Maine Writer

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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Alabama special election surprise

Marilyn Lands, a who ran on reproductive rights, flips Alabama House seat echo report by Alander Rocha in Alabama Reflector.

Democratic candidate Marilyn Lands, who campaigned on ending Alabama’s near-total abortion ban and protecting access to contraception and in vitro fertilization, won a special election Tuesday for a Huntsville-area state House seat.

Decision Desk HQ, a website that reports election results, called the race for Lands shortly after 8:30 p.m.

As of 9:22 p.m. Tuesday, Lands had 3,715 votes (62.3%) in unofficial returns. Madison City Councilman Teddy Powell, the Republican nominee, had 2,236 votes (37.5%). The district covers south Huntsville, southern Madison County and parts of the city of Madison.

Lands will succeed former Rep. David Cole, R-Madison, who resigned in August after pleading guilty to voter fraud charges.

In a statement, Lands said that “Alabama women and families sent a clear message that will be heard in Montgomery and across the nation.”

“Our Legislature must repeal Alabama’s no-exceptions abortion ban, fully restore access to IVF, and protect the right to contraception,” the statement said. Lands also said in the statement that she looks “forward to representing everyone in District 10 and building a brighter future for Alabama.”

Lands, like Democrats in the state and nationwide, ran on protecting reproductive rights. In a previous interview, she discussed having an abortion in the past, and said she wanted to protect medical treatment that was available 20 years ago.
Lands said reproductive rights became a priority in her campaign after the Alabama Supreme Court’s Feb. 16 ruling on in vitro fertilization, which declared frozen embryos are children and led to at least three clinics halting IVF treatment.

Powell ran on issues like additional funding for infrastructure. He said previously that he wanted to ensure north Alabama continued to develop economically. He also took a moderate approach to the state’s CHOOSE Act, which provides up to $7,000 in an Educational Savings Account (ESA) for non-public school expenses, saying the law may have to be changed in future.

Powell conceded to Lands shortly after the polls closed at 7 p.m.

In a statement, Powell started with wishing Lands “the absolute best.” He said it was an honor to be considered for the seat and thanked voters for their support.

“We are proud of the campaign we ran. We ran a tough and respectful race and that is something that we are incredibly proud of. Our state has so much to offer and I believe if we come together, we can accomplish great things,” he said in the statement.

Lands’ win marks the first net gain for the Democrats in either chamber of the Alabama Legislature since 2002, when they picked up a seat in the Alabama Senate. Democratic Rep. Phillip Ensler, D-Montgomery, flipped a Republican-held seat in 2022, the first such flip for Democrats since 2010. But Rep. Dexter Grimsley, D-Newville, lost to current Rep. Rick Rehm, R-Dothan, that same year.

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Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Speaker Bible thumper Mike Johnson's Republicans ignore Ronald Reagan prophesy

Echo opinion published in The Boston Globe:  The Republican House fails the Ronald Reagan test by Scott LeHigh. 
With time running short, the House recesses without approving aid for Ukraine.  
Failed Again! 
Following its Friday failure to deliver a new package of aid for Ukraine, it’s time for a title change in the US House of Representatives.

As we saw yet again, the House has a speaker in name only. Mike Johnson, the spectral figure who holds that title, is little more than a zombie, 👽👾👺fated to flit fecklessly about in pursuit of fantasies that eternally fade to frustrating failure rather than take shape as legislative accomplishments.

But zombies, in their cinematic incarnation anyway, are at least possessed of a certain bite. Not Johnson. He imagines himself the Lord’s chosen legislative leader, but perhaps the House’s Lowly Ghost is a more apt appellation.


Certainly, the last few days have demonstrated, yet again, the full extent of his dilemma — and his utter inability to resolve it. On Friday morning, the House finally gave approval to a fiscal package needed to keep funding the US government. But that measure depended disproportionately on Democratic votes for the two-thirds majority required under suspended-rules circumstances. More than half of House Republicans voted no.

At a time of increasingly urgent need in Ukraine, the spending plan included no aid for that beleaguered nation. Nor did such a package move independently.


Instead, the House left for a two-week Easter recess with that matter unaddressed, effectively lending aid and comfort to Russian czar Vladimir Putin as he continues to assault Ukraine.

But not before the mere act of keeping the federal government open triggered a reaction from the Republican Party’s reduce-it-to-rubble reactionaries. Taking advantage of the rules concession Kevin McCarthy made to secure his own doomed speakership, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the pugnacious MAGA conspiracy theorist who has emerged as a hard-right Republican “thought” leader, promptly filed a vote to vacate the chair. That is, to oust Johnson.

After all, from her pixilated perspective, Johnson had double-crossed Republicans by working with Democrats to keep the government funded and functioning. Imagine, for a moment, the Lowly Ghost’s plight: Not only having the Sword of Damocles hanging over his head, but with MTG controlling the horsehair by which it dangles. (Maybe it’s time to rebrand that famous instrument of apprehension: the Sword of Deranged Fleas.)
Will Greene force such a vote or — like Dionysius I, who supposedly suspended the blade over the cranium of a covetous courtier, simply to subject him to the fears that rob royalty of its pleasures — is she principally intent on creating a sense of immobilizing anxiety?😬😆
In this case, it’s a distinction without a difference. At a time when this country badly needs a functional government, one half of Congress is all but paralyzed.

We’re back about where we were in the last days of McCarthy. Like him, Johnson can’t govern without help from the Democrats. Yet he is reluctant to seek it. In mid-March, Johnson told Politico he was going to push ahead with aid for Ukraine, even while conceding such a move would likely require Democratic support.


That was a laudable declaration, the exact sort of thing that anyone who favors democracy over despotism would do.

But to accomplish that, he has to contend with the Putin-admiring Donald Trump and his messengers, who are not-so-subtly rallying MAGA against aid for the nation the Russian despot has invaded.

That means, as with the government-funding bill, Johnson would need the help of House Democrats. If Democrats then promised they would help him survive any resulting motions to vacate the chair, he wouldn’t be ousted as a result. Representative Jim McGovern, a Democrat from Worcester and ranking member on the House Rules Committee, intimates that those conversations have already quietly occurred.

“He knows that Democrats will be there for the vote and if there are procedural votes and moves to oust him, I think he already knows that there are Democrats who will have his back,” McGovern told me.

Then why won’t Johnson choose that option, which would put him on the right side of history on one of the biggest foreign policy issues of our time? Because Trump and MAGA would view that as a betrayal, and their future opposition would keep House Republicans from again choosing him as their leader.

“That means that, no matter what happens in the next election, he would no longer be speaker nor minority leader,” McGovern said.

So the Lowly Ghost faces this choice: Do what’s best for the world or what’s right for him.

What in God's name is happening?
Somewhere, Ronald Reagan must be wondering: What in God’s name has happened to my once resolute, tyrant-opposing party?

Let’s hope voters are discerning enough to assign responsibility where it belongs.  

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Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Elise Stefanik fails screen test to be Trump "cult diva" president of vice - VP

New York #21 Representative Elise Stefanik is a lot of things, but this week, she made a good case that she’s not a historian.
Echo opinion published in The New Republic by Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling:
Rep. Elise Stefanik is a Trump cult diva
During a (botched !) speech on Super Tuesday, Stefanik tried to insert a callback to a famous campaign line by Ronald Reagan, in which he coyly questioned the progress made during President Jimmy Carter’s term. But the House Republican Conference chair had none of the charm—or apparently any memory—of what happened during the previous administration.
“Are you better off today than you were four years ago? The answer for hard-working Americans around the country is a resounding no,” Stefanik said.

This time four years ago, the nation was being ravaged in a dystopian way by the Covid-19 pandemic, with former President Donald Trump ordering sick passengers to stay quarantined on the Grand Princess cruise ship to keep case numbers inside the country low.

Droves of viewers with working memories were quick to glom onto the scripted error, including several of Stefanik’s Democratic colleagues.


One user on X (formerly Twitter) pointed out that “4 years ago this month Covid exploded out as Trump endlessly lied about the seriousness of it and there were so many dead bodies from it that cities had to rent trailers to stuff full of corpses.”

“Four years ago, people were rationing toilet paper and dying in hospital hallways,” posted Virginia Representative Gerry Connolly.

“The gentlelady from NY seems to have forgotten about body bags in Central Park, a collapsing economy, loss of faith in US democracy around the world and a tax-dodging, COVID-denying rapist President who was preparing his final act of sedition,” said Illinois Representative Sean Casten.


Rep. Don Beyer (on X- formerly Twitter) "Do these people have amnesia? Four years ago we were in a pandemic that killed hundreds of thousands of Americans, people couldn't safely leave their homes, the economy was taking the biggest hit since the Great Depression, and Trump was lying to the country about all of it.


Other wanna-be contenders to be Trump’s Number Two include one-time Democratic presidential primary candidate Tulsi Gabbard, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, Florida Representative Byron Donalds, biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, the last of whom has already outright rejected the offer (“I am not doing that.”) 

And the list continues to grow. Just last week, Trump added Texas Governor Greg Abbott to his dumpster fire pick list.

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Monday, March 25, 2024

Don "Pooorleone" or Broke Ass Don: IOW Trump is Broke

Echo report published in The New Republic bEllie Quinlan Houghtaling: Donald Trump has had to admit that he cannot afford his legal comeuppancea punishment that might have been even worse for the self-proclaimed billionaire than the actual 💲454 million penalty in his New York civil fraud trial.
“Well, of course, he’s embarrassed because his entire net worth, the constant reiteration that ‘I’m worth at least 💲10 billion,’ maybe even more, obviously goes to his id, his ego, his super-ego,” former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen told CNN.

“And so, that’s now super deflated, because it’s just not true,” he continued. 

“They had to acknowledge, HELLO❓ that they don’t have it❗ 
It wasn’t that long ago that he stood on the stand, and he told everybody that he was worth many, many, many, many billions of dollars and has a very low debt-to-value ratio.”

Trump’s last-ditch effort to postpone paying the full amount in lieu of a $100 million bond was rejected by a New York appeals court judge. The judge did, however, grant some relief after Trump’s legal team argued in an 1,800-page court filing that it would be “impossible” to secure a bond covering the full amount of the multimillion-dollar ruling. The granted request will allow Trump to continue borrowing money, though the ruling is temporary until a full panel of judges deliberates on the order.

Failing to obtain a loan, however, could result in the seizure of Trump’s assets, warned New York Attorney General Letitia James.


“I mean, what is he going to do?” Cohen continued. “What’s he going to call like a J.G. Wentworth and say, ‘I need cash now’? How was he going to raise more than this half a billion❓💰💲


Justice Arthur Engoron had originally slapped a 💲354 million fine on Trump for committing real estate–related fraud in New York, but by last week, that sum had grown to 💲454.2 million thanks to added interest, which is tacking on an additional 💲112,000 with each passing day.

The penalty also came with an addendum that Trump cannot serve as an officer or director of a New York company for three years, including his own Trump Organization. His two adult sons were also penalized by the ruling:  Additionally, they were fined 💲💲4 💰million each and will have to stay out of New York business for two years. They will also be prevented from obtaining loans from any New York financial institutes for three years.


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Sunday, March 24, 2024

Donald Trump default on his bail is the result of a litany of criminal behaviors


Reasons Trump is the political “boogeyman” is because Trump has no moral character.  Echo opinion letter published in the Holland Sentinel a Minnesota newspaper:
The facts are these:
  • Found guilty to have sexually assaulted a woman
  • Twice impeached by our Congress
  • Tax dodger for HIS benefit
  • Draft Dodger for HIS benefit.
  • Gave tax breaks to billionaires for HIS own benefit.
  • Created a fraudulent charity for HIS own benefit.
  • Received millions from foreign enemies in office for HIS benefit (as did HIS own family).
  • Stole classified documents AND showed them to our enemy.
  • Loves Putin, Chairman Xi and Kim Jong-Un — admires them greatly.
  • Lied about the value of his properties for HIS benefit.
  • Committed treason trying to usurp our election for HIS benefit.
  • Currently has 91 criminal indictments in 4 criminal cases.
This list goes on and on and on ...

He lies, lies, lies, and lies again. All while he claims in every trial that “he is a victim.” He’s “doing this for you.” Give me a break!

Trump is morally bankrupt and it astounds me that anyone with a moral conscience would even consider him for office again. Yes, I do see this man as the “boogeyman” because I respect moral character. I know you do as well. Think about the moral choice between these men.

From Michael Mooney in Park Township, in Ottowa County, Minnesota

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Saturday, March 23, 2024

Trump using costly court delays because he is guilty of over 90 felonies

Trump’s delaying tactics- Echo opinion letter published in The Press Democrat in Santa Rosa California:
Dear EDITOR: If I were Donald Trump and I believed or felt like I was falsely accused of over 90 felonies, I would demand an immediate opportunity to prove my innocence. An innocent person would complain about delays, not cause them. An innocent person would present “perfect” evidence at a “beautiful” press conference with charts, graphs, photos and Sharpies.

Then, when acquitted, an innocent person could use the exoneration as a cudgel against the Democratic Party. Not that Trump is vindictive, 😮, but such a stunning reversal would humiliate the haters and guarantee his reelection. 

With the limelight so attractive, Trump might even boast and crow a bit while surrounded by only the best people. It would be huge! It would be epic! It would be historically huge and epic — a spectacle worthy of The Donald.

A guilty person, on the other hand, will do everything he can to delay his day of reckoning. A guilty person will blame the court, the officers, the witnesses, the families and the political party of all involved. Everyone except himself.

(Maine Writer postscript- So instead of seeking a quick verdict to potentially exonerate, he is now #BrokeDon begging his campaign contributors for cash to pay his mounting legal bills and making up funny money to convince the New York DA about how "rich" he is.  I suspect Trump's lawyers shared his financial shortfalls with the court is because they are not getting paid! Trump's lawyers are as corrupt as their client but they are not into committing perjury.)

Sad. Pathetic. Trump.
From Patrick Corcoran in Occidental, California

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Friday, March 22, 2024

Trump begins his "bloodbath" campaign driven by revenge and desperation

The bloodbath Trump promised has begun.
Former president Donald Trump speaks to supporters during a rally on March 16, in Vandalia, Ohio. (Scott Olson/Getty Images in The Washington Post)

Echo opinion by Dana Milbank published in The Washington Post "Democracy Dies in Darkeness:

These are difficult times for American Jews, facing a wave of antisemitism from the far left because of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza in response to Hamas’s October 7, attack. 

And now, in one of Trump’s first acts since clinching the Republican presidential nomination, he has decided to attack American Jews from the right. Dayenu! ✡️(The song is about being grateful to God for all of the gifts given to the Jewish people, such as taking them out of slavery, giving them the Torah and Shabbat.)

Compounding the insult was where Trump made it: On the podcast of his former White House aide Sebastian Gorka, who went to a Trump inaugural ball wearing the medal of Vitezi Rend, a far-right Hungarian nationalist group with Nazi roots. Gorka said he wore the decoration to honor his late father and isn’t a member of the hateful group; its officials have said otherwise.

Now that (unbelievably😳❗) Trump has locked up the nomination, we’re in for seven months of this ugliness before the election — and potentially four more years of it if that election goes badly. But fear not, dear reader: I will watch Trump so you don’t have to.

“Right,” Gorka said as Trump went on with his rant. “Yeah … yeah.”

Trump disparaged millions of American Jews in the service of propping up his fellow aspiring autocrat Benjamin Netanyahu, the deeply unpopular Israeli prime minister. Netanyahu is clearly prolonging the war in Gaza because when the fighting there ends he will likely be voted out of power and held to account for the government failures that led to October 7.

Because American Jews (like many Israeli Jews) want to end the Netanyahu nightmare, they hate their religion and the Jewish State? The chutzpah (extreme self-confidence or audacity.)

In the torrent of crazy and dangerous utterances coming from the man, we tend to bounce from one to the next. I will attempt to pause at week’s end to build a record of his greatest (or, rather, worst) hits so there will be no doubt about what Trump would do if returned to the White House. His apologists once said that Trump should be taken seriously but not literally❓ From experience, we now know to take him literally: Fact is, Trump is going to do, or at least try to do,
what he says.

As the general election campaign begins, Trump isn’t doing much campaigning. While President Biden is barnstorming the country, Trump visited only one battleground state since Super Tuesday, instead playing golf, making voluntary court appearances and granting interviews to friendly outlets from his Mar-a-Lago residence. This might be because he’s broke.

Trump's campaign is struggling to raise both small- and large-dollar contributions, and donations have been diverted to cover his legal bills. Last Saturday’s rally had been planned for Arizona, but Trump’s campaign moved it to Ohio, where a group affiliated with Senate candidate Bernie Moreno agreed to foot the bill. Trump’s lawyers, meanwhile, said this week that he doesn’t have enough cash to post a bond for the $464 million judgment against him for business fraud, after asking about 30 insurance companies to underwrite the bond.

If Trump, for all his self-proclaimed business acumen, isn’t a good risk for 30 different insurers, how could he possibly be a good risk for the country?

So what did Trump  say over the last week?
  • He said that certain immigrants are “not people” but are in fact “animals” and “snakes.” 
  • He affirmed his view, seemingly lifted from “Mein Kampf,” that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.” 
  • He said his plan for mass deportations, modeled after “Operation Wetback” of the 1950s, “will be very evident” and “will go very quickly.”
  • He saluted those who have been duly convicted of attacking the Capitol on January 6, 2021, calling them “hostages” and “unbelievable patriots.” 
I continue to ask this?  With all the videos released about January 6th, nothing yet shown reveals who constructed this "Hang Mike Pence" gallows. This construction was not serendiptous. It had to have been planned and the tools to construct it were carpentry grade. Who paid for it? Who built it?

Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence, who those “patriots” wanted to kill on January 6, called that language “unacceptable” and told CBS News that he “cannot in good conscience” support Trump

In that principled refusal Pence is joined by GOP Sens. Todd Young (Ind.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Mitt Romney (Utah).
  • Trump suggested that he would support a nationwide abortion ban. “The number of weeks now, people are agreeing on 15, and I’m thinking in terms of that,” he told WABC radio.
  • Trump said his former adviser Peter Navarro, who reported to prison this week after being convicted of contempt of Congress, was “treated very badly” by the legal system. 
  • And he said his former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, convicted of bank and tax fraud related to his work for pro-Russian interests in Ukraine, is “another person that was treated badly, and he was a patriot.” 
The Washington Post’s Josh Dawsey reports that Manafort will likely return as a Trump adviser this year. Trump went on a show hosted by the anti-immigrant British politician Nigel Farage, where he threatened to expel the Australian ambassador to the United States and said he might deport Prince Harry. 

But asked whether Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is a person he could negotiate with, Trump replied: “Yeah, I think he is.”

Oh, and he said this at a rally in Ohio: “If I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole — that’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country.” He was speaking in the context of automobile imports. But given his history of provoking actual bloodshed, this was small reassurance.




Trump routinely criticizes Biden for allegedly having a light schedule and declining mental faculties, but the presumptive Republican nominee struggled mightily at his only campaign event of the week.

“We want to have a rock-solid majority in the Senate,” he told the crowd. “We want to take over the House,” he added, apparently forgetting that the Republicans already control the House.

Trump used to boast that “I don’t use teleprompters,” even arguing that “if you run for president, you shouldn’t be allowed to use teleprompters.” But, when Trump suffered a teleprompter malfunction because of windy weather outside Dayton, OH, he was lost.

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