Support Haines
We support Democrat Troy Haines who is running for District 7 in the Maine House of Representatives. The state of Maine needs hard-working, young, intelligent legislators like Haines. He serves the community by running a successful butcher shop in Mapleton.
He is deeply rooted in the community and has worked long and hard with farmers and community members to make Aroostook County a better place to live and work. We hope you will join us in voting for Haines on Nov. 6.
Jim Gerritsen
Bridgewater (TDR2)
Business leaders needed
The state of Maine, as a result of a massive loss of businesses and job opportunities, is in desperate need of people in our Legislature who know how a business operates and what is needed to bring jobs to our state.
Obviously most of the past legislators have not been able to get the state’s economy back on track to create jobs and keep our young people in the state with good jobs. James Parker, R-Veazie, running for re-election in House District 30, and Republican Rod Hathaway running in Senate District 18, are two businessmen who recognize our plight and have good ideas to grow jobs and reduce or eliminate useless rules and regulations that tend to drive businesses out of our state or have businesses close their doors because they can’t afford to operate in Maine.
Do we want Maine to become a huge federal park as some legislators and others desire? I think not. We need jobs and good jobs to keep our young people in this great state. Parker and Hathaway are businessmen who will help turn Maine around and make business and industry important again. I will be voting for each of them in November.
Richard Leonard
Veazie
Remember LePage
This election consider what Gov. Paul LePage and the Republicans have done the past two years.
LePage insults and embarrasses the state when he tells the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to “kiss my butt.” He goes on to insult Internal Revenue Services employees and many Mainers by declaring the IRS the “Gestapo.” He declares, without any specific examples, that “state employees are as corrupt as can be,” while he himself hires his daughter for a position. He dismisses the hazards of the chemical bisphenol-A by saying the “worst case is some women may have little beards.” LePage causes an unnecessary controversy by removing a mural depicting historical moments of the labor movement because of an anonymous complaint.
Meanwhile, Republicans in Maineʼs Legislature push for rollbacks in environmental protection rules in LD 1. They propose severe cuts to state retirees, whose average retirement income is only $19,000 per year. Republicans slash benefits to the poor, while mismanaging the Department of Health and Human Services’ budget and misrepresenting it to the Legislature.
Republicans pass legislation that empowers insurance companies to charge older Mainers 500 percent higher premiums than younger Mainers and increase premiums 10 percent without prior approval (LD1333). Republicans made fireworks legal, causing many municipalities to struggle with the public safety and nuisance concerns of citizens. Republicans gutted the Maine Clean Election law.
Remember these “accomplishments” and vote Democratic.
Marilyn J. Eccles
Sidney
No on Romney
I wonder whether the women who are turning toward Republican Mitt Romney remember what things were like 40 years ago, which is where Romney seems to want to return us. Does any woman really want to go back there?
Whether it is control over our reproductive health or our fair treatment in the workplace, it doesn’t seem to me that Romney has the interests of women at heart. I don’t understand this growing feeling in our society that if I’m OK, I don’t have to worry about anyone else. You may never have had to consider an abortion or needed help paying for birth control, but does that keep you from having compassion for those who find themselves in these difficult situations?
Consider support for women in the workplace. Romney would not answer the question about the Lilly Ledbetter law, and I suspect that means he will not support it. Perhaps you are a woman who has never been confronted by unfair workplace practices, but aren’t you glad that the law is in place to help women who are? We all need help sometimes, and the creation of a community in which no woman loses her basic rights is the responsibility of all women and decent men. Please don’t vote for Romney. We don’t even know where he stands on so many important issues.
Carolyn Bower
Surry
Middle class vote
The huge amount of money pouring into this election is a good indication of just how much money the 1 percent actually have. Our once-great country has reached a new low when millions and millions of dollars are spent to elect candidates who will protect the gigantic wealth of a few. Meanwhile, the middle class continues to lose ground as we listen to the “bought” candidates try to convince us that we will be much better off without Social Security, Medicare, affordable health care and affordable education.
It is not unreasonable for the middle class to insist that those who have so much contribute to the health and welfare of the citizens of a country from which their wealth came.
The money spent on the campaigns would be better spent on programs that will improve the standard of living for the majority. The top has enough. It’s time they learned to share. Vote for those candidates who can’t be bought and who really will represent the middle class.
Cindy Todd
Etna
Vote for Will Rogers
I am asking the citizens of Brewer to cast their votes for Republican Will Rogers of Brewer to represent District 21 in the House of Representatives.
Having served in this position the past four years, I discovered the learning curve during a freshman’s first term is extremely steep. You must learn the structural process of legislation, the day-to-day procedures for both House and committee sessions. Freshman must also learn to wade through the immense amount of information they receive on pending legislation.
All of this made the first term extremely demanding both mentally and physically. Rogers will not have to learn the above because he has already served as your District 21 representative. He has been there and done that. Rogers’ experience will enable him, on day one, to start making things happen without struggling with the normal freshman roadblocks. I cannot stress what a tremendous advantage this will be for Brewer.
Rogers also has strength of conscience and conviction. He does his homework and makes his decision on what is best for the citizens of Brewer and Maine.
I know what a great job Rogers has done and will do as our representative. There is no replacing the real thing, and Rogers is the real thing.
Vote for Rogers as your representative from District 21.
Michael Celli
Brewer
Time to represent voters
When James Gillway, R-Searsport, first ran for state representative, a Searsport Republican commented that they could not vote for Gillway since, as Boy Scout leader and town manager, it was impossible to take on yet another job and be effective.
I heard some constituents tried to express their views to Gillway and never received any reply. This makes me think that indeed he is too busy to handle all his responsibilities and still be a viable representative. It is a reaction to his ability to communicate with his constituents, even if he disagrees with their views.
I realize Democrat Meredith Ares is an unknown at this time, but she has gone door to door speaking with those whom she might represent, hearing their views and telling them hers. I think this honorable and forthright. Ares, a retired businesswoman, has the time to represent voters as her only responsibility outside of her family.
It just seems common sense to vote for someone who has the time to listen to what those who have elected them think and to either support their views or explain to them why someone would vote differently. Our senators do this. One must ask: Is Gillway overextended?
I have no answers to the questions I have posed, but I think it is time for open communication and active representation in Augusta.
David Berg
Searsport
Supporting Mike Michaud
I’m a Marine, a veteran, and I support Rep. Mike Michaud, D-2nd District.
I often hear folks talking about Maine’s 155,000 veterans. It’s a large number, but I don’t think it really carries that much impact with the facts and figures flying around Washington these days.
Trillion this and half a billion that. Those numbers don’t exist in my day-to-day life. Approximately
155,000 people’s lives have been changed for the better because of Michaud’s hard work.
There are two things Michaud has accomplished that have affected me greatly. He helped pass the Wounded Warriors Act, which improved outpatient care at military health care facilities. Michaud also fought for funding to build a new and larger community-based outpatient clinic for veterans in Bangor.
There are many other projects that Michaud has worked on that have greatly impacted my life. I will not provide you a laundry list, but I urge you to educate yourself on Michaud’s accomplishments during his five terms.
I do not favor replacing someone with the amount of seniority Michaud has on the veterans committee. The great work that Michaud does not only helps me and my fellow veterans here in Maine, but it sets a standard for other states. Michaud believes in a higher quality of caring and has a unique interest in the lives of men and women who fight for our country.
Michaud has my vote this November. Educate yourself; learn why he deserves your vote.
Semper-Fi.
Mitchel Caluri
Stetson
Independent thinking
I was stunned by the lack of action in Congress that allowed the Farm Bill to expire. The bill is tied to nearly all of Maine’s agriculture and dairy industries and will only hurt Maine dairy farmers already struggling with high grain and fuel costs and plunging milk prices.
What’s more, apple orchards have experienced major crop loss; potato farmers need more irrigation; a new pest is threatening our blueberry industry; and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly food stamps) is in danger of cuts. I’ve seen first hand that the Farm Bill addresses environmental concerns, while improving efficiency.
My Republican colleagues and I helped fund the Maine Dairy Stabilization Program. We developed new policies based on information, as opposed to partisan politics, after listening to the experiences of farmers and forestry professionals.
Maine needs such vision and independent thinking in Washington, which is why I endorse independent former Gov. Angus King.
King’s newly released six-point plan presents a policy that will strengthen Maine’s rural economies. King understands the importance of Maine agriculture and shares the vision of growing local food access and promoting our rural economy.
King saw firsthand the passion of local farmer Sarah Smith of Grassland Farm and the drive of community organizer Amber Lambke. He has visited Skowhegan several times recently and seen the gristmill project and Pick Up CSA. King appreciates the potential of Maine’s heritage industries. As governor, he invested in these economies and will strive to protect them if elected to the U.S. Senate.
Jeff McCabe
Democratic candidate
Skowhegan
Marilyn J. Eccles
“Remember these “accomplishments” and vote Democratic.”
Voting democrat for so many years is the reason that Mainers put Republicans in charge.
Their work is not finished, nor will it be for a very long time after the mess the dems have made of our fair state.
Vote Republican to continue the Maine recovery.
What recovery? When the RINOs regain control of their party I will once again believe we can have an America that meets in the middle. I do not want an extremist, fundamentalist Maine or America, thank you very much.
For years the extreme left ran the State of Maine into the financial black hole that it is in. The mess will not be fixed for many years, so if you wish to return to the prior way business was done, simply vote the democrats back in and go deeper in debt.
Oh, let’s see…. the unfunded liability on the retirement system….. McKerran I believe. Isn’t that part of the problem? Maine’s constitution has a requirement that the budget be balanced. Has to happen. Oh, maybe all those bonds we citizens approve? Maybe that has added to the problem? There are no simple cause-effect relationships in complex systems. You cannot point fingers in one direction. They actually point in multiple directions at once.
I don’t think it was the extreme left. But I do believe that dems had a vested interest in keeping their constituency fat and happy, just like the repubs do theirs. And I absolutely believe that handing easy money–especially if you aren’t working to pay for it–is over the long term extremely detrimental to society as a whole. Those of us who work tend to regard everybody using the social safety net with a jaundiced eye, and those who really need it are marginalized.
I’m really sorry you folks can’t find anything good about the state. Maybe moving would be an option for you.
i am a native and am saddened by the path this state has taken over the last 40 years. I am sick of paying for the welfare state and it’s generational welfare system. This is great place to live but the failed policies of the past are the problems of the present thanks to forty years of democrats in power.
and I do not want extremists on either side. One reason I was iniitally excited about President Obama four years ago is for he spoke like a centrist. I do not however beleive he has governed like one.
Exactly. Obama is so far center that many of us have been dismayed by his concessions. Those of us who want single payer health care as an option were ‘extremely’ disappointed. So we ‘extremists’ did not get what we wanted. The middle won. So, from my view of things he has governed exactly like a centrist.
Marilyn J. Eccles~ Absolutely. We must remember that the GOP and LePage want to take us backward in time.
A forward thinking society does not take steps backward it takes steps forward to ensure a better quality of life for all, not just for some.
LePage wishes to sail the ship of state backwards through the winds of time. As he may be a flat earther at heart, he believes we should commend him for his fearlessness about not falling off the edge of the earth!
Is this all about killing babies? Do you really agree with late term abortion? Is this the one deciding factor – baby killing? Have you ever witnessed childbirth? Never mind the economy has been in the tank and millions of Americans are unemployed, you want to kill babies.
OK, not4us–tell us when late term abortions are EVER performed? You know this is never performed simply at the request of the mother.
BDN
Obama runs on a platform of unity, brings many Republicans into his cabinet, endorses many Republican ideas in the name of progress and what did he get for it? Pure obstruction from Republicans, calling him names and treating him as though he has been one of history’s cruelest dictators. Meanwhile, we’re enduring a fiscal disaster NOT caused by Obama, yet Obama is blamed and the country rewards Republicans with significant midterm wins. Then so called “liberal media” gives radical bigots and their Republican allies in Congress legitimacy and thinks it’s fair to be asking a sitting President for his birth certificate. Then America’s 100 year history of sterling credit being lowered in the name of politics? Because some radicals think it’s a good idea to threaten not to pay our bills? At least it makes for good tv!
This is bad enough on its own, but when it comes for Republicans to walk the talk and nominate someone who should easily be better than Obama, as Obama is a socialist dictator similar to Stalin/Mao/etc, who do they push forward? People like Bachmann, Cain, Santorum, and Romney. They end up with a guy who has ABSOLUTELY NO principles and will say anything to get elected. They nominated a man with no convictions, a man who made his money liquidating American jobs and did everything in his power to avoid paying taxes on that ill gotten wealth. A man who had more ability to show clear disdain for half the country than to clearly articulate his own platform.
I’m voting for Obama. It’s an easy choice.
Good luck. Hope you aren’t relying on either for changes in your life.
Obama rescues J. Carter from being the worst president in history. Due directly to the food stamp president the country is divided along political, racial, religious, and gender lines more than at any time in history. The non-leader Obama has never made a budget and will turn us into a third world country if kept in office.
Can you come up with a real response that is based in reality and not in the talking points du jour? Your ridiculous comment is exactly what I’ve spoken about. Just disgusting and hateful partisanship with no basis in reality at all. If you have a solution, push it, but what’s being pushed now is just a flimsy hallow shell of a man who is running for office and has been for nearly a decade because of his own ego.
If this country survived 8 years of GWB believe me it can handle one of the best presidents this country has known. You have no idea what a mess the country was left in by Republicans and now they are saying let us back into office and we will do the same thing and this time it will work. Gov. Romney has no idea what to do or he would be telling us. The guy won’t even answer questions from the press for the last two or three weeks. He puts up an ad that lies about Gen. Motors and Chrysler, both companies respond that the ad is not true, yet he keeps running it.
This is who you want for your president, you like lier’s? This is the poorest excuse for a man say nothing about a person running for president.
As Dick Nixon should have said (paraphrasing Descartes): “I lie, therefore I am a Republican.”
I believe the racial divide you are observing is more a reflection of how many Americans really have to struggle with the idea of a black president. The fact that so many people screamed that Obama wasn’t black because he had a white mother, when less that a generation ago it is UNDENIABLE that he wouldn’t have received service at a Woolworth’s counter in parts of our great nation, speaks to the truth of this.
You write very well for three year old. You obviously could not have been alive for the disaster that was the eight years of Bush. Thank God Obama came along and is cleaning up the mess he left behind. I choose to avoid going back to those failed policies and although the battle is ongoing alittle help from the obstructionist would help.
It’s thinkers like you that will turn us into a third world country.
Bonny_in_MS is not what anyone would call a “thinker.” Reactor seems to be the more appropriate noun.
Too bad that Congress has beat President Obama in the worst catagory. I believe Congress has a 11% approval rating. Thanks in large part to the extreme right wing who are only interested in their ideas. Too bad that their ideas are locked in ideology.
It’s a bigger shame that Congress couldn’t care less that their approval level is that low.
How dare you tarnish the reputation of George W. Bush as the worst president in history! His “accomplishments” are legion: worst failure to respond to a potential terrorist attack; worst response to a natural disaster; second most foolish foreign war after Viet Nam; and the second worst financial crisis after the Great Depression. Buchanan, Coolidge, Harding, and Pierce are all high on that list as well. Learn your history.
My vote for worst president: James Buchanan, who did nothing while the Civil War began.
I can’t argue with that choice. Andrew Johnson should have been included in my brief list of the worst half-dozen. At the end of Bush’s first term, Iraq and his failure to heed warnings of a potential but unspecified terrorist attack in the PDB of August 2001 surely put W in the worst half dozen. By his second term, his response to Katrina and failure to see the market crash coming in part from his lowering of capital gains rates moved him to worst ever. In order, I would say Bush, Buchanan, Johnson, Harding, Pierce, and Coolidge. Three of these six worst preceded or followed our greatest president, Lincoln. Two left Lincoln a terrible mess and the third failed to understand the need for a true emancipation.
Exactly what has Obama done to fix the economy? He has been in office for 4 years, he owns the problems now, no more blaming Bush. Obama had a Democrat House and Senate for 2 years, yet he did nothing to fix the economy. He was more concrerned about having his name on a failed healthcare plan. He has increased spending, increased unemployment and increased food stamp recipients. What about Libya? He has had an opportunity and he has failed.
Why don’t you try actually responding to what I wrote instead of just spewing generic talking points?
All they can do is deflect.
So, you’re saying that you can’t answer the questions, or you won’t?
I’m saying if you’re not going to respect me enough and take the time to respond to my comment beyond just stringing together irrelevant talking points, then I’m not going to waste my time either.
I will answer the questions posed by not4us: Obama, with the stimulus, helped avoid a depression and, according the non-partisan CBO, helped create 3.3 million new jobs as of last fall. Private sector employment will, with tomorrow’s jobs report, have now grown for 32 consecutive months for a total of well over five million new jobs. Had Congress passed the American Jobs Act last fall or the Veterans’ Job Corps Act this year, job growth would have been even more robust.
Sadly, the Republicans have had but one goal, to make Obama a one term president, in the words of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. After they fail in that goal next week, Congressional Republicans may finally put the interests of country before the interests of party. However, I am not hopeful, as the Republican Party of today is not my father’s Republican Party, but rather a ghoulish monster that owes its success to gerrymandered Congressional districts and little else.
You’re avoiding the subject.
As someone with deep memories of families in crushing poverty after the Great Depression of 1930 and into the 40’s, I warn you that this “great recession” was nothing compared to that event, but had all the elements necessary to have spun this country into a depression. Much of what Obama did during his first term absolutely prevented a graveyard spiral into a great depression. On the other hand, if Romney had been at the helm, he would have let GM fail (absolute truth, here’s the essay he wrote for the NY Times) and any economist with any sense would tell you that if GM failed, all the associated automotive support industries (like those in Ohio) would have quickly followed suit. Without GM to sell parts to, what do you THINK would have happened?
Considering all that was failing at the time–the banking industry, foreign economies abroad, the domestic housing market–the fact that Obama has managed to bring the unemployment level down to where it currently is–WITH NO SUPPORT at all from Republican politicians who stated openly their first matter of priority was NOT the American public but rather limiting Obama to one term, is nothing short of miraculous.
Sadly, if Obama loses, you will see the truth in this statement.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/opinion/19romney.html
Read ANIMAL FARM and find out where “share the wealth” will get you in the middle class.
Actually, one can understand the effects already by just reading various components of ObamaNONcare.
Another four years of Obama will not be good for anyone–and the first to complain will be those 80 million who have received “free” phones that are paid for by the taxpayers, because the handouts will not be there from the so-called one percenters who have run out of money to support them.
Four legs good, two legs bad.
M. Eccles, C. Bower, C. Todd, M. Caluri, J. McCabe: good letters.
President Obama has failed in taking down the barriers between political parties and has divided further the political agendas that continue to cripple the economy…..his agenda the first time around promised more jobs, greater business, better education, improved infrastructure, improved foreign relations etc. and he was going to unite the American people and improve the racial walls between peoples…..his current agenda is the same as 4 years ago because of the failures in providing anything his campaign was based on when Candidate Obama…..this President has lead from behind, and the effort and appearance today in response to Sandy is literally the first time in 4 four years he has acted even remotely Presidential….his continued blaming of our countr’y problems today on previous administrations is truly pathetic and not working anymore…..unemployment continues to rise, people aren’t even looking for jobs anymore, more people on food stamps, business not spending, business not hiring, the list goes on & on….the level of national debt and the debacle surrounding the failures in responding to attacks and lying about Libya are the nails in the coffin that should spell the end of this Presidency….
He was saddled not only with one of the worst messes when he took office, but also with dealing with a Republican party that has been taken over by the parasite Tea Party. Whose main agenda seems to be raming their ideology down everyones throats. There way or the highway.
I have plenty of issues with our current President, but he certainly tried to reach across the aisle way more than our side’s mouthpieces have spouted. Mitch McConnell, et al, were the worst, but not much more than Pelosi and the leaders in his own party. Instead of trying to meet in the middle like the head of their Party wanted, they basically told him, “You don’t know how it is over here on the Hill…we’ll fight the way we want.”
The republican party stated before Obama took office that their one goal would be to make him a one term President. They have filibustered and voted against every single jobs program, including those for veterans. They have blocked virtually every appointment. Even members from Reagan’s administration have said it was Bush’s policies which got us into this situation.
The stock market is much higher than when he took office, unemployment is falling, the housing market is improving, the deficit has been reduced since 2009, hiring has been positive for 30+ months straight.
Considering that the recession was far deeper than originally thought in 2009, progress has been steady.
To paraphrase President Clinton (again); The republicans got us in this mess. Obama’s policies are too slow. Now the republicans want to be put back in control to screw us again with the same failed trickle down policies and spend, spend, spend.
Cindy Todd- The top has enough? When you are in love with money, it is never enough. The Walton heirs are now sitting on $93 billion, or 93,000 million, and they still can’t afford to give their employees a raise. “There are only two things in life that one can truly depend on, gravity and greed”. Jack Palance, actor.
Richard Leonard, will the Republicans in the state legsilature, if elected, create jobs this time or will they continue to be side tracked re-writing election laws, puging people from Mainecare, etc. They promised to be job creators in the last election. When are they going to start?
I do beleive there is a grain of truth in what Govenor Romney states about GM and Chrysler, much like I beleive that the President beleives that he did not lie to the American public regarding the attacks on Benghazi.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-21/fiat-says-china-may-build-all-jeep-models-as-suv-demand-climbs.html
Your reference is out of date and incorrect. Today Chrysler executive Ralph Gilles stated that Donald Trump is full of sh..after he made a similar statement. On Tuesday Chrysler Group LLC Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne flatly denied Rmoney’s claims that Jeep production would be moved to China. Of course that won’t stop the republican lie machine, but there is still hope that people will wake up to the fact that the republicans lie, all the time, about everything.
Mr. Romney never stated that Jeep production would be moved…..he stated that GM was going to outsource jobs to China where production of Jeep would happen there instead of producing the Jeep in America for foreign markets…..the outsourcing of jobs is what the topic is and GM appears to be headed in this direction…..the Dems have been criticizing Gov. Romney for supposed support for business that has outsourced jobs overseas and now Obama’s GM, after being bailed out by the US taxpayer, is planning on doing the same…..everyone seems to have facts & lies…..http://nlpc.org/stories/2012/11/01/fact-checking-romney-and-gm-job-creation-claims…..more outsourcing by GM interests……http://www.freep.com/article/20121031/BUSINESS01/310310016/Ambitious-plan-to-strengthen-Fiat-Export-premium-models-from-Italy-to-U-S-
In a speech in Ohio last week Rmoney stated Chrysler would be moving all production of Jeeps to China. Furthermore, his ads have implied the same, which is why Chrysler executives have felt it necessary to refute those claims.
Last week?? Your reference would be “out of date” and then in your words “incorrect” right??….I heard what was stated and have seen the the ad and in context Gov. Romney was speaking to the outsourcing of jobs and work by GM which again, the Dems have crucified him for supposed connections to in past business relationships that have done the same….apparently the links provided don’t shed a different side to the facts & lies issue…..context means a great deal when looking at a topic and comments….
My post would only be out of date if “etch-a-sketch” Rmoney had flip flopped again in his usual manner. His statement and ads imply that American jobs would be lost because Chrysler will be moving Jeep production to China.
BTW, I will ignore Donald Trump’s comments on the subject as he is nothing more than a publicity hound.
The fact is that Jeep production in this country cannot meet the current demand. Chrysler may reopen the Jeep plant in China to meet demand there. Exporting Jeeps to China is not practical since they cannot meet demand here and because of the roadblocks which China puts in front of anyone wishing to send finished products there (tarriffs, etc.).
Incidentally, Jeep was introduced into China manufacturing in 1984 by American Motors Company before it was bought by Chrysler. American Motors Company was run by…George Rmoney. Surprise, surprise!!
I think that anytime we have candidates that feel being pregnant from rape or incest is God’s will and you should be forced to have the baby but to get pregnant by IVF should be illegal, there needs to be a reality check. This coming from someone who campaigns on less government intrusion in our lives. I guess he only means mens lives and not womens.
Cindy Todd- If they are a Democrat or a Republican, they are bought and paid for. You can “waste” your vote on a third party like I intend to, but it is a waste of gas. The big money and the top 1%, which are one in the same, want you to be a good sheep and get in pen D or pen R. That is why you do not hear ANYTHING from the other parties and there were only two candidates invited to the presidential debates. BAAAAH! I’m voting for Obama. BAAAAH! I’m voting for Romney. BAAAAH! My vote matters. BAAAAH! I’m letting the electoral college decide for me. BAAAAH! Somebody fleece me.