Maine
Lucas: The Maine drain: Progressives in Maine and Massachusetts seem determined to antagonize Trump
“As Maine goes, so goes the nation,” was once a maxim in U.S. politics, meaning that it was at one time a bellwether for presidential elections.
Now it risks becoming a backwater in the face of federal budget cuts imposed by President Donald Trump.
And Massachusetts is not far behind. The Maine maxim could soon read, “As Maine goes, so goes Massachusetts” when it comes to similar, but larger, elimination or cutbacks in federal funding.
Another thing in common is that both Gov. Janet Mills of Maine and Gov. Maura Healey are both progressive Democrats who are “standing up” to Trump no matter what it costs their state and the people who live there.
Their stand is a perfect example of self-indulgent politicians putting politics over common sense, particularly when it comes to supporting men in women’s sports, transgender issues, DEI and other looney, left-wing progressive nonsense.
A Maine example of what is in store for Massachusetts was no-nonsense U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi’s decision last week to pull funding from Maine’s Department of Correction over a man transgendering into a woman being housed in a women’s prison.
The person is serving a 40-year sentence for murdering his/her parents and the family dog.
“We will pull your funding, we will protect women in prison, we will protect women in sports, we will protect women throughout this country,” Bondi said, in reference to Mill’s stubborn defiance of Trump’s mandate banning men from competing in women’s sports.
Things will be worse for Massachusetts because, not only is there is more at stake, but the attacks on Trump have never subsided even after he was elected in 2024 in a solid victory.
In fact, they have gotten worse as Healey, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and Attorney General Andrea Campbell in a triple team offense seem to be competing over who can hate and taunt Trump more.
Campbell, for instance, appears out to break Healey’s record of suing Trump some one hundred times in four years when she was attorney general.
Even before he was sworn in as president the second time around, Campbell warned that she would be “on the front lines to protect our fundamental rights” from Trump. She so far she has sued him nine times.
Mayor Wu’s attacks on Trump are a bit more understandable since she is running for reelection and is counting on anti-Trump votes in Boston, no matter how much it will cost the city by challenging Trump’s mandates, particularly on illegal immigration.
And while Gov. Healey, the third spoke in the women’s progressive anti-Trump trifecta, has said she would work with Trump whenever possible, the Trump administration is not listening, doesn’t care or does not believe her.
That is because too many bridges have been burned.
Even as Trump pulled off a remarkable pause and switch turnabout with his tariff crusade, isolated China, and saw the stock market rise to amazing heights, Healey and the Democrats had nothing good to say, except to complain about the “chaos” Trump caused.
Trump could teach Democrats a lesson in diplomacy.
While he isolated China, our main adversary, from the rest of the world and banged it with tariffs, he had kind things to say about his “friend,” Communist Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“XI is a smart guy and we’ll end up making a deal,” Trump said. “Xi is a man who knows exactly what has to be done. He loves his country.”
Contrast that to the names prominent Democrats call Trump, their adversary.
They defiantly call him Hitler, a Nazi, a fascist, a dictator and a king and then expect him to continue shower them, their states, their cities and their interests with money the way hapless Joe Biden did.
Healey, following generally accepted happy news that Trump had paused higher tariffs for most countries, except China, and that countries were lining up for a deal under Trump’s terms, was still critical of him.
“We are still left in a state of chaos and uncertainty,” she said.
But her killer quote came when she added, “At the end of the day, I wish somebody could reach the president and get him to stop, because enough is enough.”
Governor, that is your job.
Veteran political columnist Peter Lucas can be reached at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com
Originally Published:
LEWISTON, Maine (WGME) — The Lewiston Fire Department says a family home caught fire on Thursday.
The Lewiston Fire Department says a family home caught fire on Thursday. (Courtesy of Lewiston Fire Department)
At around 11 a.m., the fire department reportedly started getting calls about the blaze on Goffe Street.
When they arrived, the fire was roaring in the rear of the home and had engulfed the attic space, according to authorities.
The Lewiston Fire Department says a family home caught fire on Thursday. (Courtesy of Lewiston Fire Department)
Firefighters attacked the fire “aggressively.”
Lewiston Fire says no one was home at the time, and the cause is still under investigation.
Maine’s highest court weighed Wednesday whether the state can reject petition signatures collected by out-of-state circulators who did not check a box consenting to Maine’s jurisdiction, a legal dispute that could determine whether Mainers vote on transgender inclusion in sports this November.
The group called “Protect Girls Sports” initially submitted enough signatures to qualify for the ballot, proposing an initiative that would restrict what school sports teams, bathrooms and facilities trans students can access. Secretary of State Shenna Bellows later determined that the campaign had failed to qualify, after thousands of signatures were invalidated. That ruling was upheld by a Superior Court judge in June and the campaign appealed that decision to the Supreme Judicial Court.
More than 1,500 of the invalidated signatures were collected by four out-of-state circulators who had not checked a box on the form agreeing to Maine’s jurisdiction. The Maine Supreme Judicial Court must now decide whether those signatures were properly invalidated. The initiative is short 500 signatures to qualify.
The Maine Constitution prohibits out-of-state circulators from submitting petitions, but that ban was declared unenforceable by a federal appeals court in 2022, since it likely violated the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. In response to a lawsuit, Maine then entered into a consent agreement, which all citizen-led initiatives still rely on to hire out-of-state circulators to collect signatures. However, they must consent to the state’s jurisdiction.
Attorney Tim Woodcock, who represented Protect Girls Sports, argued that out-of-state circulators should be treated the same as Maine residents who collect petition signatures, since the consent agreement requires the state to allow them to work on campaigns. Woodcock said the consequences of not reversing the ruling would be dire.
“If this is upheld, it’s essentially a petition that has been pulled off the ballot with 1,520 otherwise valid ballot signatures,” Woodcock said in the Augusta courtroom. “That would be a remarkable result of these circumstances.”
The same argument was made after the May hearing before the Secretary of State’s Office as well as before the Superior Court, but neither accepted it.
Protect Girls Sports has not pushed back on any other findings showing a pattern of negligence in the signature collecting process, with circulators leaving forms unattended, adding ditto signs on some columns, and other infractions. Rather, Woodcock challenged the secretary’s authority to impose what he said was an unfair burden on out-of-state signature collectors by requiring them to check an additional box to consent to Maine’s jurisdiction.
Attorney Christopher Dodge from Elias Law Group, the national law firm representing the three Maine residents who initially challenged the petition signatures, said, “We are here today because Protect Girls Sports has essentially reached the bottom of the barrel for its last few arguments to try and dislodge the secretary’s well-reasoned and well-supported findings.”
“And each of those arguments basically concedes that the initiative violated … Maine law.”
Since the vast majority of the 120 out-of-state circulators complied with the requirements, Dodge said Woodcock could not make a convincing case that the rules were a burden.
“The burden here is they have to complete the circulator affidavit … and they have to check the box, that’s it,” he said. “And most of the non-resident circulators have absolutely no problem complying with it.”
One circulator, Cairo, had initially left the box blank but later checked the box through a corrected affidavit in May, three months after the petition was submitted for validation. Woodcock has previously argued that her signatures should be considered valid because of her corrected form.
However, her decision to intentionally leave the box blank was a “substantive lack of agreement” to Maine’s jurisdiction, Superior Court Justice Deborah Cashman said in her opinion validating Bellows’ decision on June 11.
Woodcock said in court Wednesday that the “consent agreement says nothing in it about when an out-of-state circulator must consent to jurisdiction,” and that those rules were being imposed by the Secretary of State’s office.
The Supreme Judicial Court is expected to rule on the appeal before mid-August, before the deadline for the secretary’s office to put a question on the ballot.
This story was first published by Maine Morning Star and is republished here under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
The rapper was a no-show at his 20 Years of Carter Classics stop in Maine
Mr. Carter, tell us, where have you been?
Lil Wayne has apologized to fans after he was a no-show at his own concert on Tuesday in Bangor, Maine. The stop was the first date on his 20 Years of Carter Classics tour extension following a successful 2025 run.
“My Maine fans I’m so sorry… The show is being rescheduled to July 28. Please hold on to your tickets, they will be honored for the rescheduled date,” wrote Wayne in an Instagram Stories post the day after. “I ain’t shit without you I can’t wait to come back and give you the show you deserve.” The rapper said that additional information will be emailed to ticket holders.
On Tuesday, after 2 Chainz wrapped his opening set at the Maine Savings Amphitheater, the crowd reportedly waited for quite some time before being informed at 11 p.m. that Wayne would not be appearing and the show was over. No official explanation was provided.
“Well, I came here for Lil Wayne and 2 Chainz, and it was the most terrible experience. We drove over six hours to be here,” Rita Sack, an attendee who drove more than six hours from Nova Scotia for the concert, told local station Wabi.
Sack told the outlet that an apology from the rapper at the time would have been appreciated. “We paid for Lil Wayne. Like, the least you can do is come out for a minute, apologize, you know? Like, just take the moment and be like, hey guys, sorry, not feeling it, feeling a little sick,” said Sack.
-
Colorado2 minutes agoDouglas County, Colorado, celebrates Independence Day without fireworks
-
Connecticut9 minutes agoConnecticut 250, 251, 252, 253 . . . – New Haven Independent
-
Delaware12 minutes agoWilmington fire displaces 20, damages 6 homes on Clayton Road; cause under investigation
-
Florida17 minutes agoUSF Health brings emergency pregnancy training to rural Florida without maternal care
-
Georgia24 minutes agoMiddle Georgia looks to see a scorcher for the Fourth of July
-
Hawaii27 minutes agoCar drives into Sunshine Market in Honolulu
-
Idaho33 minutes agoObituary for Eugene Merland Ricks – East Idaho News
-
Illinois39 minutes agoTwo charged after severed arm with Packers tattoo found in Illinois lake, police say
