One political point that most people agree on these days is that political discourse has become increasingly coarse and hyperbolic. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one whose Thanksgiving dinner conversation stayed strictly away from anything even remotely political. Politics has become so emotionally charged that is often considered rude to even mention it. There are many obvious reasons for this. Our two-party system lends more attention to those on the extremes of both parties. The media and technology culture we live in emphasizes short and stinging “clickbait.” We are generally overstimulated and hyper-distracted. It is much harder to produce…
Author: Plead the Fifth
Plead the Fifth
This author has requested to remain anonymous.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” It’s said that War and Peace was not about countries at war, but marriage. If so, you can see how countries and people are stirred by the same passions. That when better instincts, good faith, vows are over-ridden by ugly human appetites, marriages are like countries. They fail. That failure is seldom pretty. We sit here, years hence from rather notorious moments throughout human history, and say such-and-such could never happen again. Insert whatever you’d like – Kristallnacht, the Dreyfuss Affair, the Salem Witch Trials. We think our institutions…
I remember instances in high school or junior high when something bad happened to a notoriously bad actor. In one fight in particular that I watched, no one wanted to stop it. Instead they cheered it on. It bothered me, deeply. There was a moment of sympathy in seeing what I saw, which was something that I had not thought I was capable of feeling for someone I considered so incredibly unseemly. Perhaps it’s just me, but the idea that someone — even him, a bad person — was disproportionately injured and embarrassed, triggered sympathetic tendencies that I’ve long since…
The more I try to parent teenagers, the more I recognize similar patterns in the political machinations of Washington, D.C. They — the ruling class — are not unlike teenagers with their proclivities toward cliques, anxieties, fragile egos, constant craving for attention and their vast cadre of sophisticated psychological operations specifically and simultaneously geared for self-promotion, and suppression — even destruction of their opposition. The parallels are eerie. A recent conversation with my daughter gave me a powerful reminder of this. She wanted something. I said ‘no’ repeatedly. Not, at least, until I saw some growth in her, I said.…
Emily Cain wants you to believe that she has anything in common with the average person living in Maine’s Second Congressional District. However, it is all fake. She has never been in touch with the average Maine voter. Like all career politicians, Cain has a hypocrisy problem. As she — with a straight face — harps about the supposed influence of Wall Street in Maine, she neglects to mention her long (very long) history of receiving funding from outside special interest groups through her personal Political Action Committee. Many of these groups are the same special interests Emily Cain claims to…
*For fear of reprisal, the author of this piece has requested to remain anonymous. Oxford County, Maine residents have been suffering extreme drought conditions through 2016, with local wells running dry, and more than half of the Oxford County farmers surveyed reporting damage or loss due to drought conditions. Farmers desperate for water have been taking emergency loans after a USDA “disaster declaration”, and the media has widely reported wells in the region drying up, forcing costly drilling projects onto homeowners. With this backdrop, the people of the Rumford region are asking some tough questions about Sen. John Patrick’s part…
When Steve Collins, the new reporter for the Lewiston Sun Journal was hired, most Maine politicos had never heard of him. The Sun Journal story on their new employee spoke in glowing terms about him: An award-winning journalist, Collins comes to Maine from Connecticut where he was most recently employed at The Bristol Press, covering government and politics in the Hartford area. Naturally, we all wondered what the new gumshoe would bring to the Maine political scene, and started inquiring about him. The reviews we got from the folks in Connecticut painted a rather dark and troubling picture. Collins, they said,…
The illusory truth effect explains that if someone repeats a lie over and over again, people will slowly start to believe it is true. And that’s exactly the strategy the liberal Maine People’s Alliance is employing with their front group the “Maine Small Business Coalition.” Even though it has been well-documented that the Maine Small Business Coalition is nothing but a side project for the MPA, the most notorious dark-money organization in Maine, the group continues to repeat the lie that it is a legitimate operation and not a liberal outfit. For example, in this recent Bangor Daily News article…
Don’t look now – but Maine’s economy is powering ahead and proving that November’s minimum wage ballot initiative is completely unnecessary and counter-intuitive. While liberals have been preoccupied with deriding Gov. LePage and obstructing nearly every one of his changes and reforms, Maine’s economy has slowly but steadily picked up steam. Maine now has the second highest personal income growth in the nation – a clear indication that our economy is making up for the ground it lost during the Great Recession. Over the past year, our personal income grew at an astonishing rate of 4.6 percent, which is second…
If you have been living under a rock, or you haven’t been following Maine politics for the past week or so, you may have missed a contentious news story involving a voicemail. But even if you have been following politics, that voicemail-related event may have caused you to miss another important development – President Obama created a nearly 90,000-acre national monument in Maine. With one swift stroke of a pen, Obama ended years of conjecture and took a big step towards fulfilling Roxanne Quimby’s personal dream of having her land become a national park. He unilaterally assumed control over an…
Over at the Beacon — the official “Pravda” of the controversial socialist group Maine People’s Alliance (MPA) — today we are treated to an op-ed that presents too much of a target-rich environment to ignore. First, some background. The author is Professor Ron Schmidt, who teaches political science at the University of Southern Maine (USM). Prof. Schmidt is a real, live example of the maxim, “those who can’t do, teach,” having worked only one job in politics in his life — as a newspaper clipper for the Clinton-Gore ’92 campaign. Doubtless some of his students have more political experience than he. But what Schmidt…
There have been many troubling developments surrounding the Democratic Party’s support for Hillary Clinton in recent days– but perhaps the most disturbing story involves Jeremy Kennedy, the former Maine Democratic Party Executive Director. Although employees of state parties are expected to be impartial and not favor any candidates, Kennedy clearly used his position as the ED of the Maine Dems for several months to funnel big money to the Clinton campaign. Kennedy – who worked for Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign – helped implement a complex campaign money scheme which runs in direct contrast to the platform of the Democratic Party.…
Madawaska has unfortunately decided to postpone its common-sense proposal to randomly drug test welfare recipients and ensure our tax dollars are used in a fiscally responsible manner. This drug-testing plan – which has already received support from Governor LePage – would be a much needed step towards preventing state resources from fueling Maine’s burgeoning drug crisis. It would require all General Assistance (GA) program applicants in the town to pass random drug screenings in order to receive any benefits. However, officials in Madawaska announced on Wednesday they will delay making a full recommendation on this plan, as they need time…
The biggest – and one of the most dangerous – myths in all of public policy is that money improves the quality of education. It’s a myth that has caused elected-officials and activists to push for millions in new spending despite all of the evidence that it has absolutely no impact. We are throwing a seemingly unlimited amount of dollars at our children, yet they are not receiving a higher quality education or performing any better on any measures. They are seemingly no better prepared for the future despite the unfathomable increase in the amount of money we spend teaching…
Supporters of a North Woods national monument – such as David Farmer – must really hate facts. Perhaps that’s why they routinely avoid them when making their case as to why the federal government should take over 87,500 acres of land in the Katahdin region. One prime example of their willingness to ignore facts involves a logistical question of how visitors would actually get to a national monument. Many opponents of the national monument point out that existing roads are inadequate, and there are no solid details about the creation of any new roads. However, David Farmer, the spokesman for…
As the dust settles from the primary elections, it’s become clear that voters rejected a prime example of dirty politics – Rep. Diane Russell (D-Portland), who was running for the Democratic nomination for Senate District 27. Russell finished dead last in a three-way race, and is now under investigation by the Maine Ethics Committee for her questionable campaign tactics. To add insult to injury, she’s also being investigated for her use of a political action committee, and whether or not that PAC acted as a money mill. But Russell was expected to fare much better, and it was a bit…
Recently, the Bangor Daily News (BDN) published this article which describes the supposed “problem” of errors by the Maine Department and Health and Human Services (DHHS). The article highlighted the fact that the DHHS over-payed nearly $2 million to food stamp recipients last year, and insinuated that errors have been increasing in frequency and severity over the past few years. However, the BDN article omitted many critical facts and much analysis, meaning it amounts to nothing more than a biased hit-piece designed to fool readers and slam DHHS. While $2 million may sound like a significant amount of money to…
At a recent political event, I was confronted by a ranked choice voting supporter who was looking to spread awareness about the question that will appear on the ballot this coming November. “Are you interested in learning about ranked choice voting?” they asked. Not one to brush off political canvassers or volunteers (as I know how difficult a job they have) I told them I did have one question: “why do we need ranked choice voting?” The canvasser was well-prepared, and quickly launched into a spiel about how ranked choice voting could give more power to voters, better account for…
Obamacare suffered another major defeat last week when the federal circuit court ruled in favor of the House of Representatives in their suit challenging the Obama administration. The House has challenged the administration for issuing payments to insurance providers for cost-sharing reductions for certain policyholders. Congress has explicitly refused to appropriate the funds for these payments – meaning the Obama administration has effectively sidestepped the legal authority of Congress. The federal circuit court sided with the House, and found that this unauthorized spending by the Obama administration is in fact illegal. However, it’s all but certain that the administration will…