GASBAG LEPAGE BACK IN HIS STATE HOUSE OFFICE

I think it was the late, great Phyllis Diller who once said that to get remarried to the same person (a la Liz and Dick) was like having a hemorrhoid reattached. Well to paraphrase Phyllis, the hemorrhoid that is Paul Lepage has decided to reattach himself and  return to his office in the State House despite his recent vow that he would vacate it. I bet he has "piles" of paperwork to tend to. The latest Lepage embarrassment has again brought him some national attention. I hope people don't think he represents most of the residents of the State of Maine.

In other news, the state Supreme Judicial Court has upheld a decision to require anti-gay marriage groups to release names of donors for the 2009 "people's veto" campaign. Somehow these organization thought they could skirt the law and save their donors from the embarrassment of supporting discrimination. I imagine top donors are some of the usual suspects and wont be a surprise. Thank God that the fight for Marriage Equality is over and won!
-Louwis

CONTINUED STRUGGLE FOR EXPANDED HEALTHCARE IN MAINE

As was expected, the legislature was unable to override Gov.Paul Lepage's veto of the law that would expand Medicaid in Maine. Thank you Republicans, your war on lower income people rages on. Another version of the expansion was put forth with some concessions to placate Republicans. Also today the Lepage administration received news from the Feds that they will not credit Maine for the health care expansion that it undertook in the past. In question were the funds that Maine provided to expand coverage to non-disabled parents meeting the income requirement. Incidentally, these folk were going to lose coverage in January anyway so Lepage wanted credit for benefits that were to be eliminated. What a dunce. Lepage needs to agree to this expansion and stop being a bully. Hopefully the new version of expansion,.unfettered to hospital expansion, will garner Lepage's support. If he vetoes expansion again, he will have no reason except his callous contempt for Maine's lower income people. Again, shame on you Lepage!! And shame on my Representative, Mike Nadeau, for taking his side.
-Louwis

MOVIN' ON OUT-GOV LEPAGE LEAVING STATE HOUSE

Poor Gov. Lepage, he can't seem to help himself, he seems to do dumb thing after dumb thing. Now, as many of you know, because he cannot put a TV in the hall at the State House, he says he is packing up and leaving his office there. If by any chance you missed this story, here it is. Don't tease us Governor, move on out!

I don't know where in the State House his office is, I guess there is a difference of opinion on whether its a waiting room or a hall. I do know, as many of us who have lived in apartment buildings with halls do, that we have insane fire regulations preventing stuff from being left in hallways. My last apartment building had a very wide hall, and we could not even put a pair of muddy shoes out there by our door. A bike was out of the question.

But I imagine the real complaint from Democrats is the political nature of the video Lepage wanted to show, chastising the Democrats for not passing his hospital bill and his budget. Of course they did pass the hospital repayment, but that's another story.

So the man who " doesn't play politics." was going to put a politically motivated display outside his office in a building controlled by the Democrats. Stupid, he should know better. I really don't see the Democrats as responsible for this political impasse. Lepage started his ignorant gaffes prior to his "election," continued them during his first two years, and his party was trounced in last year's election. Was this not a hint that maybe he should soften his line? I guess not. Oh well, a year and a half or so until we can permanently move him out.
-Louwis

Boy Scouts Accepting Gay Members-HOORAY!

I'm glad to see that the Boy Scouts of America has reversed its policy on accepting gay members. I'm not sure its a big deal most of the time. How may scouts, many of whom are pretty young, are coming out of the closet at that time? Years from now no one will even doubt that this was the correct move.

I was a Boy Scout for a about a year when I was a kid. It wasn't my thing. I'm not all about the semi-militaristic posturing and macho bravado shit. Maybe a gay touch will do them good. I am gay but, although I was aware at the time, it was not at the forefront of my mind. My friends were joining so of course I had to also. So my parents shelled out the money for the uniform and off I went. I immediately hated it and wanted to quit but my parents said I needed to give it a year since I had caused them some expense.

In Fort Kent, Maine, where I grew up, there is a Block House in town. For those not in the know, this was a military installation built to defend the US in a dispute with the British over the border. The conflict never broke out, but it is kept as a historic monument. Anyway, this is where the boy scouts used to meet to do their stuff. I can remember practicing to march for the Memorial Day Parade. The only thing memorable about the parade was that I stepped in horse shit left by a steed up ahead with very loose bowels. Yuck. I also remember getting hemorrhoids because the assholes made us sit for hours on a log for hours at one of the meetings. I did go to summer camp but cried until I got to go home for a few days. Maybe if they had tried to comfort what was really just a scared kid, instead of acting all Johny Wayne, I would have gotten over it and been fine. They also had this exercise where we went out on the lake in canoes and they turned them over on purpose so we could learn what to do. Only I forgot to take off my glasses and lost them in the water. Actually I may have thrown them overboard deliberately so I could get out of the capsizing exercise. I was deathly afraid of water at that each. At any rate, being in a blur all the time thereafter didn't help my homesickness.

We also went to Loring Air Force Base for a day, swam in the indoor pool and got to see them put missiles on a plane parked in the hanger in ten minutes or something. Maybe they figured it would inspire us to want to join up later and serve our country. Thankfully many brave men and women do serve in the armed forces, but it wasn't to be for me. Besides I'm gay and they only just lifted that ban. I wonder how many scouts actually do go on and join the military.

So I guess you can surmise that I was not a big fan of my scouting experience. I am sure many young men benefit a lot from it, but it wasn't for pudgy little gay nerd me. But I AM glad they are letting in the gay boys. Not leaders yet however, you can join as a kid if you're gay, but  you can't lead when your an adult. I am sure that will change in time. Cheerio Y'all
-Louwis

THEY'RE PERSECUTING ME!

Apparently the Attorney Generals office is persecuting poor Mike Nadeau. He made an outlandish post on Facebook regarding this.

"hi, came home this weekend to a school board meeting, take care of some store business and spend time with family. also findingout that the attorney general's office has an investigator going around questioning family and others about me and others. one question that was asked to my daughter in law was if my farm was a cult. they came to my store and questioned my employee on my clock. because of the election i won and not being a democrat like the A.G. tons of tax payer money is being spent to dirty my life and hurt all those around me. at the same time look at the news report on all the major news networks today where it is found that the irs is investigating and intimidating republican and tea party groups and individuals at a rate that has never been heard of before. the irs has already started making apologise. i should send them a bill for the hour they took from my store. when will the people say enough? i will not back down no matter what they fabricate to find me guilty of something. to the tax payers and the people of this valley i am sorry for what they are doing to some of you and for the waisted money that could have been spent on real problems. mike thank you to all who have kept an open mind and for all the"

It ends suddenly, I am not sure why.

I imagine it is regarding the campaign issue that is being investigated . Mike of course is trying to claim the whole "right winger being persecuted by Liberal establishment thing."  Apparently he's forgotten about former state Republican Party Chairman Charlie Webster's paranoid and groundless crusade regarding Democratic voter fraud. "Dozens of unfamiliar black people are voting!" according to poor Charlie. I consider this bulls**t a form of persecution myself. Of course Charlie was one of the people that recruited Mike to run. Webster was also the one who made sure the U Maine Farmington Republican students reserved out all the university vans  months ahead of time to prevent students being driven to vote. The students largely vote Democratic apparently.

No one's after you Mike, your being investigated as per the laws of our state that your campaign may have broken laws. GET OVER IT!!

MIKE NADEAU'S CAN OF BEANS

Here is Mike Nadeau's rant on Facebook regarding the Medicaid expansion.

"last nite's meeting was a pure partisan bully tactic that did not have to be. they took a bill that had nearly 100% support from both parties and tied it to a bill that we did not have a public hearing for or full work session on and pushed them through on party line votes. they bought us a can of beans from the federal gov and we do not know what's in the can yet. the can is empty. they did not fill the can yet but leadership has bought us a can that's suppose to be beans. we still do not know what the fed gov will put in the can. how many of you will buy an empty can with a pretty label and pay full price and not know when it will be filled?"

Mike, I think we know what's in that proverbial can of beans. Its health insurance coverage for 60000 Mainers who need it. That's a good  investment, those beans will save us a lot of expense down the line.  Turn off the Fox news, and start caring about your constituents. 

REP MIKE NADEAU VS MAINE'S NEEDY

Rep Mike Nadeau, aka Gov. LePage's Stooge, has voted against expansion of Medicare in Maine that would help an estimated 60000 Mainers gets health insurance coverage. This is shameful and a betrayal of the communities he represents. Instead he chooses to tow the line of right wing lies, deception and paranoia. I wonder if Mike realizes the cost of people going without insurance. Thank god one of our representatives in the Legislature, Sen Troy Jackson, seems to understand the value of health insurance and that it is not welfare, Its is a civil and human right.

THANK YOU TROY JACKSON!!
SHAME ON YOU MIKE NADEAU!!!!

MAINE SENATE VOTES FOR HEALTHCARE EXPANSION

The Maine State Senate has voted to tie expansion of medicaid to repayment of hospitals.
Although this is good news, the vote of 20 to 15, basically on party lines, is not enough to override an inevitable veto by the Governor. I hope they can bring the expansion forward again on its own and try to get more Republican support. Senate Republicans called this a major welfare expansion. The right to health care for poor or disabled people, indeed for all people, is not welfare. It is so offensive to me that they would say this. We all know these types, they hate lower income people basically. They are out for themselves and their buddies, never mind everyone else. The Republican slogan is "I got mine, f**ck the rest of you." Well, less than two years to go and we can get rid of the embarrassment that is Governor Le page. This guy wrote the book on abrasiveness and ignorance. He had the audacity to say he does not play politics and that the Maine people are being played for patsies. THE VAST MAJORITY OF US DID NOT VOTE FOR YOU. I would like to give a shout out to Sen Troy Jackson of Allagash who spoke passionately for the bill. Justice will eventually be done.
-Nat

MY HEALTHCARE STORY

I have had experiences in health care and health insurance that have colored my already progressive political beliefs. I remember when Neil Rolde ran for the Senate here in Maine in 1990, he ran with the belief that universal health insurance was needed in this country. Many people believed, including myself, that it would be inevitable that some form of national health insurance would be adopted in this country in the decade following his unsuccessful run. Of course, we were wrong. The Clinton's gave it a good try, but the intransigent Republican Party made sure that we did not meet with success. Then Obama came, over fifteen years later, and tried again. He did run on a single payer type plan, which I feel is preferable, but only managed to put through the Affordable Care Act.  He did this only by the skin of his teeth. Far from Socialism, it preserves much of our private insurance system, but it is a start.

I personally have been covered for most of my life. Thank God for this, because due to problems with mental illness and the necessity of drug and therapeutic treatment, it would have been prohibitively expensive to pay out of pocket. Even with insurance, with rising co pays and premiums it has been expensive. When you make 20000 dollars a year, another 200.00 dollars a month in co-pays is pretty hard. It prevents you from saving therefore it can lead to a cascade effect that leads to debt.

A couple years ago, I unexpectedly lost my job, like many Americans. Of course this meant loss of health coverage too. Thankfully at this time, due to the Stimulus Package, a large portion of my COBRA coverage was paid while I was unemployed, allowing me to retain my insurance. Just one of the useless, waste of money things that the stimulus did for people. (Sarcasm intened for the Sheldon Coopers out there.) Later on, after working a new job for a awhile, my mental health made it necessary for me to leave the job and return home to live with my parents. I was lucky enough to get Mainecare because of  disability, just weeks before reductions in coverage would have made this impossible. If Gov. Lepage had his way,  people like me would be thrown off due to the fact that I  am single. He is trying to make sure this happens by refusing to expand Medicaid coverage next year as per the Affordable Care Act. Believe me, I am not a lazy person that wants to live off government support, I have permanent, serious illnesses that require expensive treatment. This is true of many Mainers and many Americans.

I never would have dreamed 30 years ago, that we would still be having this discussion on health care. I figured better minds would prevail and people would get needed coverage. If covering people to prevent them getting sick, and treating them when they do get sick,is socialism, then I guess I like that aspect of socialism! To a better tomorrow...
-Louwis

CULTURE OF SCANDAL?

Following the recent 3, or maybe 4, scandals at the White House has got me thinking of how we tend to want to blow everything into a major, mushroom cloud producing, scandal. Or at least at this point the Republicans do. When I think back to scandal in the Bush White House it seems that only the most left wing Democrats (Dennis Kucinich,etc) wanted to bring Bush down. And the Bush scandals seem far worse than what we are dealing with with Obama. I mean the rush to the Iraq war with faulty intelligence, Cheney & Haliburton.

So what I am trying to get at is that again we see that Republicans in general are the more demagogic of the two parties. They are very adept at blowing scandals out of proportion and using this to further their agenda, or in this case quash Obama's agenda.

The IRS "scandal" is obviously a small one. No, the IRS agents should not have broken the law by using conservative group by-words to search for applications for tax exemption to scrutinize. But there have been an explosion of these applications recently and we know this coincided with the rise of the Tea Party Bunch and all their splinter groups. Its a good way for people to make money for their basically political group, but save tax by masquerading as a group for the social good.

Benghazi is a tragedy that deserves to be examined and fixed but not exploited. We have a lot of fronts to cover and keep safe in our battle with international Jihadist terror. All diplomatic personnel are aware that they may be in some danger in many of these countries. Its easy to play should-a, could-a, would-a after the fact. I think this one will die down except in the committee headed by Rep Darrell Issa, or as I prefer to call him, the 450 million dollar showboat.

The most disturbing to me is the Attorney General secretly surveilling the Associated Press. I guess they have this power but are supposed to alert the party beforehand. I know it is imperative that they find out who was leaking information from the White House, but freedom of the press needs to be protected at all costs. However, I hardly see this as a Watergate-esque scandal. Of course "gate" is added to the end of any scandal to try to add that extra "umph" that the Republicans want.,

I think we as liberals have to take a deep breath, roll up our sleeves, and gun for the next election, in 2014. If we can take back the house, or even gain seats, this may be the message the conservative side needs to get. Americans want substantive issues tackles. Hey, remember the sequestration? How about tax reform and immigration reform?  Remember those. To our advantage, Republicans seem to want to make the same mistakes of over reaching that they have done before. Their right wing sabotaged them in the last election by pushing unacceptable candidates. Now they are pushing an unacceptable agenda of scandal mongering. Not to be cynical, but it is important to capitalize on there weakness..
-Louwis

REPUBLICAN IRAQ WAR DECEPTION AMNESIA

I gotta admit I am quite amused, if not horrified, by the histrionics of the Republicans in these latest "scandals." They have decided to ignore any positive agenda and go after Obama for the rest of his term. Especially this Benghazi embassy thing. Yes, It should be investigated thoroughly to find out what went wrong, but politics needs to stay out of it. I wonder where these Republicans were when the fact that intelligence whic led to the Iraq War was proved false, if not deliberately falsified, by the Bush administration.  If I am not mistaken we have lost upwards of 4400 troops in that debacle, let alone the countless innocent Iraqis. I guess the Republicans only care about the deaths of heroic Americans if it suits their agenda. Even the supposedly liberal CNN doesn't seem to want to cover this.

With any luck, the Republican vendetta driven crusade against Obama will do the same thing in the next election as it did when the New Gingrich House tried to go after Clinton. They took a bath in that 1998 next election. The American people are not stupid.

EXPAND HEALTHCARE IN MAINE NOW!!

As some my know, Our lovely Governor, Paul LePage, is one those Republican Governors who is refusing to expand Medicaid in Maine as per The Affordable Care Act. This expansion would cover almost 70000 more Mainers and save us money to boot. Here is a link to the petition to urge Gov. Lepage to rethink this decision:http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=greentree_ff1&ei=utf-8&ilc=12&type=198484&p=expand+medicare+in+maine
Incidently, the legislature is trying to force Lepage to accept this expansion. Rep. Mike Nadeau, Lepage's stooge, appears to be opposed to the expansion despite the fact that that many in his district would benefit from it. At least he posted on his blog an article critical of the expansion from the right wing blog Mainewire. http://mikenadeau.net/ This is hardly a trustworthy news source. Seems this guy cant get anything right.
 -Nat

Rep. Mike Nadeau On The Newtown Massacre. Unbelievable

Another gray day in FK, USA. I just found a post our lovely Republican State House Rep made after the Newtown massacre. Thought it was particularly louthsome. Here is the text:

Some Things To Think About…

Posted on December 20, 2012 by mike

Greetings,
As we continue to pray for the families and about what has happened in Ct., lots of questions keep coming and the most common one is why.
It is also one that does not have a single answer. As we ponder on the possibilities some things come to mind.
Sickness… what had this young man been dealing with in his life? Was he on meds that he stopped taking? Violent video games? Did he start taking street drugs?
Where was God?
Well… we did make it illegal for God to be in school to the point of no talk about Him, no books about Him, no clothes with a cross, or His name on it
Some blame it on guns. Just as a speed limit sign does alot to slow down most traffic, it does slow it down. The ten commandments were converted to most laws we live by today and yet we can not post them in public places to remind people that we live by laws.
Reminders are good. If we saw a reminder of the laws to live by, TEN COMMANDMENTS, daily, I am convined that our country would be different.
Also to consider is that our younger generation has seen such a decline in civility and morality in those leading our government. The tax evaders in the white house go unchecked. There is such a disconnect from the white house to the people that the people feel no hope. Our leaders spend billions on elections and inaugerations while people starve and die.
Is this what OUR country was founded on? No! And those principles have been thrashed too. Which one of you will begin today to demand change and bring hope to America?
Blessings,
-  Mike

So if only we had the ten commandments posted in schools and prayed this would not have happened! This guy scares me! How can people be so simplistic.
 -Nat, Secular Humanist

SCARY STUFF!! REP. MIKE NADEAU ON CHURCH & STATE

Mike Nadeau on Religious Freedom .
This is the guy that the Fort Kent area elected to represent the area in the Maine House last November.

I wonder if he even knows all of the ten commandments. Incidently he is one of only 7 members of the state legislature who have yet to introduce any legislation.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.
 -Nat

WE GOT THE POWA!!

I am starting this blog to highlight a personal mantra relating to the pertinent issues of the day. Whether it be GLBT rights, all human rights, income equality, health care equality, corporate greed or what have you, I will try to carve out some understanding of my views as therapy for me and maybe to inspire others.(And yet piss off others.) We currently live in a political world where the right is trying to destroy Mr Obama, and,in my state of Maine,  a right wing Governor is trying to be a dictator. Liberal Democrats, progressive independents and others of similar minds must hold strong to our gains, and prepare to advance in the future.
-NDaigle