I am a fan of the game of football.  I am a fan of the New England Patriots.  The Patriots won a decisive playoff victory over the Denver Broncos, which is in the process of training and molding a very young quarterback.  This young man has been the subject of, perhaps, the greatest outpouring of media stupidity I have seen or heard.  I have stayed away from this hilarity for reasons of trying to maintain some dignity.  But there are some sad tendencies within the media that ooze throughout the reporting world with unfortunate regularity.  The tendency most consistent is the tendency to….lie.

A couple of weeks ago, it was widely reported, after a poor showing against the Kansas City Chiefs, that the back-up quarterback was getting most of the reps and that Denver had installed a new offense for him for the play-offs.  Well then, a nasty thing called the truth appeared that Sunday.  Tim Tebow did play and did beat the Pittsburg Steelers.  The great quarterback Phil Simms revealed in his color commentary that the “new offense” installed was the customary two reps that a back-up receives at the Friday practice before the game.  This is done to remind the quarterback next in line what a football looks like, how it feels in his hand, and that it should be thrown in the direction of his teammates with some semblance of accuracy and purpose.  The coach then hopes his back-up will, in an emergency, show some mastery of the choreographed dance of large, overly padded men hurling and smashing themselves into each other with extreme prejudice.  What a great sport!

Did the media apologize for such a glaring lie?  Did sports writers admit their lack of knowledge of truth and that they are better suited to be writing talking points for Emily Cain or John Martin?  No!  Why?  Because they hate the fact that he exercises his Constitutional right to express his faith in public.

I share a very similar faith with this young man.  So you may ask how I feel about his expression of faith.  I DON’T CARE!!  He is an American and he can express his faith how he pleases.  Some have accused him of saying God helps him win.  He has never said that.  Another lie!

I’m going to drop a theological bombshell here.  Hang on!!  God doesn’t care a hoot what team wins a football game.  What he cares about is that all of us who claim to be Christians live out our lives, in the other six days of a week, as reflection of the God we worship on Sunday.

The behavior around Tim Tebow is silly.  The tendency of the media to lie with arrogant impunity is not.  The media will continue to do this unless we the people demand they stop and respond with the truth.

I recently listened to an album…did I say album, ahhh…ha ha ha, I meant CD of one of my favorite artists.  In one of the songs, the lyricist repeatedly poses the question to the listener, “What is your legacy?” For most honest people, this would trigger thoughts of reflection and self-evaluation.  But for the John Martin Democrats the response seems to be “it’s LePage’s fault”, “You can’t prove it” or, my favorite, “There wouldn’t be a shortfall if you let us add up the numbers”.   To the consternation of Democrats of the John Martin ilk, Mainers are not as impressed with the labyrinth of deceitful accounting practices that have accumulated over forty years as the Party, whose symbol is an Ass, seems to be.  As the Governor does the unthinkable and opens the books for the people to see, the specter of prosperity lost calls from the ghostly hallows with tales of the stolen and lost treasure of the people.  The graves and bones of Maine’s hopes and dreams of a bright future filled with wealth now slowly begin to piece together their story of betrayal and waste of precious things entrusted to those not worthy of trust.

First, it was the Turnpike Commission.  The revelation of fraud, waste and corruption made us all angry, but for different reasons.  For the people, who work hard for every dime, it was anger that money was being mishandled without any oversight and accountability.  Democrats were angry that such a big fuss was being made over “relatively” so little.  They called the State Treasurer an “activist” on a “witch hunt”.  I mean, what’s hundreds of thousands of dollars between thieves, right?  And more skeletons are still being discovered in that little dungeon.

Affordable Housing.  There’s nothing confusing about that title, correct?  Pretty self-explanatory, right?  Not to a Democrat.  No, Affordable means over $300,000 per unit.  Yeah, you all know where this is going.  In the ongoing investigation, there are “troubling” things coming to light on where and to whom that  $300,000 was dispersed.  What? Corruption in government?  Say it isn’t so?

Oh, you’ll just get the biggest giggle out of this.  Democrats want to force us to use Green Energy.   Aren’t you excited?  Yes, since we all have so much extra money hanging around, the left wants us, not them, us taxpayers to fund a clean energy initiative to increase our usage of new experimental energy sources by 20%, whether it works or not and whether you want to or not.  Isn’t this awesome?  It’s called legislation.  Just when you thought oil and fuel prices were way too low, here come your friendly favorite liberals with another energy tax.

By the way, the Governor thinks this is a bad idea because it’s bad for the economy and just pads the pockets of the special interests.  That’s why it’s called green energy.  It fills crooked politician’s pockets with taxpayer greenbacks and makes Maine’s economy green sick.  Just for chuckles, giggles and snorts, those gorgeous giant white windmills that we are blowing the tops off our mountains to put up, in England the wind keeps blowing the propellers off them.  Doesn’t that just make you…green?  The government picking your source of energy….and how did gasohol work out again?

This is the legacy of the Maine Democrat Party.  It has built a behemoth of bureaucracies that are dragging our State and its futures to its grave.  We have to face these ugly truths as they are revealed and all work together to turn the tide.  There is more to come.  Let’s Set Maine Free!

The godfather

One of the primary goals here at The Maine Conservative Voice is to lend a voice to the many residents of Maine who wish to see our state government exercise fiscal restraint and commonsense in Augusta.  This past week MCV sent an email to the Appropriations Committee imploring them to pass the Governor’s plan, which specifically addresses the DHHS  $212 million shortfall.  We received some positive responses from the committee and one scathing rebuke from a certain John L. Martin, Democrat Representative from Eagle Lake.

It is common knowledge that Mr. Martin rules the St. John Valley with an iron fist and none dare challenge him.  Yes, it seems like an eternity that Martin has wielded his ruthless power within the Democrat ranks; in fact, there may be some evidence that, when Moses was hurling his Ten Commandment tablets, he was aiming at John Martin.  When this columnist states that the Democrat party has a lot to hide and a lot to hold on to, Representative and former Senator John L Martin may be the prime example.

In his email reply, Rep. Martin accused this writer of blindly following the Governor.  He presented the same old tired, tattered and torn pictorials of the elderly….and the children…and the sick…and the infirmed….on and on.  It seems the “Honorable” John Martin would have us believe that all the above imagery falls under the category of “healthy childless adult”.

Oh, have we forgotten that already?  Yes, yes, that is what the Governor said.  He wants healthy, childless, adults off the dole.   But Democrats raise these same old worn images every time the people cry for reform.  Why?   It is to use our own sense of compassion as the very thing to whip the public back into compliance with the Democrat agenda.  For most of us, our Judeo-Christian heritage demands that we not ignore those less fortunate than us.  It is engrained into the very fabric of our society straight from our Christian roots.  The Democrats know it.  And they shame us into silence every time we call for some to develop their own independence.  But….the….Bible does say those that don’t work, don’t eat…..just a thought.

Those predictable arguments were, of course, no surprise.  But one argument gave pause and deserved attention.  Martin claimed that Veterans Homes in Maine were going to lose funding as a result of the Governor’s plan to rein in spending.  As the proud son of a Vietnam Vet, I certainly did not want to see that happen.  I did something that sends a shudder through the very bones of Democrats and their media allies, research.

The loss of funds for Veterans Homes is not going to happen, it already has.  In a town hall meeting with the Governor in Ft. Kent, Martin announced that the Federal government would not be funding PNMI or Private Non Medical Institutions.  Veterans Homes fall under this category.  There was a glaring omission from the “Honorable” John Martin’s announcement. Why?

Mr. Martin neglected to inform his constituents that his party had been caught scamming the PNMI Federal matching funds.  They had been cut off during the Baldacci administration.  The Federal government was obligated to do this to protect the other 49 States from the deceitful practices of Maine Democrats.  The “Honorable” John Martin had the audacity to insinuate that this somehow was the fault of Governor LePage.  Remember, that deceit is the support system of the Democrat platform.  Make a mess.  Blame the Republicans.  Republicans clean it up.  Democrats take the credit for it.  The Democrats have a lot to hide and a lot to hold on to.

I’ve blown through my word limit.  There is much, so much more, on this.  See you next week!

A blue Christmas

I’m not enough of a political historian to know why and when the colors blue and red were designated as the colors of the Democrat and Republican parties, respectively, but it has become increasingly clear in recent weeks that Democrats are determined to have a blue Christmas.  The late rock-in-roller Elvis Presley crooned, in that Christmas classic “Blue Christmas”, assuring his estranged lover that he would have a blue Christmas without her.  The lyrics of this song were meant to invoke images and emotions of sorrow and loneliness.  Democrats, on the other hand, seem quite content to have a blue Christmas without you.

Democrats have ignored the will of the people for years on the issue of LURC.  Now that the people have given the Republicans a chance to free rural Maine from this onerous regulatory beast, Republicans seem reluctant to make the right choice for Maine.  In the last legislative session, the opportunity was available to rid Maine of this burden.  Moderate Republicans entranced by the beckoning sounds of that hazy blue light followed it like so many moths to the flame and voted instead to form a commission to study the effects LURC on the State of Maine.  It seems that forty years of economic devastation wasn’t enough.

So the commission was formed and produced a compromise, which doesn’t seem to reflect the will of so many in rural Maine that cried for repeal.  There is a provision for Counties to opt out, but already Democrats are working to eliminate that.  If the moderate Republicans hold true to their pattern of obstruction, the future looks very blue indeed.  Mainers will be left with only promises of change but nothing to show for it.  This may prove to be a very blue Christmas for Democrats, a Christmas where the will of the people is ignored.  A gift Democrats thrive upon.

DHHS is facing a 212 million dollar shortfall.  The Governor has produced a plan to deal with it.  It asks that all healthy, childless adults be taken off the taxpayer dole.  The crazy thing about this plan is that it almost sounds like commonsense.  But Democrats and their media allies have produced the same old tired pictorials of the many defenseless the Republicans will hurt, like the front-page picture of a man who lives in need of oxygen.  The media and the liberals would have us believe that this is healthy male.  I’m sorry but the word “healthy” does not immediately conjure up images of a man who is confined by a need for oxygen.  Talk about your redefinitions.

Once again, the Democrat party is practicing diversionary tactics because they do not want the will of the people to be enacted.  If so, it will spell the end of bureaucracy.  Reformation will portend the targeting of fat-cat politicians and their corrupt agendas.  The Democrats have a lot to hide and hold on to.  They are determined to have a blue Christmas without you the people.

One day, the war on terrorism will come to an end. All wars do. And when it does, we will find ourselves still living in fear: not of terrorism or radical Islam, but of the domestic rulers that fear has left behind.” — Corey Robin

Hot potato, couch potato

Imagine if you will, the following scenario.  Joe Mainer is in the process of trying to support a family.  Joe and his wife have three dependents living at home, one healthy child, one with a debilitating handicap and Joe’s crippled mother, who is confined to a wheelchair.  Despite some financial assistance, the family’s budget is stretched to the maximum with very little room for the unexpected.  I would daresay that this scenario is not fiction for some who read this column.

But the unexpected does happen.  Joe’s 18-year-old son inexplicably drops out of college and moves back home.  Joe Jr. now spends his days on the couch eating, watching TV and railing against the establishment that doesn’t “understand” him.  Mom and Dad love their son.  Stung by his criticism that their dysfunctional parenting has led him to his emotionally crippled state, they try to do his every bidding to “help” him.  But his demands begin to pull funds away from the dependents, which have life threatening needs.

Mr. and Mrs. Mainer are in full crises mode.  In desperation, they use their credit card to bridge the financial gap.  Soon the payments are due.  They don’t have the money and, with mortgage payments and healthcare bills pending or in arrears, they now face a calamity of their own making.  Their friends and neighbors are willing to make a portion of the payments, but the Mainers have to come up with the balance with money they don’t have.  Joe Sr. is faced with a tough decision.  He now can better understand the tough parenting of his parents.

Joe the elder’s parents didn’t care if they were called dysfunctional.  They didn’t care whether their children liked them or not.  Their primary goal in parenting Joe was that he be a responsible hardworking adult. Now the father, Joe must make a very, very difficult decision.

Joe Sr. orders his son out of the house.  He demands that his son get his own job and support himself.  The father understands that, if the healthy adult son isn’t kicked out of the nest, he risks losing the whole nest.

The Governor of Maine faces this very situation with this great State.  For over forty years, Maine’s operating budgets were stretched very thin.  Instead of balancing the budgets, Democrats enabled the debt increasing tactics of the left by creating more pathways to entitlements for all who wished to indulge.  Soon droves of seekers came to bathe in Maine’s entitlement utopia.

The payments have come due.  The Governor is asking the couch potatoes to get off the couch and work before the whole system comes crashing down.  If it does, only the most vulnerable will lose.  The couch potatoes will simply move to a different couch.

As expected, the Democrats are in full uproar as Governor LePage works to balance the books.  These obstructionists have a vested interest in keeping things in crisis mode.  A crisis usually spawns another government bureaucracy. So they are in full attack and no dishonesty is too low.

The Governor wants all healthy childless adults off the dole, from middle aged and no lower than 19.  But Democrats now have redefined middle-aged as “elders” and children as 19-20 year olds.  The State has no money but Democrats rant that if we implement reform we will lose Federal matching funds, which make up 65% of the costs.  It seems the left is comfortable with defaulting on 35% of the DHHS budget.  There is no money to cover the extravagant entitlement spending.  We must stay within our means if we want to continue to protect our State’s most vulnerable.  We must get the couch potatoes out of the nest if we want to save the nest.  Let’s Set Maine Free!

The stuff of tyrants

The pressure is on.  The intensity is rising and anxiety is mounting.  The sacred golden calf of environmentalists is beginning to creak and groan under the beat of the march of the “villagers”.  Yes, the “villagers”, those scabby little things that dare to own land in the far reaches of eastern and northern Maine.  Those scalawags who rape mother earth with tools that plant gardens, chainsaws that cut down trees and, worst of all, produce offspring that run like little vermin in and out of the pristine lakes and streams of the goddess’ green earth.  Eh gads, the fiends!  Who knows what bodily fluids those little monsters are emitting into the mother’s pools of purity. Ah….weeeell, all I can say is when this guy was a little guy there was no getting me out of the water….okay…..just saying.

While this sarcasm is a little over the top (hard to believe, I know), there is an underlying motive behind many of the left’s passionate arguments in defense of LURC, the Land Use Regulatory Commission.  Many of the more liberal persuasion simply do not believe in landowner rights or perhaps other landowners’ rights.  Amazingly, liberals always find a waiver for their own property, but I digress.  The Founding Father’s unwavering belief that a man’s land was his own to do with as he pleases flies directly in the face of the socialist belief that there are a certain select few who know what is best for everybody else.

A Mr. Ron Joseph recently penned an opinion article for the Bangor Daily.  In this piece, Mr. Joseph bemoans the fact that the hearings to review the effect of LURC on rural areas are being held in the rural areas that are affected by LURC.  Of course, to most of us, that would be common sense, but the retired State and Federal biologist fails to see the obvious here.

Mr. Joseph, in his defense of LURC, reveals the prevailing thought process that was the genesis of LURC. That is, landowners of the North and East wild lands are a danger to the land and cannot be trusted with the stewardship of their own lands; therefore, in order to protect the land at risk from these less than worthy landowners a government bureaucracy most be established that can super-impose the will of more earth-minded people upon the rights of those who own the land.  Mr. Joseph clearly states in his editorial that former members of LURC should be the ones deciding its fate.  He never once acknowledges that these are the very members who ignored the will of landowners in years past.  He refuses to admit that there is a reason that rural Maine has such a negative feeling towards this organization.  Rural Maine has suffered immeasurably under the tyranny of this organization.  The political establishment for years has ignored their cries for help.

Now comes a Governor who is determined to see that rural Maine has a voice.  Now the sacred environmental cow begins to feel the tremble of revolt.  But there is danger in this for the Governor.  If the obstructionist moderates within his own party block the abolishment of this hated commission, he and his party may feel backlash from the very ones who voted him in.

Mr. Joseph started his piece with a quote from Earnest Benn.  “Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.”  I can’t think of a better description for formation of LURC.  A danger to the earth was created that never was.  LURC was formed to govern that which need not and should not be governed.  Now this behemoth of “government gone bad’ has done immense damage to the towns and villages of rural Maine and allows the persnickety, pompous and prudish elitist the power to dictate to landowners what they can and cannot do with their own property.  This is the stuff of tyranny and is why we cry “Abolish LURC and Set Maine Free”!

Besmirch

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery or so they say.  But the clear lines between truth and perception have faded precipitously in recent weeks.  Anarchy once again blindly assaults the very foundations that hold and gird the stalwart common man.  While pure imitation remains still the purest form of flattery, the claim to imitation with vile intent holds no form of flattery and is by no means pure.

Americans have watched with no small consternation as the Democrat party has embraced with relish the anarchist tactics of the Occupy Wall Street movement.  Our military has at times engaged their enemies with “shock and awe”.  In the streets of our cities, Americans have been assaulted with “shock and recoil”.  But the leaders of the Democrat party have embraced this behavior, championing the tantrums as legitimate.

The Democrat party does not need the offensive methods of the Defecate Wall Street movement as some new aggressive revolutionary campaign.  The Party, whose symbol is an Ass, has a heinous bag full of tricks that would make the not so happy city campers’ duffels look paltry in comparison.  There is a more sinister reason to why the Democrats have locked arms with these vagrants.

The constant theme threaded throughout the commentary used to describe these “protests” has been “like the Tea Party”.  Other frequently used descriptive terms have been “tactics of the Tea Party” or “things in common with the Tea Party”.  The Democrat Party, either by design or by crises seized, is attempting to smear the Tea Party with the misbehaviors of those who smear the streets of our cities with their refuse.

Americans are by nature law-abiding, God-fearing and peace-loving.  With good reason and to maintain those standards, they will ignore and separate themselves from those who act out with delinquent behavior.  It’s repulsive to honest people and they prefer to have nothing to do with the stench.  What an effective political ploy!  To encourage behavior that has all the intellectual integrity of a drunken hormone addled teenager and then label it, as the “tactics of the Tea Party”. This would be a very effective way to diffuse the energy of hard-working Americans.  Now Democrats can smear the Tea Party the same way Occupy Wall Street’s movements have smeared the tops of law enforcement vehicles across the United States.  Now the rights of freedom loving Americans to protest can be sullied in the same way as the rights of young women to safe nights sleep has been violated in their tents on the streets of our cities.  One commentator said it best when he observed that there are only two places where there are “rape free zones”: prison and Occupy Wall Street.  Yes, Americans are disgusted.

But there is no comparison.  Tea Party rallies were usually one-day events, at the most a weekend, because the participants had to get back to….work.  The Occupy groups have camped out, supported by the very “one percent” they protest.  The media worked at a ferocious fever pitch trying to find deviants within the Tea Party to highlight.  Now they are working with the same ferocity to cover up the disgusting behavior of the Occupy anarchists.

Leaders of the Tea Party have, perhaps out of good will, tried to acknowledge that there are some possible similarities between the two.  This is playing directly into the hands of the groups who wish the Tea Party’s demise: the Democrat Party and their media allies.  The Tea Party must stand resolute in its assertion that there is no similarity.  The foundational motives are polar opposites.  The Tea Party is calling for the restoration of a strong and vibrant America.  The Occupy group is calling for its utter destruction.  The Tea Party is calling for the chance that all Americans can work in freedom to pursue their dreams.  The anarchist blocked streets so that Americans cannot get to work, children cannot pursue their education.  This columnist was taught in my grade school social studies class that we were all entitled to our free rights until we infringed upon the rights of our fellow citizens.  Just a thought to ponder from an 8^th grade Social Studies teacher.

The thanksgiving in me.

The thanksgiving in me

Looks forward to see

What blessings this season does bring

It’s more than the feast

The dough and the yeast

It’s freedoms we hale, we sing

We gaze misty eyed

At heroes who’ve died

To insure that we celebrate free

A child’s pleading eye

For a big piece of pie

In part is thanksgiving in me

To view nature’s charm

With my wife on my arm

Indeed, this is heaven on earth

The trees shed their leaves

Children play as they please

Oh, how I treasure their birth

This dinner of cheer

Heralds winter is near

Soon Dad, cut our big Christmas tree

Mom’s final say

Picks the tree that will stay

I love this thanksgiving in me

The land soon will bow

With snow covered boughs

We’re all warm and cozy inside

This land that I love

Blessings sent from above

Is why I still live here with pride

The things dear to me

The thanksgiving in me

Is why I will never refrain

To thank God above

For my family I love

This is Thanksgiving in ME