Collins above partisanship
As a leader of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, U.S. Sen. Susan Collins is conducting a bipartisan investigation into the Sept. 11 attacks in Benghazi that killed four Americans, including our ambassador.
The goal of this investigation is not to cast blame on Susan Rice but rather to determine what steps might be taken to better protect Americans and officials abroad. Over the course of this investigation, Collins has become the target of numerous personal attacks that claim partisanship or politics as her motivation for conducting this pursuit of the truth. While these attacks against Collins may be an effective political tool, they cannot substitute for answers to the important questions raised over the course of her investigation.
Given the current environment in Washington, where truth and politics seldom mix, I commend Collins for having the courage to do what she has always done, which is to place the pursuit of the truth and interests of America and her Maine constituents above the partisan political process.
Mark Andre
Oakland
GOP must understand
In his column ” Future of the Republican Party: Identity crisis,” in the BDN on Nov. 30, Matthew Gagnon proves that he, too, still doesn’t get it. He bemoans his party’s lack of understanding of the electorate, but his own diction shows the same utter misperception of the purpose of elected officials when he writes that, “Republicans do not need to become Democrats to survive. They simply need to understand what faces the people they mean to rule.”
Republicans need to learn that elected officials in a republic do not rule but rather govern with the consent of the people. Dictators rule. You know, those guys who censor art and thumb their noses at the wishes of the masses.
Bruce Pratt
Eddington
Column brings understanding
Regarding Matthew Gagnon’s column, ” Future of the Republican Party: Identity crisis,” I agree with most of what he said about the Republican Party being out of touch. I am an independent voter and was very disappointed with the candidates offered by both parties during the last election and politicians in general. When I read the last sentence, where he states that Republicans need to understand what faces the people they rule, I understood why the Republicans fared so poorly in the last election.
It is my belief that politicians serve their constituents. Both parties seem to forget this fact.
Sam Ogilvie
Carmel
Kudos to Scouts
Thanksgiving boxes were a bit heavier for clients of the Clifton Community Food Bank thanks to the efforts of the local Boy and Girl Scouts. We appreciate the young people who collected food during a Fill the Bus event in Eddington recently. Every box packed included a bit of their effort, enthusiasm and generosity.
Debra Z. Walsh
Director
Clifton Community Food Bank
Planning board responsibility
Several years ago, Freedom faced a “disamenity” intrusion, not unlike Searsport does today. We were asked to permit installation of three industrial wind turbines atop Beaver Hill. We learned:
The applicant can and will sell the facility, so assurances based on word or record are built on sand.
The applicant’s promises are only as good as ordinance enforcement. Performance standards must be monitored constantly but not by the applicant. Freedom avoided this expense by repealing the commercial site review ordinance and its proffered protections.
Computer models are incapable of representing actual circumstances.
Freedom residents experience noise levels and incidence of flicker beyond all computer study projections.
The tax-revenue boost lasts only until county and school commitments catch up.
Beaver Ridge Wind divided Freedom and generated one permanent part-time job. The applicant and subsequent owners have had to purchase properties close to the site. Our neighbors have moved. Our home lost value, and, like our neighbors, we probably have only one possible buyer, the turbine company, so we will remain too close for comfort.
State officials, representatives of the wind industry and townspeople say that Beaver Ridge Wind is a mistake, should never have gone forward and that too many homes are too close to the turbines. This hindsight is useless to me and my neighbors. I hope it informs the Searsport Planning Board. I urge the planning board to err on the side of its responsibility to guard the health, safety and welfare of the people of Searsport and the surrounding region.
Heidi Brugger
Freedom
They are investigating only what happened afterwards, not anything that could actually help. Only Talking points of the admin, AFTER the attack.
Republicans are focusing too much of their time on politics and almost none of it on policy. They have little to offer the state and the country. For example, the budget deal isn’t about who should pay more taxes. It’s about the Republican claim that capitalism is frail and the slightest imposition on it will have catastrophic consequences. Did you know that if a business has $250,000.00 of profit and the next dollar is taxed one nickel more, that the business will go into hibernation and then not hire anyone ever again? And the businessman will be so unmotivated that he will cease to go to work? It’s all true say the Republicans!
They need to stop thinking the public is stupid. We’re not going to be hoodwinked by these phony memes anymore.
The Republicans seem to think their problem is simply the delivery of the message not the message itself.
When men in your party redefine rape, saying its God’s way of starting a new life and you support these men you have a message problem not a message delivery problem.
When your candidate says that 47% of Americans are unworthy of your consideration because they are irresponsible: you have a message problem not a message delivery problem.
Message to Republicans: you have a message problem.
So if these ruthless reactionaries call themselves compassionate conservatives it still won’t sell? I am glad to hear that the compassionate conservative dog won’t hunt any more.
They have a reality problem and a worldview problem. They are hate-the-middle-class corporate toadies and angry OLD and SCARED white men, mostly, who are lost in time and space because all they do is trap themselves in a bubble of NONSENSE as they listen to Pills Limbaugh and FAKE NOISE NETWORK all day long. When two thirds of the GOP thinks our president was not born in the U.S., they have a THINKING problem and a REALITY problem and a WORLDVIEW problem, and THOSE are what form their message and policy problem.
They don’t pay attention to what’s actually happening in the real world around them, either. 49% of voting Republicans believe that Acorn “stole” this election for President Obama. Acorn was disbanded early in 2010
@Mark Andre
Anyone who has heard Collins speak can see that what you say is a crock.
Collins certainly did trash Ambassador Rice for no other reason than a political one.
Ambassador Rice was doing her job. She delivered the talking points that she was given. If she had done other than that, then that would be a reason to criticize
her.
Collins was spouting the same talking points as Graham, Ayott and McCain. One could close one’s eyes and substitute anyone for the other. This is about getting Scott Brown back in the senate and taking on a close advisor to the President.
There is much to investigate here and Collins should do that, but she should do it in a honorable way, not as she has done here. If Collins were for real, she would be speaking to all the continued cuts to State and identifying our ‘leaders’ who voted for them.
Perhaps you should listen to her trashing of Ambassador Rice before you present your apologia.
You and Emperor Collins have no clothes.
Mr. Andre, were Senator Collins genuinely interested in this matter she would be focusing on what failures in consulate security (including Congress’ failure to properly fund embassy security requests from the Department of State) led to these deaths.
Instead, she is focusing on what Ambassador Rice said in the aftermath of the attacks, which statements followed the CIA’s talking points and mirrored what Senator McCain said at about the same time. Attacking speech for being inaccurate is not productive.
Were I to begin investigating Senator Collins for all of her inaccuracies, the investigation would be unending!
We waste so much time playing the blame game, not just in this instance but endlessly, when we should be fiding out what’s wrong and fixing it.
Agreed. What could we have done to have avoided these four deaths? Nothing else matters.
Mark: Collins, McCain, and Airbag Graham have condemned Rice and fore gone any investigation on the actual event. It IS 100% partisan and it is a shameless disgusting witch hunt.
Bruce Pratt & Sam Ogilvie: Like you, I was taken aback at Mr Gagnon’s column , in particular the “rule” statement and mentioned it on his blog. I can see I wasn’t the only one that saw how that contradicted some of his other points. It showed no understanding at all of what has gone wrong in his party.
Mark Andre: your letter is a joke. When the Republicans last controlled the Senate, Sen. Collins steadfastly refused to hold hearings to look into an issue far more important than Susan Rice’s alleged “crimes”: the inadequacies of so many Humvees in Iraq, with so many unnecessary injuries and deaths to our troops. Of course she’d do nothing to embarrass her beloved Pres. George W. Bush. Maybe these unnecessary tragedies don’t count in your partisan eyes, but those who know what Sen. Collins really stands for aren’t impressed by your silly rationales.
Sam, if you are not happy with your electoral choices, then run for office YOURSELF and prove you can do better. Otherwise, enough of the armchair quarterbacking and endless whining from people who won’t, THEMSELVES, step up and do the hard work of governing.
Bruce, tell Gagnon that the GOP needs to enter reality. As long as their CHOSEN LEADERS AND SPOKEPEOPLE are delusional FOOLS like Pills Limbaugh, BatRadical Beck, BugEyed Bachman, Failin’ Palin, Bill O’LIElly, and ALL the ILK at FAKE NOISE NON-NEWS NETWORK, the TeaPublicans are going to continue to dissolve into an out-of-tune, out-of-touch, ultra-radical, corporate toadie band of angry old pot-bellied white men hopelessly lost in a permanent and ever-shrinking minority. People are sick of their RADICAL DELUSIONAL NONSENSE. So get back into reality, moderate, and the GOP again has the chance to be a viable party in the long term. But they won’t. In fact, they are already doubling down in TeaRadical land. And the rest of us, the GROWING MAJORITY, are going to cruise on by to the future while the dusty GOP dinosaurs become ancient irrelevant relics lost in time and lost in space.
I like the way you do not mince words!!
Also, you are right about the doubling down.It seems John Boehner has his hands full these days. He is trying to get some of those tea party Republicans to try and work with him and the President on the “fiscal cliff.” ,…to try and find some areas of agreement that they can work with. Some of them (tea party ones) said, “no way” and now it seems about four of them have lost their positions on the Finance Committee,etc.
Bruce Pratt I think you must understand that we are a Democratic Republic. Do you remember the guy who thumbed his nose at the masses? You know the guy who purchased a piece of art with businesses unemployment funds? The guy who purchased a piece of art for $60,000 which supposedly displays the labor history, however the secretary of Labor under Baldacci is painted into the mural as the savior of these mistreated workers. If it is about history, then why is someone from teh 21st century painted into it. This former Gov., who by the way was a DEMOCRAT, also took money from the teachers retirement to fund things other which he thought were more important. This same DEMOCRAT governor did not pay our hospitals the debt owed to them. Baldacci also went down to CUBA to hang out with that dictator, you know the guy named Castro. Also Mr. Pratt are you aware of a man by the name of Donald Sussman. YOu know the RICH DEMOCRAT who owns most of the papers in this state now. SURELY, you know him. He is married to Chellie Pingree the Representative for the 1st District. The guy who got $200 mill from the stimulus fund which Chellie voted on. He is the billionaire hedge fund manager from NY who registered his multi million dollar yacht in the Virgin Island so that he would not have to pay his taxes on it here in Maine. They are a real Stellar bunch those Democrats. They have the money and they want to take over this state. It is too bad people like you are victims of the low information media propaganda. Ruling with consent of the people would also mean staying out of healthcare. 52% of the people do not want Obamacare. I guess your definition of a dictator is not based on historical fact. Who tried to own the media in Germany?
Mark Andre – you should write for The Onion.
Collins is as partisan as the day is long.
Yessah
free dumb rings….???..sound modeling maps are wrong…property values are at the mercy of the developer……the developer is in control. Saddleback Ridge Wind in Carthage is drilling core samples.,working on sub stations and utility lines…all while the project is at the Supreme Court level, under appeal. Who cares?
thank you, Heidi, for stepping forward.
In Mr Ogilvie’s letter, he quoted a columnist as saying: “…Republicans need to understand what faces the people they rule,…”
That’s the point. Democrats lead. Republican’s rule.
Heidi Brugger, thank you for a great letter. Freedom isn’t the only Maine town whose residents have been victimized by wind developers, but hopefully it will be one of the last. Town selectmen and planning board members, as well as the Maine DEP, need to put the health, welfare and safety of Maine residents first and foremost.