New allegations against a Maine "medical supply" company led by man facing fraud indictments

It's Election Day 2020. Stay safe and, if you pray, do so for the survival of the American Experiment.

In my Maine reporting, I've been focused on the other crisis facing the world, the now-resurgent pandemic, and over the past few days I've been writing follow-ups on a story I broke in March about a Portland, Maine LLC headed by a man with a five-county criminal fraud indictment against him that had suddenly jumped into the medical supply business, trading in the shortage items desperately needed by hospitals and first responders.

Noble Partners, doing business as Noble Medical Supply, was the subject of my Portland Press Herald stories Friday and today, as allegations surfaced against the company and its founder Sean C. Grady. (Its customer-facing face is Diane Russell, former Democratic state legislator for Portland, who spoke at the 2016 DNC.) 

In Friday's story, news of a federal law suit against Noble and Grady in Florida; accusations of unreturned deposits for undelivered orders in Florida and California; a disgruntled sales representative and damaged masks in Texas; and, on the Internet, the company's website having been taken down by its provider and replaced with a demand for more than $15,000 in unpaid debts and a summary of Grady's legal problems in Maine and New Hampshire.

In today's story, the owner of a local Portland distillery lays out a story of a hand sanitizer production deal gone almost immediately bad, leaving his company out more than $150,000.

Separately, I also had this update on an uptick in Covid-19 hospitalizations in Maine and the unusual geography of that uptick. And to round out pandemic-related news coverage, in case you missed it, there is also this in-depth profile of Maine "superspreader wedding" pastor Todd Bell from Sunday's paper.

I last wrote about Noble Partners at the end of March, when they delivered a van load of masks and other supplies to some customers in Massachusetts as promised.

More on politics and the election anon.

Right whales in crisis: speeding ships and missing calves

The disastrous year for the North Atlantic right whale, the world's second most endangered mammal after the species' Pacific cousin, doesn't appear to be abating. After seventeen of the whales have been found dead since June in New England and Atlantic Canada -- more than three percent of the total worldwide population of 450 -- scientists warned the species will be extinct in another 23 years if something doesn't change.

But the most recent news only increases anxiety about the whales: a series of speeding violations by ships in a zone of the Gulf of St. Lawrence set up by Canada to protect the whales and, separately, an absence of calf sightings on the whales calving grounds off Georgia and northeastern Florida.

I have the full story on these and other developments in the whales' odyssey in this week's Maine Sunday Telegram.

I reported last summer for the Press Herald about the right whale die off, with some additional background about the species and how its been monitored. I've reported on the species on and off for  a decade for other publications, context you can find by starting here.

Gov. LePage's support for offshore drilling at odds with every New England member of Congress

This month, when the Trump administration unveiled its plan to open virtually all areas of U.S. federal waters to oil and gas exploration, most of New England's elected leaders expressed outrage. Every member of the US Senate and US House from the five coastal New England states signed onto a bipartisan bill to ban drilling in the region, while every governor from Massachusetts to Florida announced their intention to seek an exemption. Florida's governor even got one.

The one exception: Maine's Gov. Paul LePage, who not only didn't join the chorus, he'd written a letter in August asking Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to do just what he did.

In this week's Maine Sunday Telegram I report on the controversy and how LePage's stance on drilling may complicate Maine's effort to get a Florida-like exemption.

I previously reported on oil and gas drilling in our region in late 2015, when Canada leased areas on their side of the border, at the entrance to the Gulf of Maine.

Alaska, Hawaii and the American Nations

Of all the criticisms of the American Nations paradigm I field from people who have not actually read American Nations -- but rather seen the Washington Post or Business Insider summary of the book -- the "why didn't you include Alaska/Hawaii 'cause they're part of America" one is perhaps the most droll.

Yes, I'm aware that Alaska and Hawaii are in the United States, and also that South Florida is as well, and that Newfoundland is part of Canada. As readers of the book know, all of those areas save Alaska are not part of the eleven regional cultures whose history is described in great detail in the book. It's not that they're "not part of the U.S./Canada/North America," it's that for practical purposes it didn't make sense to relate their entire history, given the small and historically recent role they've played in the story of the U.S. and Canada, the real subjects of the book. (For those who are curious, Newfoundland (a self-governing British colony until after World War II) is an Anglo-Irish culture of its own, one predating the other Euro-American nations on the Eastern half of the continent); South Florida is part of a maritime Spanish colonial area with an impressive history all its own, and a culture distinct from El Norte; Hawaii (which joined the U.S. after World War II) is part of the Greater Polynesian cultural region.

Alaska is treated in the book, as it was colonized or settled by the regional cultures American Nations explores. It's shared between a Left Coast area (Juneau and pan handle), a Far Western one (in Central Alaska) and the area still dominated, like Greenland and much of the Canadian Far North, by First Nation.

Thanks to Will Mitchell and Nathan Broaddus at Portland, Maine's NBT Solutions for creating the map from which the image above is drawn.

Talking American Character with WLRN and KUER's "Radio West"

This week I was fortunate to have been the guest on two excellent public radio interview programs, talking about my new book, American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good.

On Monday, I joined South Florida's public radio powerhouse, WLRN, and "Topical Currents" host Joseph Cooper for an enjoyable conversation and call-in. That segment is available here.

Wednesday, I was the guest on "Radio West," Doug Fabrizio's excellent interview program out of KUER in Salt Lake City. Fabrizio reads the books front to back and thinks about them, which really shows in a format like this, as we got talking about aspects of the book I think are really important and interesting, but which haven't surfaced in the thirty some-odd interviews I've done to date. The interview is up online here.

I was previously on "Radio West" in 2014, talking about the golden age pirates.

Thanks to both programs for having me on, and also to Portland, Maine's The Studio for hosting the remote hook-ups for both shows on my end.

Talking with PBS' White House Chronicle, WMNF's Life Elsewhere

Earlier this month, I had an enjoyable afternoon in Portland with Llewelyn King, host of the PBS interview program "White House Chronicle," which originates out of WHUT in Washington, DC. Mr. King came up to the studios of the Portland Press Herald to talk about American Nations, my book on American regionalism, and the interview is now available online.

"White House Chronicle" airs on 200 public and community television stations nationwide -- including WETA in Washington and Rhode Island Public Television -- as well as in audio on VOA and Sirius XM.

Earlier this week I had an enjoyable interview with Norman B, host of "Life Elsewhere", the syndicated public radio interview show originating out of Tampa's WMNF, on American Character and the current presidential race, a segment which ran in Tampa earlier today. Tomorrow -- Monday Mar. 21 -- you can hear it on Detroit's largest radio station, WROM at 7pm and, at 8 PT, on NWCZ radio, the Pacific Northwest podcast out of Tacoma, Washington.

LePage administration proposes weakening anti-smog regulations

A couple of Maine-related updates that intersect with investigative projects I've done in recent months:

LePage administration and smog: As I report in tomorrow's Portland Press Herald, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection has been quietly seeking to repeal some anti-smog requirements that effect new or newly-modified industrial facilities. Environmentalists are crying foul; the administration says it will be good for the economy. No public hearing has been scheduled, the public comment period ends tomorrow, and the US Environmental Protection Agency (which must approve the change) is allegedly on board with it.

The state DEP was the subject of a five-part, three-day investigation published in the Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram last month. [Update, 8/1/13: some further developments here.]

Steve Bowen's role model in trouble: The Associated Press reports that former Indiana and current Florida education commissioner Tony Bennett -- a pioneer in the effort to assign A-F letter grades to public schools -- cheated on the grading of a charter school run by a political ally. Bennett, a close friend of former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, was the keynote at Gov. LePage's education summit earlier this year in Augusta. Education commissioner Steve Bowen described Bennett as his role model in his introductory remarks.

Jeb Bush's Florida-based foundation played a key role in bringing A-F letter grading of schools to Maine, and in ghost writing Maine's digital education and virtual charter school policies.

Florida investigators ding K12 Inc; alewives free at last; Connor under fire

After a long period of workflow-induced radio silence, a few updates of interest to Mainers and, perhaps Floridians, New Brunswickers, and some Pennsylvanians as well:

Investigators ding K12 Inc.: K12, the nation's largest online education provider, has been under investigation in Florida over accusations it used unqualified teachers in a taxpayer-financed virtual school there. As I report in today's Portland Press Herald, a draft report has been made public which finds against the company on two of three counts. Testimony to investigators also reflects on the sort of attention -- or lack thereof -- students of the school receive.

K12 has been seeking to operate a virtual charter school here in Maine, but has been rebuffed by authorizers, angering Gov. Paul LePage, who strongly supports their creation. It was at the center of the Sept. 2 Maine Sunday Telegram investigation that won this year's George Polk Award for Education Reporting.

St. Croix alewives free at last: Last summer I reported on the bizarre odyssey of the spring spawning runs of St. Croix River alewives, which had been banned from the sprawling international watershed by an act of the Maine legislature. After many twists and turns -- and reflecting the scientific and economic evidence that the fish help, not hurt the ecosystem there -- a bill ordering the state to open the fishways to the schooling fish has become law, after Gov. LePage chose not to veto it.

Former Press Herald chief Rich Connor accused of stealing $500K from company: The parent company of the paper I work for, the Portland Press Herald, has accused former CEO and editor in chief Rich Connor of essentially stealing over half a million dollars from the paper while it was in precarious financial condition.

Long before I ever expected to work for Maine Today Media, I covered the Press Herald's plight for Maine-based magazines. Connor -- who is being sued by his other former employers, the Times-Leader of Wilkes-Barre, for appropriating another quarter million -- did a lot of damage to journalism as well as the paper's balance sheets. Here's his "no scoops" vision as articulated to me for this 2010 feature in Down East and, for context, a bit about how he left the paper on the eve of its rescue (ultimately to S. Donald Sussman, not Harte and company, as it turned out.)

DePoy-Warren moving from state DEP to Department of Education: For inside baseball people, Samantha DePoy-Warren, the iconoclastic communications chief at the Maine Department of Environmental Protection is redeploying to the Department of Education, where she will take the communications portfolio from David Connerty-Marin. Warren confirmed her last day at DEP is this Friday. Marin said he's switching to another position within the education department.

Jeb Bush reforms spotlighted at Maine governor's education conference

For those following the intersection between former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the school choice movement, for-profit education companies, and the development of education reforms here in Maine, my story in today's Portland Press Herald may be of interest.

Maine Gov. Paul LePage hosted his education conference yesterday, and he met most of the presenters he invited while attending Bush's national education summit last November, including senior staff from his Foundation for Excellence in Education. The conference was as expected: a pitch for opening up Maine's public education system via vouchers, the removal of limits on charter schools and digital charters schools, a loosening of teacher accreditation requirements, and vigorous testing. The reaction was also predictable: school choice advocates loved it, teacher's unions and progressive activists denounced it, and the uninitiated probably felt a bit confused.

The most interesting aspect from my point of view was the governor's uncharacteristically conciliatory tone before an audience that included many skeptical school administrators -- and Florida education commissioner Tony Bennett's explicit on-stage advice to him to try to reach out to all Mainers. (Bill Nemitz has wondered aloud about LePage's recent moderation.)

The story got cut a bit for space. A couple tid-bits from the cutting room floor: two presenters -- a Democratic Georgia state legislator and a retired Maine Maritime Academy professor -- didn't show up. The Maine G.O.P. put out a press release on behalf of their members of the legislature's education committee saying they were inspired by the conference. The Democratic chair of that committee, Rep. Bill MacDonald of Boothbay, didn't respond to requests for comment.


Education department spokesperson David Connerty-Marin said the conference had been “a chance to hear from other states about what they think works...We’re looking at all of it,” he added, “ but that doesn’t mean we plan to pursue everything that was talked about today.”

For more background from my past coverage of all this, start here.

Jeb Bush Foundation executive director-cum lobbyist backtracks

I'm a few days late in posting this, but for those education policy wonks out there who may have missed page B6 of last Tuesday's Portland (Maine) Press Herald, there's an update on the employment-and-lobbying status of Patricia Levesque, the executive director of Jeb Bush's Foundation for Excellence in Education, which is active in shaping Maine education policy.

In short, a day after a newspaper in Tampa picked up on Levesque's dual role, her lobbying firm suddenly pulled all its 2013 client registrations in Florida. The Foundation says she's going to become an actual employee now, instead of being contracted through her apparently conflicted lobbying firm.

More details within.

Levesque and Bush's foundation featured prominently in my Sept. 2 Maine Sunday Telegram investigation, the story which recently received the 2012 George Polk Award for Education Reporting. She and two foundation colleagues are speaking this Friday at Maine Gov. Paul LePage's education conference.

The Case of the Missing State E-mails (and some virtual schools updates)

My story in today's Maine Sunday Telegram is on the strange saga of Jeff Mao's state email accounts.

Mao heads Maine's $13 million annual laptops-in-schools programs at the state's education department, has overseen or is presently overseeing hundreds of millions in state contracts related to the project. But when a computer firm concerned about the way contracts were being rewarded filed a public records request for correspondence related to two recent contracts, they eventually discovered Mao's emails weren't and never have been on the state's servers or backed up by the state's network. It gets stranger from there.

Enjoy the read.

Meanwhile, two updates on the virtual schools front.

First, Jeb Bush's Foundation for Excellence in Education -- which promotes expansion and deregulation of full-time virtual charter schools -- has been receiving bad press recently for its activities and corporate entanglements, many of which my reporting in the Telegram and Portland Press Herald first exposed. This week, the Foundation suddenly decided to change the way it pays Patricia Levesque, whose status as an online services company lobbyist-turned contracted Foundation executive director was perhaps hard to defend with a straight face.(Levesque is a featured speaker at Maine Gov. Paul LePage's education conference later this month.)

Secondly, the editorial board of Maine's third largest daily, the Lewiston Sun-Journal,weighed in on virtual charter school policy here in Maine, and found it lacking. (The Bangor Daily News editorialized on the topic in September, shortly after my Telegram investigation appeared.)

Jeb Bush's "Florida model" to be showcased at Maine governor's education conference

The story for which I recently received a George Polk Award was on how for-profit online education companies are influencing the development of favorable policies here in Maine, with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's Foundation for Excellence in Education playing a key role.

As reported in my Press Herald story today, the Foundation and the "Florida model" it promotes are now being given center stage at Gov. Paul LePage's forthcoming education conference. The Press Herald piece also reveals new information on how foundation officials -- including some who will be presenting at the Mar. 22 conference -- have helped support the administration's non-digital education agenda, including the new "letter grade" system for public schools.

K12 Inc. under investigation in Florida

For those who missed it, I had a follow-up story in the Portland Press Herald yesterday on K12 Inc., one of the two companies seeking to operate full-time virtual charter schools in Maine.

The company is under investigation in Florida for allegedly using uncertified teachers and pressuring other teachers to join in concealing this from school district officials.

K12 was at the center of my Maine Sunday Telegram investigation on digital education policy here in Maine, which ran with this companion story on K12 on Sept. 2.

OpEd on American regionalism picked up by McClatchy

My recent OpEd on American regionalism is making the rounds after having been picked up by the McClatchy-Tribune News Service. Originally written for last Sunday's edition of the Fredericksburg (Va.) Free Lance-Star, in the past 48 hours its run in at least five other U.S. dailies. (Some versions are shortened from the original). Hopefully this list includes one near you:

The San Jose Mercury-News (Left Coast)


The Savannah Morning News (Deep South)


The Bellingham Herald (Washington; Left Coast)


The Oregonian (Left Coast)


The Bradenton Herald (Florida; Deep South)

[Update, 2/12/2012: a seventh, eighth, and ninth paper:]

The Lewiston Sun Journal (Maine; Yankeedom)


The Courier-Journal (Louisville, Kentucky; Greater Appalachia)


Sacramento Bee (Far West)

[Update, 2/14/2012: Two more:]

Juneau Empire (Alaska, Left Coast)


Contra Costa Times (California, Left Coast)

[Update, 2/20/12: my hometown paper:]

Maine Sunday Telegram (Yankeedom)

On American Nations in the Fredricksburg (Va) Freelance-Star

For those in the Tidewater country, my OpEd on America's regional cultures is in today's Freelance-Star, the daily newspaper in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and serving a swath of south exurban D.C.

"Not one America, but Many," encapsulates the thesis of my new book, American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America, and some of the implications it has for this year's U.S. presidential contest.

[Update, 2/9/2012: The McClatchy-Tribune News Service has picked up this OpEd, which ran today in Washington state's Bellingham Herald and Florida's Bradenton Herald.]

I've been delighted with the media attention the book has received since it was released at the end of September, including the PBS News Hour, The Washington Post, The Week, Boston Globe, Daily Beast, Christian Science Monitor, Wall Street Journal, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Arizona Republic, Bloomberg, Rolling Stone.com, Maine Sunday Telegram, Charleston Post & Courier, the CBC, Northeast, Jefferson, Maine, and New Hampshire Public Radio, Annapolis Capital, and the Raleigh News & Observer. It was named a Best Book of 2011 by both The New Republic and The Globalist. I've also been able to demonstrate the analytical utility of the paradigm in understanding current political developments in a feature and blog posts at Washington Monthly.