Author: The Maine Wire

We’ve reached the point in the election cycle where people who know they’re going to lose get really desperate. Case in point: President Joe Biden going to Union Station in Washington, D.C., which in recent years has become a ghost town and bum camp, to give an underwhelming Hail Mary speech filled with anti-MAGA calumny. The speech didn’t create much buzz and left many political commentators wondering why the White House would wheel out Biden for the event. But over at MSNBC, Biden’s speech sent a tingling down multiple legs. “Joe Biden is saying the same thing tonight, and a…

The White House on Wednesday deleted a tweet that misleadingly credited President Joe Biden with increasing social security payments. Social security payments are increasing, but only because of automatic cost of living adjustments that are tied to inflation. After Twitter posted a fact check on the misleading tweet, someone on the White House comms team decided to delete it altogether. The affray follows billionaire Elon Musk’s long-awaited acquisition of Twitter. Here’s the White House spox answering questions about the deleted tweet. https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1587870759963295745

“Let’s declare a pandemic amnesty,” writes Emily Oster, in a new piece for The Atlantic magazine. “We need to forgive one another for what we did and said when we were in the dark about COVID,” she says. Oster is an economist at Brown, a member of the smart set who spent 2020 and 2021 cheerleading the most draconian policies. Now, she’s one of many founding members of the Anthony Fauci Fan Club issuing a half-hearted mea culpa. She now understands schools were closed too long, social distancing and masking was bogus, and data on vaccines were total deficient. Great…

Trinity College in Hartford, CT, ordered the removal of a student’s American flag and attempted to confiscate the flag, according to a viral video depicting the incident. In the video, an unknown woman who appears to work for the college removes a student’s flag, citing a request from an unspecified dean’s office. The American flag is stylized with blue, green, and red stripes, a nod to members of law enforcement, service members, and firefighters. The woman orders the student to stop filming her and asks a colleague to call campus safety. She then attempts to steal the flag, claiming she…

The Maine Department of Corrections is providing padded bras to juvenile inmates without breasts and chest binders to juvenile inmates with breasts following a March 2020 policy directive from MDOC Commissioner Randall Liberty, an MDOC spokeswoman has confirmed. “We purchase the chest binders through Amazon as needed when requested,” Jane Tower said in an email. Tower said MDOC purchases the padded bras through Bob Barker, a contractor that works primarily with prisons. The policy directive aimed at juvenile detention facilities states the following: “Clothing, personal hygiene and grooming items, and other gender-specific property items allowed to a transgender or intersex…

Democratic Gov. Janet Mills and Republican former Gov. Paul LePage clashed once again Thursday night in a debate that may help determine the shape of Maine’s executive branch for the next four years. The candidates covered Mills’ decision to mandate COVID-19 injections for health care workers and fire those who refused, whether Maine schools will force a similar mandate on school children, how Maine will fare once federal Pandemic Era funding dries up, and more. Check out the highlights below, and follow The Maine Wire on Twitter and Facebook. https://twitter.com/TheMaineWire/status/1585988617469833216 https://twitter.com/TheMaineWire/status/1585987472324177921 https://twitter.com/TheMaineWire/status/1585987981516902400 https://twitter.com/TheMaineWire/status/1585989115715407873 https://twitter.com/TheMaineWire/status/1585992329575399426 https://twitter.com/TheMaineWire/status/1586017483420581889 https://twitter.com/TheMaineWire/status/1586017989224271874

The National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), fresh off their Pandemic Era advocacy for school closures and masking small children, are pouring money into Maine’s local political races in a bid to keep their allies in the Maine Democratic Party in control of the State Legislature and the Blaine House. The NEA and AFT are the two largest, most powerful teachers unions in the country, and they operate together according to a partnership agreement negotiated more than twenty years ago. According to that agreement, the two unions jointly fund activities and share in decision making.…

Blame it on the public education system or declining mental health care, but whatever the cause, the new crop of left-wing environmental activists have gone absolutely bonkers. In the last few weeks, viral videos have showed young activists throwing soup on a Vincent Van Gogh painting, smearing mashed potatoes on a Monet, spray painting an Aston Martin dealership, and dumping perfectly good milk all over the floor of a supermarket. https://twitter.com/GoingParabolic/status/1581616977503977474 https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1584219828914569217 https://twitter.com/Abigail_Evanss_/status/1581565844353478656 https://twitter.com/RebelsAnimal/status/1581251694444564486

The Institute for Research on Presidential Elections (IRPE), a supposedly non-partisan non-profit, has invited some Maine lawmakers on an indulgent Miami Beach junket, but the invitation may not be advertised honestly. Invitations for the trip, originally scheduled for mid-November but now delayed to January, bill it is an “educational seminar on presidential elections and the Electoral College.” The Institute generously promises to cover costs for travel and accommodation for up to three nights. The invitation does not say that IRPE has a specific agenda, but the organization is controlled and staffed by advocates for the National Popular Vote interstate compact…

President Joe Biden is slated to join Pennsylvania senate candidate Jon Fetterman on the campaign trail today, but that move is the exception rather than the rule. Unlike former President Barack Obama, who was and remains in high demand during congressional campaigns, Biden’s fellow Democrats have been less eager to have him come to their states. Asked about Democratic Party candidates’ reluctance to have him on the campaign trail, Biden snapped at a reporter Thursday. “That’s not true! There’ve been 15. Count kid, count,” he said. https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1583117263921561604 President Biden has not visited Maine to support Reps. Chellie Pingree (CD-1) and…

Maine Wire EIC Steve Robinson joined WVOM’s George Hale and Ric Tyler show Tuesday morning to talk about Maine Wire’s exclusive reporting on the controversy over a Gray-New Gloucester teacher subjecting an 8th grade student to bizarre political ranting. Gray-New Gloucester Middle School teacher Ann Cook was secretly recorded on tape lecturing a student with brazen, one-sided left-wing ideas, and that recording was provided by parents to The Maine Wire. In the interview, Hale asks an interesting question: Why haven’t the Portland Press Herald and the Bangor Daily News (or Maine Public) touched this story? Listen here:

A Hermon third grade teacher who also heads the Hermon Teachers Association has a message for parents who are upset with the content of classroom instruction: Buy a new house and get out. https://youtu.be/-f3ngPGoVQ0 “To the citizens of Hermon, the fact is, we work in a public district, our schools are for every child, educators here know what’s best for our students, we have the training, we have the knowledge, we have the experience, please trust us,” said Hermon Education Association President Erin York in an October 3 public meeting. “And those of you that don’t trust us, you can…

American’s trust major corporate media outlets less than ever, American polling firm Gallup reported Tuesday. “At 34%, Americans’ trust in the mass media to report the news “fully, accurately and fairly” is essentially unchanged from last year and just two points higher than the lowest that Gallup has recorded, in 2016 during the presidential campaign,” the Gallup’s Megan Brenan reported. “Just 7% of Americans have “a great deal” of trust and confidence in the media, and 27% have “a fair amount.” Meanwhile, 28% of U.S. adults say they do not have very much confidence and 38% have none at all in…

The price of a gallon of No. 2 heating oil in Maine is back around $5.00 per gallon, according to information tracked by the Maine governor’s office and the federal government. In other words, a Maine resident who needs 1,000 gallons to keep warm during the winter will pay more than $5,000 — an increase of almost $2,500 over prices last year at this time. Democratic Maine Gov. Janet Mills last week circulated a tip sheet for surviving Maine winter with high energy costs in which she blamed the price increases on the Russian invasion of Ukraine without citing any…

A scientific laboratory in Boston says it has created a deadlier version of the COVID-19 virus that led governments around the world to shutdown economies, harshly restrict freedom, and destroy millions of lives. Boston Universities scientists have apparently added a spike protein from the hyper-contagious Omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus and added it to the original strain that originated in Wuhan, China. Gain of function research, the term that describes adding additional capabilities or qualities to a virus, is the technique some researchers believe led to the COVID-19 outbreak in the first place. Here’s a screenshot from the research…

Add another Hunter Biden Corruption story to the pile of items Americans must learn about in the British press. On Tuesday, the Daily Mail reported exclusively on the financially lucrative relationship between President Joe Biden’s son Hunter and Russian oligarch Yelena Baturina. The emails, which were discovered by a Kazakh anti-corruption group, show Hunter Biden’s real estate company received a $40 million investment from Baturina, the billionaire widow of a former Moscow mayor. From the Daily Mail: “The relationship between the president’s son and Yelena Baturina, the billionaire widow of a corrupt Moscow mayor, has already been flagged as alarming…

First Lady Dr. Jill Biden received thunderous boos and even an R-Rated chant last night when she attended Lincoln Financial Field for the Philadelphia Eagles football game against the Dallas Cowboys last night. When Biden, who has a doctorate in education, was shown on the jumbotron, the crowd booed and began chanting. Have a listen for yourself. https://twitter.com/TPPatriots/status/1582014192735105027

A New York Times / Siena College poll released Monday suggests Republican candidates have gained ground with independent voters after polling throughout the summer indicated Democratic Party candidates were in the lead. The poll also suggests that the economy, rather than abortion, remains the most important issue for voters. The big poll out today comes from the New York Times and Siena College: “Republicans enter the final weeks of the contest for control of Congress with a narrow but distinctive advantage as the economy and inflation have surged as the dominant concerns, giving the party momentum to take back power…

Maine Wire EIC Steve Robinson joined WGAN Morning News host Matt Gagnon this morning to cover his reporting on a secret audio recording on a Maine public school teacher’s shocking political rant to an 8th grader. Listen here: https://soundcloud.com/newsradio-wgan/steve-robinson-1?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

A Rumford man whose 2016 arrest for fentanyl trafficking landed him in jail — and in former Gov. Paul LePage’s infamous “binder full of drug dealers” — was arrested again in August on charges of fentanyl trafficking. Rashaud Lavoie, 30, was one of eight Maine residents charged with drug-related crimes following a joint operation between the FBI’s Southern Maine Gang Task Force, Mexico Police, Oxford County Sheriff’s Office, and Maine State Police. Lavoie has had frequent run-ins with Maine law enforcement since relocating to Maine from Lawrence, Mass. His first arrest in Maine came in 2013 following his involvement in…

Maine Gov. Janet Mills is blaming Russia for the high price of energy as Maine heads into winter. “Energy prices are expected to remain high this winter due to continued world market volatility from the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” the governor’s office said in a “Winter Heating Season Tips and Resources” sheet that the Mills administration emailed around yesterday. Mills does not list any other factors that may be contributing to increased energy prices, such as state and federal policies that prohibit or make it harder to produce energy in America. The claim on the fact sheet is inline with…

Maine Wire EIC Steve Robinson joined WGAN Morning Show host Matt Gagnon to talk about his coverage of Dr. Meryl Nass’s hearing before the Board of Licensure in Medicine (BOLIM). https://soundcloud.com/newsradio-wgan/steve-robinson?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing BOLIM suspended Nass’s medical license and ordered to to undergo a neuropyschological evaluation after activists reported to the board that Nass was spreading “misinformation.” Although the board now claims the case against Nass revolves around medical record keeping errors, Nass and her attorneys hold that the investigation and subsequent punishment are politically driven attacks on a prominent critic of state and federal COVID-19 policies. Full disclosure: The Maine Wire…

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, a.k.a. the mega celebrity AOC who boasts 13.5 million Twitter followers, was lambasted by protesters opposed to escalating U.S. involvement in the war in Ukraine. Two activists who purported to be former supporters of AOC confronted the Bronx pol over her support of supplying U.S. arms and financial support to Ukraine as it struggles to ward of invading Russian forces. “I believed in you, and you became the very thing you sought to fight against. That’s what you’ve become,” one of the protesters shouted. “You are the establishment.” https://twitter.com/JosBtrigga/status/1580364662419312641?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1580364662419312641%7Ctwgr%5Ee1549e7de70dfd7237637eabffaa6c7308c8d253%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdailycaller.com%2F2022%2F10%2F13%2Falexandria-ocasio-cortez-town-hall-protesters-shouting-ukraine-war-viral-video%2F The nearly empty town hall meeting, and…

Boston Red Sox employee Peter Tolan was arrested Monday on the charge of child enticement. “When we learned of the allegations against Peter Tolan, involving events unrelated to his Red Sox employment, he was suspended without pay from his position. We will have no further comment going forward,” the spokesperson said in a statement to media.  Tolan, 58, was arrested by police in East Bridgewater, Mass., after sending sexually explicit text messages to someone he thought at a 15-year-old girl. Police said he agreed to meet up for sex with the recipient of those messages, who turned out to be…

The number of parents submitting Freedom of Access Act requests to Maine’s government-run schools is “out of control,” according to Maine School Management Association Vicki Wallack. “I am on the Right to Know Committee for MSMA and a strong defender of Right to Know, but requests are out of control,” Wallack said in an email to school officials inviting them to testify at a meeting of the committee on Thursday, October 13. “[O]ur concern is the number of FOIA (sic) requests we are seeing around gender identity discussions in schools and pushback on posters that support acceptance of our gay,…

The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday the results of a deep investigation into the stock trading of federal government officials, revealing for the first time that top government bureaucrats frequently buy and sell shares in companies whose financial health will be affected by agency decisions. From WSJ: A Wall Street Journal investigation revealed that thousands of officials across the U.S. government’s executive branch disclosed owning or trading stocks that stood to rise or fall with decisions their agencies made.Across 50 federal agencies ranging from the Commerce Department to the Treasury Department, more than 2,600 officials reported stock investments in companies while…

President Joe Biden on Thursday issued a blanket pardon for Americans who have been convicted of simple marijuana possession and called on state governors to do the same from state-level marijuana law violators. https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1578097879390031874 Biden also announced his intention to reschedule marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act, a major step toward decriminalizing the drug at the federal level. https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1578097880744820736 The decision is an obvious attempt to swing voters, coming a little more than one month before midterm elections will decide whether Democrats retain control of the House and Senate for the final two years of his first presidential term. The…

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has made the world understand that western countries cannot be dependent on autocratic nations for oil, Democratic Rep. Chellie Pingree (ME-1) said Thursday in an interview on Maine Public Broadcasting Network’s “Maine Calling” radio show. “It has dramatically made the world understand that we cannot be dependent on foreign oil to have brutal dictators like Russia,” Pingree said. “We have to speed up our timing on energy independence.” Pingree, who is seeking an eighth term in the U.S. Congress, has been a staunch opponent of domestic oil and natural gas production, including backing several bills that…

President Joe Biden may have won the election, but he’s not really in charge, according to former Republican Gov. Paul LePage, who’s seeking a third non-consecutive term as governor of Maine. “I believe that President Biden won the election, I’m just not sure who’s running the country,” LePage said at the first gubernatorial debate in Lewiston. “He’s obviously not capable of running the country,” he said, “and I don’t know who’s waving the strings.” https://twitter.com/TheMaineWire/status/1577772678928277514 Questions over President Biden’s mental fitness for the office have been common among right-wing commentators since before his election. But after Biden, 79, appeared to…

New York Times reporter Stuart A. Thompson labeled the story a far-right “conspiracy theory” involving a Michigan company whose software was used in the 2020 presidential election.The following day, Thompson reported significant elements of the conspiracy theory were indeed true.Here’s Thompson’s first story, published Monday: At an invitation-only conference in August at a secret location southeast of Phoenix, a group of election deniers unspooled a new conspiracy theory about the 2020 presidential outcome.Using threadbare evidence, or none at all, the group suggested that a small American election software company, Konnech, had secret ties to the Chinese Communist Party and had…

Political campaigns are in full swing and, once again, the debate on health care is dominating the landscape, specifically how Americans will get their health care and who will pay for it. On the campaign trail in 2016, Medicare for All became synonymous with Bernie Sanders’ presidential bid. In 2020, the term “public option” is growing in popularity among those who do not want to be tied to a complete government takeover of health care. As of late, US Senate candidate Sara Gideon and US Rep. Jared Golden have voiced support of the idea, but what exactly is the public option…