How about everything privatized with each person paying for the services he or she requires. No pooling of funds allowed that could lead to a social contract and government. If you need police, call Blackwater. For fire, pewrhaps we could go back to the days of three or four private firefighting companies responding, then brawling to see who gets to fight the fire. Education - slate and chalk by firelight. National defense goes to Blackwater again - you probably want to buy their stock, they might become the megacorp of the future. Of course, they may also take your money and run because there'd be no one to tell them they couldn't. LOL
Religion is far too concerned with controlling behavior through fear of an angry deity. A significant number of friend who have left churches because they were told that if they didn't do this or that they would be punished by God or if they did this or that, regardless of their asocial behavior, they'd be rewarded with a ticket to heaven. It's all based on control - has been for centuries.
On the other hand, most of, if not all, these same people speak of a deep and abiding faith in a power greater than themselves that has lifted them to a life of contentment if not joy. And tithing means helping without expectation of reward, not giving a tenth of your earnings to someone who tells them they are living in sin.
So - the headline is misleading. The article revealing - perhaps churches with all their self serving rules and regulations are a thing of the past.
Don't get me wrong - I'd love to see Lewiston connected to Amtrak. In fact, if common sense prevails, it will happen some day.
Unfortunately the specs for tracks to carry passengers is different than the specs for freight. The tracks will require a major upgrade which will permit higher speeds and safer passage.
Don't worry Paul - mass transit will return and trains are more efficient than busses. It may be more like the old inter-urban light rail of the early 20th century than full blown trains, but Lewiston, and maybe even Jay, will reconnect to the rest of the world.
Growing up, I could walk to the end of my street and using public transit only go to Katmandu if I wanted. I didn't need a car or even a bicycle.
God forbid the creators of jobs in Southeast Asia (China's getting expensive, folks) should have to help with the cost of government. Let the full cost fall on the backs of those who've had a free ride all these years, the poor and the middle class.
For those who wonder - I'm tired of pointing out the obvious, so I've resorted to agreeing with the (expletive deleted by me).
But, it runs counter to the philosophy that pain - other peoples' pain - is good. The result is that you could duct tape LePage and his sycophants in the legislature to their chairs, force them to listen to a reading of Mr. Rooks' column, and they would squeeze their eyes shut and drown out the wisdom with,"nanananana..."
As for Boehner, McConnell, Cantor Freres, might I suggest a mandatory viewing of "Tale of Two Cities" for that is what will come to them - figuratively if not literally. I'm going to learn to knit.
The real solution is to vote this coming fall. I'll make it easy to decide for whom you vote, does that person really give a rat's patoot about you and people like you or is he or she more concerned with the deep pockets types who fund the campaigns.
The easiest and surest way to decertify a union is to eliminate the jobs its members hold.
As a Wilton taxpayer, may I ask what letting go custodial/bus driver staff will save Wilton taxpayers per thousand of assessed value. I suspect I may be limited in the vacation I might be able to afford - perhaps having the money for gas to drive to Small's Falls or maybe even the coast.
Will unemployment and the inevitable increase in demand for services laid off staff can no longer afford offset my savings or has LePage been taking care of that already?
I guess an H&K submachine gun, even one modified to semi-automatic only, complete with a silencer is the ultimate phallic symbol.
Personally, I'd prefer an M-60 to hand hold the way Stallone did if I wanted to impress a woman or intimidate a man. My first instinct was a quad mount 40 like we had on my old ship in the 60's - they should be fairly cheap surplus - but the ammunition for an afternoon of turning the neighborhood into a war zone might be a little expensive.
Still - exercising my 2nd Amendment right to pretend to be John Wayne...
And Republican legislators are caught between a rock and a hard place. The rock being a very noisy minority that calls itself the Tea Party and their hero LeRoi LePage. The hard place being a lot of voters who are not happy with the legislature's imitation of an omega dog - on its back with all four paws in the air.
LeRoi has a couple of more years. Thanks to Deb Plowden, recall wasn't even given talking room at the committee level, so future bullies can continue to bully. But legislators face the voters this fall. Presumably LeRoi will be returned to Marden's as defective merchandise in 2014.
I think it would be a good idea to turn off DWTS and whatever other pablum is current in the fall TV season and begin to pay attention to who's running and how badly the Koch's want them in office. If Koch brothers money is being poured into ads for legislator X, you can bet he or she is far to the right of Genghis Kahn. You need to vote for the other guy or woman.
That's 2/3rds of the total retirement income of many. Of course, the conservative response is that that is the fault of the worker who didn't save enough of his minimum wage to allow him to live high on the hog.
Then again - if Republicans are given free rein, these poor retirees will die off rather quickly with no health care, housing or food so, with a little small print, that $400/mo given to the bankers will become the property of God's chosen.
This letter is just another example of how clueless the "haves" are about how the "have nots" live.
Praising a report from MHPC presented by Lance Dutton as objective is really funny.
Lance Dutton is a demagogue somewhere to the right of Louis XIV. When he rants about the liberal media, he is repeating a myth born in the days of Lee Atwater. A myth that the media is hopelessly liberal.
It was foolishness then, but repeating that myth now, in the day of NewsCorp, Rush Limbaugh and countless other conservative and ultra conservative pundits is absurd. If the Post, the NYT, and the Boston Globe didn't carry columnists like George Will, if the Press Herald didn't have MD Harmon on staff, if a conservative publisher didn't recently destroy the Sentinel/KJ/PH media bloc requiring a bailout from Mr. Sussman, then Dutton's blatherings might be believed by the gullible conservatives.
But to repeat , without thought, the comments of Lance Dutton, pretending they are serious thought makes me wonder - is this letter meant to be humor or is Ms Rea serious?
Let's face it, the wealthier do need mowers of grass, makers of beds and wait persons to bring their Manhattans. If everyone is educated, no one will want to do those jobs. I've even heard it said by my more conservative friends that public education past 8th grade is a waste of taxpayer money.
Consider that the happiest, most content nation in the world according to a US study is DEnmark where post secondary education for qualified candidates is paid for. I'm sure this doesn't mean every gets to go to med school - carpenters and lumbers and people who write code for computers need education too.
There are no guarantees of jobs, but I didn't hunk it was about that - or bashing teachers yet again. Oh well - lacking anything but talking points, the right does need bogeymen.
political contributions from ANY out of state sources - including the Koch Gang, no end runs, no conditions of employment being a contribution to the boss's choice...
For some reason, the RNC has declared war on the "little people," their view not mine. It would appear that they would prefer a return to the pre-Magna Carta government with an absolute monarch supported by an aristocracy with the rest of us - the serfs - keeping them in the style they think they deserve.
On the one hand, Republicans and Libertarians weep, wail and gnash their teeth over the horror of the President leaving his desk even to use the WC - his place is at work as though he can't possibly do anything if he's not within arm's reach of the center drawer of his desk. I'm reminded of the old show shop mentality.
Then they screech and storm and generally make asses of themselves the moment he leaves DC on Air Force One - the mobile Oval Office from which he an do his job quite thoroughly. "There he goes - off partyong again," they howl following it with a snarky comment about how he can't possibly screw up their day if he isn't glueing on soles.
We were subject to daily photos of Dubya driving a 'baccy stained pickup on the way to clear the never ending supply of brush on his ranch. Ronnie RayGun spent a fair amount of time posing atop his trusty steed and GHWB spent a good part of every summer waving from a cigarette boat. All were in constant contact with the job of President through the wonders of modern technology.
IMO, it's time for the easily excited to take a break and actually think before they start ranting.
Motorists from states that don't require insurance?
Drivers who are illegal? They must post a bond iirc and remain illegal if they don't.
Your uninsured motorist pays to fix your car or cover your expenses should the other motorist be either of the above. Sometimes a lawsuit is not going to get blood out of a rock.
Think, I know that's anathema to conservatives, but it keeps you from looking foolish.
The state mandates that you carry liability insurance on your cars. Why? Because if you hurt another you should be financially responsible at least so far as your insurance premium is concerned. Otherwise, others have to pick up the tab. You go to the hospital without health insurance - you are admitted and treated. If you can't pay, the rest of us do. That's why Harvell's son and others like him, healthy kids, have to buy insurance. Even the REpublicans realized health insurance reform wouldn't work until all ad to pay (check the history of the legislation on that one if you don't believe me). They only turned against it when President Obama put it into the Affordable Care Act . As McConnell said, we will do all that we can to inswure Obama is defeated, including denying the country any legislation.
Welcome to the world I lived in from the time I left Alaska in 1976 until I turned 65. And I rarely saw the doctor because I wasn't sick, so I guess I was paying for my neighbors' health care - but that's what insurance is - pooling resources to pay costs that exceed the ability of individuals to pay. Your house burns down and the bank does insist you be insured, everyone has chipped in enough through premiums to help you rebuild or pay off the mortgage. Personal responsibility just won't cut it. I realize that heresy under Republican Party rules - but it's true.
BTW - Democrat Party is not the correct name, despite what Lutz would like. It's even marginal grammatically.
You buy insurance so you can pay for something you cab't save enough money to pay for. Try a few hours in the ER and pay for it yourself if you think I'm off base.
The problem with Harvell and most Republicans is the ongoing love affair with big business and the belief in personal responsibility for every one but themselves. I'm not positive, but I'm betting that part of Harvell's pay package from either the state or Verso is health insurance. It's the old, "I've got mine, now you go away."
Besides - if the insurance company doesn't pay for pap smears now, thewy'll have to pay for cancer later. Of course, again, like most Republicans, Harvell has a 90 day net mindset. Thinking out 20 years is too challenging.
In their zeal to follow the intent of the founders, Republicans continue to chip away at the electorate perhaps hoping that someday, once again as it was in the earliest days of our republic, voting will be limited to white male property owners. The people do not want a return to 1912, let alone 1812.
I would urge all who care about democracy (small d) vote for the Democrat or progressive independent of your choice and send the 21st century Whigs back into the trash bin.
Almost everyone says they're moderate, middle of the road, centrist or non-partisan because that has been defined by the pundits as "good" and no one wants to be thought of as "bad" or a crazy by admitting they're conservative or liberal or even further to the edge and be thought what my old political science prof called reactionary (right) or radical (left).
Then you have people who nuance it it a bit to make themselves that ideal human, the fiscal conservative and cultural liberal. Fence seating is most uncomfortable when you favor helping the poor but you don't want to pay for it. We have a legislature full of those people. They'll tell you what ever you want to hear.
So how these words are defined depends on the definer and what Mr. Webster (NOT Charlie) says has no basis in reality unless you are willing to allow some unknown lexicographer to decide what you think.
I'm a bit to the left of liberal in the 60's sense of the term. I believe we are our brothers' keeper and feel that certain industries that have a government monopoly due to patent laws should be the subject of strong oversight (think pharmaceuticals). Others would be better nationalized - single payer health care would be less expensive - even accountants agree on that. I don't see war as the first option in foreign policy, but I enlisted in the military in 1960 and served proudly until 1964.
I really think Susan Collins falls into my definition of conservative. Plus she jumps when Brother McConnell says your vote is needed to block Obama. Olympia is to the left of Collins but still a centrist conservative who has been tacking right because the Tea Party feels free to threaten pols they disagree with. I know of at least one who gets threatening phone calls and e-mails that should result in charges of simple assault or terrorizing.
Would the country be better served if all of us clustered in a big middle ground herd. Probably not - tension and discord breed innovation. But, they become counter-productive when the extremes throws public tantrums. Add the SuperPacs and people like the Kochs or Soros to the mix and the only beneficiaries are the media advertising departments and people like Ed Shultz and Rush Limbaugh.
The latter should be ashamed of himself for his attack on Ms Fluke.
And Limburger is an insightful reporter, President Obama is Kenyan because a semi-literate redneck sheriff says he is, the sun will rise in the west and ever'wun who doesn't send Pastor Billy Bob Joe Beauregard at least two weeks pay every month is doomed to Hell.
Harvey my boy, I'm a liberal. Olympia Snowe is a moderate and Susan Collins is a conservative. You and your eye-spinning friends are what is called reactionaries.
Angus King. King would make a great senator and running as an independent, he would be free of the pressures of having to be in the same room as McConnell or Reid.
An aside - every time someone posts anything that isn't Tea Party approved, there are two or three instant "disagrees" followed within an hour by three or four more. This is the reason Cohen, Mitchell and now Snowe packed it in. It may sound wonderful to some to have a bomb thrower representing Maine, but he or she will get absolutely nothing done.
Any drop at the pumps would be temporary. The oil companies know the public will gnash their teeth as they fill the tanks on their SUV's and pickups. It would take a week, maybe less, for the price to creep back to where it is. In the meanwhile, those who might benefit, the middle class and poor would see government services cut to comply with constitutional mandates to balance the budget.
A better idea. Make speculation unprofitable by requiring that commodities traders actually take physical possession of what they buy. Today it's just paper held until there is an artificial shortage. Most of that paper is held by wealth funds owned by oil royalty. A newsman dared preak past the phony "supply and demand" claptrap usually fed to the public and found that about 50 cents per gallon is added to the price by those who speculate. As Bob Elliot used to say, "Ain't that odd."
For a reality check, read Matt Taibi's Griftopia, all about how the investment bankers and their big clients manipulate the economy and then howl for free markets which in Goldman Sachspeak translates to no government regulation, not competition. They crush competition just as WalMart crushes the Mom & Pops.
Enough ranting - if you're the Gordon Kingdon who once lived on High St., East Wilton, hi there.
I'm sure that Mr. Worthley really believes what he says. He is, after all, repeating the conventional Republican talking points. I'm not a grade school dropout Mr. Worthley, so rather than just accept your "wisdom," let's take a quick look at one of the gigantic lies that spew from MHPC,LePage, and Rupert Murdoch's Temple of Misinformation, Faux Gnus and the WSJ.
We are asked to believe that Mainers pay 50 cents of every dollar for welfare. Usually, that figure is reserved for government, but since the current demon is welfare recipients (read blacks and hispanics), that figure is doubtless something he heard on talk radio.
Statemaster.com (a non-partisan statistical site) ranks Maine in per capita TOTAL tax burden (federal,state,local) as 16th in the United States with a per capita burden of 2202.86. Even given that that is per capita and most families are made up of 4 people, total burden per family is just shy of $9000 for all taxes - even sales tax, dog license, etc. Not 50 cents on the dollar, Mr. Worthley. Not even close.
In the United States, Maine ranks fortieth in total tax burden. The big difference is that Mainers earn much less than their counterparts in other states. "Some" expenses are lower in Maine, housing, and some higher, health care. Nationally, the United States is way down the list. Photius.com places the US total tax burden among the world's countries at #40.
None of these figures are made up to make Gingrich or LePage or Romney squirm. They are just fact. O'Really may pooh pooh them because he can make more money spouting stuff that sounds good but is really BS on Faux than speaking factually anywhere else in the media.
And - as an article on the front page noted - wealthy people (like Murdoch and O'Really) tend to be greedy so they'll say whatever the tiny-brained want to hear in the hopes of prying some more money out of the system. Kind of like some of the preachers on tv
It's obvious that when conservatives think of a good government, the first thing that comres to their minds is not democracy. It is parsimony. If we reduce or (drool, drool) eliminate our elected officials they will not be able to spend our money. That's the thinking I see here.
So carried to the extreme we have the best government being "L'etat, c'est moi," the apparent motto of the current occupant of Blaine House. What could be more efficient than an absolute monarch. Of course, we the people have no say in how he spends, how much he spends or from whom he gets what he spends.
The purist democracy is that we see in the small towns of Maine, NH and VT - maybe even western Mass - where each voter is a legislator. NH, arguably the most conservative state in the northeast has a huge legislature when it is measured as legislators per capita. The person who taxes you and votes how to spend it is likely a neighbor or someone you see at the Little League game - not someone who is remote as the legislators in a small legislature would be. You get to rag him or her out if he or she screws up.
So does this mean conservatives really do hate democracy as I first suggested?
Actually, true conservatives are quite fond of democracy. So maybe we should just refer to those who would shrink the legislature to save money as less than sophisticated. That's probably kinder than the other word that comes to mind.
I understand that Republicans see unionsization as ranking somewhere between halitosis and stage 4 lung cancer as the greatest threat to 'merican society, but I can't help but wonder...
...if the DeCoster workers impacted by this were white English speakers...
nahhhh, that would mean Republicans see those who are no like them as less than.
Before lining up the firing squads to do away with the less than desirables as seen by the MHPC, let's pull out a couple of other stats - like per capita personal income, poverty level, and overall tax burden.
On the last - despite shrieks from the right, the United States ranks 46th in the world, not 1st as Grover Norquist would have you believe. On the poverty level, Maine does rank better than Arizona, but consider that a significant part of Arizona's population receives BIA support - no small thing. On the first, income level, we're right there beside such economic paradises as Mississippi and Alabama, but we have to buy fuel to stay warm for 5 moths of the year.
So, yes, we seem to be just handing out fists ful of cash to the lazy as Lance and his smamy crew want you to believe, but there are other factors - like when a part time, no bennies, job at a big box is cause for a igh five with the wife and that job is subsidized by the State of Maine through MaineCare and the Feds through SNAP.
Of course, that doesn't fit LePage's demagoguery, so it's swept under the rug.
Please make sure your brain is in gear before putting fingers to the keyboard.
The right - including supposedly intelligent people like Gingrich - throw the word around as though it were an epithet. It's not. It's an economic system which has merit. Actually, the US has long embraced certain aspects of socialism such as public funding for education and health care. Medicare is socialist as is Social Security. Right wingers, including Ronnie Reagan and Dubya would have destroyed both, but a majority of Americans said, "no."
I'm betting that you think socialism is political - most who listen to Faux Gnus as their only source of information do. Please make sure you now what words mean before you use them.
The Republican legislature lead by MHPC would turn the state into Arizona circa 1990 much to the distress of 21st century Mainers. On the east bank of the Kennebec there is a state owned very large vacant granite building already broken up into office size spaces.
Turn the old AMHI building into offices for legislators thereby filling a vacant piece of real estate and putting our representatives and senators close to the professional help they need when Lance brings them legislation like that Steve Mistler has written about.
The old AMHI building has the added benefit of a way to lock legislators IN lest they resist the help they need.
Lance and the guv can be sent on a one way trip to St. Helena where a 19th Century despot passed his final days.
How about ... people who make generalizations like that are most likely right wing nuts.
Or ... please make sure brain is in gear before putting fingers to the keyboard.
Of course, all teachers are commie pink libruls along with anyone who works in the lame stream media. They are trying to convert all our children to become gay mooslims and promote class warfare while taking food stamps and welfare checks. Did I leave any of Kuntz's buzzwords out?
Whyizzit that Republicans always point at a Democrat when one of theirs is criticized and vice versa. Those wearing the 61% buttons were doubtless more upset with LePage's strutting and posturing, especially in the first weeks after the election. Think Kiss My Butt, stolen art work, and little mustaches...
He's slipped back into it again now when their is the slightest dissent with his demands. He's going to close schools. LOL
We didn't elect LePage by 90% of the vote. He needs to realize that and stop acting as though he received a mandate..
FWIW - I'm no big fan of the Baldacci administration either, but that's more for policy reasons than because he bullied people - which he didn't.
The Maine Constitution does need to be amended. To require 50.1% and to provide for recall after the office holder has had a year. The latter to should also require significant voter signatures to go to a ballot. with te year and the number of signatures required, recall would not be abused.
I suppose that until the people of Maine come to their senses and amend the constitution to rid the state of lawmakers, replacing them with Lance and his gang at MPHC, we will continue to have to go through the wasteful procedure of having MPHC's decisions ratified by the legislature.
It would be so much more efficient if Sir Lancelot simply gave LePage his marching orders and he oversaw their implementation.
The only Canadian oil guaranteed to stay in North America is whatever is refined inland. Sending it to Texas only puts it on the world market along with the rest of the oil and gasoline we produce. Oil from Alaska ends up in Asia (along with half the trees in Tongass National Forest) while we import Middle Eastern oil.
I realize that's considered far too complex for the average person to understand - just accept that we're going to get screwed if big oil is involved.
...and, it's yet another reason Maine needs a recall option for elected officials. There needs to be a Constitutional amendment with safeguards built in to make sure it's not just a "get even" r sour grapes response to losing an election - but it needs to be there when the official in question is so out of control, so ego driven, that it's his way or the highway.
Paul LePage is also proof why success in business is NOT a predictor of the ability to govern. LePage is trying to govern as though his is the last word.
We might have had the opportunity to consider Cynthis Dill's recall proposal but for Debra Plowden putting a roadblock on it. Plowden is another example of Republican overreach.
Of course, most politicians are terrified of the recall option. For them, caring what constituents say is a bother that should only become of interest just prior to elections.
He reads minds, he tells fortunes, he writes absurd letters...step right up folks...
You are assuming that Secretary Clinton and President oBama are not equally outraged about atrocities committed by our enemies. Of course, if your major source of "news" is Faux and Hennity and O'Really, I guess you can be forgiven for having your mind atrophy.
...apparently the governing body of the State of Maine. There is no need for a legislature whether controlled by the left or the right. And LePage is just their puppet. They speak, he jumps. And poor Adrienne gives any reporter the old stinkeye should they question the relationship. If my cat runs for Governor of Maine, she will get my vote because she can do better.
...when a corporation receives preferential treatment and, though I don't like corporate welfare, if it's going to be the standard, then Maine must offer it to compete.
Good grief - Wisconsin!. Of course they are smarter than we are. They allow for the recall of elected officials who don't act in the peoples' interests.
In this case - parsimony (read being cheap) - didn't pay off. I'm sure it will be justified in the name of lowering taxes (look at the budget, there's tax breaks for the 1% again). In this case, Maine allowed 600 jobs for the 99% to walk away so the 1% would donate to a Republican PAC or two.
BTW - corporate welfare doesn't come just in the forms of TIFS and guaranteed loans. It's also encouraging the slaveholders to come to a town near you, drive out local business and use our Medicaid system to pay health care insurance for the part time employees who staff their cheap plastic crap stores.
Taxes are the dues we pay for living in a civilized nation and the role of government is to do for its citizens that which they cannot do for themselves.
But regardless, all I could think of when I read this screed was, "what a great example of Christian charity. Jesus must be thrilled with how those who claim to follow him have perverted his philosophy."
Faneuil Hall is across a pedestrian plaza. I do recall the old granite Quincy Market Building burning in the early sixties. No businesses inside then, but something started burning. My office was on the 7th floor of the Custom House (now condos I think) and we got very little work done that day. :-)
One very salient paragraph that appeared in my print edition has been removed, probably in the interest of keeping the conversation civil. In it, Mr. Taylor reveals a touch of - how do I say it without inviting the standard righteous response of "Who, me?" Oh well, here goes - prejudice.
Once you've answered that, perhaps it would be well to check federal law regarding the waiting period of 5 years as a permanent resident before application may be made. I'd be willing to bet that was chosen as a waiting period with better reason than simple demagoguery.
My paternal grandparents fled the first genocide of the last century leaving behind property that today would be valued in the millions. They were somewhat reluctant to give the Turkish government further reason to seize that property and give it to a Turk - something made easier had they renounced their citizenship and become US citizens. They didn't love this country less for being citizens of another country. They paid taxes and never collected social security or any welfare. they simply lived here without fear.
I have no idea what ethnic group wound your clock, but I'm betting it was Somalis. To require them to become citizen somehow diminishes the commitment to becoming a citizen.
Oh well - I guess that defies rigt wing "common sense," eh?
economic reality if it reared up and bit your butt.
Stop listening to your patron at the eritage Foundation. He has never received a single vote for anything as far as I know - perhaps class president in sixth grade, but that would be it.
Economics 101 - Your budget cut taxes by 150 million (at the direction of the Heritage Foundation) and - duh - you have a budget shortfall of 120 million/yr.
Rescind the tax cut which has not yet taken effect hence that action would not be a tax increase and the shortfall goes away.
That is reality. I know Dutson will be very angry with you - but that's tough.
Now freepers - all together - hit disagree. You don't need to know why, just follow orders and disagree. Good boys - Mommy has a biscuit for you in the kitchen
They typically do not offer their employees health care coverage and most certainly do not pay the 20 hour/wk no benefit employee enough to buy food let alone health insurance. The company bottom line is inflated at taxpayer expense by hiring two part timers rather than one full timer.
The State of Maryland was looking at a solution that brought on a broadside from Benton, Arkansas. They proposed a surtax on companies that expected their employees to be insured by the state. I'm not sure if anyone in the Maryland capitol was left standing after the combined lawyer/flack attack or if those who did survive had the courage to stand up to the Waltons, a family that would surely have been impoverished by the demands of the little people.
The obvious answer is to either tax job creators who game the system this way or go to universal single payer government run health insurance with sharp constraints on the greedy who would charge 2000% markups on drugs and call it payback for R&D.
That there aren't the jobs the French Canadians found makes it all the more important that we greet our new neighbors with love rather than prejudice.
There was a song in the musical South Pacific about being taught bigotry and hatred. That is only partially true - in my opinion many people actually need someone to look down on to enhance their own poor self image.
I grew up ethnic many decades ago in a very WASP community. Those were not good years for me, but they taught me to be more than tolerant. Tolerance is condescending. I try for something better.
The only answer to the hatred that is resurgent is the overriding philosophy of the man who's birth we will soon celebrate. The next time you feel the old prejudices rise to the surface or try to justify parsimony with "righteous" justification, read the Beatitudes.
... Senator Snowe has bowed to the perceived power of the T(estosterone) Party. I relabel the T types only because that it's common practice to rewrite English on the right hand side of the aisle. Democratic Party becomes Democrat Party yadayadayada.
If Maine required the big boxes to either provide health insurance for all their employees or pay a per uninsured employee surtax so that Mainecare could do it, the taxpayer might have more money to spend on cheap plastic *&# made in China. The cost of MaineCare could go down forcing LePage to get honest and admit that all he wants to do is eliminate programs that help "the little people."
Chip trucks routinely exceed the speed limit and get a bye from the cops. Supposedly, they're professionals and break the law to jack up the bottom line. Now, I guess that, if you're a trucker, you can kill a child and the only problem will be getting in that extra load to make a bigger pay day.
Congratulations Michael and Sue. Both of you should be proud of your accomplishments. The recent tragedy in Farmington highlights the need for work on PTSD, a malady too often hidden in the military as something less than macho.
But assigning blame at this point is senseless. Vets don't get the help they deserve and need and police officers must make decisions in a nano-second that would freeze the brain of most of us. Sadly - I'm predicting that Officer Rosie will suffer from PTSD just as Justin did - and for the same reason. Killing another human being is not a rational act - our brains are not wired to accept the unacceptable.
I'm so terribly sorry for what happened to both men.
Suppressing the votes of those less likely to vote Republican. Nutting, Ray, Webster, and Summers, LLC, will protest that it's about preventing voter fraud though voter fraud is not now and never has bee a problem. "But, it could be," they'll protest, their noses growing longer by the second.
The ideal voter ID law sounds simple - voters must possess a valid Maine driver's license or a state issued ID. Student ID's are NOT sufficient. A military ID is NOT sufficient. A passport is NOT sufficient. Only ID's issued by BMV.
Sounds reasonable unless you're in your 70's have macular degeneration and depend on a neighbor to drive you to the nearest branch office, 45 minutes away, for a state ID. Or perhaps your a student from Vermont (gasp, Commies!) voting under the rights granted to you in Symm v the United States and you really prefer not to give up your Vermont license just to make the two Charlies happy. Or maybe a Coast Guardsman who grew up, has parents in and will someday return to Hawaii (especially after a maine winter or two) and you want to vote under Symm, but the two Charlies just know that under that uniform is the leader of an al Qaida sleeper cell who
will vote for the ultimate Muslim mole - Barack Hussein Obama.
I would suggest Republican leaders pull teir thumbs out of their .... and get to work on real problems. Tell the Koch Brothers that money can't buy everything - not even an election in Maine.
It fits a whisper campaign started in rural Franklin County questioning the sexuality of a Democratic candidate. The whispers were started by the same person who is trying to 'educate" Mainers. He has no shame and follows the Lee Atwater/Karl Rove model of anything goes.
Why does anyone think that the Scalia Court - formerly the Supreme Court - went through contortions to place Clean Election laws in jeopardy?
They, along with minority, young, and senior voters, were on a list of things the RNC wants to go away to allow them victory without having to pretend to care about the unwashed masses. With Clean Election Laws scrubbed away, and the Citizens United Decision (another bought and paid for Scalia Court contortion) the 1% can buy elections at will.
If you think the above is hyperbole, remember that obscure Republican legislative candidates suddenly got major television advertising in the last week of the 2010 campaign. Slick mailers appeared in mailboxes alluding to the probable criminal history of Democrats. All that did not just appear. It was thanks to the Koch Gang and Citizens United which allowed them to steal te election without even trying to disguise where the money came from.
I can hear the responses from the rightwingers now, but Mr. Soros and Mr. Sussman aren't in the same league as the Kochs, the Waltons and even King Rupert, so spare us your finger pointing.
Save a tree and stop repeating talking points that have no validity.
Using your "logic" that something "might" happen unless laws are passed, perhaps the US should repeal the 2nd Amendment because it's for sure that someone, somewhere, is going to be killed by a bullet fired from a totally legal gun fired by a totally legal shooter. I bet you lack the cajones to follow that idea using the same logic you spew to try to deny students the right to vote even though there is absolutely no evidence that "busloads" of kids were brought in as Charlie has been howling for a decade.
The right wants the government out of their business and into everyone else's.
When your hand is caught in the cookie jar, howl that someone else is snitching cookies too.
The Republicans are caught so far off base on this one that they are resorting to any means, including denial of knowledge of their own ad, to confuse the electorate and perhaps pull their polling numbers up.
Republicans used to be a party with honow - sadly they have devolved into the party of Haldemann, Atwater, Segretti and Rove where winning is more important than the public good, where party trumps governance.
Unless we are to eliminate all risk of things that might happen?
There's a very good chance that at least one person will die in Maine of a gunshot wound. Why do I think that you'd be opposed to repealing the 2nd Amendment? And don't hand me the NRA crap that it's the person holding the gun, the same could be said of an auto accident or voter fraud.
The case is, the opportunity for fraud has existed for 40 years with two cases occurring. Are you willing to disenfranchise thousands against te possibility it might happen again. Oh the horror.
Of course, if you're a knee jerk conservative who doesn't think, the answer is yes because Charlie told you so.
Your solution displays total ignorance of the Constitution. Were Barack Obama to resign, which he shouldn't, he doesn't choose his successor. It's Joe Biden by the Constitution. Even if he could choose his successor the way you want, it couldn't be Clinton. Clinton served two terms despite the efforts of Republicans to get him out of "their" White House. There is a two term limit put in because of Roosevelt and Republican hatred of him. They wanted to repeal that for Reagan. Wouldn't that have been great. A sitting President with Alzheimer's.
The real problem is that McConnell, Boehner and Cantor have made it their mission to block any effort by President Obama to fix the mess created by the previous administration. Obama's fix is to pump cash into the economy to get it going. It's like a transfusion. Short term deficits to produce long term surplus. But Republicans are hauling out scalpels and leeches to bleed the patient in the manner of a medieval doctor. They know better, but killing the economy is part of their game plan. The Democrats are in 'their" White House again and even worse, the man Americans elected is black with a non-European name (horrors).
President Obama made a serious error in trying to accommodate Republicans. He should have done at the beginning what he is doing now, calling out the House leadership, McConnell and the whack jobs from the Tea Party; he needed to wake Americans up to the naked power grab by as venal a group of right wing politicians as ever slithered into DC.
Symm vs the United States established the right of citizens to vote in whatever venue they reside for most of the year. That means that a student at UMF or Colby or USM can vote in Farmington, Waterville or Gorham legally.
Stop reading Charlie Webster's propaganda and pay attention to the truth.
When your mother caught you with your hand in the cookie jar, did you shriek, "But Sissy does it too."
Probably.
Did Mom then respond, "Oh then it's okay."
That is what Republicans want voters to see by bringing up a thousand totally unrealted examples of Democratic malfeasance or imagined Democratic malfeasance.
The fact is the 2 Charlies have been lying and now they're trying to cover their lies with more lies and really weak justification of what "might happen."
Livermore Falls voters were lighting torches and digging out pitchforks, ready to march across the bridge to the Livermore Town Office, but a sharp eyed copy editor for the e-edition spotted the error and the populace returned to their morning Fruit Loops.
Dear headline writer, Livermore and Livermore Falls parted company a looooooong time ago. I'm sure that Kurt would be happy to have his counterpart in LVFLS write a check, but, I guess it won't happen.
They may not be truthful all the time, but I'd trust a Democrat to do what's right for the voter before I'd trust a Republican. The latter - even in Maine - are far too tied to an ideology of "it's all about money" and way too beholden to people like the Kochs for the money to run campaign ads and get re-elected..
Two stories out of Dixfield about young people. In the first, a promising young life cut short in an accident. It was a tragedy, all the more because Dani Ranger was everything we want our kids to be. The second of mindless destruction and theft. The young man involved may have lost much of the opportunity ahead of him. A felony conviction will close many doors he could have walked through to a better life. At this point he is everything we'd rather our kids not be.
Gambling creates no more wealth than commodities trading or the stock market. What the three have in common is the transfer of wealth from one person or entity to another. Wealth is created by creating or producing good thereby enhancing the value of a resource.
As for jobs? HA!
Profits will flow toward developers and casino owners (out of state) and the highly skilled jobs will go - at least for the first few years - to trained (read NV or NJ) people. Mainers will get to make up beds and wait table. Meanwhile local taxpayers of towns surrounding casinos will have to deal with an influx of people from out of the area who will not being paying taxes for the roads or emergency services they use.
The only winners are sitting in Vegas laughing while they wait to rake in the pot.
The solution is obvious - if Maine wants to be Nevada East - open up the whole state to gambling.
I am neither Mormon nor, using Mr. Theriault's orthodox definition, Christian. It is the certitude expressed in the letter and by some commentary that keeps me from considering either. And I'd bet that Jesus of Nazareth would have a difficult time recognizing his philosophy in the practices of today's "Christian" or Mormon" churches.
Once again the Republicans put the defeat of President Obama as more important than creating work which will pump money into the economy Gary, thereby creating more jobs - this time in your beloved private sector.
Perhaps people on the right think it would be better to simply give the wealthy another tax cut - maybe reduce their rate to zero - because when they decide to stop buying gold or politicians, maybe, just maybe they'll build a new mansion in the Hamptons or pick up another penthouse condo in Manhattan and provide "the little people" with a temporary carpenter job or a longer term job as a made or footman.
I've voted for Snowe in the past because, as a senior senator she should have some clout. Since President Obama was declared the target by McConnell and the Koch boys, she has become a toady except when her vote won't be decisive and she can pretend to be moderate.
I've written to Senator Snowe in support of various bills and received boilerplate responses - send the liberal letter #43. No more, I'll bullet vote Democratic and hope the Republicans follow the Whigs into the trash can of failed politics.
I'm going to assume that, should CMP be denied the right to install smart meters, CMP customers in Wilton will not be subject to the additional fee imposed by the company on those who have opted out elsewhere.
The whole "smart meter" thing is all about cost cutting for CMP. They can lay off meter readers and the wages not paid added to the bottom line of the company. I don't for a minute think those savings will be passed on to its customers. If that horrible thought is brought up, it will be countered with the "rising cost of " and the top floor, corner office will award itself another obscene raise, light a Havana and toast its own brilliance.
The first commentary on debit card charges - that's one for the marketplace to describe. Still to give banks a pass on this at a time when the industry is showing massive profits and paying CEO's obscene salaries is weaselish.
The second commentary on the dullard is putting lipstick on a pig. Parsing words to make them seem innocent is weaselish.
The last was either willfully ignoring the history of the 30's and the past couple of years or a failing grade in high school history and a failure to read his own paper. In 1935-36 the Republicans did their finest imitation of a trout recently landed, flopping about as if near death because the country was going socialist and Roosevelt backed of the New Deal. The result was a double dip depression. The stimulus of a couple of years ago was a bit like trying to put out a fire by peeing on it. The stream was too little and didn't last long enough. Any economist not employed by The Heritage Foundation was hollering about the inadequacy of that stimulus. Now the Obama administration is going along with the Republicans on tax and budget cuts and a second dip is coming around the bend.
Private business will not hire workers until there is a demand for product - you got that right - but then ignored the thought, where's the money coming from. It isn't trickling down as Ronnie and George both said it would, so it behooves Sam to borrow and spend for the short term Bridges, roads, schools and hospitals get repaired and built, people go back to work (most for private contractors) creating the ability to buy and demand for goods.
I taught high school history and economics. My students could have written a better editorial.
The Maine Heritage Fiction Writers' Guild has come up with yet another entry for the annual Pulitzer Fiction Award.
What they fault is the data entry skills of the town clerks - what they ignore is that any clerk with more than a single brain cell would pick up on phony birth dates "over 211 years ago" or even a birth date 111 years ago.
The fact is that MHC is simply following the orders sent down from the Koch family and others that the next check will be larger IF they discredit 30+ years of successful effort. The fact is that the voters they wish would disappear are rumored to lean (gasp) to the left. The fact is that there is a nationwide effort by Republican pols recently elected with a tidal wave of Koch money, an effort to suppress voting. The fact is that even Charlie Summers could find only one case of fraud in over 30 years; there may have been others who were registered in two or more locations, but no attempt was made to vote in those places. Who, besides an anal conservative, has deregistered when moving. The fact is that SCOTUS as made it the law of the land that college students may vote where they go to school. The fact is that, for years Farmington Republicans (the other Charlie) have been apoplectic about the Symms Rule. The fact is that you can count on any organization that uses "heritage" or "family" in its name is there to espouse opinions that are somewhere to the right of those voiced by Attila.
The fact is, the attempt to do away with same day registration is yet another conservative end run to circumvent the law of the land.
I doubt that most students will lose sleep over Charlie's letter. They will see it for what it is - a foolish attempt to scare them into not voting.
This is just more fuel for the fire that could sweep Republicans from office in 2012. I for one intend to bullet vote Democratic (that's a political science term for the uninformed and has nothing to do with the 2nd Amendment solution advocated by conservative Republicans). Voting for the individual candidate is too chancy because even our famously moderate Senators fall into line behind McConnell when he needs their vote.
though opposed to Mr. Summers' bullying tactics ignore the very simple fact that prohibiting a student from voting where he/she attends school has been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States.
On reading the article, I wondered if the two Charlies might open a used car lot near all campuses that draw out of state students thereby providing a place for them to purchase a vehicle to register. They could call it Cheap Charlies - oh wait - Charlie's of Augusta might be annoyed by that. My second thought is that this is just another Republican ploy to intimidate probable Democratic voters. In Florida, they use 6'6" troopers with mirrored sunglasses, arms folded across their chests in front of polling places frequented by those with experiences of "doing anything while black."
This whole stupidity finds impetus in the horror expressed by local poobahs in a college town. Some of the comments coming from those who run Farminton are hilarious and - like the two Charlies - they ignore the law because they feel threatened by it.
While the letter writer has seen a few too many episodes of the Lone Ranger, Dan's response is pretty sick.
I've learned that when I take someone else's inventory, I'm seeing in them my own worst faults. How about, Dan, would you kill someone for two weeks paid vacation?
at least two of the standards to which you hold comments.
Mr. Slavick and Mr. Frary really need to get together - perhaps on Matinicus Rock - to see who best uses inflammatory rather than rational language. I have compared our Farmington Republican to Glenn Beck with a dictionary. Perhaps Mr. Slavick could take the role of any sophomore anxious to show off partial mastery of modern Middle Eastern history.
Without some sort of specific substantiation, these are assertions made of the same stuff as the two Charlies' assertions. Even after those were proven false, they continue, hoping that we have all just fallen off the turnip truck.
Saying something doesn't make it true. Anecdotal evidence is just that, anecdotal. My wife signed the petition after church in the church parking lot. The professional signature gatherer was a professional, but not a professional gatherer of signatures. That's anecdotal and proves nothing except that one gatherer was not a paid professional petition circulator.
"Someone who knows these things told me" should be viewed with skepticism. I have a sister-in-law who gathers those gems at her prayer meeting. Her resident expert is a a global warming denier, knows that without hatred and vigilance, Muslims will establish the Third Caliphate right here in the good old US of A, and soothingly or righteously denies there is a nationwide effort by Republicans to suppress the votes of the young, low income elderly, the poor and minorities.
So Mr. Rooks, a professional journalist is not proven wrong by your assertions any more than 200 students were bussed into Maine specifically to vote as the first edition of Webster's Fables alleged.
This is all part of a nationwide effort to suppress the vote of those most likely to vote for a Democratic or moderate candidate. The two Charlies know this. They are not stupid, but like all party hacks, they do what they are told.
The Supreme Court - an activist conservative one at that - made the decision that college students could not be denied the right to vote in the college town. It has diddly to do with residency and everything to do with the same court that made GWB President. Webster and Summers both know that.
They also know that the accuser gets the headlines and the refuter usually ends up with two column inches on the classified page. So, they try to keep it going.
FWIW, I was registered in 3 places once. My former home in Alaska, my temporary home with my in-laws in Mass., and here in Wilton. I suppose that by using absentee ballots I might have voted in all 3. I've learned that those who point fingers at others are usually pointing out their own character traits. Maybe the Charlies would have and then snarkily laughed about using the system to beat the system.
but it's not because too much is going to foreign aid. Foreign aid makes up less than 1% of the entire federal budget. The United States gives a total of 25 cents per citizen from public funds to other countries.Ten cents more per citizen is donated privately. We can do better, but that's changing the subject.
Another interesting factoid the "absolutely no taxes on the super rich" crowd wishes would go away is how the US ranks with the rest of the world in tax burden. Our poor overtaxed country is #48 in tax burden. But the way the pigs squal, you'd think it was #1.
...if college students voted Republican, would Charlie lie in bed at nights dreaming up new stories of the horrors that student, elderly and minority voters visit on Maine?
...if college students voted Republican, would Charlie lie in bed at nights dreaming up new stories of the horrors that student, elderly and minority voters visit on Maine.
My comments were not about the bid, the bidders or the bidding process. I understand that Mr. Ruff and others are not happy. I have no opinion, don't take issue with that.
My comments dealt with the phraseology used by Mr. Ruff and the headline writer. I ran a deck crew of forty seamen and a half dozen bosuns. Very little offends me. The "n" word is one of those things that do and the idiom in its normal use, includes the "n" word. I'm betting Mr. Ruff and others in Roxbury know this, just don't see the word as offensive.
It is ironic that use of that phrase in another place called Roxbury could cause the user a lot of major headaches if he survived.
But that's neither here nor there.
I'll climb out of the rabbit hole and leave the confusion to others.
Charlie,
You are wrong now, you were wrong before, and, no doubt you will be wrong tomorrow unless there is a miracle, you see the light and become a Democrat or at least an honest Abe type Republican.
Don't you have something useful to do, like calling the Koch boys for a contribution or cleaning a furnace.
Ruff and whichever assistant intern trainee wrote the headline for Ruff's letter owe the readers an apology. I'm guessing Ruff knew exactly what the idiom is in it's original form. I'm not so sure the headline writer is old enough to know.
Insert the infamous "n" word in place of "something" and the idiom returns to it's original despicable form. It was commonly used to question the parentage of a child of probable mixed race.
Please be a bit more circumspect.
Now, for the usual rightwingnuts who will leap to Ruff's defense, you're wrong and you know it and I'll refrain from using a more modern idiom to emphasize what you can do with your keyboard.
Many of the folks forced by age or disability to ask a neighbor or friend for a ride to the polls may be loathe to ask twice just so Charlie WEbster and his sycophants can pretend to be protecting democracy.
A vacation, what's that?
A home is where they live and doesn't have granite countertops in the kitchen three baths, three bedrooms and a two car garage.
Many who take advantage of same day registration don't have, can't afford, a car.
The real problem here is, there is no problem. Just more mean spiritedness by the right.
As a former teacher, I know that some teachers are not performing well and are partially to blame for student achievement. BUT - a significant part of the blame also lies elsewhere and this letter is a perfect example of the problem with education today. Kids walk into the classroom bringing the attitudes they here at the supper table, in the newspaper, on the street and on television - people who can do, people who can't teach or teachers are overpaid and underworked. Communities, politicians, parents and letters to the editor writers all love to blame teachers. When a student comes into the classroom with an attitude, they are not motivated to learn and will not learn.
Sad - but true - Mr. Sabine. You are as much to blame as any teacher.
As for No Child and its standardized test. That encourages dishonesty. There is an incentive for schools to teach to the test. I worked in the same district as a 4th Grade teacher who taught to achievement tests every year. Her kids scored very high and every year those kids came into the 5th grade totally unprepared to do 5th grade work because they couldn't think. But I'm getting to much into what actually constitutes learning. It doesn't lend itself well to political speeches from a President who prided himself on earning a gentleman's C as a legacy student.
and then if someone from the wrong side of the tracks or the wrong skin color shows up, an impossible to pass reading comprehension test. No, I'm not implying Charlie is racist, he may be, but that is immaterial to this story. He is doing his best to suppress the vote west of center.
As for renewed claims of voter fraud. - it would be out of character for any conservative to ever admit error. In their own eyes, they are the messengers from God.
This letter is a perfect example of what is so wrong in our country. There's way too much irrational hatred.
The other thing I've noticed is how brave people are when sitting behind the shield of their computer. Most of the mud that is slung wouldn't be in normal conversation, but here on the internet, intelligent people make unfounded borderline libelous allegations without fear of anything more than more borderline libelous allegations in return.
I recall a recent television interview - American reporter, Danish woman - in which the American expressed shock and dismay at the taxes Danes pay. Her response was, "Yes, but we get an unparalleled quality of life for it."
Danes have been called by an American sociological study, the happiest people in the world. Mundane worries are eliminated by a government, the existence of which, would give massive coronaries to tea partiers nd the John Wayne clones who court their votes.
To forestall the inevitable "get out" comments, I was born an American citizen, served willingly in the military, pay my taxes without whining and love my country. Besides, I don't speak Danish.
I lived for ten years in small towns of Southeast Alaska. In some of them, it is not unheard of for a brown bear to wander into the village. Even there, it was considered a bit odd to wander around pretending to be Matt Dillon or Wyatt Earp. I think I saw one grocery store shopper wearing his six shooter in a store. Weapons were not allowed in places where liquor was served. Of course, this was pre-Palin, so things may have changed since.
Your last paragraph really needs a citation. I'd take FBI stats way more seriously than NRA stats. As a college student, you must be aware that statistics can be warped to prove whatever the statistician wants to prove.
If your desire is to be a super hero and crime fighter, may I suggest a quick read of the Gabby Giffords shooting. The civilian who had a weapon - other than the whacko - tackled the bad guy. Had he pulled his weapon and started shooting, chances are more people would have died. Even trained people are not able to do a Gary Cooper like single shot kill from the hip at 50 yards.
Motivation Shane, it's all about motivation. If you want to swagger, become the governor of Texas, stick a piece of hay in your mouth and run for Prezzydent. Neither of those faux cowpokes who will have preceded your try had the cajones to wear a low slung Ruger Single Six 41 magnum while doing their impersonation of Clint Eastwood in High Plains Drifter.
Open carry is a sign of way too much testosterone and the desire to impress women or intimidate men, neither of which is a particularly admirable trait.
The cops followed procedure. Had they not, and something happened, you'd ave been the first to go negative. What's sad about this is the hit J's reputation took. J and I do not agree on anything politically, but I admire him for who he is and felt badly when I was told he was arrested.
Assigning political motivation to everything is childish.
This egocentric, I'm right, you're wrong attitude is precisely why our country is so sick. It's not people who have different opinions, it's people who refuse to allow others to hold a different opinion without demonizing them with words that don't even approach truth.
I'm having real trouble responding to this without doing exactly what i find wrong with Mr. van Tassel's attitude. I guess the best I can do is to say that I really hope he becomes emotionally mature before too much more time passes.
All those with a (D) beside their names will be "accidentally" purged from the rolls the day before election day, but that won't matter because there will be room for just one Congressional candidate and, under the rules, he must be a middle aged white male Republican.
The Republican plan is aimed at gerrymandering that pesky commie, librul (sic), pinko Chellie Pingree out of a seat.
Unfortunately, whichever choice the Republican legislature and Republican governor make, Maine will be stuck with it until 2021. The Koch brothers money was well spent in 2010.
...of the little boy with a magnifying glass who runs around watching ants and frogs and assorted other creatures assuring one and all that he's trying to expand his horizons and learn about the creatures. Of course, if one of those creatures is fried by the focussed rays of the sun, it's not his fault - he's just being curious which everyone knows is a good thing.
I suspect the answer to the first is rooted in the testosterone based culture of the Republicans, they could kiss the South goodbye. That and the military industrial alliance Eisenhower warned of. Second, ithere is the fear Democrats have of being painted as lily livered, commie, pinko, long haired hippie, draft dodgin libruls (sic). Even though there's no draft. LOL
The answer to the second was answered by Willie, the Actor, Sutton - because that's where the money is. Banks paid very good good money to be deregulated. I suspect they continue to allow envelopes stuffed with cash to drop out of lobbiest's pockets onto Congressional office floors.
Predictably, the right has its knickers in a knot over anything that reveals their ineptitude at governing.
Actually Bob, I'm a former history teacher with a special interest in post World War II history. Mr. Rooks is right on the money and, as unpleasant as it may seem to you, you're off target about 180 degrees.
BTW - I've never read Zinn. I don't read any of Murdoch's rags either. I dislike history rewritten by ideologues.
In fairness - he claims to have consulted an unnamed lawyer (Coulter?) who says the Supremes really meant students had to vote where Mommy and Daddy live. But my unnamed lawyer says Charlie's unnamed lawyer is wrong.
The point is, legal opinions are like interpretations of the Bible - if you don't like what your clergyman says, it's not too hard to find another one who will tell you what you want to hear.
More to the point - the Republicans are Hell bent to suppress voting nationwide. Charlie and his sycophants at Maine colleges (the boyish looking ones with the regimental tie and white sidewall haircut who live in NH and run for office in Maine) are just doing their part to keep those Commie , liberal pinkos from voting.
See paragraph 7 of Mr. Rimi's letter Charlie if you don't like my lawyers opinion of the SCOTUS ruling.
In de Tocqueville's era a liberal might well believe as he did. It was a time with a sparse population and vast unpopulated tracts where the poorest might carve out a living. People commonly die without ever getting old enough to retire, doctors and hospitals didn't charge obscene prices to treat patients - so there was no need for a social safety net. Conservatives believed that humans could own other humans - no need to go on from there.
Liberal and conservative mean entirely different things today. Actually both have changed markedly in my lifetime. Barry Goldwater would be horrified by the unpatriotic actions of today's Tea Party. John Kennedy would roll over in his grave at the excesses of liberals who would control the use of words.
So de Tocqueville may have been prescient if you hate the idea of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and WIC, if you think that money spent to prevent the Koch boys from raping and pillaging our land is wasted - in other words, if you are a Tea Partier. Somehow I think M. de Tocqueville was smarter than that.
Nothing but vague assertions in an attempt to grab the headlines long enough to move public opinion.
It doesn't take a genius to know that in today's instant news atmosphere, even the most outrageous statements do damage because people consider followups to be "old news." Webster and Summers are simply following the same playbook as Chris Christie, Rick Scott and Scott Walker are following and they're doing what the Koch Brothers and others tell them to do.
Were there massive voter fraud, were high officials in Governor Baldacci's Secy of State's office, were Barack Obama having white babies for breakfast - there might be cause for alarm. But it's just more politics before people BS from the right.
The only "fact" you have stated is that al-Jazeera televised live video of a rocket attack inside Israel, something I find very hard to believe since Israel would certainly take exception to Arab camarament beaming live shots of an attack.
American news outlets feed an audience largely Christian or Jewish. Does this mean they use the Bible as a stylebook? You accuse al-Jazeera of following selected quotes from the Quran...
Saying they are a mouthpiece of the Muslim Brotherhood is like saying Fox is the mouthpiece of the Republicans. There is no proof.
I realize you are writing with a 250 word constraint - but make one charge and back it up with documentation more than a quote from some right wing blogger or politician. Original sources please. BTW - Quran can selectively quoted just as the BIble is to prove up is down and in is out, so perhaps something more than a single Arabic word...
You can't sling mud without getting your hands dirty, Jared. That is what those who took exception to right wing attacks on a respected journalist were pointing out.
Half truths are not true. And Charlie knows that and uses them all the time. Several elections ago, he started a whisper campaign in rural Franklin County questioning the sexual orientation of a Democrat in favor of equal rights for gays. He knew those to whom he whispered would pass it through the rumor mill without questioning it.
Charlie, when I moved from Wrangell, Alaska to Wellesley, Mass. and then on to Wilton, Maine, the chances are my name was on the list of registered voters in a three places. I voted only in Wilton but, using your paradigm (look it up), I committed voter fraud because I COULD have voted absentee in the other two venues.
The fact of the matter is that Franklin County Republicans have long been apoplectic about the presence of a large number of students in Farmington who tend to vote for liberal candidates (horrors). They have used the whisper campaign, innuendo, half truths and downright lies to try to stop the students from exercising their Constitutional right to vote. But, Charlie and his sycophants haven't challenged because they know they are wrong.
So, with the help of a compliant legislature far more concerned with whoopie pies and blueberry pie, they passed a law to make it more difficult to vote. When I first registered to vote, I had to prove I could read AND understand what I was reading. I also had to pay a poll tax. Had I been of the "wrong" kind, the town clerk could have denied me the right to vote based on my interpretation of the passage of the Constitution I had to read. That tactic was a well known method of keeping blacks from voting. But, I'm white, so I was permitted to register and vote.
There is a national campaign coordinated by the Republican Party to suppress the vote. Fewer voters tend to favor conservative causes. Charlie is part of that campaign.
The past ten years have seen attitudes surface in our country that I naively thought had died in the 1960's.
Rogers and Hammerstein's South Pacific has a line in a song about being taught to hate and fear. It's in a song about the love shared by two young people of different races. As true today as it was when written. Humans are not born with hatred those those they perceive as different because of a name or skin color or culture - they are taught by parents and by those who find profit and power by spreading hatred.
al Qaeda has a western equivalent. It rears its ugly head whenever it smells a chance to stir the pot.
As I said earlier, this story is not cause for getting snarky - either way. It's a personal problem that has become a public matter not just because of police involvement but also because of who J is. I'm sure this is not a good time for J.
Instead of pretending we're the masses at the Coliseum two thousand years ago deciding with a roar whether the lion gets to eat, why not let the DA and the court - if it comes to that - decide.
Not just with this case, but in just about everything nowadays, everyone has an opinion spoken with such certitude that there is no room for any other. No wonder Washington is in gridlock.
Main Street Garage is NOT vacant. Andy is on vacation. Wannabe burglars and vandals please ignore the suggestion that it is an abandoned building and no one cares.
J and I agree on very little politically, probably nothing at all except that democracy is a great but messy form of government.
But- I take no pleasure in reading this. This is a terrible personal tragedy for both J and his wife. It goes well beyond a loss of influence in Augusta and strikes at the heart of their identity.
Sufficed to say, not all Muslims are terrorists just as not all Christians are bigots.
I would suggest that if you follow Mr. Bristol's advice and go to Rockland to protest, you might as well haul grampa's white sheet and dunce hat out of the dresser in the attic.
This looks like yet another right wing urban legend. It may be sufficiently rewritten to be "new" to Snopes. Would the writer, or perhaps Mike, care to provide documentation to put suspicions to rest.
I can't imagine any US policy like that surviving the inevitable AIPAC assault. The only lobby that has more power in Washington is the NRA.
The story does sound like something that might be making the rounds of the right wing blogosphere.
Webster's response to your editorial will be the same vague assertions about busloads of Democrats pouring into the town offices to register. That might sound good at a convenience store gossip session, but it falls apart when you begin to ask for specifics. You get lot's of, "Everyone knows... ," but nothing else.
The truth is this is part of a nationwide drive by Republicans to suppress the vote. Other barriers are the requirement for a specific type of photo ID - usually a driver's license which may have been surrendered by some seniors for health reasons years ago. I can't wait for the poll tax and perhaps a literacy test requiring interpretation of a section of the Constitution.
Webster comes from Farmington and Farmington Republicans have long complained bitterly about the students from UMF who vote in that and surrounding towns.
Maine has more than a couple of bargain hunters which explains the popularity of lawn sales and retail salvage stores. The problem is that when you have a skill set and resume to back it up like Chief Reynolds has, you don't have to go to bed every night wondering if some loudmouth at the next town or Selectmen's meeting is going to try to do away with your job, or make it impossible to perform. Reynolds is doing what most competent professionals will do - moving on rather than getting jerked around by the peanut gallery.
Penny wise and pound foolish is a nice way of same stupid and cheap. We get what we paid for, if what we want is someone who works cheap - don't expect burglaries to get solved as happened this past week or domestic abuse to be treated professionally rather than just blown off with a "boys will be boys" attitude.
I can't speak for Mt. Blue, though I can guess the problem up there. A spur of a state aid snowmobile trail runs through the woods behind my house. Until this summer, it was used daily by trail bikers and ATVers. What was once a pleasant Sunday morning on my deck is now more like being on the infield at Oxford. Worse, the trail was chewed up to the point that a pleasant hike required knee high waders and there was little or no sign of wildlife beyond a red squirrel or crow. They didn't like the noise any better than I.
Of course, all that is in the past. A skidder finished the job and former users now know what Verdun must have looked like the day after the battle.
I suspect Mt. Blue State Park trails have been chewed up by the noisemaking crew to the point that simple hiking is no longer enjoyable. I have yet to figure out why anyone would want to tear down a woodland trail spewing fumes and creating such a racket that even a stone deaf insect would flee.
You see nothing and you destroy the environment. The tourists who want to bring Massachusetts Rte 128 to the woods of Maine probably should just stay home. Mainers who think it's a blast to destroy life the way it should be, should stop, take a deep breath and remember - It's not just about you. It's time to grow up.
Webster has been talking for years about busloads of out of staters being brought into Maine to "steal elections." He has yet to offer one shred of proof.
Charlie - if you have proof, I challenge you to offer it, not your vague assertions that sound good over a couple of beers in a tavern, but real proof. Cases of massive voter fraud like you allege must be documented somewhere.
But, if this is something you just made up, you might want to have your nose bobbed and then just be quiet.
...a large corporation NOT turn to its lawyers for a public relations document. The most common reaction of companies caught acting badly is to hunker down behind a horribly worded document pointing to the 2 point type at the bottom of page 351 of the company manual or some obswure government regulation.
Maine went from 21st in the nation to 3rd in the nation when same dau registration became the law. The bill was sponsored by the republican from Farmington. At that time, Republicans thought it was a good idea for everyone who is eligible to vote.
The truth of the matter is that Shields wants to keep away from the polls those who are less likely to vote for Republican candidates.
The photo ID law is more of the same.
Perhaps a return to the rules of 1811 would please conservatives. Adult, white, male property owners only allowed to vote. Presumably they would not have to bring a painting of themselves to prove they are who they say they are.
Webster comes across as a knight in shining armor saving the State of Maine from those evil out of state commie pinko liberals and their busses. The reality is quite different.
Blame for the shutdown can be placed on both parties. Charlie Webster and Jock McKernan are as guilty as the oft flogged John Martin of obstinacy and refusal to actually negotiate a compromise until the damage had been done.
Paul LePage brought the same stubborn bullying back to Augusta. Fortunately, there are a few adults on both the right and the left who are forcing the demagogues to tone it down.
Far more serious for us as Americans - the same attitude is controlling the US House. Negotiation is seen as surrender. "Doing it my way" is touted as common sense by Boehner, and Cantor. They are driven to the mics daily by a compulsion to play to extremists who are totally clueless about economics or governance, but, like two year olds, are loudly demanding having their way
Legislators in Washington and the executive in Augusta are playing to the Peanut Gallery just as they did in Augusta in '91. I hope the voters will remember in 2012.
I don't like the state's budget as passed, but I suspect that my friends to the right don't either. It's called compromise. Something both sides can live with.
I'm assuming all the street corner accountants in town believe that by eliminating the PD, the savings will be around 400K which means the down payment on a snowmobile for each homeowner is at hand. There might even be enough for a suitcase of beer to go with it.
I would suggest they look at the actual savings to Bethel - it is closer to 30K because the county gets the rest to provide coverage when a deputy is available. And the deputy could be checking a break-in in Eustis when your new snow machine is being stolen - see you in an hour or two. With the street lights out you might not even know it's gone until morning.
And , no, I'm not interested in being on a committee. I already participate in 3 meetings a week and my spare time is spent in doctor's waiting rooms.
I don't know that I'd be that harsh, but I did find it curious that the way the editorial read, Harry Reid (D) Nevada was trying to protect a mountain in Utah.
I taught geography and lived in the west (Alaska). Though I was a journalism minor, I'm betting the folks at the SJ have forgotten way more about writing than I learned in college. Mistakes are human, we strive for perfection but never really reach it. I just didn't want anyone thinking Yucca Mountain had moved clear across Nevada and into a neighboring state.
I wonder how it would would work if the Sacramento Bee moved Katahdin to New Hampshire or the Seattle PI decided Mt. Washington is in Maine?
Utah might not want Yucca Mountain given the feds plans for it, but I'm betting Nevadans really resent a Maine newspaper editor moving their mountain to a neighboring state despite the plans for it.
How something everyone assumed was settled could be slipped in through the back door by a very anonymous amender to a routine article not even considered until town meeting was down to nothing but routine articles.
The amount saved by a homeowner with a 100K home should give them enough extra to buy a suitcase of beer for Blueberry Festival or perhaps even a few packs of generic cigarettes.
I awfully glad the police budget was approved, we're going to need them. Of course, there is a small group that wants to eliminate the the PD. That might be accomplished, perhaps by beginning with the routine items and saving the craziest for last... .
Why wasn't an escrow account established and added to each year against the day that equipment would wear out or require upgrading?
I realize current town officials and selectmen weren't in office 33 years ago, however even five years ago, someone should have seen the headlight of the oncoming train.
Just goes to show that "just cutting taxes" - the sole requirement for election to any office, from President to Selectman, these days - isn't always the most prudent course.
Mr. Mistler is the only journalist to point out the reason unions are allowed to collect fees from non-members.
Under the Republican bill, non-members happily receive all the benefits of union members without sharing in the cost of negotiations of bringing grievances. Non-union workers loftily claim they are philosophically opposed to unions, but accept the same union negotiated paycheck as their co-workers who pay their share. This isn't about philosophy - it's about being cheap.
Thank you Stan, for pointing out the reason. I suspect your well coiffed colleagues who spend their days in makeup really don't know and the associate assistant producer internee who writes their scripts is equally clueless.
You're wrong again - but that doesn't surprise anyone capable of thinking beyond bumper sticker wisdom.
Maine's economic anchor - what holds us back from becoming a land of wall to wall factories with 3% unemployment is geography. We are at the end of the transportation infrastructure so raw materials not natural to Maine (trees, water, rocks) must be shipped in and product shipped out. Both add to costs so those job creators you keep giving tax breaks to are smart enough to set up shop elsewhere which is either in the middle of the marketplace or where labor can be abused without government interference.
So - we can seize southern NH positioning ourselves closer to the Boston marketplace or we can return to 1911 when labor could be abused without all that pesky costly interference from Augusta.
Let's see, you could replace Lehrer News Hour with Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Cenk Ugyur and Chris Matthews. Sesame Street = Looney Tunes if you want well drawn cartoons or Transformers if all you want is loud noise. Cage Fighting or The Bachelor instead of Frontline. Mad Money is so much better than Maine Watch. Survivor beats Nova.
I suppose it the CW from the Beer and Bait Store prevails...
Yes Mr. Arsenault - LePage is correct and even right - somewhere to the right of Attila actually - we do need to make painful cuts. I'd suggest we begin with the Office of Governor.
Roman's letter was what I was commenting on, however yours is also well written. :-)
I messed up because my spouse was yelling at me to hurry so she could do something on the iMac. Odd, because we have an iPad too, though not an iPad 2. It's never my fault.
I'm a bit surprised that the 200K is an annual expenditure with the iPad going with the student. I could see the district moving the iPad's into a higher grade with the students and then having to buy a new set for the incoming class. But, just handing them over seems a bit much. If that's the case, I wonder if I can enroll in K. lol
Jason - as a former grades 5-6 teacher, I would have been thrilled to have someone as thoughtful and well written as you.
The benefits of students becoming computer proficient as young as possible are immense. I'd bet the kindergartners who use them will not be allowed to use them as toys, but by using them will learn that learning doesn't have to be tedious. One of the mistakes adults make is assuming that learning is most efficient in a tightly structured, highly disciplined setting, preferably with a scowling teacher threatening miscreants. God forbid children should discover that learning can be fun or creativity is a good thing.
Oh yes, one final note - Apple wants to get people used to their equipment. I'd bet they are giving Auburn schools a better than wholesale price on the IPads.
Though I'll not mention the mural, I will say that, like most Republicans, you're confused.
In the first place - whining is not what those who differ from you are doing. That's a loaded word, not unlike "stupid."
The desire to recall LePage has little to do with removal of a painting or his winning the Blaine House with 38%.
It has everything to do with his ignorance and arrogance and the embarrassment that has caused most Mainers. LePage doesn't understand that when governing in a democracy it's probably not a great idea to run around calling the people idiots, or telling a significant group to kiss his butt, or that President Obama should a. Get the hell out of his state," and b. "Go to hell."
Fortunately for Paul LePage, generations of politicians - Republican and Democrat - have been far more interested in protecting themselves than making elected officials responsible to the people. Recall in Maine is not an option, it's not in our law or Constitution. You couldn't even recall your most hated Democrat.
So scream away Judy - here's one more letter that isn't pro LePage. I'll be outside most of the day, so if you make it loud enough, maybe we'll hear it in Wilton.
I read Mr. Lessard's column with interest. I knew I'd disagree with Mr. Lessard on most points and I did, but I was willing to "listen." The headline intrigued me. In fairness, it was probably not written by Mr. Lessard, but it included the overused political cliche "common sense." My wife accuses me of having no common sense, but I'm getting a bit tired of politicians and speechwriterrs telling me I don't have common sense simply because my opinion differs from theirs. But, I wanted to find out how addled I'd become in my old age.
After reading the column, I still disagree with Mr. Lessard on just about all his points. Then, I came to the end of the article and discovered how Mr. Lessard makes his money. He's a signmaker.
I'm not saying Mr. Lessard would like to return Maine to an era when a road trip was on a strip of blacktop between walls of signs exhorting me to buy, buy, buy - but I really wonder if his motivation, money, is all that altruistic.
Maine's beauty should not be hidden for the sake of more minimum wage, no benefit room maid or burger flipping jobs.
"Common sense" suggests most tourists would pass up coming to Maine just to read signs, no matter how well made they are.
While overt racism, like the use of "Nigger" on maps may be gone, racism lives on just beneath the surface. It's not the use of place names anymore, it's attitude.
Homosapien redneckus is alive and well in Maine. His grandfather's white sheet is carefully folded up and put away in the back of the drawer, but the same racist jokes that made his grandfather laugh make him laugh and the same reflex reaction his grandfather had on seeing an African American still makes him think the word he now denies.
Ask, as I do, those who believe President Obama is somehow not qualified to be President whether he'd make the same statements were the man in the White House Bob O'Brien and a Caucasian and the denial is quick - I'm not a racist. Follow up your question with another, "I don't know, are you?"
To never again vote for any Republican at any level.
And, I'll bet these people attend church twice a week, sing hymns and drop their tithe into the offering plate thinking that makes them followers of the philosophy of Jesus.
Stay home and study the Beatitudes rather than just sitting in a pew smiling and nodding mindlessly at the sermon as you check your watch next tomorrow.
The RNC really needs to send out a new talking point memo on excuses. "Out of context," "media messed up," and "I didn't say that," are becoming shopworn. Every other time a Republican politician opens his mouth and inserts his foot, one of the three is guaranteed to be the next day's story.
At least Governor LePage just tells people to stick it in their ear or to do something else with it if he gets criticized.
Ernie Gruening was the US Senator from Alaska. He was a Democrat back in the day when Alaska was considered a Democratic state and Hawaii a Republican state.
Don't feel bad - lots of postal clerks used to send our mail to Arkansas when they saw AK. Some even required customs forms for packages. LOL
The mural should never have been removed in the first place. I don't care if there was a statewide vote to get rid of it, censorship is censorship and revisionism is revisionism.
But it isn't about the mural, Mr. LePage. It's about the way you push people around verbally. Those who disagree with you are idiots. Screwing up Maine children's health takes second place to some chemical company's bottom line. The President should get out of "your" state. It's "our" state governor, not yours.
To put it bluntly, you remind me of the kids who push classmates around, then when they get caught, laugh and say they were "just playing." It doesn't work anymore.
And, nothing you or anyone else says will change LePage because he'd have to stop being arrogant - a radical personality change. To him , and a very loud minority, he is Paul LePage and that makes him right.
Were I a businessman in Boston, Chicago, LA or New York, I'd see the editorials in the NYT, hear the jokes from the late night guys and look for a state being run by mature adults.
Employers will just let their over twenty burger flippers and house keeping staff go so they can hire kids at $2 less an hour, then lay them off at 179 days and do it all over again with a new slave.
I used to think the Republicans wanted a return to 1911. I was wrong, it's more like pre Civil War to a time when men were white and everyone else knew their place.
This isn't about the merits of the artwork, whether or not it is too big for the room or even censorship. This is about an attitude. Paul LePage's attitude. He is under the mistaken impression that he rules Maine when he really doesn't. He is supposed to govern and given the underwhelming percentage of his "mandate" it would seem a prudent person would govern with a light touch.
His my way or the highway style is typical of businessmen who try to change over to government. Bosses expect subordinates to do their will without question. They also understand that their customers will continue to patronize them if they're the only game in town.
Paul LePage isn't stupid. I once called him a moron. He's not. He is an arrogant bully who probably doesn't belong anywhere but in a back office at Marden's.
I think the double posting is the result of the site not reacting when people try to publish comments. They click twice because they assume the first one didn't go through.
I could "agree" with Mr. LePage's defenders, but that would only make me wrong too.
LePage ordered it removed on the weekend and without notice so it would be done before people and the media knew about it.
The man is a coward which is the mark of the average schoolyard bully. Most of them take a swipe at the most defenseless, then run when unexpectedly confronted.
Hatred - no it's called pity. Both for us who must suffer the damage he is doing and for him because he becomes less than each time he opens his mouth.
LePage ordered it removed on the weekend and without notice so it would be done bedore people and the media knew about it.
The man is a coward which is the mark of the average schoolyard bully. Most of them take a swipe at the most defenseless, then run when unexpectedly confronted.
Hatred - no it's called pity. Both for us who must suffer the damage he is doing and for him because he becomes less than each time he opens his mouth.
LePage just flipped the bird at the people of Maine, again.
By doing it on the weekend with no one looking provided more proof - cowardice - that he is little more than a schoolyard bully.
Absolutely pathetic.
It's time to resign, LePage.
But, since that won't happen, it's time for an amendment to the Maine constitution to allow the people to retire him involuntarily. It's called recall and most democracies have a way to do it.
I know where you're coming from Scott, but I fear it's already too late.
From the Blaine House bully to Atlantic City country style , we are already becoming New Jersey. Add a few lanes to the highways to zip the gamblers north, some high speed chases when they get drunk, cut back on protection services and education to pay for low taxes in the upper brackets so the rich can play in the sun while we make beds and sell lift tickets for 5 months, 29 days at the ski resorts...
This is a question of LePage understanding that he does not rule Maine - he is the governor.
Ain't it awd - to borrow from the late Bob Elliott - that self proclaimed get the government off our backs love to tell everyone else what to do once they ascend the throne. From libertarian conservative to authoritarian in one jump.
BTW Mark - I am an unreconstructed left of liberal. Most liberals are far too concerned with style than substance. I believe that government was formed to protect the weak and direct shared responsibilities to prevent their exploitation by those who would be king.
Find a ghost writer to put your name on a book about your two months in office, resign, do a book tour or two, complain about the main stream media, try not to look at the remainders table in Mr. Paperback (it's a bookstore, Guv), and get yourself a gig fielding softballs from Hannity and O'Reilly.
Oh yeah. Check out the confessional. I know I'm taking your inventory, but Pride is the first.
This is just one more reason that most business managers are ill suited to govern. They rule, forgetting where the real power lies.
In Lepage's place it is because demonstrates most managers' unwillingness to listen to anyone but themselves. They may talk the talk, but they make the decisions (then point fingers and fire subordinates when it hits the fan). The Catholic religion calls it Pride - the first of the 7 Deadly Sins. I think of it in harsher terms - arrogance.
Paul LePage is unsuited to sit in the Governor's chair because that chair belongs to us - not him. He has yet to understand that and, in my opinion never will. All his training and life experience are based on his will prevailing. Might I suggest that four years down the road, we return him to Marden's as defective. Would that we had recall and could do it before the destruction is near complete.
You travel two hours north and, with the right insurance card, receive high quality health care at extremely low cost.
The difference? Access to health care and health care itself are controlled by greed. They are a way to take money from those who need medical care and transfer it to people who have no conscience.
Universal single payer health care is less expensive and insures (pun intended) adequate health care for all without bankrupting anyone. Those who would have you believe that a market system works are either liars or fools. Removing the greed factor and controlling costs for services works in every first world country but the United States. We choose the John Wayne, go it alone, "personal responsibility" path, and are pitied for it.
Hundreds of undocumented seals infiltrate island studdedNew England. Could they be Muslim seals? I'm not saying they are, but I'm not saying they aren't. They may be the first wave ordered by the Kenyan who's occupying the Oval Office. The stage was set years ago with the Marine Mammal Act making it illegal to shoot and kill seals - even those who would seize power and make us part of the 3rd Sealiphate.
Nah - think I'll watch House Hunters or American Pickers instead.
It all began with the death of our 225 year democratic experiment when 5 appointed judges decided their votes trumped the votes of the people. The Scalia court will forever live in infamy for their foul deed which was even accepting the case - not their all to predictable decision.
We will never know for sure who won that election. I know what the newspapers reported, I also know early reports that indicated all sorts of chicanery in Florida. The former are cited as proof that Bush won, the latter, which disappeared into a 1984 like black hole leave doubt.
From that horrible, terribly political decision, grew partisanship. I can't help but wonder if the election of a skinny black man with a "funny sounding" name, wasn't enough to rouse barely concealed animus among those threatened by change.
If I recall correctly, 61% of Mainers who voted, did not vote for Lepage and his extreme agenda. The writer of the article is correct - this is Maine's budget, not Paul LePage's.
When President Obama brought his family to MDI for a vacation, then candidate LePage said e'd tell him to get the ---- out of my state. Not Maine, not our state. It was his state. It's too bad a few more people didn't notice the arrogance. we'd be dealing with a more circumspect Governor Cutler now.
Not really made clear in the article is that most of the 203 million in tax breaks go to the wealthiest. Those tax breaks for LePage's buddies are to be paid for by state employees and teachers. Is there a Republican playbook that calls for them to be the reverse Robin Hood?
Folger - The right is back in the driver's seat, they think. Dissent from their certitude is not acceptable, so be prepared for an avalanche of multisyllabic words meant to overwhelm you and impress your readers. They won't make any real sense. It's just Glenn Beck with a dictionary pretending to be something he isn't. You might even hear from Charlie too.
The law was enacted because the focus of high schoolers should be on education, not providing cheap labor for the business community. When I was in school 55 years ago, we had to have a certificate from the principal saying our grades were good and work wouldn't interfere plus we were restricted to 20 hours just to make sure.
I was correct when I told one LePage acolyte right after his "landslide victory" that he would try to take Maine back to 1911, I just didn't realize how much of a hurry he was in to do that and wonder if 1890 might not be a goal.
This proposal dovetails perfectly with restaurant owners wanting to keep and - if they feel up to it - distribute the tips their sub minimum wage wait staff earns through giving good service. The lower than minimum wage is justified by - tadaaaa - tips.
The rationale for that venal bill was that a waitress wouldn't know how to handle the money she earned.
Paul LePage is selling the health of the citizens of Maine so that someone can make money and his party can take their cut in the form of political donations.
I used to think it would take another Cairo to eliminate our government's amoral behavior - perhaps Tripoli would be more apt.
And, of course, the obvious answer to your question, "Why throw inexperience into a big-time ball game?" is loyalty to Paul LePage trumps everything else, even experience and skill.
All the statistician has to do is ignore an inconvenient factor to skew everything to a preconceived outcome. Thus was born the myth that Maine's tax burden was #1 in the nation. Angus King, the last governor Maine had, finally punctured that balloon and Maine fell to #16 - not terrible considering the geographical size of the state and our relatively small population.
Another of the great myths is the terrible burden taxes place on Americans. Forbes (hard to get more conservative than Forbes) places the US at #48 in the world in total tax burden - yet conservatives continue to groan under the imagined load by simply repeating what is a blatant lie - they didn't even mess with the statistical study, They just put out a talking point memo every week and the sheep repeat it.
We need real government by people who actually know how to separate what they hear at the convenience store from actual fact - inconvenient though the facts might be. Paul LePage is NOT that governor, He goes with the one liner, the bumper sticker, his gut - the last man who did that led us into Iraq and cost hundreds of thousands their lives. (Yes, Iraqis are humans too and I counted them - oh, the shock)
I'm betting there's a connection between the small article on LePage about his denial of any scientific evidence which doesn't fit his preconceptions and the firing of Dr. Mills.
As a physician, she would have strong opinions about endangering people for profit. Much of the BPA controversy was over baby bottles.
I wonder if Mardens has a batch of currently unsalable BPA loaded bottles in the corner of a warehouse, hmmmmm.
Too bad Maine law does not permit recall. I'd stand outside the local grocery store in tomorrows storm to collect signatures to return LePage to Mardens as defective merchandise.
Republicans use means available to suppress the vote assuming that this will help them win.
In college towns they claim students vote twice - once at their parents address and again at their college address. The claim is made without proof, but "sounds" good and is easily made at the local coffee shop, so becomes the conventional wisdom. By the third telling, the tale becomes unassailable fact.
In Florida, state police with mirrored sunglasses and hands folded visually challenged every voter. To a minority person who has been harassed by police for a lifetime, the threat, combined with one voting station for thousands of people, threw the election to Dubya (along with the help of the Scalia Court).
The requirement for a state id at $5 a pop is the return of the poll tax. Next, they'll probably require that voters read and interpret to the clerk's satisfaction a section of the Constitution. That's the way it was when I first registered to vote.
Republicans have a love affair with the intentions of the founders - perhaps they'd like voting restricted to white males over 21 who own real property?
Should government be eliminated? Perhaps that is what the Tea Party wants. They are a very noisy and very small minority, but with the absurd costumes and even more absurd spouting of the conventional according to "the guy at the end of the bar," they make for great video for the evening news. The result, even people who know better assume the Tea Party speaks for lots of voters.
But maybe they should experience life without government - no schools, no road maintenance, no fire or police protection, no airports, a food supply that is "safe" if you believe guys like Jack DeCoster, rivers than run green with slime or have a head of foam. But, by God we'll be free and have a few extra bucks to pay for...hey - the stores are empty!
Federal funds subsidize roads and so, are a subsidy to the bus companies as well as EVERY family with a car. If you want to take the family to Orlando this spring, you'll probably be using the MOST heavily subsidized form of travel in the world - air.
Railroads are efficient movers of people and freight. The old private railroads failed precisely because the government built roads and people decided they couldn't live without at least one set of wheels - most families have two or three. Wait 15 minutes for a train - fuggedaboudit.
We pay lip service to weaning ourselves off fossil fuels whether they originate in Texas or Saudi Arabia. But, when ideas threaten to become action, the rightwing takes its cue from oil state senators like Coburn and Cornyn, give President Obama a stupid nickname, slap their bellies in mirth, and hop in the old gas guzzler to go down to the corner store for something cold.
LePage and his rubber stamps pack up and head for Juneau. They could put in half a term, get ghost writers and go on a book tour to rake in some real bucks. Oh yeah, the crew from Maine Heritage too. They could set up shop in Wasilla.
You're prescience is nothing short of incredible. In the last few paragraphs you make assumptions that must be based upon what must b3 divine knowledge of the future - or - are you just repeating the conservative mythology according to Matt Drudge?
The idea that the United States is simply not capable of undertaking anything more than the construction of a two holer outhouse is patently absurd, playing to the cheap seats, and far below your usual standard for well thought out opinion.
Balanced budget? How about a surplus? Slowly, since the era of Ronnie, Congress has gradually returned the United States to revenues akin to those of the 1950's except that the tax rates have been rigged to give a much lower one of taxation to the super rich and make up the difference by loading it on the middle class and borrowing the balance. This is simply Republicans doing what their masters order and Democrats being spineless wimps. For a surplus, return tax rates to those of the fifties (under Ike), and withdraw from the Bush adventures in the Middle East. Halliburton et al have made enough for two lifetimes.
We cannot afford to do without world class mass transit. Our dependence on the personal automobile is what causes our dependence on foreign oil. I realize this goes against the red, white and bluest John Wayne meme - but it happens to be true.
Please let your current editorial board take the next week off (woith pay) and hire those who won't just spout conservative conventional wisdom.
socialism makes sure all are provided for and can be more democratic than the US pretends to be - cases in point - Denmark and Israel.
Marxism says from each according to his ability - to each according to his needs. Theoretically fine until you get the crew at the top taking a handling fee. Not accusing Mr. Langley, but a red flag flies.
My first thought was this is typically exploitive conservative behavior - that moderated gradually until Langley suddenly said almost off handedly that it would allow him to fire fewer staff and then I went from something I won't say here to typically exploitive conservative. So much for Republican led job creation. More like Republican supported profit taking.
Republican legislators will pay no attention to constituents except to be told that they, the legislator know what is right. I know - I've had one scolding from a legislator and been totally ignored by another of mine. We need to remove their perceived mandate - now. This is only the tip of the iceberg - perhaps the one that sank the Titanic. It's still around, except now it sleeps in Blaine House.
I am an old school liberal, an ex-smoker and have COPD/emphysema. I agree with Ms. Larson that the Affordable Care Act needs to be implemented - actually expanded to become universal single payer health care. But those things aren't going to happen in the current political climate so let's look at what Sen. Saviello and Ms. Larson propose.
It bothers me that people who can afford a pack a day habit cannot contribute to a health insurance policy for themselves. They may not be able to buy one outright, but under the Affordable Care Act or Dirigo, they can contribute - yet they are using that disposable income to destroy their health and the health of those around them requiring more costly health care.
Yes, Ms Larson, you are right. Those people will not go away, nor should they. They are our neighbors and I believe the community has a responsibility to help the weakest. So, they will end up as unpaid bills on a hospital ledger which means everyone will pay and they will get sicker.
There is a compromise that will work. It will annoy liberals, especially those who are smokers and it libertarians who believe the only function of government is to go away. The bill should give smokers on MaineCare three or six months to quit providing both education and financial support for classes, over the counter patches or prescription drugs. Anything that is medically effective should be covered for three or six months. Smoking is a terrible addiction that has been said to be as strong as the addiction to heroin. The smoker may curse the state, but he or she will ultimately thank those who may have saved his or her life.
Should the MaineCare patient refuse to quit, they'd be on their own or have to buy Dirigo and pay a premium. i don't know if these ideas would stand a court - probably not since lawyers have the ability to thwart common sense in the pursuit of fees, but they could start a conversation between hardliners on both sides.
Obviously it's all about 2012. Rather than "fix" anything the main thrust of Congressional Republicans will be to keep unemployment as high as possible and try for a second dip in the housing market - hence the target placed on FNMA and GNMA which are involved in 90% of new mortgages. Dry up that source, cut the federal work force, repeal economic stimulus and use Darryl (I am not a car thief) Issa to tie up the administration same as Newtie did to Clinton.
I'm assuming the governor is going to tell the Tea Parties (I can't believe they need more than one), the Heritage Foundation, the Maine CofC, and various other conservative, libertarian and pro-business groups to kiss his butt if they don't applaud everything he says and complain because their invitations to a gathering are rejected.
LePage is living proof that being a businessman is not any guarantee of the ability to govern. I just wish Maine enjoyed the right of recall. This guy needs to be returned to Marden's as defective merchandise.
LePage's administration has showed all the signs of being one of the most partisan in the history of Maine. His people before politics pledge was of the stuff that makes hay grow.
I wouldn't get upset, except that joining this lawsuit has a cost at a time when LrePage and the Heritage crew will be dumping a greater share of the cost of providing services onto towns and the property taxpayer.
Sadly, Maine does not have a mechanism for recall. The next time we get a government that is more responsive to the electorate than its cash patrons in the old boys' club, maybe we should push for a way to jerk back on the reins of the governor.
The election is over, you won though by the slimmest of margins. You don't ave to start thinking about the next election for three years, so why don't you drop the right wing absurdities and begin to speak truth.
Maine is no more a magnet for the poor (code word for minority) than there was actually a welfare queen for Reagan to blather on about. He made that story up and it played well with those who'd rather not think. The welfare magnet story is the same.
Drop it and start dealing with reality. Maine is on the end of the supply line for goods - that and the constant carping about high taxes and over regulation explains our economy as much as anything. NH's tax burden isn't that much less than ours - they more than make up for low state taxes with ridiculously high local taxes. But they don't gnash their teeth and shriek about it scaring off potential investors.
You have four years to prove my foreboding is unfounded - please don't blow it just repeating Heritage Foundation garbage.
Mr. Shields is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
The Democratic proposal with regard to the Bush tax cuts would have extended them for those earning less than 250K. Republicans played fast and loose partisan politics threatening the welfare of the world - "we will not consider anything including a nuclear arms reduction and verification treaty until we get our way."
So there would have been no tax increases on the middle class. Even Mr. Shields would have seen no tax increase on the first 250K of his income.
RNC talking points do not necessarily equal fact. I really hope the people and the media pay very close attention to the right wing disinformation campaign.
what caused the large outage that began at 3AM and ended at 7:30AM on Tuesday. Where's Assange when you need him? Oh, that's right. He's in the slammer in the UK.
I assume the next ruling from this judge will be to declare McCain the winner in 2008. Today would have right for that given that the Scalia Mob pulled off the US's first coup d'etat ten years ago today.
By Yellowdog, unverified — Sat, 12/11/2010 - 10:46
False statemen;
"In 1970, after splitting up with two friends in San Miguel D'Allende, I discovered that they had accidentally taken my visa with them and I was, therefore, an illegal alien in Mexico. Under the protection of the American embassy, I got a new visa."
You were not an illegal, simply a person who had lost papers, most likely your passport which may have had visa stamps in it but not one from Mexico which doesn't require them of US citizens. You might have been asked for a driver's license and, lacking that, been given a ride to the embassy or a consulate - but you would not have been imprisoned for two years.
The rest of your story is just more of the same. Why do you suppose Mexican illegals come here. Because they and their families have no money. Of course, most right wingers cannot conceive of life with cash ranging from a fat 401k to a family trust fund or at least a damn good salary, so getting money to pay for jail from people who are penniless makes sense only to the thoughtless.
Were the US to imprison all illegals for 2 years we would have to put a stop payment on those tax cuts for the super rich or borrow money from te Chinese again just to build jails.
I have an idea that will appeal to those who like to simplify the most complex issues - a single bullet paid for by the recipient. The thought is not original. I got it from an ultra conservative who sniggered at the thought of testosterone laced justice.
By Yellowdog, unverified — Tue, 12/07/2010 - 21:34
It'll be pretty hard to sell the idea that working people should vote Republican after this. Basically McConnell and Boehner held the unemployed hostage to gain an even bigger piece of te pie for those responsible for the unemployment problem.
Still - Charlie is probably correct. Mainers will vote as though hearing the old Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion chant used to demonize Democrats for a century. I spoke to one the day after the election. She admitted she had no clue who the candidates were, or what they stood for. She voted the way her family always had.
Your editorial is like a half written story, you've ignored the ending.
The Republican Party is simply following the orders of its patrons to block anything that Obama approves of. It doesn't matter that the idea originated with the REpublicans nor the it was once thought to be a good idea by right wing think tanks - if Obama wants it, it must be blocked.
Rush said that Obama must fail, but he is only one of the more obnoxious flacks used by the billionaires club to return the world to its rightful order - those who have the gold make the rules.
The Tea Partiers, once called Dittoheads, are out in force howling constitutional law. All you have to do is pretend to know what you're talking about and that makes you corrdct.
The Republicans have been demonizing the Decider in Chief these past few months, so blaming Bush might be another possibility. I did forget Pelosi, Reid, both Pingrees and a partridge in a pear tree in my first reaction to Mr. Nutting's non-mea culpa.
it will be Obama's fault. Or Hillary's. Or Bill's. Or the "liberal" media. Just more of the usual Republican victimhood distraction. Sha Na Na's Charlie Brown is going to be the theme song for 2012's Republican National Convention
Nutting's med error isn't all that unusual and should licenses be pulled for one infraction, we'd have only a couple of pharmacists to work the whole state. That is why ANY change in the color or shape of your refill should be questioned. The pharmacy should tell you if they've changed generic brands, but if they don't, you can go to RX.com and use it to check the number imprinted on a tablet. Seriously - NEVER assume a pharmacist, doctor or nurse is infallible. They are humans and humans make errors.
For all his education, Mr. Dwight perpetuates the childish myth that the party of the left is called the "Democrat" Party. This ranks right up there with people who eat Eye-talian sandwiches or think we fought a war in Eye-rak.
While Republicans nationwide insist on rebranding their opposition, the proper name is Democratic Party.
Playing games with names is a product of the Segretti/Atwater/Rove brand of smash mouth politics. Wrong on WMD, wrong on the difference between adjectives and nouns.
By Yellowdog, unverified — Tue, 11/09/2010 - 08:56
Let's start with Harry. Few have been so vilified while in office and few have risen further in the years that followed his death. While President, people laughed at the piano playing everyman with a daughter who got on the Ed Sullivan show because she was the President's daughter. People were furious with HST for firing Dugout Doug and not letting him end the Korean War with a mushroom cloud over Beijing (then Peking)
The Ike years are still pretty much a snore. Happy Days (the sitcom) sums up the whole thing. I still recall those days with a smile, but not because of the President. I loved fried clams and no one knew they were creating a market for statin drugs by eating them.
GWB you got right.
As for Bill Clinton - his current rep ranges from brilliant pol to dirty old man. Atwater Associates CEO Karl Rove did his job well, but the current demons are a black President and a woman Speaker. I think the political spin guys will eventually leave Clinton in the brilliant pol category in the minds of all but a few die hard right wingers
By Yellowdog, unverified — Mon, 08/09/2010 - 10:57
another glass Joel?
Last time I looked, President Obama was elected by a majority of the popular vote and the electoral votes. If he's not doing the will of the people, it's because of Chinless Mitch, Palm Beach John and the Party of No.
I have rewritten this about five times and am left wondering if I can express my thoughts without insulting Leo. Leo - you're just wrong about everything political and stuck in the 19th century as far as race is concerned.
One thing I do know, you don't want to visit the Roxbury in Mass and say what you said. A plea that you have a right to say what you want would not save you.
Everyone's an expert. Just ask them, they have an answer for everything.
This is grant money - not local taxes, and it can't be spent on economic development.
Allowing drunk drivers to go home with a wink and a pat on the back is not an enhancer of the quality of life, just ask someone who's lost a child or a spouse to some selfish moron who "can handle his booze."
Business has been coming to Wilton - downtown may not be terribly busy, but a lot of that is because people think they have to park within ten feet of the store they're visiting. These same couch potatoes will walk a mile across blacktop at a mall.
Instead of kvetching, come to town meeting and take part. If you're not from Wilton - bugger off.
I would suggest that the corridor up Rte 9 from Copley Square to Worcester might be a real fuel saver for Otis based fighters. There might even be a few testosterone overloaded cheerleaders who'd stand along the route to wave flags.
And I have no idea whether or not ghosts exist. I look with extreme suspicion upon those who speak with unshakeable certitude about things they cannot know. In my experience, they are both ignorant and dangerous.
I'm so glad everything is going so well in Farmington that people have nothing to do but try to exercise control over their neighbors' activities. Oh wait, that's what the "new right" does, isn't it.
I would suggest the corridor from Boston to Springfield along the Mass Pike is a lot closer to Otis than Maine is. Think of the jet fuel saved. They could give another tax break to rich guys who could then trickle on the rest of us.
Fixing the problem costs money. You can't "throw" money wildly at every problem and cut taxes at the same time. Of course, public employees could always be given another unpaid furlough day. But then the money saved by the furlough would have to be returned to the taxpayer so he or she can use the money wisely.
Recent Comments
Eliminate government
How about everything privatized with each person paying for the services he or she requires. No pooling of funds allowed that could lead to a social contract and government. If you need police, call Blackwater. For fire, pewrhaps we could go back to the days of three or four private firefighting companies responding, then brawling to see who gets to fight the fire. Education - slate and chalk by firelight. National defense goes to Blackwater again - you probably want to buy their stock, they might become the megacorp of the future. Of course, they may also take your money and run because there'd be no one to tell them they couldn't. LOL
Faith doesn't mean religion
Faith implies a spiritual connection.
Religion is far too concerned with controlling behavior through fear of an angry deity. A significant number of friend who have left churches because they were told that if they didn't do this or that they would be punished by God or if they did this or that, regardless of their asocial behavior, they'd be rewarded with a ticket to heaven. It's all based on control - has been for centuries.
On the other hand, most of, if not all, these same people speak of a deep and abiding faith in a power greater than themselves that has lifted them to a life of contentment if not joy. And tithing means helping without expectation of reward, not giving a tenth of your earnings to someone who tells them they are living in sin.
So - the headline is misleading. The article revealing - perhaps churches with all their self serving rules and regulations are a thing of the past.
@paul Don't get me wrong -
@paul
Don't get me wrong - I'd love to see Lewiston connected to Amtrak. In fact, if common sense prevails, it will happen some day.
Unfortunately the specs for tracks to carry passengers is different than the specs for freight. The tracks will require a major upgrade which will permit higher speeds and safer passage.
Don't worry Paul - mass transit will return and trains are more efficient than busses. It may be more like the old inter-urban light rail of the early 20th century than full blown trains, but Lewiston, and maybe even Jay, will reconnect to the rest of the world.
Growing up, I could walk to the end of my street and using public transit only go to Katmandu if I wanted. I didn't need a car or even a bicycle.
Pain is a good thing
as long as it's someone else's pain.
God forbid the creators of jobs in Southeast Asia (China's getting expensive, folks) should have to help with the cost of government. Let the full cost fall on the backs of those who've had a free ride all these years, the poor and the middle class.
For those who wonder - I'm tired of pointing out the obvious, so I've resorted to agreeing with the (expletive deleted by me).
Correct again
But, it runs counter to the philosophy that pain - other peoples' pain - is good. The result is that you could duct tape LePage and his sycophants in the legislature to their chairs, force them to listen to a reading of Mr. Rooks' column, and they would squeeze their eyes shut and drown out the wisdom with,"nanananana..."
As for Boehner, McConnell, Cantor Freres, might I suggest a mandatory viewing of "Tale of Two Cities" for that is what will come to them - figuratively if not literally. I'm going to learn to knit.
The real solution is to vote this coming fall. I'll make it easy to decide for whom you vote, does that person really give a rat's patoot about you and people like you or is he or she more concerned with the deep pockets types who fund the campaigns.
Coincidentally
The easiest and surest way to decertify a union is to eliminate the jobs its members hold.
As a Wilton taxpayer, may I ask what letting go custodial/bus driver staff will save Wilton taxpayers per thousand of assessed value. I suspect I may be limited in the vacation I might be able to afford - perhaps having the money for gas to drive to Small's Falls or maybe even the coast.
Will unemployment and the inevitable increase in demand for services laid off staff can no longer afford offset my savings or has LePage been taking care of that already?
Heavy sigh
I guess an H&K submachine gun, even one modified to semi-automatic only, complete with a silencer is the ultimate phallic symbol.
Personally, I'd prefer an M-60 to hand hold the way Stallone did if I wanted to impress a woman or intimidate a man. My first instinct was a quad mount 40 like we had on my old ship in the 60's - they should be fairly cheap surplus - but the ammunition for an afternoon of turning the neighborhood into a war zone might be a little expensive.
Still - exercising my 2nd Amendment right to pretend to be John Wayne...
Mr. Rooks is exactly correct
And Republican legislators are caught between a rock and a hard place. The rock being a very noisy minority that calls itself the Tea Party and their hero LeRoi LePage. The hard place being a lot of voters who are not happy with the legislature's imitation of an omega dog - on its back with all four paws in the air.
LeRoi has a couple of more years. Thanks to Deb Plowden, recall wasn't even given talking room at the committee level, so future bullies can continue to bully. But legislators face the voters this fall. Presumably LeRoi will be returned to Marden's as defective merchandise in 2014.
I think it would be a good idea to turn off DWTS and whatever other pablum is current in the fall TV season and begin to pay attention to who's running and how badly the Koch's want them in office. If Koch brothers money is being poured into ads for legislator X, you can bet he or she is far to the right of Genghis Kahn. You need to vote for the other guy or woman.
Where to begin?
"As little as $400..."
That's 2/3rds of the total retirement income of many. Of course, the conservative response is that that is the fault of the worker who didn't save enough of his minimum wage to allow him to live high on the hog.
Then again - if Republicans are given free rein, these poor retirees will die off rather quickly with no health care, housing or food so, with a little small print, that $400/mo given to the bankers will become the property of God's chosen.
This letter is just another example of how clueless the "haves" are about how the "have nots" live.
KO - not so much
You forgot Colbert.
Otherwise, you're correct.
Is this humor?
Praising a report from MHPC presented by Lance Dutton as objective is really funny.
Lance Dutton is a demagogue somewhere to the right of Louis XIV. When he rants about the liberal media, he is repeating a myth born in the days of Lee Atwater. A myth that the media is hopelessly liberal.
It was foolishness then, but repeating that myth now, in the day of NewsCorp, Rush Limbaugh and countless other conservative and ultra conservative pundits is absurd. If the Post, the NYT, and the Boston Globe didn't carry columnists like George Will, if the Press Herald didn't have MD Harmon on staff, if a conservative publisher didn't recently destroy the Sentinel/KJ/PH media bloc requiring a bailout from Mr. Sussman, then Dutton's blatherings might be believed by the gullible conservatives.
But to repeat , without thought, the comments of Lance Dutton, pretending they are serious thought makes me wonder - is this letter meant to be humor or is Ms Rea serious?
There is a Solution
Thank you Ryan. As you pointed out so well, there is a way of life that helps alcoholics and addicts find a life filled with contentment.
plumbers
not lumbers. I never took typing in high school so I can't blame the typing teacher for my typos. :-)
If everyone goes to college
who will be the serfs?
Let's face it, the wealthier do need mowers of grass, makers of beds and wait persons to bring their Manhattans. If everyone is educated, no one will want to do those jobs. I've even heard it said by my more conservative friends that public education past 8th grade is a waste of taxpayer money.
Consider that the happiest, most content nation in the world according to a US study is DEnmark where post secondary education for qualified candidates is paid for. I'm sure this doesn't mean every gets to go to med school - carpenters and lumbers and people who write code for computers need education too.
There are no guarantees of jobs, but I didn't hunk it was about that - or bashing teachers yet again. Oh well - lacking anything but talking points, the right does need bogeymen.
When they outlaw
political contributions from ANY out of state sources - including the Koch Gang, no end runs, no conditions of employment being a contribution to the boss's choice...
For some reason, the RNC has declared war on the "little people," their view not mine. It would appear that they would prefer a return to the pre-Magna Carta government with an absolute monarch supported by an aristocracy with the rest of us - the serfs - keeping them in the style they think they deserve.
Presidential travel
On the one hand, Republicans and Libertarians weep, wail and gnash their teeth over the horror of the President leaving his desk even to use the WC - his place is at work as though he can't possibly do anything if he's not within arm's reach of the center drawer of his desk. I'm reminded of the old show shop mentality.
Then they screech and storm and generally make asses of themselves the moment he leaves DC on Air Force One - the mobile Oval Office from which he an do his job quite thoroughly. "There he goes - off partyong again," they howl following it with a snarky comment about how he can't possibly screw up their day if he isn't glueing on soles.
We were subject to daily photos of Dubya driving a 'baccy stained pickup on the way to clear the never ending supply of brush on his ranch. Ronnie RayGun spent a fair amount of time posing atop his trusty steed and GHWB spent a good part of every summer waving from a cigarette boat. All were in constant contact with the job of President through the wonders of modern technology.
IMO, it's time for the easily excited to take a break and actually think before they start ranting.
Conservatives without DD-214's
Most conservatives love to beat the war drums but are loath to actually serve.
If you think I'm wrong - check this website: http://www.awolbush.com/whoserved.html
And now for the Tea Party Brigade to race through the on line opinion pages to click dislike on everything. LOL
You're right Paul - my
You're right Paul - my comment was a reaction, not civil. No excuse and I apologize.
Motorists from states that
Motorists from states that don't require insurance?
Drivers who are illegal? They must post a bond iirc and remain illegal if they don't.
Your uninsured motorist pays to fix your car or cover your expenses should the other motorist be either of the above. Sometimes a lawsuit is not going to get blood out of a rock.
Think, I know that's anathema to conservatives, but it keeps you from looking foolish.
an addendum
The state mandates that you carry liability insurance on your cars. Why? Because if you hurt another you should be financially responsible at least so far as your insurance premium is concerned. Otherwise, others have to pick up the tab. You go to the hospital without health insurance - you are admitted and treated. If you can't pay, the rest of us do. That's why Harvell's son and others like him, healthy kids, have to buy insurance. Even the REpublicans realized health insurance reform wouldn't work until all ad to pay (check the history of the legislation on that one if you don't believe me). They only turned against it when President Obama put it into the Affordable Care Act . As McConnell said, we will do all that we can to inswure Obama is defeated, including denying the country any legislation.
Welcome to the world I lived
Welcome to the world I lived in from the time I left Alaska in 1976 until I turned 65. And I rarely saw the doctor because I wasn't sick, so I guess I was paying for my neighbors' health care - but that's what insurance is - pooling resources to pay costs that exceed the ability of individuals to pay. Your house burns down and the bank does insist you be insured, everyone has chipped in enough through premiums to help you rebuild or pay off the mortgage. Personal responsibility just won't cut it. I realize that heresy under Republican Party rules - but it's true.
BTW - Democrat Party is not the correct name, despite what Lutz would like. It's even marginal grammatically.
Insurance is insurance, not savings
You buy insurance so you can pay for something you cab't save enough money to pay for. Try a few hours in the ER and pay for it yourself if you think I'm off base.
The problem with Harvell and most Republicans is the ongoing love affair with big business and the belief in personal responsibility for every one but themselves. I'm not positive, but I'm betting that part of Harvell's pay package from either the state or Verso is health insurance. It's the old, "I've got mine, now you go away."
Besides - if the insurance company doesn't pay for pap smears now, thewy'll have to pay for cancer later. Of course, again, like most Republicans, Harvell has a 90 day net mindset. Thinking out 20 years is too challenging.
Excellent column
but that is not unexpected from Mr. Rooks.
In their zeal to follow the intent of the founders, Republicans continue to chip away at the electorate perhaps hoping that someday, once again as it was in the earliest days of our republic, voting will be limited to white male property owners. The people do not want a return to 1912, let alone 1812.
I would urge all who care about democracy (small d) vote for the Democrat or progressive independent of your choice and send the 21st century Whigs back into the trash bin.
on defining moderate, conservative or liberal
Almost everyone says they're moderate, middle of the road, centrist or non-partisan because that has been defined by the pundits as "good" and no one wants to be thought of as "bad" or a crazy by admitting they're conservative or liberal or even further to the edge and be thought what my old political science prof called reactionary (right) or radical (left).
Then you have people who nuance it it a bit to make themselves that ideal human, the fiscal conservative and cultural liberal. Fence seating is most uncomfortable when you favor helping the poor but you don't want to pay for it. We have a legislature full of those people. They'll tell you what ever you want to hear.
So how these words are defined depends on the definer and what Mr. Webster (NOT Charlie) says has no basis in reality unless you are willing to allow some unknown lexicographer to decide what you think.
I'm a bit to the left of liberal in the 60's sense of the term. I believe we are our brothers' keeper and feel that certain industries that have a government monopoly due to patent laws should be the subject of strong oversight (think pharmaceuticals). Others would be better nationalized - single payer health care would be less expensive - even accountants agree on that. I don't see war as the first option in foreign policy, but I enlisted in the military in 1960 and served proudly until 1964.
I really think Susan Collins falls into my definition of conservative. Plus she jumps when Brother McConnell says your vote is needed to block Obama. Olympia is to the left of Collins but still a centrist conservative who has been tacking right because the Tea Party feels free to threaten pols they disagree with. I know of at least one who gets threatening phone calls and e-mails that should result in charges of simple assault or terrorizing.
Would the country be better served if all of us clustered in a big middle ground herd. Probably not - tension and discord breed innovation. But, they become counter-productive when the extremes throws public tantrums. Add the SuperPacs and people like the Kochs or Soros to the mix and the only beneficiaries are the media advertising departments and people like Ed Shultz and Rush Limbaugh.
The latter should be ashamed of himself for his attack on Ms Fluke.
Newspeak
And Limburger is an insightful reporter, President Obama is Kenyan because a semi-literate redneck sheriff says he is, the sun will rise in the west and ever'wun who doesn't send Pastor Billy Bob Joe Beauregard at least two weeks pay every month is doomed to Hell.
Harvey my boy, I'm a liberal. Olympia Snowe is a moderate and Susan Collins is a conservative. You and your eye-spinning friends are what is called reactionaries.
The 1000 lb gorilla
Angus King. King would make a great senator and running as an independent, he would be free of the pressures of having to be in the same room as McConnell or Reid.
An aside - every time someone posts anything that isn't Tea Party approved, there are two or three instant "disagrees" followed within an hour by three or four more. This is the reason Cohen, Mitchell and now Snowe packed it in. It may sound wonderful to some to have a bomb thrower representing Maine, but he or she will get absolutely nothing done.
Wouldn't work, Gordon
Any drop at the pumps would be temporary. The oil companies know the public will gnash their teeth as they fill the tanks on their SUV's and pickups. It would take a week, maybe less, for the price to creep back to where it is. In the meanwhile, those who might benefit, the middle class and poor would see government services cut to comply with constitutional mandates to balance the budget.
A better idea. Make speculation unprofitable by requiring that commodities traders actually take physical possession of what they buy. Today it's just paper held until there is an artificial shortage. Most of that paper is held by wealth funds owned by oil royalty. A newsman dared preak past the phony "supply and demand" claptrap usually fed to the public and found that about 50 cents per gallon is added to the price by those who speculate. As Bob Elliot used to say, "Ain't that odd."
For a reality check, read Matt Taibi's Griftopia, all about how the investment bankers and their big clients manipulate the economy and then howl for free markets which in Goldman Sachspeak translates to no government regulation, not competition. They crush competition just as WalMart crushes the Mom & Pops.
Enough ranting - if you're the Gordon Kingdon who once lived on High St., East Wilton, hi there.
Republican talking points
I'm sure that Mr. Worthley really believes what he says. He is, after all, repeating the conventional Republican talking points. I'm not a grade school dropout Mr. Worthley, so rather than just accept your "wisdom," let's take a quick look at one of the gigantic lies that spew from MHPC,LePage, and Rupert Murdoch's Temple of Misinformation, Faux Gnus and the WSJ.
We are asked to believe that Mainers pay 50 cents of every dollar for welfare. Usually, that figure is reserved for government, but since the current demon is welfare recipients (read blacks and hispanics), that figure is doubtless something he heard on talk radio.
Statemaster.com (a non-partisan statistical site) ranks Maine in per capita TOTAL tax burden (federal,state,local) as 16th in the United States with a per capita burden of 2202.86. Even given that that is per capita and most families are made up of 4 people, total burden per family is just shy of $9000 for all taxes - even sales tax, dog license, etc. Not 50 cents on the dollar, Mr. Worthley. Not even close.
In the United States, Maine ranks fortieth in total tax burden. The big difference is that Mainers earn much less than their counterparts in other states. "Some" expenses are lower in Maine, housing, and some higher, health care. Nationally, the United States is way down the list. Photius.com places the US total tax burden among the world's countries at #40.
None of these figures are made up to make Gingrich or LePage or Romney squirm. They are just fact. O'Really may pooh pooh them because he can make more money spouting stuff that sounds good but is really BS on Faux than speaking factually anywhere else in the media.
And - as an article on the front page noted - wealthy people (like Murdoch and O'Really) tend to be greedy so they'll say whatever the tiny-brained want to hear in the hopes of prying some more money out of the system. Kind of like some of the preachers on tv
Conservatives and government
It's obvious that when conservatives think of a good government, the first thing that comres to their minds is not democracy. It is parsimony. If we reduce or (drool, drool) eliminate our elected officials they will not be able to spend our money. That's the thinking I see here.
So carried to the extreme we have the best government being "L'etat, c'est moi," the apparent motto of the current occupant of Blaine House. What could be more efficient than an absolute monarch. Of course, we the people have no say in how he spends, how much he spends or from whom he gets what he spends.
The purist democracy is that we see in the small towns of Maine, NH and VT - maybe even western Mass - where each voter is a legislator. NH, arguably the most conservative state in the northeast has a huge legislature when it is measured as legislators per capita. The person who taxes you and votes how to spend it is likely a neighbor or someone you see at the Little League game - not someone who is remote as the legislators in a small legislature would be. You get to rag him or her out if he or she screws up.
So does this mean conservatives really do hate democracy as I first suggested?
Actually, true conservatives are quite fond of democracy. So maybe we should just refer to those who would shrink the legislature to save money as less than sophisticated. That's probably kinder than the other word that comes to mind.
You've got to wonder
I understand that Republicans see unionsization as ranking somewhere between halitosis and stage 4 lung cancer as the greatest threat to 'merican society, but I can't help but wonder...
...if the DeCoster workers impacted by this were white English speakers...
nahhhh, that would mean Republicans see those who are no like them as less than.
Dig a bit deeper
Before lining up the firing squads to do away with the less than desirables as seen by the MHPC, let's pull out a couple of other stats - like per capita personal income, poverty level, and overall tax burden.
On the last - despite shrieks from the right, the United States ranks 46th in the world, not 1st as Grover Norquist would have you believe. On the poverty level, Maine does rank better than Arizona, but consider that a significant part of Arizona's population receives BIA support - no small thing. On the first, income level, we're right there beside such economic paradises as Mississippi and Alabama, but we have to buy fuel to stay warm for 5 moths of the year.
So, yes, we seem to be just handing out fists ful of cash to the lazy as Lance and his smamy crew want you to believe, but there are other factors - like when a part time, no bennies, job at a big box is cause for a igh five with the wife and that job is subsidized by the State of Maine through MaineCare and the Feds through SNAP.
Of course, that doesn't fit LePage's demagoguery, so it's swept under the rug.
Please make sure your brain is in gear before putting fingers to the keyboard.
Do you know
what socialism is?
The right - including supposedly intelligent people like Gingrich - throw the word around as though it were an epithet. It's not. It's an economic system which has merit. Actually, the US has long embraced certain aspects of socialism such as public funding for education and health care. Medicare is socialist as is Social Security. Right wingers, including Ronnie Reagan and Dubya would have destroyed both, but a majority of Americans said, "no."
I'm betting that you think socialism is political - most who listen to Faux Gnus as their only source of information do. Please make sure you now what words mean before you use them.
????????
If I knew what you were trying to say....
If I knew what you were saying, I might agree with you, but then, given your track record, we'd both be wrong.
The no pseudo-nyms policy
has worked very well in my opinion. Dissent with civility is the result.
There is a solution to 2 problems
The Republican legislature lead by MHPC would turn the state into Arizona circa 1990 much to the distress of 21st century Mainers. On the east bank of the Kennebec there is a state owned very large vacant granite building already broken up into office size spaces.
Turn the old AMHI building into offices for legislators thereby filling a vacant piece of real estate and putting our representatives and senators close to the professional help they need when Lance brings them legislation like that Steve Mistler has written about.
The old AMHI building has the added benefit of a way to lock legislators IN lest they resist the help they need.
Lance and the guv can be sent on a one way trip to St. Helena where a 19th Century despot passed his final days.
Multiple problems solved.
Absolutey friggin' amazing
Slippers in a classroom is liberalism run amok?
How about ... people who make generalizations like that are most likely right wing nuts.
Or ... please make sure brain is in gear before putting fingers to the keyboard.
Of course, all teachers are commie pink libruls along with anyone who works in the lame stream media. They are trying to convert all our children to become gay mooslims and promote class warfare while taking food stamps and welfare checks. Did I leave any of Kuntz's buzzwords out?
And your point is?
Whyizzit that Republicans always point at a Democrat when one of theirs is criticized and vice versa. Those wearing the 61% buttons were doubtless more upset with LePage's strutting and posturing, especially in the first weeks after the election. Think Kiss My Butt, stolen art work, and little mustaches...
He's slipped back into it again now when their is the slightest dissent with his demands. He's going to close schools. LOL
We didn't elect LePage by 90% of the vote. He needs to realize that and stop acting as though he received a mandate..
FWIW - I'm no big fan of the Baldacci administration either, but that's more for policy reasons than because he bullied people - which he didn't.
The Maine Constitution does need to be amended. To require 50.1% and to provide for recall after the office holder has had a year. The latter to should also require significant voter signatures to go to a ballot. with te year and the number of signatures required, recall would not be abused.
Who needs legislators?
I suppose that until the people of Maine come to their senses and amend the constitution to rid the state of lawmakers, replacing them with Lance and his gang at MPHC, we will continue to have to go through the wasteful procedure of having MPHC's decisions ratified by the legislature.
It would be so much more efficient if Sir Lancelot simply gave LePage his marching orders and he oversaw their implementation.
International market
The only Canadian oil guaranteed to stay in North America is whatever is refined inland. Sending it to Texas only puts it on the world market along with the rest of the oil and gasoline we produce. Oil from Alaska ends up in Asia (along with half the trees in Tongass National Forest) while we import Middle Eastern oil.
I realize that's considered far too complex for the average person to understand - just accept that we're going to get screwed if big oil is involved.
It's called blackmail..
...and, it's yet another reason Maine needs a recall option for elected officials. There needs to be a Constitutional amendment with safeguards built in to make sure it's not just a "get even" r sour grapes response to losing an election - but it needs to be there when the official in question is so out of control, so ego driven, that it's his way or the highway.
Paul LePage is also proof why success in business is NOT a predictor of the ability to govern. LePage is trying to govern as though his is the last word.
We might have had the opportunity to consider Cynthis Dill's recall proposal but for Debra Plowden putting a roadblock on it. Plowden is another example of Republican overreach.
Of course, most politicians are terrified of the recall option. For them, caring what constituents say is a bother that should only become of interest just prior to elections.
Roberto the Incredible
He reads minds, he tells fortunes, he writes absurd letters...step right up folks...
You are assuming that Secretary Clinton and President oBama are not equally outraged about atrocities committed by our enemies. Of course, if your major source of "news" is Faux and Hennity and O'Really, I guess you can be forgiven for having your mind atrophy.
Maine Heritage Foundation is...
...apparently the governing body of the State of Maine. There is no need for a legislature whether controlled by the left or the right. And LePage is just their puppet. They speak, he jumps. And poor Adrienne gives any reporter the old stinkeye should they question the relationship. If my cat runs for Governor of Maine, she will get my vote because she can do better.
It's corporate welfare...
...when a corporation receives preferential treatment and, though I don't like corporate welfare, if it's going to be the standard, then Maine must offer it to compete.
Good grief - Wisconsin!. Of course they are smarter than we are. They allow for the recall of elected officials who don't act in the peoples' interests.
In this case - parsimony (read being cheap) - didn't pay off. I'm sure it will be justified in the name of lowering taxes (look at the budget, there's tax breaks for the 1% again). In this case, Maine allowed 600 jobs for the 99% to walk away so the 1% would donate to a Republican PAC or two.
BTW - corporate welfare doesn't come just in the forms of TIFS and guaranteed loans. It's also encouraging the slaveholders to come to a town near you, drive out local business and use our Medicaid system to pay health care insurance for the part time employees who staff their cheap plastic crap stores.
Taxes are the dues we pay for living in a civilized nation and the role of government is to do for its citizens that which they cannot do for themselves.
RIP Rebecca
We knew you much too briefly.
How do you know for sure...
...the Somalis seen weren't Christians?
But regardless, all I could think of when I read this screed was, "what a great example of Christian charity. Jesus must be thrilled with how those who claim to follow him have perverted his philosophy."
Absolutely, friggin' amazing.
I think people mean Quincy Market
Faneuil Hall is across a pedestrian plaza. I do recall the old granite Quincy Market Building burning in the early sixties. No businesses inside then, but something started burning. My office was on the 7th floor of the Custom House (now condos I think) and we got very little work done that day. :-)
hmmmmm
One very salient paragraph that appeared in my print edition has been removed, probably in the interest of keeping the conversation civil. In it, Mr. Taylor reveals a touch of - how do I say it without inviting the standard righteous response of "Who, me?" Oh well, here goes - prejudice.
Would be hilarious...
...except that I think he's serious.
In any event, it's incredibly inaccurate.
Why?
Once you've answered that, perhaps it would be well to check federal law regarding the waiting period of 5 years as a permanent resident before application may be made. I'd be willing to bet that was chosen as a waiting period with better reason than simple demagoguery.
My paternal grandparents fled the first genocide of the last century leaving behind property that today would be valued in the millions. They were somewhat reluctant to give the Turkish government further reason to seize that property and give it to a Turk - something made easier had they renounced their citizenship and become US citizens. They didn't love this country less for being citizens of another country. They paid taxes and never collected social security or any welfare. they simply lived here without fear.
I have no idea what ethnic group wound your clock, but I'm betting it was Somalis. To require them to become citizen somehow diminishes the commitment to becoming a citizen.
Oh well - I guess that defies rigt wing "common sense," eh?
Governor - you wouldn't recognize
economic reality if it reared up and bit your butt.
Stop listening to your patron at the eritage Foundation. He has never received a single vote for anything as far as I know - perhaps class president in sixth grade, but that would be it.
Economics 101 - Your budget cut taxes by 150 million (at the direction of the Heritage Foundation) and - duh - you have a budget shortfall of 120 million/yr.
Rescind the tax cut which has not yet taken effect hence that action would not be a tax increase and the shortfall goes away.
That is reality. I know Dutson will be very angry with you - but that's tough.
Now freepers - all together - hit disagree. You don't need to know why, just follow orders and disagree. Good boys - Mommy has a biscuit for you in the kitchen
Maine Medicaid a subsidy for big boxes
They typically do not offer their employees health care coverage and most certainly do not pay the 20 hour/wk no benefit employee enough to buy food let alone health insurance. The company bottom line is inflated at taxpayer expense by hiring two part timers rather than one full timer.
The State of Maryland was looking at a solution that brought on a broadside from Benton, Arkansas. They proposed a surtax on companies that expected their employees to be insured by the state. I'm not sure if anyone in the Maryland capitol was left standing after the combined lawyer/flack attack or if those who did survive had the courage to stand up to the Waltons, a family that would surely have been impoverished by the demands of the little people.
The obvious answer is to either tax job creators who game the system this way or go to universal single payer government run health insurance with sharp constraints on the greedy who would charge 2000% markups on drugs and call it payback for R&D.
Thank you for a great letter
That there aren't the jobs the French Canadians found makes it all the more important that we greet our new neighbors with love rather than prejudice.
There was a song in the musical South Pacific about being taught bigotry and hatred. That is only partially true - in my opinion many people actually need someone to look down on to enhance their own poor self image.
I grew up ethnic many decades ago in a very WASP community. Those were not good years for me, but they taught me to be more than tolerant. Tolerance is condescending. I try for something better.
The only answer to the hatred that is resurgent is the overriding philosophy of the man who's birth we will soon celebrate. The next time you feel the old prejudices rise to the surface or try to justify parsimony with "righteous" justification, read the Beatitudes.
Thank you for the reminder, Mr. Morgan.
Once again...
... Senator Snowe has bowed to the perceived power of the T(estosterone) Party. I relabel the T types only because that it's common practice to rewrite English on the right hand side of the aisle. Democratic Party becomes Democrat Party yadayadayada.
I see the freepers are playing this morning.
Impeachment is like indictment not trial and conviction - and must be for high crimes and misdeamenors under US law - not Rightwingnut law.
If these comments are representative of Republican "thinking," it's no wonder Gingrinch is making a comeback.
Now you can all disagree. LOL
Gotta cut, cut cut...
If Maine required the big boxes to either provide health insurance for all their employees or pay a per uninsured employee surtax so that Mainecare could do it, the taxpayer might have more money to spend on cheap plastic *&# made in China. The cost of MaineCare could go down forcing LePage to get honest and admit that all he wants to do is eliminate programs that help "the little people."
This is a crock of what makes
This is a crock of what makes ay grow.
Chip trucks routinely exceed the speed limit and get a bye from the cops. Supposedly, they're professionals and break the law to jack up the bottom line. Now, I guess that, if you're a trucker, you can kill a child and the only problem will be getting in that extra load to make a bigger pay day.
Great
Congratulations Michael and Sue. Both of you should be proud of your accomplishments. The recent tragedy in Farmington highlights the need for work on PTSD, a malady too often hidden in the military as something less than macho.
Justin and Officer Rosie are both victims
But assigning blame at this point is senseless. Vets don't get the help they deserve and need and police officers must make decisions in a nano-second that would freeze the brain of most of us. Sadly - I'm predicting that Officer Rosie will suffer from PTSD just as Justin did - and for the same reason. Killing another human being is not a rational act - our brains are not wired to accept the unacceptable.
I'm so terribly sorry for what happened to both men.
The goal remains the same
Suppressing the votes of those less likely to vote Republican. Nutting, Ray, Webster, and Summers, LLC, will protest that it's about preventing voter fraud though voter fraud is not now and never has bee a problem. "But, it could be," they'll protest, their noses growing longer by the second.
The ideal voter ID law sounds simple - voters must possess a valid Maine driver's license or a state issued ID. Student ID's are NOT sufficient. A military ID is NOT sufficient. A passport is NOT sufficient. Only ID's issued by BMV.
Sounds reasonable unless you're in your 70's have macular degeneration and depend on a neighbor to drive you to the nearest branch office, 45 minutes away, for a state ID. Or perhaps your a student from Vermont (gasp, Commies!) voting under the rights granted to you in Symm v the United States and you really prefer not to give up your Vermont license just to make the two Charlies happy. Or maybe a Coast Guardsman who grew up, has parents in and will someday return to Hawaii (especially after a maine winter or two) and you want to vote under Symm, but the two Charlies just know that under that uniform is the leader of an al Qaida sleeper cell who
will vote for the ultimate Muslim mole - Barack Hussein Obama.
I would suggest Republican leaders pull teir thumbs out of their .... and get to work on real problems. Tell the Koch Brothers that money can't buy everything - not even an election in Maine.
poor Charlie
He becomes more irrelevant every time he opens his mouth.
Sad, but this is typical
It fits a whisper campaign started in rural Franklin County questioning the sexuality of a Democratic candidate. The whispers were started by the same person who is trying to 'educate" Mainers. He has no shame and follows the Lee Atwater/Karl Rove model of anything goes.
The Republicans win is what happens
Why does anyone think that the Scalia Court - formerly the Supreme Court - went through contortions to place Clean Election laws in jeopardy?
They, along with minority, young, and senior voters, were on a list of things the RNC wants to go away to allow them victory without having to pretend to care about the unwashed masses. With Clean Election Laws scrubbed away, and the Citizens United Decision (another bought and paid for Scalia Court contortion) the 1% can buy elections at will.
If you think the above is hyperbole, remember that obscure Republican legislative candidates suddenly got major television advertising in the last week of the 2010 campaign. Slick mailers appeared in mailboxes alluding to the probable criminal history of Democrats. All that did not just appear. It was thanks to the Koch Gang and Citizens United which allowed them to steal te election without even trying to disguise where the money came from.
I can hear the responses from the rightwingers now, but Mr. Soros and Mr. Sussman aren't in the same league as the Kochs, the Waltons and even King Rupert, so spare us your finger pointing.
Oh, please...
Save a tree and stop repeating talking points that have no validity.
Using your "logic" that something "might" happen unless laws are passed, perhaps the US should repeal the 2nd Amendment because it's for sure that someone, somewhere, is going to be killed by a bullet fired from a totally legal gun fired by a totally legal shooter. I bet you lack the cajones to follow that idea using the same logic you spew to try to deny students the right to vote even though there is absolutely no evidence that "busloads" of kids were brought in as Charlie has been howling for a decade.
The right wants the government out of their business and into everyone else's.
Typical.
Sadly typical of today's Republican Party
When your hand is caught in the cookie jar, howl that someone else is snitching cookies too.
The Republicans are caught so far off base on this one that they are resorting to any means, including denial of knowledge of their own ad, to confuse the electorate and perhaps pull their polling numbers up.
Republicans used to be a party with honow - sadly they have devolved into the party of Haldemann, Atwater, Segretti and Rove where winning is more important than the public good, where party trumps governance.
Incredibly sad.
Darwin Award candidate?
Do we have yet another candidate for the Darwin Award?
How is this relevant?
Unless we are to eliminate all risk of things that might happen?
There's a very good chance that at least one person will die in Maine of a gunshot wound. Why do I think that you'd be opposed to repealing the 2nd Amendment? And don't hand me the NRA crap that it's the person holding the gun, the same could be said of an auto accident or voter fraud.
The case is, the opportunity for fraud has existed for 40 years with two cases occurring. Are you willing to disenfranchise thousands against te possibility it might happen again. Oh the horror.
Of course, if you're a knee jerk conservative who doesn't think, the answer is yes because Charlie told you so.
Sometimes I think Maine deserves LePage.
While I agree we have a mess
Your solution displays total ignorance of the Constitution. Were Barack Obama to resign, which he shouldn't, he doesn't choose his successor. It's Joe Biden by the Constitution. Even if he could choose his successor the way you want, it couldn't be Clinton. Clinton served two terms despite the efforts of Republicans to get him out of "their" White House. There is a two term limit put in because of Roosevelt and Republican hatred of him. They wanted to repeal that for Reagan. Wouldn't that have been great. A sitting President with Alzheimer's.
The real problem is that McConnell, Boehner and Cantor have made it their mission to block any effort by President Obama to fix the mess created by the previous administration. Obama's fix is to pump cash into the economy to get it going. It's like a transfusion. Short term deficits to produce long term surplus. But Republicans are hauling out scalpels and leeches to bleed the patient in the manner of a medieval doctor. They know better, but killing the economy is part of their game plan. The Democrats are in 'their" White House again and even worse, the man Americans elected is black with a non-European name (horrors).
President Obama made a serious error in trying to accommodate Republicans. He should have done at the beginning what he is doing now, calling out the House leadership, McConnell and the whack jobs from the Tea Party; he needed to wake Americans up to the naked power grab by as venal a group of right wing politicians as ever slithered into DC.
Rte 113
I've always wanted to do that trip. Maybe this will get my duff out of the chair.
Wrong again Jonathan
Symm vs the United States established the right of citizens to vote in whatever venue they reside for most of the year. That means that a student at UMF or Colby or USM can vote in Farmington, Waterville or Gorham legally.
Stop reading Charlie Webster's propaganda and pay attention to the truth.
A whole bunch of smoke
When your mother caught you with your hand in the cookie jar, did you shriek, "But Sissy does it too."
Probably.
Did Mom then respond, "Oh then it's okay."
That is what Republicans want voters to see by bringing up a thousand totally unrealted examples of Democratic malfeasance or imagined Democratic malfeasance.
The fact is the 2 Charlies have been lying and now they're trying to cover their lies with more lies and really weak justification of what "might happen."
headline in print edition was funnier
Livermore Falls voters were lighting torches and digging out pitchforks, ready to march across the bridge to the Livermore Town Office, but a sharp eyed copy editor for the e-edition spotted the error and the populace returned to their morning Fruit Loops.
Dear headline writer, Livermore and Livermore Falls parted company a looooooong time ago. I'm sure that Kurt would be happy to have his counterpart in LVFLS write a check, but, I guess it won't happen.
Democrats aren't into voter suppression
They may not be truthful all the time, but I'd trust a Democrat to do what's right for the voter before I'd trust a Republican. The latter - even in Maine - are far too tied to an ideology of "it's all about money" and way too beholden to people like the Kochs for the money to run campaign ads and get re-elected..
And, no, the Kochs don't donate to Democrats.
What a contrast
Two stories out of Dixfield about young people. In the first, a promising young life cut short in an accident. It was a tragedy, all the more because Dani Ranger was everything we want our kids to be. The second of mindless destruction and theft. The young man involved may have lost much of the opportunity ahead of him. A felony conviction will close many doors he could have walked through to a better life. At this point he is everything we'd rather our kids not be.
The creation of wealth?
Gambling creates no more wealth than commodities trading or the stock market. What the three have in common is the transfer of wealth from one person or entity to another. Wealth is created by creating or producing good thereby enhancing the value of a resource.
As for jobs? HA!
Profits will flow toward developers and casino owners (out of state) and the highly skilled jobs will go - at least for the first few years - to trained (read NV or NJ) people. Mainers will get to make up beds and wait table. Meanwhile local taxpayers of towns surrounding casinos will have to deal with an influx of people from out of the area who will not being paying taxes for the roads or emergency services they use.
The only winners are sitting in Vegas laughing while they wait to rake in the pot.
The solution is obvious - if Maine wants to be Nevada East - open up the whole state to gambling.
Are Mormons Christians?
I am neither Mormon nor, using Mr. Theriault's orthodox definition, Christian. It is the certitude expressed in the letter and by some commentary that keeps me from considering either. And I'd bet that Jesus of Nazareth would have a difficult time recognizing his philosophy in the practices of today's "Christian" or Mormon" churches.
Commenting on the print edition of this story
I'd suggest they keep the one open that has an "h" in it.
And perhaps the headline writer - or is it eadline writer? - could take a remedial course or two.
The most amazing part of this letter
is that the author probably believes it's gospel.
Even more amazing, there will be others who think that the only solutions lie far to the right of center.
Politics before country
Once again the Republicans put the defeat of President Obama as more important than creating work which will pump money into the economy Gary, thereby creating more jobs - this time in your beloved private sector.
Perhaps people on the right think it would be better to simply give the wealthy another tax cut - maybe reduce their rate to zero - because when they decide to stop buying gold or politicians, maybe, just maybe they'll build a new mansion in the Hamptons or pick up another penthouse condo in Manhattan and provide "the little people" with a temporary carpenter job or a longer term job as a made or footman.
I've voted for Snowe in the past because, as a senior senator she should have some clout. Since President Obama was declared the target by McConnell and the Koch boys, she has become a toady except when her vote won't be decisive and she can pretend to be moderate.
I've written to Senator Snowe in support of various bills and received boilerplate responses - send the liberal letter #43. No more, I'll bullet vote Democratic and hope the Republicans follow the Whigs into the trash can of failed politics.
At the risk of sounding like a corporate toady
I'm going to assume that, should CMP be denied the right to install smart meters, CMP customers in Wilton will not be subject to the additional fee imposed by the company on those who have opted out elsewhere.
The whole "smart meter" thing is all about cost cutting for CMP. They can lay off meter readers and the wages not paid added to the bottom line of the company. I don't for a minute think those savings will be passed on to its customers. If that horrible thought is brought up, it will be countered with the "rising cost of " and the top floor, corner office will award itself another obscene raise, light a Havana and toast its own brilliance.
a weasel who failed history
The first commentary on debit card charges - that's one for the marketplace to describe. Still to give banks a pass on this at a time when the industry is showing massive profits and paying CEO's obscene salaries is weaselish.
The second commentary on the dullard is putting lipstick on a pig. Parsing words to make them seem innocent is weaselish.
The last was either willfully ignoring the history of the 30's and the past couple of years or a failing grade in high school history and a failure to read his own paper. In 1935-36 the Republicans did their finest imitation of a trout recently landed, flopping about as if near death because the country was going socialist and Roosevelt backed of the New Deal. The result was a double dip depression. The stimulus of a couple of years ago was a bit like trying to put out a fire by peeing on it. The stream was too little and didn't last long enough. Any economist not employed by The Heritage Foundation was hollering about the inadequacy of that stimulus. Now the Obama administration is going along with the Republicans on tax and budget cuts and a second dip is coming around the bend.
Private business will not hire workers until there is a demand for product - you got that right - but then ignored the thought, where's the money coming from. It isn't trickling down as Ronnie and George both said it would, so it behooves Sam to borrow and spend for the short term Bridges, roads, schools and hospitals get repaired and built, people go back to work (most for private contractors) creating the ability to buy and demand for goods.
I taught high school history and economics. My students could have written a better editorial.
The operative word is conservative
The Maine Heritage Fiction Writers' Guild has come up with yet another entry for the annual Pulitzer Fiction Award.
What they fault is the data entry skills of the town clerks - what they ignore is that any clerk with more than a single brain cell would pick up on phony birth dates "over 211 years ago" or even a birth date 111 years ago.
The fact is that MHC is simply following the orders sent down from the Koch family and others that the next check will be larger IF they discredit 30+ years of successful effort. The fact is that the voters they wish would disappear are rumored to lean (gasp) to the left. The fact is that there is a nationwide effort by Republican pols recently elected with a tidal wave of Koch money, an effort to suppress voting. The fact is that even Charlie Summers could find only one case of fraud in over 30 years; there may have been others who were registered in two or more locations, but no attempt was made to vote in those places. Who, besides an anal conservative, has deregistered when moving. The fact is that SCOTUS as made it the law of the land that college students may vote where they go to school. The fact is that, for years Farmington Republicans (the other Charlie) have been apoplectic about the Symms Rule. The fact is that you can count on any organization that uses "heritage" or "family" in its name is there to espouse opinions that are somewhere to the right of those voiced by Attila.
The fact is, the attempt to do away with same day registration is yet another conservative end run to circumvent the law of the land.
good editorial
I doubt that most students will lose sleep over Charlie's letter. They will see it for what it is - a foolish attempt to scare them into not voting.
This is just more fuel for the fire that could sweep Republicans from office in 2012. I for one intend to bullet vote Democratic (that's a political science term for the uninformed and has nothing to do with the 2nd Amendment solution advocated by conservative Republicans). Voting for the individual candidate is too chancy because even our famously moderate Senators fall into line behind McConnell when he needs their vote.
Most comments
though opposed to Mr. Summers' bullying tactics ignore the very simple fact that prohibiting a student from voting where he/she attends school has been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States.
On reading the article, I wondered if the two Charlies might open a used car lot near all campuses that draw out of state students thereby providing a place for them to purchase a vehicle to register. They could call it Cheap Charlies - oh wait - Charlie's of Augusta might be annoyed by that. My second thought is that this is just another Republican ploy to intimidate probable Democratic voters. In Florida, they use 6'6" troopers with mirrored sunglasses, arms folded across their chests in front of polling places frequented by those with experiences of "doing anything while black."
This whole stupidity finds impetus in the horror expressed by local poobahs in a college town. Some of the comments coming from those who run Farminton are hilarious and - like the two Charlies - they ignore the law because they feel threatened by it.
Sad
While the letter writer has seen a few too many episodes of the Lone Ranger, Dan's response is pretty sick.
I've learned that when I take someone else's inventory, I'm seeing in them my own worst faults. How about, Dan, would you kill someone for two weeks paid vacation?
This column violates
at least two of the standards to which you hold comments.
Mr. Slavick and Mr. Frary really need to get together - perhaps on Matinicus Rock - to see who best uses inflammatory rather than rational language. I have compared our Farmington Republican to Glenn Beck with a dictionary. Perhaps Mr. Slavick could take the role of any sophomore anxious to show off partial mastery of modern Middle Eastern history.
Assertions
Without some sort of specific substantiation, these are assertions made of the same stuff as the two Charlies' assertions. Even after those were proven false, they continue, hoping that we have all just fallen off the turnip truck.
Saying something doesn't make it true. Anecdotal evidence is just that, anecdotal. My wife signed the petition after church in the church parking lot. The professional signature gatherer was a professional, but not a professional gatherer of signatures. That's anecdotal and proves nothing except that one gatherer was not a paid professional petition circulator.
"Someone who knows these things told me" should be viewed with skepticism. I have a sister-in-law who gathers those gems at her prayer meeting. Her resident expert is a a global warming denier, knows that without hatred and vigilance, Muslims will establish the Third Caliphate right here in the good old US of A, and soothingly or righteously denies there is a nationwide effort by Republicans to suppress the votes of the young, low income elderly, the poor and minorities.
So Mr. Rooks, a professional journalist is not proven wrong by your assertions any more than 200 students were bussed into Maine specifically to vote as the first edition of Webster's Fables alleged.
Nationwide effort to suppress the vote
This is all part of a nationwide effort to suppress the vote of those most likely to vote for a Democratic or moderate candidate. The two Charlies know this. They are not stupid, but like all party hacks, they do what they are told.
The Supreme Court - an activist conservative one at that - made the decision that college students could not be denied the right to vote in the college town. It has diddly to do with residency and everything to do with the same court that made GWB President. Webster and Summers both know that.
They also know that the accuser gets the headlines and the refuter usually ends up with two column inches on the classified page. So, they try to keep it going.
FWIW, I was registered in 3 places once. My former home in Alaska, my temporary home with my in-laws in Mass., and here in Wilton. I suppose that by using absentee ballots I might have voted in all 3. I've learned that those who point fingers at others are usually pointing out their own character traits. Maybe the Charlies would have and then snarkily laughed about using the system to beat the system.
Judge not lest...
Rebecca's mother is a MUCH better choice. This is very sad. Rebecca and her ex both have some growing up to do.
I agree that people are really hurting
but it's not because too much is going to foreign aid. Foreign aid makes up less than 1% of the entire federal budget. The United States gives a total of 25 cents per citizen from public funds to other countries.Ten cents more per citizen is donated privately. We can do better, but that's changing the subject.
See: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2011/03/foreign-aid-facing-proposed-...
Another interesting factoid the "absolutely no taxes on the super rich" crowd wishes would go away is how the US ranks with the rest of the world in tax burden. Our poor overtaxed country is #48 in tax burden. But the way the pigs squal, you'd think it was #1.
See: http://www.photius.com/rankings/tax_burden_country_ranks_2009.html
We can do better by our poor, but our rich are greedy, kind of like the seagulls in Finding Nemo.
sorry
about the double post.
I wonder...
...if college students voted Republican, would Charlie lie in bed at nights dreaming up new stories of the horrors that student, elderly and minority voters visit on Maine?
I wonder...
...if college students voted Republican, would Charlie lie in bed at nights dreaming up new stories of the horrors that student, elderly and minority voters visit on Maine.
Down the rabbit hole we go
My comments were not about the bid, the bidders or the bidding process. I understand that Mr. Ruff and others are not happy. I have no opinion, don't take issue with that.
My comments dealt with the phraseology used by Mr. Ruff and the headline writer. I ran a deck crew of forty seamen and a half dozen bosuns. Very little offends me. The "n" word is one of those things that do and the idiom in its normal use, includes the "n" word. I'm betting Mr. Ruff and others in Roxbury know this, just don't see the word as offensive.
It is ironic that use of that phrase in another place called Roxbury could cause the user a lot of major headaches if he survived.
But that's neither here nor there.
I'll climb out of the rabbit hole and leave the confusion to others.
Wrong again Charlie
Charlie,
You are wrong now, you were wrong before, and, no doubt you will be wrong tomorrow unless there is a miracle, you see the light and become a Democrat or at least an honest Abe type Republican.
Don't you have something useful to do, like calling the Koch boys for a contribution or cleaning a furnace.
Offensive I the extreme
Ruff and whichever assistant intern trainee wrote the headline for Ruff's letter owe the readers an apology. I'm guessing Ruff knew exactly what the idiom is in it's original form. I'm not so sure the headline writer is old enough to know.
Insert the infamous "n" word in place of "something" and the idiom returns to it's original despicable form. It was commonly used to question the parentage of a child of probable mixed race.
Please be a bit more circumspect.
Now, for the usual rightwingnuts who will leap to Ruff's defense, you're wrong and you know it and I'll refrain from using a more modern idiom to emphasize what you can do with your keyboard.
Darwin Award candidate?
Maybe 2nd runner up. To be fair he didn't leave his business card and a DNA sample on the table.
Vacations, a home, a car?
Many of the folks forced by age or disability to ask a neighbor or friend for a ride to the polls may be loathe to ask twice just so Charlie WEbster and his sycophants can pretend to be protecting democracy.
A vacation, what's that?
A home is where they live and doesn't have granite countertops in the kitchen three baths, three bedrooms and a two car garage.
Many who take advantage of same day registration don't have, can't afford, a car.
The real problem here is, there is no problem. Just more mean spiritedness by the right.
yes - I misspelled a word
gasp! here should have been hear.
Unfortunately, I didn't proofread until after posting and this site does not permit editing.
Part of the blame
As a former teacher, I know that some teachers are not performing well and are partially to blame for student achievement. BUT - a significant part of the blame also lies elsewhere and this letter is a perfect example of the problem with education today. Kids walk into the classroom bringing the attitudes they here at the supper table, in the newspaper, on the street and on television - people who can do, people who can't teach or teachers are overpaid and underworked. Communities, politicians, parents and letters to the editor writers all love to blame teachers. When a student comes into the classroom with an attitude, they are not motivated to learn and will not learn.
Sad - but true - Mr. Sabine. You are as much to blame as any teacher.
As for No Child and its standardized test. That encourages dishonesty. There is an incentive for schools to teach to the test. I worked in the same district as a 4th Grade teacher who taught to achievement tests every year. Her kids scored very high and every year those kids came into the 5th grade totally unprepared to do 5th grade work because they couldn't think. But I'm getting to much into what actually constitutes learning. It doesn't lend itself well to political speeches from a President who prided himself on earning a gentleman's C as a legacy student.
next - a poll tax?
hmmmm
and then if someone from the wrong side of the tracks or the wrong skin color shows up, an impossible to pass reading comprehension test. No, I'm not implying Charlie is racist, he may be, but that is immaterial to this story. He is doing his best to suppress the vote west of center.
As for renewed claims of voter fraud. - it would be out of character for any conservative to ever admit error. In their own eyes, they are the messengers from God.
recovered from the Great Depression?
not really.
We're still getting over the Civil War.
What's wrong with America
This letter is a perfect example of what is so wrong in our country. There's way too much irrational hatred.
The other thing I've noticed is how brave people are when sitting behind the shield of their computer. Most of the mud that is slung wouldn't be in normal conversation, but here on the internet, intelligent people make unfounded borderline libelous allegations without fear of anything more than more borderline libelous allegations in return.
yet another reason
foothold traps should be outlawed nationwide.
This is NOT sport unless you think a Viking raid 1000 years ago was a neighborly visit. People who kill for pleasure worry me.
excellent column
I recall a recent television interview - American reporter, Danish woman - in which the American expressed shock and dismay at the taxes Danes pay. Her response was, "Yes, but we get an unparalleled quality of life for it."
Danes have been called by an American sociological study, the happiest people in the world. Mundane worries are eliminated by a government, the existence of which, would give massive coronaries to tea partiers nd the John Wayne clones who court their votes.
To forestall the inevitable "get out" comments, I was born an American citizen, served willingly in the military, pay my taxes without whining and love my country. Besides, I don't speak Danish.
Need for open carry is what?
I lived for ten years in small towns of Southeast Alaska. In some of them, it is not unheard of for a brown bear to wander into the village. Even there, it was considered a bit odd to wander around pretending to be Matt Dillon or Wyatt Earp. I think I saw one grocery store shopper wearing his six shooter in a store. Weapons were not allowed in places where liquor was served. Of course, this was pre-Palin, so things may have changed since.
Your last paragraph really needs a citation. I'd take FBI stats way more seriously than NRA stats. As a college student, you must be aware that statistics can be warped to prove whatever the statistician wants to prove.
If your desire is to be a super hero and crime fighter, may I suggest a quick read of the Gabby Giffords shooting. The civilian who had a weapon - other than the whacko - tackled the bad guy. Had he pulled his weapon and started shooting, chances are more people would have died. Even trained people are not able to do a Gary Cooper like single shot kill from the hip at 50 yards.
Motivation Shane, it's all about motivation. If you want to swagger, become the governor of Texas, stick a piece of hay in your mouth and run for Prezzydent. Neither of those faux cowpokes who will have preceded your try had the cajones to wear a low slung Ruger Single Six 41 magnum while doing their impersonation of Clint Eastwood in High Plains Drifter.
Open carry is a sign of way too much testosterone and the desire to impress women or intimidate men, neither of which is a particularly admirable trait.
Oh, for God's sake
Grow up. Not everything is about politics.
The cops followed procedure. Had they not, and something happened, you'd ave been the first to go negative. What's sad about this is the hit J's reputation took. J and I do not agree on anything politically, but I admire him for who he is and felt badly when I was told he was arrested.
Assigning political motivation to everything is childish.
This is what's wrong
This egocentric, I'm right, you're wrong attitude is precisely why our country is so sick. It's not people who have different opinions, it's people who refuse to allow others to hold a different opinion without demonizing them with words that don't even approach truth.
I'm having real trouble responding to this without doing exactly what i find wrong with Mr. van Tassel's attitude. I guess the best I can do is to say that I really hope he becomes emotionally mature before too much more time passes.
The unseen part of the GOP plan
All those with a (D) beside their names will be "accidentally" purged from the rolls the day before election day, but that won't matter because there will be room for just one Congressional candidate and, under the rules, he must be a middle aged white male Republican.
The Republican plan is aimed at gerrymandering that pesky commie, librul (sic), pinko Chellie Pingree out of a seat.
Unfortunately, whichever choice the Republican legislature and Republican governor make, Maine will be stuck with it until 2021. The Koch brothers money was well spent in 2010.
I am reminded...
...of the little boy with a magnifying glass who runs around watching ants and frogs and assorted other creatures assuring one and all that he's trying to expand his horizons and learn about the creatures. Of course, if one of those creatures is fried by the focussed rays of the sun, it's not his fault - he's just being curious which everyone knows is a good thing.
good questions
Excellent questions, Folger.
I suspect the answer to the first is rooted in the testosterone based culture of the Republicans, they could kiss the South goodbye. That and the military industrial alliance Eisenhower warned of. Second, ithere is the fear Democrats have of being painted as lily livered, commie, pinko, long haired hippie, draft dodgin libruls (sic). Even though there's no draft. LOL
The answer to the second was answered by Willie, the Actor, Sutton - because that's where the money is. Banks paid very good good money to be deregulated. I suspect they continue to allow envelopes stuffed with cash to drop out of lobbiest's pockets onto Congressional office floors.
Inconvenient truth
Predictably, the right has its knickers in a knot over anything that reveals their ineptitude at governing.
Actually Bob, I'm a former history teacher with a special interest in post World War II history. Mr. Rooks is right on the money and, as unpleasant as it may seem to you, you're off target about 180 degrees.
BTW - I've never read Zinn. I don't read any of Murdoch's rags either. I dislike history rewritten by ideologues.
Let's just return taxes to where they were
under President Reagan - excuse me, God.
Charlie went from plumbing and heating
to constitutional law.
In fairness - he claims to have consulted an unnamed lawyer (Coulter?) who says the Supremes really meant students had to vote where Mommy and Daddy live. But my unnamed lawyer says Charlie's unnamed lawyer is wrong.
The point is, legal opinions are like interpretations of the Bible - if you don't like what your clergyman says, it's not too hard to find another one who will tell you what you want to hear.
More to the point - the Republicans are Hell bent to suppress voting nationwide. Charlie and his sycophants at Maine colleges (the boyish looking ones with the regimental tie and white sidewall haircut who live in NH and run for office in Maine) are just doing their part to keep those Commie , liberal pinkos from voting.
See paragraph 7 of Mr. Rimi's letter Charlie if you don't like my lawyers opinion of the SCOTUS ruling.
political labels have evolved
In de Tocqueville's era a liberal might well believe as he did. It was a time with a sparse population and vast unpopulated tracts where the poorest might carve out a living. People commonly die without ever getting old enough to retire, doctors and hospitals didn't charge obscene prices to treat patients - so there was no need for a social safety net. Conservatives believed that humans could own other humans - no need to go on from there.
Liberal and conservative mean entirely different things today. Actually both have changed markedly in my lifetime. Barry Goldwater would be horrified by the unpatriotic actions of today's Tea Party. John Kennedy would roll over in his grave at the excesses of liberals who would control the use of words.
So de Tocqueville may have been prescient if you hate the idea of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and WIC, if you think that money spent to prevent the Koch boys from raping and pillaging our land is wasted - in other words, if you are a Tea Partier. Somehow I think M. de Tocqueville was smarter than that.
Summers is a party hack
Nothing but vague assertions in an attempt to grab the headlines long enough to move public opinion.
It doesn't take a genius to know that in today's instant news atmosphere, even the most outrageous statements do damage because people consider followups to be "old news." Webster and Summers are simply following the same playbook as Chris Christie, Rick Scott and Scott Walker are following and they're doing what the Koch Brothers and others tell them to do.
Were there massive voter fraud, were high officials in Governor Baldacci's Secy of State's office, were Barack Obama having white babies for breakfast - there might be cause for alarm. But it's just more politics before people BS from the right.
Documentation please
Simply saying something does not make it true.
The only "fact" you have stated is that al-Jazeera televised live video of a rocket attack inside Israel, something I find very hard to believe since Israel would certainly take exception to Arab camarament beaming live shots of an attack.
American news outlets feed an audience largely Christian or Jewish. Does this mean they use the Bible as a stylebook? You accuse al-Jazeera of following selected quotes from the Quran...
Saying they are a mouthpiece of the Muslim Brotherhood is like saying Fox is the mouthpiece of the Republicans. There is no proof.
I realize you are writing with a 250 word constraint - but make one charge and back it up with documentation more than a quote from some right wing blogger or politician. Original sources please. BTW - Quran can selectively quoted just as the BIble is to prove up is down and in is out, so perhaps something more than a single Arabic word...
You can't sling mud without getting your hands dirty, Jared. That is what those who took exception to right wing attacks on a respected journalist were pointing out.
The stuff of which urban legends are born
Half truths are not true. And Charlie knows that and uses them all the time. Several elections ago, he started a whisper campaign in rural Franklin County questioning the sexual orientation of a Democrat in favor of equal rights for gays. He knew those to whom he whispered would pass it through the rumor mill without questioning it.
Charlie, when I moved from Wrangell, Alaska to Wellesley, Mass. and then on to Wilton, Maine, the chances are my name was on the list of registered voters in a three places. I voted only in Wilton but, using your paradigm (look it up), I committed voter fraud because I COULD have voted absentee in the other two venues.
The fact of the matter is that Franklin County Republicans have long been apoplectic about the presence of a large number of students in Farmington who tend to vote for liberal candidates (horrors). They have used the whisper campaign, innuendo, half truths and downright lies to try to stop the students from exercising their Constitutional right to vote. But, Charlie and his sycophants haven't challenged because they know they are wrong.
So, with the help of a compliant legislature far more concerned with whoopie pies and blueberry pie, they passed a law to make it more difficult to vote. When I first registered to vote, I had to prove I could read AND understand what I was reading. I also had to pay a poll tax. Had I been of the "wrong" kind, the town clerk could have denied me the right to vote based on my interpretation of the passage of the Constitution I had to read. That tactic was a well known method of keeping blacks from voting. But, I'm white, so I was permitted to register and vote.
There is a national campaign coordinated by the Republican Party to suppress the vote. Fewer voters tend to favor conservative causes. Charlie is part of that campaign.
Responses
@ George - Simply saying something does not make it true.
In answer to your questions:
No
No
No
No
well said Renee
The past ten years have seen attitudes surface in our country that I naively thought had died in the 1960's.
Rogers and Hammerstein's South Pacific has a line in a song about being taught to hate and fear. It's in a song about the love shared by two young people of different races. As true today as it was when written. Humans are not born with hatred those those they perceive as different because of a name or skin color or culture - they are taught by parents and by those who find profit and power by spreading hatred.
al Qaeda has a western equivalent. It rears its ugly head whenever it smells a chance to stir the pot.
Sounds like Kevin Joyce is earning his pay
As I said earlier, this story is not cause for getting snarky - either way. It's a personal problem that has become a public matter not just because of police involvement but also because of who J is. I'm sure this is not a good time for J.
Instead of pretending we're the masses at the Coliseum two thousand years ago deciding with a roar whether the lion gets to eat, why not let the DA and the court - if it comes to that - decide.
Not just with this case, but in just about everything nowadays, everyone has an opinion spoken with such certitude that there is no room for any other. No wonder Washington is in gridlock.
Correction
Main Street Garage is NOT vacant. Andy is on vacation. Wannabe burglars and vandals please ignore the suggestion that it is an abandoned building and no one cares.
I know J
J and I agree on very little politically, probably nothing at all except that democracy is a great but messy form of government.
But- I take no pleasure in reading this. This is a terrible personal tragedy for both J and his wife. It goes well beyond a loss of influence in Augusta and strikes at the heart of their identity.
There are too many factual errors to count
Sufficed to say, not all Muslims are terrorists just as not all Christians are bigots.
I would suggest that if you follow Mr. Bristol's advice and go to Rockland to protest, you might as well haul grampa's white sheet and dunce hat out of the dresser in the attic.
Citation please
This looks like yet another right wing urban legend. It may be sufficiently rewritten to be "new" to Snopes. Would the writer, or perhaps Mike, care to provide documentation to put suspicions to rest.
I can't imagine any US policy like that surviving the inevitable AIPAC assault. The only lobby that has more power in Washington is the NRA.
The story does sound like something that might be making the rounds of the right wing blogosphere.
Bullseye
Webster's response to your editorial will be the same vague assertions about busloads of Democrats pouring into the town offices to register. That might sound good at a convenience store gossip session, but it falls apart when you begin to ask for specifics. You get lot's of, "Everyone knows... ," but nothing else.
The truth is this is part of a nationwide drive by Republicans to suppress the vote. Other barriers are the requirement for a specific type of photo ID - usually a driver's license which may have been surrendered by some seniors for health reasons years ago. I can't wait for the poll tax and perhaps a literacy test requiring interpretation of a section of the Constitution.
Webster comes from Farmington and Farmington Republicans have long complained bitterly about the students from UMF who vote in that and surrounding towns.
When are we going to learn?
Maine has more than a couple of bargain hunters which explains the popularity of lawn sales and retail salvage stores. The problem is that when you have a skill set and resume to back it up like Chief Reynolds has, you don't have to go to bed every night wondering if some loudmouth at the next town or Selectmen's meeting is going to try to do away with your job, or make it impossible to perform. Reynolds is doing what most competent professionals will do - moving on rather than getting jerked around by the peanut gallery.
Penny wise and pound foolish is a nice way of same stupid and cheap. We get what we paid for, if what we want is someone who works cheap - don't expect burglaries to get solved as happened this past week or domestic abuse to be treated professionally rather than just blown off with a "boys will be boys" attitude.
Trail bikes
I can't speak for Mt. Blue, though I can guess the problem up there. A spur of a state aid snowmobile trail runs through the woods behind my house. Until this summer, it was used daily by trail bikers and ATVers. What was once a pleasant Sunday morning on my deck is now more like being on the infield at Oxford. Worse, the trail was chewed up to the point that a pleasant hike required knee high waders and there was little or no sign of wildlife beyond a red squirrel or crow. They didn't like the noise any better than I.
Of course, all that is in the past. A skidder finished the job and former users now know what Verdun must have looked like the day after the battle.
I suspect Mt. Blue State Park trails have been chewed up by the noisemaking crew to the point that simple hiking is no longer enjoyable. I have yet to figure out why anyone would want to tear down a woodland trail spewing fumes and creating such a racket that even a stone deaf insect would flee.
You see nothing and you destroy the environment. The tourists who want to bring Massachusetts Rte 128 to the woods of Maine probably should just stay home. Mainers who think it's a blast to destroy life the way it should be, should stop, take a deep breath and remember - It's not just about you. It's time to grow up.
Yet more made up stuff
Webster has been talking for years about busloads of out of staters being brought into Maine to "steal elections." He has yet to offer one shred of proof.
Charlie - if you have proof, I challenge you to offer it, not your vague assertions that sound good over a couple of beers in a tavern, but real proof. Cases of massive voter fraud like you allege must be documented somewhere.
But, if this is something you just made up, you might want to have your nose bobbed and then just be quiet.
It was good to see...
...a large corporation NOT turn to its lawyers for a public relations document. The most common reaction of companies caught acting badly is to hunker down behind a horribly worded document pointing to the 2 point type at the bottom of page 351 of the company manual or some obswure government regulation.
Congratulations to LL Bean and Dick the Butcher.
Move along folks, just another Republican myth
Maine went from 21st in the nation to 3rd in the nation when same dau registration became the law. The bill was sponsored by the republican from Farmington. At that time, Republicans thought it was a good idea for everyone who is eligible to vote.
The truth of the matter is that Shields wants to keep away from the polls those who are less likely to vote for Republican candidates.
The photo ID law is more of the same.
Perhaps a return to the rules of 1811 would please conservatives. Adult, white, male property owners only allowed to vote. Presumably they would not have to bring a painting of themselves to prove they are who they say they are.
Is this a GOP press release?
Webster comes across as a knight in shining armor saving the State of Maine from those evil out of state commie pinko liberals and their busses. The reality is quite different.
Blame for the shutdown can be placed on both parties. Charlie Webster and Jock McKernan are as guilty as the oft flogged John Martin of obstinacy and refusal to actually negotiate a compromise until the damage had been done.
Paul LePage brought the same stubborn bullying back to Augusta. Fortunately, there are a few adults on both the right and the left who are forcing the demagogues to tone it down.
Far more serious for us as Americans - the same attitude is controlling the US House. Negotiation is seen as surrender. "Doing it my way" is touted as common sense by Boehner, and Cantor. They are driven to the mics daily by a compulsion to play to extremists who are totally clueless about economics or governance, but, like two year olds, are loudly demanding having their way
Legislators in Washington and the executive in Augusta are playing to the Peanut Gallery just as they did in Augusta in '91. I hope the voters will remember in 2012.
I don't like the state's budget as passed, but I suspect that my friends to the right don't either. It's called compromise. Something both sides can live with.
Watch out Highway Crew and RSU 9
You're next on the block.
I'm assuming all the street corner accountants in town believe that by eliminating the PD, the savings will be around 400K which means the down payment on a snowmobile for each homeowner is at hand. There might even be enough for a suitcase of beer to go with it.
I would suggest they look at the actual savings to Bethel - it is closer to 30K because the county gets the rest to provide coverage when a deputy is available. And the deputy could be checking a break-in in Eustis when your new snow machine is being stolen - see you in an hour or two. With the street lights out you might not even know it's gone until morning.
And , no, I'm not interested in being on a committee. I already participate in 3 meetings a week and my spare time is spent in doctor's waiting rooms.
A little too harsh
I don't know that I'd be that harsh, but I did find it curious that the way the editorial read, Harry Reid (D) Nevada was trying to protect a mountain in Utah.
I taught geography and lived in the west (Alaska). Though I was a journalism minor, I'm betting the folks at the SJ have forgotten way more about writing than I learned in college. Mistakes are human, we strive for perfection but never really reach it. I just didn't want anyone thinking Yucca Mountain had moved clear across Nevada and into a neighboring state.
Hmmmmm
I wonder how it would would work if the Sacramento Bee moved Katahdin to New Hampshire or the Seattle PI decided Mt. Washington is in Maine?
Utah might not want Yucca Mountain given the feds plans for it, but I'm betting Nevadans really resent a Maine newspaper editor moving their mountain to a neighboring state despite the plans for it.
Hen manure is good for the garden
but I think the offal being tossed around to justify the conservative agenda might work just as well.
Ain't that odd
How something everyone assumed was settled could be slipped in through the back door by a very anonymous amender to a routine article not even considered until town meeting was down to nothing but routine articles.
The amount saved by a homeowner with a 100K home should give them enough extra to buy a suitcase of beer for Blueberry Festival or perhaps even a few packs of generic cigarettes.
I awfully glad the police budget was approved, we're going to need them. Of course, there is a small group that wants to eliminate the the PD. That might be accomplished, perhaps by beginning with the routine items and saving the craziest for last... .
Just one question
Why wasn't an escrow account established and added to each year against the day that equipment would wear out or require upgrading?
I realize current town officials and selectmen weren't in office 33 years ago, however even five years ago, someone should have seen the headlight of the oncoming train.
Just goes to show that "just cutting taxes" - the sole requirement for election to any office, from President to Selectman, these days - isn't always the most prudent course.
sorry
Stan is Steve.
Fair share
Mr. Mistler is the only journalist to point out the reason unions are allowed to collect fees from non-members.
Under the Republican bill, non-members happily receive all the benefits of union members without sharing in the cost of negotiations of bringing grievances. Non-union workers loftily claim they are philosophically opposed to unions, but accept the same union negotiated paycheck as their co-workers who pay their share. This isn't about philosophy - it's about being cheap.
Thank you Stan, for pointing out the reason. I suspect your well coiffed colleagues who spend their days in makeup really don't know and the associate assistant producer internee who writes their scripts is equally clueless.
No Governor LePage
You're wrong again - but that doesn't surprise anyone capable of thinking beyond bumper sticker wisdom.
Maine's economic anchor - what holds us back from becoming a land of wall to wall factories with 3% unemployment is geography. We are at the end of the transportation infrastructure so raw materials not natural to Maine (trees, water, rocks) must be shipped in and product shipped out. Both add to costs so those job creators you keep giving tax breaks to are smart enough to set up shop elsewhere which is either in the middle of the marketplace or where labor can be abused without government interference.
So - we can seize southern NH positioning ourselves closer to the Boston marketplace or we can return to 1911 when labor could be abused without all that pesky costly interference from Augusta.
Assuming you can afford 250 cable channels
Let's see, you could replace Lehrer News Hour with Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Cenk Ugyur and Chris Matthews. Sesame Street = Looney Tunes if you want well drawn cartoons or Transformers if all you want is loud noise. Cage Fighting or The Bachelor instead of Frontline. Mad Money is so much better than Maine Watch. Survivor beats Nova.
I suppose it the CW from the Beer and Bait Store prevails...
Yes Mr. Arsenault - LePage is correct and even right - somewhere to the right of Attila actually - we do need to make painful cuts. I'd suggest we begin with the Office of Governor.
I'm the one who was confused
Roman's letter was what I was commenting on, however yours is also well written. :-)
I messed up because my spouse was yelling at me to hurry so she could do something on the iMac. Odd, because we have an iPad too, though not an iPad 2. It's never my fault.
I'm a bit surprised that the 200K is an annual expenditure with the iPad going with the student. I could see the district moving the iPad's into a higher grade with the students and then having to buy a new set for the incoming class. But, just handing them over seems a bit much. If that's the case, I wonder if I can enroll in K. lol
$500 is retail
Jason - as a former grades 5-6 teacher, I would have been thrilled to have someone as thoughtful and well written as you.
The benefits of students becoming computer proficient as young as possible are immense. I'd bet the kindergartners who use them will not be allowed to use them as toys, but by using them will learn that learning doesn't have to be tedious. One of the mistakes adults make is assuming that learning is most efficient in a tightly structured, highly disciplined setting, preferably with a scowling teacher threatening miscreants. God forbid children should discover that learning can be fun or creativity is a good thing.
Oh yes, one final note - Apple wants to get people used to their equipment. I'd bet they are giving Auburn schools a better than wholesale price on the IPads.
Oh no
George - please get well.
Prepare to scream
Though I'll not mention the mural, I will say that, like most Republicans, you're confused.
In the first place - whining is not what those who differ from you are doing. That's a loaded word, not unlike "stupid."
The desire to recall LePage has little to do with removal of a painting or his winning the Blaine House with 38%.
It has everything to do with his ignorance and arrogance and the embarrassment that has caused most Mainers. LePage doesn't understand that when governing in a democracy it's probably not a great idea to run around calling the people idiots, or telling a significant group to kiss his butt, or that President Obama should a. Get the hell out of his state," and b. "Go to hell."
Fortunately for Paul LePage, generations of politicians - Republican and Democrat - have been far more interested in protecting themselves than making elected officials responsible to the people. Recall in Maine is not an option, it's not in our law or Constitution. You couldn't even recall your most hated Democrat.
So scream away Judy - here's one more letter that isn't pro LePage. I'll be outside most of the day, so if you make it loud enough, maybe we'll hear it in Wilton.
Ooops
I read Mr. Lessard's column with interest. I knew I'd disagree with Mr. Lessard on most points and I did, but I was willing to "listen." The headline intrigued me. In fairness, it was probably not written by Mr. Lessard, but it included the overused political cliche "common sense." My wife accuses me of having no common sense, but I'm getting a bit tired of politicians and speechwriterrs telling me I don't have common sense simply because my opinion differs from theirs. But, I wanted to find out how addled I'd become in my old age.
After reading the column, I still disagree with Mr. Lessard on just about all his points. Then, I came to the end of the article and discovered how Mr. Lessard makes his money. He's a signmaker.
I'm not saying Mr. Lessard would like to return Maine to an era when a road trip was on a strip of blacktop between walls of signs exhorting me to buy, buy, buy - but I really wonder if his motivation, money, is all that altruistic.
Maine's beauty should not be hidden for the sake of more minimum wage, no benefit room maid or burger flipping jobs.
"Common sense" suggests most tourists would pass up coming to Maine just to read signs, no matter how well made they are.
Was?
While overt racism, like the use of "Nigger" on maps may be gone, racism lives on just beneath the surface. It's not the use of place names anymore, it's attitude.
Homosapien redneckus is alive and well in Maine. His grandfather's white sheet is carefully folded up and put away in the back of the drawer, but the same racist jokes that made his grandfather laugh make him laugh and the same reflex reaction his grandfather had on seeing an African American still makes him think the word he now denies.
Ask, as I do, those who believe President Obama is somehow not qualified to be President whether he'd make the same statements were the man in the White House Bob O'Brien and a Caucasian and the denial is quick - I'm not a racist. Follow up your question with another, "I don't know, are you?"
Yet another reason
To never again vote for any Republican at any level.
And, I'll bet these people attend church twice a week, sing hymns and drop their tithe into the offering plate thinking that makes them followers of the philosophy of Jesus.
Stay home and study the Beatitudes rather than just sitting in a pew smiling and nodding mindlessly at the sermon as you check your watch next tomorrow.
new excuse needed
The RNC really needs to send out a new talking point memo on excuses. "Out of context," "media messed up," and "I didn't say that," are becoming shopworn. Every other time a Republican politician opens his mouth and inserts his foot, one of the three is guaranteed to be the next day's story.
At least Governor LePage just tells people to stick it in their ear or to do something else with it if he gets criticized.
small correction
Ernie Gruening was the US Senator from Alaska. He was a Democrat back in the day when Alaska was considered a Democratic state and Hawaii a Republican state.
Don't feel bad - lots of postal clerks used to send our mail to Arkansas when they saw AK. Some even required customs forms for packages. LOL
Correct for the first time
The mural should never have been removed in the first place. I don't care if there was a statewide vote to get rid of it, censorship is censorship and revisionism is revisionism.
But it isn't about the mural, Mr. LePage. It's about the way you push people around verbally. Those who disagree with you are idiots. Screwing up Maine children's health takes second place to some chemical company's bottom line. The President should get out of "your" state. It's "our" state governor, not yours.
To put it bluntly, you remind me of the kids who push classmates around, then when they get caught, laugh and say they were "just playing." It doesn't work anymore.
Everything you say is true
And, nothing you or anyone else says will change LePage because he'd have to stop being arrogant - a radical personality change. To him , and a very loud minority, he is Paul LePage and that makes him right.
Were I a businessman in Boston, Chicago, LA or New York, I'd see the editorials in the NYT, hear the jokes from the late night guys and look for a state being run by mature adults.
How does this create jobs?
Employers will just let their over twenty burger flippers and house keeping staff go so they can hire kids at $2 less an hour, then lay them off at 179 days and do it all over again with a new slave.
I used to think the Republicans wanted a return to 1911. I was wrong, it's more like pre Civil War to a time when men were white and everyone else knew their place.
People are missing the point
This isn't about the merits of the artwork, whether or not it is too big for the room or even censorship. This is about an attitude. Paul LePage's attitude. He is under the mistaken impression that he rules Maine when he really doesn't. He is supposed to govern and given the underwhelming percentage of his "mandate" it would seem a prudent person would govern with a light touch.
His my way or the highway style is typical of businessmen who try to change over to government. Bosses expect subordinates to do their will without question. They also understand that their customers will continue to patronize them if they're the only game in town.
Paul LePage isn't stupid. I once called him a moron. He's not. He is an arrogant bully who probably doesn't belong anywhere but in a back office at Marden's.
A first step toward Nirvana
50 cent an hour labor.
Site slow
I think the double posting is the result of the site not reacting when people try to publish comments. They click twice because they assume the first one didn't go through.
I could "agree" with Mr. LePage's defenders, but that would only make me wrong too.
Spin, spin, spin
LePage ordered it removed on the weekend and without notice so it would be done before people and the media knew about it.
The man is a coward which is the mark of the average schoolyard bully. Most of them take a swipe at the most defenseless, then run when unexpectedly confronted.
Hatred - no it's called pity. Both for us who must suffer the damage he is doing and for him because he becomes less than each time he opens his mouth.
Spin, spin, spin
LePage ordered it removed on the weekend and without notice so it would be done bedore people and the media knew about it.
The man is a coward which is the mark of the average schoolyard bully. Most of them take a swipe at the most defenseless, then run when unexpectedly confronted.
Hatred - no it's called pity. Both for us who must suffer the damage he is doing and for him because he becomes less than each time he opens his mouth.
Why doesn't this surprise me?
LePage just flipped the bird at the people of Maine, again.
By doing it on the weekend with no one looking provided more proof - cowardice - that he is little more than a schoolyard bully.
Absolutely pathetic.
It's time to resign, LePage.
But, since that won't happen, it's time for an amendment to the Maine constitution to allow the people to retire him involuntarily. It's called recall and most democracies have a way to do it.
Too late
I know where you're coming from Scott, but I fear it's already too late.
From the Blaine House bully to Atlantic City country style , we are already becoming New Jersey. Add a few lanes to the highways to zip the gamblers north, some high speed chases when they get drunk, cut back on protection services and education to pay for low taxes in the upper brackets so the rich can play in the sun while we make beds and sell lift tickets for 5 months, 29 days at the ski resorts...
The way life should be?
Too late.
not a question of liberal or conservative
This is a question of LePage understanding that he does not rule Maine - he is the governor.
Ain't it awd - to borrow from the late Bob Elliott - that self proclaimed get the government off our backs love to tell everyone else what to do once they ascend the throne. From libertarian conservative to authoritarian in one jump.
BTW Mark - I am an unreconstructed left of liberal. Most liberals are far too concerned with style than substance. I believe that government was formed to protect the weak and direct shared responsibilities to prevent their exploitation by those who would be king.
From one idiot to another
It's time to move on Mr. LePage.
I mean leave.
Find a ghost writer to put your name on a book about your two months in office, resign, do a book tour or two, complain about the main stream media, try not to look at the remainders table in Mr. Paperback (it's a bookstore, Guv), and get yourself a gig fielding softballs from Hannity and O'Reilly.
Oh yeah. Check out the confessional. I know I'm taking your inventory, but Pride is the first.
The point is
This is just one more reason that most business managers are ill suited to govern. They rule, forgetting where the real power lies.
In Lepage's place it is because demonstrates most managers' unwillingness to listen to anyone but themselves. They may talk the talk, but they make the decisions (then point fingers and fire subordinates when it hits the fan). The Catholic religion calls it Pride - the first of the 7 Deadly Sins. I think of it in harsher terms - arrogance.
Paul LePage is unsuited to sit in the Governor's chair because that chair belongs to us - not him. He has yet to understand that and, in my opinion never will. All his training and life experience are based on his will prevailing. Might I suggest that four years down the road, we return him to Marden's as defective. Would that we had recall and could do it before the destruction is near complete.
and yet
You travel two hours north and, with the right insurance card, receive high quality health care at extremely low cost.
The difference? Access to health care and health care itself are controlled by greed. They are a way to take money from those who need medical care and transfer it to people who have no conscience.
Universal single payer health care is less expensive and insures (pun intended) adequate health care for all without bankrupting anyone. Those who would have you believe that a market system works are either liars or fools. Removing the greed factor and controlling costs for services works in every first world country but the United States. We choose the John Wayne, go it alone, "personal responsibility" path, and are pitied for it.
It's time to say goodbye to a failed system.
It's 1984 already
and we're only a tenth of the way to LePage's goal.
There is a single word that - in this case - describes the man who occupies the Blaine House. He is a Philistine.
Uh Oh
I'd almost tune in Glenn Beck on this one.
Hundreds of undocumented seals infiltrate island studdedNew England. Could they be Muslim seals? I'm not saying they are, but I'm not saying they aren't. They may be the first wave ordered by the Kenyan who's occupying the Oval Office. The stage was set years ago with the Marine Mammal Act making it illegal to shoot and kill seals - even those who would seize power and make us part of the 3rd Sealiphate.
Nah - think I'll watch House Hunters or American Pickers instead.
To stick to the partisanship
rather than the athletes...
It all began with the death of our 225 year democratic experiment when 5 appointed judges decided their votes trumped the votes of the people. The Scalia court will forever live in infamy for their foul deed which was even accepting the case - not their all to predictable decision.
We will never know for sure who won that election. I know what the newspapers reported, I also know early reports that indicated all sorts of chicanery in Florida. The former are cited as proof that Bush won, the latter, which disappeared into a 1984 like black hole leave doubt.
From that horrible, terribly political decision, grew partisanship. I can't help but wonder if the election of a skinny black man with a "funny sounding" name, wasn't enough to rouse barely concealed animus among those threatened by change.
Our state - not "just" his
If I recall correctly, 61% of Mainers who voted, did not vote for Lepage and his extreme agenda. The writer of the article is correct - this is Maine's budget, not Paul LePage's.
When President Obama brought his family to MDI for a vacation, then candidate LePage said e'd tell him to get the ---- out of my state. Not Maine, not our state. It was his state. It's too bad a few more people didn't notice the arrogance. we'd be dealing with a more circumspect Governor Cutler now.
Not really made clear in the article is that most of the 203 million in tax breaks go to the wealthiest. Those tax breaks for LePage's buddies are to be paid for by state employees and teachers. Is there a Republican playbook that calls for them to be the reverse Robin Hood?
Uh Oh
Folger - The right is back in the driver's seat, they think. Dissent from their certitude is not acceptable, so be prepared for an avalanche of multisyllabic words meant to overwhelm you and impress your readers. They won't make any real sense. It's just Glenn Beck with a dictionary pretending to be something he isn't. You might even hear from Charlie too.
So much for putting value on kids' education
The law was enacted because the focus of high schoolers should be on education, not providing cheap labor for the business community. When I was in school 55 years ago, we had to have a certificate from the principal saying our grades were good and work wouldn't interfere plus we were restricted to 20 hours just to make sure.
I was correct when I told one LePage acolyte right after his "landslide victory" that he would try to take Maine back to 1911, I just didn't realize how much of a hurry he was in to do that and wonder if 1890 might not be a goal.
This proposal dovetails perfectly with restaurant owners wanting to keep and - if they feel up to it - distribute the tips their sub minimum wage wait staff earns through giving good service. The lower than minimum wage is justified by - tadaaaa - tips.
The rationale for that venal bill was that a waitress wouldn't know how to handle the money she earned.
Follow the money...
...and you will discover the motivation.
Paul LePage is selling the health of the citizens of Maine so that someone can make money and his party can take their cut in the form of political donations.
I used to think it would take another Cairo to eliminate our government's amoral behavior - perhaps Tripoli would be more apt.
Well said
And, of course, the obvious answer to your question, "Why throw inexperience into a big-time ball game?" is loyalty to Paul LePage trumps everything else, even experience and skill.
Statistics can be twisted to prove up is down
All the statistician has to do is ignore an inconvenient factor to skew everything to a preconceived outcome. Thus was born the myth that Maine's tax burden was #1 in the nation. Angus King, the last governor Maine had, finally punctured that balloon and Maine fell to #16 - not terrible considering the geographical size of the state and our relatively small population.
Another of the great myths is the terrible burden taxes place on Americans. Forbes (hard to get more conservative than Forbes) places the US at #48 in the world in total tax burden - yet conservatives continue to groan under the imagined load by simply repeating what is a blatant lie - they didn't even mess with the statistical study, They just put out a talking point memo every week and the sheep repeat it.
We need real government by people who actually know how to separate what they hear at the convenience store from actual fact - inconvenient though the facts might be. Paul LePage is NOT that governor, He goes with the one liner, the bumper sticker, his gut - the last man who did that led us into Iraq and cost hundreds of thousands their lives. (Yes, Iraqis are humans too and I counted them - oh, the shock)
LePage doesn't want advisors
I'm betting there's a connection between the small article on LePage about his denial of any scientific evidence which doesn't fit his preconceptions and the firing of Dr. Mills.
As a physician, she would have strong opinions about endangering people for profit. Much of the BPA controversy was over baby bottles.
I wonder if Mardens has a batch of currently unsalable BPA loaded bottles in the corner of a warehouse, hmmmmm.
Too bad Maine law does not permit recall. I'd stand outside the local grocery store in tomorrows storm to collect signatures to return LePage to Mardens as defective merchandise.
Motivation
Republicans use means available to suppress the vote assuming that this will help them win.
In college towns they claim students vote twice - once at their parents address and again at their college address. The claim is made without proof, but "sounds" good and is easily made at the local coffee shop, so becomes the conventional wisdom. By the third telling, the tale becomes unassailable fact.
In Florida, state police with mirrored sunglasses and hands folded visually challenged every voter. To a minority person who has been harassed by police for a lifetime, the threat, combined with one voting station for thousands of people, threw the election to Dubya (along with the help of the Scalia Court).
The requirement for a state id at $5 a pop is the return of the poll tax. Next, they'll probably require that voters read and interpret to the clerk's satisfaction a section of the Constitution. That's the way it was when I first registered to vote.
Republicans have a love affair with the intentions of the founders - perhaps they'd like voting restricted to white males over 21 who own real property?
Tea Party very noisy and relatively small
Should government be eliminated? Perhaps that is what the Tea Party wants. They are a very noisy and very small minority, but with the absurd costumes and even more absurd spouting of the conventional according to "the guy at the end of the bar," they make for great video for the evening news. The result, even people who know better assume the Tea Party speaks for lots of voters.
But maybe they should experience life without government - no schools, no road maintenance, no fire or police protection, no airports, a food supply that is "safe" if you believe guys like Jack DeCoster, rivers than run green with slime or have a head of foam. But, by God we'll be free and have a few extra bucks to pay for...hey - the stores are empty!
Federal funds subsidize roads and so, are a subsidy to the bus companies as well as EVERY family with a car. If you want to take the family to Orlando this spring, you'll probably be using the MOST heavily subsidized form of travel in the world - air.
Railroads are efficient movers of people and freight. The old private railroads failed precisely because the government built roads and people decided they couldn't live without at least one set of wheels - most families have two or three. Wait 15 minutes for a train - fuggedaboudit.
We pay lip service to weaning ourselves off fossil fuels whether they originate in Texas or Saudi Arabia. But, when ideas threaten to become action, the rightwing takes its cue from oil state senators like Coburn and Cornyn, give President Obama a stupid nickname, slap their bellies in mirth, and hop in the old gas guzzler to go down to the corner store for something cold.
How About...?
LePage and his rubber stamps pack up and head for Juneau. They could put in half a term, get ghost writers and go on a book tour to rake in some real bucks. Oh yeah, the crew from Maine Heritage too. They could set up shop in Wasilla.
Amazing!
You're prescience is nothing short of incredible. In the last few paragraphs you make assumptions that must be based upon what must b3 divine knowledge of the future - or - are you just repeating the conservative mythology according to Matt Drudge?
The idea that the United States is simply not capable of undertaking anything more than the construction of a two holer outhouse is patently absurd, playing to the cheap seats, and far below your usual standard for well thought out opinion.
Balanced budget? How about a surplus? Slowly, since the era of Ronnie, Congress has gradually returned the United States to revenues akin to those of the 1950's except that the tax rates have been rigged to give a much lower one of taxation to the super rich and make up the difference by loading it on the middle class and borrowing the balance. This is simply Republicans doing what their masters order and Democrats being spineless wimps. For a surplus, return tax rates to those of the fifties (under Ike), and withdraw from the Bush adventures in the Middle East. Halliburton et al have made enough for two lifetimes.
We cannot afford to do without world class mass transit. Our dependence on the personal automobile is what causes our dependence on foreign oil. I realize this goes against the red, white and bluest John Wayne meme - but it happens to be true.
Please let your current editorial board take the next week off (woith pay) and hire those who won't just spout conservative conventional wisdom.
attempted edit failed - webmaster needs to fix function
"fire" should read "hire"
Heading Back to 1911
socialism makes sure all are provided for and can be more democratic than the US pretends to be - cases in point - Denmark and Israel.
Marxism says from each according to his ability - to each according to his needs. Theoretically fine until you get the crew at the top taking a handling fee. Not accusing Mr. Langley, but a red flag flies.
My first thought was this is typically exploitive conservative behavior - that moderated gradually until Langley suddenly said almost off handedly that it would allow him to fire fewer staff and then I went from something I won't say here to typically exploitive conservative. So much for Republican led job creation. More like Republican supported profit taking.
Republican legislators will pay no attention to constituents except to be told that they, the legislator know what is right. I know - I've had one scolding from a legislator and been totally ignored by another of mine. We need to remove their perceived mandate - now. This is only the tip of the iceberg - perhaps the one that sank the Titanic. It's still around, except now it sleeps in Blaine House.
a suggestion
I am an old school liberal, an ex-smoker and have COPD/emphysema. I agree with Ms. Larson that the Affordable Care Act needs to be implemented - actually expanded to become universal single payer health care. But those things aren't going to happen in the current political climate so let's look at what Sen. Saviello and Ms. Larson propose.
It bothers me that people who can afford a pack a day habit cannot contribute to a health insurance policy for themselves. They may not be able to buy one outright, but under the Affordable Care Act or Dirigo, they can contribute - yet they are using that disposable income to destroy their health and the health of those around them requiring more costly health care.
Yes, Ms Larson, you are right. Those people will not go away, nor should they. They are our neighbors and I believe the community has a responsibility to help the weakest. So, they will end up as unpaid bills on a hospital ledger which means everyone will pay and they will get sicker.
There is a compromise that will work. It will annoy liberals, especially those who are smokers and it libertarians who believe the only function of government is to go away. The bill should give smokers on MaineCare three or six months to quit providing both education and financial support for classes, over the counter patches or prescription drugs. Anything that is medically effective should be covered for three or six months. Smoking is a terrible addiction that has been said to be as strong as the addiction to heroin. The smoker may curse the state, but he or she will ultimately thank those who may have saved his or her life.
Should the MaineCare patient refuse to quit, they'd be on their own or have to buy Dirigo and pay a premium. i don't know if these ideas would stand a court - probably not since lawyers have the ability to thwart common sense in the pursuit of fees, but they could start a conversation between hardliners on both sides.
It's all about 2012
Obviously it's all about 2012. Rather than "fix" anything the main thrust of Congressional Republicans will be to keep unemployment as high as possible and try for a second dip in the housing market - hence the target placed on FNMA and GNMA which are involved in 90% of new mortgages. Dry up that source, cut the federal work force, repeal economic stimulus and use Darryl (I am not a car thief) Issa to tie up the administration same as Newtie did to Clinton.
Solutions? We don't need no stinkin' solutions.
Special Interest Groups
I'm assuming the governor is going to tell the Tea Parties (I can't believe they need more than one), the Heritage Foundation, the Maine CofC, and various other conservative, libertarian and pro-business groups to kiss his butt if they don't applaud everything he says and complain because their invitations to a gathering are rejected.
LePage is living proof that being a businessman is not any guarantee of the ability to govern. I just wish Maine enjoyed the right of recall. This guy needs to be returned to Marden's as defective merchandise.
RIP Russ
You will be missed - both as a professional and as a person who always smiled and said good morning.
Does this surprise anyone?
LePage's administration has showed all the signs of being one of the most partisan in the history of Maine. His people before politics pledge was of the stuff that makes hay grow.
I wouldn't get upset, except that joining this lawsuit has a cost at a time when LrePage and the Heritage crew will be dumping a greater share of the cost of providing services onto towns and the property taxpayer.
Sadly, Maine does not have a mechanism for recall. The next time we get a government that is more responsive to the electorate than its cash patrons in the old boys' club, maybe we should push for a way to jerk back on the reins of the governor.
Drop the talking points Governor
The election is over, you won though by the slimmest of margins. You don't ave to start thinking about the next election for three years, so why don't you drop the right wing absurdities and begin to speak truth.
Maine is no more a magnet for the poor (code word for minority) than there was actually a welfare queen for Reagan to blather on about. He made that story up and it played well with those who'd rather not think. The welfare magnet story is the same.
Drop it and start dealing with reality. Maine is on the end of the supply line for goods - that and the constant carping about high taxes and over regulation explains our economy as much as anything. NH's tax burden isn't that much less than ours - they more than make up for low state taxes with ridiculously high local taxes. But they don't gnash their teeth and shriek about it scaring off potential investors.
You have four years to prove my foreboding is unfounded - please don't blow it just repeating Heritage Foundation garbage.
Orwellian
Mr. Shields is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
The Democratic proposal with regard to the Bush tax cuts would have extended them for those earning less than 250K. Republicans played fast and loose partisan politics threatening the welfare of the world - "we will not consider anything including a nuclear arms reduction and verification treaty until we get our way."
So there would have been no tax increases on the middle class. Even Mr. Shields would have seen no tax increase on the first 250K of his income.
RNC talking points do not necessarily equal fact. I really hope the people and the media pay very close attention to the right wing disinformation campaign.
Still wondering
what caused the large outage that began at 3AM and ended at 7:30AM on Tuesday. Where's Assange when you need him? Oh, that's right. He's in the slammer in the UK.
I'm not surprised
Lincoln should have let the South go.
I assume the next ruling from this judge will be to declare McCain the winner in 2008. Today would have right for that given that the Scalia Mob pulled off the US's first coup d'etat ten years ago today.
wrong again
False statemen;
"In 1970, after splitting up with two friends in San Miguel D'Allende, I discovered that they had accidentally taken my visa with them and I was, therefore, an illegal alien in Mexico. Under the protection of the American embassy, I got a new visa."
You were not an illegal, simply a person who had lost papers, most likely your passport which may have had visa stamps in it but not one from Mexico which doesn't require them of US citizens. You might have been asked for a driver's license and, lacking that, been given a ride to the embassy or a consulate - but you would not have been imprisoned for two years.
The rest of your story is just more of the same. Why do you suppose Mexican illegals come here. Because they and their families have no money. Of course, most right wingers cannot conceive of life with cash ranging from a fat 401k to a family trust fund or at least a damn good salary, so getting money to pay for jail from people who are penniless makes sense only to the thoughtless.
Were the US to imprison all illegals for 2 years we would have to put a stop payment on those tax cuts for the super rich or borrow money from te Chinese again just to build jails.
I have an idea that will appeal to those who like to simplify the most complex issues - a single bullet paid for by the recipient. The thought is not original. I got it from an ultra conservative who sniggered at the thought of testosterone laced justice.
Nothing like outing yourself
It'll be pretty hard to sell the idea that working people should vote Republican after this. Basically McConnell and Boehner held the unemployed hostage to gain an even bigger piece of te pie for those responsible for the unemployment problem.
Still - Charlie is probably correct. Mainers will vote as though hearing the old Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion chant used to demonize Democrats for a century. I spoke to one the day after the election. She admitted she had no clue who the candidates were, or what they stood for. She voted the way her family always had.
The elephant in the room
Your editorial is like a half written story, you've ignored the ending.
The Republican Party is simply following the orders of its patrons to block anything that Obama approves of. It doesn't matter that the idea originated with the REpublicans nor the it was once thought to be a good idea by right wing think tanks - if Obama wants it, it must be blocked.
Rush said that Obama must fail, but he is only one of the more obnoxious flacks used by the billionaires club to return the world to its rightful order - those who have the gold make the rules.
The Tea Partiers, once called Dittoheads, are out in force howling constitutional law. All you have to do is pretend to know what you're talking about and that makes you corrdct.
The Republicans have been
The Republicans have been demonizing the Decider in Chief these past few months, so blaming Bush might be another possibility. I did forget Pelosi, Reid, both Pingrees and a partridge in a pear tree in my first reaction to Mr. Nutting's non-mea culpa.
...and of course
it will be Obama's fault. Or Hillary's. Or Bill's. Or the "liberal" media. Just more of the usual Republican victimhood distraction. Sha Na Na's Charlie Brown is going to be the theme song for 2012's Republican National Convention
Nutting's med error isn't all that unusual and should licenses be pulled for one infraction, we'd have only a couple of pharmacists to work the whole state. That is why ANY change in the color or shape of your refill should be questioned. The pharmacy should tell you if they've changed generic brands, but if they don't, you can go to RX.com and use it to check the number imprinted on a tablet. Seriously - NEVER assume a pharmacist, doctor or nurse is infallible. They are humans and humans make errors.
Rovian grammar
For all his education, Mr. Dwight perpetuates the childish myth that the party of the left is called the "Democrat" Party. This ranks right up there with people who eat Eye-talian sandwiches or think we fought a war in Eye-rak.
While Republicans nationwide insist on rebranding their opposition, the proper name is Democratic Party.
Playing games with names is a product of the Segretti/Atwater/Rove brand of smash mouth politics. Wrong on WMD, wrong on the difference between adjectives and nouns.
history seen through the prism of political spinmasters
Let's start with Harry. Few have been so vilified while in office and few have risen further in the years that followed his death. While President, people laughed at the piano playing everyman with a daughter who got on the Ed Sullivan show because she was the President's daughter. People were furious with HST for firing Dugout Doug and not letting him end the Korean War with a mushroom cloud over Beijing (then Peking)
The Ike years are still pretty much a snore. Happy Days (the sitcom) sums up the whole thing. I still recall those days with a smile, but not because of the President. I loved fried clams and no one knew they were creating a market for statin drugs by eating them.
GWB you got right.
As for Bill Clinton - his current rep ranges from brilliant pol to dirty old man. Atwater Associates CEO Karl Rove did his job well, but the current demons are a black President and a woman Speaker. I think the political spin guys will eventually leave Clinton in the brilliant pol category in the minds of all but a few die hard right wingers
Welcome
Inchbessess - sadly the extent of my Armenian though when I was your age I could understand bits and pieces of sentences.
The three of you are a credit to your nation and should be an inspiration to Dixfield students.
Welcome to our country.
Karl's Kool Aid
another glass Joel?
Last time I looked, President Obama was elected by a majority of the popular vote and the electoral votes. If he's not doing the will of the people, it's because of Chinless Mitch, Palm Beach John and the Party of No.
water quality
As water quality drops, so do real estate values.
The lesson is that if you want to relax protection and if the new rules degrade water quality - sell quickly, don't buy.
Appalling
I have rewritten this about five times and am left wondering if I can express my thoughts without insulting Leo. Leo - you're just wrong about everything political and stuck in the 19th century as far as race is concerned.
One thing I do know, you don't want to visit the Roxbury in Mass and say what you said. A plea that you have a right to say what you want would not save you.
The usual
The usual negativity.
Everyone's an expert. Just ask them, they have an answer for everything.
This is grant money - not local taxes, and it can't be spent on economic development.
Allowing drunk drivers to go home with a wink and a pat on the back is not an enhancer of the quality of life, just ask someone who's lost a child or a spouse to some selfish moron who "can handle his booze."
Business has been coming to Wilton - downtown may not be terribly busy, but a lot of that is because people think they have to park within ten feet of the store they're visiting. These same couch potatoes will walk a mile across blacktop at a mall.
Instead of kvetching, come to town meeting and take part. If you're not from Wilton - bugger off.
The aircraft in question are
The aircraft in question are mostly Mass ANG.
I would suggest that the corridor up Rte 9 from Copley Square to Worcester might be a real fuel saver for Otis based fighters. There might even be a few testosterone overloaded cheerleaders who'd stand along the route to wave flags.
Great photo Terry. Dave will
Great photo Terry. Dave will be jealous.
Thanks
I am one of those
I am one of those unreconstructed liberals.
We do exist.
And I have no idea whether or not ghosts exist. I look with extreme suspicion upon those who speak with unshakeable certitude about things they cannot know. In my experience, they are both ignorant and dangerous.
Maybe someday we'll be down
Maybe someday we'll be down to one megastore selling cheap plastic crap imported from China.
Tony in Wilton I'm so glad
Tony in Wilton
I'm so glad everything is going so well in Farmington that people have nothing to do but try to exercise control over their neighbors' activities. Oh wait, that's what the "new right" does, isn't it.
Freedom for me, but not for thee.
Oh well.
Tony in Wilton I would
Tony in Wilton
I would suggest the corridor from Boston to Springfield along the Mass Pike is a lot closer to Otis than Maine is. Think of the jet fuel saved. They could give another tax break to rich guys who could then trickle on the rest of us.
We'll miss Chuck and his
We'll miss Chuck and his wisdom at the Sunday gathering of Bill's friends.
Tony N
Fixing the problem costs
Fixing the problem costs money. You can't "throw" money wildly at every problem and cut taxes at the same time. Of course, public employees could always be given another unpaid furlough day. But then the money saved by the furlough would have to be returned to the taxpayer so he or she can use the money wisely.