Talking pirates with Press Herald Live, May 13, 7pm

For subscribers of the Portland Press Herald: I'll be talking with colleague Katherine Lee about the real pirates of the Caribbean, what it was like to write and research Republic of Pirates, and the experience of being an on-camera expert for Netflix's recent hit docudrama series "Lost Pirate Kingdom." Should be fun and I'll be answering audience questions as well.

The pandemic is still on so this is a virtual event. Good news is you don't have to travel, but you do need to subscribe. But, hey, if you do it's free and you get to support local journalism here in Maine. 

It all kicks off online this Thursday, May 13 at 7pm. Registration details here.

Meet Christiane Northrup, Maine's Doctor of Disinformation

Maine's very own celebrity doctor, Christiane Northrup of Women's Bodies, Women's Selves fame, has called about by US Senators and banned from Instagram for being one of the "disinformation dozen," a group of anti-vaccine propagandists said to be responsible for nearly two thirds of such content on social media. But, as I described in the Maine Sunday Telegram last week, Northrup's message is much farther "out there" then you'll probably expect.

She's been telling her followers -- and in-person Q-adjacent conference attendees -- to stay away from vaccinated people because they're allegedly contagious with malignant vaccine particles that have turned them -- and maybe you -- into remote-controllable slaves via the micro robots (and two-way 5G antennas) injected into them with the vaccine... all as part of a global plot by an elite to somehow advantage Bill and Melinda Gates (together and separately, one assumes) via the medium of cryptocurrency. And that's just the start of it.

Meanwhile, Maine has been undergoing an ICU surge from unvaccinated people -- many of them under 50 -- who are coming down with very acute forms of COVID-19, a topic I wrote about later in the week in the Portland Press Herald.

Congressional earmarks are back -- Here are Maine's House member's short lists

After a ten year hiatus, the US House is restoring earmarks, the member-directed spending requests that were eliminated after a series of corruption scandals. The change -- which includes a variety of guardrails to make corruption far more difficult -- received bipartisan endorsement in the chamber.

Each member of the House can request ten earmarks, though only a fraction are likely to receive funding in the final cut months from now. But here are the 20 projects the two Democrats in my state, Maine, chose, via the Portland Press Herald. (That's Rep. Chellie Pingree and Rep. Jared Golden for those who don't follow our state as closely as all peoples of the world should.)

I wrote earlier on the earmarks process and how Pingree would have an outsized influence, due to her chairmanship of a Appropriations subcommittee.

Maine's redistricting hits a constitutional Catch-22

As you've probably heard, the pandemic (and the Trump administration) delayed the 2020 US Census, upon which states must redraw their congressional and legislative districts to account for relative population changes over the past decade. 

Here's the problem I wrote about in this week's Maine Sunday Telegram. The Census Bureau won't be able to provide the requisite data until late August. In Maine the state constitution requires these maps be completed in June AND that they be based on said data.

What happens next? Nobody really seems to know, though there's a consensus that the state's highest court will somehow solve it. Details in the story.

Also, I've been neglecting the blog of late because my newly revamped website has had a soft launch and, in theory, will be hosting this blog. The latter is still a work in progress, but you can check out the site here.

What's up with Jared Golden, the most successful Democrat in Trumpland?

Maine's second district U.S. Representative, Jared Golden, has been causing a lot of heartburn among fellow Democrats of late. He was the only member of the party not to vote for both the articles of impeachment against President Trump in December 2019, one of two to vote against enhanced background checks and the George Floyd police reform bill, and the sole dissenter on the recent Covid relief bill, which polling shows has overwhelming public support, including from a majority of Republicans. Add to that his opposition to reappointing Nancy Pelosi as House Speaker and his refusal to endorse Democratic nominee Sara Gideon in her ill-fated race against Sen. Susan Collins last year and a lot of them are unhappy.

Except Golden -- a Marine veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq who studied politics at Bates and worked as a Homeland Security committee staffer for Collins -- has done things few other Democrats can. In 2018 became the first person to defeat an incumbent in his district in 102 years, taking out a two-term Republican who sat on the campaign fund-generating banking committee. Last year he got over 30,000 Trump voters to back his reelection, helping him win a district by 6.3 percent that went for Trump by 7.4. His margin of victory is the highest of any House Democrat in a Trump district.

But what's his governing philosophy? Why does he vote the way he does? Does it work for his constituents? What's it mean for any future bid for statewide office? I sat down the Golden -- who is notoriously inaccessible to the press -- for two hours to answer those questions in this Maine Sunday Telegram profile, which also appeared in his hometown Sun Journal. Hope you find it useful.

The Year of Living Distantly

We're one year into the global pandemic and I, at least, feel my heart rate increase when I think back to those scary days in late March and early April 2020 when nobody knew for sure what was going to happen next. Thankfully it appears clear we're at the beginning of the end, and we didn't end up living in The Road.

Among Americans, we Mainers have gotten off lightly, but it's still be a wrenching experience that will transform society. So for the anniversary of the pandemic I took stock in how the pandemic effected and changed different sectors of life, from the elderly who paid the most terrible price to schools, restaurants, hospitals, and the performing arts. You can read it all in this week's Maine Sunday Telegram, or online here.

Maine: Why the growing regional disconnect between vaccine need and supply?

In yesterday's Portland Press Herald I explored why the state's top public health official had to essentially do a two-minute advertisement to help the mass vaccination site in Bangor fill vaccination slots while the one serving the county with the largest number of still unvaccinated 70+ year olds continued to run under capacity for lack of vaccine.

The answer was surprising, in that that official -- Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention director Nirav Shah -- and the state's largest hospital network and operator of the southern Maine vaccine site -- have completely contradictory ones. Maine CDC says they continue to give large allocations of vaccine to the Bangor site while those in other parts of the state have huge waiting lists because the other sites don't have the capacity to take more. Not so, says MaineHealth, which says they have latent capacity and been begging for bigger supplies for some time, which Maine CDC isn't giving them.

As you'll see in the story, Shah intimates that MaineHealth hasn't demonstrated an ability to take more, likely an allusion to a scandal involving the vaccination of indelible workers.

For wider context on where Maine stands with the pandemic, consider this "step back and assess" feature I wrote on the last five and half months of the crisis.

Penobscot elder Donna Loring on the future of Maine-tribal relations

Donna Loring has for decades been a major figure in Maine-tribal relations: legislator, tribal council member, aide to two governors, author and public intellectual. Now, fresh off her time as tribal relations advisor to Governor Janet Mills, the Penobscot elder took time to speak with me about her take on the future of the fraught relationship and the prospects for a negotiated reform of the Maine Settlement Act, which restricted Maine tribe's sovereignty.

You can read all about it in this article over at the Maine Sunday Telegram.

For more background on the tribes and the Settlement Act, start here, read about Mills's pardoning of the Passamaquoddy tribe's late attorney Donald Gellers -- driven from the county in a state-directed conspiracy -- and the backstory for understanding the tribes' predicament in "Unsettled," a 32-part series I wrote for the Press Herald a few years back.

Maine and the pandemic: where things stand 11 months on

The second, deadlier coronavirus surge is ebbing in Maine and the U.S. generally -- a good juncture to step back and see where we've been, how things appeared to have played out and why, and what the road looks like ahead. I spoke to experts across the state to put together this story on Act II of the pandemic in this week's Maine Sunday Telegram.

I did a similar story in late August on what I'd now call Act I. Together they provide a sort of first draft of history on this insane time.

Hospitalizations for COVID-19 also fell last week. Details in this story from last Friday's Portland Press Herald.

Senator Angus King on the insurrection and accountability

I spoke with Senator Angus King (I-ME) last night about the attack on the Capitol and his views on how to ensure accountability for those who incited it, and not just the president. 

He also told of his personal experiences at the Capitol on Jan. 6, including his reluctance to bunker with a horde of Senators and their staff, some of whom don't like to follow Covid-19 health guidance. 

The interview is in today's Portland Press Herald and online.

Senator Susan Collins and Rep. Jared Golden have declined interview requests. For Rep. Chellie Pingree's views on accountability, see this piece on the House resolution to investigate members of the sedition caucus.

Impeachment: Maine's delegation, save Collins, demands Trump's immediate removal

Three of Maine's four Congressional representatives are now on record demanding Trump's immediate removal from office for his role in the insurrection and terrorist attacks against Congress and the U.S. Capitol last week.

Senator Angus King (I) weighed in today in a statement blasting Trump as a danger to the republic and calling out the 147 members of Congress's "sedition caucus" who, hours after the deadly attack, voted to, in effect, end democracy by overturning a democratic election lost by the president. Details in this Press Herald story from a few hours ago.

Senator Susan Collins, New England's only remaining Republican Congressional representative, has said she will not be commenting on impeachment because of her role as a "juror" in the Senate trial that will follow.

Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME01) was ahead of the rest of the delegation, calling for Trump's removal almost immediately after the attack and co-sponsoring a House resolution to investigate the sedition caucus and consider removal via the 14th Amendment. Details in this Press Herald story.

Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME02) didn't reveal his position until last night, but when he did it was a direct and unequivocal condemnation of the president. (Golden just won a second term in a district that went for Trump by 7 points.)

[Update, 1/13/21: Pingree and Golden voted for impeachment this afternoon. Trump became the first president in history to be impeached twice with 10 Republicans joining all Democrats in a 232-197 vote.]

Post-coup attempt, Sen. King and Rep. Pingree support Trump removal via 25th Amendment

A day after President Trump incited a mob to attack the Capitol in Washington, triggering five deaths and the evacuation of the building, half of Maine's Congressional delegation -- that's Senator King and Rep. Pingree -- supports the president's removal. Rep. Golden is taking a considered approach and Sen. Collins office isn't saying what her position is.

Details in my dispatch this evening in the Portland Press Herald.

Also today, because one major ongoing crisis is not enough, an update on the pandemic crisis here in Maine: record Covid-19 hospitalizations this week in the state, including all-time highs at MaineMed, SMHC Medical Center, and York Hospital.

[Update, 1/8/20: As 25th Amendment looks unlikely, attention turned today to impeachment, which appears to be inevitable in the House. But three of Maine's four Congressional representatives aren't -- or aren't yet -- saying where they stand. Details in this evening's Press Herald dispatch.]

Four dams, the Kennebec River and the future of US Atlantic salmon in the balance

While the pandemic has been raging across the world, a high-stakes battle over the future of one of Maine's largest river systems has been playing out in an obscure federal online docket, one with the future of Atlantic salmon in the United States in the balance.

In this week's Maine Sunday Telegram I wrote about the relicensing battle over one of four dams on the lower Kennebec River that stand between salmon, shad, alewives and the pristine habitat of the Sandy River in Western Maine which, oddly enough, is where I learned to swim and spent a lot of my summers staying cool in as a kid. The struggle is between Brookfield Renewable, a subsidiary of Brookfield Asset Management, the $100 billion Canadian venture capital firm, (which wants to do technical fixes to let the fish better pass the dams) and the state of Maine, conservationists, and recreational fishing interests (which want at least one and preferably two or three of the dams to be torn down.)

Details in the story.

COVID-19 continues its surge in Maine, stressing hospitals

Maine is fortunate to be doing better than almost any other state in the U.S. when it comes to containing the pandemic, but that isn't saying much. Over the past week Covid-19 has continued to surge here, with hospitals beginning to sound the alarm that their capacity and staff could be overwhelmed if the public doesn't redouble their efforts to slow the spread of the disease.

I have two recent stories in the Portland Press Herald covering the latest developments. 

The first, from Thursday's paper, looks at the state of capacity at the state's hospitals, which said they were holding their own by converting ordinary medical-surgical beds to ICU units to meet demand, though Maine Medical Center and Southern Maine Health Care Medical Center were both beginning to feel stress even then.

The second, from yesterday's print edition, provides an exclusive look at hospital-by-hospital Covid admissions and the trends over time. It shows a steep surge in recent days at MaineMed and record patient levels at most of the state's other major hospitals, including MaineGeneral, SMHC, and CMMC. Details herein.

Covid-19 continues surging in Maine, stressing contact tracing, hospitals

Happy Thanksgiving. Hopefully you're all spending it, as I am, in small gatherings because Covid-19 is exploding across the United States and until late January it doesn't appear there will be any cogent federal response, Hang tight.

Trends aren't good here in Maine, even though we still have the 49th lowest prevalence in the country after Hawaii. As I reported in the past few days for the Portland Press Herald, last week we hit new all time highs in hospitalizations, with medical centers in the eastern and central part of the state bearing the brunt of the burden. Intensive Care Unit capacity is rapidly becoming a front and center concern, two or three weeks ahead of whatever post-Thanksgiving boost the disease receives here. In yesterday's paper I reported on how the Maine CDC is already having to scale back the scope of contact tracing efforts, though they remain much more robust here than in most other states, definitely to include neighboring New Hampshire, which has officially given up on containment. 

As of yesterday, Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor had hit 27 inpatients, quadruple their peak during the spring surge. Should have updated hospitalization tallies for you tomorrow, which I'll post here as an update.

As I wrote Nov. 16, models show the trends here in Maine will get worse over the next few weeks.

Stay safe, wash your hands, and wear your masks.

The 2020 Elections and the American Nations

The American Nations boundaries show up in just about every closely contested election, and the 2020 presidential contest was no exception.

With the help of my Portland Press Herald colleague Chad Gilley, I crunched the election results (as of November 10) via the regional cultures as well as breaking out each of those between rural and urban counties and even between each of the six degrees of urban/rural-ness as defined by the federal government's National Center for Health Insurance Standards.

The results can be found in this week's Maine Sunday Telegram and online here. (There's also a brief sidebar on the paradigm for readers unfamiliar with it.)

By comparison, here's the 2016 version of this exercise.

Covid hospitalizations surge to record levels in Maine

I monitor the Covid-19 inpatient trends at Maine's hospitals on a weekly basis and this past week was especially bad. Maine, which has been one of the most Covid-limited states in the U.S., just broke its all-time record for inpatients and, as I report in tomorrow's Portland Press Herald, much of the growth is occurring in places it wasn't present during the spring and early summer surges: eastern Maine, central Maine, and at small hospitals scattered around rural Maine.

Details in the story.

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.

The Preacher and the Plague: a profile of the Maine pastor at the center of a notorious super spreader event

On August 7th, an obscure independent fundamentalist Baptists pastor presided over a wedding at a church he founded in the northern Maine town of East Millinocket, which was followed by a reception that did not comport to public health guidelines to contain the spread of COVID-19. Two months later, he's known far and wide -- by deed if not by name -- featured in news coverage around the world after the wedding has been linked to nearly 200 cases and at least eight deaths in Maine and the pastor has remained defiant.

Who is Rev. Todd Bell, where did he come from, what are the characteristics of the movement he belongs to and which supports him and why do they lead him to continue hosting maskless singers in his Sanford church and attend events featuring maskless youth choirs in other states, as he did this past week? Is he accountable to anyone, secular or otherwise?

I explored Bell's life, movement, and mission for this in-depth profile in today's Maine Sunday Telegram. And thanks to the Press Herald's subscribers for making this kind of time consuming work possible for a state-level news organization.

Coronavirus in Maine: York, Oxford county enter danger zone

Maine and its northern New England neighbors, New Hampshire and Vermont, have been the three healthiest states for almost the entire pandemic to date, with relatively low prevalence, hospitalizations, and per capita deaths. But, owing in no small part to a defiant independent fundamentalist Baptist preacher and his followers, the disease is poised to spin out of control in interior York County. The Rumford area in Oxford county is also raising red flags.

In this week's Maine Sunday Telegram I had a detailed update on these developments and the state of the pandemic in Maine as the cold weather season approaches. 

In the past week and a half I also reported on staff getting infected at Waterville's Inland Hospital, but fortunately that appears to be under control.