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KITTERY, Maine —Maine U.S. Sen. Susan Collins says a new federal grant of $1 million for the Sarah Long Bridge replacement project should help expedite the construction of a new bridge. Collins said Sunday the additional funding from the Federal Highway Administration will enable the Maine Department of Transportation to hire a construction manager/general contractor to hasten the design process and consult with the private sector.

AUGUSTA, Maine — While Gov. Paul LePage and U.S. Rep.-elect Bruce Poliquin were the ones giving victory speeches after Election Day, it’s arguable that another Republican was an equal winner: political strategist Brent Littlefield. A consultant who crafted the successful campaigns of both LePage and Poliquin, Littlefield proved beyond a doubt in 2014 that he’s got a winning strategy for electing conservative Republicans in Maine. But he’s not telling anybody what that strategy is. “I don’t want to give away the secret sauce just yet,” Littlefield, a Maine native who lives in the Washington, D.C., area, said in a recent...

On his way out of the door, his final day as a U.S. Senator, Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) released a blistering oversight report that finds the federal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) isn’t “successfully executing any of its five main missions.” Coburn’s criticisms include, but also predate, the Obama administration. Among the key findings: · DHS spent $50 billion over the past eleven years on counterterrorism programs but cannot demonstrate if the nation is more secure as a result. · 700 miles of the Southern border remain unsecured. · DHS is not effectively administering or enforcing the nation’s immigration laws. Only...

AUGUSTA — Gov. Paul Le-Page’s administration is firing back at the federal government over its policy of putting welfare recipients’ photos on the cards used to access food stamps, which federal officials have warned could cause Maine to lose some program funding. In a Dec. 18 letter to the Food and Nutrition Service obtained by The Associated Press, Department of Health and Human Services Commissioner Mary Mayhew responded to several concerns raised by the agency last month and blasted officials for consistently putting up “roadblocks and barriers” in the state’s effort to prevent fraud and abuse.

IN 1982 a Chinese aquaculture scientist named Fusui Zhang journeyed to Martha’s Vineyard in search of scallops. The New England bay scallop had recently been domesticated, and Dr. Zhang thought the Vineyard-grown shellfish might do well in China. After a visit to Lagoon Pond in Tisbury, he boxed up 120 scallops and spirited them away to his lab in Qingdao. During the journey 94 died. But 26 thrived. Thanks to them, today China now grows millions of dollars of New England bay scallops, a significant portion of which are exported back to the United States. As go scallops, so goes...

Justin Ramos, a sophomore at Bowdoin, is the son of Rafael Ramos, who was killed in his patrol car with fellow officer Wenjian Liu on Saturday.Bowdoin College is waiving tuition for a sophomore student who is the son of one of the New York police officers killed Saturday in Brooklyn, campus officials announced Monday. Bowdoin will provide full financial aid to Justin Ramos, who is scheduled to graduate with the Class of 2017, for the remainder of his education. “We are eager to welcome Justin back to campus for the start of our second semester in January, or whenever he...

Paul LePage: America's Governor.

Alexander (R-TN) Ayotte (R-NH) Barrasso (R-WY) Coats (R-IN) Cochran (R-MS) Collins (R-ME) Corker (R-TN) Cornyn (R-TX) Enzi (R-WY) Flake (R-AZ) Graham (R-SC) Hatch (R-UT) Heller (R-NV) Johnson (R-WI) Kirk (R-IL) McCain (R-AZ) McConnell (R-KY) Murkowski (R-AK) Toomey (R-PA) Wicker (R-MS) Not Voting Chambliss (R-GA) Coburn (R-OK)

A police sweep at Oceanside High School East in Rockland last week has stirred up a passionate debate over how to balance the individual rights of students with "zero tolerance" drug policies. Principal Renee Thompson said that although there have not been any specific drug problems at the school, she organized the raid by the Rockland Police along with the Knox and Lincoln County Sheriff's Departments in an effort to "send the message that we have zero tolerance for drugs, tobacco and paraphernalia brought on school grounds." According to Rockland Police Detective Sergeant Chris Young, it's the first time in...

A Maine school superintendent is allowing students to display a poster protesting grand jury decisions not to indict two white police officers who killed unarmed black men.

The states challenging President Obama’s deportation amnesty have already won the first round in court after the case landed in the lap of Judge Andrew S. Hanen, a Bush appointee who issued a scorching rebuke to the Department of Homeland Security last year, accusing it of refusing to follow border security laws. It could hardly have been a worse outcome for Mr. Obama, who, in order to preserve his policy, will now have to convince a judge who is on record calling his previous, less-extensive nondeportation policies “dangerous and unconscionable.” Led by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, the 20 states...

A Maine court has awarded the family of a transgender girl $75,000 in a settlement of her discrimination lawsuit against a school district where administrators made her use a staff, not student, bathroom.

Democrats question how 21 more votes from Long Island, all for the Republican, turned up in the very close District 25 recount. Maine Democratic Party is calling for investigation into ballot count discrepancies on Long Island The party’s claim involves 21 ballots from the island town that appeared on Nov. 18, when the Secretary of State’s Office conducted recount in the race between Republican Cathy Manchester of Gray and Democrat Cathy Breen of Falmouth. The ballots were not tabulated by Long Island officials on election night Nov. 4, and all 21 of them were cast for Manchester, according to written...

Gov. Paul LePage’s administration is facing a potential loss of federal funding to administer its food stamp program over concerns about state’s decision to put photos on cards used to access the benefits. Federal officials said in a letter to the Maine Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday that recipients are being given information that makes it seem like they’re required to have their photos placed electronic benefit transfer cards, even though the program is voluntary. The Republican governor’s administration must make it clear to recipients that their decision to not have their photo placed on the card...

A Maine logger helped save an infant from drowning when he crawled into a car that was upside-down in water and used a knife to cut the straps off her car seat and pull her out, police said. The baby wasn't breathing and another bystander performed CPR, reviving the girl, police said. Leo Moody, 44, of Kingman, was driving home from work Monday when he saw a flipped SUV in a culvert in Kossuth Township, about 175 miles northeast of Portland. Moody said he called 911 and rushed to the vehicle. Moody said one of the SUV's passengers told him...

They are going there to get subsidized Section 8 housing vouchers to take to another state. Refugee resettlement is a euphemism for importing whole Muslim communities, importing jihad. I have long documented the targeting of gateway cities (smaller cities) overwhelmed with Muslim refugee immigration from countries like Somalia — cities like Emporia, Kansas, Nashville, Greeley and Fort Morgan, Colorado, Lewiston, Maine et al. The over-saturation and drain on city resources has driven these immigrants northward to settle in Wyoming, according to these reports. Organizations like Lutheran Family Services profit enormously from the Federal government handling these refugees. The sharia compliant...

PORTLAND Maine (Reuters) - Maine's largest city has begun clamping down on spending as newly re-elected Republican Governor Paul LePage makes good on a campaign promise to cut funding to cities and towns that give aid to undocumented immigrants. In an internal memo released on Wednesday, Portland city officials said they had frozen hiring and cut travel and overtime spending after their requests for reimbursement from the state for assistance provided to families with children in emergencies had gone unanswered since July. The budget shortfall could grow to as much as $3 million this year, city officials said, a hefty...

Via Newsbusters, after yesterday’s unpleasantness and the Halbig “speak-o” fiasco of a few months ago, I see Democrats (plus independents in name only like King) have finally reached the “Jon who?” stage of their Gruber problem. This is the game we’re playing now, eh? KILMEADE: They just lied about a health plan to the American people, called the stupidity of the American voter and bragged about the lack of transparency. KING: This is one guy. I don’t know who this guy was. All I know is that it’s important for people to have health insurance. And if you guys are...

Healthcare, Fiscal, and Tax 10/22/2014 Jeanne Shaheen's Dishonest Claim That Obamacare Doesn't Cut Medicare Avik Roy In last night’s U.S. Senate debate in New Hampshire between incumbent Jeanne Shaheen (D.) and challenger Scott Brown (R.), Shaheen uttered a flat-out, bald-faced lie: that Obamacare doesn’t cut Medicare spending to pay for its expansion of coverage to the uninsured. It’s a talking point that a number of Democratic Senate candidates—and their enablers in the lefty blogosphere—have been clinging to. And it’s embarrassingly dishonest. “I want to go back to Scott Brown’s suggestion that we’ve taken three-quarters of a trillion dollars out of...

Federal regulators slapped a six-month ban on most cod fishing off New England this week and are threatening to cut next year’s catch by up to 75 percent, in a move some say will destroy the livelihoods of fishermen across the region. ... NOAA announced several measures, including the ban which expands no-fishing zones, on Monday. But fishermen whose livelihoods rely on catching cod, as well as the coastal communities that depend on money coming in from that industry, worry the new regulations will devastate them.