America Inc.
Sixteen trillion dollars in debt, food stamp rolls growing, no extension on unemployment, Social Security in the crapper waiting for the flush, but our government finds it OK to send billions of dollars in foreign aid to Egypt and God knows what other foreign country.
I really know that our government is out of touch with the people that they supposedly represent. They are selling out our democracy and our republic. What are we going to do — sit on our rear ends until it is too late?
If you think socialism is so great, look around America. Remember “ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.” A great quote from a great man that we have forgotten. God bless America!
Earl Eberhart
Bangor
Shame on Covenant Health Systems
I’m writing concerning closing of the St. Joseph Hospital Cardiac Rehabilitation Program. The program is positive and motivating for heart patients. Having had major heart surgery, four catheter ablations and two pacemakers in three years, I entered the rehab program and was challenged as well as encouraged. It’s a very important part of my life as well as many other patients’.
I was under the impression that patients came first. The heart logo of St. Joseph’s is compassion, competence and community. There doesn’t seem to be much for us.
Staff have our full health issues in mind. When one doesn’t feel well you need a knowledgeable team of people who can make you understand your limitations and be able to cope with them. The talents and experiences of this staff will be lost not being able to work one on one.
We are a group that needs special care.
This decision of Covenant Health should be reconsidered. If only they would talk with us and hear our stories and then put themselves in our shoes.
Jill Webber
Bangor
Obama versus Romney
Here is an editorial comment about President Barack Obama’s accusation of Republican Mitt Romney and his lacking concern and compassion for the American people. We are being told by the Obama camp that the present fiscal nightmare which threatens to engulf this country on the brink of catastrophe and destruction is the result of many previous administrations’ fiscal policies.
Well, I ask you point blank, who put all of those trillions of dollars added onto the national deficit all of a sudden in recent years through pork barreling, ineffective stimulus packages and bailouts that have toppled the federal deficit to a monstrous overburdening, out-of-sight sum that seems impossible to pay back?
These cannot be put to blame on previous administrations. All we are getting from the Democratic convention this year are justifications as to why we are in this mess. On the other hand, Romney and vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan are trying to correct the ineffective fiscal policies of Obama and get us back on the road to economic responsibility and liberty.
Who really is the one who is truly lacking in compassion for the American people? The one who would keep us entangled in the web of tyranny and fiscal irresponsibility or the one who would set us free to prosperity and all-around liberty?
Victor F. Pinard
Bangor
Plutocrats fear Angus
Anonymous GOP plutocrats are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to stop independent Angus King from being Maine’s next U.S. senator. Why do they fear King?
King is the primary obstacle to the success of Republican Senate candidate Charlie Summers as the plutocrats strive to control the federal government. These out-of-staters depend on the Republicans to repeal laws enabling our middle class and small businesses to compete fairly against greedy over-reaching by huge corporations. These global giants will increase their riches at all costs. Loyalty or obligation to our people and country is not a priority.
I retired from a company that employed more than 200,000 people in more than 140 countries. I saw how work was shifted to other countries where lower labor costs, weak environmental regulations and reduced taxes maximized profit. This practice pressures the U.S. and other advanced societies to descend to the lowest common denominator among nations.
A federal government that serves all our citizens, instead of the few who gain from unrestrained chasing of the dollar, is necessary for the survival and continued improvement of our way of life.
This is why the plutocrats fear King. They remember Maine’s recent gubernatorial campaign when a Democrat took votes from a well-qualified independent to enable the GOP candidate to nose out the independent with only 38 percent of the vote. Now, they fund a GOP-affiliated super-PAC to support Democrat Cynthia Dill, hoping to draw votes from King. We can’t afford to let outside money bring Republican Summers through the back door of the Senate where he will do the bidding of the plutocrats.
Daniel E. Harris
Brunswick
Elect Geoff
I’m an electrician, and that means I work for a living. When I look at the work that got done in the last Legislature, all I can do is shake my head. Bill after bill was passed that put the hurt on Mainers who get up and go to work day after day, sometimes at more than one job.
It was that much harder to bear because my senator, Nichi Farnham, voted wrong on nearly every bill. She voted to make it harder for injured workers to receive the compensation they deserve; she voted to take away collective bargaining rights for farm workers and child care workers; and she voted to make it more difficult to collect unemployment benefits in the middle of one of the worst employment scenes we’ve had in years.
Given all of this, I can’t express enough happiness at the chance I now have to elect Geoff Gratwick. Gratwick gets it. He understands how people who live paycheck to paycheck want to live happy, secure lives, and he’s willing to fight for that in Augusta. November 6 can’t come fast enough.
Scott Cuddy
Hermon
“He understands how people who live paycheck to paycheck want to live happy, secure lives, and he’s willing to fight for that in Augusta”
Scott Cuddy, you do realize Gratwick is a Harvard educated doctor? I doubt he’s had to worry about living paycheck to paycheck for many, many years.
When he came to my door, he was too political and his views were way out there. When Nichi came to my door, we talked a little politics, but she was more interested in how I was doing and how my family was. You’re going to have to do a better job at the mud slinging if you don’t want me to vote for a levelheaded person like Nichi.
Harvard and Yale. Double winner! He really does understand you Mr Cuddy! Oh, and how much work has his and his wife’s environmental extremism cost you?
Nichi may have sweet talked you when she visited, but look at her voting record to see where she really stands. I hope you don’t vote based on what someone says at your door. Actions speak louder than words, and words can be CHEAP.
Victor Pinard, thanks for your letter today. I needed a good laugh.
Maybe Victor has invoked Poe’s Law and he’s laughing too. I would like to think so as the alternative is too scary to contemplate–that an educated American citizen could believe such garbled misinformation.
Poor Victor Pinard. More delusional foolishness from TeaPublican idiotic land.
Ah but Earl,
The stock market is doing great, and coorporations have billions set aside in cash. So you see the people that matter are doing fine.
Earl Eberhart has fallen for the right-wing lie that socialism and any size government at all are identical. The only thing that will satisfy the far right is anarchy — which results in the unmitigated oppression of the powerless by the powerful. The libertarians want us to imitate Somalia — no laws, no government, no rules, no regulations, just chaos and oppression.
Socialism is the collective ownership of the means of production. One kind of socialism is co-ops, employee (or customer) owned businesses. A more common form is state socialism. But government and socialism are not at all the same thing.
It doesn’t make any difference what you label it, Obama is and anti-Capitalist, and that’s not the American way.
Thanks for the revelation. I’d never have known otherwise. I guess that the many Wall Street and Hollywood rich folks still backing him this time are socialists. Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations (1776) opposed the kind of monopoly capitalism that actually exists in America today and at other points in our history. He wanted genuine opportunities for capitalism to thrive, both within and between/among nations. But those who throw around “anti-capitalist” and “socialist” nonsense re Obama don’t care about subtleties.
If you’re saying that Obama is a Capitalist, then you’re suffering from voluntary blindness to the truth.
Because, of course, the first thing *any* socialist would want to do is to save banks and corporations…. ;-)
The government isn’t saving anything. Just look at the mess they made with GM. 23 billion in loans written off. The failed Chevy Volt with the Volt plant shut down for however long it takes for it to become popular enough for people to buy. GM investing money overseas instead of in America. It’s a mess.
Regardless, the government injects money into companies for the expressed purpose of having influence and rule over those that receive the money. Look at the banking industry. The government rules over them with threats and intimidation. Government regulators don’t know about the banking industry, but are expected to enforce the rules and restrictions the government imposed through Frank/Dodd and other legislation.
To make a long story short, the government is in it for control and power. Nothing more.
Which, even were it true, is *not* a definition of socialism. In fact, it comes closer to fascism. And by the way, GM and Chrysler have created 230,000 jobs — in the U.S. — since 2009. And the U.S. is down to owning only 26% of GM’s stock (originally it owned 61%), and plans to liquidate within the year. But I guess you would have preferred to see the American auto industry go down, destroying not only all of those jobs but all of the ancillary industries and the jobs providing goods and services in auto-manufacturing towns. But hey, the Republicans are all about jobs, right?! ;-)
Here’s a little tidbit from Forbes that proves that you’ll swallow the Kool-Aid without asking questions or researching anything:
“Sorry, President Clinton. There is no way you can you attribute the 236,600 job gain to the General Motors bailout. According to the carmaker’s annual report, GM North America employed 70,000 in the United States in June of 2009 (the rest were in Canada and Mexico) and 74,500 today, for a net gain of 4,500 jobs. Of the auto manufacturing job increases, GM accounts for only two percent.
“Taking this further, there are approximate statistics for the number of jobs lost in the closing of GM dealerships. Between June 2009 and the present, about 1,500 GM dealerships closed. The job loss due to those closings was around 63,000 – about the same as the number of GM manufacturing workers in the U.S.”
And as for GM stock, it’s down over a third from what it was when the bailout started. That’s not good for the stockholders.
On top of all of your other rhetoric, I didn’t want the auto industry to go belly up or be bailed out. That’s why I’ll buy Fords from here on out.
http://www.factcheck.org/2012/06/is-gm-becoming-china-motors/
Interesting article. No mention of your 230,000 job created claim. And when jobs are mentioned, “or retained” is added in to fudge the numbers.
You didn’t help your case at all.
Nevertheless, factcheck.org — a non-partisan site — says that GM is doing fine and creating jobs both in the U.S. and abroad. Do you have a problem with that?
Bunk.
Well-said. EJ never cares about the facts.
EJ, President Obama gave us just what the Republicans said they wanted. He saved capitalism and propped up big businesses during the recession, gave us a Republican-style stimulus that was mostly tax cuts, and passed the “Republican alternative” national Romneycare bill — which sends all patients, not to a government-run single-payer system, but to capitalist insurance companies. And the Republicans call of this capitalism “socialism” because a Democrat got it done before they could.
I hope your cave is comfortable. But, you really need to get out into the real world once in a while. You must really love Ed and Rachel, because the drivel you’re spreading sounds like the tripe that they spew every time they’re on the air.
If anyone thinks the 125th has cost Maine people money, they have been hood winked and bamboozeled.
30 years of deocrat majority is the only reason for our financial picture the way it is. After two years, good governance is back in style and I for one an wicked pleased.
Scott Cuddy: great letter. If Dr. Gratwick received his medical degree from Harvard, should he apologize? Sen. Farnum graduated from the US Air Force Academy. Nothing wrong with that. And her husband owns Getchell Bros., nothing wrong with that. The most basic point is her fervent opposition to voters in helping the State Senate pass the elimination of same day voter registration and election–thankfully overturned by a people’s referendum–and her equally fervent but unsuccessful attempt to impose ID regulations on potential voters. Her voting record, and her public statements, are clear. If, God forbid, the Republicans control the legislature for another term, expect renewed efforts to make it hard for likely Democratic and independent voters to exercise their basic rights. What could be more important? Dr. Gratwick gets this as well. He has my vote too.
Well said. Nichi Farnham is there to serve the corporate aristocracy.
You are right. Nichi may seem like a nice enough individual, but she is a right winger right to the hilt, voting with LeBUFFOON 92% of the time. It is not enough to be a nice person. Her votes do not fit our values. And yes, HOW DARE SHE support that rotten attempt to destroy same-day voting registration which was nothing at all but a LIE-BASED load of disgusting pig vomit designed solely to try to reduce progressive voter turnout. TeaPublicans are LIARS. Pure LIARS. Nothing more. It was a scheme hatched by ALEC and tried in several states in various forms. Thank goodness the good people of Maine CRUSHED it in the people’s veto. SHAME ON YOU NICHI FARNHAM for going along with that rotten horrid LIE and SHAME ON YOU NICHI FARNHAM for voting with Paul LeBUFFOON 92% of the time ! Please folks, tell everyone you know the truth about Nichi and deny her another term. Gratwick will be much, much better.
Thank you so much Mr. Harris. The TeaPublicans are ROTTEN TO THEIR VERY CORE. They are consumate LIARS and corporate toadies who exist for not other purpose than to LIE, rob from the poor and middle class, and give to the rich. That is it. That is all. I will soon be sending another donation to Mr. King. Let’s all unite behond Angus.
King is a draft dodger.
Is he? Did come back from Canada after Carter issued the amnesty?
Daniel Harris, Scott Cuddy: good letters
Victor, you have done a good job of regurgitating the Republican somewhat discredited attacks. Most of us know who we are voting for. I don’t think there are too many out there that will be swayed by your vitriol.
Daniel E. Harris – King, the draft dodger, is the biggest plutocrat of all.
When you say “draft dodger” I immediately thought you must have meant Bush and Cheney. Of course, you might have been talking about Mitt Romney’s non-military record — he avoided military service at the height of the Vietnam War.
I think this draft-dodger business is getting old — you hurl an insult, but don’t address the actual issue of the letter, that super-rich Republicans have been buying TV ads for Dill in an effort to split the non-right-wing-extremist vote and get Charlie Summers into the Senate with support from only a minority of the voters.
An insult?
How about it’s the truth. The spoiled coward dodged the draft and he is running for the Senate where he will vote on legislation affecting the military.
It’s not getting old. In fact, it’s just about to start up in earnest.
The most famous draft dodger was President for 8 years. He shouldn’t have been eligible to be President since he protested against America on foreign soil. But, the Dems have a different set of rules, don’t you know. At least he got impeached. And now he’s one of the left’s biggest heroes. Imagine that.
And now we have a man that has never run a business, never worked a payroll, never had any military experience, and never met a Marxist/Socialist that he didn’t like. And his number one adviser lauds Chairman Mao and loves the way China is progressing.
And the lost left wants 4 more years of this anti-American duo in charge of this country.
The alternative is so very scary for anyone but the very rich. Why do you think the handful of billionaires are pounding so much money into his campaign and misinformation advertisements. Give me four more years of the man who may never have run a business but he never ran them into the ground like his opponent did. He has worked to save business and create jobs while getting no help from the party that abandoned its duty to the American people and, as they admitted, spend their energy to make sure Obama does not get returned to the White House. They even vote down ideas they come up with so that Obama won’t look like he had any successes. By the way I actually had to watch Faux News channel the other day while in a waiting room. I can certainly see how some people become so misguided now.
Bunk. Total bunk. Romney has never run a business into the ground. It’s obvious you can’t handle success if it’s from someone on the right. I’ll bet you have problems with the Koch brothers, but have no problem with George Soros.
The misguided people are on the left. They are voluntarily blind, severely prejudice, and bigoted to the max. But, they are so entrenched in their own dogma that they don’t even realize how lost they are.
In November, many things will change. If Obama gets another 4 years, the economy will continue to slide, unemployment will go up, and our taxes will take an unbearable hike in January, thanks to Obamcare alone.
If Romney wins, the private sector will start pouring money back into the system, jobs will be created, and the country will start to recover.
Which do you want? If you vote for Obama, you’re voting against America.
Delusional.
As Samuel Johnson famously said, “Patriotism in the last refuge of a scoundrel.” Don’t you dare question the patriotism of those who, like me, will be voting for Obama simply because you hate him, hate him in part because he’s not Caucasian. What arrogance on your part to tell us who is for and “against America.”
EJ, thinks Obama is Muslim, he like a lot of Evan. Christians, are Islamphobic. He/they are as bad for this country as any terrorist.
Earl Eberhart,
It doesn’t matter who you vote for. They all make the same promise to “fix” what’s been damaged.
You may have a point. However, we already know that Obama can’t handle the job, so why give him 4 more years?
EJ, you sir are never going to heaven, even if you believe the lies you spread, they are still lies.
—–
If you think Obama’s the answer, then the question must be: Who’s the best man to take America to the bottom? He’s got us half way there already. But, if you want to live in a bankrupt, corrupt country, then vote him back in for another term.
More of your bunk.
Austerity measures do not work.
You’re right. Austerity measures don’t work. So why are you supporting Obama? He’s knee deep in austerity measures, with the exception of spending cuts, of course.