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Selected Editorials from the Editor

Suns & Shields Christian Inspirational Writings by Rachelle Hamlin

Selected editorials from Dr. Katherine Albrecht, Ed. D.

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The Roberts Trap is Sprung

By:  Bill Dunne
www.americanthinker.com
One of the most overlooked aspects of the year just ended is the vindication of Chief Justice John Roberts -- a vindication that showed up as the national catastrophe known as ObamaCare got rolling.  Roberts may have also doomed Hillary Clinton's chance to live in the White House again... click here to read whole editorial

 

Goodwill-Hinckley/Eves Controversy

Explained as Socialist Media Ignores

 

Maine GOP Highlights Key Facts Overlooked in Media Frenzy

 

By:  David Deschesne

Fort Fairfield Journal, July 8, 2015

 

AUGUSTA, Maine - The recent controversy over the dismissal of Maine Speaker of the House, Mark Eves as President from the Goodwill Hinckley School is a textbook case of political rhetoric being used to confuse and obfuscate facts otherwise lost on Maine inhabitants due to a socialist news media controlling the message.

   Governor LePage opted to withhold funding that affected the Goodwill Hinkley School until Eves resigned as its President because there appeared to be a conflict of interest. 

   During a press conference last week, LePage acknowledged that he threatened to pull $530,000 in annual discretionary funding from Good Will-Hinckley and the charter school it operates, the Maine Academy of Natural Sciences.  He withheld the funding because he didn’t believe Eves, who has opposed charter school legislation in the past, was the right choice for the private nonprofit  “Yeah, I did,” he said. “If I could, I would. Absolutely. Why wouldn’t I? Tell me why I wouldn’t take the taxpayer money, to prevent somebody to go into a school and destroy it. Because (Eves’) heart’s not into doing the right thing for Maine people.”
LePage responded to the allegations of 'blackmail' as hurled at him by the socialists in the legislature.   “Please go read the definition of ‘blackmail,’ ” he said. “I don’t gain anything out of it and neither does (Eves). So there’s nobody gaining anything. So I think you are misusing the word. And that’s coming from a Frenchman.”

   “The funding in question is spent at the discretion of the Governor. The Governor is well within his legal limits to withhold funding if he feels the money should not be spent,” said Maine Republican Party Chairman, Rick Bennett in a press release.  "Speaker Eves' track record in opposing charter schools and managing fiscal matters in legislative policy certainly raise serious concerns about how this funding will be spent.”

   In an apparent rush to satisfy public school interests, Speaker Eves and Democrats hacked away $5.5 million from the 'Miscellaneous Costs' portion of the state education budget. The “Miscellaneous Costs” is a pool of funds that is spent at the discretion of the LePage Administration. It is also where the $530,000 in funding for Good Will-Hinckley that is often discussed by the press is paid from.
“This resulted in some districts being able to pull back some of their local education funds and fill the gap with additional state funds,” said Bennett.  “In Portland, the additional $1.8 million in state funds that Eves and Democrats got by raiding the charter school discretionary fund is now going to be spent funding general assistance welfare for non-citizens.”

   It is unclear if Speaker Eves is even aware that the $5.5 million cut he made to the 'Miscellaneous Costs' is where a significant portion of Good Will-Hinckley's funding comes from.
“The Governor is right to draw attention to an unfortunate reality in Maine governance. When they reach the end of their terms, too many powerful legislative leaders seem to end up in well-paid sinecures funded by the taxpayers. This is a problem that has existed prior to the question on Speaker Eves.”

   Bennet notes how the revolving door brings high-powered politicians out of the legislature into cushy jobs tailor-made for them by the legislation they enacted.  “As government gets bigger and more powerful, the revolving door becomes an ever-greater problem. Republicans need to stand up and fight political patronage and insist Maine tax dollars be spent responsibly at every turn. Speaker Eves is no exception. A brief look at recent history in Augusta shows numerous Democrats landing well-paid positions with little qualification to do the job. Even our Constitutional Officer positions (Attorney General, Secretary of State, and State Treasurer) have become soft landing places for Democrat politicians.  Systems of accountability are compromised seriously when friendships put niceties over results. There seems to be an expectation among Democrats that this is business as usual and it should not even be questioned. I disagree. I believe such practices should always be questioned.”

   Eves stood to gain a $120,000 per year job from an institution similar to those he opposed funding to as a legislator leading some to speculate his motivation in taking the job was to “destroy the school from within.”

   “How could the leaders at Good Will-Hinckley reconcile holding on to a school President who has opposed the very existence of their schools for years and just recently raided the fund that supports their school?” said Bennett.

   Another major concern about political favoritism trumping the best interests of the taxpayers is the fact that Bill Brown, who is employed by Speaker Eves as his Special Assistant for Budget and Policy in the State House, also serves as Chairman of the Board of the Maine Academy of Natural Sciences at Good Will-Hinckley.

   Governor LePage has made a commitment to clean up state government, which was his motivation for the pressure to oust Eves from the job. “Mark Eves is a crony. Mark Eves is a hack. Mark Eves was gonna take a soft landing at Good-Will Hinckley, like many do at the university,” Governor LePage told  CBS 13, WGME in an interview.

   During the WGME interview the governor was asked if it was true that he told the Good-Will Hinckley school they wouldn’t receive half-a-million dollars in funding if Eves was president.

   LePage affirmed; “Yeah. But it wasn’t allocated. That’s the point I’m trying to make to you,” he said.
Governor LePage claimed that, unbeknownst to him, Democrats had already cut those funds from the budget. “They’re just trying to protect their speaker for doing a hackarama on the people of the State of Maine,” he said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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