Senator’s View: Fighting for veterans on Memorial Day and all year

When our veterans signed up to serve, there wasn’t a waiting line, and there shouldn’t be a waiting line here in the United States when they return. Not for a job, a home, or an education, and certainly not for the health care they’ve earned.

Local view: Enbridge pipeline expansions are not the way

As Enbridge asks the state Public Utilities Commission to increase the allowable volume in its Alberta Clipper pipeline, northern Minnesota might want to take notice. The current flow is 440,000 barrels per day. Enbridge is submitting permit applications to increase that flow to 570,000 barrels and, eventually to 800,000 barrels a day.

Our view: DFL, labor win; leave businesses to pay tab

With a full day to digest and decompress, winners and losers from this year’s session of the Minnesota Legislature are becoming clearer.

Reader's view: Community support great for Lincoln Park cleanup

The annual clean sweep in Lincoln Park was a great success this spring because of the city of Duluth, Airpark Products AND Services and all the business owners who took part.

Reader's view: New Duluth bike trails are an awesome idea

I read about the new recreational biking trails in the paper (“Duluth area building a mountain bike mecca,” April 29), and I can’t wait until the Spirit Mountain gravity trails open in the summer; it sounds like an awesome idea.

Other view: Another storm, another prayer for God's mercy on Oklahoma

A row of backpacks on hooks in a roofless grade school corridor. This is just one of many images that will stay with us because they represent the horror without actually being the horror. The fate of the students, the fate of their teachers. The fears of parents helpless to help when their children needed them the most. May 20, 2013.

Reader's view: Gun ownership comes with responsibility

A May 14 letter asserted lawmakers listen to the National Rifle Association and not to the people. As a member of the NRA, I assure readers I’m as much “the people” as the writer of the letter.

Local view: Obama's leadership needed to address global warming

On May 9, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere passed a long-feared milestone. Scientists at Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii reported it reached a concentration of 400 parts per million, something not seen on the Earth for millions of years.

Reader's view: Implement term limits and redefine national priorities

Both political parties developed our present puzzling tax system. Are we going to continue a taxing system that results in the flow of wealth from the lower and middle classes to the upper class?

Reader’s view: Political correctness takes place of truth in America

What is more important: someone’s feelings or the truth? I would hope you agree with me it’s the latter. Then again, this is a changed America where the priority has shifted from being honest to telling cozy, feel-good lies and padded euphemisms.

Reader’s view: Why doesn’t welfare require drug tests?

The article on the front page of the May 7 News Tribune about the accused heroin dealer now facing charges caught my attention (“Man faces drug charges after police chase in West Duluth”).

In response: Sulfide mining deserves reasoned debate, not the labeling of others

I’ve spent about two months every summer for 81 years at my family cabin on the South Kawishiwi River near Ely, not far from a cabin owned by John Chelesnik, the writer of one of two recent commentaries for the News Tribune Opinion page about the changing economy in the Ely area.

Our view: Thanks: Thakar goes out warmly

Symphony Hall at the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center was “one of the warmest places in Duluth” on Saturday, according to a News Tribune reviewer. And that was saying something given the day’s icy rains and bone-chilling lake gales.

• Markand Thakar
• Our view: Good luck: Restaurant ‘whistling’ back to life

Our view: Good luck: Restaurant ‘whistling’ back to life

After 44 months of locked doors and no reason to think they’d reopen, the Iron Range’s splash of culture and Caribbean cool is poised for a comeback. The Whistling Bird restaurant is set to reopen on July 3, new owner Jessica Antonovich said in a News Tribune report this past weekend.

• Whistling Bird
• Our view: Thanks: Thakar goes out warmly

Monday with Mitch: Detroit mayor not a dream job

You get to be in charge, except for the guy who is really in charge. You get to spend the money, but only if the other guy says OK. You get to state your platform, but you may never be able to implement one bit of it.