by Jonathan Reisman

August brought my 69th birthday and big personal, political, and policy challenges which shocked and shattered my retired widower/curmudgeon existence. My initial reaction to the personal challenges was a hiatus from Freedom Studies, as I was pretty upset and not thinking or writing clearly. When Charlie Kirk was assassinated, my depression deepened. 

My interaction with the American Health Care system has been locally fine and systemically frustrating. My primary care physician (PCP) referred me to a specialty group, which initially said an appointment would take 2-3 months. Upon revealing my case was labelled “urgent,” the appointment wait time was reduced to 1-2 months. My retired economist/resource allocation/incentives matter instincts are all going off. As of this writing, no specialty appointment has been made. My PCP has ordered some of the tests the specialists will need. Taking some initiative and command of the situation has improved my mood, even if actual “control” is a mirage and convenient fiction.

Meanwhile, the country’s divisions have been clearly exposed by the Kirk assassination, and it’s not pretty or reassuring. Americans are living in largely segregated media siloes, with vastly different information feeds, narratives, and understandings of “reality” and “the truth.” A large percentage of our fellow countrymen and women are perceived as “other” rather than “brother,” or even just “fellow American.” We’re not very good at talking or listening to “other.” If we hope to remain the United States of America, we need to fix that fast. Leadership is critical, but it needs to come from each of us … relying on our frequently compromised and corrupt political class will not be sufficient.

So, this compromised, retired widower needs to seize the day and return to the keyboards and public square in some fashion. Truth be told, pontificating on policy and politics is therapy for me and more manna for the illusion of control. Freedom Studies will return and seize the day on the following:

• Maine’s disastrous climate and energy policies are driving up the price of electricity, damaging the economy and competitiveness of rural Maine and the 2nd Congressional District, and averting no global warming whatsoever. I plan on asking who is benefiting from our disastrous climate and energy policies, even at the risk of increasing “otherness” and revealing partisan hypocrisy;

• Upcoming 2026 Gubernatorial, U.S. Senate, Congress, and Maine legislature elections. I’m especially looking forward to the socialist Sullivan oysterman performing some generational whoop ass on Gov. Mills in a Democratic Senate primary, a great fight between LePage and Golden in the 2nd CD general, and dueling Blaine House primaries between fields illustrating all the expected stereotypes associated with both parties — progressives, labor activists, and environmentalists on the left and businessmen/conservatives on the right. The ranked-choice voting primaries may well push both parties away from the middle.

• A Republic if you can keep it. Benjamin Franklin’s response on Sept. 17, 1787, to the query as to what the Constitutional convention had wrought is much on my mind. The Republic faces significant internal and external threats, some in plain sight, others hidden and concealed. Contemplating our constitutional republic, Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi lyrics, which sent me into hiatus, now return me to seize the day: “Don't it always seem to go.... That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone?”