Amid cries for blood, the red-ink-stained Portland School Department announced today that the schools' finance director, Richard Paulson Jr., resigned today.

It's unclear just what kind of "finance directing" he was doing while the school department spent $500,000 they were not allotted by the City Council, plus an extra $1.2 million, on top of $850,000 in money from other government agencies that just didn't come in. The total amount of negative figures on the schools' number line could be as high as $2.5 million. So out goes former Portland mayor Paulson from the job he has held since 2005.

One thing is sure - the buck doesn't stop with him. In fact, for the school department to claim that they overspent in part because administrators agreed to a teacher contract that gave more of a raise than budgeted for suggests that top leadership - that's Superintendent Mary Jo O'Connor - is detached from reality.

Does any company actually not look at the budget when determining salary increases? Apparently, the Portland School Department does - they had budgeted for a 2.5 percent increase in teacher salaries, but agreed to a 3 percent increase. And here's the shocker - then they professed to be blindsided when that cost more than they had expected!

The school department's release about Paulson's resignation also said the schools had to pay "higher energy costs." But in 2004, students told the school system how to save $36,000 a year at just one school. And in February 2006, the schools were offered cash for being more efficient. As we reported exclusively in the Portland Phoenix, it took them until February 2007 to decide to get the efficiency ball rolling.

Sounds like something else should roll, and it's not Paulson's head.

7/30/2007 4:51:26 PM by Jeff Inglis | Comments [0] |  

Republican Charlie Summers, a hopeful in the 1st Congressional District race for the seat being vacated by Tom Allen (who's challenging Susan Collins for her seat), has announced that President Bush has made a donation to the Summers campaign. But not the one you're thinking of, the one who has approval ratings below Richard Nixon.

Summers (who is serving in Iraq at the moment as a member of the Navy public-relations corps) is being supported by the other one-term Bush, the one whose war in Iraq was wildly popular and boosted him to high approval ratings.

Presumably, Summers is hoping that the son is nothing like the father (at least the father knew the value of solid intelligence), and won't actually support him: many Republican candidates for office are politely steering away from having, say, Bush fils make a campaign appearance.

So while Summers is in Iraq, staying the course, he's gotta be wishing someone will pull the troops out, so he can start campaigning.

7/30/2007 2:01:40 PM by Jeff Inglis | Comments [0] |  

(SEE UPDATE AT THE END OF THIS POST)

On July 12, Channel 6 aired a "special report" observing that illegal immigrants can come to Maine and get driver's licenses, and including allegations from US Attorney Paula Silsby that illegal immigrants have come to Maine, gotten a driver's license, used the license to prove residency required under federal law for purchasing a gun, and then used the gun to commit a crime.

Where have those crimes happened? The report didn't say. How many times? Not included. What was the crime? Unspecified. The closest any of it gets is a short note by one of the news anchors that two people have been prosecuted for bringing illegal immigrants to Maine for the purpose of getting driver's licenses. When? No idea. How many people did they bring - 1, 100, 1000? Not said. (These questions are addressed in the update below.)

The US Attorney's office - part of the Bush-Gonzales department of "justice" - wants Maine to tighten things up, and become part of the federal government's failing effort to crack down on illegal immigrants. In April 2004 Maine governor John Baldacci issued an executive order barring state employees from asking people about their immigration status.

Silsby, apparently unable to handle whatever influx there is of illegal immigrants - which she fails to specify and is not questioned on in Channel 6's report - wants Maine officials to join the side of the Bushies.

But this is all a charade anyway, part of a widespread fearmongering campaign by the feds to distract people from the continuing disaster in Iraq, which is killing our soldiers and permanently affecting those who survive.

Channel 6 and reporter/anchor Kara Matuszewski fail to observe that (12 years after the Oklahoma City bombing) it remains perfectly possible - and legal - for a US-born-and-raised white man to serve in the US Army, come home, rent a Ryder truck, buy a bunch of diesel fuel and a lot of fertilizer, and drive that truck on ANY PUBLIC ROAD ANYWHERE IN THE US - including in front of YOUR HOME. And you know what can happen next - the truck, packed with diesel and fertilizer, can be DETONATED, causing a MASSIVE EXPLOSION, even killing federal employees in a federal building.

But immigrants are the real problem - and illegal ones, at that. So by all means, let's spread the fear.

(Disclosure: Kara Matuszewski is the president of the Maine Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. I'm the group's vice-president. For the group's upcoming elections, she nominated me to be on the ballot for president, and I nominated her to be on the ballot for vice-president.)

UPDATE July 16:
Kara Matuszewski notes in an e-mail to me that her report did say that the number of people who had not given their Social Security numbers when applying for - and receiving - driver's licenses increased between August 2006 and May 2007.

She is correct about that, and I should have noted it in my original post - but neither her report, nor the US Attorney, nor her e-mail response offer any proof that the increase from 3788 in August 2006 to 5372 in May 2007 in the number of people whose Social Security numbers are all 9s (999-99-9999) in the state's driver database is, in fact, due to illegal immigrants getting licenses.

(Her report does include the assertion by the US Attorney that "most of them are illegally in the country," but also a qualification that "some of those are people here legally." How many? Again, no answer. And again, it serves to strengthen my point that lack of information breeds fear, and fear is all the Bushies have to go on now, since evidence is now completely incontrivertible that they are, in fact, the ones telling lies for their own benefit.)

And Matuszewski offers in her e-mail some more details not included in her broadcast: The two people prosecuted for bringing illegal immigrants into Maine to get driver's licenses had charges filed against them in September and October 2006, and each of the two people were charged with attempting to help three people. That definitely helps contextualize the scope of the problem, and its immediacy.

Silsby is pulling out data from nearly a year ago - and not-that-scary data, to boot. (Compare six people trying to get driver's licenses with, say, the incidence of domestic violence in Maine. Or drugs, or even murders!) More than six people have been murdered in Maine since these folks were charged 10 months ago. Why does the US Attorney want us to pay attention to illegal immigrants? And why now? Gosh - could it be that the war in Iraq is going terribly, and the Dems are preaching moderation on immigration?

7/13/2007 9:46:59 AM by Jeff Inglis | Comments [0] |  

A correction from the Portland Press Herald from Friday's paper:

A story on Page B4 on Wednesday about foraging for edible mushrooms contained a photo of amanita muscaria, which is a poisonous and hallucinogenic mushroom. It was a copy editor's error.

Here's the story. The correction appears not to have run online - though it is in the paper's online archive - but is not attached in any way to the online version of the story. So I wouldn't suggest using either of the pictures in the online version of the story to choose yummy mushrooms.

With a tip of the hat to RegretTheError.com.

7/10/2007 1:55:01 PM by Jeff Inglis | Comments [0] |  

The Portland Press Herald has taken its political criticism to a new low:

Not only did a Friday editoral fail to note that the Corrections policy of moving inmates from prison to a jail is in violation of a federal court order rediscovered by the Portland Phoenix and reported on in the June 29 issue, but Sunday's column by obscurer-in-chief Bill Nemitz makes no note of the fact that the Maine Department of Corrections has been failing to treat mentally ill inmates for their medical conditions for more than 18 months. (See, "Torture in Maine's Prison," by Lance Tapley, November 11, 2005.)

We all know that the Press Herald hates to let on that anyone else has a scoop - much less admit they've been scooped continuously for 20 months - but it's becoming dangerous to the public, and to the Press Herald's credibility.

The public needs to know that dangerously disturbed people are released every day from Maine prisons, and have never been treated for mental illness, though many of them are diagnosed, as you can hear in this Maine Public Broadcasting Network report. The Corrections Department is doing nothing, and thereby endangering not only the lives of inmates (and former inmates), but also the lives of the public.

And for the Press Herald's credibility, the paper should acknowledge and bring to light the serious problems that exist, or risk looking as if they don't know what everyone else in Maine knows - that Maine inmates are tortured and mistreated by Maine prison guards in Maine-taxpayer-funded prisons.

Here, for reference by Press Herald reporters, editors, and columnists, are links to the entire body of work by Portland Phoenix contributing writer Lance Tapley, on the terrible conditions at the Maine State Prison (for inmates without mental illness as well as for those who are suffering from various forms of mental illness).

Note the most recent article, which reveals that a freelance writer for the Maine Sunday Telegram was a party to a lawsuit 35 years ago that resulted in a federal court order opening the prisons to free and unfettered reporting. Where's the Press Herald/Sunday Telegram now? It's quite a shift in 35 years.

In chronological order from November 2005 to the present:

Torture in Maine’s Prison, November 11, 2005

Reforming the Supermax, November 18, 2005

Pressure Rising, March 24, 2006

Arbitrary Imprisonment, July 21, 2006

Death in the Supermax, October 13, 2006

Hunger Strike at Maine’s Supermax Prison, October 18, 2006

Baldacci’s ‘Political Prisoner,’ November 17, 2006

Lockdown: What do Prison Officials Have to Hide?, December 15, 2006

sidebar: Stonewalling is Normal, December 15, 2006

Sluggish Response to Suicide, January 5, 2007

Brown Defense Team Enlarging, January 12, 2007

An Insult to Justice, February 2, 2007 — Lance Tapley’s speech upon receiving the Maine State Bar Association’s Excellence in Legal Journalism Award

Cracks in the Armor, February 2, 2007

Prison Guards Suit Up, March 16, 2007

Prison Madness Explained, March 30, 2007

Punish the Mentally Ill!, April 13, 2007

Prisoners as Commodities, April 27, 2007

Prisoner Gagged, May 4, 2007

Inmate Sues Officials in Federal Court, May 18, 2007

Maine Prison Bosses Violate Court Orders, June 29, 2007 — with links to images of the court orders

sidebar: Press Behind Bars, June 29, 2007

sidebar: Waves of Activism, June 29, 2007

7/9/2007 10:07:33 AM by Jeff Inglis | Comments [0] |  

According to this Associated Press report, the man who shot three people dead in Conway, New Hampshire, during a botched robbery attempt, was released from the Maine State Prison in May, after serving five years, during which he was denied both medication and psychiatric help.

The story says, in part:

"I reached out, asking for help. I reached out and told them I need medication. I reached out and told them I shouldn't be out in society. I told numerous cops, numerous guards," Woodbury said.

He said he wrote a four-page letter to a psychiatric counselor at the state prison in Warren about "how this (expletive) was going to crack like this. To make a long story short, they told me, 'Maybe you need some vitamins.'"

Maine prison officials continue to deny mentally ill people no treatment - and even insist on punishing them rather than giving them treatment. (See "Punish the Mentally Ill!," by Lance Tapley, April 13, 2007.)

Is this the case in which they have blood on their hands? Or will it take something more serious to effect change in the Maine prison system?

7/5/2007 5:21:24 PM by Jeff Inglis | Comments [0] |  

President Bush has officially commuted the prison term of convicted liar Scooter Libby, meaning the Bush-Cheney henchman will not have to spend 30 months in a federal prison getting to better know the inmates.

MSNBC has a transcript of Bush's accompanying statement, explaining how Bush, an admittedly C student in college, has weighed evidence and come up differently from several federal judges.

Fox News couldn't even avoid the basic facts, but certainly issued a sparing report, compared with CNN's, for example.

(Yeah, Libby still has to spend a couple years on probation and pay $250,000. Shouldn't be too hard, for a man with friends in the oil biz.)

Also, many people are waiting for Bush to outright pardon Libby, letting him wipe the conviction from his record. If you think the law - or Justice Department guidelines - will bother him, think again.

7/2/2007 6:56:43 PM by Jeff Inglis | Comments [0] |  

So says a professor from Boston, in a Marketplace story about how a bunch of Hooters restaurants have closed in "the home of the Puritans."

See also: The Stadium.

7/2/2007 2:29:56 PM by Jeff Inglis | Comments [0] |  

Bet you won't see this reported anywhere in the US mainstream media. There's always Canada... See what happened when Bush and his dad went fishing.

7/2/2007 8:47:22 AM by Jeff Inglis | Comments [0] |