Cutler and LePage agree on the environment

by: Bruce Bourgoine

Fri Sep 03, 2010 at 00:48:44 AM EDT

At one point in the MPBN piece Cutler paraphrased what a developer might say:

'My goodness, we can put our money to work in West Virginia or Montana or Chile or somewhere else.'

Of course it could just as easily be:

'My goodness, we can put our inappropriate and environmentally damaging development in West Virginia or Montana or Chile or somewhere else.'

Cutler continues to bemoan the time and expense involved in the Plum Creek development proposal overseen by the Land Use Regulatory Commission (LURC).  This appears to be very dismissive of the thousands of Maine citizens who weighed in on the project in oral and written testimony on all sides of this largest development proposal in Maine history in an ecologically significant area that resulted in many changes to the initial development application proposal.

Regarding the expense, Plum Creek paid Sappi $180 million dollars in 1998 for just over 900,000 acres in Maine.  Some key facts about the plan's development are contained in this article posted on the Natural Resources Council of Maine website and some key process observations were made by Brownie Carson of the Council in the Bangor Daily News.   Eliot Cutler seems to think that Plum Creek's $25 million investment in tremendously increasing the value of 20,000 acres or less than 3% of the original land purchased several fold from $200 an acre for a total $4 million to perhaps more than the $180 million price of the entire parcel they bought in 1998 is insensitive to Plum Creek.  Yet Plum Creek got almost everything they wanted for minimal investment, gave conversation easements that may well be paid for largely with public money, and still retains a half of million acres to sell or propose for future development.  Seems like an excellent and favorable deal in today's tough real estate market.

Paul LePage also has two cents on DEP and LURC as noted on his website:

Specifically, I propose to eliminate statewide fees on start-up businesses, 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 In that same vein, I propose that all duplicate and replicated regulations from DEP and LURC be repealed.

It seems abundantly clear that Cutler and LePage are essentially saying the same thing on citizen involvement and having a good deliberative environmental regulatory process to protect the interests of all Maine people; one just dresses it up better.

On ownership/copyright

by: Gerald Weinand

Thu Sep 02, 2010 at 22:06:02 PM EDT

Just like they had the week before.

And like the week before, you didn't think about charging them to rent your mower - they just live across the street.

Your birthday comes around, and even though you don't need it, your spouse buys you a new mower. So, you sell your old one at a yard sale the following week.

Now here is where it gets weird: imagine that the new owner of your old mower decided to charge your neighbor for those times they borrowed it. Go back in time and say, "Hey, remember when you borrowed Jan's mower a couple of weeks back? Well you owe me rent money - and a penalty."

That would seem pretty screwed up, no?

Well, that is exactly what is happening regarding content on the web. Some scum sucking lawyers are, well, just read for yourself:

U.S. District Judge Philip Pro ruled on behalf of Righthaven, a Las Vegas lawyer-owned start=up that trolls the Internet for websites that infringe copyrights of stories published in the Las Vegas Review Journal, the Las Vegas Sun reports. The company then buys the story copyrights and sues for infringement. So far, it has filed 107 lawsuits.

Pro ruled Righthaven had standing even though it didn't own the copyright at the time of the alleged infringement. After the hearing, the defendant, Tuff-N-Uff Productions Inc., reached a confidential settlement, the story says. Righthaven had sought $75,000 and forfeiture of the website names. Tuff-N-Uff revealed in a court filing that it had previously offered to "cease and desist, profusely apologize and even pay $500."

You have to love these trolls. They didn't spend any time or effort creating the content, and likely don't even know what it is. They are only concerned about the copyright of it, and who has infringed on it.

But here's the rub - why should they have standing for violations of that copyright that occurred before they owned it?? And don't they have to provide existing violators with notice that there is a new owner?

For example, if Mr. X has been parking his car in the sideyard of Mr. Y's land, and has been dong so for years, does the new owner of Mr. Y's property have the right to simply two Mr. X's car without notice? There is an overt or implied agreement between to two original persons that the new owner must at least recognize, no?

In any case, this is why I ask posters here to abide by the Fair Use doctrine; please do so.

Cutler Files: Should the anonymity of the authors matter?

by: Gerald Weinand

Thu Sep 02, 2010 at 12:11:12 PM EDT

The Secret File on Eliot Cutler: Read what really happened to Thornburg Mortgage. http://bit.ly/czNIUs #megov #mepolitics
8:28 AM Aug 31st

Clicking through led to the groups website, the Secret File on Eliot Cutler, and their expose on Cutler and Thornburg Mortgage.

Yesterday, via Twitter, Tony Ronzio of the Kennebec Journal and Scott Thistle of the Lewiston SunJournal questioned the credibility of this group, because they did not disclose who they are. In fact, they describe themselves on their website as:

We are a group of researchers, writers and journalists - unaffiliated with any candidate or political party - who are frustrated that Maine's mainstream media is either unwilling or incapable of investigating the background and business connections of Eliot Cutler. The information provided here comes from a variety of reputable and public sources, including news articles, court and municipal records and other documents. While there is some opinion expressed here, the opinion is based on documented fact. Links are provided throughout this site so a reader can obtain most of the source material and decide for themselves.

I took the liberty to ask them about it, and received this reply that they have authorized me to post:

Well, here's the thing. The thought was that if we put our name on it, people would check our party registrations and any past connections and conclude that we are just doing this website on behalf of one of the candidates or parties, and they would lose sight of what we are trying to say: that Eliot Cutler is not who he pretends to be. What we didn't expect was that people, and the press, are assuming it anyway, and they're spending all their time chasing the authors of the website instead of looking at what we're saying. We're fucked either way.

Plus we are mindful of the considerable resources of Mr. Cutler, although this is a much lower concern. However, in his lame response to Pine Tree Politics we did notice his use of the word "libel." Of course, there's nothing libelous in our post, but that wouldn't stop a guy like Cutler.

There's no reason you have to believe us, but the fact is not one candidate nor any member of their staff, nor anyone connected to the political parties or various committees, are in any way involved in or even had any prior knowledge of our website. The people involved in The Cutler Files (and the circle is quite small) aren't even sure who they are going to vote for (except we are quite sure we're not voting for Cutler.) We are all from Maine, and none of us are being compensated in any way for our work. Our expenses to date are our time and the website hosting. That's it. We don't even have a professional web designer. Did it all ourselves.

We did it because, like we said, we simply believe that Cutler is getting a free pass, that the mainstream media have failed to challenge his statements and have not done even the most cursory and basic investigation of his somewhat checkered past. Our hope was that it would spur the press to do their job and uncover his many contradictions, hypocrisies and outright lies, but we're getting more discouraged by the day.  One e-mail we got said, "Why are you picking on someone just because they are successful?" We wrote back and said, "Successful at what?" Does anyone even know? Well, they will after we post the complete website, but we're not sure if anyone in the press will care, let alone write about it.

We even got a threatening e-mail from some idiot at the Portland Daily Sun (which let's face it, is pretty much the same thing as being anonymous) urging us to "fess up."

"If I have to dig for it, this is gonna get ugly," he wrote. His name is Bob Higgins. A journalist who uses "gonna." Really impressive.

We got a good laugh at the Pine Tree Politics piece this morning that said the website was the work of professionals. We're flattered, but we can assure you that we're really a bunch of amateurs. Our chief researcher and writer has NEVER done anything like this before. (Although he may in the future because he's really digging it.)

Then we got a really nasty e-mail from advertising heavyweight Brenda Garrand who practically accused us of being un-American because we chose to be anonymous. Like Cutler's flack, she didn't dispute anything we wrote, just attacked us because our names aren't on the website. "What you are doing is cowardly and in direct opposition to the way we Americans ought to vie for public office," she wrote.

Garrand would have probably called Tom Paine a coward too for publishing Common Sense anonymously, or maybe she thinks the Federalist Papers were "in direct opposition" to American public discourse because, similar to our website, they were published under a phony name. She needs to study her history. Contrary to being un-American, we believe we are upholding the very traditions of public discourse our nation was founded upon.

We're simply after the truth. That's it. And so far, no one has contradicted a single thing we've written. And there's a lot more to come.

This morning Matt Gagnon heard about it, and according to him, after he had done so "buzz about the site has been circulating since then," (I kid you not). But instead of actually looking at the research provide at the Cutler Files, Gagnon spends his piece noted above attacking them, calling them a "a professional attack site," and that, "I should know - I make dozens of sites just like this."

Dan Billings has this post on the Cutler Files over to As Maine Goes, and there Dan argues that the discussing the anonymity of the group is not the correct tack to take:

Who cares? It's legit info that people who might consider voting for him should know.

If we still had reporters in this state, the info would have been out there long ago.

The guy is bad news.

And:

If the focus is put on the author, it will not be where it belongs: Cutler.

Will the Maine main stream media pick up on this, and which story line will they follow?

UPDATED: LePage campaign mistakenly claims that Maine schools are in "bottom one-third in results"

by: Gerald Weinand

Thu Sep 02, 2010 at 10:07:09 AM EDT

John Morris, a spokesman for Republican candidate Paul LePage, says LePage also favors charter schools. He said LePage would eliminate excessive education costs that he says fund an unnecessary bureaucracy.

"Our kids deserve a better education," Morris says. "Twenty percent of our students are dropping out of school before graduation. That's not acceptable. Maine is in the top one-third in education spending, the bottom one-third in results. Our education dollars should be going to teachers in the classroom, not to fund a bloated education bureaucracy."

As Brian Hubbell points out on Twitter, that Maine's public schools are in the "bottom one-third in results" is flat out wrong. The U.S. Department of Education (which LePage wants to eliminate) provides state profiles regarding the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP); select "Maine" to see our profile.

From this list of data, a state by state comparison can be found for 4th and 8th grade assessments. Below I provide how Maine compares. The first number (+) is the number of states that have a higher average score than Maine; the second number (=) is the number of states that are not significantly different; and the last number (-) is the number of states that have a lower average score (by definition, Maine falls into the '=' column):

4th Grade Reading: +5 =21 -24
4th Grade Math: +4 =16 -30
8th Grade Reading: +8 =17 -25
8th Grade Math: +8 =20 -22

This is not the first time that LePage or his campaign has maligned the public schools of Maine, but as the data suggests, the situation here is not as dire as it seems. Does this mean that Maine's schools do not need to improve? No, of course not.

But this constant drum beat that Maine public schools are failing is self-serving; it creates a perception that radical change is required, when in fact, it is not. LePage is setting up a straw man, and which if left to go unchallenged, will gain validity.

Update: Last week, Matt Stone had this post at his blog, The Report Card, Fact-checking Paul LePage, and Common Core's tangled web, which reaches the same conclusion:

Paul LePage is wrong when he claims that Maine's public schools are "in the bottom third in results."

Can Paul LePage read?

by: Bruce Bourgoine

Wed Sep 01, 2010 at 15:40:56 PM EDT

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 to 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.          

Open Thread

by: Gerald Weinand

Wed Sep 01, 2010 at 10:52:34 AM EDT

Vice President Joe Biden says that Iraq close to forming new government. Perhaps you didn't realize that they haven't had one in months.

Newsweek sampled 1,029 adults for this poll with some points of interest, like that by nearly 2 to 1 margins Americans think that "Federal spending to create jobs" is more important than reducing the deficit and that allowing "Bush tax cuts to expire" is more important than extending them, and that 61% of those surveyed have a very favorable or somewhat favorable impression of Muslim Americans and that 72% think it would be okay for a mosque to be built in their local community. (Again I ask - why "Muslim Americans?" Do we ask about "Catholic Americans" or "Buddhist Americans?")

But then we find that:

59% of Republicans surveyed think that "Presient Obama favors the interests of Muslims."

Of Republicans surveyed, 14% think that it is definitely true and 38% think it is probably true that "Barack Obama sympathizes with the goals of Islamic fundamentalists who want to impose Islamic law around the world."

Vanity Fair has yet another expose about Sarah!, but what makes this one of interest are the details of how she funds her speaking tour. While I hardly think she is the only pol engaged in these sleights of hand in financing, it is amazing to read about it.

The Hill reports that incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski concedes shock defeat in GOP Alaska primary, making three sitting GOP senators ousted by primary challengers this cycle (Specter isn't really a Democrat). No word yet if Murkowski will pull a Lieberman and run as an independent.

Susan Cover has this report on what ideas to aid agriculture the gubernatorial candidates presented at a meeting of the Agricultural Council of Maine yesterday.

MPBN reports that Eliot Cutler thinks that the BEP is standing in way of Maine's economic progress. One wonders how fast the Plum Creek development would have been approved under such a scheme, and what concessions would not have been made by the developer.

An open thread.

Turning the Page?

by: Bruce Bourgoine

Wed Sep 01, 2010 at 06:10:20 AM EDT

At every turn, America's men and women in uniform have served with courage and resolve. As Commander-in-Chief, I am proud of their service. Like all Americans, I am awed by their sacrifice, and by the sacrifices of their families.

We have sent our young men and women to make enormous sacrifices in Iraq, and spent vast resources abroad at a time of tight budgets at home. We have persevered because of a belief we share with the Iraqi people -a belief that out of the ashes of war, a new beginning could be born in this cradle of civilization.

Our troops are the steel in our ship of state. And though our nation may be travelling through rough waters, they give us confidence that our course is true, and that beyond the pre-dawn darkness, better days lie ahead.

Emphasis on martial pride is a weakness in the long run.  The enormous sacrifices made are ones we unfairly demanded.  The vast resources expended were undertaken on a deferred basis.  Any mention of "shared beliefs" with the Iraqi people harkens back to the sad story of saber rattling propaganda we were fed.  And confidence in the future based on military power is a haunting reminder of inability to learn from error.

Glorification of the "troops" also ignores that these fellow citizens are fragile human beings and that they are a reflection of our society.  Their sacrifices of time served should not allow us to lessen in our minds the sacrifice of the teacher struggling to engage students in a poor town.  Their battlefield heroics are a mirror of exhausted volunteers on our own Gulf coast.  Their patriotism is no more or no less than the person speaking out against war and conflict.  Their health, marred by war from wound to physiological trauma, is as tragic as that endured by the homeless on our streets.  And regrettably, their failings as in the realm of torture, from the person committing the act to the commander not acting responsible, is a mirror of crimes in our society and the willingness of many to distance themselves from responsibility.

None of this is meant to diminish the soldier but to express our shared citizenship in a country that ought not to be so wantonly martial in its outlook.  For in the end it is a fellow citizen that we ask to do things in our name and we should be mindful of an observation of Robert F. Kennedy's:

"...whatever the costs to us, let us think of the young men we have sent there: not just the killed, but those who have to kill; not just the maimed, but also those who must look upon the results of what they do."  Kansas State University, March 18, 1968

I believe President Obama had a very difficult task in making this speech to a country still caught up in war fever.  I further trust that his thinking extends beyond the imperial war culture so pervasive in our institutions.  However, from the initial appalling "shock and awe" televised light show to the moment of learning the individual tragedy of the death in Iraq of a friend of my daughter in 2004 to the present calamity of over 4,400 American deaths, many more wounded, so many more Iraqi casualties, and 50,000 United States soldiers and many contractors still in Iraq, I am left still apprehensive that we, as a nation, have not really turned the page.

Remarks by President Obama marking the end of the combat mission in Iraq

by: Gerald Weinand

Tue Aug 31, 2010 at 20:03:47 PM EDT

Remarks of President Barack Obama - As Prepared for Delivery

Oval Office Address on Iraq
Washington, D.C.
August 31, 2010

Good evening. Tonight, I'd like to talk to you about the end of our combat mission in Iraq, the ongoing security challenges we face, and the need to rebuild our nation here at home.

I know this historic moment comes at a time of great uncertainty for many Americans. We have now been through nearly a decade of war. We have endured a long and painful recession. And sometimes in the midst of these storms, the future that we are trying to build for our nation - a future of lasting peace and long-term prosperity may seem beyond our reach.

But this milestone should serve as a reminder to all Americans that the future is ours to shape if we move forward with confidence and commitment.  It should also serve as a message to the world that the United States of America intends to sustain and strengthen our leadership in this young century.

Make the jump for the rest:

Irony Watch

by: Gerald Weinand

Tue Aug 31, 2010 at 15:58:57 PM EDT

The opinion article "Is the Pope Catholic?" by Romulus (Aug 22, 2010) is a very poorly disguised bit of personal animosity that should be dealt with privately rather than sowing discord in such a public fashion.

He is about as believable as the story of his namesake, who was supposedly raised by a wolf before becoming the king of Rome. The careful twisting of words, phrases and even events is a sad reflection of the mischievous attitude of the author.

Setting aside his animosity would enable him to see that Carroll Conley is a good man trying to find ways to speak the truth in love, according to the commandment of Scripture. He is not willing to sacrifice either, and I applaud him for that.

Change is hard for some people to accept but division and false accusations are no help. (emphasis mine)

You are not alone, Mr. Conley. I have also been a target for Romulus and can tell you that he is a toothless lion. Do not be dismayed by his noise.

In one sentence, perhaps unwittingly, Emrich describes the entire movement to overturn Maine's same-sex marriage law.

Shakespeare did write that "Brevity is the soul of wit." (Hamlet, Act II, Scene II)

Hitchens: White Fright

by: Gerald Weinand

Tue Aug 31, 2010 at 13:14:07 PM EDT

One crucial element of the American subconscious is about to become salient and explicit and highly volatile. It is the realization that white America is within thinkable distance of a moment when it will no longer be the majority. This awareness already exists in places like New York and Texas and California, and there have even been projections of the time(s) at which it will occur and when different nonwhite populations will collectively outnumber the former white majority. But it also exerts a strong subliminal effect in states like Alaska that have an overwhelming white preponderance.

Until recently, the tendency has been to think of this rather than to speak of it-or to speak of it very delicately, lest the hard-won ideal of diversity be imperiled. But nobody with any feeling for the zeitgeist can avoid noticing the symptoms of white unease and the additionally uneasy forms that its expression is beginning to take.

Many, if not most, Americans are not really aware that the racial demographics of our nation are changing so much, and that within the next decade or so white people will no longer be the majority. But some do, and it is the dog whistles of concern about this that are motivating many in the Tea Party - which helps to explain why there are so few (by which I mean, almost no) minorities at their rallies.

Yesterday I asked what the racial makeup of Beckapalooza was, and was asked why it matters. I responded:

Many care that a movement whose goal is to "take back our country" consists almost entirely of whites.

It is hard not to think of these folks wanting to take our country back to a time when there were few minorities (and they knew their place).

And there's more, as Hitchens explains:

In a rather curious and confused way, some white people are starting almost to think like a minority, even like a persecuted one. What does it take to believe that Christianity is an endangered religion in America or that the name of Jesus is insufficiently spoken or appreciated? Who wakes up believing that there is no appreciation for our veterans and our armed forces and that without a noisy speech from Sarah Palin, their sacrifice would be scorned? It's not unfair to say that such grievances are purely and simply imaginary, which in turn leads one to ask what the real ones can be. The clue, surely, is furnished by the remainder of the speeches, which deny racial feeling so monotonously and vehemently as to draw attention.

No doubt many that consider themselves Tea Party members will argue that they don't harbor these thoughts. But I ask - when you hear them, do you argue against them? My guess is no.

Cutler and LePage agree on Charter Schools

by: Bruce Bourgoine

Tue Aug 31, 2010 at 11:23:32 AM EDT

...he would lengthen the school year, allow charter schools, tie teacher pay to student performance and merge the university and community college systems to improve education in Maine.

Eliot Cutler's proposal of a longer school year may be a very worthy goal.  But the idea of lengthening the school year for example to 200 student days would require at least 205 teacher days versus perhaps a current statewide average of 180 days, an increase of 25 days or 14%.  In the same breath, Cutler proposes to take away some funding from schools and transfer it to charter schools.  This naive belief in the magic bullet of charter schools is one of the biggest problems at the heart of his approach to education.  

One essential question is how would Eliot Cutler pay for a longer school year while shifting economic resources away from public education?  His stock answer has been a simplistic combination of changing the teacher/student ratio and instituting pay for performance (see note below).  Both are actually complex challenges with lots of conflicting statistical analyses.

A real concern is that a candidate for Governor is proposing a significant change in the school calendar and pairing it with a fiscal starvation diet of outsourcing to charter schools.  It just does not pass the straight face test.  No matter how one slices it from fiscal to student outcomes, there is no compelling evidence that charter schools are an answer to making education for all students better.  Private institutions, despite mission statements, profit or non-profit status, and outreach marketing ultimately answer and serve interests outside the public sphere.

In an in-depth wide ranging current report on charter schools by a Stanford study (PDF), a key observation is:

...this study reveals in unmistakable terms that, in the aggregate, charter students are not faring as well as their TPS [traditional public schools] counterparts. Further, tremendous variation in academic quality among charters is the norm, not the exception. The problem of quality is the most pressing issue that charter schools and their supporters face.

We also need to look at "deferred costs".  When we diminish funding to public schools, where the vast majority of students will be left, what will be the costs we did not account for down the road?  In Eliot Cutler's world it seems to be a public school system, stripped of the best students, leaving more challenging students in high teacher/student classrooms, managed with great difficulty by lower paid-for-performance teachers because the performance odds have been stacked up against them.  That is a long term model for a less competitive state, a less egalitarian society, and increasing the likelihood of crippling social costs.

When Paul LePage addressed the same group, the Waterville Rotary Club, the Morning Sentinel reported:

LePage said he supports charter schools and voucher systems.

"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."

It seems abundantly clear that Cutler and LePage are essentially saying the same thing on charter schools and the funding for public schools disconnect; one just dresses it up better.

Note:  Connecting class size to pay teachers more is a for-profit business model misapplied to a necessary government service. It is the lay off model used by companies to get increased productivity. Cut staff (by increasing class size), force higher productivity perhaps at lower quality (teach more students with the same resources), give everyone a bit of a bonus (higher teacher wages for those left standing), and take the lion's share of profits (savings) and pay out dividends to shareholders (taxpayers) that only serves to rearrange the financing but not improve the product or even lower the quality of the product. Shareholders (taxpayers) seem to win with higher dividends in the next quarter (the short term) but lose in the long run when the bubble bursts and the insiders jump with their golden parachutes and dump all the costs of their damage back on the public.  

Citing exclusion, Mitchell to boycott gubernatorial forum hosted by the Maine Hospitality Alliance

by: Gerald Weinand

Mon Aug 30, 2010 at 17:55:19 PM EDT

Next week, the Maine Hospitality and Tourism Alliance will be the host of another gubernatorial forum, and ironically, the group has not extended a welcome to Moody or Scott. In an email response to my query, Greg Dugan, executive director of the Maine Innkeepers Association, said that "candidates would need to poll in double digits or more to be invited and neither Mr. Scott or Mr. Moody have accomplished that."

So, as she noted last week, Mitchell will boycott the Hospitality forum.

The event will be held in Freeport on 9 September, and is open only to members of Maine Hospitality & Tourism Alliance: Maine Tourism Association, Maine Innkeepers Association, Maine Restaurant Association, Ski Maine, Maine Merchants Association and Maine Campground Owners Association. It will not be live streamed nor taped for future download on demand.

Protecting religious freedom, except when it's too free

by: Gerald Weinand

Mon Aug 30, 2010 at 12:07:31 PM EDT

The Preservation of Religious Freedom Act puts it straightforwardly:

Section 1.

(b) Except as provided in subsection (c), no government entity shall substantially burden a person's free exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability.
(c) No government entity shall substantially burden a person's free exercise
of religion unless it demonstrates that application of the burden to the person is:

(1) Essential to further a compelling governmental interest; and
(2) The least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.

But here's the rub: in Murfreesboro, a mosque that has outgrown its building wants to expand, and well (from an article that appeared 1 July 2010 in the The Daily News Journal, not available online):

"It's a pro-Christian bill," [State Sen. Bill Ketron said. "It was established to protect the First Amendment to keep the federal
government from coming in and making a decision on whether or not the church qualified or not to be a church."

---

The law provides legal protection for the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, which says it has outgrown its current facility on Middle Tennessee
Boulevard. The future mosque home will be part of a 52,960-square-foot community center that will include a gym, pool, classrooms, offices, sports field, pavilion, playground and home for the imam (religious leader) on 15 acres on Veals Road off Bradyville Pike southeast of the city. The Muslim congregation picked up site plan approval from the Rutherford County Regional Planning Commission on May 24.

The Planning Commission and the county's Board of Zoning Appeals went through training about religious land use Tuesday and learned from two
Nashville attorneys that the federal law and even stronger state law requires that an essential compelling reason must be given to reject a place of worship such as a mosque.

So, it seems that when the Tennessee Legislature passed this law, they didn't fully understand that it would also apply to Muslims too. Ohhhh - but we're a Christian nation!

And worse, these legislators may not have fully understood how much it it favors people of any faith, as this treatise (pdf warning) by Josh Jones makes clear:

Finally, in Barr v. Sinton, also applying the Texas RFRA, the court found a zoning ordinance prohibiting two-halfway houses for
ex-convicts was unconstitutional because the facility was proposed by a preacher. Barr v. City of Sinton, No. 06-0074 (Tex. Jun. 19, 2009). Not only did the court find that the city failed to expend all possible alternatives, shockingly the court ruled that zoning enforcement was not a compelling state interest. Had the proprietor of the halfway houses not been a man of the cloth, the city's ordinance would not have been judged by strict scrutiny. This shows the fundamental unfairness of RFRAs. They judge persons unequally under the law. As Justice Stevens states in his concurrence in Bourne, RFRAs provide "the Church with a legal weapon that no atheist or agnostic can obtain. This governmental preference for religion, as opposed to irreligion, is forbidden by the First Amendment..." Bourne.

The new standard created by the RFRA will undoubtedly create liability for municipal governments. It will also diminish the authority of local governments to regulate land within their jurisdiction through zoning, direct the behavior of on-duty employees and protect the health and safety of its citizens. The full scope of the ramifications is limitless as any action that someone can claim is religious can be used to challenge even the most neutral and prudent law.

Imagine - anyone claiming to represent a religion or because of their own personal faith can now claim that some laws infringe upon the expression of that faith. And unless the government can find a compelling interest otherwise, they will be allowed to do what they wish.

Fascinating.  

Open Thread

by: Gerald Weinand

Mon Aug 30, 2010 at 07:54:11 AM EDT

Today is the first day of school for many districts across the state, so please be aware and drive carefully. It is also the first day of school for our youngest child, who starts Kindergarten with the same great teacher that our two older children had. He is in good hands; we wish him well on his studies.

The Indonesian volcano erupted again. This spate of activity marks the first eruptions in 400 years.

The newborn Hurricane Earl threatens north Caribbean, and predictions are that it will run up the Eastern Seaboard, affecting Maine. Be sure to click through to see the amazing satellite image of both Danielle and Earl.

As busloads of Mainers attend Beck's 'Restoring Honor' rally in D.C., I'll remind those of what the rally was really about it, in Glen Beck's own words:

America today begins to turn back to God.

Did I mention that the crowd was composed almost entirely of white people?

The NYTimes reports that new dissent in Japan is loudly anti-foreign, as young men who have been left behind after the Lost Decade find a way to vent their frustration by hurling insults at Korean-Japanese elementary schools students and other ways. They say that flattery is the best compliment, so:

While the Zaitokukai has grown rapidly since it was started three and a half years ago with just 25 members, it is still largely run by its founder and president, a 38-year-old tax accountant who goes by the assumed name of Makoto Sakurai. Mr. Sakurai leads the group from his tiny office in Tokyo's Akihabara electronics district, where he taps out announcements and other postings on his personal computer.

Mr. Sakurai says the group is not racist, and rejected the comparison with neo-Nazis. Instead, he said he had modeled his group after another overseas political movement, the Tea Party in the United States. He said he had studied videos of Tea Party protests, and shared with the Tea Party an angry sense that his nation had gone in the wrong direction because it had fallen into the hands of leftist politicians, liberal media as well as foreigners.

"They have made Japan powerless to stand up to China and Korea," said Mr. Sakurai, who refused to give his real name.

Kevin Miller has this analysis of legislative races across Maine, and what their outcome might mean for the new governor, and Rebekah Metzler has this round up of gubernatorial news.

And what sounds like a bad horror film from the 50's, Italian mountain mushrooms claim lives:

At least 18 Italians have died in the past 10 days in the shadow of the Alps and Apennines - not because of rock falls or mountaineering accidents, but for the love of mushrooms.

Recent weather conditions have brought about an explosion in the number of edible fungi clinging to tree stumps and undergrowths in northern Italy. Coming after weeks of dearth, the sudden abundance has caused a correspondingly abrupt surge in the number of pickers or "fungaioli" - many of whom seem willing to take extraordinary risks in pursuit of elusive delicacies like porcini, chanterelles and Caesar's mushrooms.

An open thread.

Late night thread

by: Gerald Weinand

Sat Aug 28, 2010 at 20:43:18 PM EDT

As a result of a court ruling, the Maine Ethics Commission has adopted emergency rules that affect PAC's, unions, and other groups that are spending money trying to influence races involving candidates - that is, live persons. The court ruled that the previous rules the required certain spending to be reported within 24 hours were too onerous. In essence, the new rules extend that reporting time to 48 hours, and make such reporting less common.

These new rules do not apply to advocacy regarding ballot questions. You can read them here (pdf warning).

Maine Tea Party organizer Andrew Ian Dodge has this take on today's Beckapalooza, and it's sure to ruffle the feathers of some diehards:

It is probably safe to say that those who schlepped all the way to DC to watch their hero Beck rant and rave on stage were already prone to vote Republican. These are the quintessential religious right who have felt left out due to the emphasis on the fiscal issue obsessed tea party movement. These are also the same people who have spent the last two years trying to drag religion, and by that I mean Christianity, into the tea party movement.

Beckapalooza was their event to show the tea party movement and the rest of the country they are still a force to be reckoned with. Their continuous attempts to silence criticism of Beck, speaks to their mob like mentality which I have earlier likened to that of the most ardent Obama supporters in this piece.

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When Beck said we need "a boot-camp for God," many people including the author, were stunned. Remember the outcry in 2008 when fatigue dressed young men were singing Obama's praises? Neither image is positive, at least not in politics!

We heard that Beck believes he is a cipher for God, a modern messiah doing God's biding in modern day America. Beck repeated similar phrases many times during his speech, even evoking the televangelist vibe by claiming he got the 600k extra he needed for the event after praying for it.

This Christian meme has been bubbling just under the surface of the Tea Party movement since its inception, as has the racism - one didn't need to be own a dog whistle to be able to hear it. Many have been trying to bring this bigotry out in the open, and it seems that Beck has done so all on his own.

No doubt the greatest hits from today's event will be spinning around the web tomorrow.

The Maine Veterans for Peace will be holding a march and rally in Portland Sunday demanding that our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan be brought home. The march starts at 9:00 a.m. at the Holiday Inn by the Bay on Spring Street and then proceeds to Post Office Park in the Old Port.

And gubernatorial candidate Shawn Moody claims that his opponent Eliot Cutler has tripped on car instpections.

An open thread.