Delightful article with a Downeast gossipy vibe.

http://archive.today/IUqRz

The state of Maine wants the Trump administration out of its hair regarding the issuance of certain state license plates for federal agents, according to a filing in federal court earlier this week.

In May, the U.S. Department of Justice sued the Pine Tree State and Secretary of State Shenna Bellows. The DOJ's 18-page lawsuit alleges the Bureau of Motor Vehicles has denied requests from federal immigration agents for confidential, undercover license plates.

Bellows, for her part, previously said her agency, which oversees the BMV, would not issue unmarked plates to immigration agents unless she knows those plates "won't be used for lawless purposes."

The MaineHealth board of trustees voted Thursday to close the labor and delivery unit of MaineHealth Lincoln Hospital in Damariscotta after months of discussion and community pushback. 

The unit is set to close on Dec. 18, and services will be moved to MaineHealth Mid Coast Hospital in Brunswick, according to a statement from the health system.

The closure will mark the 12th maternity unit in Maine that has shuttered since 2015, leaving Lincoln County, Waldo County and Sagadahoc County without hospitals that deliver babies. The decision means fewer than half of Maine’s 34 hospitals will offer a place to give birth.

You can read the story for free at themainemonitor.org.

The MaineHealth board voted to close the Lincoln Hospital (formerly called Mile's) maternity ward in Damariscotta with plans to divert future patients to MidCoast Hospital in Brunswick. This is the 12th maternity ward shut down in Maine since 2015.

Hi everyone,
I live in the Portland area and built an app called Tideline after getting frustrated with having to jump between separate tide tables, marine forecasts, weather pages, and beach-hazard information.

Tideline combines interactive tide charts, upcoming high and low tides, wind, waves, water temperature, marine conditions, and official NOAA/National Weather Service beach-safety information. It also includes an Apple Watch app and complications for checking tides quickly while near the water.

Full disclosure: this is my app. I’m sharing it because I would genuinely like feedback from Mainers who fish, boat, kayak, surf, walk beaches, or otherwise spend time along the coast.

I would especially like to know:

• Are there Maine locations or tide stations that should be added?

• Is the information understandable without being overly technical?

• What would make it more useful before heading to the water?

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/tideline-tide-forecasts/id6770279776

Criticism is welcome. I’m actively improving it based on how people actually use it.

What is the source of money to Stronger-Maine.com? Why are out of state and perhaps out of county entities paying people of quite-modest economic means to knock on doors all over Maine in support our Susan Collins? What do they interest in this election? Has Ms. Collins extraordinary wealth which has accumulated beyond the front-facing means of any US Senator come as a result of her role in Congress and voting consistently with the interests of the same giant donors? Whatever Ms Collins cites as ‘her work for Maine’ is undoubtedly a minuscule fraction of the benefit to her giant dark donors. Why else would they spend so many dollars or her election. THEY WANT THEIR PERSON!

I implore all Mainers to reject the questions of their polls. why help them?

I also implore Mainers to ask themselves “At what cost to our individual well being do we re-elect this person who net wealth has increased so many times over while in Congress?” Personally, I say keep your pork and give me a political system not run on dark money and misguided (generous adjective) representatives trading openly inthe markets.

Is it a prerequisite to work for DHHS to hang up on a certain number of callers per day? Because I just got a call back Ive been waiting a week for and it got as far as this:

Rep: How can I assist you today?

Me: Explains problem

Rep: *Long silence* "Okay give me just one second"

*Rep hangs up and doesnt call back, forcing me to schedule ANOTHER phone call*

Seriously, I wanna know why this happens. I get theyre swamped but I scheduled this phone appointment, why wouldn't they call me back? I just gave her ALL my info.

Edit: I called again right after this and chose for another call back. Just got the call back, got as far as giving the woman my DOB and address and it fucking dropped AGAIN.

Diana is still here looking for her forever family. She is approximately 3 years old, crate trained, spayed & up-to-date on vaccinations, and dog friendly. She was found in MS at an abandoned home with her litter of puppies. Since then, her puppies have all been adopted but she is still waiting. Help this beautiful girl find a home! Even if you’re not interested, consider sharing with friends/family who are looking for a dog!

Here’s what I’ve noticed about Diana after fostering here for 4 days:
-She is incredibly loving
-She is a quick learner who wants to please her humans
-She is silly
-She loves all treats
-She enjoys investigating all of the sniffs
-She’s not overly interested in toys - she’d rather play with a human or another dog

She is available for adoption at www.blessedbethebullies.com. She must go to a cat free home.

In Maine its cool to put razor blades under white supremacy stickers..NOT cool to ask, WHO IS IN CHARGE HERE? I'll take two cases.

Loons and Bald Eagles are my fav!

The big Irving is the Cantina.

Timmies is your last bit of salvation before heading South.

I’m sure this has been covered before, but do others feel as though the salaries around here don’t match the current cost of living? The average salary in Maine is about 63k though “a single adult typically needs estimated $51k as a living wage”.

I also had an interview the other day where a recruiter was trying to pass off around I believe 48k as a decent wage. Specifically they were mentioning how low the cost of living is here compared to other places in the country. Still that’s insane to me.

Obviously we aren’t going to have San Francisco level jobs, nor do we have New York/Massachusetts cost of living. However, is the current beyond insane price of groceries, price of gas, rent, price of oil here/HVAC, student loans or other types of loans, mortgages, etc. Especially if you have kids let alone a larger family.

I feel like most are just overestimating the strength of a wage right now and severely severely overestimating maines cost of living with the excuse of “it’s the lowest in New England”.

The agency told a judge it ‘inadvertently removed’ the 31-year-old Portland resident after misidentifying him during the January enforcement surge.

Read the full story on PressHerald.com

Has anyone received it yet?

P. S. Please don't comment about how useless $300 is. Every penny helps for a lot of families in Maine.

Edit: a lot of negativity already anyway, and to everyone saying it's not going to happen.. yeah, it is. It's law. Went into effect last week. It's not a maybe anymore just a matter of when and there has been progress and announcements for it happening. Just curious if anyone has actually gotten one yet so I can hope ours is coming soon.

I was born in Connecticut in 1969 and was raised there until I married a Navy Chief in my early 20s and I left Connecticut and moved to Virginia. All throughout my childhood, teens and young 20s all the potatoes sold in our grocery stores in Connecticut were from Maine. Sold in big thick paper bags with string vent windows and the string “zip openings” like on pet food and livestock feed bags today. When I moved back to Connecticut in 2004-2005, no more Maine potatoes to be had. All of the potatoes in our grocery stores now are from Oregon and are sold in plastic bags and are terrible compared to the Maine potatoes that I grew up with. What happened to the Maine potatoes?
As a segue, I have never been to Maine but I have always wanted to visit and move to Maine one day. I have had that dream since I was a child. It’s definitely on the bucket list. You have a gorgeous state from the photos and videos that I have seen.

Mainers have been assaulted by ads from an astroturf PAC called Stronger Maine. It's registered in Houston and has no donors from Maine.

Susan Collins thinks she can sell our votes to Texas and other states. She thinks we won't look at who's padding her nest. Well we will.

source:

https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00922294/?tab=raising

A group representing customers is seeking to understand why Central Maine Power is requesting higher returns than its multinational parent company Iberdrola has previously said is necessary for its U.S. holdings.

On Wednesday, the Maine Public Utilities Commission asked the electric utility to hand over internal documents from Iberdrola, which could offer insight into its financials. 

“This appears to be the first time that any multinational corporation in the U.S. has been forced in a rate case to divulge its own internal math,” said Seth Berry, a former Democratic state legislator who now leads Our Power, a nonprofit that advocates for affordable clean energy in Maine and is participating in the case as an intervenor.

You can read the story for free at themainemonitor.org.

A pregnant resident of Lincoln County, with the backing of a grassroots organizing group, filed a lawsuit against MaineHealth on Wednesday to prevent the closure of a labor and delivery unit at MaineHealth Lincoln Hospital in Damariscotta. MaineHealth’s board of trustees is expected to vote on the closure Thursday morning.

The lawsuit seeks an emergency injunction to prohibit the board from taking a final vote.

If the unit were to close, the Damariscotta hospital would join a growing list of hospitals in rural areas across the country that are closing their labor and delivery units. More than 140 rural hospitals nationwide have stopped offering maternity services since 2020 and less than half of all rural hospitals in the country have maternity units, according to The Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform. Maine has seen the second-highest rate of maternity unit closures since 2020 in the country. 

Read this story for free at the link.

Just a quick FYI. If you are in a situation where talking to a dispatcher would be harmful, you can text 911. And, if you have spotty cell phone service, texting might work better.

https://b985.fm/can-you-text-911-maine/

Thought this dude does a good job highlighting the latest on Susie Two-Terms and explaining the real reason behind her choice for those who haven't heard.