Author: Sam Patten
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Patten: Finish the Job – Not Another Venezuela, Please
It goes without saying the pro-war crew — with cheerleaders like John Bolton and Lindsey Graham — is still ecstatic over the latest round of strikes against the faltering Iranian regime. Those who took Trump at his word about no new foreign wars are understandably nervous right now. But no matter how much Congress screeches…
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Maine Might Mourn the Man in the Middle
Back in those early, heady days of the Biden administration there was some loose talk about nominating U.S. Sen. Angus King (I-ME) to be director of national intelligence. It didn’t last long, but in the forty-five seconds or so that it percolated, I fired off a column suggesting that – should the new president make…
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Alleged Corinth Killer Known in Lincoln County to Be a Ticking Time Bomb, Residents Say
It was a tragedy piled on a tragedy is how one Lincoln County resident described the December 27 homicide of a 41-year-old Corinth woman, allegedly at the hands of her 22-year-old son, who until recently lived in Damariscotta and Waldoboro. Penobscot County Sheriff’s deputies arrested Daniel Derosier on Saturday after he fled the trailer where…
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The Beastly Baby Grows Up
Every generation in American life is marked by a crime that captures its dark side and because of that becomes hard to shake. For instance, I grew up in the shadow of the Charles Manson murders which spoke to a six-year-old me, whose Boomer parents left Helter Skelter lying around to read and discover how…
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Revenge of the Old People: Janet Cackles Now, But Just How Long Will Her “Lead” Really Hold?
Just when you thought a young Mainer might be catching a break, The Establishment struck back with a new poll showing Governor Janet Mills with what appears to be a ten point lead in the primary race between her and Sullivan oyster farmer Graham Platner for the Democrat Party nomination to take on U.S. Senator…
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Progressive Poll Pegs Platner at Still 20 Points Ahead of Mills in Democrat Primary Race
Democrat Senate hopeful Graham Platner has weathered the news about his tattoo and past Reddit posts, as a new poll shows he maintains a substantial lead in his race with incumbent Governor Janet Mills for their party’s nod to take on U.S. Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) next year. The 20-point advantage seen in survey of…
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Alice in Wonderland’s Cautionary Canto Reveals a Broken Craft in a Swampy Setting
“Two things for you to think about,” the high-priced, quite possibly best in the business First Amendment lawyer told me. “First, I’m not sure you can really afford us right now, and second, more importantly, I don’t think you need to worry too much about Olivia because she’s going to get what’s coming to her…
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Justice Is a Fool’s Errand, Wisdom Is the Real Reward
A federal judge today dismissed the government’s case against former FBI director James Comey, whose strained relationship with the truth is the stuff of legend. A Clinton-appointed judge threw out the charges against Comey of making false statements to Congress and obstructing a congressional investigation because, she ruled, the prosecutor was improperly appointed. The same…
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Jared Golden Is Everyman, Those Who Cheer His Departure Today May Soon Miss Him
A few years back, a man who was then a state representative shared with me a frustration he had about someone. He told me he had wanted to impeach former Governor Paul LePage and had called together a group of colleagues to strategize on the matter. One of those other reps, he said, then went…
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Oysterman Aims to Retire ‘Crying Chuck’ Schumer As Well as Susan Collins
During the first Trump administration, some wondered why the president so proficient at parceling out nicknames insisted on calling the then-Senate majority leader “Cryin’ Chuck.” Six years later, the answer to what’s behind Schumer’s tears has become clearer: his own party is ready to plant at least 23 daggers in his back. Speaking in Brewer…
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Chin-Up: Graham Platner Taps Progressive Activist to Run His U.S. Senate Campaign After Key Staff Departures
In the wake of a top-level staffing exodus in recent weeks, U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner (D) is doubling down on his progressive bona fides by hiring the deputy director of the Maine Peoples’ Alliance (MPA) to take the helm of his campaign. Ben Chin, 40, will serve as Platner’s campaign manager in a move…
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Prospect of a Red Flag Law? The Red-Headed Stepchild on Tuesday’s Ballot
For all the sound and fury surrounding Question 1 on Tuesday’s ballot, Question 2 seems like a forgotten sibling about whom there’s been spoken nary a word. That silence is odder still when you consider that while polls show the first question on voter ID to be a virtual tie as of the third week…
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The Ghost of Bicycle Larry Still Rides in Randolph
Twenty-one years might be a social generation, but in other terms it is just the blink of an eye. Whether you’re talking about Derry, Maine or Randolph, an unsolved wrong will go on to haunt residents until the ghosts are put to rest by some modicum of justice which has, until now, been denied Lawrence…
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No One is Trying to Take Away Absentee Voting, But Dems Are Banking on the Boogeyman to Kill Q1
It takes a surfeit of sympathy really to feel badly for a Member of Congress, but when one votes for a bad-sounding bill for a good reason watching them struggle to explain themselves makes for one of those rare occasions. Because they are political animals, congressmen and women intentionally engineer legislation in such a way…
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Will a “Vampire” Suck all the Energy Out of the Midcoast?
How smart would it be to tie the economic fate of Midcoast Maine to Artificial Intelligence (AI)? Some residents of the towns surrounding Wiscasset believe the answer to that question is probably “not very.” If there is a ghost of Maine Yankee, its name is controversy. But today the debate is no longer about nuclear…
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Janet Mills Basks in the Ephemeral Glory of Someone Else’s Totenkopf Moment
An old Maine saying counsels “if you don’t like the weather, wait a minute.” If any real stock is to be put in the results of a push poll floated over the weekend, the same unpredictability applies to the fickleness of Democrat voters in the state. According to the little-known SoCal Strategies, Gov. Janet Mills…
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Jig’s Up, Chuck. Stale Stuff Don’t Sell, Does It?
Pine Tree State Polls are rarely as interesting as the most recent one. As the current occupant of the Blaine House is gobsmacked with the uncomfortable truth that Chuck Schumer lied to her, oysterman and political neophyte Graham Platner’s commanding lead among Democrats for the nomination to take on incumbent Senator Susan Collins next year…
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Graham Platner Wrote Some Dumb Stuff, So What?
Most of us who won’t be voting in the Democrat primary next year noticed something interesting this week: within 24 hours of Janet Mills announcing for her party’s nomination to challenge incumbent Senator Susan Collins, a flood of previously-scrubbed posts by progressive candidate Graham Platner hit the news — thanks, no less, to CNN. When…
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Pro-Palestinian Activists Try – and Fail – to Disrupt Damariscotta’s Pumpkin Festival
Pumpkinfest — what has long been a non-political, family-oriented festival of seasonal fun in midcoast towns of Newcastle and Damariscotta — was nearly up-ended by a radical agenda on Sunday when activists tried to, at the very least, shut down traffic on Main Street, which runs between the towns. Ironically, but also somewhat typically for…
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Echoes of Bill Hathaway in Mills’ Quixotic Quest
When the late, one-term U.S. Senator Bill Hathaway passed away a little more than a decade ago, Mainers were too polite to ask out loud: “what was the point of him, anyhow?” Yet at least a few might have quietly wondered. Like Don Quixote’s lance, Hathaway’s main claim to fame lay in puncturing the invulnerability…
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Ellsworth Forecloses on Inherited Home and Pockets the Equity, Despite City Councilor’s Objections
(City of Ellsworth, photo by Main Street Maine)
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Reality Lives and Dies Where Narratives Collide
“What is more dangerous in Ukraine than in Washington or Chicago?” Andrey Baida, a Ukrainian, commented on the Facebook post of a Ukrainian blogger on Tuesday about the brutal slaying of Iryna Zarutska on a light rail train in Charlotte, North Carolina which occurred last month but the world has only learned about this past…
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Learning to Love Loopy Laura Loomer
Some say even a broken clock is right twice a day, while others suggest that Washington, DC has a moderating effect on people over time. Whatever the case may be, blogger and accused conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer hit it out of the park on Tuesday when she managed to get Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) dis-invited…
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What I Saw at the Revolution
The throng of Suburus headed south on 295 towards Portland yesterday competed with the ordinary exodus of Massholes from Maine on Labor Day suggesting that something perhaps bigger than the migration of Canadian geese was in the air. Progressive icon U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) was coming to the Pine Tree State’s most progressive city…
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BDN’s Op-Ed Page Is Where Weird Ideas Go to Die
Susan Collins is probably used to getting a lot of free advice from various people by now, many of whom may not necessarily mean her well. Take for instance Gordon Weil, a man whose very existence was unknown to me until a friend pointed out an op-ed he’d penned for the Bangor Daily News yesterday…
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Waldo Man Takes on the Town, But the Jury’s Still Out on Whether He’ll Be Heard
Peter Velanzon took citizen activism to a new level this year when he appealed to the Maine State Legislature for help in guaranteeing his voice could be heard in municipal meetings in Waldo, where he resided until recently. Velanzon told The Maine Wire that public comment in town meetings kept getting curtailed or suspended every…
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Brewer Police Host Two-Day Tactical Training Against Live Shooters to Make Maine Schools and Other Public Places Safer
With less than two weeks to go until kids across Maine go back to school, law enforcement and some educators gathered in Brewer earlier this week to prepare for the unthinkable: an active shooter in a place of learning or other public venue. Coming on the heels of an active shooter incident on Route 302…
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Combat Vet and Oyster Farmer to Challenge Collins
A 40-year-old oyster farmer from Sullivan announced on Tuesday that he will seek the Democrat nomination to challenge U.S. Senator Susan Collins (R-ME). Graham Platner served eight years in the U.S. military in as many combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, first as a Marine and later with the U.S. Army Special Forces after exceeding…
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The Rush to Judgment on Alaska May Not Age Well
Every self-proclaimed Russia-expert in America — including the collective mainstream media whose finger in the wind on such questions has proven bent more than once — seemed to be tripping over one another in the immediate aftermath of Friday’s Alaska meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to call the…
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Ryan Fecteau’s Ageism Rattles Biddeford’s Civility
Despite being the oldest state in America, Maine has in recent years been surprisingly tolerant of young candidates seeking election to high office. State House Speaker Ryan Fecteau, 32, is one who has benefitted from this, but now the young representative is apparently calling out seniors who also want to get into the political fray…
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Making Washington Safer Will Take More Than Just Big Balls — But Today Marks a Start
Beyond Big Balls and the beating he received while defending his date last week, the federal government’s recent move at the direction of the Trump administration to oversee security in Washington, DC is leading to the same sort of confused reaction that has followed other unexpected initiatives emanating from the White House since late January:…
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Shenna Bellows Hires Hillary Clinton’s Lawyer in Ominous Early Signal of Campaign’s Intent
When Washington, DC super-lawyer Marc Elias gleefully “threaded” a story about Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows telling the U.S. Department of Justice to go jump in the Gulf of Maine after it requested access to the state’s voter registration rolls, he neglected to note that Bellows’ campaign for governor has been cutting his law…
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Ukrainians Start Saying the Quiet Part Out Loud About Zelenskyy as Protests Gain Momentum
Ever since Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022, the former comedian and current Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been seen in the West as a symbol of resistance to the out-sized aggression of Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Yet Ukrainians themselves are now beginning to show signs of discontent with Zelenskyy, whose elected mandate…
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What Russiagate Taught Us About the Deep State
About a year ago, disgraced former CIA director John Brennan was scheduled to give a talk in Damariscotta about ‘Navigating Global Politics,’ until an expected letter in the Lincoln County News raised an objection. The letter-writer expressed concern about how Brennan’s record reflected on his moral character and fitness. Within days, the event was cancelled…
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Could Deven Young Have Acted Alone? If He Did, Was Stewart His First Victim?
Days after the arrest and preliminary charging of a suspect in the murder of Sunshine “Sunny” Stewart, a new question has begun to surface in the towns surrounding Union, Maine: could 17-year-old Deven Young have acted alone in the brutal slaying of an innocent paddle-boarder? Or, if the young man with apparent cognitive issues is…
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Why Can’t We Talk About It? The Silence in Stewart Killing Goes Beyond Investigative Necessity
Midcoast Mainers breathed a collective sigh of relief on Thursday to learn that Sunny Stewart’s killer was in custody, but as the young man who has been charged with murder denied responsibility in a court hearing in Rockland Friday morning, a troubling pattern re-emerged: Too many people are too hesitant to talk about what happened…
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Is Jonathan Bush Really Running for Governor?
When the legacy media in Maine latches onto an idea, many who have been around the block more than once take a skeptical pause. For reasons that are themselves eyebrow arching, Maine’s “mainstream” press seem intent on the idea that long-time summer person and recent year-rounder Jonathan Bush should be the Republican nominee for governor…
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Beyond Hope? Will There Ever Be Answers in Union Slaying, Mainers Begin to Wonder
Late last week the spokeswoman for the Maine State Police broke her silence on the brutal slaying July 2nd of a Tenants Harbor woman in Union – not to inform the public on the status of the now ten day old investigation, but instead to lash out against a national news network for suggesting a…
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Communities Wait for Answers on Union Murder as Anyone with Information is Urged to Come Forward
One week after the brutal slaying of a Tenants Harbor woman on a pond in Union, what is taking hold in at least two impacted communities is a mixture of anxiety, despair and concern about the tranquil images of summer in Maine being shattered by an awful occurrence many cannot comprehend. “If anyone lived up…
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Answers Elusive in Killing of Tenants Harbor Woman
Since Thursday, when authorities declared the death of a Tenants Harbor woman on or near a pond in Union to be a homicide, few answers have emerged to how 48-year-old Sunshine Stewart was killed last week. “If you don’t like your life, change it,” read the tattoo inscribed on her shoulder, which seems to reflect…
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How Plea Bargains Cheat Justice
Cling though one might to the old saying ‘you can’t judge a book by its cover,’ it’s difficult to look at Bryan Kohberger – especially at the creepy vacuousness of his eyes – and not conclude there is something seriously wrong with this dude. Why did this apparent freak of nature slaughter four college students…
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Collins Votes to Advance “Big Beautiful Bill”
Senate Appropriation Chair Susan Collins (R-ME) supported a motion Saturday night to advance President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” towards final passage this week in a close 51-49 vote. In doing so, though, she warned that she “is leaning against the bill,” if further changes aren’t made before a final vote. “I am planning to…
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What’s the Plan, Man: Rick Bennett Needs a Quarter Million Votes to Win, Where Does He Think He’ll Get Them?
Probably the most likable candidate for governor of Maine last time won less than two percent of the vote. Sam Hunkler, a retired physician from Washington County’s Beals Island, struck me as an all-around good guy when I interviewed him over coffee in Rockland. It also quickly became apparent that Sam didn’t have much of…
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Understanding Ella Emhoff’s Trauma
When tragedy gives way to triumph, it can be a beautiful thing—not unlike a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly. That indeed was the vibe as New York City model and step-daughter of failed presidential candidate Kamala Harris marched to the polls in the Big Apple on Tuesday. “Feeling so many emotions right now,” Ella Emhoff…
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Nukes and Cukes: In Negotiating with Iran, the Patient and the Determined Always Have the Edge
There’s an old Persian saying that goes “if either side walks away from a negotiation feeling good, it was a bad negotiation.” In other words, when negotiating with Iran, the process is usually painful and always long. Whether or not Iran and Israel have actually agreed to a Trump-brokered ceasefire, this is nonetheless well worth…
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Susan Collins Defends Her Position on Congressional Oversight of Nation’s Capital after Ted Cruz Charge
A seemingly throwaway line in a now viral interview by Tucker Carlson of U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) put Maine Senator Susan Collins briefly in the spotlight as the staunch ally of Israel and one-time presidential candidate suggested his colleague from the Pine Tree State is partially to blame for Washington D.C. effectively becoming a…
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King 2.0 Out-Politics Pingree 2.0 on Her Home Turf at Rockland “No Kings” Rally
The mark of a real politician is their ability to eat your lunch while still smiling as if you’re best pals. Despite his lack of any experience getting elected himself, Angus King III demonstrated these chops as he lorded over Hannah Pingree at a joint appearance during an anti-Trump rally in Rockland on June 14.…
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It’s Only Mid-June, Yet Summer’s Already Getting Hot
Israel’s remarkable series of strikes against Iranian military targets — including nuclear sites — early Friday morning elicited simultaneous feelings of awe and anxiety. In what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called an initial wave of targeted attacks, his country’s military hit a range of sites in Tehran and Natanz, killing at least nine Iranian…
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DINKs in Maine Multiply under Mills Administration – State’s Grim Demography Gets Even Worse
If the closings of birthing units at multiple Maine hospitals were not enough of a red flag signaling the downward descent of its demography, a new report shows that one of the few areas of growth in the Pine Tree State is among DINKs. According to ManlyBands, Maine now ranks seventh among U.S. states riding…
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Somerset County Commissioners Object to Federal Purchase of 1,800 Acre Land Tract
A bid by a land trust to broker a deal between a paper company and the federal government is on skids after local officials effectively nixed the plan last Wednesday. Three out of five Somerset County commissioners voted on June 4 not to sign a letter of no objection to the $2.1 million sale of…
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Biden-Era Censors Embedding Overseas: Mike Benz and Marco Rubio Speak to Threat of Offshoring ‘Dis-info’ War
Remember the Disinformation Complex that thrived under the Biden administration and effectively throttled conservative media online? Three years ago this month, the Biden White House paused its plans to establish a Disinformation Board within the Department of Homeland Security and install “Scary Mary” Nina Jankowicz as its “disinformation czar” when Congress balked at the Orwellian…
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Who Gives “Permission” for Political Violence?
How long is the line between James Comey and Elias Rodriguez, the 31-year-old Chicago man accused of murdering two young Israeli diplomats in Washington, DC last week? For a local perspective, one could of course ask Waterville High School English teacher JoAnna St. Germain who late last month directed Secret Service agents to “take out”…
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Dulce et Decorum Est
When I saw Alexi Whitney the second time, nearly forty years after the first, I was stunned. My vague memory of meeting him when we were both small children is that he was a wild child. But at that second meeting, my second cousin was wholly transformed. He’d served in Afghanistan and Iraq as a…
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Leaving GOPIF Perch, Hannah Pingree Is Poised to Spread Her Wings
There wasn’t a dry eye in the Blaine House on Thursday when Maine Governor Janet Mills (D) broke the bittersweet news that Hannah Pingree, director of the Governor’s Office on Policy Innovation and the Future (GOPIF), would be moving on as soon as tomorrow, May 16. In a fulsome statement, Gov. Mills went to great…
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HELP Hearing Offers Dems the Stage They Need for New Era of Theatrical Resistance
From Peace Pops to Capitol cops, Ben and Jerry’s co-founder Ben Cohen has long been a pioneer of cause-based marketing. This week, he took his kabuki dance to the Senate where his long-time friend and beneficiary Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) was co-chairing what was supposed to be a serious event. Cohen’s antics on Wednesday at…
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What Romanian Runoff Says about the Russian Ruse
Eastern European elections rarely make headlines in the U.S., but when Vice-President JD Vance spoke to the Munich Security Conference in February he made Romania’s recent round of elections a key theme of his argument on where Europe is going off track. This past Sunday’s result suggests Vance may have been prescient. Romanian voters, it…
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East Asia Expert Tells Portland Group About the War No One Wants, But Might Happen Anyway
Imagine two nuclear-armed, global superpowers sleepwalking into a war that would, by conservative estimates, cost at least 10,000 American lives but probably many more. That is the altogether possible scenario playing out between the United States and the Peoples’ Republic of China that CATO Institute senior fellow Doug Bandow described to a group of lawyers…
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Rubio’s Reorganization of State Department Applies Basic Common Sense to a Legendary Bureaucracy
There’s an old saying in Washington that goes “where you stand is where you sit,” which is to say too much of the federal government’s time and our tax dollars are wasted every day on bureaucratic infighting. If his planned streamlining of America’s oldest federal department goes forward, Secretary of State Marco Rubio might change…
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Did Maine Taxpayers Pay for a Poll that Parses Findings to Persuade Mills to Challenge Collins?
Why would a nationally-recognized Democrat pollster pen an article about her political research in the state of Maine? It could be that Celinda Lake is just really interested in the showdown between Maine Governor Janet Mills (D) and U.S. President Donald Trump (R) over whether transgender students should play on girls’ school sports teams. Or,…
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Progressive Hill Staffer Tests Waters to Challenge Susan Collins Next Fall
If you wanted to build a name for yourself with Maine Democrats to lay the foundations to run against Republican U.S. Senator Susan Collins in 2026, what would be your smartest play? Silly question, I realize, the answer is so obvious: convince elite audiences in Washington, DC that you, in fact, the man. That’s exactly…
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April is Second Chance Month
“Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.” — Luke 23:43 Recent news flashes about convicted murderers in Maine prisons seeking special accommodations for their transgender needs play to a broader theme in both state and national news, but they also miss an important point. April, the month when Christians…
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Former Middle East Envoy Calls for ‘Grand Bargain’ for Peace at USM Talk
A solution to the long-standing challenge that has vexed every American president since Dwight D. Eisenhower may be at hand, former senior diplomat Ambassador Edward P. Djerejian told an audience at the University of Southern Maine’s McGoldrick Center on Wednesday in calling for a “grand bargain” that could bring peace to the Middle East. Djerejian…
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Maine’s Future in Peril Former National Drug Policy Official Warns Lawyers Group
With over 10,000 overdoses last year alone and fatalities — many of them adolescents — ranging from 40 to 70 a month, Maine is facing an existential crisis of drug abuse, Robert “Bobby” Charles told a group of lawyers in Portland on Tuesday. Unless urgent, comprehensive action is taken soon, this trend threatens greater damage…
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Crusading AG Frey Leaves Maine Behind in His Quest to Slay Dragons Across America
Rep. William Tuell (R-East Machias) introduced a disarmingly simple bill to Maine’s Legislature last month consisting of only one sentence. His measure seeks to “direct the attorney general to drop his lawsuit against big oil about climate change.” What’s left unsaid by Rep. Tuell’s bill is a broader sentiment that Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey…
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SOTU Breaks Record as Longest in Recent History
U.S. President Donald Trump delivered his fifth State of the Union address and the first of his current administration on Tuesday night, offering an expansive speech of about 100 minutes, breaking former president Bill Clinton’s 2000 record for the longest of its kind in recent history. President Trump began and ended his 2025 SOTU by…
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Oval Office Smack-down Re-Ignites Ukraine Debate
In an extraordinarily contentious meeting that was supposed to set the stage for peace talks and a multi-billion dollar rare earth metals deal, U.S. President Donald Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky exchanged tense and at times heated words in an Oval Office meeting on Friday afternoon that was cut short and ended without…
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How Metals Deal Could Shift Ukraine Policy
The United States and Ukraine may be on the verge of deal that could alter America’s national interest in helping the embattled Eastern European country defend itself from Russian aggression, Ukrainian and U.S. sources said on Tuesday. Such a deal would allow the U.S. long-term access to Ukraine’s untapped supply of rare earth metals. U.S.…
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Contenders for the Blaine House in 2026 Start Lining Up
Given the high-level fireworks between Maine Governor Janet Mills (D) and U.S. President Donald Trump over the state’s refusal to comply with a White House executive order banning biological males from participating in female school sports, it may be difficult to Mainers to imagine any other political reality than the charged and arguably inflated present…
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![Trump and Mills Go Head to Head Over Trans Row [VIDEO]](https://www.themainewire.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/trump-and-mills.png)
Trump and Mills Go Head to Head Over Trans Row [VIDEO]
President Donald Trump and Maine Governor Janet Mills traded legal ultimatums on Friday afternoon in a dispute arising from the state’s refusal to implement a White House order banning males from female school sports. “Governors won’t be governors if they continue to allow men in women’s sports,” Trump said, before looking to Governor Mills and…
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Embattled Director of Mills Migrant Resettlement Office Tied to Turkish Coup Plotter
As Armenian-Americans in Maine voice their outrage with past anti-Armenian advocacy by Gov. Janet Mills’ (D) newly appointed Director of the Office of New Americans Tarlan Ahmadov, The Maine Wire is taking a deeper look at the controversial state employee’s associations with foreign governments and movements. Last May, Ahmadov escorted two Maine state lawmakers on…
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Public Advocate Pressed to Hold Solar Companies to Account for High Costs and Confusion
When Heather Sanborn served in the Maine State Legislature not so long ago, she voted in support of granting credits to solar companies as part of Governor Janet Mills’ (D) green energy agenda, but now that she’s the state’s Public Advocate representing the ratepayers before the Public Utilities Commission, is she ready to fight against…
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Collins Primary Challenger Gets Some Friendly Advice
Frenchville resident and Voice of the People radio host Dan Smeriglio calls himself “an activist first,” so he was ready to record when Maine State Republican Party Chairman Jim Deyermond called him for a friendly chat about primary challenge to U.S. Senator Susan Collins (R). On Friday, Smeriglio, 42, filed with the Federal Elections Commission…
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Does Europe Matter?
Before Vice President JD Vance took the stage at the Munich Security Conference, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was taking a beating by the commentariat for his own remarks in Europe before the Ukraine Contact Group. “We must start by recognizing that returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is simply unrealistic,” Secretary Hegseth told the shocked assembly…
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‘Red Flag’ Laws Wrong for Maine, Bipartisan Legislators and Sportsman’s Alliance Agree
The push for boilerplate ‘Red Flag’ laws that would give authorities the ability to remove firearms and deny Second Amendment rights to targeted individuals endangers the progress Maine policymakers have made, experts, lawyers and legislators from both sides of the aisle argued on Friday at the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine (SAM) Institute for Legislative Action…
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Trump Turbo-charges DOGE with Reductions in Force Mandate as Musk Seeks to “Right-Size” Bureaucracy
Elon Musk’s visit to the Oval Office on Tuesday was no simple courtesy call, a new executive order setting strict guidelines on how federal agencies may hire new staff suggests. The far-reaching mandate puts a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) “team lead” at the apex of every federal agency and sets a cap on hiring…
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Steel Exporters Balk at Trump Tariffs, Some Pledge Retaliation
As promised while when route to the Super Bowl on Sunday afternoon, U.S. President Donald Trump announced increased tariffs on imported steel and aluminum late Monday and said America would hike its current 10 percent penalty to 25 percent by mid-March. Tuesday morning, the White House issued a fact sheet elaborating on President Trump’s planned…
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How to Shut Down the Department of Education
On Thursday morning, the U.S. Senate’s Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions is scheduled to hear from U.S. President Donald Trump’s nominee for education secretary, Linda MacMahon. Given the Trump administration’s stated goal of shutting down the U.S. Department of Education, this hearing offers a logical forum on how best to do that in…
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Maine Dems in Disarray on How to Protest Trump
The Kennebec County Democratic Committee pulled its support from a planned protest outside the State Capitol in Augusta on Wednesday that was held as part of a “50 Protests, 50 States, 1 Day” movement nation-wide because of concerns about “infiltrators,” a county party leader said. “I am deeply saddened to report that The Kennebec County…
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The Case for a Scalpel, Not a Wrecking Ball
By choosing the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) as its first target for demolition, Elon Musk’s DOGE made a savvy political decision. While the federal government’s gravy train of spending largesse usually has a beneficiary somewhere in America, USAID doesn’t — the foreign aid bureaus clients are mainly a group of “Beltway bandits,” or…
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Trump Says U.S. Will Rebuild Gaza Strip
Standing next to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, U.S. President Donald Trump suggested on Tuesday evening that America take over the war-torn Gaza Strip and reconstruct the ravaged territory on the Eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea into “the Riviera of the Middle East.” “We’ll own it,” President Trump said during the news conference, “Level…
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Trade War in Flux as Trump Agrees to Delay Tariffs on Mexico and Continue Talks with Canada’s PM
U.S. President Donald Trump and Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum spoke on Monday morning and forged a temporary agreement to delay threatened tariffs between the countries one month, both leaders said. President Trump also posted on Truth Social on Monday that he has spoken with Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and will do so again later…
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US Strikes ISIS Targets in Somalia
American airstrikes targeted leaders of the Islamic State, or ISIS, in Somalia on Saturday and killed senior leaders of the organization without harming civilians, U.S. President Donald Trump said. “The message to ISIS and all others who would attack Americans is ‘WE WILL FIND YOU AND WE WILL KILL YOU!’ President Trump posted on social…
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Former Foreign Relations Committee Chair Handed Harshest Sentence Ever for a U.S. Senator
A federal judge in Manhattan sentenced former U.S. Senator Robert Menendez (D-New Jersey) to 11 years in prison on Wednesday afternoon for multiple acts of corruption and serving as an agent of a foreign power while chairing the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “You were successful, powerful, you stood at the apex of our political…
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Tulsi Gabbard Faces Hurdles to Confirmation, with Skepticism from Collins and a Possible Secret Vote
Lt. Col. Tulsi Gabbard, President Donald Trump’s nominee for Director of National Intelligence, faces a series of challenges to her confirmation and the first major test will be her hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on Thursday. [RELATED: Pete Hegseth Confirmed as Defense Secretary…] U.S. Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) is one of several…
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Maine Jan. 6 Pardon Recipient Shares Experience as Political Prisoner at FMC Devens
Matt Brackley had a sense of foreboding long before the FBI showed up at his home two days after he announced his intention to run for the Maine State Senate in 2022. He was already struck with what he calls a “heavy heart” a year earlier, on January 6, 2021, before leaving his Washington, DC,…
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Review: Triad Weed is a Crazy Story You Can Only Ignore at Your Peril – Sam Patten
Editor’s Note: We’re aware of the moral hazard inherent in publishing a positive review of a documentary produced by the Maine Wire at TheMaineWire.com. To address any concerns, we’ve decided to double Mr. Patten’s usual fee. It doesn’t take a groundbreaking documentary to tell you we live in crazy times, but The Maine Wire’s Triad…
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Does Foreign Policy Even Matter for the 2024 Democratic Ticket?
In selecting Minnesota Governor Tim Walz – a man with even less foreign policy experience than herself if that is indeed imaginable – presumptive 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris seemed to be saying that foreign policy doesn’t really matter in this election. But if you look carefully for what’s not being said, the truth…
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How Trump Can Flip the Script on His Conviction: Sam Patten
As a fellow bearer of a politically motivated felony conviction, I have some unsolicited advice for Donald J. Trump on how he could flip the script on his recent status change. Now that he is part of “the club,” Trump may come to see some wisdom in talking about his status differently. After I had…
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Patten: What’s the U.S. Plan for Ukraine?
Time to Address the “Vision Thing” on Ukraine Now that the Congress has signed off on what will be a running total of over $120 billion to help Ukraine defend itself from Russia, it’s past time to ask the Biden administration: “what’s the plan, man?” Absent a big picture speech from the president, the best…
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Crocus City Belies Putin’s Image of Strength: Patten
“Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war,” Mark Antony warns in Act of Three of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. But what if the dogs have already been loosed? In addressing the Russian public this weekend about a cowardly attack on concertgoers in Moscow on Friday, President Vladimir Putin pointed a crooked finger at Ukraine,…
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State of the Union: Just What Will President Biden Say?
Back before it much mattered — ie. when he was just a senator from Delaware, just the chairman of the Senate Judiciary and Foreign Relations committees or just even vice president— it was probably a source of mild bemusement for his staff to guess what might come out of Joe Biden’s mouth the moment the…
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Time to Change the Game with Russia: Patten
Today is “Officers’ Day,” otherwise known as “Men’s Day” among those who served in the Soviet military. My former business partner Kostya – a Russian-Ukrainian who once made his way onto the FBI’s most wanted list – had once served and used to joke that it was a day to put on your old uniform,…
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Tucker’s Putin Interview — Bold Gambit Worth Taking: Sam Patten
Tucker Carlson is neither Walter Duranty (the notorious New York Times correspondent in Moscow in the 1930s who helped Josef Stalin cover up his murder by starvation of millions of Ukrainians, earning a Pulitzer Prize in the process) nor David Frost (who famously interview Richard Nixon at San Clemente, Calif. after the late American president resigned), but…
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“Anyone But Trump” Is the Loser’s Strategy: Patten
I got the weirdest email the other night from Donald Trump. He said he loved me. It was very confusing, because the smart people in the media keep telling me how hateful a man he is. It was so confusing it got me thinking: where the hell did this guy sending me love notes come…
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What Does National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan Do All Day?
Official Washington is laying it on thick when it comes to U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s “secret” hospitalization for colon cancer surgery. The White House claims it was surprised not to have been informed of Secretary Austin’s hospitalization at the Walter Reed Medical Center, which is run by the federal government. Members of the Biden…
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The Audacity of Shenna Bellows
Ten years ago, I wrote a column for the Bangor Daily News (back when it ran actual news) entitled “The Audacity of Shenna Bellows.” At the time, she was the Democratic Party’s sacrificial lamb running for Susan Collins’ seat in the U.S. Senate and had gone to some lengths to misrepresent the centrist Republican senator’s…
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Hunter Biden Dodges Congressional Subpoena: Patten
Listening to Obama advisor David Axelrod compare the Hunter Biden probe to Benghazi, it suddenly becomes clear that among people for whom consequence is an abstract notion the truth can only be heard in Freudian slips like this. Do you remember Benghazi? During the blessedly “scandal-free” Obama Administration, the U.S. State Department declined urgent appeals for help…
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Henry Kissinger Dead
“Mister Kissinger, he dead.” (with apologies to Joseph Conrad) As a little boy from Maine, the prospect of spending Thanksgiving with the mythical Henry Kissinger was exciting beyond words – my mother took me down to Coffins in Rockland and bought me a grey, corduroy, three-piece suit. For the meal, my grandfather ordered a suckling…
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Media Ignore Rising Tide of Anti-Semitism
While the Jewish state of Israel faces the threat of annihilation, it is cruelly ironic that anti-Semitism has gone mainstream in the US. Since the beginning of this October, it has quadrupled — and you wouldn’t know that from watching the news. Just after Russia invaded Ukraine in late February of last year, the blue…
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When the Killer Looks Like Us: Patten
Living downriver and across Merrymeeting Bay from accused mass murderer Robert Card II, the last couple days have been as filled with ill-winds for me as any Mainer. It was just Tuesday I was driving up and down Rt. 196, where Card ditched his Subaru Wednesday night. When I look at his face in photos,…