Free Republic

Officials tell lawmakers that a growing number of dangerous prisoners are being housed in the facilty and they pose a higher escape risk. An increasingly dangerous inmate population at the Maine Correctional Center in Windham warrants allowing officers to shoot at prisoners who are trying to escape, says the director of security for the Maine Department of Corrections. click image to enlarge This Oct. 17, 2013, photo shows the Maine Correctional Center in Windham, where Corrections Department officials say a growing number of dangerous prisoners are being housed. Gordon Chibroski / Staff Photographer Select images available for purchase in the...

What was expected to be a routine stopover at Bangor International Airport for a plane filled with returning U.S. troops and defense contractors Sunday night instead became a frustrating ordeal for many of those aboard. For the 102 U.S. troops returning from Afghanistan and Kuwait on Delta flight 8964, getting off the plane was fairly routine and featured a hero’s welcome from the Maine Troop Greeters in attendance. It was a different story for the 112 Department of Defense contractors — those hired to fly drones, do intelligence analysis, fix computers and other jobs — some of whom were kept...

The supreme court of Maine has issued an opinion declaring that transgender children in the state’s public schools must be allowed to choose their own bathrooms despite their genitalia or how uncomfortable other students may feel about it. The 5-1 decision, which came down on Thursday, marks the first time any state’s high court has ruled that transgender kids can use the bathroom with which they identify rather than the one matching their biological trappings, reports the Bangor Daily News. The case, which originated in 2009 and stagnated for years in Maine’s courts, involved a fifth-grade student who wanted to...

The rights of a transgender girl from Orono were violated when school administrators made her use a staff bathroom at her elementary school instead of the girls’ restroom, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruled Thursday. The ruling is the first in which a state supreme court has affirmed a transgender person’s right to equal access to restrooms in places of public accommodation. Lawyers representing Nicole Maines, who is now 16, said the decision could lay a foundation for other states’ courts that are facing questions about the emerging rights of people who identify as the opposite of their birth gender....

Maine’s Somali Muslim settler problem is growing worse with gang violence and welfare abuse threatening the state. Governor LePage’s efforts to make Maine’s generous benefits system less attractive to Somali Muslim migrants who have swarmed the state seeking taxpayer handouts has led to protests from those same Somali Muslims.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., blocked a last-ditch effort by Republicans Thursday to restore full military pensions. Their proposal would have been paid for by denying tax credits to undocumented immigrants. Pensions to retired and disabled veterans were cut last month in a budget compromise hammered out by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wa., and Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., according to the Washington Free Beacon.

Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) said Tuesday that state regulations governing child labor are hurting the state’s economy, according to the Portland Press Herald. “We don’t allow children to work until they’re 16, but two years later, when they’re 18, they can go to war and fight for us,” LePage said at an agricultural trade show, according to the paper. “That’s causing damage to our economy. I started working far earlier than that, and it didn’t hurt me at all. There is nothing wrong with being a paperboy at 12 years old, or at a store sorting bottles at 12...

Under intense pressure from veterans’ groups, members of Congress are pledging to revisit a controversial provision of the weeks-old federal budget that would reduce pension payments for younger military retirees. The cuts to military pensions quickly emerged as the most contentious aspect of the two-year budget passed by Congress late last month. Since then, lawmakers have introduced a slew of proposals to reduce or reverse cuts that outraged veterans’ groups and active duty military personnel. “If they want to deter people from making the military their career, they are on the right track,” said Thomas Lussier, public relations officer for...

Somalis have made Somalia a very pleasant place to live. Between the Muslim militias shooting at each other and the amateur hyena psychiatry sessions, it’s perfect. That’s why most Somalis are getting the hell out of there and moving to other countries that they can remake into Somalia.There are Little Mogadishus all across America, but few places have been hit as hard by Somali Muslim migrants as Maine whose generous benefits system is struggling to cope with the Somali settlers.Lewiston Mayor Robert E. MacDonald has written sharply about the Somali welfare invasion and its impact on Maine natives. Today in...

Tens of thousands in the Northeast and Midwest who spent Christmas in the dark and cold after a vicious ice storm are likely to be waiting until the weekend for their power to be restored, utility firms said early Thursday. For many people in Maine -- proportionally the hardest-hit state – there looked to be more misery on the way, with a second bout of snow and cold temperatures threatening to put even more people in the dark.

U.S. law enforcement agencies are conducting thousands of investigations using a law that makes violating state wildlife statutes a federal crime, often ensnaring hunters and fishermen for seemingly minor infractions. Some even suffer stiff federal prison sentences. Special agents and wildlife inspectors for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service conduct about 2,500 investigative cases a year of violations of the Lacey Act, a 1900 law meant to combat illegal trafficking of wildlife. ... Rock star Ted Nugent, an avid hunter and fisherman .. "Good, decent families' lives are being turned upside down and ruined by out-of-control jackboot game agencies, particularly...

The Maine Republican Party on Wednesday released an email in which State Rep. Brian Bolduc, D-Auburn, railed against noisy trucks and questioned the intelligence of truck drivers. "... one look at them and you can see they probably dont (sic) have a whole hell of allot (sic) of brains in their heads," Bolduc wrote in the email. Republican Party Executive Director Jason Savage said the email was written in November and forwarded to the Republican Party a few days ago. He said the email was originally sent to multiple officials, but he declined to say who those officials were. He...

President Barack Obama won reelection last year warning voters about what he called an extreme Republican agenda that would roll back the social and economic victories of the previous years. But that agenda is on the move in the states, and on the ballot in next year’s most competitive governors’ races — all of them in places he won in both 2008 and 2012: Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Maine and Michigan. The White House has committed to its first Democratic Governors Association fundraising event of the cycle and pledged to help candidates next year, people familiar with the discussions confirmed...

Erick Bennett, a Portland political consultant and founder of the conservative Maine Equal Rights Center, announced Monday that he’ll run as a primary challenger to U.S. Sen. Susan Collins. But in an interview, Bennett seemed pretty ho-hum about whether or not he really wants to serve in the Senate. He said the primary challenge is not about him, but about facilitating a conversation among Republicans about Collins’ voting record. Bennett said he’d asked several prominent Republicans — he hinted at CD2 contenders Kevin Raye and Bruce Poliquin — to run against Collins, but no one was interested. So the mantle...

When the intensely private Rep. Mike Michaud laid bare his private life and announced he’s gay, one openly gay congressman joked that the Maine Democrat had never registered on his “gaydar.” As he prepares to return to Capitol Hill this week as the seventh openly gay member of the U.S. House, Michaud said the decision to come out this week was a positive experience that drew support from fellow congressmen and hundreds of constituents—even if it was political nastiness that prompted his announcement. … Michaud, who’s engaged in a three-way race for governor, used an op-ed provided to two newspapers...

John McCain voted yea WASHINGTON, D.C., November 7, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – This afternoon the Senate approved a bill that could force business owners who adhere to traditional values to hire homosexuals, bisexuals, and those who do not dress in accordance with their biological sex or face litigation. The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) passed following a bipartisan 64-32 vote. Supporters say it would forbid “workplace discrimination” against homosexuals and transgender employees and job-seekers. But critics say, like the HHS mandate, its religious exemption is unduly narrow and would force employers – including Christian schools and nurseries – to violate their consciences....

Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander (R) Montana Senator Max Baucus (D) Alaska Senator Mark Begich (D) Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss (R) Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran (R) Maine Senator Susan Collins (R) Texas Senator John Cornyn (R) Massachusetts Senator William "Mo" Cowan (D) Illinois Senator Dick Durbin (D) Wyoming Senator Mike Enzi (R) Minnesota Senator Al Franken (DFL) South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham (R) North Carolina Senator Kay Hagan (D) Iowa Senator Tom Harkin (D) Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe (R) Nebraska Senator Mike Johanns (R) South Dakota Senator Tim Johnson (D) Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu (D) Michigan Senator Carl Levin (D) Kentucky...

The six-term congressman’s announcement in an op-ed column may influence the 2014 election to lead the state. Maine political observers offered early reaction Monday to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mike Michaud’s announcement that he’s gay, ending years of speculation and potentially sharply changing the dynamic of the 2014 gubernatorial race. Michaud, 57, currently serving his sixth term in the U.S. House of Representatives, made the disclosure in a column submitted to three of the state’s major news outlets.He said he was making the announcement in response to “the whisper campaigns, insinuations and push polls” that unidentified people have been using to...

A time lapse shot of the USS Zumwalt being moved from the pier to the drydock, and then to the water.

BATH, ME -- After embarrassing troubles with its latest class of surface warships, the Navy is hoping for a winner from a new destroyer that's ready to go into the water. So far, construction of the first-in-class Zumwalt, the largest U.S. Navy destroyer ever built, is on time and on budget, something that's a rarity in new defense programs, officials said. And the Navy believes the ship's big gun, stealthy silhouette and advance features will make it a formidable package.