Kennebec Blues

Excuses, excuses, excuses...

2012-02-15T22:53:00.003-05:00

A – The governor’s man, Dan Billings at As Maine Goes:
"Very low voter turnout. The Democrats did a better job motivating and turning out their base vote. Special elections are a different animal -- they are all about voter ID, motivating the base, and get-out-the-vote. Different strategies and different tactics are needed from a regular election."

B – The legislative insider, Representative Andre Cushing, Assistant House Majority Leader in the Bangor Daily News:
“What’s lost in this is that the Democrats knew who they were running last fall, so [Johnson] had a lot more time to meet with voters.”

C – The candidate, Representative Dana Dow in the Lincoln County News:
"I would simply say this vote represents a referendum on the governor and maybe the budget we are trying to get passed. That might have something to do with it. I don't feel its [sic] referendum on Dana Dow. It's bigger than that."

D – The loose cannon, Maine State Republican Chair Charlie Webster in the Bangor Daily News:
“I don’t think an individual election changes the next one. It’s a good win for them but it doesn’t change our plans.”

Hey gang, here's a bit to ponder and even a free not taxpayer funded suggestion or two:

A – Dan, Republicans with their registration edge in the district are no longer motivated and lavishly outspending your opponent by four to one a strategy that isn’t working (sorta like Mr. Romney)? Maybe it’s your boss's message.

B – Andre, Republicans had a name recognition problem and suffered from less time to meet with voters even with running a sitting State Representative and former Senator from the District? Maybe they are waking up to how they have been misrepresented by Republicans.

C – Dana, bingo, you’re right on, pass go - collect $200 (that's $50 in Democratic dollars by your spending margin), it was most certainly a referendum on Governor LePage’s plans for our state, that was the big elephant sized issue. A lesson learned would be for you to go back to the House and oppose his agenda. Maybe you should switch parties, call us.

D – Charlie, Charlie, Charlie, you’re not going to change your plans? Please, please, please do keep thinking that way. (See drawing above.)

Snowe Abdicates Responsibility Once Again

2011-08-11T10:37:00.009-04:00

Senator Olympia Snowe has been getting some summer back-in-the-home-state press about her head-shaking angst about the toxic partisanship in Congress. A recent Huffington Post piece mentions a summertime photo-op walk through Saco:

Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) talked to people in Saco, Maine about the debt ceiling negotiations Wednesday, and lamented the extreme partisanship that characterized the debate this summer.

“I’m embarrassed by all of us,’’ Snow said, according to the Associated Press. “I’ve never seen a worse Congress in my whole political life.’’

In another piece published last Saturday in the Kennebec Journal, Senator Snowe goes on with more “poor-me-us” lamenting:

"Unfortunately, everything is concentrated in political messaging, and the art of governing and legislating has been virtually lost," she said.

and

"Everybody is trying to orchestrate their political positions to score political points," she said.

"And you would have thought in the aftermath of the election that we would have begun a new session with a different tone, laying the basis and the groundwork for rebuilding the economy and concentrating on jobs."

and further

"There are fewer and fewer senators who represent a broad, diverse political constituency anymore," Snowe said. "You either represent a red state as a Republican or a blue state as a Democrat."

She said the national electorate appears divided as well, viewing events through either "MSNBC or the FOX News prism."

"It's either-or," she said.

Snowe, a moderate, has enjoyed support from Maine Democrats and independents.

The miraculous moderate myth lives on despite the fact that she has acted in near absolute lock step with the Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and the Republican minority throughout her term to extend filibusters and cast negative cloture votes time after time to block legislation and to kill bills that would have passed with an absolute majority.

On unavoidable extreme high profile issues, on a very minuscule number of occasions, Senator Snowe plays the moderate in front of the press such as voting to move health care reform out of committee after badly diluting it and then when the rubber hits the road voting against it. For this investment of a bit of non-productive time and posturing in the spotlight, the moderate franchise gets built back home.

Maine voters want to believe that they send moderate independent minded Senators to Washington but in truth have party-line operatives who contribute to the very gridlock and partisanship that Senator Snowe laments. She and Senator Collins simply play the game differently to build their mythical moderate fable while being part and parcel of the misrule and misrepresentation by a super-minority, line-in-the-sand, and stalemate supplying cabal of the very partisanship gridlock they bemoan for Maine digestion.

Senator Snowe has been in Congress for over three decades and appears to now be apparently seeking a fourth term in the Senate. Her complete abdication of responsibility for the Senate atmosphere based on her lengthy career begs the questions:

- What is she doing about this other than complaining and not taking any responsibility?
- Why isn’t she independently leading with her three decades of experience in Congress?
- How can Maine voters continue to accept such an ineffective lack of leadership?
- Where is her “moderation” really and has it helped Maine at all?
- What will we get out of her serving in the next six critical years?

It is time for Senator Snowe to go. She is totally ineffective, contributes greatly to legislative gridlock, has shown next to nothing in the way of independence when it counts, hoodwinks us with her moderate myth, and now laments, complains, throws her political hands in the air, and does not take any responsibility at all for her lockstep partisanship with Senator McConnell and the GOP minority strangling the United States Senate.

Conversations With Republicans: Spending and Welfare

2011-08-02T15:23:00.006-04:00

Today at the car dealership, while awaiting the repairs from the annual dreaded task -- the state inspection -- I ran across a couple of local Republicans waiting for some work of their own to be completed. On the television was the discussion of the debt ceiling, as the bill had just cleared the Senate and was awaiting Obama's signature. They were having a lively chat about how important it was that we cut spending, and I decided to chime in.

First fact, and it's one that the media is finally picking up after the bill was passed -- deficit reduction during recessions harms economic growth. In the 1930s, FDR faced a similar situation. The country had spent significant amounts of money through the New Deal, including work programs such as the Works Progress Administration. He was pushed by conservative Democrats, Republicans, and a few trusted advisers that spending had to be reduced, and he did so. The economy collapsed, and the word "recession" was invented so as to not create panic over us re-entering the Great Depression. The cuts were reversed in 1938 through emergency spending, and the economy rebounded.

After hearing this information, they were a little hesitant to be supportive of this debt deal, but still felt we should cut spending. I asked them where they'd seek to cut, and one of them said that we shouldn't touch Social Security or Medicare, and we shouldn't touch military spending. I asked if he felt we should remain in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he stated that he didn't, he just felt that the troops are in harm's way and should be cared for. I suggested we bring them home, give them their GI Bills, and let them begin civilian careers -- and he thought this was a good idea.

They both shifted gears to welfare fraud -- too many people collect checks that shouldn't. They felt people use their TANF check to buy drugs, or they have more kids just to collect more benefits, or other kinds of fraud. They suggested drug testing for welfare recipients, and launching a deep investigation to find fraudulent welfare cases.

As I pay a bit of attention to such things, being a social work major, I informed them that fraud is about 2/10 of 1% of all cases in the state -- and it would cost more money to find the fraud than it would to allow it to continue. I asked if their concern was the morals or the money, and they said it was the money -- so by the end, they'd disposed of the fraud investigation. Still, drug testing was relevant.

I asked them why this was. I can't disagree with them being angry that people on welfare use state money to abuse drugs. If I knew someone doing this, I'd probably be angry with them, too. Still, I know the reality of drug addiction. Again, I asked them -- is this about money, or morals? This time, it was about the morals, they felt stolen from. Okay, hard to argue this, and I really wouldn't try.

But I did ask them, did they know that TANF checks go to parents with children? They did know this, and felt that women got pregnant so they could get more money. I asked them if they felt that they knew any woman who would go through nine months of pregnancy for an extra $1,500 or so a year -- and their eyes popped when they realized how little extra the woman would get. This argument, too, went by the wayside.

Then, back to substance abuse -- do they want the children starving? Well, of course they don't, they said. Do you want the children going into an already struggling foster care system, when that would cost the state money, and we know outcomes are better for children to remain with parents, even if they are dysfunctional? (Note: This is why DHHS works for 18 months to reunify children with parents.)

And so I suggested, maybe we should tie a positive drug test to required substance abuse treatment to keep the TANF flowing. I can't disagree with this as a "moderate" solution, we can combat a social problem and keep people fed at the same time. So, okay, we'll do drug tests and add a sensible condition to welfare. Fine by me. This is called being responsible with our money.

What I took away from this conversation overall was that these older, middle-class Republicans weren't so much concerned about spending as they were about spending badly. They were fine with the welfare checks, so long as most of them were being spent by people who needed the help and people weren't just using them to buy drugs. Helping the disadvantaged is a liberal message. Not spending taxpayer money on people who abuse that help is a conservative one. We can do both.

More on this conversation later this week.

Prove It Charlie

2011-07-05T12:21:00.000-04:00

Regardless of position, using facts and not fiction in debate is expected of our civic leaders. When someone purposefully veers into outright deception and spreading false claims to build support for one’s particular position, it is disservice to Maine citizens. Argue with passion, debate vigorously, but tell the truth.

LD 1376 which reduces Maine citizens’ access to the polls by denying them the continuation of same day registration unanimously enacted by a Republican legislature in 1973 and continually used by Republicans, Democrats, and unenrolled voters without problem is a case in point. For partisan and rhetorical reasons Maine’s GOP joined the national trend to restrict ballot access using sound bite and talk radio reasoning.

Most disheartening is the largely unchallenged and I contend false assertion made by State Republican Chairman, Charlie Webster, published on June 27th regarding “witnessed busloads of new voters who register Election Day, folks most of us have never met and frankly most of us may never see again.”

I’ll be upfront; I do not believe Mr. Webster. The sad element in this affair is that his motivation seems to be to spread fear of people who for understandable reasons register at election time rather than welcoming greater involvement in our electoral process.

Mr. Webster ought to post videos of the busloads of undesirable voters swamping polls online. Surely the Republican Chairman has photos, news stories, and hard evidence to make such a charge. He should place sworn affidavits by reliable witnesses in front of us. In other words, prove it Charlie.

If proof is not forthcoming then Mr. Webster ought to apologize or the Republican State Committee ought to admonish him. If neither is forthcoming, then we as voters will need to admonish the GOP ourselves next election because truth is important.

The Lie of Equivalency

2011-05-17T12:30:00.003-04:00

Representative Paul Ryan puts 47 million Americans on welfare. *

Simplistic repetition of rhetoric in politics regardless of issue facts or complexity is a tool that has been used with great success on the right to deceive citizens into supporting actions counter to their own interests. It raises its head frequently in the fiscal posturing machinations of today’s über-conservatives’ attacks on progressive taxation, spending that benefits people over political profits, and the mindless worship of the free market which really stands for corporations being free to harm common citizens.

Getting the lie of equivalency into circulation is the very first step. Whether it is hanging a banner on Maine’s GOP headquarters saying “Working People Vote Republican” to create an unbalanced perception or planting the specter of a mushroom cloud in the public’s mind to get the nation’s war blood up, this deceptive and simplistic approach is used time and time again to our detriment. And so the images of Republicans “having ladders on their trucks” and Iraq attacking with nuclear weapons us if we do not attack them first are evoked to push actions which makes no sense. Their objective is to ignore the core truth by using a lie of equivalency that only serves to heighten partisanship and destroy consensus, compromise, or cooperation.

A now a brand new lie of equivalency is being tested by Republican Paul Ryan as detailed at Talking Points Memo:

…Ryan reframed the entitlement cuts in his budget as "strengthen[ing] welfare for those who need it,"…

Ryan and his allies trotted the concept of changing Medicare to a voucher program that would put one of the most popular, effective, and needed entitlements on the pathway to filling private insurance company profit coffers and diminishing the level of effective help to citizens by both that action and allowing the benefit to shrink over time in relation to rising health care costs. Ryan and company got a strong negative reaction from across the political and public spectrum and even many Republicans raced to distance themselves from the rapid Ryan repulsion reaction.

Ryan didn’t have a good lie in place and just got the obligatory “at least he’s trying to do something and put something out there so we can chat about something and water down something so it looks like we do something” banter. But the powers to be do not want to address the deficit with appropriate progressive tax structures and tough decisions around exorbitant defense spending exemptions from reality. With quick turnaround, a GOP desirable lie is being auditioned to equate Medicare with welfare.

Thus cutting Medicare equals strengthening welfare for those who need it. “Those who need it” will be subject to strict and stern definition. In one fell swoop Medicare is the same as welfare and should now guide the future of the program. First there might be WelfareMedicare vouchers, followed perhaps by WelfareMedicare means testing, and of course finally elimination of the WelfareMedicare nanny state.

Medicare evokes a positive image of government serving all people well for their societal betterment, the essence of an advantageous entitlement because you are fortunate enough to be a United States citizen. The image of welfare in this context is designed to do precisely the opposite and reinforced by the misleading argument of need as a tepid low value positive over entitlement as an outright negative connotation. Ryan’s pairing of the two, a lie of equivalency, is poised now for rhetorical repeating and will be coming to a GOP theater near you.

* Based on 2010 estimated Medicare enrollment.

Percentage Perspectives

2011-05-11T09:06:00.000-04:00

Congratulations Senator Dill! You have won a special election by a landslide that if it had gone to the GOP would have led their claims of support for Governor Paul LePage and his right wing agenda. I'm sure they had their downplaying the results spin ready just in case you nosed over the line in a photo finish but alas, they'll need to rewrite it to account for a trouncing that dismisses the idea of referendum on Maine’s direction. Speaking of mandates, you enter into office with a majority 68% win unlike Paul LePage who was sworn in after a 38% plurality of votes cast. As for the *GOTP, let the excuses begin!

* Grand Old Tea Party

Death Vouchers

2011-04-17T07:03:00.002-04:00

“Do you realize that your leadership is asking you to cast a vote today to abolish Medicare as we know it?”
– Nancy Pelosi, April 15, 2011

The convoluted logic went like this. We were going to take something away in our existing health care system, we were going to have to reduce what was covered, some procedure choices would be pushed out of reach, some spending on inefficient older bodies and minds would need to be trimmed, some people would need to be judged in a faceless bureaucratic court of cost, and health care rationing would be introduced. The empanelled bureaucrats charged with weighing your life’s worthiness of repair would make up a cold hearted “death panel.”

The kind and loving face of the right had once again worked overtime injecting fear into the debate of President Obama’s health care reform. Yet whether one agrees with the result or not, there were not, are not, and will not be death panels in the loosest sense. The aim was to cover more people with insurance. Death panels were a leap of hyperbole about rationing.

An interesting component of rationing is the use of coupons or vouchers to give everyone the same slice of little. Vouchers are a device that invokes getting a tangible just due reward that one can spend as one sees fit. Misunderstood is that vouchers are also the device to get government money into private business hands with the least amount of government and voter controls. And like a coupon, vouchers are not necessarily intended to cover all costs, just the basics in part with you throwing in the difference. Now if coming up with the difference is a problem, and it will be, for many elderly Americans then the result is…surprise…rationing health care.

Senior fixed budgets will be subjected ever greater pressures to choose among the necessities of food, shelter, and health care in a process that is simultaneously going to be inadequate, confusing, and subject to market whims. On the political front it will be easier to reign in spending by trimming coupons a bit here and there depending on who is in power. The ability to indirectly cut Medicare as we knew it by hacking at it one remove away at the voucher level brings to mind reducing what will be covered, pushing some procedure choices out of reach, forcing decisions on spending on inefficient older bodies and minds onto the voucher recipients, leaving some people to be judged in a faceless bureaucratic market of cost, and thus introducing full blown health care rationing for older citizens. One might even call this weighing your life’s worthiness of repair the determinate factor in how one might elect to spend their inadequate cold hearted “death voucher.”

Medicare as we know it may face spending structural issues but the essential factor in the midst of all the economic debt fear of the future being spread by the right who want their profits now is ultimately about choice. We need only climb onto a tank and waive a corporate tax file to present our petition.

Dear Senator;

2011-04-04T17:18:00.006-04:00

I read the op-ed piece written by Senators Katz and Langley that you co-signed in today’s newspaper. I very much appreciate the sentiment expressed that Governor Paul LePage’s tone, demeanor, and belittling comments have no place in Maine political discourse. Putting people down, dismissing their concerns, and removing expressions of their aspirations absolutely do not serve Maine citizens.

However, the op-ed piece strongly endorses the policies and programs that the Governor is pushing and I find that message disheartening. The deeply concerned reaction by many of your constituents to the Governor’s antics also applies to his anticipated actions. It is not only Paul LePage’s tone that has been offensive but it is also the tone of his agenda that is disturbing.

Should Paul LePage’s agenda as stated by him on the campaign trail and reiterated by him many times as Governor be enacted without significant compromise and moderation, the negative attitude he has exhibited toward many Maine citizens will be translated into an official negative attitude of our State toward your constituents.

Deep cuts in social services set an ill tone toward those who need society’s assistance. Stripping environmental and worker protections from our laws codifies a negative demeanor toward Maine’s most important resources. Unfair payroll taxation of State employees and teachers belittles their important contributions to Maine. Each is just as troublesome as negative public discourse.

Again, thank you for taking a public stand in this letter on Governor LePage’s harmful behavior, I urge you to also step forward to stand up to those aspects of his policy and program proposals that will effectively harm the people of Maine.

Respectfully;
Bruce Bourgoine

Why Business Should Condemn LePage's Hubris

2011-03-24T17:18:00.000-04:00

The moral mural position and self interest ought to trump petty triumphalism.

When businesses, large or small, sit down at the table with a union representative or an employee not a member of a labor union to work on some employer/employee impasse or issue, a climate of collaboration is essential to success. Paul LePage's mural madness may seem remote to those discussions in the future but the Governor has with distain added his bit of poison into what ought to be atmosphere of respect for workers, open-minded discussions, and mutual purpose.

Businesses currently in Maine are invested for perhaps reasonable or rueful reasons but understandable ones in the red tape roll back and they are also focused on emergence from recession. Adding a bit of employer versus employee toxicity is hardly in their interest. And having the addition of it made in a heavy handed "I'm the boss" approach, based on a feeble flippant fax, for an in-your-face symbolic sophomoric stunt, is counterproductive to a relationship that needs some attention already.

Workers should not only feel respected for their work contribution but should also feel they hold personal worth and dignity as more than mere cogs in the wheels of commerce. Removing artwork on labor history from the Maine Department of Labor is very much the wrong message delivered in a brusque, bossy, and bullying matter. It says, "Your history is unimportant, your heroes are rubbish, and your connection here is severed."

I contend that it truly does not represent what reasonable employers, business leaders, industry groups, entrepreneurs, and even businesses that might be looking at the state for possible investment and expansion want. Why would the clumsy slap down by a third party of people one needs to partner with be welcome? Why would the intrusion into existing balanced relationships be helpful? Why would one invest to relocate a business to Maine in an atmosphere with unpredictable elements?

In closing, businesses in this state have a lot of priorities, and one is not symbolically beating down workers. In fact some of their priorities are the opposite, to increase employer/employee collaboration for best results, to uplift and improve workforce quality built on good relations, and to build a great reputation for attracting topnotch employees, consumer marketing purposes, and being pillars of our communities. "Made in Maine" means, "Made by Mainers."
Business leaders should openly condemn Governor Paul LePage's unproductive attack on their employees. I urge them to speak out clearly rather than faxing.

Not addressed in this piece is the role many companies and business leaders in this state take in promoting the arts. I never fail to appreciate and often patronize the sponsors noted for exhibitions at museums and the underwriting of play productions and concerts in Maine. To these sponsors of the arts, this is also an affront of petty censorship and artistic expression that they wisely support.

Triumphalism

2011-02-15T23:22:00.002-05:00

We now have a bill (LD 583 & Sponsors) that will create a NRA specialty plate. This is clearly what can be called “triumphalism” when a proposal of this sort is put forth.

Such a bill is not about governing, it is about ruling. Have you heard the outcry your fellow citizens seeking that this measure be promulgated and passed into law? Of course not because there is neither rational nor demand for this action. There is only the message; “we will do this because we can.”

The NRA specialty plate is pure triumphalism theater. Indeed it can be seen as similar to committing an “excessive celebration” penalty in the NFL. Yes, your team scored but rubbing the opposition’s nose in it to a disproportionate degree is unproductive at best and mean spirited at worse.

Our politics have no immediate penalty for “excessive celebration” and in the larger scheme of two coming years of fiscal action, policy realignment, and political redirection; this measure will eventually seem minor in nature. But at present, because no valid reason exists for this action, it speaks volumes in terms of the relationship we can expect from those elected and sworn in to serve all their constituents and their true attitude toward citizens in the minority.

Additionally it may just set up a divisive situation where none was sought or desired. This action strikes one as an attempt at taunting; it adds to the right-left gulf instead of working toward a political environment of benefiting all in Maine. There will be denials of such as intentions but this is truly a case of where actions speak louder than words.

It bodes ill for Maine when our elected representatives misguidedly engage in political theater that is clearly “in your face” unproductive posturing. That it will send money to a controversial advocacy group politically aligned with the right will be the recurring slap on the other cheek.

However, there has been one prevailing historical lesson for those who stridently engage in triumphalism; the willingness to alienate, the dedication to gesture not substance, and the deafness of self-righteousness generally leads to downfall.

Reform Rx - Snowe & Collins Redux

2011-02-03T16:49:00.003-05:00

The United States Senate last night (2/2/10) voted on an amendment to the FAA Air Transportation Modernization and Safety Improvement Act for the stated purpose of: To repeal the job-killing health care law and health care-related provisions in the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.

It failed completely along party lines (51-47) with our Senators Snowe and Collins joining the GOP minority to take away health care reforms for Maine people. We continue to be ill represented by both of our Senators. First each of them played drawn out games to weaken the original legislation substantively and now they continue to attack health care for all us by engaging in this showboat, kneel-to-the-tea-party vote to completely reverse and trash the entire effort.

You'll hear from them that their goal is to replace it with a better plan. The better plan time has past, they know it, and this is just one more attempt to reverse health care progress and set our gains back to zero. And despite constitutional bluster about mandates by Republicans, absolutely many essential reforms like covering pre-existing conditions will not work without a larger insurance pool and our Senators are ignoring such facts.

We must remember this in 2012 when Senator Snowe, endorsed by Governor LePage (who is himself moving us into an unwanted lawsuit to overturn health care reform) runs for re-election. Yes, this is the same Senator Snowe who voted in the Senate Finance Committee (her pre-existing position) to support a similar bill in 2009. Ever since then her commitment to reform has headed downhill to today voting to overturn the vital minimal reforms we desperately needed. We need to also remember Senator Collins continual gamesmanship on health care in 2014.

For more about the price Maine citizens will have to pay by any repeal of the Affordable Care Act for Maine citizens, follow this healthcare.gov link.

Malice of the Absent

2011-01-17T07:04:00.001-05:00

Finger forward, thumb cocked back, a squint perhaps, “Bang, bang you’re dead!”

Thousands of times daily, fingers on the playground, hands upon mesmerizing games, metaphorically uttered by co-workers, children and adults in the passing parade of people, politicians and pundits, and with desensitized distortions of life and death, on dark city streets, in wayward dusty small towns, borne to empower for fortune or in fear, yielding incidents that lead to tiny popping noises or to rattling deafening echoes flowing from fingers that leave blood on a street or in a hallway with life ebbing away, and with ever alarming frequency, carnage, terror, anguished horrified mourning on campuses, in workplaces, where we entrust our children’s very lives, and in the bright burst of sunshine of a shopping center like thousands upon thousands across the United States of America, reality imitates imagination that imitates reality at the point of a finger or gun.

And through all of it we remain in complete denial as a nation. We step beyond our failure to act to covering our eyes, blocking our ears, and failing to deploy our reason in the real forward steps of confronting a highly visible repeated catastrophe directly and vigorously resolving to change the accepted societal rules and laws to decisively correct our defective relationship with guns. Instead we once again weep, we memorialize, we comfort, we grieve, and we struggle with the discomfort of details that flow across our airwaves for a few days or sometimes a few weeks. Ultimately we as a nation in an ultimate irony, choose the weakness of will over the strength of our convictions.

Across the road in the early predawn of an autumn morning, a pickup truck backs into a trace of an old logging road across from my home. People get out, finish a steaming cup of coffee, speak in hushed tones, shoulder rifles, and silently move into the woods and fields. I slumber on a mere stone throw away, knowing all this, harboring no fear whatsoever, for these are my friends and neighbors. Across our land this image is repeated on a variety of landscapes in pursuit of a variety of game or perhaps just merely a bit of companionship or solitude.

In safety orange, these men and women, do not want or require automatic weaponry to burst out dozens of heavy rounds, armor piecing bullets, or high powered handguns with extended clips for rapid fire. They have planned their excursions since last season, buying what was needed in leisure not haste and if procurement of the necessary equipment required more time, more appropriate checks, longer waiting periods, and fewer places to purchase, they are fully capable of planning accordingly. Yet one disproportionally powerful nationally organized voice and an ongoing chorus of the insensible and inflexible have formed an alliance purported in part to protect the rights of those men and women in the predawn without consent based on honesty.

It is so beyond reason to twist every reasoned approach to the reduction of gun violence and the limitation of weapons of small mass destruction into a threat to the traditions and safe pursuits of responsible ordinary citizens who are our friends and neighbors. To rest their ability to have a rifle or two, a couple of shotguns, and yes perhaps even a pistol upon keeping full automatic high powered human assault weapons used in wars and a flood cheap high capacity and therefore high lethality handguns is irrational, irresponsible, and offensive.

Yet we continue to tread the path of inaction and to support the inaction of our leaders after every incident that focuses attention on the issue of the role of guns in our society in part because it is too complicated to discuss the issue rationally. And perhaps it is also due in part to accepting that the finger pointed, thumb cocked back, and shout of “Bang, bang you’re dead!”, will always lead to some actualization that we apparently are resigned to tolerate and live with while other lives are cut tragically short.

All Must Denounce "Eliminationist" Rhetoric

2011-01-09T21:32:00.004-05:00

We ought to be very concerned about the political terror violence in Arizonia that not only severely injured Representative Giffords but has now taken several fellow citizens' lives. SarahPAC had placed crosshairs on Gabrielle Giffords district this past election and while one cannot blame this particular act directly on that paticular political imagery, it deserves some focus. These types of highly charged appeals, with the steady angry drumbeat on the right, especially on the radio waves and the ultra conservative as victim web presence, has helped coarsen our politics and invited in hate crime, loner lash-out, and attempting to cast votes of anger with a gun.

From Joan Walsh, Salon editor at large:

...no conservative leader has yet called for dialing back the rage on the right in the wake of the Giffords shooting. Sarah Palin sent condolences to Giffords' family, but said nothing about her unconscionable SarahPAC map putting 20 House members, including Giffords, in actual crosshairs for supporting healthcare reform, or her infamous Tweet telling conservatives "don't retreat, reload." Giffords' 2010 Tea Party challenger, Jesse Kelly, hasn't apologized for inviting supporters to "shoot a fully automatic M16" to "get on target for victory" and "remove Gabrielle Giffords from office."

We have no idea why Loughner allegedly tried to kill Giffords Saturday. But the fact that a well-liked, centrist, pro-gun rights Democrat like Giffords faced threats and attacks for her healthcare vote, or that she was targeted with violent imagery by the 2008 Republican nominee for vice president as well as her 2010 GOP opponent, ought to make conservatives pause. More than pause, it ought to make them denounce those in their ranks who are using extremist, eliminationist rhetoric.

We must reflect on that which we have all always known.

On Message

2011-01-07T21:53:00.000-05:00

One item I have constantly remarked upon is the need to be able to ask a person on the street what the Democratic Party stands for and receive a good accurate answer. Ultimately, getting that answer is up to us because we have to provide it, promote it, believe it, rally for it, support it, stand fast on it, rely on it, and act on it.

There is demand within the party to simplify our message. There are many among us that look across the political landscape and envy the simple but always relentlessly on message jingoistic short sound bite mantras of the GOP and now the tea party. They won with such messaging it appears.

I for one do not believe we ought to simplify our core beliefs. Governing is complex; issues demand sophisticated approaches and nuance. But I do think supporting those core beliefs with an unadorned, direct hard hitting watchphrase is very appropriate.

Consider this: DEMOCRATS WORK FOR FAIRNESS.

Democratic Party members and voters roll up their sleeves and toil for a fair shake. We advocate for it in our workplaces, we support it in our approach to equal rights for all citizens, we push for it for the underprivileged, we seek it in how taxes are raised and used for the common good, we pursue it on environmental fronts to be fair to neighbor and the next generation, we champion it in education, we urge it in matters of justice, we strive toward it in economic policy, and we apply to every facet of societal responsibility.

If we carried such a central core belief into our politics, policy development, legislative undertakings, and governance when in power and principles when in opposition, and even into the recesses of our party structures, we might just become election winners again. The reason is simple, our living and breathing of such a message would be powerful because despite their current rise in power, Republicans do not ultimately live up to their messages.

Some of us might balk at such simplicity. That's understandable, we engage in politics for many diverse ideas, we struggle to put forth solutions to problems that require a degree of policy complexity. But that person on the street is not in the same place.

Perhaps that person will get there in approaching the vital concerns of our country in an engaged manner that has depth but we need to understand that it takes time, like swimming. First comes walking in the shallows with our catchphrase and developing an appreciation for it. Wading in deeper and learning about the brief bullet points of our platforms comes next. Risking a little depth and getting a deeper understanding of an issue or two of personal concern comes next. And finally strongly swimming toward vital goals to make our community, state, and country a far better place for now and the future can occur and perhaps even diving in as a party volunteer or public servant will as well.

We Democrats need to put forth this kind of progression in our politics. We need to appreciate every person at any point along this continuum and especially cultivate bringing in many with our core beliefs, expressed perhaps in a watchphrase upon which we can stay true to and earn their trust.

Maybe then I can walk down the street and ask somebody, "What do Democrats stand for?" Hearing a reply of, "Well they went all out to get that school funding right and paid attention to my spouse's health care, so it's like I keep hearing, Democrats work for fairness."

I do not propose "Democrats work for fairness" as the ultimate watchphrase for our Party. But I firmly believe we do need something like it and more importantly the approach to it and allegiance to it outlined above. And I also do believe that we ought to move in that direction without unintentionally kindly killing it by committee. We need to be off and running.

Democratic Destination: January 23rd Departure

2010-12-18T08:30:00.001-05:00

On Sunday, January 23rd the Democratic Party in Maine will elect a new chairperson and its officers. All of us have a critical stake in this election.

The past general election not only reduced our public officeholders but it placed a hold on our agenda of progress and there now exists the most determined effort to roll back advancements made on behalf of Maine workers, our environment, and health care. To combat this effort we must prevail in the next general election within this state. We need to win back the Maine House and Senate. We must force Paul LePage to take up his veto pen, which may lie dormant in these next two years, and we must be poised to override his objections. These are enormous but vital goals.

We must have strong candidates and a strong party.

The election of our chair is a significant start along the comeback path. The individual elected can represent our party externally with a resonating message, wisely deploy resources toward building a 2012 victory, attract new members, inspire current members, and focus everyone’s efforts and attention toward truly representing the interests of Maine citizens.

We cannot afford a chairperson without a clear vision or one who is easily bogged down with internal squabbling, excuse creating, factional power plays, narrow allegiances, or personal detractions. The chairperson can be paid a salary and at present, the chairperson wields enormous influence over selecting the party’s paid Executive Director. In effect, the State Committee is hiring the party’s CEO.

You can influence this selection. You must.

The chairperson is elected by the Maine Democratic Party Committee. As a start one should identify who they know or have heard of or simply ought to be called or represents their county on the State Committee. Find those members here.

Advocacy of your aspirations for our party’s future is vital. Communicating our interests and creating awareness of our scrutiny with this election can help empower a good result. And if you encounter silence and stones, think about going to your next county committee to discuss and perhaps act upon your expectations.

Candidates for chairperson are listed here. More candidates will be announced and some may be nominated from the floor on January 23rd. Be sure to seek out these individuals messages about their candidacies and find out as much as possible about what inspires them to seek this position, how they plan to fill the role, and what they will do to accomplish the many significantly challenging tasks ahead.

You can get an advance look at candidates in forums that are beginning to happen around the state. Contact your county committee and/or local committee to see if it plans to hold a forum for party chair candidates and be sure to suggest one if such an offering is not occurring in your area or at reasonable driving distance.

Kennebec and Sagadahoc Counties are jointly supporting a forum; open to all democrats, for Maine Democratic State Party Committee Chairperson candidates on January 8th at 1:00 pm with a snow date of January 15th at 1:00 pm. It will be held at the Kennebec County Government Center at 125 State Street, in Augusta, Maine.

This will present an excellent opportunity to hear candidate remarks, questions poised by the county committees to all candidates, and your questions from the floor. All serious candidates should be in attendance. All serious democrats are invited and welcomed to attend and participate.

The election of a new chairperson on January 23rd is our next important destination. It can signify a new beginning, a strategic departure toward a future destiny.

Please feel free to email, post, and pass along this article in full or part anyplace it will encourage interest and participation.

Reform Number One

2010-12-10T10:43:00.000-05:00

There is a great deal of angst among many voters who object to the administration’s tax cut for unemployment compromise with Republicans as well as voters who accept such action. Stick to your guns, shouts one side! Kick him while he’s down, bellows the other side!

Democrats find it aggravating that our legislative process is being held hostage by Republicans. Deploying a political maneuver that promised to hold up all legislation pending passage of an extension of the Bush era failed tax policy, the Republicans set up a “who will blink first” situation.

It matters little who blinked if the result is capitulation and not compromise or if the result is ineffectual compromise and not constructive consensus.

We have witnessed a legislative power shift in Washington over the last several decades that concentrated raw power into fewer and fewer hands. Congress is not representative of her citizenry as a consequence yet that seems of little concern. Power shifted from majorities building coalitions in both congressional bodies to a new ultimate seat of power, the House-Senate conference committee on any legislation. And it has shifted again to the new ultimate current power structure, denial of legislative service, by a filibustering minority in the least representative body.

The United States has a new method of negative legislating – a parliament dominated by lords of the minority.

Every issue now requires 60 votes in the Senate to even proceed for deliberation, the very reason we elect representatives. Instead every issue is now reported in terms of a crass procedure, cloture, rather that of proposal, substance, merit, reflection, debate, and action. In a party split of less than solid 60/40, all attention focuses on the personal whims of a few shifting votes that may or may not be in the center. We are drowning in tactics and not swimming in substance.

Today with the Republican signed pledge of 42 votes to hold up deliberation by the majority 58 as well as some of the 42 who might be inclined in temperament toward legislating, we have moved decidedly toward parliamentary block voting. A president elected by a solid majority and a house elected along more proportional representative lines in 2008 did not seem to matter to the Senate minority lords. Indeed, it can be contended that the damage done by block voting and the frustrating of a popular legislative majority and administration through dramatically weakening health care, successfully diluting financial reform, and stalling addressing environmental climate concerns is precisely one of the prime assisting agents that created, distorted, and capitalized on voters’ economically rooted fears to produce the conservative 2010 Republican electoral gains. It’s a case of creative destruction for further destroying creations.

In parliaments, governments can fall if ruling blocks fail on a key vote. In our system, the government will not fall on a key vote but a determined block minority can make it fail to serve its citizens time and time again until that minority can make it fall at a term’s end.

Changing the Senate rules at present may well not yet have the votes, there is an absence of a directly spoken mandate for reform, and there appears continued resignation to the current practice of obstruction. And again and again, the media focuses on scoring stances not probing circumstances. The filibuster is a toxic deficit in our democracy and is not a mere issue among others for it profoundly affects the others. Ending its potency, deployed by either party, ought to be reform number one.

Further reading:
Filibuster Abuse [PDF] by the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law
The Silenced Majority [The Atlantic] by Matthew Yglesias

No Love Letter

2010-12-03T11:50:00.007-05:00

Yes, Maine's Senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, have signed the letter (the link shows the signatures) below to block all legislation unless the Bush tax cuts are extended to the wealthy. That includes legislation to extend unemployment benefits as we approach the holidays and coldest months of the year. If you're rich throw some gold tinsel on the tree; if not make a pot of spruce soup for supper and burn a few branches to keep warm.

Not only did Collins and Snowe sign on to this blocking plan; they actually exposed their claims to be moderates as entirely bogus.

What greater indicator can you have than observing a professed moderate who may wield power to allow bills to come up for debate and a vote within a closely divided Senate where their single yea or nay might have actual impact moving something forward versus playing a waiting game that may lead to their yea or nay on some issues being far less effective in the next Senate year with an even larger minority with extra buffer votes less reliant on getting Collins or Snowe to play cloture ball?

Complicated? Not if you’re really not a moderate.

Dear Leader Reid,

The nation's unemployment level, stuck near 10 percent, is unacceptable to Americans. Senate Republicans have been urging Congress to make private-sector job creation a priority all year. President Obama in his first speech after the November election said "we owe" it to the American people to "focus on those issues that affect their jobs." He went on to say that Americans "want jobs to come back faster." Our constituents have repeatedly asked us to focus on creating an environment for private-sector job growth; it is time that our constituents' priorities become the Senate's priorities.

For that reason, we write to inform you that we will not agree to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to any legislative item until the Senate has acted to fund the government and we have prevented the tax increase that is currently awaiting all American taxpayers. With little time left in this Congressional session, legislative scheduling should be focused on these critical priorities. While there are other items that might ultimately be worthy of the Senate's attention, we cannot agree to prioritize any matters above the critical issues of funding the government and preventing a job-killing tax hike.

Given our struggling economy, preventing the tax increase and providing economic certainty should be our top priority. Without Congressional action by December 31, all American taxpayers will be hit by an increase in their individual income-tax rates and investment income through the capital gains and dividend rates. If Congress were to adopt the President's tax proposal to prevent the tax increase for only some Americans, small businesses would be targeted with a job-killing tax increase at the worst possible time. Specifically, more than 750,000 small businesses will see a tax increase, which will affect 50 percent of small-business income and nearly 25 percent of the entire workforce. The death tax rate will also climb from zero percent to 55 percent, which makes it the top concern for America's small businesses. Republicans and Democrats agree that small businesses create most new jobs, so we ought to be able to agree that raising taxes on small businesses is the wrong remedy in this economy. Finally, Congress still needs to act on the "tax extenders" and the alternative minimum tax "patch," all of which expired on December 31, 2009.

We look forward to continuing to work with you in a constructive manner to keep the government operating and provide the nation's small businesses with economic certainty that the job-killing tax hike will be prevented.

Hear No Labor

2010-12-01T08:12:00.005-05:00

Governor-elect LePage is setting the tone-deafness for his future administration as reported in the December 1st Kennebec Journal:

Gov.-elect Paul LePage is asking businesses and industry groups to help him reduce the regulations they believe hinder economic development.

He launched this effort Tuesday at an unprecedented meeting at the Augusta Civic Center. LePage asked about 100 gathered business people for their ideas -- and political support -- when he presents a package of regulatory reform bills to the Legislature.

"What can we do to assist you to provide better jobs in Maine?" LePage asked the crowd.

Absent from those invited to the forum were environmental groups, public health advocates and consumer advocates. LePage said those groups will have an opportunity to weigh in on his proposals as part of the legislative process.

Governor-elect LePage is starting out by choosing selective listening, to those who mirror his views and already support him, as his standard operating procedure. This narrow outlook along with clumsy actions by GOP members of the legislature to eliminate the labor committee as reported in the following Sun Journal piece signal how one-sided this administration and its legislative allies intend to be:

Established in 1887, the Joint Standing Committee on Labor is responsible for overseeing changes in wage and workplace safety laws, union negotiations and the Maine State Retirement System.

Republican leaders acknowledged Tuesday that they were seeking to shift that oversight to other committees, or to potentially dissolve the Labor Committee and create another panel on which such duties would be combined with business development tasks.

The presumptive House Speaker, Rep. Robert Nutting, R-Oakland, said the plan was to put business development and labor matters before one panel, and to potentially save money, although those savings were not disclosed Tuesday.

The greatest "savings" potentially would be the first time the minimum wage comes in front of a committee dedicated to business development.

LePage Business 101

2010-11-30T23:13:00.003-05:00

Expansion of the working poor appears to be the heart of the LePage business plan.

The actual quality of jobs, living wages, high pay, and substantive benefits are not now and were never on his agenda. It always has been all about bootstraps fantasies, ceding (our) state power to (their) market power, and setting us up to say, "I'm just so gosh darn thankful I have a job".

But there won't be much to be thankful for as families require perhaps up to three jobs per household to survive, place more cheap calories on their tables out of desperate necessity, lay awake at night (if that isn't today's shift) worrying about their health, and play out their role of economic serfdom by buying junk from far away at Marden's so that company and others like it can go "green" and recycle a few cheap labor dollars.

Movement of individuals off welfare to expand the workforce and ripping up regulations to enable the creation of low end employment will apparently be the GOP method of job delivery. The path not taken requires good education and winds through a good environment. But we can't have that!

Find Wall - Bang Head.

2010-11-29T19:32:00.010-05:00

Can Senator Susan Collins get anymore wishy-washy with her pretend moderate stance? Apparently not according to this piece at Talking Points Memo:

Today in outrageous new benchmarks for bipartisanship, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) says she'd be more likely to vote to ratify the START Treaty if former Presidents, George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush were to speak out in support of it.

To which the Huffington Post has this on-the-mark reaction:

It's almost comical at this point. The typical Beltway cant on Ms. Collins is that her long political career is due to her propensity for being a gutsy, independent thinker. What are her independent thoughts on the START treaty?

Sadly, we have a United States Senator representing Maine in Washington who masquerades as an independent voice of moderation but who always needs cover whenever risk of the right's scrutiny here or there is possible.

OK, let's stop banging our heads now, be sure to tell everyone you know about Susan Collins' falsetto independent-moderate voice.

Snowe Sues to Overturn Rights for Maine Citizens

2010-11-18T11:46:00.003-05:00

Senator Olympia Snowe now begins her journey from the hard right wing of the GOP to the ultra new and improved hard right wing of the tea party GOP alliance. Yesterday our US Senator from Maine signed onto an amicus brief in support of a Florida lawsuit's plaintiffs that challenges the Constitutionality of health care reform.

This is a dual announcement made in Florida to be heeded here in Maine. The first announcement is that Senator Snowe will run for re-election in 2010 and is beginning to position herself to blunt any primary challenge from the right. The second announcement by Senator Snowe is that she has abandoned any concern about poor and middle class Maine citizens and their need for a sane approach to health care rights which they need and support.

In post titled Lessons from the 2010 Maine elections, I submitted the following for consideration.

Snowe is safe.
With the tea party on the move nationwide, this may seem counterintuitive. However in Maine if you are a diligent incumbent Congressperson or Senator you get returned with a comfortable margin. That is our history and true to our nature we bucked a significant national trend that flipped the house and swept away two Democratic seats next door in NH. Snowe may draw a tea party primary challenger to crush in her primary but look to the GOP establishment and Governor LePage to assist her. The Democratic challenge to her needs to focus on her abandonment of moderation now and which is certain as the tea party pushes her further right which may be where safety meets reality.

Snowe is now abandoning the diligence and moderation noted above by playing into national out-of-state political gamesmanship to secure herself within the GOP. Snowe will be safe...within the GOP. However, over 60% of voters in the recent Governor's race rejected the tea party GOTP candidate who will slip into the back door of the Blaine House with a 38% plurality. Both Representatives Pingree and Michaud were returned to Congress by solid majority margins in a bad year for Democratic incumbents who voted for health care reform. Democrats need to focus on Senator Snowe now; she can be defeated by us if we forcefully and continually expose her abandonment of poor and middle class Maine citizens as so obviously apparent in her latest political maneuver.

Plan A

2010-11-04T13:16:00.001-04:00

State Party Maine Democrats were rejected by Maine voters on November 2nd. It might be easy to say that we were swept away in a national red tide of tea but that does not account for the solid reelection of Mike Michaud and Chellie Pingree. They represent the perceptions, opinions, and political desires of Maine citizens in Washington but local Democrats do not in Augusta.

This sounds like a bitter reality pill that we are forced to swallow but silently accepting that or seeking excuses for it will lead to continued rejection. We are cast into a new role, that of minority, opposition, and most importantly of all, alternative. Redefining this moment as an opportunity seems perhaps trite but this is a time for an opening to be seized to renew our party in order to serve the people of this state with a vision for a prospective Maine that they will desire, support, and protect.

We need to adopt a plan to build an affirmation of aspiration with articulation yielding application.

These can be just a set of cliché words on a screen or paper if we dismiss November 2nd and go along with business as usual. To do so is to invite more November 2nds. With Republicans in total control of Maine state government, we must define ourselves anew. The Democratic Party needs to hold many local meetings and a state conclave tomorrow, not next year, to determine its direction.

We must do so not to merely attempt to position the party, not to craftily market ourselves to the electorate, but rather to know ourselves so we can build trust with Maine citizens and offer them effective solutions to Maine challenges, based on moral assurances that help all of us meet higher objectives. We need to search for what our vision is in governance both pragmatic and moral, agree on the broad brush stokes philosophically, and then employ effective constant communication to build alliances and obtain individual allegiances to not just win elections but mandates of ongoing actions.

Affirmation of our fundamental beliefs is vital to ensuring that we have identified the essential ingredients of both the moral positions and pragmatic governance principles we value for our state. It is essential that our core values are an expression of our deepest vision and not a whimsical reaction to polls, politicians, or perceived popularity.

Aspiration is what we need to shape from our core beliefs. We can say “no” today to Republican rule with authority if we reject their recently used tactic on the national level of saying “no” to obstruct and destroy. It may have yielded electoral success fleetingly for them but is a cynical strategy that contributes nothing to the common good. We can do better; we will say “no” because we aspire to a finer alternative that we will define completely.

Articulation of our message is critical to connect to Maine citizens and of far greater vital consequence, to earn their trust. We must not solely wallow in the mechanics of communications which are certainly also due to be reviewed. We have to express our message as the best possible, well thought out, and pragmatic but visionary alternative vision of Maine governance. And to greatly impact the electorate, we need to stick to it and avoid sugarcoating Republican-lite repackaging with a laser like focus on being absolutely and directly on message. We must express beliefs that can be believed in not puffery to perform for the present.

Application of our principles is our ultimate goal. We are not seeking a reactive moment of affiliation with us in the voting booth for a foundation to reelect individuals for the sake of triumph without reward to the voter. We need not cringe at the concept of voter reward in our politics if it is delivery of an exceptional and equitable life in Maine. We seek voter affiliation for the long term to govern well with trust to achieve worthy objectives and will invest the time and energy to earn it.

Democrats form the party that looks forward; let’s move forward.

COME ON HOME

2010-10-29T23:14:00.004-04:00

When I crossed the threshold into my grandparents farm home in Carmel, Maine as a child I was always greeted by warmth. There was warmth in the kitchen where perpetual cooking scented the air with the aroma of home cooked stews, breads, and pies. There was the warmth of nonjudgmental affection. I felt secure in the knowledge that it was a place that focused positive energy and support on a future that mattered to me.

It is time for Maine voters to come on home.

The tea party sideshows and the politics of selfishness offered by Paul LePage are a cold level of extremism that will not serve Maine citizens well in the short or long run. Moderate Republicans know that his angry confrontational style will sideline appropriate necessary collaboration to serve Maine citizens. His energy is destructive and divisive.

We have learned that Eliot Cutler is not all that 'independent' when it comes to hauling in millions from China lobbying work and sitting on the Board of Directors of a company deeply at fault in the recent mortgage meltdown. His 'independent' positions either mirror those of Paul LePage in some instances or are carefully crafted to present him as "not one of the other two". His resume does not offer us the type of skills and experience that we need in Maine.

Only a few days remain in this campaign and the din of commercials, up and down polls, flyers, charges, and countercharges will make it harder to hear convincing arguments for why a particular individual is best suited to help our state navigate beyond the national economic storm that was brought on by Wall Street greed and unchecked corporate power. In truth, Maine's economy, state revenues, services, and constructive perceptions about the role of governing have all been victims of a crisis largely outside our borders.

Despite repetition distorting reality by the Maine press and her opponents, Libby Mitchell does not hail from the fringes of the Democratic Party. She has been a moderate, pragmatic leader who reflects Maine citizens' concerns about small business, the environment, energy conservation, and education.

Libby Mitchell has a long history of service as a town official, a legislator and a community volunteer. She has an established record of collaborative leadership and working thoughtfully across the aisle to seek solutions to challenging Maine issues. And Libby Mitchell has the experience of serving as a leader in positions of authority as Speaker of the House and Senate President who is considerate of broad input, willing to act on a bipartisan basis, and focused on serving all Maine citizens with the very best reasonable and positive outcomes.

Maine has been an example of fiscal restraint and bi-partisan government. The current state budget is the same as it was in 2001; there have been no major tax increases over the past nine years. The state budget has received support from Democrats and Republicans. Libby Mitchell has been a leader in this fiscal environment.

In our state, we can be proud that we value good governance beyond the influence of corporate and individual wealth through a strong clean elections law. Over 75% of candidates running for the legislature (and almost 70% of Republicans) run with clean election funding. They are joined by only one gubernatorial candidate, Libby Mitchell, in keeping the focus on issues not fund raising and special interests.

Letting last minute polling snapshots in this tumultuous election determine one's vote and not voting one's conscience can lead to terrible outcomes. In the end, this is not a game of endorsements, momentum, and polling points leading to a final score representing dollars spent. This is about Maine's future and the issues. It is about each candidate's capability in that future and how each will handle the issues most dear to us.

It is time for Maine voters to come on home to good stewardship of our natural environment for people, employment, and pleasure. It is time to come on home to make public education a real priority and not shell parts of it out to private interests. It is time to come on home to develop small entrepreneurial success that leads to good jobs with futures and not bare subsistence jobs that primarily serve out of state shareholders. It is time to cross the threshold into the voting booth and support Libby Mitchell and the issues we share caring about with her.

Wondering

2010-10-29T15:56:00.003-04:00

I wonder how Paul LePage would see the world if his childhood family had gotten the intervention services it desperately needed.

Does Paul LePage believe that the welfare that he claims he was on was justified or not? And since LePage says he got himself off welfare (* just like 96% of those in Maine) why does he denigrate its temporary use?

Or does Paul LePage believe that today a family of 18 within an immigrant community with an abusive parent does not warrant intervention and that a young child should seek his own solutions by his own means on the street and just hope that fortune might take him in?

* Kennebec Journal:

Four percent of TANF cases exceed five years, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. Most of Maine's long-term cases involve disabilities, according to the state.

The average time spent on TANF is 21 months, and 85 percent of families leave the program within two years, according to the agency.

Just wondering.

LePage Lies - One Last Time

2010-10-28T05:39:00.005-04:00

One last time addressed by this writer before the election that is. Paul LePage is surely going to go on and on and on making up false statistics, perpetuating myths, and engaging in outright lies. In last night's gubernatorial forum sponsored by Prepare Maine, created by The Maine Coalition for Excellence in Education he told another deceptive whooper:

"50% or better of our families have one parent"

Number of families in Maine 351,646
Number of single-parent headed families in Maine 74,903
Using a calculator vs. pulling a number out of thin air yields 21.3%.
Source (PDF):
National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies

Nitpicking and carping is the countercharge by LePage supporters anytime this stuff comes up. His supporters call him refreshing and say they like it that he is off the cuff, blunt, unpolished, and will "tell it like it is". But he doesn't actually "tell it like it is"; he's perpetually caught using bogus numbers to back up his assertions and claims.

We need to confront reality. How will Paul LePage serve us as Governor if he believes only what he wants to believe? Will false assumptions and presumed numbers become the basis for budgets and laws in Maine? Can a liar be trusted with your future, your children's future, and the state's future?

The core supporters of Paul LePage have given him a pass on every lie he has uttered. His tea party backers accept lies that fit a world view that gives them the pretext to reshape social policy and slash taxes by heaping derision, based on made up facts, upon everyday workers, the poor, state employees, teachers, and public servants in the state of Maine.

Somehow I still want to believe that moderate Republicans, who seek conservative fiscal prudence, will not accept purposeful gross inaccuracy as a basis for setting priorities and making policy. Somehow I want to believe that a vast majority of independents will not accept a leader who seeks scapegoats and freely uses false assertions as Governor.

The LePage tea party core not only accepts Paul LePage's lies but promotes, perpetuates, and exaggerates these deceptions. This election is not just about defeating a liar, it is also about defeating a very far fringe right wing movement based on dishonesty. Our vote for Governor in 2010 is our moment of truth.

LePage: Lie + Lie = Truth

2010-10-26T21:41:00.004-04:00

Today in the Kennebec Journal:

Paul LePage, in a statement released by his campaign, said Florida officials were now backing up what his family claimed in the first place.
"Tax officials in Florida have verified what we have said all along," he said. "They have closed their investigation. The homestead exemption on the Florida property that Ann bought to care for her mother during the winter remains in effect."

Yesterday (9/10/10) in the Kennebec Journal:

Ann LePage, the wife of the Republican gubernatorial candidate Paul LePage of Waterville, received permanent resident tax exemptions in 2009 on homes in both Maine and Florida, a violation of statutes in each state.
The LePage campaign admitted the violation on Thursday, calling it a paperwork error. A spokesman said Ann LePage had been unaware of the discrepancy and would remedy it.

So essentially, they did or did not know what they did or did not qualify for but it was a "paperwork error" that did or did not occur. Glad that cleared up Paul LePage's approach to honesty and transparency.

LePage Lie Enabling

2010-10-08T15:40:00.004-04:00

I have not been shy about saying that Paul LePage engages in deceptions, is a myth spinner, and lies. The capacity for his followers to ignore gross mistruths as some sort of badge of the kind of non-intellectual, gritty streets, common man-common sense they think is needed in Augusta is amazing. Having fanatic followers that will swallow many mistruths and forgive outright dishonesty in hopes of getting their taxes slashed seems a bit like shoplifting at Marden’s – there is a guilt free self-justifying need in one’s mind that motivates the act but you still end up with junk.

However, even more disturbing is the ongoing enablers of the lies and myths perpetuated by Paul LePage. Today’s following excerpt from LePage’s hometown newspaper, the Morning Sentinel, is a good example of lying to support the liar telling further lies:

Mary-Anne Beal, a Waterville City Council member, said per-pupil spending has increased in Waterville under LePage.

"He's increased spending per student by 30 percent since he's been mayor," said Beal, who added she was a Democrat who recently enrolled as an independent because of false attacks made on LePage. "Under Mayor LePage's leadership, we've provided strong support for academic programs and extracurricular activities. Not a single program has been cut."

How can this City Council member walk the streets of Waterville without embarrassment? She is saying that education support has increased under the leadership of a weak part-time ceremonial mayor without any budget creation or management authority whatsoever, who threatens vetoes of any increase in property taxes, who along with all Waterville residents relies on the school funding variables of state educational subsidies to determine largely the direction of the school budget and taxation, and who has been directly contradicted by individuals within the school system itself.

Masking lies with more lies is a disservice of the highest order by any public official. Conservative, moderate, or liberal, we all need a Governor who will not lie and surround himself with those who will be enablers of dishonest government.

Paul LePage is not fit to be our Governor due to his background…as a liar.

And now for a commercial break:

"Bull Rider" now on DVD !

2010-10-07T22:20:00.001-04:00

LePage - Pants on Fire #3

2010-10-06T22:53:00.001-04:00

Please consider the number "3" used in the above title merely a posting count of this latest series and no where near the expansive number of deceptions, exaggerations, tall tales, fibs, myth makings, and outright lies by Paul LePage. Taking him to task on the ongoing duplicity that he engages in is extremely important because it gives us an advance look at both the personal character and the character of an administration led by him potentially as Governor. And no matter how one cuts it, Paul LePage being “truth challenged” is a compelling and imperative reason to use in asking fellow citizens not to elect him. He cannot be trusted to tell the truth by unenrolled voters, Republicans, Democrats, or even tea party adherents.

Paul LePage is either a pathological or professional liar. Which is unimportant at this time; just protecting Maine from fraudulent leadership is a vital concern of the moment. His personal downfall can simply take its course after an election defeat if he is a deliberate liar or those who care about him can help him seek treatment at that time if he suffers from some delusional disturbance.

Most astounding is that for the many claims that Paul LePage makes from buffalo count fantasies to what actually appears as words on a page to his own taped appearances is how completely the actual evidence debunks whatever he says. The counts were not required, printed facts absolutely dispute his claims, and, most glaringly of all, his own recorded words counter his false assertions. Paul LePage has been doing this for a long time and to a degree that it casts a shadow on his alleged on-the-streets upbringing, his educational struggle claims, his time living abroad, his personal ethics, and his hazy professional resume.

While he puts himself at the center of many of his wild leaps of his imagination, he is prone to drag in others through smear to boost claims of his being victimized and standing up to his enemies. He did that this summer by asserting that Arden Manning called him unfit to serve as Governor because of his ethnic background. This was simply unfair, untrue, and strategically stupid because of its utter disrespect of the intelligence of Maine voters. All the instances documented in these posts and the numerous ones recorded elsewhere strongly indicate a pattern that says buyer beware.

Any review of his video taped remarks generally uncovers some unsubstantiated remark that his most adamant adherents take as fact. This goes back to his tea party courting roots. Like accusing a reporter of dropping the “F bomb” or Arden Manning saying that he is unfit for office because he is Franco American, in this pre-primary video Paul LePage insinuates that Governor Baldacci swore at him.

This is a smear of John Baldacci’s character by Paul LePage to further his own personal political ambitions, enlarge his mythical fight against those he opposes on behalf of the tea party, and to elevate his own sense of self-righteous victimhood. Both those who know Governor Baldacci as a decent human being who would not call Paul LePage “some very choice words” and even those who know him as an opponent certainly understand the political instincts of the Governor would be to not foolishly commit such “choice words” to the emails Paul LePage claims he can show us.

Paul LePage cannot show us those emails based on the fact that the emails never existed at all. He lied. He lied to perpetuate his myth. He lied to gain false credibility. He lied because he is an impulsive liar.

I took the trouble to make the following Freedom of Access request of the Governor:

Please consider this my formal Freedom of Access (FOA) request for any emails sent from the office of the Governor or the Governor addressed specifically to Paul LePage as Mayor of Waterville or as an individual as the email's primary recipient during Governor John Baldacci's two terms in office.

The purpose of my request is to prove or disprove a claim by Mr. LePage that he can show the public emails from the Governor in which the Governor (or his official representative) called Mr. LePage "some very choice words" because Mr. LePage [allegedly] refused to spend some state provided money and "got under his [the Governor's] skin so bad".

The Governor’s office complied, searched their records, and provided four documents. Three are constituent emails on various topics on which the Governor and Mayor LePage were both included and in no way, shape, or form can be construed as a communication between the two nor do these emails contain any choice words directed at LePage. The fourth correspondence consists of an email from Paul LePage on June 5th, 2009 at 12:24 PM urging the Governor to veto the tax reform bill and stating that he [LePage]:

“…would rather see a temporary increase in income tax on those of us who are higher wage earners rather than expand the sales and use taxes on the less unfortunate [sic] in our state.”

To this email, the Governor’s office responded on the very same day at 3:18 PM. This is the sole email from both terms of the Governor between the John Baldacci’s office sent directly to Paul LePage. Now we come to the “choice words” and I quote the Governor’s email in its entirety:

Dear Paul;

Thank you for contacting Governor Baldacci. I am certain he will appreciate hearing from you. I have printed out your message and placed it in the Governor’s in-box.

With best wishes.

Sincerely,

Tammy Quimby
Deputy Director
Constituent Services
Office of the Governor

There you have it. The awful language of “thank you”, “appreciate”, “best wishes”, and “sincerely” were used. The emails Paul LePage refers to are completely made up. He wants to give an impression of an inflated prosecution of himself by those he opposes. The problem is that he attacks those he disagrees with lies that go infinitely further beyond stating his opposing views, he places fictional disreputable words in the mouths of his opponents to demonize them and booster his own reputation as a combative hero.

Would the dishonesty and lying abruptly discontinue if Paul LePage was elected Governor? Could we trust the state’s new chief executive to tell us the truth? Could we count on him to work honestly on our behalf rather than invent excuses for his failings by blaming others falsely? A single “no” means that a no to Paul LePage is absolutely vital to good, fair, and honest governing in the next four years. Spread the word. Buyer beware. We cannot afford a liar in the Blaine House.

LePage - Pants on Fire #2

2010-10-04T18:30:00.001-04:00

It is time to say to Paul LePage: “Prove it!”

One feature of this campaign has been Paul LePage’s constant falsehoods that he seems to hope his closest followers will believe because the comments sound so darn good that they must be true. Furthermore LePage must also hope that these fabricated statements will attract others to his candidacy. It doesn’t seem to be working according to the latest poll that follows a couple of week of sharper focus on LePage’s problems with truth, angry rhetoric, and honesty.

From buffalo, black fly, salmon, and fee word counts that might just be over active imaginary exaggerations to “ I never had [name on Waterville home] it on”, they [tea party] sought me out, and “That’s what [Franco American slur] I’m saying” that qualify as outright lies, the examples that litter his campaign trail are really beginning to pile up. Yet even more outrageously Paul LePage even says things on tape, like his WRKO fabrication (at 7 minutes) of a reporter dropping the F-bomb and himself not swearing when actually caught on camera doing so is utterly incredulous:

Even beyond the material that can be debunked by mere follow up inquiry or any citizen’s ears and eyes, lays another concern: the unsubstantiated charge. I content that this activity is another deliberate attempt by Paul LePage to deceptively manipulate his angry message. Listen closely to LePage’s response when asked to talk about his contention about business interests and Maine government being an adversarial relationship in this interview from mebizsunday on September 11, 2010:

In one swoop, Paul LePage makes a wild claim that the host does not even pretend to follow up on by asking for the facts. Instead of laying out his contention in a manner to argue policy like a serious candidate, LePage makes a totally unsubstantiated charge of how he personally was unfairly persecuted by some unnamed shadowy members of the majority party. While it is indeed pitiful to see LePage play the self-pity card again, the real question ought to be - is this another legendary LePage lie? I contend that it is and that there are many other examples to be exposed as well.

If members of the controlling party [Democrats] actually called the Marden’s board of directors and told them to fire Paul LePage or there would be a boycott their stores; that would be a serious attempted abuse of power. A bully saying he was bullied is the oldest game on the playground. So Paul LePage, prove it. If the inevitable “no tracks were left” counter comes from LePage, then he ought to get individual board members to swear out legal affidavits backing him up. Until then, his unsubstantiated charge and smearing insinuation stands as another Paul LePage example of making things up and lying.

The Rage of LePage

2010-09-29T20:43:00.006-04:00

MPBN: LePage's Temperament Becomes Campaign Issue

LePage - Pants on Fire #1

2010-09-28T23:14:00.003-04:00

Paul LePage’s propensity for making up things that have no basis in reality is becoming ever more astounding whenever he is interviewed, questioned, or just talks off the cuff. From his lashing out at reporters and playing hide and seek from the press to his tea party jawboning that he never expects voters to see, he seems to suffer from a bad case of candor challenge.

It is ironic that one of the emerging main difficulties facing Paul LePage’s quest for the Blaine House is his problem with telling the truth. One of supposed valued hallmarks of tea party candidacies like that of Paul LePage is the average persons’ love for blunt, no bull, tell-it-like-it-is, strait-talking facts. He is supposed to be the guy to give you the straight dope without the clever deceptions of those regular politicians who are always playing duck and cover.

But it turns out that it is Paul LePage who continually and apparently without any qualms whatsoever just makes up things to support whatever argument he happens to be making at any time. LePage has determined that anything he says, no matter how farfetched will be believed by his base and apparently the rest of us just because he sounds sincere or that it appears that he believes whatever fiction he is fabricating.

Take this three minute outtake from a very friendly interview done by MaineWebNews for example:

There’s a lot to argue with Paul LePage on with his stance on guns with his wild west implication that you and I should own a gun in order to act responsibly to protect our families and property for starters. However, this column is about making up facts and telling lies such as:

“In Switzerland, [wording pause] the head of household is required to own a gun.”

This is simply an outright falsehood; there absolutely is no such law and never has been. Some pro-gun sites have implied that the every able bodied man being in the Swiss military means that guns are more present in that society and therefore the reason for low gun violence. I’ve traveled in Switzerland on a number of occasions and young soldiers do get on trains with military weapons but the actual number of those in training (not usually heads of households) and reservists issued weapons (perhaps heads of households) may total about 400,000 at any one time which would not place a gun in every one of the 3.4 million households in the country as a way of backing in to LePage’s “fact”. Furthermore they are not required to store weapons at home if they do not wish to and a system of armories exists for that purpose. Many Swiss will tell you that their low gun violence is due to being an affluent, educated and homogeneous society with social safety nets and prohibitions against concealed handguns. Swiss society is very different than that of the United States and Paul LePage’s imaginary “head of household gun owner requirement” being the reason for its low crime rate is totally misleading.

“When 9/11 occurred, looting became a major problem.” [siren noise]

This is a second outright falsehood, looting was not in any significant way a problem on September 11th, 2001 in New York City (nor DC, nor any other US city). A total of 6 arrests for looting were made on that day and more were made later but the overriding reality is that out of control rioting or looting did not take place at all. In fact, the evacuation of lower Manhattan in an orderly fashion in one of the most terror provoking events in American history was extraordinary. The many images of those in New York of all races and creeds consoling each other in the midst of this horrible the attack and assisting each other unselfishly with civic conscientiousness has emerged as an important positive example for our country. Shopkeepers with guns simply were not necessary; grabbing someone’s hand and running were far more essential. “9/11 looting as a major problem”, is another example of Paul LePage making extremely exaggerated things up.

Should Maine citizens be happy to obtain some blunt, no bull, tell-it-like-it-is, strait-talking facts? Perhaps, but they seem to only get bull, fabrications, misleading insinuations, and unfortunately even outright lies from Paul LePage.

Paul LePage - Ditheringly Delusional or Deliberately Deceptive?

2010-09-21T14:50:00.003-04:00

Is it possible that in the dark recesses of Paul LePage’s mind that the new Democratic Governors Association ad regarding equal rights for all and women in particular is his convoluted misinterpretation of being called a "sexual harassment person" by the DGA?

Paul LePage foreshadowed that such a charge would be forthcoming this week in an interview with Howie Carr on WRKO on September 17.

No charge has surfaced of sexual harassment against Paul LePage this week thus far. And the DGA ad is the only known participation by that organization in the Maine race this week thus far. So is this fantastical leap the sexual harassment charge LePage felt was going to be leveled against him by the DGA? Sadly, I strongly suspect that is the essence of the matter.

It now becomes more apparent that Paul LePage might very well possess a confusing reactionary mindset about both the position of women in our society and what equal rights are all about. A suspicion that advocating equal rights for women (or others) in addressing a candidate’s positions constitutes a veiled charge of sexual harassment against that candidate is a preposterous stretch and absolutely ludicrous! Yet this leap to a completely unconnected contorted conclusion is 100% in keeping Paul LePage’s ongoing bouts of imagination.

Paul LePage has jumped from the mention of his position that creationism should be taught in schools to the conclusion that a Democratic Party official was saying that he is unfit for office because he is a Franco American. Huh? He makes up imaginary buffalo, mosquito, and salmon counts along with suggesting that dumping a bottle of Poland Spring water into our rivers is illegal when environmental protections are discussed. Huh? He reads words such as ‘fee’ or ‘fees’ sixty times in a document that the rest of us only see appearing three times all in reference to one fee. Huh? He says you can’t harvest timber in places that you explicitly can. Huh? He basically launched his campaign using the tea party and shamelessly raises money from them but continues to say it is they who “sought me out”. Huh? He has recast his role of ceremonial Mayor into that of being a strong chief executive of a Maine government. Huh?

Voters need to face reality. Paul LePage is either a ditheringly delusional or deliberately deceptive person running for Governor. Deciding which is correct may be too difficult. But denying him the Blaine House is a decision that needs to be made to protect Maine citizens from LePage’s dreaming and/or scheming.

Can Paul LePage read?

2010-09-01T15:41:00.002-04:00

The five candidates for Governor spoke about agriculture on Tuesday and Paul LePage had an opportunity to address dairy farmers in attendance on how he would make life better for them according to this WABI report:

Candidates told the crowd, that included many dairy farmers, how they would make things a little easier for them. Paul LePage, the Republican nominee for Governor, says the State is taking too much money from local farmers. "I read the report from the Department of Agriculture to the Governor and every page had at least 3 fees. License fees, registration fees every page. It's a 20 page report. No wonder they're going broke, we're feeing them and licensing, and permitting them to death," says LePage.

A detailed search for this fee laden report did not turn up any sort of overall Department of Agriculture report to the Governor and I believe it is very safe to assume that Paul LePage is referring to this 20 page report: Governor’s Task Force on the Sustainability of the Dairy Industry in Maine (PDF) based on the fact that he was speaking specifically to dairy farmers.

However, the report does not contain “…at least 3 fees. License fees, registration fees every page”, and therefore a minimum total of 60 fees in the 20 page report. The word license does not appear at all within the covers of this document. The word registration comes up once in relation to farm vehicle registration in the context of a recommendation to exempt these vehicles from municipal property and excise taxes which would be the opposite of “permitting them to death”. And the word fee comes up 3 times in reference to the “handling fee schedule” and even then it appears once in the Executive Summary, once in the Findings, and once in the Recommendations. So that is 3 appearances of the word fee in the entire 20 pages, not 3 per page and most importantly these 3 mere words are all in reference to the same fee not 3 separate ones! So instead of 60 fees in the 20 page document, we really have mention of 1. Now, just be fair the word feed appears 5 times but even that possible comprehension problem is far below any reasonable counting error!

The report may not be a perfect solution to the difficulties facing Maine dairy farming. But a simple read of it demonstrates that it is from people who care about the industry, are concerned with its survival, are seeking to support it, and grappling with getting the right solutions in place for dairy farmers in a rapidly changing market. It is precisely the kind of report that one hopes to see government undertaking in an effort to support Maine farming.

There is little doubt that this is the report Paul LePage is referencing but please do challenge him to produce the 20 page report he referenced with the 60 fees highlighted. If he cannot, we need to know before voting if Paul LePage lied to us on camera and lied to dairy farmers or simply cannot read. In either case, he is therefore not fit to be Governor and should go back to his imaginary world of counting fees and buffalo.

LePage - Bad Signs

2010-08-26T12:30:00.002-04:00

Paul LePage has made it very strikingly clear that one of Maine’s finest assets, our environment, is not a priority for him by telling us that on his first day in office, "day one, I come down to Kittery and take down the sign, Maine, the way life should be and put up one that says, Maine, open for business”. In fact LePage’s website does not even bother to address as an issue, environment, conservation, or any significant concern for Maine’s vital outdoors except for a rant under “Government Regulation” that includes now debunked LePage folksy fabricated studies:

…eliminate bizarre and unreasonable studies resulting in needless delays (i.e. buffalo and black fly census studies in Maine), and eliminate regulations that are incompatible with other regulations, whereby when one regulation is followed, another is violated. In that same vein, I propose that all duplicate and replicated regulations from DEP and LURC be repealed.

From way back in the primary campaign, LePage has expressed concern that the Department of Environmental Protection, charged on behalf of the people of Maine to protect the environment is…well, pro-environment:

He said "day two" of his administration, he tackles those DEP regulations, that he said often "serve no purpose except to cost businesses money. The regulatory system has been very adversarial to business and very pro-environment.

"Look at Land for Maine's Future. You can't harvest timber, you can't do any cutting. No one is going to have the benefit of creating wealth and prosperity from it," he said.

The preceding is also a prime example of LePage’s willingness to either stoop to outright falsehoods or just make up stuff to fit his own off-the-cuff flawed and false assumptions. That may work in his mind and as a bit of red meat for his followers but for the rest of us in the real world what Land for Maine's Future actual guidelines say will suffice:

Many LMF projects involve easements that permit continued sustainable forestry alongside recreational uses of the land. In these areas, you may encounter active logging operations.

Finally and less known is that Paul LePage’s desire to symbolically take down “Maine, the way life should be” is his personal sign off with a group called Americans for Prosperity using his tired anti-tax language to “oppose legislation relating to climate change that includes a net increase in government revenue.” It is one more example of the LePage ignore reality and forget any long-term true costs to society attitude.

But despite the pleasant sounding name, what is this group, Americans for Prosperity that Paul LePage has pledged to support and govern us by if elected with his present non-gubernatorial signature? Well it turns out to be, as well documented and exposed in the New Yorker, basically one of many pretend grassroots organizations and tea party operations heavily bankrolled by two billion brothers, Charles and David Koch who own Koch Industries that in turn owns several forest product industries such as Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups, and Georgia-Pacific lumber.

The Kochs are also longtime libertarians who believe in drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry—especially environmental regulation.

It is a long and twisted Maine logging road one has to travel to find where Paul LePage’s loyalties lie. And at the end of that road is a fork.

On one, the sign, Maine, the way life should be still stands. That path is protected for sustainable use and travels through many places protected for our children that include good productive timber harvesting in Land for Maine’s Future, green energy jobs, and great outdoor recreational resources along with development sensitive to Maine’s quality of life that attracts tourists and new residents. Libby Mitchell is hiking far ahead on that trail already.

The other direction will have Paul LePage’s sign, Maine, open for business, on it. That road will be clear-cut of our livelihood aspirations, eroded by long term environmental damage, foolishly unregulated - damaging outdoor regulation and traditional Maine forestland pursuits, primarily set aside for out-of-state interests who will export our children’s future for unsustainable immediate corporate income without regard to climate damage or consequences. That is what Paul LePage is symbolically signing us up for with Americans for Prosperity and for what his imaginary sign in Kittery represents.

Shtick or Stick

2010-08-25T07:59:00.003-04:00

Another example of Paul LePage's Mr. Business-friendly shtick for those gullible enough to believe him is this gem also from an excellent MPBN report by Susan Sharon:

At a recent gathering of Republicans in Yarmouth, this is how LePage described his vision of how state agencies should work: "Instead of having people going around enforcing the regulations, I would rather have customer-friendly state employees going out and helping you abide by the regulations. I don't mind tough regulations. I just dislike an adversarial attitude by our state," he said.

The full radio report follows:

Contrast that with this shameless adversarial attitude in his address to the Waterville Rotary as reported by the Morning Sentinel on who he is callously willing to stick it to:

"At the end of five years, if you still need welfare, I will personally buy a ticket to Massachusetts so they can start over."[sic]

and

"A lot of people in the public education system say, 'Oh, charter schools are just going to leave us the worst students.' That might be true. But at the same token, you know what you are dealing with, so fix it."

"If you are going be two-faced, at least make sure one of your faces is pretty." - Anonymous

LePage’s Shove Off Style

2010-08-24T08:45:00.002-04:00

Paul LePage gave us a snapshot of how he would govern and what Maine could look like under his watch at the Waterville Rotary yesterday afternoon.

According to a Morning Sentinel report LePage told his fellow Rotarians that Maine taxpayer has been "ignored and vilified" for years. Check off the “angry and divisive” box.

On welfare he touted his own experience to press for a tiered program with one happy ending being: "At the end of five years, if you still need welfare, I will personally buy a ticket to Massachusetts so they can start over." There were no shreds of understanding of the circumstances of who uses the system, what exceptions are compassionately appropriate, nor where the tier of jobs needed on the other end of his plan will come from in this extremely challenging economy. Check off the “ignore and vilify the welfare bums" box.

Regarding education LePage reiterated his support of charter schools and vouchers while recognizing that, "A lot of people in the public education system say, 'Oh, charter schools are just going to leave us the worst students.' That might be true. But at the same token, you know what you are dealing with, so fix it.” Check off the “starve and kick public schools” box.

Perhaps the most eye opening real fact to come from LePage involved his own company’s employee health care insurance participation rates:

"In 1996, 71 percent of Marden's employees took health insurance. Today, we're down to 29 percent. Why? Because the other 25 percent that the employee is responsible for is unaffordable."

This is revealing because Paul LePage became general manager of Marden's precisely in 1996. Under his leadership, company health care insurance coverage of employees fell by a whooping 42%! This smacks of a total failure to address a significant problem and at the very worst a possible purposeful plan to cut business costs on the back of employees. Marden’s obviously benefited tremendously by not needing to pay the 75% to cover the hundreds of employees that could not afford the plan according to LePage. If anything this prompts more questions about Paul LePage’s style of fiscal management. Why didn’t he create a tiered system like his welfare plan to address the problem of the 25% burden? Does Marden’s pay a living wage to begin with that allows individuals to afford health insurance? Did Paul LePage engage in the same type of shenanigans as Wal-Mart when it came to employees and health care?

Paul LePage would be the worst possible kind of governor. He believes that his own mythical story can be simply replicated by anyone regardless of circumstances and economic realities. He offers no real solutions to systemic problems or addressing long term economic concerns. He seems to view Maine as primarily a few salvage boxcars of welfare fraud and education waste that he can mark down and shove out the door to save a few bucks without consequences. For Paul LePage, it will be business as usual.

LePage Puts His Worst Foot Forward

2010-08-23T21:19:00.002-04:00

Paul LePage spoke to the Waterville Rotary Club today continuing his press avoidance and staying on the grip and grin circuit that shuns substantive debate and exposure on issues. This appearance, on home turf (he is a member of this particular club, 1979 to present) gave him another non-threatening setting to play candidate within.

However, another LePage shoot from the hip remark should once again cause Maine citizens to be concerned about whether he is a serious Republican Party nominated candidate that can lead our state or just a tea party mascot for an anti-tax, toss-the-bums out, get rid of the welfare cheats, angry referendum that cannot control himself.

According to the Morning Sentinel, at one point Mr. LePage quipped:

"You want a governor that's not always politically correct and puts his foot in it, you've got me," he said.

Is this what Maine voters really want? Do we really want to trust someone who dismissively makes light of his own lack of sensitivity and forethought? Is this the type of leadership that will help him work with the legislature, state employees, and citizens to meet Maine's challenges? Does this attitude show a genuine appreciation and appropriate degree of respect for everyone in Maine for whom he wishes to serve as Governor?

One of the things heard from time to time is how refreshing Paul LePage's everyman, no frills, says-what's-on-his-mind, plain spoken approach is to some individuals. There is absolutely nothing wrong with direct, unadorned communication if it carries a message of substance. But now, after many blurted out remarks, it is clear that Paul LePage is just hammering away on a limited number of tea party anger points to hold on to a whipped up angry base while crossing his fingers that the three independents take enough votes away from Libby Mitchell to allow him to sneak through the back door of the Blaine House.

It is time for Republican voters with genuine concerns about Maine's future who care about civic responsibility to openly distance themselves from Paul LePage. Their party has been hijacked and it is their party that he has put his foot in.

The Sentinel piece is a PM website news update and hopefully a more substantial report will follow in tomorrow's paper.

Obama TIME Poll Muslim Query

2010-08-19T19:44:00.005-04:00

Here is the last question in the recent TIME poll:

16. Do you personally believe that Barack Obama is a Muslim or a Christian?

Muslim: 24%
Christian: 47%
Other: 5%
No answer/Don't know: 24%

This TIME magazine poll was conducted by telephone Aug. 16-17, 2010, among a representative national random sample of 1,002 Americans, ages 18 and older, throughout America. The poll includes limited interviews with cell-phone respondents.

A rewrite of question 16 seems to be in order:

16 (and absolute last time we will ask this ridiculous question). Do you personally believe in the face of every bit of the extremely overwhelming, extensive, unassailable, irrefutable, incontrovertible, documented evidence that is thoroughly and comprehensively sound recorded, expansively written about across a wide variety of sources, exhaustively substantiated on film and subjected to legally sane thinking that indicates common sense that our country’s chief executive, subjected to intense scrutiny and exposure throughout his long public life, President Barack Obama, is a Muslim and are you a total nutcase perpetuating a lie for some sort of right-wing tea party inspired smearing falsehood of anti-patriotic propaganda for some gullible and selfish, fact denying, wacked-out delusional, craven and malicious purpose?

No – of course not, that’s stupid
Yes – of course, I’m with stupid

Is it the food or the company?

2010-08-17T12:02:00.000-04:00

As Paul LePage continues to avoid the press and mainstream Maine voters, one might ask…is it the food or the company?

Paul LePage seems most comfortable when talking with those who agree with him. Here is a little feedback on his tea party fundraising BBQ with the Refounders on Sunday, August 15th:

Comment by David JP 3 hours ago
Pete, thank you so much for hosting the "BBQ" event. It was a pleasure meeting you and the others that attended. Paul LePage was very IMPRESSIVE. That he remained at the BBQ for approx. 3 and 1/2 hours says a lot about how he values grass roots support. I thoroughly enjoyed the one-on-one talk as people created a circle of lawn chairs to have a Q&A with Paul and to discuss issues facing Maine.

Maine voters do not object to one-on-one opportunities to meet candidates. But it cannot be all one-on-one and one-on-none. Being available to Maine voters requires a healthy mixture of in person campaigning, connecting with voters through a variety of forums and debates, and being available to the press rather than hiding. Concentrating 3½ hours of time in a lawn chair circle chatting with those who echo your views while elsewhere denying a few hours to be engaged with the citizens you expect to serve as Governor is not a good example of the leadership needed and respect deserved by all Maine citizens.

Maybe at the next forum, Libby Mitchell, Shawn Moody, Eliot Cutler, and Kevin Scott who all seem quite able to make time for Maine voters should bring along a grill, some juicy ribs, a delicious salad, and a few cold beverages to entice Paul LePage to speak to the people of Maine. Unless it is the company...

LePage's Mainizona?

2010-08-15T10:32:00.004-04:00

A press release from the Maine Republican Victory Campaign made the rounds over the weekend, excerpts follow:

MAINE REPUBLICANS STAND WITH ARIZONA

AUGUSTA - A resolution in support of Arizona's right to enforce existing federal immigration laws was passed last week at the Republican National Committee meeting in Kansas City. The resolution was introduced by Maine GOP Committeewoman Jan Staples, and received unanimous support.

"Maine Republicans stand with the people of Arizona," said Staples. "As a border state, we understand the gravity of this issue. The safety of our citizens is of paramount importance, and Arizonans have the right to protect themselves in light of lax federal enforcement."

The resolution cites specific support of S.B. 1070, a bill passed by the Arizona legislature and signed into law by Governor Jan Brewer.

and

A recent Rasmussen Reports poll showed a majority of Mainers support the passage
of an Arizona-like law in Maine, with only 39% supporting the Obama Administration's decision to sue the state of Arizona.

"We are proud that Maine is leading the way in support of Arizona," said Maine GOP Chair Charlie Webster.

I am struck by the reference to "passage of an Arizona-like law in Maine". Is this part of what the Maine Republican Victory Campaign hopes to achieve in the future?

After all the concern and exceptions extended to businesses and families who enjoyed decades of cross border relaxed exchanges between Maine and our Canadian neighbors during the move to new passport requirements, do Republicans now want to have local law enforcement officials during stops to attempt to determine a person's immigration status given some sort of suspicion that the person is an "illegal alien"?

At the heart of the Arizona debacle is that profiling of Hispanics will necessarily take place in actual police practice despite how the law is written. What type of profiling in Maine would take place? Perhaps a French accent would prompt a demand for papers. Can we expect Paul LePage to reject this resolution and to speak out forcefully in opposition to such a law and the malpractice of it in Maine on behalf of border communities and Franco-American Maine citizens? Of course this would occur only if he is a truly common sense thinker he purports to be and not just another rigid right-wing politician.

The Republican Party resolution referenced follows:

WHEREAS, the United States has a rich tradition of extending the promise and opportunity of America to immigrants who legally enter her borders; and

WHEREAS, America recognizes the contributions of generations of immigrants legally entering the country have made to the economy and culture of the United States; and
WHEREAS immigration that is both legal and controlled allows immigrants coming to America to openly assimilate into the culture of their adoptive home and, therefore, more readily reap the benefits available to all who reside legally within the borders of the United States; and

WHEREAS, the federal government, through lax enforcement of the federal immigration laws, has failed to protect our nation's borders, our citizens and legal residents by stopping the flow of illegal border crossings; and

WHEREAS, the State of Arizona, to protect its citizens, legal residents and visitors, has therefore passed S.B. 1070 to enforce standing federal statutes concerning immigration; and

WHEREAS, the Arizona law mirrors federal immigration law and does not provide any additional burdens on any person legally present in the United States; and

WHEREAS, enforcement of the Arizona law explicitly prohibits profiling; and

WHEREAS, the rule of law has been, and should continue to be, the basis of governance in this country; therefore be it

RESOLVED, that The Republican National Committee supports the State of Arizona's right and responsibility to provide security and stability for its citizens; and be it further

RESOLVED, that the Republican National Committee supports the State of Arizona's effort to protect its citizens, residents and visitors through the passage of S.B. 1070.

Waking Up to Reality

2010-08-13T10:06:00.004-04:00

In today’ Press Herald, Scott Kauffman, former vice chairman of the Maine Republican Party, endorsed Libby Mitchell for governor:

I respect the long history of the Republican Party. I admire Lincoln's vision, Eisenhower's leadership and Reagan's common sense. However, the values of self-reliance and rugged individualism which guided these men would have no place in today's Republican Party. I am one Republican who will still embrace individualism and will not blindly follow the new tea party GOP.

The entire left – right extremist - we are dying for a centrist, fairy tale is very aptly punctured by Scott Kauffman’s sensible endorsement of Libby Mitchell.

Many in the Maine media and punditry are in love with the “two-sides to every story” lazy way of looking at the gubernatorial race. The formula is that if there is a right wing extreme GOTP candidate that the opposing Democratic Party candidacy must therefore be an extreme left wing offering. And this false tale also works even better when the storyline includes a moderate hero to break in between the extremists.

Kauffman gives us a dose of reality and ought to wake us up from the bedtime story above that put us to sleep.

Paul LePage is an extremist and bent on dismantling the very pillars of this state’s foundations without regard to neither present need nor future progress to satisfy the extreme anti-tax crowd overjoyed at his hijacking of the Republican Party.

Elliot Cutler is a fairly wealthy independent burning a lot of cash in pursuit of the Blaine House. While not an extremist, he really is a conservative who seems to be image fiddling primarily to fit into the storyline above in order to eek out a plurality victory by default. Yet it seems unlikely that he will be able to poll above 20% and his candidacy may really only serve to deliver the governorship to Paul LePage.

Libby Mitchell is not a leftist extremist in way. Is she generally more progressive that the rest of the field? Yes and Maine’s citizens are more progressive than the rest of the field in a very pragmatic way. Libby Mitchell is a exactly the type of leader that will give us a no-nonsense, get the job done for Maine, set egos aside approach that Maine citizens expect.

Kaufman’s accurate portrayal of Libby Mitchell is based on facts that transcend the fiction in this tale:

As Senate president, Libby Mitchell got things done. She worked with Democrats and Republicans to pass legislation that helped create jobs, improved our education system and moved the state towards energy sustainability.

She is not afraid to make the tough decisions that will be necessary to lead our state. Libby Mitchell stands solidly in the mainstream and is the type of leader Maine needs to move forward.

Libby is ready to govern.

Hide & Seek LePage

2010-08-10T15:58:00.001-04:00

There are two in a row public forums or debates that Paul LePage will not attend due to “scheduling conflicts”. But of course, candidates for Governor ultimately decide what is important in their schedules. Apparently, speaking to Maine citizens in a substantive and in an informative way on issue positions is not a priority of Paul LePage. So he will blow off (as of this writing, we rather hope to shame him into appearing) the August 13 gubernatorial forum sponsored by The Island Institute in Rockland and the August 19 candidate debate at the University of Maine at Machias.

These “schedule conflicts” are unknown and we hope to find out eventually what events are more vital than these important public forums. It does not seem as if Paul LePage will be completely away. On August 12th, he will be at the Skowhegan Fair from 5:00 to 7:00 PM, on August 14th he will attend the Pal Hop Reunion at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee in Lewiston at 9:00 PM, and on August 15th he will be at a BBQ with Pete the Carpenter to raise money from the right wing tea party group the Refounders.

It is unknown if it is the press or the professors asking questions that are the concern of Paul LePage. To his defense, Dan Billings has posted As Maine Goes:

In Paul's case, he is not taxpayer funded and is not self-funded. He has a busy schedule of fundraisers all summer. He needs to raise money to win. If he has a fundraising event on the books, I would expect that would be a priority.

Chasing cash over connecting with voters is a poor choice and with Paul LePage’s much bragged about win with little cash in the primary because of his supposed ability to connect with grassroots voters, it would seem that priorities would be just the opposite of Mr. Billings musings.

There do not seem to be any pressing events of a ceremonial nature for the ceremonial Mayor of Waterville according to the city’s website. Perhaps it is pressing private sector business interfering? LePage did announce that he would be taking a leave of absence from Marden’s and according to the Bangor Daily News on June 24 already is on leave. At any rate, he seems to be able to make a great deal of other events, again it all boils down to priorities.

Perhaps Paul LePage is getting the makeover after his gaffe, gripe, and groan start to the campaign. That may not be unusual. A number of extreme tea party candidates from Rand Paul in Kentucky and Sharron Angle in Nevada needed to get an overexposure break from their radical messages in order to emerge later with a hopefully little more Republican constraint and toned down rhetoric.

Yet Paul LePage is hiding and we are left seeking. He is ducking substantive issue forums but seems out and about doing backslapping retail politicking and tax bashing at fairs, dances, and picnics. It almost seems like LePage wants to dine, sing and dance rather than debate, speak, and discuss.

Paul! Paul LePage! Game’s over! Ally, ally, in free!

UnAmerican Amendment Adjustments

2010-08-09T08:59:00.007-04:00

So now Republicans are jumping on the bandwagon to look at repealing the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The ultra right are in love with Amendments 2, 9, and 10. Amendments 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8, of the "Bill of Rights" are just liberal drivel overkill. In their minds, Amendments 11 and up, and now especially 14, should all be repealed as too many constitutional concessions to modernity.

Maybe the best way to go is: Ditch the 14th Amendment? Why stop there?

Best read with a nice cold glass of raw milk and a heaping plate of organic Lindsey Graham crackers.

She's Ready to Govern

2010-08-05T17:12:00.004-04:00

While the Grand Old Tea Party nominee tries to figure out how to make the Governor’s race an angry referendum on taxes, social issues, throwing bums out, states rights, federal overreach, or anything else that might fire up his right wing base, Libby Mitchell has been quietly and competently building consensus toward solutions to Maine’s challenges.

Libby is working hard and demonstrating the one trait that Paul LePage lacks completely, the ability to govern. Today’s Kennebec Journal reported on each of her primary opponents joining her team in a substantive role:

The three rivals who lost to Senate President Elizabeth Mitchell in the Democratic Party primary will lead policy subcommittees in support of her gubernatorial campaign.

Former Attorney General Steven Rowe, Stanford Management Chief Executive Officer Rosa Scarcelli and former Department of Conservation Commissioner Patrick McGowan have agreed to solicit input from people across the state on topics such as jobs, energy, and education, the Mitchell campaign announced Wednesday.

Each of these individuals brought unique perspectives and diverse backgrounds and supporters to the quest for the Democratic nomination. Each one had a positive vision and proposed solutions to Maine challenges worthy of further consideration.

Libby Mitchell’s tapping into this talent base demonstrates a commitment to bringing people together to tackle tough issues. It demonstrates a commitment to consensus building over gridlock. And it offers a glimpse into how she will lead Maine.

At the end of this campaign we are not looking for an obstructionist to obstruct nor an administrator to administrate but a Governor to govern. Libby Mitchell is not thrashing around like Paul LePage nor craftily tuning a message like Elliot Cutler; she is engaging her energies in working on jobs and business development with Rosa Scarcelli, energy and the environment with Jim McGowan, and education with Steve Rowe. And many other people with all kinds of experiences and backgrounds are working with her too.

The Governor’s office is for governing and serving the aspirations of Maine’s citizens. It requires consensus building and input from all facets of Maine’s society. Without doubt, Libby, as Governor, will include leaders from across the political spectrum beyond the Democratic Party, just as she did as Senate President. This is a no-nonsense, get the job done for Maine, set egos aside approach typical of her that Maine citizens expect. Libby is ready to govern. She gets things done.

Paul LePage Paranoia Pandering

2010-08-02T17:46:00.004-04:00

You are invited to go over to Dirigo Blue and read this post,
Paul LePage Paranoia Pandering,
that exposes his connections with Maine's ultra-far right.

Paul LePage "In Writing"

2010-08-01T14:48:00.006-04:00

Paul LePage wants to only answer reporters in writing either because he is a gaffe machine extraordinaire or a controlling politician who despises free press journalism. Test number one is in today's Kennebec Journal piece on education reform initiatives. Mr. LePage shows us just how responsive he is:

Republican candidate Paul LePage, the only candidate who wouldn't offer an interview for this article, said in a statement released by his campaign that education policy is best left up to local school boards.

"The Race to the Top funding is not about educating kids, it is about the federal government running the education system," the statement said. "We need to be careful about accepting federal money with strings attached."

So, no interview but he did write back with a no answer statement to sweeten up his tea party. The non-answer is pretty much reality: Paul LePage has no answer or vision for education in Maine. Here is the sum total on the issue directly from his website:

The challenge for Maine with our educational system is our return on investment. Maine is in the top third of all our states in education spending, yet we are in the bottom third in results. As Governor, it will be my priority to reform Maine's educational system so that students have the opportunity to create results that correspond with our significant investment in the system.

Many educational reforms will not cost taxpayers additional money. There is plenty of money in the system; it's how we choose to prioritize our spending that is impacting educational results. Increased competition will breed excellence; therefore, I support statewide choice by implementing a voucher system as well as the creation of new charter schools.

The current trend in education is teaching to the test scores to boost test results. We need to eliminate teaching to national assessments and allow teachers to create a learning environment that challenges all of our students to excel to their own diverse strengths rather than a standard of mediocrity.

I will not seek to have Augusta make all curriculum decisions for local school districts. I believe that locally elected school board members and parents should have input in their children's education. This includes allowing local school boards to provide guidance on classroom discussions of industry, natural resources, population, and economic development topics as they relate to the economy of the local region in which the schools reside and classrooms discussions on the origin of life with the inclusion of scientific theories.

For Special Education, we should eliminate the disparity between school districts in identifying and supporting students requiring special education services.

Finally, my goal as Governor will be to lower the average class size, not increase it. For example, school districts must work together to pool their resources. We fail to use our tax dollars wisely when some classes have as few as 4 students and others up to 25. A goal of 16 to 20 students is achievable with the resources we have committed to our educational system.

Read it and weep, you are unlikely to see anything with any real depth. LePage does not intend to lead nor govern, he intends to dismantle.

Postscript: By the way, the last phrase in the fourth paragraph, "classrooms discussions on the origin of life with the inclusion of scientific theories" was recently added to the site; so perhaps there is some evolution in Mr. LePage's policy development.

Collins quid pro quo to LePage

2010-07-30T18:29:00.004-04:00

Susan Collins endorsing Paul LePage is her quid pro quo for his endorsement of her in 2008 in which he lauded her perfect (that's attendance folks, not effectiveness) string of votes cast to regurgitate her exaggerated appall at Tom Allen missing a few votes. Here are excerpts from his March 2008 op-ed piece in the Morning Sentinel. Note that he opens with a not-to-subtle swipe at Collins pal, John McCain to burnish his pre-tea party bona fides.

Unlike the Presidential election this fall, Mainers have a clear-cut choice for who should represent our state in the United States Senate. For the past 12 years, Sen. Susan Collins has amassed a voting record second to none, which we have not seen in our state since the glory days of the Honorable Margaret Chase Smith. Sen. Collins is emulating the work begun by Sen. Smith, and unmistakably deserves the support of all Maine voters to return her to Washington as our U.S. senator.

and

Her opponent on the other hand, has time and again revealed an inability to show up to work in Congress. Unfortunately for Maine citizens, Rep. Tom Allen has been absent for well over 100 congressional votes. Mainers deserve better, and we must demand that when elected, our elected officials show up for the debate.

LePage just played the political investment market in his 2008 Collins backing; he was simply a ceremonial mayor with a bully-veto and a big dream. In reality the pay back from Collins in 2010 is the real story because it once again verifies her fidelity to her party's hard right. By he way, I doubt that Margaret Chase Smith would embrace today's anti-patriotic right wingers.

Codeword Creationism

2010-07-30T11:32:00.002-04:00

We all know that in Arizona that “illegal immigrants” is a code word for Latinos and the tea party movement has plenty of code words deployed for race. In fact the far right has always fired up its adherents by a process of validating their fears by sharing “in the know” coding for everything they despise.

Today that craft has been honed to a perfect pitch by über-conservatives. Their latest technique is to make up code words that we progressives use in our secret plan to dominate the world with a communist dictatorship. Just listen to right wing talk radio for several examples per hour.

Of course Glenn Beck is the master; here are some examples:

- I beg you, look for the words 'social justice' or 'economic justice' on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words.

- Social justice is also about stealing.

- Whenever you see some thing that talks about a strong democratic movement or strengthening democracy, you're in trouble. If you see anything that talks about social or economic justice, you're in trouble. Those two things are the language of people like Hugo Chavez. We are a republic, not a democracy.

And then we come to Paul LePage, the inept code word creator:

WGAN: You're saying that because Arden Manning said you're a creationist...that you interpret that as saying that you're not qualified to be governor because you're a French American Catholic? Is that what you're saying?

LePage: That's what I'm saying.

Mr. LePage, please listen to this fellow Franco-American. It is true that you are not qualified to be Governor. But it has nothing to do with our shared ethnic heritage or your religion . It has everything to do with your off-the-cuff positions that you spout off to play to extremist tea party anxiety and your tired anti-services rhetoric. You, as a candidate, do not even begin to approach the level of leadership that this state needs to move ahead.

Postscript: I went to Ecole du Sacre Coeur in Laconia, N.H. and was definitely not taught the type of creationism that is in fundamentalist favor today. In fact the Sisters of Mercy tried very hard (parochial schools were in decline), with limited resources to, teach relevant and up to date science.

Pen Pal Paul

2010-07-29T13:01:00.005-04:00

"…from now on, what I am going to do is, I'm not going to make any comments to reporters unless it's in writing." - Paul LePage, direct quote, speaking in context, about answering media questions in a conversation with George Hale on WVOM, July 27, 2010.

Paul LePage once again demonstrates he is unworthy of election with the immature comment delivered above. While the LePage gaffe express will roll on, it has taken another hard right playbook turn into victim-whining about the media when it accurately reports comments he makes publically. Essentially, Paul LePage’s game is to change the subject, avoid responsibility, and play for sympathy as an injured party when he spouts off a thoughtless “red-meat” phrase or two. It’s not my fault, he contends; they’re being mean to me.

And of course, after all his holier-than-thou pronouncements, he still got his original dig in. Paul LePage even gallingly makes “if” contingency-type apologies that place the onus for any offense taken on the offended party’s mind rather than that given by his own mouth!

The real bottom line is that the Republicans have nominated a candidate that is dismissive of personal responsibility. Additionally, there is blatant arrogance displayed by Paul LePage that tells us that he believes that he is above being accountable to the public. Whether he likes it or not, the press is an essential ingredient of democracy. The LePage reference to making comments to reporters only in writing also speaks volumes about his mistrust of himself in his tendency to talk before thinking, the public’s ability to interpret news reporting, and a hankering to be presented only on his own terms.

The far right has always diverted attention from issues by using press persecution as a smoke-screen when caught out making “red meat” remarks. Maine’s press corps may not cover every aspect of this vital race to the extent we might like but whining paraphrasing of “gotcha journalism” victimization reminiscent of Sarah Palin is extremely far off the mark. But this is the template LePage is using in the campaign.

Imagine how Paul LePage will react to reporting of his actions should we be burdened with him as our Governor. Will press reporting on his actions always draw his dismissive issue-distracting distain? Will the Blaine House reporters need to submit press conference questions in advance in writing? Will the many harmful LePage vetoes be accompanied with silent treatment unaccountability? Will we have a Governor who chooses to communicate only through pre-selected right-wing friendly talk shows and fawning Fox-like submissive flattery?

We need to know. Dear Paul, please write soon.

Life in the Circus

2010-07-14T19:24:00.002-04:00

I came to political consciousness under a tea party governorship. A shoot from the hip talker, tax axing - cut ‘n slash ‘guvmint’, state’s rights advocate, right wing constitutionalist misconstruing, shut the liberal whiners up, Mister successful businessman, chicken hawk, town official and legend in his own mind chief executive ruled the state by anti-tax rhetoric, veto threats.

Paul LePage in 2010? Not quite but that nightmare may unfortunately be easily related to by many in a decade or so. I’m speaking of LePage’s most likely and unknown to him role model, Meldrim Thomson, Jr., chief executive of next door New Hampshire from 1973 to 1979.

Mel Thompson won a three way race for Governor in 1972 with 41% of the vote after wresting the Republican nomination from a moderate sitting Governor, Walter Peterson. He defeated Democrat Roger Crowley who took 39% of the vote and a moderate independent, Malcolm McLane, who picked up 19% mostly to Crowley’s detriment. "Thanks to McLane, I'm governor," Mel told a reporter after the election. Sounds like a lesson there about voting for an independent spoiler without prospects of victory in our upcoming election.

The new Governor did not waste anytime alienating the state legislature, paralyzing the governing process, and grounding the ship of state on the sand bars of senselessness. He acted as a bully and barred every sensible tax model the state needed. Conservatives today, especially in neighboring states, laud his legacy of no New Hampshire sales and income taxes. But of course these neighbors only see the walls; I got to live inside. Yes, we lived free and died without sales or income taxes. But we paid enormous property taxes, fees galore, and lacked reasonable basic services. In fact, one plus of our move to Maine in the 1980’s was gaining access to public Kindergarten which we fought and fought for unsuccessfully in New Hampshire.

Mel could not idly abide the alienation, paralysis, and therefore his inability to govern. So he went to his roots. Like the tea party of today, Thompson said he was stuck in the 1900’s but his philosophy was that of the 1700’s. And if one could not govern with the legislature then tis time to engage in antics and play the bully.

So our license plates got “Live Free or Die” stamped on them in lieu of “Scenic” by inmates at the state prison. Social issues got going. The previously abolished death penalty got signed back into law with Mel quipping that he felt like John Hancock when he affixed his signature, apparently equating signing the Declaration of Independence with execution by the state.

Our flags furiously went up and down for every conservative whim of Mel’s. We dropped the state building flags by executive order to half mast on Good Fridays, to protest the exclusion of Taiwanese athletes to the Olympics, to mourn the granting of amnesty by President Carter to those who objected to Vietnam and choose not to fight, the signing of the Panama Canal Treaty, recognition of mainland China, and so on. He banned the use of “Ms.” By state employees. He called a news conference to publically purchase Gallo wine during a boycott of it called by the United Farm Workers. He constantly referred to the deceased Martin Luther King as a “commie” and attacked UN ambassador Andrew Young as a one world fanatic.

Mel played intimidation politics too. He searched the tax records and the files of the New England Organized Crime Intelligence System for information about his political opponents; the latter he said was to test the system’s security. He pulled up a Massachusetts driver with his state limo for giving him the finger. Mel urged Nantucket to succeed from the Bay State and join New Hampshire as well as fomenting a so called “Lobster War” with Maine. As a tough on crime guy, he blocked federal money for New Hampshire Legal Assistance; tough on crime apparently meaning tough on due process.

Thompson pranced about on the international stage. He toured apartheid South Africa and praised its white leadership and described Soweto as “just wonderful” and lauded the country’s “free elections” despite being only available to whites.

Vetoes were common, including an early one that would have helped the state hospital regain accreditation. Those at the margins of society did not gain his sympathy. He often spoke ill of those that needed government assistance.

Never serving in the military, he was a typical chicken hawk, belligerent in his attitude toward communist nations. He suggested that the NH National Guard be given tactical nuclear weapons. Dressed in fatigues he showed up at a massive protest of the Clamshell Alliance at the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant and had 1,414 protesters arrested and incarcerated at great state expense. He even deployed the National Guard when Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman spoke at UNH.

Mel’s damaging legacy lives on. All statewide politicians are forced to “take the pledge” against sales and income taxes. The state still has no public Kindergarten but you can load up on state sold liquor, buy fireworks that can’t be used within NH state lines, and pay a $2.00 toll for the privilege of traveling the 14 miles of I-95 in the state on your way to Boston. The Mel Thompson years did not give us a better life. We got his low taxes, actually no state broad based taxes but regressive property taxes, in exchange for low living and low services. His son, Thom Thompson, is a big tea party organizer in New Hampshire today reminding all that his father’s motto of "Low taxes are the result of low spending".

Mel Thompson did not govern. He paralyzed the state for three two-year terms. That allowed him to play act his tea party type fantasies. For six years we got form not function; we suffered symbols and were denied substance. Let’s not give the same opportunity to his next door political fanatic successor and like minded shoot from the hip talker, tax axing - cut ‘n slash ‘guvmint’, state’s rights advocate, right wing constitutionalist misconstruing, shut the liberal whiners up, Mister successful businessman, chicken hawk, town official and legend in his own mind, Paul LePage.

The Two Faced Truth

2010-07-13T20:25:00.003-04:00

The Old Two Step

2010-06-23T22:33:00.005-04:00

Step One. Watch Paul LePage answer the question asking if he would support drilling for oil off the coast of Maine (Move ahead to 44 min 20 seconds to see this Q & A exchange.):

Watch the full episode. See more Your Vote.

Step Two How big is the BP oil spill in relation to the state of Maine? The answer is here: If It Was My Home - Visualizing the BP Oil Spill

No Intro Necessary

2010-06-21T11:22:00.001-04:00

Republicans hate Robin Hood

2010-06-17T09:04:00.005-04:00

President Obama's insistence that BP pay for all damages has resulted in the high positive step of BP to set up an escrow account of $20 billion. Do Republicans see it that way too?

Representative Michele Bachmann on the idea of an escrow just before the deal:

The president just called for creating a fund that would be administered by outsiders, which would be more of a redistribution-of-wealth fund. And now it appears like we'll be looking at one more gateway for more government control, more money to government.

But if I was the head of BP, I would let the signal get out there -- 'We're not going to be chumps, and we're not going to be fleeced.' And they shouldn't be. They shouldn't have to be fleeced and make chumps to have to pay for perpetual unemployment and all the rest -- they've got to be legitimate claims.

Governor Haley Barbour, Mississippi on Fox thinks making BP pay makes them unable to pay:

I do worry that this idea of making them make a huge escrow fund is going to make it less likely that they'll pay for everything. They need their capital to drill wells. They need their capital to produce income so that they can pay that income to our citizens in Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Louisiana, and to pay for all the damages done. BP needs to pay, is supposed to pay, must pay every penny. But this escrow bothers me that it's going to make them less able to pay us what they owe us.

Representative Tom Price of the Republican Study Committee apparently sees the escrow as stealing from BP:

BP’s reported willingness to go along with the White House’s new fund suggests that the Obama Administration is hard at work exerting its brand of Chicago-style shakedown politics.

And Rep. Joe Barton R-TX even apologizes to BP!

Fighting the Oil Occupation Forces

2010-06-15T23:29:00.005-04:00

BP's actions have been criminal in nature. While it cannot make the oil in the Gulf dissolve; it is striving to dilute its culpability to a great extent. This needs to be met forcefully head on. Multi-national corporations ought not despoil our shores and expect to pay dividends to shareholders. Our leaders should address with clarity the ethical liability of BP and propose both a forceful action plan to deal with this specific company and to layout the consequences of amoral economic distancing of any corporate misdeed in the future.

Let us now seize the high moral ground and then occupy it for the long term. We should urge our representatives to imediately pass a jobs bill that employs on a fast track both primarily public and some private individuals in a modern green CCC and a program on par with the 1960's space program to address long delayed needs in environmental denigration, immediate repair of disaster damages, and vastly increased research and development of deployable alternative energy. And without reservation, now is the time to refine and submit a climate bill to Congress because BP's oil spill highlights the need for urgency.

Rethinking Ballot Access

2010-06-15T15:47:00.001-04:00

We here in Maine nominate our presidential candidates through the caucus/convention process. With that one exception, all other partisan candidates are nominated through primaries. Since our primaries only a few weeks away, lawn signs are popping up here like mushrooms after wet weather. We have five Democrats (one a write-in) and seven Republicans running at the moment, so you can imagine the crop of signs, most of which will be useless (OK, I’ll admit I save the wickets) after the primary.

It occurs to me that, in a time when state budgets are squeezed between a rock and a hard place, when state funding for education is cut forcing local property taxes to make up the difference, when workers are looking at pay cuts, we need to take a long, hard look at our system of primaries.

In 2007, Maine’s Secretary of State considered asking the legislature to cancel the state-funded primaries which, at the time, cost an estimated $300,000. Primaries are strictly partisan activities, and forcing all the voters (including those ineligible to vote in a primary) to pay for them is just plain unjust.

So what’s the answer? Ask the state party organization to pony up the cash? I doubt they could here in Maine. I believe the solution is to look to Utah, in which candidates are chosen in county and state nominating conventions made up of delegates chosen at the local level.

I realize some of you will disagree, and disagree strongly. “Caucuses are inherently undemocratic,” you will say.

Having participated in many of them, I would have to disagree. Any member of the party is invited, public notice is a requirement, and those who cannot be there have the same right to vote absentee as they would in a primary. Becoming a delegate is easy (even in 2008 every alternate ended up being upgraded to delegate), and anyone who can’t afford the $38 cost can get the fee waived. I realize that lots of folks feel that caucuses are some sort of smoke filled room with access granted only to party “insiders” but that honestly hasn’t been my experience. In Maine, spend an afternoon helping stuff envelopes, and you become an insider, I guess.

Nominating through the caucus/convention route would also reduce the cost of getting onto the November ballot enormously, thus empowering candidates who prefer to rely more on small donors than on large corporations.

Finally, particularly in a party which takes grassroots organizing seriously, there would be the great benefit of increased, very personal, participation in the process of choosing a candidate. Attending a caucus where you have a chance to discuss your candidate of choice, and attempt to convince your neighbors to support that candidate, is a wonderful experience and leads to increased levels of volunteerism between nomination and the general election in November. Having volunteers creates more of a level playing field for candidates who don’t want to be beholden to large donors.

So….the cost is lower, both for candidates and taxpayers. Participation is open to the same group of party-affiliated voters who now are permitted to vote in primary elections. Candidates will not need as much corporate money to get on the ballot, since their campaigns will be volunteer-powered (if they prefer to work with the grassroots).

Sounds good to me!

Primary 'Phatigue' Pause

2010-06-04T11:50:00.000-04:00

Glenn Beck Airs Israeli Raid Footage

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor

Tea Party

Peek-A-Spill Bobby

2010-06-03T16:17:00.006-04:00

Guess who wrote the following as reported by WGNO New Orleans:

"I am writing to express my grave concerns regarding the severe economic impact of a six-month (or longer) suspension of activity at 33 previously permitted deepwater drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, including and in particular the 22 deepwater drilling rigs currently in operation off the Louisiana coast."

Yes, it is Bobby Jindal whose state is being severely impacted by oil damage from an offshore rig in the Gulf of Mexico writing to President Obama after criticizing him for mot being hard on BP regarding the spill.

Can this be the same Bobby Jindal who told FOX on May 28:

"We don't understand why our federal government would be making excuses for BP. They're the responsible party. They're the ones that caused this oil spill... it is their oil that is showing up in our coast and our wetlands and our marshes."

Or is it the other resurfacing Bobby Jindal of a year ago who said:

“There has never been a challenge that the American people, with as little interference as possible by the federal government, cannot handle.”

Leading Entrepreneurial Indicator?

2010-06-03T14:18:00.003-04:00

Robert Reich asks if the recession growth in entrepreneurs is just another unemployment or under-employment indicator in this thoughtful New York Times Op-Ed. I have certainly observed this happening in Maine. It is the Great Recession's equivalent of the Great Depression's street corner sales of apples and pencils.

Texas Blogger Proves Parallel Universe!

2010-05-28T14:33:00.004-04:00

There is apparently a parallel universe. I offer as proof what exists in this blogger's mind:

Ron Paul votes to repeal “Don’t ask, Don’t tell”

In the Senate, ultra liberal Republican Susan Collins of Maine followed Paul’s example and voted with Democrats in Committee to approve the same amendment.

It is apparently a long journey politically from Texas to Maine.

Collins' support is welcome on repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell but I agree with the sentiment expressed in this universe by the highly recommended Maine blog, Collins Watch:

But let's not pretend this makes Collins some sort of trailblazer for justice. It doesn't.

There was a time when this sort of stand would have really helped shake things up. But that time is long gone.

BP – Beyond Petroleum

2010-05-27T17:34:00.000-04:00

WKRG.com News

The Defense Rests

2010-05-22T22:48:00.005-04:00

Dan Billings, is a Republican who disagrees with a number of the Maine Republican Party’s platform planks is a frequently featured commentary contributor to the Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel and penned this piece. His instincts upon witnessing the disbelief and distain for the Republican platform transforming his party’s message into a tool of the worst far, far, far fringe right wing anti-democracy extreme xenophobic and delusional tea party conspiracy mongers is to go out and paint the Democratic party platform as extreme.

Point by point he fails in his attempt to paint our party as far left for supporting:

“jobs for all who can work; a livable wage; affordable housing, food, fuel, health care, and other essential commodities for all; and support for those suffering hardship.”

He rattles on and on about planks that address fairness to public employees rather than trashing them in the good old fashioned Republican “government is the enemy” mode.

He denigrates fundamental fairness due employees instead of siding with the Republican impulse that employer/stockholder profits must always supersede fair labor practices.

He sets his sights on support for long term goals of guaranteed sick time and single payer health care simply because each suffered past rejection in the typical Republican fashion of looking dismally backward rather than aspiring to a brighter future for all.

He says that the gay marriage referendum vote ought to have been the end to that issue and thus let the Republican social issue stance be an accepted level of discrimination rather than fighting on and on in the great Democratic tradition of civil rights.

His list drones on in a feeble effort to cover up the incredible reactionary Republican hard right turn by stating that:

…the Maine Democratic Party platform is a far-left document that could have been crafted by one of the European socialist parties. The next time you hear a Democrat talk about the GOP being out of the mainstream, remember the platform that Maine Democrats will endorse this weekend.

Mr. Billing of course got in the GOTP (Grand Old Tea Party) obligatory “socialist” slime toss.

One of the greatest myths whispered about starting in the Reagan presidency, more openly stated in the George W. Bush administration, and now heard as a full-throated scream from the successful tea party putsch within the Republican Party is that the Democratic Party is far outside the main stream of American values and is a radical leftist entity.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Essentially there have been a couple competing and occasionally collaborating strands in American politics.

There were those steel rim eyeglassed home town Rotary type businessmen and followers who expected good governance and counseled a conservative approach to taxes but not trashing valid funding of government. They were defense hawks but had a pragmatic streak of engagement with the world. And while more socially conservative, tramping into the bedrooms and individual lives of the public wasn’t their idea of a reasonable way forward and gradual acceptance civil rights change was often a hallmark of those who expressed allegiance to this party.

There were those steelworkers (and others with blue collars), women, and minorities that formed an alliance to ensure that government was a force to do good and advance the quality of life for poor and middle class Americans. They had a mix of hawks and doves but had a pragmatic streak of engagement with the world. And while more socially liberal, they took the long view and pushed and pulled their message of equality and dignity forward always looking to the future but also explaining the moral reasoning of their efforts.

Both parties formed the broad middle of the electorate and they debated, voted, won or loss, and moved on to engage each other and often collaborate to address issues imperfectly but with a desire to serve everyone to some degree in that vast middle.

The bitter truth today for the Republican Party is that somewhere along the arc from Reagan to Palin, they left the mainstream. Newt Gingrich, take no prisoners, style polemics became their approach. Cut loose from mainstream give and take governance they drifted further and further into the orbit of ultra conservative market worshipers and social issue attack politics. And many stayed with them as their leaders, public pundits and party apparatchiks played more and more on their fears, set up straw men, and questioned the patriotism and sympathies of the other half of the great middle of the American electorate.

That other half, the Democratic Party, continues to move forward with progress in mind. It is the regression of the Republican Party fading into John Birch style absolutism and morphing into tea party racism that is the true cause of the strife in our country’s political discourse.

In Maine, the Democratic and Republican platforms ought to be compared and each party’s candidates ought to be questioned about their identification to the core values now publically expressed by their conventions. The message of those platforms is clear in both parties.

Every blue collar worker who votes Republican votes against her or his own economic interest. Voting Democratic advances that worker’s reward for their hard work.

Every woman who votes Republican votes for a glass ceiling on her movement toward equality. Voting Democratic advances the causes valued by women.

Every minority individual who votes Republican votes for enabling the fear of minorities to be a blunt instrument of right wing propaganda. Voting Democratic is voting for civil rights.

The Democratic Party is the place for all of the preceding voices and small business owners, socially astute larger-business people, students, and anyone in the great center of American progress toward a brighter future.

Unfortunately however, the new GOTP, this xenophobic, often racist, every tax adverse, victimization preaching element, is a serious political force to be reckoned with. It likely will flame destructively before it dies out and is finally rejected with regret. Perhaps we are now ready for a third party in this country. Hopefully it will be the old Republican Party of those Rotarian steel rim eyeglass wearers and their friends and families that decide to rejoin the Democratic Party back in the center of the American electorate by rejecting the political hijacking that stole their political souls.

Oil Safety's Believe it or Not!

2010-05-05T16:09:00.004-04:00

Transocean 2009:

Each year, the U.S. Department of the Interior's Mineral Management Service (MMS) picks both District and National recipients of their "Safety Award for Excellence" (SAFE), and again this year, Transocean's strong performance in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico earned recognition at both levels.

BP in the running in 2010:

These awards recognize outstanding safety and pollution prevention performance by the offshore oil and gas industry in four categories.

The 2010 SAFE
Finalists are:
High OCS Activity
BP Exploration & Production Inc.
Eni US Operating Co.
Exxon Mobil Corp

Oops, they postponed the 2010 awards!

The Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service (MMS) announced today that the 2010 Annual Industry SAFE Awards Luncheon scheduled for May 3, 2010 at the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in Houston, Texas has been postponed.

The ongoing situation with the Transocean Deepwater Horizon drilling accident has caused the MMS to dedicate considerable resources to the successful resolution of this event, which will conflict with holding this ceremony next week.

Those pesky spill and safety conficts!

Immigration Skin Advisory System

2010-05-03T23:20:00.003-04:00

Don Asmussen a/k/a Bad Reporter of the San Francisco Chronicle has it right in the second panel of his latest cartoon:

Drill Baby Spill

2010-05-02T22:35:00.001-04:00

The former half term Governor, failed Vice Presidential candidate, and six-million dollar (x2) woman Sarah Palin is going on the record on the gulf oil spill disaster.

From her Facebook page:

Alaskans understand the tragedy of an oil spill, and we’ve taken steps to do all we can to prevent another Exxon tragedy, but we are still pro-development. We still believe in responsible development, which includes drilling to extract energy sources, because we know that there is an inherent link between energy and security, energy and prosperity, and energy and freedom. Production of our own resources means security for America and opportunities for American workers. We need oil, and if we don’t drill for it here, we have to purchase it from countries that not only do not like America and can use energy purchases as a weapon against us, but also do not have the oversight that America has.

From Saturday's Kansas City Star:

Speaking to a crowd of mostly Republicans at the Independence Events Center, the former Alaska governor called the oil spill “very tragic” but added: “I want our country to be able to trust the oil industry.”

She said the U.S. must wean itself from foreign oil in order to be truly free.

“We’ve got to tap domestically because energy security will be the key to our prosperity,” Palin said.

Up to the Detroit News:

The oil spill in the gulf off the Louisiana coast is "tragic," Palin said, but she added: "I'm still a believer in domestic drilling. God has developed the resources to responsibly extract here in the U.S."

Mythical Moderate

2010-04-29T17:07:00.005-04:00

DagBlog commentator Doctor Cleveland sees right through Susan Collins.

There are no moderate Republicans in the Senate any more. There are Republican Senators who were once moderates. There are Republican Senators who might depend upon moderate voters in, say, Maine. There are even Republican Senators who might vote moderately if they weren't actually, you know, in the Senate. But it in the actual world, every Republican Senator votes the same way, which means that they are all indistinguishable from Sam Brownback.

When the votes actually matter, Olympia Snowe votes like a hard-line conservative. So does Susan Collins. They're only moderates when nothing real is at stake. If you talk like a moderate but vote like a conservative, that means you actually are a conservative in the only way that matters. Because the votes get counted.

Believing in the mythical "moderate Senate Republicans" requires that the "moderates" not be held accountable for how they actually vote. They are allowed to obstruct legislation through relentless parliamentary maneuvers while complaining that the majority isn't "collegial" enough.

Stock Tip of the Day, Sell SCGS

2010-04-28T13:39:00.007-04:00

Senator Susan Collins mustered up a bit of indignation and acted a bit chagrined at the Goldman Sachs hearing yesterday saying at one point, "I cannot help but get the feeling that the strategy of the witnesses is to try to burn through the time of each questioner." Without doubt, that was the official hearing strategy of Goldman Sachs. Delaying and obstructing to obscure reality seemed to work for the company.

One would think Senator Collins, instead of feinting exasperation would be more aggressive at uncovering Goldman Sachs wrongdoing to expose the firm’s corrupt practices, ethically challenged sidestepping, influence peddling, and shake down of the US economy over just getting a sound bite or two to express indignation to the economically disadvantaged back here in Maine. But perhaps too much grilling is not a good idea when the 10th largest source of Senator Collins’ donations in her last campaign came from…drum roll please…Goldman Sachs’ sources and connections to the tune of just shy of $24,000.

But that’s the past and we have the tendency to let bygones be bygones. The redeeming opportunity is always in the future when one takes to heart the vivid evidence of Goldman Sachs wrongdoing and when one has the power as a United States Senator to correct matters, set the record strait, and prevent future recurrences of the corrupt behavior by legislatively addressing the matter on behalf of her Maine constituents. So what did Senator Collins do after that frustrating hearing? She went to the Senate floor and voted to block debate on a bill that would increase regulation of the financial system.

Note: Senator Snowe and Senator Collins voted a third time to block debate regulation of the financial system moments ago.

Late Day Update: Despite Republicans now caving to allow debate, Senator Collins only proved that she is not an independent moderate and walks lock-step with the leadership the vast majority of the time. On Today Show, Senator Collins certainly came off as out of step with reality and out of balance with her own prior actions and statements:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Hell of a Hoax

2010-04-27T23:15:00.001-04:00

You are cordially invited...

2010-04-26T10:46:00.004-04:00

...to DirigoBlue.com to read and comment on our gubernatorial candidates' answers to a series of specific questions on education in Maine.

2010 MAINE DEMOCRATIC GUBERNATORIAL PRIMARY
Questionnaire on Education

In the first of a seven-part series, each of the Democratic candidates for governor have responded to a series of questions on education compiled by Bruce Bourgoine, Derek Viger of the Augusta Insider, and Gerald Weinand, editor of Dirigo Blue. The remaining questions and responses will appear over the next six days at 10:00 a.m.

Ballot check off for Hate.

2010-04-14T10:02:00.001-04:00

Michael Heath is flirting with getting in the gubernatorial race:

It isn’t know if this is another act in Mr. Heath’s insatiable need for press attention to serve up another opportunity for his perpetual gay bashing or not. In any case, his polarizing and homophobic saunter onto the stage for the race for governor signals the entry of hate into the campaign by an extremist without a remote chance of victory.

As Maine Goes had a posting that is purported to be an email from Mr. Heath:

Email from Mike Heath that was forewarded [sic] to me and one from Rev Dallas Henry:

I met with a good friend yesterday morning. He suggested I allow him to circulate petitions for Governor. If he gathers 4000 signatures by June 1st I told him I'd campaign for Governor this year. Alas, someone has to fix the mess in Augusta ... I suppose. The election is in November. I haven't been keeping track, but I think that makes me the 179th candidate to allow they are interested in the Blaine House!!?? I don't support homosexuality or abortion, in case you didn't know. I'll be talking about all the other issues before November (If Bob gets the signatures). I'll give you a hint regarding my political philosophy ... I believe in the people of Maine (especially the armed men and lovely ladies) more than I do the experts in either Washington or Augusta. Bob is going to need a lot of help, I suspect. He probably can't gather 4000 signatures single handedly. You can reach him at [email address removed] or call him at [phone number removed] to get petitions.

There’s plenty of mixed reaction on any Heath entry into the race on the right noting his potential to siphon off some votes at a cost to a conservative Republican as well as his polarizing effect. Strangely there seems to be no substantial repudiation of his positions but just tactical ramblings.

It is unfortunate that Heath did not go for and somehow get a low turnout plurality to become the Republican nominee. Perhaps the 81% to 19% defeat that George Mitchell delivered to Jasper Wyman in 1988 could have played out again.

Privatize what?

2010-04-12T16:52:00.004-04:00

As deceased miners were sadly laid to final rest in West Virginia on Saturday, I just happened to tune in the Mike McConnell show on WGAN (A rebroadcast of his April 7th show). McConnell, from Cincinnati, is truly a small time radio rant fry of the libertarian bend and demonstrated that his low station count is related to his low blow delivery.

McConnell brashly blamed the mine disaster that killed 29 on government regulators of the Mine Safety & Health Administration and not the operator, Massey Energy Company. Listen to just the first 6 minutes of the show podcast to hear his solution: Privatize mine safety!

Was the government capable in any way? Well yes, but not in the way that McConnell would have you believe in his effort to bring one to the altar of almighty free unfettered markets. The MSHA had indeed logged a shocking number of citations in safety violations at the mine. But the agency is a defanged regulatory body according to the excellent reporting of Clara Bingham of the Daily Beast.

Defanged regulatory agencies are an unfortunate legacy of the Bush administration’s efforts to reduce all encumbrances upon the marketplace. Thus Massey could essentially play out a dance of pushing production up to satisfy stockholders while paying selected fines and contesting or appealing citations to bog down regulators. Massey is another classic example of an unethical company determining that violations are a cost of business that can be borne in the pursuit of profits

Thus past administrations’ made the government culpable to some extent. But without any doubt at all, the moral culpability is squarely upon Massey. Now we need to empower the MSHA with great big powerful fangs to protect miners and ignore absurd voices like that of Mike McConnell. Just like the banking and credit fiascos, deregulation can cause a crash and some crashes kill.

Reform Rx – Moral Clarity

2010-04-02T00:34:00.002-04:00

The New York Times tells the story of President Obama’s visit through a different lens:

On one side of the street, Obama aides scurried, the police blocked off traffic, and people waited in the sun, holding signs that said “Thank You” — though by lunchtime, hundreds were chanting the opposite. And on the other side, uninsured and underinsured people sought care, beginning with a man who saw little reason to eat.

Often lost in the battle of costs, the continuance of private insurance, and the sheer obstructionism of the right are also the individuals that need the Portland Community Health Center. For at the core of this issue is the moral essence of doing what is caring and just for every single person in this country regardless of means and circumstances.

President Obama signaled his readiness to engage in the moral debate:

"And now that it's passed, they're already promising to repeal it. They're actually going to run on a platform of repeal in November.

Well I say go for it. If these Congressmen in Washington want to come here to Maine and tell small business owners that they plan to take away their tax credits and essentially raise their taxes, be my guest. If they want to look Lauren Gallagher in the eye and tell her they plan to take away her father's ability to get health insurance, that's their right. If they want to tell people like Theresa D'Andrea that they could once again face a lifetime of debt if they lose a family member, they can run on that platform. If they want to have that fight, I welcome that fight. Because I don't believe the American people are going to put the insurance industry back in the driver's seat. We've been there already and we're not going back. This country is ready to move forward.".

This state will be moving forward too. Appeal for repeal will rear up in the Congressional and Gubernatorial race from the right. In Maine we will have the opportunity to defeat these initial repeal challengers to show support for President Obama. And, Senators Snowe and Collins, despite their present political protestations, will dare not run their eventual re-election bids in 2012 and 2014 on repeal. Moral force and the practical positive results of the new law will be far too apparent. They will need to be challenged on their obstruction activities during passage and their forthcoming records regarding if they are supporting and enhancing the law.

We, the supporters of Barack Obama, may not all agree on the final outcome of this legislation but we must see it as a vital positive step in the right direction. We may bemoan that we would have had single payer or a better bill with less compromise if we had made a more forceful moral argument. But this is a young presidency. This is a massive accomplishment within a single year. And the moral flame has not flickered out; we need only to feed it.

Health care is now a right. We Americans expand rights

You talkin' to me?

2010-03-30T22:52:00.003-04:00

Like a lot of Kennebec Dems, we have a Subaru with an Obama sticker proudly on it.

Oh, I ought to answer her question:
"Pretty gosh darn good Sarah! And how's that fakey shtick no retreatin' and reloadin' thing working fer ya?"

Reform Rx - Real Life Benefits

2010-03-23T09:59:00.000-04:00

If you have coverage, insurance that was in effect before the bill becomes law is grandfathered in. Still, some provisions in the sidecar bill, like bans on lifetime benefit caps, would apply even to those plans.
That would solve a big problem for people such as Amy Wilhite of Marblehead, Ohio. Her family is insured through her husband's employer, but her 12-year-old daughter, Taylor, a leukemia survivor, has already gone through more than $1 million of medical care in her life and is approaching a $1.5 million cap. Taylor has been delaying or forgoing some care to stretch out coverage as long as possible.

and

This change, as well as rules against insurers' yanking policies if you get sick, and forcing family policies to generally include kids up to age 26, takes effect six months after the bill becomes law.

and

Retiree Daniel O'Connell of Greenville, S.C., said closing the doughnut hole was "very beneficial to me." Mr. O'Connell—who lives on a fixed income of about $40,000 a year—hit the coverage gap in August last year, and said he incurred about $1,500 in out-of-pocket costs.
"At a certain point you're not covered, even though you're paying the premium," he said.

All the above were found in an article in the March 22 Wall Street Journal online titled Steps You Can Take Ahead of Changes in Coverage, Taxes. It was not in the Monday printed edition I received. The Journal editorialized heavily against the legislation and will continue to do so. However it is apparent that once the law is in force that there is a pragmatic real life financial set of benefits that even the Wall Street Journal cannot ignore in their reporting.

Reform Rx - A moment of silence please.

2010-03-22T00:16:00.001-04:00

Reform Rx - Bye Bipartisan – Be Partisan

2010-03-21T23:50:00.004-04:00

Health Care Reform Has Passed!

This final bill was not my health care reform preference. It is a result of good intentions being diluted by industry lobbying and money. It suffered a thousand little cuts by Republicans seeking to defeat it. A final effort to tear it completely down with teabagger threats and hate was undertaken.

But it has passed. It will be the law of the land. It will be a measure that we can alter, improve, correct, refine, expand, and build upon. In seven more years of an Obama Presidency we can surely accomplish much more reform of health care.

The process was endlessly dragged on through last summer’s futile search for bi-partisanship in which our own Maine Senators Snowe and Collins dumped their moderate posturing to aid right wing and corporate interests by creating more space for time killing delays.

The confrontation should have come last spring. The vote would have perhaps been exactly the same but it would have been on a far stronger and less diluted measure.

We must learn from this. We do not have a single honest bipartisan partner in the Republican Party. The leadership from President Obama to finalize passage of this measure indicates he understands this reality. The evidence now tells us that leading toward what is morally right henceforth requires us to unabashedly be partisan on the side of this county’s people.

Reform Rx - CBO: HCR cuts deficit; GOP: NO

2010-03-18T11:07:00.002-04:00

According to the New York Times:

The House Democratic leader, Rep. Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, said that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office had determined that the package of legislation would produce "the largest deficit reduction of any bill we have adopted in Congress since 1993," when it passed President Clinton's budget proposal including substantial tax increases.

In the first ten years, the legislation would reduce deficits by $130 billion, Rep. James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, the House majority whip, said after a meeting of the party's caucus. The effect on deficits over the following decade would be much greater, a total of $1.2 trillion, he said.

Of course Republicans, who take the high road in public and low road in private on deficits, once again respond with a NO according to the Hill's Blog Briefing Room:

"The American people know we're broke," Boehner told reporters at the Capitol. The last thing we need to do is add debt to our kids and grandkids."

To imediately state that a bill "adds debt to our kids and grandkids" in the face of a CBO report that actually says the direct opposite demonstrates how disingenuous the right is willing to be in their effort to willfully mislead.

Reform Rx - Reform the Reform

2010-03-18T09:24:00.005-04:00

I am not a fan of the current health care reform package because I tend to favor the sweeping change over incremental steps. However I do want this package to go through because it establishes health care to a greater degree as a right and will be a baseline that we can build upon once in place. I'll be looking to individuals like Dennis Kucinich to reform the reform.

Stock tip of the day: SHBY

2010-03-16T21:23:00.000-04:00

In answering criticism that he appears to favor the banking business over consumer protection, Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL) said on Tuesday’s (03/16/10) PBS NewsHour:

“I represent no banks. I own no stock in any financial institution. I am not beholden to anybody dealing with this.”

Actually it is the opposite we ought to be concerned about because banks and many other financial interests do own “Shelby stock”:
Shelby received $1,115,146 in campaign contributions (for the last six years of available data, Jan 1, 2004 - Dec 31, 2009)that included the following: banks and credit companies donated $315,147 to him, securities and investment firms delivered $489,150 to his coffers, and insurance companies invested $310,849 in him.

Source: MAPLight.org, a great resource.

It’s not just what a Congressperson owns and might make a buck from that we need to watch for but who owns the Congressperson and how they will make a buck from his or her votes. We need to keep a very close eye on this factor as any financial reform moves forward to become either a robust set of consumer protections or a weak screen for the financial overlords to hide behind.

Reform Rx - Conservative Faction Fractions

2010-03-12T10:58:00.003-05:00

Paul Krugman's NYT column took on three myths about health care reform today including the right wing panic attack concerning government takeover of "one-sixth" of our economy:

The first of these myths, which has been all over the airwaves lately, is the claim that President Obama is proposing a government takeover of one-sixth of the economy, the share of G.D.P. currently spent on health.

Well, if having the government regulate and subsidize health insurance is a "takeover," that takeover happened long ago. Medicare, Medicaid, and other government programs already pay for almost half of American health care, while private insurance pays for barely more than a third (the rest is mostly out-of-pocket expenses). And the great bulk of that private insurance is provided via employee plans, which are both subsidized with tax exemptions and tightly regulated.

That's how the conservative faction does fractions in seeking their lowest common denominator of sound bite attack.

Viewer Recession Advised

2010-03-10T13:48:00.004-05:00

The struggle for a Consumer Protection Agency continues to be under attack. We need a champion like Elizabeth Warren:

Recent Charlie Rose Interview

Ms. Warren on Facebook

School Funding Fallacy and Folly

2010-03-08T14:49:00.003-05:00

Throughout the state we see headlines about school budget slashing that actually avoid the overarching topic of school funding in favor of budget tinkering chatter that will not, in the end, deliver the resources schools desperately require. We need to understand how we arrived at this point. Public schools are under pressure financially due to three reasons:

- Repeated assault from the right to ultimately push schools into the privatization sphere where the selfish use of personal resources will determine education outcomes and a new business paradigm of education delivery will arise to create profits for investors. This privatization effort is characterized by an over reliance on high stake testing to create winners and losers. Instead of concentrating on egalitarian success for all, there is a drive to deprive the losers of funding while funneling a lopsided amount of cash resources to the winners, presumably charter and private schools. Underlying this privatization effort is a distain for unionized workers and hence a great deal of meaningless talk about merit pay and meaningful emphasis on non-union teacher forces. In the end, should the right destroy public education, schools for the general populace will continue to exist as dilapidated warehouses for those without voice or capital full of advertising and low cost service delivery but profitable for some investor. Private schools will become like private colleges, expensive and out of reach but securing a network for a small upper class and the financial elites to which vouchers will be applied in part toward the cost.

- The funding of education is inordinately built on a myth of local control. In days of yore, local control meant a community building a schoolhouse, hiring a teacher, and providing financial support. This small town 19th century approach is no longer applicable because localities are so much of a part of a larger web of services that are appropriate to be delivered by government and funded with broad based taxes. Localities also had their own industries, sheriff, poor house, et cetera which became outmoded as towns became suburbs, cities evolved, and rural population percentages and jobs declined. Education’s role in society became of increased interest of national and state politics. However, the national role became one of authority by issuing mandates with little funding role. States became an unreliable funding partner dependent on the ups and downs of the national economy that also issued unfunded directives. Rules, laws, and expectations have grown far beyond the scope of local control and thus the myth within local control is that it really is one of primarily local control of limiting budgets to keep at bay upset property tax payers unless it is a wealthy community.

- Education is not a priority in the United States of America. It gets much rhetorical lip service, we hear constantly about our solemn duty to children through education, and the vital importance of excellent education in a rapidly changing and increasingly competitive world. But that is where it ends; we will not place education as a funding priority. We seek ways to tinker with this enormous system to tune out a few bucks toward a goal of efficiency. We have blinders on to the fact that excellent education may not be efficient with a traditional business bottom-line. Sure, the bus routes ought to make sense, the buildings should be smartly designed, and wastefulness of financial resources that do not support or create knowledge value ought to be controlled. But the largest expense, staffing, especially if contracted is not going to improve education. Our emphasis on high stakes testing or racing to the top creation of winners and losers does nothing to establish and maintain a critical funding foundation to be placed under all students to maximize educational success on an egalitarian basis. To simplify the understanding of our priorities as a nation, one needs only to look at the portion of our budget devoted to defense versus that devoted to education. Would balancing the two or reversing the equation be of greater strategic value to the United States? This is a debate we seem to avoid at all costs to avoid costs that may in the end create the greatest costs.

We need to repel the right’s assault, dismiss the myth of local control and get on with a national debate to quickly yield solid funding for public schools as a strategic priority.

Reform RIP

2010-02-28T11:40:00.000-05:00

Reform Rx: Health Care Summit Observations

2010-02-25T18:26:00.002-05:00

President Obama uses food safety comparison

President Obama's response to Eric "Can't" Canter that used food and drug regulation costs resulting in safer food and drugs versus being able to get real cheap food and low cost drugs in the great wise efficient marketplace that would of course include dangers to the public. Money spent reforming and regulating health care is not money wasted that drives up taxes but rather an investment in health safety that saves lives.

Tom Harkin speaks to segregation

Senator Harkin made the very astute point that insurance risk pools are segregation based on peoples' health. He's right and that is why a robust public option or better yet single payer is the remedy to eliminate this form of segregation. Even if a majority have health insurance and are happy with their health plans, keeping a system that puts a minority at the "back of the bus" or not even allows them to "sit at the lunch counter" forms a moral impetus to reform health care. Furthermore, the legal establishment of subsidized high risk pools are wrong and would essentially be a "Jim Crow" law keeping the segregated "in their place".

President teaches ECON 101

In President Obama's closing remarks he made two economic points that market-worshiping Republicans need to take to heart.

First he likened buying power of a large group of that gives lower prices Americans to Wal-Mart and the opposite of that power being Mom and Pop stores with higher prices and lower selection. This represents the very same "markets can deliver" talk that conservatives always use. Yet they appear to reject this market mechanism. Will Republicans continue their doublespeak about markets?

Second the President directly challenged the myth of interstate insurance purchasing being an automatic "markets will deliver" solution. He aptly described how, based on credit card company practices of yore, how insurance companies would abandon states with fair regulations to set up shops in weak regulating, anything goes states in order to sell high deductibility, low benefit plans across state lines. This is the unregulated wild-west marketplace approach that conservatives doggedly contend efficiently delivers the best possible results. And it does: for stockholders but certainly not for consumers. Will Republicans continue to embrace even bad markets interests?

And for Maine: All rain, no Snowe

Our own Senator Snowe, who masquerades as putting constituents above party, was invited by the President of the United States to attend today’s to participate in today’s extraordinary public health bi-partisan effort. She refused. According to Fox:

But one of those Republicans who was involved in compromise talks will not be attending the summit. Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-ME, was invited by the White House, but the New England moderate politely turned the President down. Snowe’s spokesman, John Gentzel, told Fox it was because her leadership had not chosen her to attend.

Thus when it came to a choice of extraordinary opportunity to fight for her constituents, take a seat at the table, demonstrate the independence that she asserts is her mark, and place politics above party, Senator Snowe made the choice of absolute loyalty to, rigid obedience to, and unbending conformity to the party of NO over Maine citizens.

Populist Puppeteering

2010-02-15T20:50:00.003-05:00

populist - pop•u•list (pŏp'yə-lĭst)
noun - a supporter of the rights and power of the people.
adjective -of or relating to populism or its advocates: a populist aversion to business monopolies.

Populist is the label hastily pasted on the rudderless tea party and the right-wing Republican hijackers of their anger by the shallow talking heads masquerading as the press. But is the stamp correct? For one perspective take the following short quiz:

1 – Destruction of a public option in health care reform available to a broad swath of our middle class working and poor populations in favor of big insurance company interests was undermined and defeated by:
A. Liberal Reformers
B. Conservative Activists

2 – Opposition to creating a Consumer Protection Agency to ensure that abuses of middle class consumers and investors by big financial market, banking, and marketing interests is being lead by:
A. Liberal Reformers
B. Conservative Activists

3 – Anti-government rhetoric being applied to thwart efforts to overhaul student loan programs by ending government subsidies for private lenders and protecting working class family and poor students from predatory lending abuses is being heard from:
A. Liberal Reformers
B. Conservative Activists

4 – Efforts to move forward on clean energy policies and environmental issues to benefit future generations of all Americans are most adamantly opposed by:
A. Liberal Reformers
B. Conservative Activists

5 – Protecting big corporations, special interests, and the wealthy contributing a graduated fair share of taxes that would provide the greatest good for all people is largely associated with:
A. Liberal Reformers
B. Conservative Activists

The problem with populism is that it is easily hijacked by those who adopt the rhetoric to further their own ends but never to lead angry activists toward concrete action that serves the people purported to be represented by a populist movement. The game plan comes straight from the Republican play book on divisive social issues and anti-tax market worship. The right wing is ready to ride on the tea party boat to harvest their votes. As many of these new activists dress up in colonial garb and wave revolutionary flags they should remember that the 1773 Boston Tea Party outcry of "no taxation without representation" was a principled opposition to corporate monopolies in league with a government that did not act in the best interests of the people. Liberals should engage individual tea party activists toward careful analysis of their working and middle class true interests to win them over from anger primed by rhetorical demagogues who will steal their votes to serve the wealthy conservative market-manipulating elites.

Aspiration or Abandonment

2010-02-07T08:45:00.001-05:00

Perhaps it is a consequence of our time that “we the people” allow our politics and elected representatives to desert a core service to our society. Public education in the United States is a failure and it now primarily exists in a netherworld of directionless drifting and woeful defunding. A lack of commitment with an articulated vision is not expressed nor supported by any current stakeholders. American education is a ship of cut spars, with failing systems, anchorless, and drifting just prior to sinking.

For decades, the primary focus of education has not been improved evolution of the delivery of knowledge to propel our society forward but rather the shedding of educational concerns to pare down to a focus on the mechanics of funding. This is not to say that there has not been lip service and limp action using the language of caring about education; there is a wealth of such activity and some of it is genuine in its concern. But by and large all the talk about concentrating resources in the classroom, no child left untested, charter schools, and other varied “pop” education chatter have been driven by a desire to live (fund) within our means that we have decided, by the manner in which we prioritize our expectations, as being meager. We are starving education and are talking as if it were not so. “Putting our money where our mouth is” appears not to be a challenge we willingly rise to meet.

Yet there is a yearning for our children to have the best education and recognition that a global economy demands more of our forthcoming generations. There is a recognizable need for functional literate entry into adult society and an even deeper realization that our democracy benefits from an educated electorate. Yet the countercurrent flowing against our desires that we have paid most heed to is money. We have decided that education is too costly even as we say it is a top priority. We have decided that taxes to pay for education are too high as we unconvincingly say that teachers are underpaid. We prioritize military security borne from fear over that of societal security delivered by a superior educational system. When we allow the blind weight of budget cutting to fall heavily upon schools rather than taxing to meet our aspirations, we make a deliberate choice.

Local control of schools is long past its relevance from when a community banded together to give their children the blessings of an education. It has become a financing scheme for passing the bill to the pauper. The national government, largely without any significant role in direct basic education funding, makes rules that push costs down allowing it to control its financial deficits by allowing knowledge deficits. It refuses to tax with its broadest span of ability or prioritize its expenditures accordingly to fund education. It creates paper visions not backed by the full faith and credit of the United States. Our state governments in turn see the forest but clear cut the trees as they refuse to use their broader taxing authority to push away costs. Their self imposed or constitutional limitations to operate without deficits rely only on half of the budget equation when it comes to schools; expenses will be cut but revenues will not be raised to support education. Finally at the local level, where the taxing is most direct and most unequal, the pauper municipal or school districts face the voter who cries thief at what is seen as throwing money at dysfunction and there is dysfunction aplenty.

In Maine we have played our part in this sad theater. There is no core vision for education currently despite once being a leader in core curriculum development. As the wheels of finance came off the school bus, we abandoned all principle in fear of a tax revolt. A poorly conceived and ill designed scheme for school consolidation with cost cutting of administration as its sole true goal was ineffectively implemented. And now curtailment order after curtailment order given arbitrarily with out regard to neither harming education nor examining temporal revenue measures is wreaking destructive damage on our schools.

Throughout this Maine state story we have never addressed aspirations, articulated a vision, solicited opinion on educational delivery design, but only focused on our purse. Maybe a counterintuitive increase in administrators is needed to support teachers with more specialized resources from literacy specialists to human resource managers. Perhaps a well designed unified system operating under a powerful vision that adequately invests in education as a top priority from birth to adult training and enrichment might become the top enticement for creative people and families to live, work, and create work in Maine. Most discouragingly, we are making short-sighted definitive choices right now that a second grader in need of reading assistance will not get it, that a middle school student will not be introduced to the benefits of another language, that another high school sophomore will drop out, that access to higher education will be out of reach for someone, and that thousands upon thousands of our future potential citizens will have a poor education.

A pathway to having a renewed discussion on education and an emergence of leadership for educational excellence lies within this year’s Maine gubernatorial race. As voters and citizens we must press our national representatives to demand national vision on education, full funding of every mandate, and a more rational prioritization of education. At the local level, we need to expose the abandonment of principle forced upon us and identify the local stop gap measures that we can enact. However, a broader state conversation on establishing a genuine vision that meets our aspirations for the forthcoming generations could be best facilitated by a candidate for governor willing to lead on this issue with a focus on excellence and a willingness to forthrightly address the revenue commitments necessary to meet the investment challenge. Please step forward.

The Lesson

2010-01-20T22:28:00.001-05:00

Many will draw many different lessons from the Massachusetts Senate election that sends Republican Scott Brown and not Democrat Martha Coakley to Washington. Both gloating and gnashing of teeth will echo across radioland, the blogosphere, and among the spinning-talking heads.

Consider the essential elements that all the opinion rendering and reporting regurgitation is excitedly racing toward en masse: Democrats are being repudiated for multitudes of reasons, a referendum with negative results for President Obama has occurred, health care reform is being rejected as a failure, fickle independents are but Republicans-in-waiting, and the evil forces of socialistic liberalism are in serious decline because true Americans are taking their country back. The spinners further offer the prescriptions that Democrats need to "dial it back", abandon health care reform, and figure out how to best respond to polls cited by the same spinners to retain meaningless seats of powerlessness.

Perhaps this ought to be the key question we reflect upon: Is the significance of electing Scott Brown to the US Senate a repudiation of the seat's former holder, Senator Edward Kennedy?

No.

We did lose this seat. Campaign tactics, political capital expenditure, election spending, and attack strategies are mere sideshows. We lost due to dissatisfaction and anger that is not simply pinned on a singular issue or the heat of the moment. And we were and are participants in our own vulnerability.

We err by almost always letting the opposition define us. We allowed the anger churned up by Republican obstruction and repeated false mantras about big government socialist elites gleefully cramming tax and spend schemes in the faces of average Americans define us. We then err again by becoming increasingly reactive which allows even more opportunities for the opposition to define us.

We need to define ourselves. We must explain why and how we would approach problems with genuine liberal solutions. We need to stop reading and reacting to polls and reject the news and opinion cycles running the show. We must reject "lowering our sights", "playing it safe", and "dialing it back". We need to forcefully place in discussion our deep concerns about health care, a financial class run amuck, workplace fairness, environmental ignorance, and other major issues. To most of these concerns, liberals intuitively know the answers from devising essential fair reforms to regulating fraudulent behaviors.

Above all we need to put forth a principled and convincing consistent moral vision that rallies our own adherents, delivers workable changes sought by many independents, and even reaches out to those who have bought into right wing anger before the real elites, the tax nor regulate-us-not financial class, betray their front line supporters once again. Solid principles can trump shoddy politics.

"The great adventures which our opponents offer is a voyage into the past. Progress is our heritage, not theirs. What is right for us as Democrats is also the right way for Democrats to win." Senator Ted Kennedy, Address to the Democratic National Convention, August 1980

Reform Rx: Giving health care a nose job

2010-01-10T22:11:00.001-05:00

From the Wall Street Journal:

Perhaps it's not that America spends too much on health care, but that other nations don't spend enough.

This the conclusion of an opinion piece penned by Dr. Mark B. Constantian, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon from New Hampshire declaring that we have great health care by singing the same tired conservative hypnotic hymn:

Certainly some goes to inefficiencies, corporate profits, and costs that should be lowered by professional liability reform and national, free-market insurance access by allowing for competition across state lines.

The subhead on this opinion piece asks, “Isn't 'responsiveness' what medicine is all about?” The author seems to say that if we can deliver on one selective segment out of the vast array of health care performance indicators, and this one is dubious when it comes to results, then cost, quality, and other factors are minor matters. Perhaps all we need is a talented plastic surgeon to put a better face on US health care.

In Maine one has access to the full text of current and past articles in the WSJ. If the above online link is "locked", use Maine's virtual library: MARVEL ,to access articles with a state library card or by registering online.

Reform Rx - Private Options are the Future!

2010-01-07T21:41:00.003-05:00

Not quite at Christmas but some Maine citizens could get a late present from Senators Snowe and Collins courtesy of their unyielding support of only private options.

AP update today:

Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Maine has proposed a 22.9 percent rate increase for two health insurance plans targeting individuals.

The filing comes as Anthem awaits a judge's ruling on an earlier rate case. Maine Insurance Superintendent Mila Koffman last spring denied Anthem's proposed 18 percent rate hike for its individual insurance plans. Instead, she approved a revised request for a 10.9 percent increase, which provided for a zero percent profit margin.

Clean Elections - Democracy's Essential Service

2010-01-06T11:46:00.002-05:00

This morning A.J. Higgins reported on MPBN that the glut of candidates in the gubernatorial race threatens to drain Maine’s Clean Election Fund. One privately funded Democratic candidate commented that now was not the time to ask taxpayers to cut back on essential services in order to give money to political campaigns. This viewpoint presupposes an erroneous choice. Trying to score a political point by insinuating that properly funding clean elections will take away money from schools and nursing homes and hand it over to political operatives (i.e. opponents) is not a fair assessment of what public financing of elections are about.

Public financing of elections needs to take place in times when the state is flush with funds and in lean years to meet the goals of clean elections. Reducing moneyed interests or private funded campaign machine advantages to give wider opportunity for non-wealthy voices and office seekers to address the issues that affect our lives is not a luxury. Clean election funding is about protecting our democracy from unspoken quid pro quo expectations and providing equal access to the electoral processes. It is something that Democrats ought to stand behind through thick and thin. It is about leveling the playing field.

Maine has built a clean election model to be proud of with broad popular support and it is an essential service to Maine’s citizens that deserves to be protected in concert with many other essential services. We should be pleased that we have a large number of clean election candidates committing themselves to the reduction of money interests in the race for Governor. And we acutely need public financing in lean times to protect our elections from being bought during moments of economic weakness.

We need to reject the myth that Maine has bloated budget full of faceless bureaucrats and frivolous expenditures to hack away at to save taxpayers from being gouged with nothing in return. Maine has a both a temporary revenue challenge and a long term need to address revenue structuring. It is time to recognize that government is not a business nor at the unreasonable sole service of business but is a collection of vital public services, including public financing of elections, that deserve our creative energies and investment.

Reform Rx - Change, Yes We Will

2009-12-24T12:30:00.004-05:00

The bills have passed. We did not get everything we desired and need to understand and accept for the present that the conference committee on the combined bill will be a compromising committee. What we have today is largely what we will see in the bill that will pass both the House and Senate and be health care reform...for now.

One perspective to view health care reform from is the historical development of Social Security. The original legislation in 1935 had many coverage gaps and was a far weaker program than it is today. Significant amendments to the act in 1939 and 1950 (when it became much more universal) along with the constant attention to improving the program's effectiveness to the present day are a result of expanding on Franklin Roosevelt's vision.

The public option, the dissolution of the insurance cartel, and single payer are not sacrificed forever.

Reform Rx: Stock Tip

2009-12-21T19:50:00.004-05:00

No comment nor investment advice on this sad state of affairs reported by Huffington Post:

The rise in stock prices has been particularly striking in the period since Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said on October 27 that he would filibuster a Senate health care reform bill if it included a public option - a threat that caused Senate leaders to cave without much of a fight. Here's a quick breakdown of major health insurance company stock performance from
Oct. 27 to Friday's market close:

Coventry Health Care, Inc. is up 31.6 percent;
CIGNA Corp. is up 29.1 percent;
Aetna Inc. is up 27.1 percent;
WellPoint, Inc. is up 26.6 percent;
UnitedHealth Group Inc. is up 20.5 percent;
And Humana Inc. is up 13.6 percent.

By comparsion, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is only up 2.3 percent during that time; the NASDAQ Composite is up a (relatively) paltry 1.4 percent.

Thanks Joe. (CT-I*)
* Insurance Party

Reform Rx: Collins goes to 7-11

2009-12-21T11:18:00.002-05:00

An excerpt from Senator Susan Collins’ statement on deciding to vote against health care reform:

It is unfair that Republicans were allowed to offer only seven amendments to a bill that affects every single citizen and one-sixth of our nation's economy.

Unfair? Seven? Of course it depends on what Senator Collins is counting to make her "it is unfair" point I counted twenty-four (24) significant amendments or amending motions with the following eleven (11) offered by Republicans. Collins math lesson: 11 out of 24 = 45%, not bad for having 40% of the seats. By the way, many of us in Maine think that Susan Collin has been unfair to us in regard to fighting for our health care needs.

Here are the seven, I mean eleven Republican offerings (Source Slate):

Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's motion to delay taxes used to pay for the bill until the bill is actually implemented. Set aside Dec. 16, 56-41.

Republican Sen. Mike Crapo's motion to strip the bill of any provisions that will result in a tax increase for individuals earning less than $200,000 or families earning less than $250,000. The obvious point of this amendment was to embarrass President Obama for violating his promise that health care wouldn't impose taxes on this group (which, for the most part, it won't). Failed Dec. 15, 45-54.

Republican Sen. John McCain's motion to send the bill back to the finance committee so it can extend to all Medicare Advantage beneficiaries the special deal Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson won for his Florida constituents. Score one for McCain: This amendment shines a spotlight on a cheesy political bargain. Nelson, after trying unsuccessfully in the finance committee to "grandfather" (i.e., maintain for existing beneficiaries) benefit levels for all current Medicare Advantage recipients, got a narrower provision inserted providing relief to Medicare Advantage recipients living in certain "local areas" as determined by a complex formula that fits South Florida like a glove. McCain is in effect saying: Hey pal, share the wealth! Can you blame him? The motion failed Dec. 8, 42-57.

Republican Sen. Judd Gregg's amendment (2942) requiring Medicare savings to be used to "save Medicare." Gregg is the author of a Dec. 1 letter to fellow Republicans offering parliamentary tips on how to obstruct health reform. So don't waste too much attention on this. Failed Dec. 7, 43-56.

Republican Sen. John Ensign's amendment (2927) limiting contingency fees to malpractice lawyers to one-third of any awards of $150,000 or less and one-quarter of any awards of more than $150,000. Not an entirely terrible idea. Failed Dec. 6, 32-66.

Republican Mike Johanns' motion to strip from the health reform bill $42 billion in cuts to home health care agencies. Failed Dec. 5, 41-53.

Republican Sen. John Thune's amendment (2901) removing Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS), a proposed new voluntary program for nursing-home and other long-term care insurance, from the bill. Failed Dec. 4, 51-47. (This amendment required 60 votes to pass.)

Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch's motion to strip the bill of cuts to the privately administered Medicare Advantage program. Failed Dec. 4, 41-57.

Republican Sen. John McCain's motion to strip the bill of Medicare cuts. McCain proposed more than twice as many Medicare cuts to fund his own health plan during the 2008 election. McCain is unbelievably touchy about this! His amendment failed Dec. 3, 42-58.

Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski's amendment (2836) barring the U.S. Preventive Task Force from being used to deny coverage for anything. Failed Dec. 3, 41-59.

Republican Sen. David Vitter's amendment (2808) amending Mikulski's amendment (see below) to prevent the United States Preventive Task Force from restricting mammograms, which it can't do anyway. (Vitter is a well-known feminist.) Passed by unanimous consent Dec. 2.

Reform Rx – End Results Count Most

2009-12-04T09:40:00.006-05:00

Senator Barbara Mikulski’s amendment to the Senate’s health care bill to promote and expand preventive healthcare for women passed yesterday on a 61 to 39 vote.

The amendment is in part a political reaction to the controversy that arose over the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force’s updated guidelines regarding mammograms for women in their 40s. The conservative fear machine spun the Task Force report into an ugly specter of rationing. Both Senators Snowe and Collins voted with the Democrats on the amendment which received a great deal of coverage similar to that from Health Leaders Media:

The amendment, which calls for coverage of screening procedures, such as mammographies and Pap smears, would also cover cervical cancer, postpartum depression, heart disease and diabetes. The amendment received some bipartisan support with three Republicans—Sen. Olympia Snowe (ME), Sen. Susan Collins (ME), and David Vitter (LA)—voting for it.

We can expect Senators Snowe and Collins to vote for several amendments during the course of the debate on issues on which they are routinely lauded as moderates. Amendment debates and occasional supportive votes on all of these matters may create an impression of moderation but in the end, voting for final legislation that contains substantive health care reform with a robust public option is the vote that counts.

That final vote needs to be where we focus considerable effort to influence our Senators to a greater degree than the insurance industry. What we do not want is Senators Snowe and Collins to earn moderate accolades for voting on a bunch of amendments and then voting down the final bill because of cost, government control, or public option opposition. We cannot afford to be cheated in the end with their explanation of “I worked so hard to improve the bill but the gosh darn Democrats just made it impossible in the end to support in good conscience because of blah, blah, blah...”

And we also must avoid a watered down bill that is not substantive or carrying a robust public option because Senators Snowe and Collins traded a few amendment votes along the way in exchange for the watering down of other key provisions. Those means would not justify the ends.

Reform Rx – Shoot to Kill

2009-11-23T23:22:00.004-05:00

An August Reform Rx piece entitled Unreal, Unhealthy, Un-American covered a subject that one would never think of being part of the health care debate: guns. The column piece was written in reaction to the carrying of guns to town hall meetings or near Presidential speaking events by right-wing fanatics to inject intimidation into the health care debate.

Imagine how my ears perked up this morning when I heard NPR’s Cokie Roberts reporting on health care reform bills saying:

And add to that, Renee, we have these continuing fights over abortion and immigration. And now we're discovering there are going to be new fights over guns in the insurance bill. And so, the work just gets harder and harder to get it passed. (Emphasis mine.)

The full NPR report can be listened to here and the passage above is at about 2:40:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120676331

How are guns and the intrusion of this divisive issue being scatter shot into the debate? A tour around the internet yielded these insights of attempts to poison health care reform:

The Examiner

The day before the Senate passed the $848 billion health bill on a party-line vote, the Virginia-based Gun Owners of America sent out a mass alert to its 300,000 members, warning them that the legislation "will most likely dump your gun-related health data into a government database. ... This includes any firearms-related information your doctor has gleaned or any determination of post traumatic stress disorder or something similar, that can preclude you from owning firearms."

The Freedom Medium

They will attempt to make their case by presenting statistics showing that gun violence causes health care resources to be spent in ways that could be better utilized in other areas.
Of course, many of the American public will fall for this gibberish, not realizing that it is simply another ploy by the Obama administration to drum up support for an increasingly unpopular health care reform bill, while having the added bonus of being an assault on Second Amendment rights as well.

Buckeye Firearms Association

Don't forget the new taxes on guns and ammo to help provide insurance for those poor Crips, Bloods, Triad, Mongols and Mexican Mafia members who find themselves suffering from uninsured gunshot wounds incurred during a drug deal gone wrong. The anti-gun possibilities are limited only by the imagination.
Please don't delude yourself into thinking that this would only be part of any "public option" insurance plan. The private insurance companies are going to be in direct competition with any of the pre-existing or new government insurance plans, so if the public plans get an "upcharge" for gun ownership you know the private ones are going to demand this extra money, too.

All right-wing forces are allied against health care reform and every conceivable issue group’s attack will need to be countered. In this case, the fact is that there is absolutely nothing in the two health care bills that addresses or has any intended consequence regarding guns. Period. Rinse and repeat: period. Apparently there is no honor on the right; if a bill cannot be legitimately defeated, just assassinate it.

Reform Rx – The 2011 and 2013 Amendments

2009-11-21T07:58:00.004-05:00

During the last couple of weeks, gaining perspective on the two health care reform acts working their way through Congress has been a priority over commentary. Observing whether or not the public option is being so weakened as to make it ineffective has been a constant concern. Watching the developing and predicted force feeding of abortion issue politics as a poison pill within the debate has been disquieting…more doses unfortunately will be forthcoming.

On balance, not everything in these bills is as progressive as one might desire but with liberal Representatives and Senators we can trust staying with the process and compromises, it continues to be reasonable to be supportive of both bills prior to conference committee work at some time in the future. Perfect is always the enemy of the imperfect. If the outcome is a marked step forward toward regulating insurance company discriminatory practices, will increase access to quality and affordable care, and develops a public option, we will have a framework on which to build, modify, and expand further substantive health care reforms in the near future.

One perspective to view health care reform from is the historical development of Social Security. The original legislation in 1935 had many coverage gaps and was a far weaker program than it is today. Significant amendments to the act in 1939 and 1950 (when it became much more universal) along with the constant attention to improving the program’s effectiveness to the present day are a result of expanding on Franklin Roosevelt’s vision. Republicans do also recognize that health reform today will open the door to additional reforms tomorrow. It is no wonder that right-wing efforts to engage in revisionist history and to vilify FDR and the New Deal are at a fever pitch on scream radio and conservative blabsites.

In Maine, once again our efforts must be focused on preventing our Senators from derailing or damaging the initial legislation.

Reform Rx – GOP Healthy Insurance Companies Bill

2009-11-03T20:17:00.003-05:00

Republicans are finally getting to work and producing a GOP alternative health care bill that offers the public the option to evaluate their commitment to reform. Of course it does not have the diabolical public option. The GOP says it is all about costs and obviously concludes it is not about care.

Here are key emerging features:

- Insurance companies can continue refusing to cover pre-existing conditions so that the industry’s financial health does not deteriorate.
- The bill will allow the purchasing of health insurance policies across state lines so that insurance companies will be able to cherry pick where to sell based on lack of regulation and other requirements that suppress healthy profits for insurance companies. As a bonus, insurance companies could decide to charter in weak regulatory states to build low benefit–high profit plans to sell in other states to help the bottom line.
- The government does not get diabolically involved in health care except to encourage expansion of expensive state based high risk pools to help ensure that insurance companies avoid costly individuals so that insurance companies do not have any risks of low profits.
- Small businesses will be permitted to band together to buy health care so that after satisfying insurance company risk elimination and eliminating pre-existing conditions risks another market opens up to insurance companies bolstering their overall income. The pools themselves or insurance company determinations will reject businesses with high risk individuals to keep costs low and profits high.
- Medical malpractice awards for pain and suffering will be capped at $250,000 so that insurance companies will not have to endure the pain and suffering of paying out of profits for things like an individual’s loss of income for life or decades of misery.

Republicans do get velvet glove tough with the insurance industry in one area. There will not be a mandate that everyone must be covered which does not deliver another new market to insurance companies. Since the Republican plan also does not include tax credits for the poor that would make sense under such a mandate, a conclusion that insurance companies only need to have a giant profit protection guarantee rather than a mammoth one must have been reached.

Finally don’t worry, illegal aliens and abortions are not covered to keep the base fired up on social issues while shoveling the cash into health insurance company coffers.

GOP: Guaranteeing Outlandish Profits!

Reform Rx - Snowe Weary

2009-10-31T07:35:00.010-04:00

Good morning, happy Halloween, and just in case you did not have a nightmare, read the morning papers:

Snowe reaffirms her opposition to public option
- Portland Press Herald
Snowe on health care legislation: 'I will try to make it better'
- Morning Sentinel, Waterville
SNOWE STRIVING FOR BEST BILL
Senator hopes to improve health care measure, even if she votes against it
- Kennebec Journal, Augusta

In a story by Matt Wickenheiser, Maine Today Media has decided to become a part of the the legendary Snowe-making machinery equating her serious style with wisdom. Giving Senator Snowe occasional good marks for diligence and even level-headiness may be appropriate. However, just being earnest does necessarily yield wise statecraft. Senator Snowe is fallible, subject to misdirection, can be close-minded, and simply be dead wrong. That's the case with health care reform, Snowe has a nice bedside manner but her diagnosis is inaccurate and her prescription is full of complications for the patient.

Here's a few outtakes from the Maine Today Media piece that cause pauses:

Sen. Olympia Snowe reiterated one of her key positions Friday, saying she won't support a Senate bill that contains a public option.

The most vital tool to control costs effectively to cover the most individuals, supported by a majority of both houses of Congress, the President, the American people, and constituents in Maine continues to earn a complete dismissal.

She again suggested her alternative to a full government-backed plan: a fallback, safety-net plan that would be triggered in states where insurance companies fail to offer affordable plans.

Senator Snowe continues to tout her plan for a triggered public option fashioned for failure despite compromise after compromise and concession after concession that have brought us to the present "opt-out" public option version.

"I just think it's going to be very difficult to get it done by Christmas," she said.

A procrastinator's persistent petulance prevails.

"Introducing a government approach in an already dysfunctional market would truly threaten the ability to create a competitive market," Snowe said.

Oozing gravitas apparently can obliterate a lack of logic in any utterance. Faith-based market worship blinds her.

Snowe said that what has happened in the insurance industry has been "unconscionable."

Those are fighting words! Run up the white flag!

Let's put Senator Snowe's dalliance with health care reform in some sort of perspective. She has diagnosed a dysfunctional market. The dysfunction comes about from an insurance industry engaged in activity that is "unconscionable". Majorities of her colleagues, Americans, and Maine constituents see the value of a public option as the corrective solution. And, she seems to agree that a public option can fix things too. Senator Snowe has thus concluded that threatening an industry engaged in "unconscionable" practices in a dysfunctional market they brought about ought to be threatened with the fix for a few years. Maybe they will the play nice.

Senator Snowe: We're weary of your delaying tactics and continual preference for corporate entities over critical individual needs; please get with the program or at the very least stop obstructing the process by seeking concessions that hurt us.

Reform Rx – Vote NO on One

2009-10-30T10:58:00.000-04:00

A clear connection unites these issues. Beyond the debates of who, what, when, and where lays the essential interwoven question of why we ought to reform health care and why we must guarantee equality for all. The answer rests on choosing that which is morally right and affirming that “we hold these truths to be self-evident.”