reforms are both overdue and highly welcome.

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The Telegraph (N.H.), Aug. 24, 2015

America has seen this before. This anti-immigrant sentiment being churned up by Donald Trump and others? It’s not new.

Trump wants to build a wall to keep out Mexicans and deport those who are in this country illegally back to whence they came. He wants to send their kids back, too - even those who were born here.

If some of that refrain sounds familiar, it’s because it’s an old tune with some new lyrics.

A similar kind of xenophobia once swept the country under the banner of something called the American Party.

“As a national political entity, it called for restrictions on immigration, the exclusion of the foreign-born from voting or holding public office in the United States, and for a 21-year residency requirement for citizenship,” according to the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Membership in the American Party was also restricted to Protestant men.

American Party members weren’t targeting Mexicans. Rather, they were worried about the influx of Irish-Catholics and Germans.

Their brand of intolerance allowed them to gain control of the Massachusetts legislature, win congressional elections and carry some big-city mayoral races, including Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago.

Party members were blamed for burning a Catholic church in Maine and giving the tar-and-feather treatment to a Catholic priest in that state.

Look how far we’ve come.

Last week in Boston, two men were arrested for urinating on and beating a homeless man authorities believe was targeted because he was Hispanic.

One of the men charged for the assault reportedly invoked the name of Trump, who made disparaging remarks about illegal immigrants when he announced his candidacy for president.

“Donald Trump was right, all these illegals need to be deported,” one of the brothers allegedly told police after he was arrested.

Trump’s response when told about the incident? He denounced it, of course.

Sort of. He proclaimed it a “shame.”

Then, almost before that word even had a chance to reach anyone’s ears, he continued: “I will say that people who are following me are very passionate. They love this country and they want this country to be great again. They are passionate.”

He sounded like the proud papa of a pair of schoolyard bullies who just kicked the dogsnot out of a disabled kid at recess.

Trump deserves credit, we suppose, for not trotting out the ol’ high school cheer urging his followers to “Hit ’em again - harder, harder.”

Still, it’s hard not to see his “passion” comment as a tacit acknowledgment that he’s OK with it being open season on immigrants. Who’s next, we wonder.

Welcome back to the 1840s and 1850s, when the American Party flourished before eventually breaking up over the issue of slavery. You can still read about the party in the history books, though its members were better known in the press by another name.

They were dubbed the “Know Nothings.”

It’s a name that still fits in some quarters.

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Hartford Courant (Conn.), Aug. 29, 2015

The shocking murders of two television journalists in Virginia while they were working raises two issues that resonate in Connecticut.

The first, widely discussed after the 2012 Newtown massacre of 20 small children and six educators by a deeply troubled young man, is how to keep guns out of the hands of mentally unstable people. If Congress ever finds its conscience, a universal background check system would be a good start.

The other issue is how to prevent workplace violence. The suspect in the Virginia killings, Vester Flanagan, once worked at the television station that employed the two journalists he killed. He had been fired and was said to have problems with anger and other issues.

Connecticut has seen two horrific cases of workplace violence in recent memory: the Connecticut Lottery killings in 1998, when a silent and seething employee fatally shot four supervisors and himself in Newington; and the Hartford Distributors shootings in 2010, when a fired employee killed eight workers before turning his gun on himself in Manchester.

These are two sides of the same coin: We live in a country where angry and disgruntled people can arm themselves all too easily. From mass shootings to threats and verbal abuse, some 2 million Americans are subject to workplace violence each year, according to OSHA. No workplace is immune; but companies can increase their odds of safety by such steps as implementing a zero-tolerance policy toward workplace violence, safety training and creating a secure workplace. (For more information see courant.com/workplace-violence.)

Just hours after the Virginia killings, a police officer was shot and killed in Sunset, La., apparently with his own gun, trying to stop a man who was stabbing three women. The officer, Henry Nelson, was the fifth Louisiana police officer shot to death in four months. Police too often bear the burden of the nation’s lax attitude toward gun safety.

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Online:

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Bennington Banner (Vt.), Aug. 23, 2015

Hydropower, like any energy source, has drawbacks, but it definitely beats coal. Canada has plenty of it, southern New England could use it, but getting it there is the issue.

Vermont and New Hampshire are understandably worried about above-ground power lines despoiling their natural beauty as they transport hydropower south. That beauty is part of the pleasure of living in those states and it is an attraction for tourists who also pursuing the tranquility and recreational activities the states have to offer.

Eversource Energy’s $1.4 billion Northern Pass project through New Hampshire is one of several proposed that would bring hydropower south. Eversource, according to The Boston Globe, has reached an agreement with Hydro-Quebec, a Canada-owned utility operating giant hydropower dams, to transmit the power it generates.

There is likely to be only one winner, however. The selling point for TDI New England’s proposal going through Vermont is that the entire 154-mile route would be underground, with most of it going beneath Lake Champlain. Eversource’s original plan was to put only an eight-mile segment of its 192-mile power line underground where it connects with Canada.

This plan when first offered five years ago generated fierce opposition from environmental grounds and residents opposed in particular to power lines running through New Hampshire’s majestic White Mountains, which offer some of New England’s most spectacular vistas. Last week, Eversource responded to this criticism by announcing that power lines would run underground through a 60-mile stretch encompassing the White Mountains. The underground lines would follow roads rather than Eversource’s right of way.

This is a considerable concession by Eversource, one that could have come earlier in the process. The company clearly concluded that opposition to its plan, which wasn’t going away, was putting it at a disadvantage to other projects like TDI’s.

However, opposition hasn’t abated, according to The Globe, as environmentalists want the company to put the entire line underground. This would be an expensive undertaking, but so would fighting lawsuits and protests for 132 miles. The New Hampshire Site Evaluation Committee and the U.S. Department of Energy have to sign off on Eversource’s final plan.

Critics question how much hydroelectric power is needed in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, which are the major targets for the power lines proposed to pass through the two northern New England states. That need can only be judged in the context of how much energy is received through other energy sources. If the southern New England states are able to increase their supply of natural gas then hydroelectric could become redundant, but the proposed Kinder-Morgan natural gas pipeline running through Massachusetts is every bit as controversial as is the Eversource proposal in New Hampshire.

Coal plants, a major source of the greenhouse gases that fuel global warming, are being phased out and there is little sentiment to introduce any new ones. Nuclear power should be a part of the energy grid, but plant accidents have given it a bad reputation and the federal government’s failure to designate a waste disposal area in Nevada has stalled the nuclear industry in its tracks.

Hydroelectric power should be part of the larger energy equation, and Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, a proponent of transmission projects, would like to see up to 2,400 watts of hydroelectric power, enough for about 2 million homes, come down from Canada. Genuine environmental and aesthetic concerns aside, hydropower emanating from Canada is preferable to oil coming down from Canada via the Keystone XL pipeline. The project that can accomplish this with the least amount of impact on the states the power lines must go through should get the support of the appropriate state and federal agencies.

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The MetroWest Daily News (Mass.), Aug. 23, 2015

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee says that the Supreme Court is “not the Supreme Being,” and that if elected president, he would unilaterally act to ban abortion notwithstanding the court’s decision in Roe vs. Wade. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, a onetime Supreme Court law clerk, has accused his former employers of acting as a “super legislature” and has proposed a constitutional amendment to require justices to face periodic retention elections.

But it isn’t just Republican presidential candidates who are criticizing the court. A group called Fix the Court has proposed that the justices be required to adhere to a code of ethics that currently applies only to lower federal court judges, and that members of the Supreme Court serve for only 18 years. Echoing long-standing complaints from the news media, the group also has faulted the court for refusing to follow Congress’ lead and televise its public proceedings.

Some of the criticisms can be dismissed as political grandstanding, but others focus on problems with the way the court functions that corrode its credibility. They can be addressed without undermining the court’s independence.

Regardless of what one thinks of particular rulings, the court’s role as the final arbiter of the meaning of the Constitution is vital and depends on the justices’ insulation from politics. Retention elections would undermine that independence by tempting justices to curry favor with voters. And one can only imagine the special-interest money that would pour into retention campaigns for the highest court in the land.

A different question is whether justices should remain on the court well into old age, an issue that is intertwined with the temptation for justices to time their retirement in a way that makes it more likely that they will be succeeded by someone with similar views. (Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, at 82 the oldest member of the court, has resisted calls from liberal commentators to step down in time for President Barack Obama to nominate a successor.)

Fix the Court urges that the next nominee to the Supreme Court pledge to serve only 18 years. That’s an idle dream, but the Constitution could be amended to replace life tenure with a fixed term. Limiting justices to 18 years would preserve their independence while reducing the likelihood that they would delay their retirement for political reasons. The idea is at least worth discussing.

Congress and the justices also need to address questions about real and apparent conflicts of interest on the court. Supreme Court justices aren’t covered by the Code of Conduct for United States Judges promulgated by the U.S. Judicial Conference. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has suggested this isn’t a problem because the code serves as “the starting point and a key source of guidance” for the justices. Still, in some respects they are less constrained than their lower court brethren.

For example, while both justices and lower court judges are mentioned in a statute setting forth the reasons for jurists to recuse themselves from a case, justices aren’t covered by an advisory opinion by the Judicial Conference dealing with recusals triggered by certain “friend of the court” briefs - specifically, cases in which a judge owns stock in a company that has filed a “friend of the court” brief in a case to which it isn’t a party but whose outcome could affect its financial position. That opinion suggests that, in some cases, a judge in that situation should withdraw from the case.

According to a report by Fix the Court, the high court heard 19 cases between Jan. 1, 2009, and Dec. 31, 2013, in which friend-of-the-court briefs were filed by companies in which one or more justices owned stock. One way for those justices to obviate the appearance problem created by such holdings would be to place their securities in blind trusts during their tenure.

Another reform that would inspire greater confidence in the court would be a requirement that justices explain why they chose to withdraw from a case - or why a request that they do so was rejected. At present, each justice is left to decide whether to provide an explanation.

Finally, although the court’s deliberations are necessarily confidential, there is no reason its public proceedings - oral arguments and the announcement of opinions - shouldn’t be televised. The court has taken some steps toward transparency by posting audio of arguments on its website shortly after they’re heard. It should go the last mile and allow the public to see the justices and the advocates as well as hear them.

The Supreme Court’s independence is essential, which is why politically motivated attacks on the court must be rejected. But the justices can and should be more open about how they do their important work.

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