The sage on high at Maine’s largest newspaper apparently thinks it’s OK to sweep under the rug $7 million in potential funding irregularities.
Steve Collins, the Portland rag’s political communist, sorry, columnist, says The Maine Wire is promoting a false narrative surrounding the fundraising scandal that has grown out of the state’s worst mass shooting ever.
“Slamming the allocation has become a talking point among GOP leaders, who have been spurred on by coverage by the conservative Maine Wire,” Collins writes. “State Rep. Billy Bob Faulkingham, the House minority leader, called it ‘really despicable’ for nonprofits to have accepted any of the cash.”
Collins believes no one should have the temerity to question whether $7 million meant for the relatives of the 2023 Lewiston shooting was misappropriated to non-profit groups rather than to the victims.
Funny for a guy who came out of the closet as a proud card-carrying partisan Democrat the day he was hired to question Republicans – his political opponents – for their well-intentioned motives.
Collins uses a column to exploit politics surrounding funding irregularities stemming from an unspeakable tragedy while he questions The Maine Wire’s motives?
Can’t make it up folks.
As Jon Fetherston of The Maine Wire recently reported, “the Lewiston shooting fund scandal isn’t going away.
“As the controversy goes national on NewsNation and Fox News, survivors and families say the growing attention is only reinforcing what they’ve been arguing for months: the public still doesn’t have clear answers about where the money went, and why,” Fetherston wrote.
The dispute stems from the fallout after the Oct. 25, 2023, mass shooting in Lewiston, when a gunman opened fire at Just-In-Time Recreation and Schemengees Bar & Grille, killing 18 people and injuring 13.
In the aftermath, Maine Community Foundation established the Lewiston–Auburn Area Response Fund as donations poured in and later distributed money to nonprofits as part of recovery efforts.
But the distribution has ignited a backlash from survivors and families who say they’re still struggling, and that donations raised in the name of victims were sent to organizations that were not directly affected by the shooting.
If the Democrat cabal can’t tamp down the latest scandal in a blue city already beset with a multi-million-dollar mess involving illegal immigration – in an election year, no less – it will lose the last modicum of respect.
While Rome burns at the see-no-evil Portland Democrat Herald, The Maine Wire will be watching for the skeletons on both fronts.
