All Authors >
LANCE TAPLEY
Latest Articles
‘Holding the line’
Republican state Senator Thomas Saviello, at one point widely considered a foe of Maine's environment, may have just saved it. At the least, he was a leader in saving a good part of it.
Conventionland
"You are now being watched by 30,000 drones," Second District congressional primary candidate Blaine Richardson dramatically told the 3000 people assembled at the Republican State Convention in Augusta on May 5.
Taxpayer dollars, secrecy, and private interests
Eminent domain! The government's ability to seize land for a public purpose strikes terror into the hearts of many landowners.
After Trayvon
Faced with a campaign asking him and seven other Republican legislators to quit the controversial conservative lobbyist-legislator coalition ALEC — the American Legislative Exchange Council — House assistant majority leader Andre Cushing, of Hampden, says: "If they can give me a reason why this is harmful to the state, I'll consider it."
The 99 Percent Spring begins
"We are the 99 percent!" reverberates in the basement of the Portland Public Library on a Saturday morning. Ninety radicals — well, maybe damn strong liberals — are plotting to take over the government — well, in any case, to harass the one percent.
Pothole Patrol
Peter Vigue, CEO of Maine's big construction company Cianbro, has recently been successful in promoting to the state's politicians his plan for a 220-mile, limited-access, privately owned toll highway bisecting Maine from New Brunswick to Quebec.
Legislative threats
As the rush to late-April legislative adjournment begins, much is at stake for people who want to help the needy (or are needy), or value a fair tax system, or treasure Maine's unspoiled woods and shores, or want government to be run openly — in short, for many people who these days are often called progressives.
Blaine House 9
In a stiff sentence for an act of nonviolent civil disobedience, a judge on March 23 slapped a $400 fine plus $90 in court costs on the first of the "Blaine House 9" to go on trial. Diane Messer, 59, of Liberty, had been convicted of criminal trespass by a Kennebec County Superior Court jury in Augusta.
In an interview, the ex-governor and independent Senate candidate explains his political views as expressed in his Bowdoin blogs
Barring an act of God, utter stupidity, or an unexpected explosion of well-financed excellence from one of the second-stringers who will prevail in Maine's Democratic and Republican United States Senate primaries, Angus S. King Jr. will be the state's next US senator.
Big protests are planned. So is suppression.
Get ready for the protests. Get ready for the warm American spring — and maybe a hot summer and fall.
Occupy Watch
A February 29 protest in Augusta against the power of corporate lobbyists exposed the fundamental division on the lefty side of Maine politics.
Two-faced Democrats
In the current legislative fight over Republican Governor Paul LePage's lust to slash Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) programs because of a $221-million shortfall in its budget, Democrats say over and over that they want to protect the poor, sick, and disabled people from whom the governor wants to withdraw state assistance.
Lawmaker Apology
On February 9 the Legislature's Criminal Justice Committee, which had already informally decided against LD 1707, the bill that would have created severe penalties for people associated with criminal street gangs, killed a substitute proposal for a study to be done on how to define gangs and how to have police share information on them.
State House Switcheroo
After a January 27 public hearing featuring a rare insinuation by one legislator that a fellow lawmaker lied, Criminal Justice Committee members were ready to throw out LD 1707, a bill that piles heavy sentences onto people convicted of involvement with criminal street gangs.
Tattoos As A Criminal Act
A controversial legislative proposal developed by a secretive police group would send an individual to prison for up to 40 years if he or she is convicted of asking someone to join a criminal street gang.
Words from the guru
Noam Chomsky has advice for the Occupy movement, whose encampments all over the country are being swept away by police.
But will cutting costs cure it? Joe Ponte's balancing act
For years complaints that the privatized medical care at the state's prisons was inadequate and abusive have poured into the mail and email boxes of prisoner advocates, the state's Corrections commissioner, and the press.
Augusta protests
Bet you didn't know that the police, without going to court or giving a reason, can order you not to enter public property like the State House — and if you disobey you could spend up to six months in jail.
‘Occupy the Capitol!’
The recent act of nonviolent civil disobedience by nine middle-aged and older Occupy Augusta supporters — arrested for refusing to leave the governor's mansion grounds — opens a new phase in Maine's Occupy movement.
'Toxic' Washington
As a result of the apparent decision by congressional Republicans to oppose almost everything Democrats are for, Maine Senator Susan Collins — who claims to be above partisanship — helped derail Virginia Democratic Senator Jim Webb's bill to establish a bipartisan National Criminal Justice Commission. Maine's Olympia Snowe and three other Republicans joined unanimous Senate Democrats to support it.
Phoenix Media/Communications Group:
TODAY'S FEATURED ADVERTISERS
Copyright © 2012 The Phoenix Media/Communications Group
