Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by Elliott Epstein
Opinion: Trump is using transgender athletes to divide society
The ancient Greek scientist Archimedes is said to have boasted,” Give me a place to stand and with a lever I will move the whole world. President Donald Trump’s motto should be, “Give me a wedge and an audience, and I will cleave society in two.” A “wedge” issue is a highly divisive political or social issue, one which tends to undermine societal consensus and replace it with an “us-versus-them” tribal mentality. The issue itself doesn’t have to be a particularly impactful one.
DEI is not the villain that Trump declares it to be
According to Trump World, a new internal enemy is loose in America threatening all that we hold dear. The name of this insidious menace is Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI).
Maine has made progress toward helping minors suffering from sexual assault
On Jan. 28, the Maine Law Court issued a highly consequential decision — one that could potentially bar civil suits by hundreds of litigants in this state claiming to have suffered sexual abuse as minors by members of the state’s Catholic clergy. The case, Robert E. Dupuis et al. v.
Elliott Epstein: Bully billionaire Bill Gates isn’t much better as a philanthropist
Is there such a thing as a “good” billionaire? In his 2023 book, “The Bill Gates Problem,” investigative reporter Tim Schwab explores that question in depth and responds with a resounding “no.” Perhaps the most iconic tycoon of his generation, Bill Gates elevated Microsoft from a two-man startup in his Harvard dorm room to a softwear behemoth whose Windows operating system runs most of the planet’s computers.
Elliott Epstein: The MAGA faction can’t see Putin’s master plan
The 12th century English theologian and philosopher John of Salisbury summed up the progress of human knowledge with the memorable phrase, “We are like dwarfs sitting on the shoulders of giants.
Elliott Epstein: The verdict against Donald Trump is a $83.3 million unforced error
It’s ironic that Donald Trump, who’s spent nearly a year artfully dodging and delaying 91 criminal felony charges in four states, could be laid low by an entirely avoidable civil suit. On Jan. 26, a federal jury in Manhattan awarded writer, journalist and columnist E. Jean Carroll an $83.3 million defamation verdict against Trump, $65 million of it comprised of punitive damages.
Elliott Epstein: One councilor’s dissent seems to be another’s political hit job
The late British Prime Minister Winston Churchill once summed up the essence of democratic government in a wry aphorism, “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried.” Indeed, democracy is a messy, factionalized, noisy and inefficient way of making political decisions, but its strengths — broader citizen involvement and transparent decision-making which subject elected officials to both public scrutiny and accountability at the ballot box —...
Elliott Epstein: There is a way to legitimately take Trump off the ballot
The notion that Donald Trump can be constitutionally barred from the ballot in the 2024 Presidential election is gaining traction in a number of states, including Maine. Though the concept may be legally valid, however, it’s an idea that could have disastrous political consequences if carried out in an arbitrary manner.
Elliott Epstein: Biden backs his words with actions
President Joe Biden’s recent visit to Auburn demonstrated that, despite his advanced age, daunting economic challenges, and a toxic partisan environment, he has a deft political touch. Biden employed words, symbols and actions to strike just the right notes here — underscoring the importance of restoring U.S. manufacturing jobs, reinvigorating Main Street America, bridging the political divide, and treating those with opposing views respectfully in the public forum.
Elliott Epstein: Androscoggin County Courthouse is a historical gem in downtown Auburn
The Androscoggin County commissioners have begun discussing whether to renovate or level the iconic Renaissance Revival courthouse building which has anchored the northwest corner of Court and Turner streets since 1857. I think the commissioners’ deliberations should last about 2½ minutes and end with a resounding “yes” to keeping and improving the structure.
Elliott Epstein: Expect a bumper crop of McMansions in Auburn’s ag zone
In the early 1960s, Auburn’s city leaders, with commendable foresight, set aside some 20,000 acres, about 40% of the city’s land area, for the purpose of preserving farming, forestry and open space as well as preventing suburban sprawl. In 2023, a different generation of leaders is seeking, with less commendable lack of foresight, to replace farms with houses.
Elliott Epstein: Law school produces better lawyers than Brakey’s bill could
Whenever an especially dumb bill is introduced in the Maine Legislature, two questions immediately come to my mind: What could they have been thinking? And was it sponsored by state Sen. Eric Brakey, R-Auburn?
Elliott Epstein: U.S. aid to Ukraine is a no-brainer
American public support for helping Ukraine in its heroic resistance against Russia’s invasion is flagging, and that’s a damn shame.
Elliott Epstein: This will be the year that Donald Trump becomes politically irrelevant
The biggest news story of 2022 was the implosion of the career of American history’s most notorious demagogue, former President Donald J. Trump. During the past year, Trump has seen his popularity plummet in the polls and his company convicted of tax fraud. He has been roundly blamed by Republicans for the poor mid-term election results and cast as the central villain in the Jan. 6 Congressional hearings.
Elliott Epstein: The 1619 Project is full of uncomfortable truths that should be taught in Maine schools
Aside from providing the opportunity for family gatherings and monumental traffic gridlocks, Thanksgiving offers the quintessential creation story, one familiar to every American school child.
FL - Elliott Epstein: We need to stop people from rebuilding in areas that will be devastated again
Early this month, in the wake of Hurricane Ian, U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell advised Americans to “make informed decisions” about rebuilding in vulnerable areas hit by natural disasters intensified by the climate crisis. “People need to understand what their potential risk may be whether it’s along the coast, inland along a riverbed or in tornado alley,” Criswell said.
Alex Jones tries to hide behind 1st Amendment
An Austin, Texas, jury gave right-wing broadcaster Alex Jones his come-uppance this month when it delivered successive verdicts of $4.1 million in compensatory and $45.2 million in punitive damages against him in a defamation case arising out of the 2012 mass shooting of 26 first-graders and educators at Sandy Hook School in Newtown, Connecticut. The case demonstrated that Americans’ right of free speech, though extremely broad, does have limits.
Teachers have learned to work for low pay and little respect
It’s a mystery to me why there’s anyone left still who wants to be a public school teacher. The profession, once prized for the unique opportunity it offered to “make a difference” by helping shape the lives of youngsters, has become a real minefield in America’s COVID-19 and gun violence epidemics and a virtual minefield in its culture wars. The result is that a lot more teachers are leaving the field and fewer thinking of entering it.
Declining birth rates are unhealthy for hospitals and society
When St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center announced this month it was discontinuing its maternity health services due to declining births and working closely with Central Maine Medical Center to have the latter absorb its staff and patients, my first thought was, “Wow, we’ve come a long way from the days when the two hospitals, once jealous rivals, battled each other for patients, funding and prestige!” My second thought was, “Wow, if this event is the result of a declining birth rate, what...
Disney should sue Florida for violating its right to free speech
I think Mickey Mouse should sue the State of Florida. Acting as the plaintiff in a lawsuit would certainly be out of character for this sweet venerable icon of family entertainment, an animated cartoon character first created by Walt Disney in 1928 that has become the universally recognizable mascot of Disney’s theme parks. But who better to prevent predatory politicians like Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis from muzzling freedom of speech?
GOP did more damage to trust in the judiciary than to Jackson’s nomination
The contrast between two high court judicial confirmations this month, one in Washington and the other in Augusta, has dramatized the need to make the judicial appointment process a quest for excellence instead of a political blood-sport. After a bitterly contentious confirmation process, the U.S. Senate on April 7, by a narrow 53-47 vote, approved the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to become the first Black woman elevated to the United States Supreme Court in its 232-year history.
Supreme Court to decide a key case in separation of church and state
One of the smartest things the framers of the United States Constitution did for the future of the government they were designing was to both mandate freedom from state-sponsored religion and freedom to choose one’s own form of worship.
It’s time that Boomers clean up the mess we created
As a charter member of the Baby Boomers, born in 1947, I feel like I should start the New Year by apologizing to the generations who are succeeding me — Gen Xers, Millennials, etc. We Boomers have left them quite a mess to clean up — climate change, which threatens human existence; economic inequality, political corruption and disinformation, which threaten democracy; and the deterioration of America’s international leadership, which threatens world peace and stability.
Zuckerberg created a monster that preys on our biases
An Associated Press article last week reported on German Neo-Nazi groups’ use of Facebook, Instagram and YouTube to “spread their ideology, draw in recruits and make money through ticket sales and branded merchandise.” The prospect of Nazism reviving in Germany, its birthplace, is nightmarish enough. Worse is that it’s happening with the assistance of American social media.
Americans are inoculated against trust in government and science
Studies have shown that the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines are about 94% effective in preventing the disease and that unvaccinated people are five times more likely to contract COVID and 29 times more likely to be hospitalized for it. Why then have only a smidge more than 50% of eligible Americans been fully, and 64% partially, vaccinated since these vaccines were first authorized for emergency use nine months ago?
Another ‘bright, shining lie’ has blinded the US from seeing the truth in Afghanistan
The quick fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban and completion of the chaotic evacuation of Americans and Afghans from Kabul Airport last week has given rise to a lot of recriminations and finger pointing against the Biden Administration. We are, after all, a country which often assigns blame for what’s gone wrong through hindsight but rarely uses history as guide to get things right through foresight. The Afghan War could be the poster child for historical blindness.
Republicans refuse to cancel their hypocrisy culture
Cancel culture has become one of the most shopworn epithets in the GOP vocabulary and also one of the most hypocritical. The only cancellation of free expression to which most Republican politicians object are Republican talking points, particularly Trumpy ones. As for progressive talking points or even conservative critiques of Donald Trump, they would just as soon shout them down or shut them off.
The environmental movement is a business opportunity for Maine
When you think about the Green New Deal, think Maine and think money. There has been a strong environmental movement in this state for over half a century, but environmentalism is no longer the sole province of small groups of enthusiasts and idealists like the Audubon Society, Sierra Club or Sportsman’s Alliance. Creating a sustainable environment is becoming a vibrant business.
Thomas E. Delahanty II truly deserved to be called ‘your honor’
The April 12 death of former Maine Chief Superior Court Justice and U.S. Attorney Thomas E. Delahanty II ended a distinguished 50-year legal career and caused me, in addition to a sense of personal loss, to contemplate the vital importance of trial judges in this country and state. The pivotal role played by Minnesota Judge Peter Cahill in the recently concluded trial of Derek Chauvin, a former Minneapolis policeman convicted for the murder George Floyd, reinforced my thinking.
We can bring COVID-19 under control but not the collective madness that plagues us
As 2020 drew to a close, confirmed COVID-9 cases in the U.S. tallied about 19 million and COVID-19 deaths about 350,000, compared to approximately 82 million cases and 1.8 million deaths worldwide. These numbers yield a disturbing statistic. The U.S., which houses roughly 4% of the world’s population, accounted for about 24% of the planet’s confirmed COVID-19 cases and 22% of its deaths. All things being equal, we should have been at roughly 4% in both categories.
Congressional candidates campaigning for Donald Trump’s approval
It’s become a truism that President Donald Trump, once shunned by the Republican Party establishment as a crude, clownish political dilettante of uncertain principles, has hijacked the party, intimidating incumbents who don’t demonstrate fealty to him by threatening primary challenges while dangling endorsements before candidates who fawn over him.
Susan Collins’ vote on impeachment comes with a cost no matter what
I’ve long admired U.S. Sen. Susan Collins for her civility, thoughtful approach to public policy, and moderation. But the erosion of America’s political center has left little breathing room for Collins, who has been increasingly obliged to resort to semantic dodges to conceal her capitulation to the demands of the Republican Party of President Donald Trump.
Donald Trump using the Clinton playbook to defend against Mueller
Anticipating the imminent release of Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible presidential wrongdoing, Donald Trump and his surrogates are stepping up their relentless campaign to discredit Mueller’s investigation. Their tactics – denial, obfuscation and character assassination — are not original, but come straight out of the playbook of a former president and one of Trump’s own favorite targets, Bill Clinton.
Climate change needs action not denial
The federal government’s Fourth National Climate Assessment, released the day after Thanksgiving, puts an exclamation point to what most of us already knew. This country (not to mention the rest of the world) faces an existential threat from climate change that is far more grave than North Korean nukes, unfair Chinese trade practices, Russian-cyber meddling in U.S. elections, the threat of jihadi terror attacks, the opioid epidemic, or illegal immigration.
Question 1 asks Robin Hood to fund home health care
Whoever coined the phrase “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” must have had the Maine People’s Alliance in mind. The Alliance’s modus operandi is to identify a big socio-economic problem, then gather enough signatures to place a citizen’s initiative proposal on the ballot to solve the problem — typically via a program funded through an income tax surcharge on the state’s highest earners.
Seth Carey shouldn't be elected DA because of a slogan
Slogans can be a powerful tool for communicating, but they’re a poor substitute for thinking. Those Republicans who wasted their primary vote on Seth T. Carey, GOP candidate for district attorney of Prosecutorial District Number 3 (Androscoggin, Oxford and Franklin counties), might want to ruminate on whether they made a wise choice by voting for what was, in effect, a campaign slogan.
Rearview Mirror: Brickman needs real collaboration to treat what ails CMHC
Central Maine Healthcare has been ailing for some time. The question is whether Jeff Brickman, the CEO hired two years ago to lead the financially troubled system to solvency and sustainability, is curing its problems or aggravating them.
It's time to repeal the 2nd Amendment
Students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where a mass shooting earlier this month claimed the lives of 17, are planning a march on Washington in March to protest gun violence. They want this school massacre to become a turning point in the elusive quest for government action on gun control. These students have already traveled to Tallahassee to lobby Florida’s legislators and to the White House to meet with President Trump.
Let Maine's north woods join this country's crown jewels
You shouldn’t look a “gift horse in the mouth,” but a lot of Mainers are doing just that when it comes to businesswoman Roxanne Quimby’s offer to donate 87,500 acres and $20 million to establish a national monument east of Baxter State Park in northern Maine. (Unlike national parks, which must be authorized by Congress, the President can create a national monument by proclamation).
Gutter language chips away glue that holds Democracy together
Although GOP presidential contender Donald Trump’s use of gratuitous insults and gutter language may have made Maine Gov. Paul LePage’s seem almost tame by comparison, our governor still manages to embarrass himself, his party and his state with regularity. Trump has labeled undocumented Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists, called his opponents liars, cheats and low-energy failures, and advocated a total ban on Muslims entering the country. Gov.
Show More
loading
Actions
Is this you?
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.Get in touch with Elliott
Contact Elliott, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack