I found this in the comments to this article at the PPH:
ModerateOne said...
When Paul LePage goes to the poverty stricken, and heavily Republican, areas of Waldo and Oxford Counties, looks people in the eye, and tells them flat out that he will cut their food stamps, housing, and health care if elected then I'll believe Republicans are committed to welfare reform. My guess is that he doesn't have the commitment to welfare reform to do this.
Two more gubernatorial forums will be held next weekend. The first is hosted by the Maine County Commissioners Association's and held at their annual convention in Portland, and will immediately follow a dinner Saturday, 11 September at 8:00. I've been told that all five candidates have been invited, but that two of them - Paul LePage and Shawn Moody - will be sending surrogates in their stead.
LePage will be at a fundraiser in Belfast that day, which is scheduled to run from noon to 3 p.m., leaving time for him to drive to Portland. A fundraiser hosted by members of the Maine Refounders:
Now it could be argued that he is staying in Midcoast Maine so as to be able to make the breakfast forum to be held the next morning (12 September) at the Maine Medical Association's annual convention in Bar Harbor, which begins at 8:30 a.m.
But you would be mistaken, since LePage is scheduled to be at another fundraiser in Old Orchard Beach that afternoon from 1 to 4 p.m. Perhaps LePage intends to fly from Bar Harbor to OOB, because there is no chance that he will be able to drive there in time.
Piggy-backing on their gubernatorial poll, Public Policy Polling (PPP) also asked about the Congressional races in Maine. There were 790 respondents in District 1, and 678 in District 2. I'll note that the same caveat regarding the respondents to the gubernatorial poll should be applied here:
18 to 29 9%
30 to 45 21%
46 to 65 42%
Older than 65 28%
Except when the numbers for just District 2 are examined, it's worse:
18 to 29 3%
30 to 45 12%
46 to 65 49%
Older than 65 36%
That's right - 85% of those responding to this poll in the 2nd District are aged over 46 years old. EIGHTY-FIVE PERCENT.
Each candidate is enjoying large support from party and ideologically align respondents, as one would expect, while Pingree is crushing it amongst indpendents (49-27) and moderates (57-24).
The numbers are very similar in District 2:
Rep. Mike Michaud (D): 45%
Jason Levesque (R): 38%
Undecided: 17%
Again, as noted above, each candidate in District 2 enjoys support from their base, while Michaud has leads amongst independents (43-34) and moderates (58-24).
Still a long way out, but these numbers should project into wins for both incumbents.
Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) is opposed to the plan by President Obama and other Democratic leaders to only extend the tax cuts benefiting the middle-class that were enacted under President George W. Bush.
In prepared remarks, Snowe urged "the president and Democratic congressional leaders to swiftly reject job-killing tax increases in these uncertain economic times, and allow a vote on legislation to extend all of the 2001 and 2003 tax relief set to expire on December 31."
Snowe's disapproval of the Democratic plan could mean that liberal leaders fail in getting the 60 votes needed to pass the president's plan.
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Sources tell The Hill that is unlikely for Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) or George Voinovich (R-Ohio) to support the Democratic plan as well.
What is of interest here is that if this compromise bill is bottled up in the Senate, then the Bush tax cuts, that provided far more relief for the very wealthy than regular folks, will sunset as intended, and return to 2000 rates.
So let Snowe and Collins vote against cloture.
Or, as White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs put it:
Our position is tax cuts for the middle class. Theirs is tax cuts for millionaires.
Between 2002 and 2007, for instance, the bottom ninety-nine per cent of incomes grew 1.3 per cent a year in real terms-while the incomes of the top one per cent grew ten per cent a year. That one per cent accounted for two-thirds of all income growth in those years. People in the ninety-fifth to the ninety-ninth percentiles of income have represented a fairly constant share of the national income for twenty-five years now. But in that period the top one per cent has seen its share of national income double; in 2007, it captured twenty-three per cent of the nation's total income. Even within the top one per cent, income is getting more concentrated: the top 0.1 per cent of earners have seen their share of national income triple over the same period. All by themselves, they now earn as much as the bottom hundred and twenty million people. So at the same time that the rich have been pulling away from the middle class, the very rich have been pulling away from the pretty rich, and the very, very rich have been pulling away from the very rich.
While the blogosphere is afire about the impact of the ego maniacal preacher from Florida that will burn copies of the Koran on Saturday, the Guardian reports US soldiers 'killed Afghan civilians for sport and collected fingers as trophies'. Count me a cynic, but I think that the latter may create more strife if it is not handled properly.
But Maine Republican Party Chairman Charlie Webster says that Mainers are ready for change -- both in Augusta and Washington.
"I mean, there's no question about it. I mean, I think Levesque's a great guy, but people in Maine are going to vote on the issues and it looks to me like if you want to reward the Democrats for what they've done to Maine, then you'd vote for Michaud, otherwise, you might vote for a change."
A month after a parking lot confrontation brought allegation of a website coup, Maine's Internet-active tea party activists are moving on, scrubbing the incident from their websites and "focusing on bigger issues."
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A quick scan of several tea party websites at Maine Refounders and Maine Patriots yield little on the incident. DeCoste said the websites administrators have regularly scrubbed the sites discussions threads of any mention of the incident. "They just continually get replaced," he said.
Last week, the PPH ran this story about two Somali immigrants that planned to open a car repair shop in Portland that will cater to other Somalis. While it's a nice, lighthearted piece, there isn't anything really unusual about it - businesses that cater to certain ethnic groups have a long tradition in the US.
Sometimes entire neighborhoods are named for them.
Even this method of lending money, which is unusual here, hardly makes any waves:
Geele said he plans to sell used cars at the shop, across St. John Street from the Union Station Plaza. He said he will sell sedans and vans, which are popular with Somalis because they typically have large families.
Islamic law prohibits Muslims from paying interest on debt, so Geele said he will let customers buy cars with interest-free monthly payments as long as they provide large down payments.
No interest loans. Nice deal if you can get it.
But a state representative in Oklahoma sees practices such as this as threats to the American way of life, and he has introduced a bill that would ban US courts from recognizing foreign laws:
Rex Duncan, a Republican state representative in Oklahoma, agrees with those who say that Shariah is creeping into U.S. courts.
"Creeping is an understatement, it's more like a barrage," he says.
Duncan says he's alarmed that some banks have changed their lending rules to accommodate Islam's prohibition on paying interest.
That's right - Duncan is alarmed that some banks are changing their rules to accommodate new customers. Mind now - no one is forcing these banks to do this - they want to - but somehow this strikes fear into the heart of Duncan.
My question for him is this: I can find hundreds of Kosher foods at my local supermarket, from Lucky Charms to peanut butter, but one of my favorites are Hebrew National hotdogs.
Are you going to ban those too, Rep. Duncan? Hotdogs?
As unemployment continues to remain high (officially near 10%, unofficially much higher), it is expected that later this week President Obama will announce a new effort to help create jobs in our nation. I originally posted this piece in February 2009 at Daily Kos. I've modified it a bit and now put it forth as an open letter to the President.
Dear Mr. President:
It's been known for sometime that our nation has not maintained or upgraded its infrastructure; reports from civil engineering groups lamenting the sorry state of bridges and roads around the country are occasionally trumpeted by our nation's news media. The collapse of the levees in New Orleans, and the failure of the I-35 bridge in St. Paul are just the tip of the ice berg.
Personally, I've been through many schools in Maine to assess the needs and prepare requests for state funding. Buildings with leaky roofs, windows and doors that allow air infiltration, floor tiles made with asbestos, and non-compliance with emergency egress or handicap assessability are common. One project, built in the early 1960's, was designed to allow heat to escape through the roof to melt the snow.
When the house of cards that was our economy collapsed as well, and it became clear that what we needed was a New New Deal, a massive influx of Federal spending on projects that need to done anyway, and also on new infrastructure that will provide a foundation for the economy for another 70 years and more.
Sadly, this did not occur. Congress and your administration passed a stimulus that was woefully too small, as Paul Krugman and others noted at the time. Worse, 40% of that bill was composed of tax cuts, which, while pumping money back into the pockets of some Americans, meant that the money was not directed at any one thing.
Those monies could have been directed at projects like the Rec Center in my town or Rockland, which has just had a much needed renovation. An article about it in our local paper mentioned that it was built by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) (I wrote about it here, What a real legacy looks like).
I became determined to find out what other legacies of the New Deal were still in use in the area.
A poll was taken last weekend in Maine by Public Policy Polling, and it shows GOP candidate Paul LePage holding a strong lead over the rest of the field (link (pdf warning)):
Libby Mitchell 29%
Paul LePage 43%
Eliot Cutler 11%
Shawn Moody 5%
Kevin Scott 1%
Undecided 12%
The cross tabs of those polled are what you might expect, although more of those survey claimed to have voted for John McCain that what was actually the case in 2008 (Obama won Maine by more than 17 points over McCain) - not a big deal.
But then you get to the age demographic, and once again, we see how things are skewed when pollsters use land lines to make their calls.
18 to 29 9%
30 to 45 21%
46 to 65 42%
Older than 65 28%
Now Maine does have the oldest demographic in the nation, but this is rather ridiculous.
The proposed $300 billion in tax cuts will not excite many Americans but far, far more importantly will not lead to any respectable number of "trickle down" jobs. In fact it may lead to small companies in particular holding on to more profits rather than reinvestment in jobs precisely because their balance sheets have been so terribly wacked recently by the poor economy and the economic malpractice of large financial institutions. The additional proposed timid $50 billion investment in infrastructure will lead to some jobs but not the type of substantial jolt really needed.
Listen to Paul Krugman and others, Mr. President. Go large!
Here is a reasonable and doable "pay-go" $1 trillion solution for starters (feel free to expand liberally):
A.
$250 billion cut from defense over 5 years.
$250 billion in infrastructure spending over 5 years.
This is the $50 billion currently proposed for jobs times 5.
B.
Take in over $500 billion in revenue over 10 years by letting the Bush tax gift (misnamed a tax cut) to the ultra-rich expire. We need to confront the foolish myth that these tax cuts are good for all Americans rather than an extremely limited few.
Invest $250 billion immediately in direct graduated grants to small businesses of less than $1 million in gross revenues for direct hiring based on good ROI plans to increase the health of their companies and sustain the employment for a reasonable projected period of years.
Invest $250 billion over five years in educational restructuring that removes the burden and cost of special education from states/communities by making special education a federally funded mandate; also apply direct aid to schools that have demonstrable need based in part on not winning Race to the Top funding but can benefit from undertaking solid student focused projects; fund hundreds of early childhood initiatives.
Here is a huge number of new jobs in small business and the creation of many jobs to be invested in the future through education.
C.
Redirect $250 billion over 5 years from corporate subsidies, breaks, and loopholes given to big agri-business, big energy companies, and other large corporations to small local farming initiatives and sustainable energy projects.
The redirecting of this money will directly create many local small business jobs vs. the inefficient corporate welfare that provides little in return and corrupts our politics.
Over the course of the war the federal government borrowed an amount equal to roughly twice the value of G.D.P. in 1940 - the equivalent of roughly $30 trillion today.
Had anyone proposed spending even a fraction that much before the war, people would have said the same things they're saying today. They would have warned about crushing debt and runaway inflation. They would also have said, rightly, that the Depression was in large part caused by excess debt - and then have declared that it was impossible to fix this problem by issuing even more debt.
But guess what? Deficit spending created an economic boom - and the boom laid the foundation for long-run prosperity. Overall debt in the economy - public plus private - actually fell as a percentage of G.D.P., thanks to economic growth and, yes, some inflation, which reduced the real value of outstanding debts. And after the war, thanks to the improved financial position of the private sector, the economy was able to thrive without continuing deficits.
The economic moral is clear: when the economy is deeply depressed, the usual rules don't apply. Austerity is self-defeating: when everyone tries to pay down debt at the same time, the result is depression and deflation, and debt problems grow even worse. And conversely, it is possible - indeed, necessary - for the nation as a whole to spend its way out of debt: a temporary surge of deficit spending, on a sufficient scale, can cure problems brought on by past excesses.
We need to make direct investments in jobs. That will help our economy, improve individual lives, stabilize social costs of unemployment social and yes, add to business stability and profits. It is time to invest in the most jobs possible for every dollar expended through trickle up and not wish and hope for a few jobs after filling a few wealthy bank accounts, increased company profits, and other corporate priorities through trickle down.
Certainly these numbers and priorities can be juggled. Hiring researchers for medical goals of curing disease, which also harm our econimy in may ways, would be laudable and productive for example. If we hold as our constant goal is the greatest number of jobs directly created for the money spent or a direct correlation of as near to a dollar invested yielding a dollar in payroll as possible, then we can set ourselves on a path to a wider prosperity as discussed by Robert Reich that is not a technical divining of a tepid end to recession with a jobless recovery but one of confidence gained through actual wellbeing by many average citizens with new sustainable jobs and an end to job insecurity by those currently employed but fearing the worst.
The Democratic Governors Association (DGA) sees the gubernatorial race in Maine as indicative of what has happened to the Republican Party - its candidates have lurched far to the right, in large part due to influence of the Tea Party. Not only has the Maine GOP adopted the Tea Party Platform, but their nominee - Paul LePage - espouses extreme views. The DGA hopes to make these views well known to voters here in Maine.
This ad ought to spark some talk. I'm told that this is a huge buy, "saturation levels statewide":
President Barack Obama on Wednesday will propose $300 billion in accelerated or expanded tax breaks for business, a jolt of cash that he says would jump-start hiring and help revive the nation's economy.
Speaking in Cleveland, Obama will ask Congress to send $200 billion in tax cuts to businesses by allowing them to write off more of their costs through 2011. He'll also propose expanding and making permanent a tax credit for research and development. That would cost $100 billion over 10 years.
At some point these folks are going to realize that unless stimulus money is targeted directly at projects that are woefully necessary, like infrastructure repair, tax cuts are only going to enrich those that receive them, and not leave any lasting legacy.
Paying for arenas and stadiums that are now gone or empty is a result of a trend that stretches back decades. Until the 1960s, public works were often defined as bridges, roads, sewers and so on: basic infrastructure that was used by all and was unlikely to be built by the private sector. With few exceptions, like County Stadium in Milwaukee, teams constructed their own stadiums.
As pro sports expanded into cities from coast to coast, politicians and business leaders pushed for taxpayer-financed stadiums to lure teams. To name a few, New York built Shea Stadium for the expansion Mets, Atlanta put up Fulton County Stadium to lure the Braves from Milwaukee, and Oakland built a stadium to entice the Athletics to move from Kansas City, Mo.
Soon after, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati built stadiums for teams already there. In some cases, cities justified the expense as a way to keep owners from moving their teams. In other cases, politicians argued that the stadiums would generate enough revenue to cover the construction cost.
The Democratic Governors Association (DGA) and its Republican counterpart (RGA) will both be airing new ads for their respective gubernatorial candidates today. This means that both groups see the race for the Blaine House as competitive.
Before rolling out big-money television commercials, the state's two major political parties are hoping to reach voters online with low-budget Internet ads that pick apart their competition.
On Tuesday, the Maine Democratic Party released an ad taking Republican gubernatorial nominee Paul LePage to task for statements he's made about education. The ad uses small clips of LePage, mayor of Waterville, talking about the need to "be tough on special education" and pulls quotes from media sources in which he calls for one superintendent per Maine county.
This follows an ad released last week by the Maine Republican Party that criticizes Democratic candidate Libby Mitchell for supporting State House renovations while she was speaker of the House from 1997 to 1998.
With less than two weeks left for Jenkins to officially declare his write-in candidacy for governor, the former mayor of Auburn and Lewiston is facing significant obstacles, including his message, money and a support threshold organized through the Facebook site "Draft John Jenkins 2B Maine's Governor in 2010."
On Tuesday, Jenkins met with the Sun Journal's editorial board to address his candidacy and his platform. As of Tuesday evening, Jenkins' Facebook page had 2,232 fans, less than half of the 5,000 the former mayor and state senator says he wants before launching his campaign.
The American Civil Liberties Union, the New York Civil Liberties Union and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) today filed a lawsuit challenging the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) policy permitting border agents to search, copy and detain travelers' electronic devices at the border without reasonable suspicion. DHS asserts the right to look though the contents of a traveler's electronic devices - including laptops, cameras and cell phones - and to keep the devices or copy the contents in order to continue searching them once the traveler has been allowed to enter the U.S., regardless of whether the traveler is suspected of any wrongdoing.
Any registered voter in Maine can vote using an absentee ballot, for any reason. You can request an absentee ballot using this online form (choose between uniformed service and overseas voters or all others), or obtain one when they are available from the clerk's office at your town hall.
Fill it out, mail it in or give it to your town's clerk, and you're all done. For more info, the State provides this handy guide.
And while I don't expect that LePage (who thinks the Maine Department of Environmental Protection is "very pro-environment") would know this, but the large populations of black flies are an indication of clean rivers:
But there are now more black flies in more places in Maine, and the reason may be surprising: It's the success of the environmental movement.
Many species of the gnat-sized insects are sticklers for cleanliness. When Maine's rivers were filled with contaminants from paper mills and other industries, only the hardiest black flies laid eggs in them. Now, rivers and streams are progressively cleaner, providing ideal breeding grounds for the annoying pests.
Maine's race for governor, which has been heavy on light issues and light on the heavier ones over the summer, is entering the post-Labor Day home stretch with the candidates ready to turn up the volume and voters ready to listen.
What started out as a packed race with more than two dozen contestants is now down to five candidates, who have been sharpening their pitches as they make the state fair scene, address civic groups, attend forums and seek to separate themselves from their rivals.
The federal government is warning residents in a small Wyoming town with extensive natural gas development not to drink their water, and to use fans and ventilation when showering or washing clothes in order to avoid the risk of an explosion.
The announcement accompanied results from a second round of testing and analysis in the town of Pavillion by Superfund investigators for the Environmental Protection Agency. Researchers found benzene, metals, naphthalene, phenols and methane in wells and in groundwater. They also confirmed the presence of other compounds that they had tentatively identified last summer and that may be linked to drilling activities.
Last month, Google and Verizon, two giants in the Internet world, proposed that regulators enforce the open Internet principles often called Net neutrality on wired connections but not on the wireless services. That would mean that on some cell phones or other mobile devices or on some "special access lanes" carriers such as Verizon and U.S. Cellular could charge companies that provide content a "toll" for faster access to customers or, as some industry analysts worry, block some services from reaching customers altogether.
Second District Rep. Mike Michaud, D-Maine, said he also is concerned that rural areas of the country will be left behind as Internet providers cater to larger markets at the expense of smaller markets.
"I am adamantly opposed to the FCC, or any other regulatory agency, that might be moving forward and implementing through the rule process, something that could be detrimental to Maine," he said.
After a long hiatus, Union Maine is back, with this rant rant from NarsBars (h/t NancyEH).
And check out this cosmic spiral in an image captured by the Hubble Space Telescope (h/t leolabeth).
LePage was asked by Leavitt if it would be difficult for him to attract Democratic and independent voters "with a possible more radical image through your association with the Maine tea party?"
"Well," LePage responded, "I don't know why you're associating me with the tea party. I didn't seek them, they're supporting me."
Below are videos of LePage speaking at Tea Party rallies, while he was still seeking the GOP nomination. The first is from November 2009, eight months before the primary:
On 16 January 2010:
On 27 March 2010:
On 15 April 2010:
There likely are others, but add in the fundraisers hosted by members of the Tea Party, and there is little doubt in anyone's mind, excepting the candidate, that LePage has sought the support of the Tea Party.
DIRIGO BLUE is available as an