Free Republic

Is the Governor of Maine a closet Marxist? Maine has the first fully socialized medicine. Maine is the first "sanctuary state" for illegal aliens. Maine is the first state to call for an end to the embargo against Cuba? PLUS GOVERNOR JOHN BALDACCI MET WITH REPRESENTATIVES OF HUGO CHAVEZ'S GOVERNMENT ON HIS RETURN FROM A MEETING WITH FIDEL CASTRO IN HAVANA, CUBA!

RICHMOND -- For nearly 40 years, Donna Loring was a Democrat. Thursday, she became a Republican. Loring, a Richmond selectwoman and former legislative representative for the Penobscot Nation, said she's disappointed with Democratic leadership and believes Republican Sen. S. Peter Mills should be the next governor of Maine. "We need solid party leadership to get this state out of the quagmire it's in," she said after filing paperwork at the Richmond Town Office to change her affiliation. Loring spent eight years in the Legislature representing the Penobscot Nation. She ran as a Democrat for the state Senate in 2004 but...

Baldacci rating among lowest in U.S. Thursday, December 22, 2005 - Bangor Daily News << Back AUGUSTA - Gov. John E. Baldacci's favorability rating continued to trend downward this week in a poll that ranked the Democratic politician 44th nationally in terms of voter approval. In fact, the SurveyUSA poll compiled numbers that placed Baldacci's favorability rating below President Bush and only slightly above embattled Republican California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Kathleen Blanco, the Democratic governor of storm-ravaged Louisiana. Gov. Bob Taft, R-Ohio, placed 50th nationally in the survey with an 80 percent disapproval rating. He was recently convicted on...

Gov. John Baldacci's re-election campaign on Monday tapped Jesse Connolly of Portland to manage the governor's bid to reclaim the Blaine House in 2006. Connolly most recently helped engineer the defeat of Question 1, the high-profile effort to overturn the state's new gay rights law last November. Baldacci was a driving force behind the law during its trip through the Legislature. "He has done of lot of good things in his four years, and I believe he deserves a second term. We will communicate that to the people of Maine," said Connolly, who will begin his new position on Jan....

As citizens Thursday night continued to debate a possible smoking ban in Springfield, the executive director of the Illinois Licensed Beverage Association threatened to sue the city if it prohibits smoking in taverns and bowling alleys.Opponents of a ban also attacked the idea that scientific studies show that secondhand smoke is harmful to those who inhale it.Supporters cited reports by the U.S. surgeon general and numerous medical groups that secondhand smoke is a cause of disease, including lung cancer, in nonsmokers. They argued the issue is more about the health of patrons and workers than economics.A proposed ordinance would ban...

This week, supporters of a smoking ban in Chicago's restaurants will rally in the Federal Plaza at noon in anticipation of a vote on the Chicago Clean Indoor Air Ordinance. They will effectively remove smoking from all public places. This ordinance is a more comprehensive form of the current ordinance, which only bans smoking in public places except for designated smoking areas. The new Chicago Clean Indoor Air Ordinance 2005 by Alderman Ed Smith of Ward 28, bans it completely from all public places. Any adult that has lived in the public sphere for at least part of his/her life...

ALBANY, N.Y. - The world's largest shipping carrier, UPS Inc., will stop delivering cigarettes to individuals in the United States under an agreement announced Monday with state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.The agreement is the latest in federal and state efforts to combat the sale of under-taxed cigarette and to fight underage smoking. Most under-taxed or untaxed cigarettes are sold by Indian tribes, where the taxation of sales to non-Indians is disputed.Monday's agreement leaves only the U.S. Postal Service among major carriers to continue to deliver cigarettes to individuals, Spitzer said. He called that practice "an embarrassment." Spitzer continues to negotiate...

Doctors call on Ottawa to buy big tobacco and manage orderly phase-out OTTAWA--(CCNMatthews - Oct. 21, 2005) - (Ottawa) Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada (PSC) today called on the government to stop the "rape and run" tactics of tobacco business corporations by buying tobacco companies outright and seeing that they are run in the public interest to phase out tobacco completely by 2030."Yesterday's announcement by Imperial Tobacco that they would close their manufacturing plants and lay off 650 workers was entirely predictable." said Neil Collishaw, Research Director of Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada. "Canada is making great strides at reducing tobacco...

Think tank to examine Maine economy, growth, government PORTLAND — The Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank, is launching a study of the Maine economy that will include a blueprint on how to boost the state's prosperity while retaining its quality of life. The yearlong project, with a price tag of $450,000, was unveiled Monday at a City Hall news conference involving Gov. John Baldacci, former Gov. Angus King and representatives of business, conservation and foundation interests that are providing most of the study's funding. The event was organized by GrowSmart Maine, a nonprofit organization in Yarmouth that has focused...

CHARLOTTE, N.C., Oct. 13-- After opening the 2005 season with Nicorette as the first quit-smoking sponsor in NASCAR, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Consumer Healthcare is closing the year with its Commit® stop smoking lozenges as the primary sponsor of a car for two Cup Series races. David Stremme will run the #39 Commit Dodge in tonight's UAW-GM Quality 500 at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte, N.C., and again at the Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway on November 20, 2005, to help promote the newest form of medicinal nicotine for smokers trying to quit.

THERE'S something even deadlier in the air than secondhand smoke -- it's secondhand fat, says a top researcher.For years, doctors have been baffled by the high number of heart attack deaths of extremely skinny people, who were married to fatties or living with whale-size family members.Some theorized that they just might be getting clogged arteries because they adopted the same poor eating habits of their obese spouses or housemates.But now, Dr. Benjamin Myers, an obesity specialist in Bristol, Conn., says that invisible particles of fat detach themselves from obese people and are breathed in by those around them."I believe that...

Continuing his Maine Denial Tour, Al Franken has kicked the nerve factor up a notch with a shameless weekend speech to Bowdoin College Democrats. While the young, eager Brunswick-based students soaked up rhetoric faster than SpongeBob SquarePants, Franken somehow still managed to disappoint them, by refusing to answer any questions. Why? As Frank Chi, campus Democrats co-president, explains in the Times Record:

Your immediate attention and action is needed! DEFEAT BALDACCI! - SUPPORT A REPUBLICAN IN ONLINE POLL http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/state/051003menext.shtmlmust visit website to vote 2006 Governor's Race Who would you support for governor? John Baldacci, Dem. Peter Cianchette, Rep. Peter Mills, Rep. None of the above It looks as though the Portland Press Herald will be offering this question regularly through the 2006 election. John Baldacci hasn’t won one yet, let’s keep it that way.

Smoking and health concernsThe harmful effects of cigarettes on smokers have been well documented since the 1950s.Health officials, doctors and government agencies have long cautioned that cigarettes cause numerous cancers, emphysema, chronic bronchitis and obstructive pulmonary disorders, among other ailments. Despite warning labels and public campaigns, many smokers continue to accept the health risks and simply light up.Nevertheless, the persistent efforts of health advocates have been increasingly persuasive. Smoking rates in the U.S. have consistently fallen since the early 1960s.1 Smoking rates per capita have fallen to 22.5 percent2 and show no signs of recovering.Adult per capita cigarette yearly...

Man gets 30 days for slapping infant by E.C. Shanor SOUTH PARIS - An admitted child abuser will have to spend 30 days in jail for slapping an infant. William Babbidge, 26, of Rumford pled guilty in Oxford County Superior Court, Monday, to a felonious assault. The victim was an eight-week-old infant. The child's mother had left Babbidge, her live-in boyfriend, to babysit while she was at work. When she returned, hours later, she noticed that the side of the child's head was black-and-blue, the marks resembling a hand print. According to police reports submitted to the court, Babbidge claimed...

AUGUSTA - Maine Attorney General Steven Rowe said Friday that he has appealed a federal judge's decision that invalidated a significant portion of a 2003 state law aimed at preventing youth access to tobacco from Internet and mail-order sales. Maine's law required procedures to verify that those who purchase tobacco by mail are old enough to do so. It was designed in part to prevent youths from ordering cigarettes online and also to assist the state in collecting taxes that would otherwise be unpaid. U.S. District Judge D. Brock Hornby said that while Maine's statute was well-intentioned, it ran afoul...

What's up in the town of Winthrop, Maine? SMOKERS NOT WELCOME AT WINTHROP BEACH!Winthrop proves smoking is not a health issue at all.  But it's all about CON T R O L!7-16-05 - I was notified of the ridiculous treatment given to one family just because a family member was smoking. A cop approached the family and told them they would have to leave because this was a "no smoking beach."  The family, as you can see, is not "on" the beach, but on the grassy area.  There were no signs stating that the area was smoke free.  The cop told...

BANGOR - Members of the City Council's government operations committee on Tuesday sent a no-smoking policy proposed for the health and welfare facilities and a fire department grant award to the full council, which will consider both at its next regular meeting. The committee, chaired by Councilor Richard Greene, made short work of both items. The proposed smoking ban would affect the city's health and welfare department offices on Texas Avenue, Health and Welfare Director Shawn Yardley said at Tuesday's meeting at City Hall. Yardley said making the entire health and welfare campus smoke-free would be prudent because it...

AUGUSTA -- Republican legislative leaders who supported an earlier "people's veto" campaign to undo part of the new state budget want nothing to do with a new drive to repeal a cigarette-tax hike and other aspects of the same budget at the ballot box. Top Republican lawmakers said Wednesday Stavros Mendros of Lewiston, a onetime Republican state representative, has a right to challenge the Legislature's decision to raise taxes and fees. But they do not agree that voters should be asked to repeal tax hikes, which they described as a misguided but legal budget-balancing tool. The skepticism surfaced after Mendros...

  Taxing the smoke you breathe Coffee Flavored Coffee by Peter Cook  Despite my deeply unpleasant experiences with tobacco, though, I think the legislature's plan to raise taxes on cigarettes is cynical and wrong. The state is preparing to raise the tax on cigarettes by 100 percent - from $1 to $2 per pack. For lawmakers and the Baldacci administration, this plan is a double-win situation. Quoted in the Portland Press Herald, Baldacci spokesman Lynn Kippax said, "The cigarette tax is a horse of a different color. It does more than just raise revenue. It helps keep people from taking...