Free Republic

A Maine judge's court order prevented a mother from taking her own daughter to Christmas church services. Now the Maine Supreme Judicial Court is set to weigh in on whether the lower court overstepped its limits when it barred Emily Bickford from reading the Bible to her 12-year-old daughter or taking her to church for over a year. The state's high court heard oral arguments last month in the case of Bickford v. Bradeen — a battle between judicial authority and parental rights. Liberty Counsel, a faith-based non-profit legal group, is representing Bickford. She is challenging a December 2024 custody...

GOP lawmakers are fleeing for the exit in droves, with many pointing to a Congress they argue has grown too dysfunctional and a demanding schedule that leaves little time for their families. More than 50 lawmakers in both parties have announced decisions to leave their seats, scrambling the calculus on both sides of the aisle ahead of next year’s high-stakes midterms. The wave of exits could be particularly ominous for Republicans in charge of the House and Senate. The number exiting is nearly on par with 2018, a dismal midterm year for the GOP. Some lawmakers frustrated with inaction on...

A Maine health services company recently accused by a whistleblower of bilking taxpayers out of millions in Medicaid funds saw its spigot shut off this week as the state Department of Health moved to halt payments from MaineCare. Gateway Community Services is a Portland company run by a Somali-born man who ran for president – the U.S. equivalent of governor – of Jubaland, Somalia, for what would have been a four-year term beginning in 2024, according to his campaign website. Ali’s campaign manifesto includes a point saying he would create "robust security infrastructure" to counter Al-Shabab, while reports out of...

The House voted 231-195 on Thursday to pass legislation that would nullify President Trump’s efforts to strip more than 1 million federal workers of their collective bargaining rights, sending the measure over to the Senate, where its prospects are less rosy. Twenty Republican lawmakers broke ranks to support the Protect America’s Workforce Act (H.R. 2550) on the floor. Introduced by Reps. Jared Golden, D-Maine, and Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., the measure effectively nullifies Trump’s March executive order barring unions at more than 40 federal agencies under the guise of national security and bars federal agencies from terminating any union contracts that...

Post See new posts Conversation Wall Street Apes @WallStreetApes A man from Somalia came to America, started a nonprofit and opened a “multimillion dollar migrant care service agency” He’s getting over $5 million per year from American taxpayers, being given no-bid contracts from Maine Governor Janet Mills, and is building a military in Somalia He has been funneling money back to Somalia to build a military in Somalia “The guy is running a migrant services agency that bills MaineCare, which is what we call Medicaid, about $5 million a year” “He said he raised money in the US to buy...

A prominent national conservative group is prepared to help fund the legal defense for Maine school boards that are bucking state law to bar transgender students from playing on sports teams and using private spaces that align with their gender identities. Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal advocacy group, will cover legal fees incurred in lawsuits filed by the Maine Human Rights Commission last month, the Livermore Falls-area school board chair told fellow board members at a Thursday meeting.

Bangor Daily News Susan Collins says Maine should be ‘transparent’ with SNAP data amid Trump’s threat by Billy Kobin December 3, 2025 U.S. Sen. Susan Collins said Maine should be “transparent” with data on food stamp recipients and their immigration status but expected a threat from President Donald Trump’s administration to withhold aid to states over the issue to be blocked in court. The president initially asked states earlier in the year to provide the data on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Most Republican-led states did so. Maine was among the 21 Democratic-led states that partnered on a lawsuit that...

WINDHAM, Maine—Senate candidate Graham Platner (D.) urged his supporters to publicly harass members of Maine’s congressional delegation who oppose Medicare for All. “In the future, when we’re trying to vote on something like Medicare for All, if there are other members of the Maine delegation that don’t want to come along, we need to be able to impose costs,” he said during a Saturday town hall in the southern Maine town of Windham. “We need to be able to turn people out to flood their offices. Frankly, I want people to follow them around and don’t let them have a...

A Kennebunk, Maine, town official has stepped down from her liaison role with the local school board after facing backlash for suggesting that critics of a transgender athlete policy have "pedophilic tendencies." Vice Chair Leslie Trentalange, who serves on the Kennebunk Select Board, made the comments during an Oct. 20 Regional School Unit (RSU) 21 meeting that focused on the district’s transgender-student athlete policy. The policy, consistent with state law, allows students to join sports teams and use facilities matching their gender identity. Parents and community members across Maine have protested similar policies, arguing they violate Title IX protections Trentalange,...

In a long vote made longer by Texas Senator John Cornyn's absence from D.C. until late Sunday night, a new funding bill has passed the U.S. Senate and heads for the House of Representatives.The deal, which got support from eight Democrats, is part of a package meant to reopen the government, fund SNAP benefits, begin the appropriations process, and even secure a future vote for extending Affordable Care Act subsidies. The text of the bill can be found here.What's in the Deal?In exchange for their support of a bill to re-open the federal government, the seven Democrats were promised a...

Gun-control advocates in Maine have a new reason to celebrate following the 2025 off-year election. Pine-Tree State voters officially approved ballot Question 2 Tuesday night by a margin of 62 percent to 38 percent, according to the Associated Press. The measure will expand the authority of state authorities to temporarily confiscate firearms from people deemed a threat to themselves or others, in the form of a so-called red flag order. “Do you want to allow courts to temporarily prohibit a person from having dangerous weapons if law enforcement, family, or household members show that the person poses a significant danger...

A House Democrat representing a district that President Donald Trump won in 2024 is not seeking re-election next year. Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, announced his plans in an op-ed for the Bangor Daily News on Wednesday, a day after Democrats' sweeping electoral victories in Virginia, New Jersey, California and New York City. "I have never loved politics. But I find purpose and meaning in service, and the Marine in me has been able to slog along through the many aspects of politics I dislike by focusing on the good work that Congress is capable of producing with patience and determination,"...

Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner, the self-described "working class Mainer," attended an elite boarding school in Connecticut that costs upwards of $75,000 a year. Its alumni include Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart, former CIA director Porter Goss, Clinton family crony Strobe Talbott, MacKenzie Scott Bezos, and the veteran news anchor Chris Wallace. "Graham Platner is enrolled as a first-year student at the Hotchkiss School, located in Lakeville, Conn.," a Maine newspaper, the Ellsworth American, reported in November 1999. "Platner is familiar to many through his role as the Artful Dodger in 'Oliver' and as a 20th Maine Civil War Re-Enactor."...

Graham Platner, a far-left Democratic candidate running for Senate in Maine who has captured the enthusiasm of the party’s grassroots base, sought to preempt rumors circulating in recent weeks that a black skull-and-cross bones tattoo on his chest is a Nazi symbol. Speaking with Tommy Vietor on the “Pod Save America” political podcast, released on Monday night, Platner, 41, confirmed the existence of the tattoo, seen in video he shared displaying his bare chest, but suggested that his opponents in the race have been spreading claims that the symbol is affiliated with Nazism, which he forcefully denied. “I am not...

Sanders-backed Democrat who accuses Israel of 'genocide' has Nazi 'Totenkopf'. Graham Platner, a military veteran and Maine Senate candidate, faces backlash after revealing a Nazi tattoo and denying knowledge of its meaning. Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner sports a Totenkopf tattoo on his chest, in an archival video released by Platner himself. The skull-and-crossbones symbol is commonly associated with the Nazi SS. Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner sports a Totenkopf tattoo on his chest, in an archival video released by Platner himself. The skull-and-crossbones symbol is commonly associated with the Nazi SS. (photo credit: screenshot/via YouTube) By Andrew...

Graham Platner, the Maine Democratic Senate candidate backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), wrote in 2020 that he had an "antifa supersoldier" label on his "armor," according to an archived post reviewed by Axios. Why it matters: Progressives have elevated Platner as one of their top candidates in next year's midterm elections, but his old Reddit posts have thrown his campaign into turmoil. Platner is running to unseat Sen. Susan Collins, Senate Democrats' top Republican target next year. The contest for the Democratic nomination between Platner and Maine Gov. Janet Mills — who's preferred by Democratic Party leaders — already...

A member of the Bush family running for Maine governor attempted to get ahead of his dark past unveiled by the Daily Mail before launching his campaign, according to a new report. Jonathan Bush, the 56-year-old cousin of former President George W. Bush and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, launched his gubernatorial bid earlier this month. In 2018, the Daily Mail revealed Bush confessed to ‘numerous physical altercations’ with his ex-wife Sarah Selden. This included him 'repeatedly slamming his closed fist into her sternum [breastbone]', while in the presence of their child who was a baby at the time. The...

Ah! It seemed too good to be true. A Marine veteran who was also an oyster-farmer man of the people who, as a Democrat, promised to take down Maine's Republican Senator Susan Collins in the 2026 election. The new Golden Boy of Democrats everywhere as well as an eager media who sung his accolades across the land.Unfortunately for them, it all came crashing down as you can read in a sad report on Thursday by Benjamin Hart of New York magazine's Intelligencer section which bluntly proclaimed, "Graham Platner’s Honeymoon Is Over."

Two years after signing a radical measure that cleared the way for abortions through all nine months of pregnancy, Maine Gov. Janet Mills announced she is jumping into the race for U.S. Senate Her decision sets up a high-stakes showdown with Republican incumbent Susan Collins. The Democrat governor, who cannot seek a third term due to term limits, declared her candidacy in an interview with the Bangor Daily News, ending months of speculation about her political future. “I think I can win this, and I think I’m the one who can beat Susan Collins, because I have a track record...

Maine’s two-term Democratic Gov. Janet Mills will run for the U.S. Senate seat held by veteran Republican Sen. Susan Collins next year, two people familiar with Mills’ plans said on Friday. The development sets up a potential showdown between the parties’ best-known figures in a state where Democrats see a chance to gain a seat in their uphill quest for the Senate majority. Mills is tentatively expected to announce her candidacy on Tuesday, according to the people, who insisted on anonymity to discuss plans they were not authorized to share publicly. Mills was the top choice of national Democrats who...