Beacon Podcast

This week on the Beacon podcast, Taryn Hallweaver interviews Ether Anne, a founder of the Maine Wabanaki-State Child Welfare Truth and Reconciliation Commission, on the new film Dawnland and Maine’s ongoing history of oppression of native peoples.

Watch the PBS Independent Lens version of the film right now.

ou can ask a question or leave a comment for a future show at (207) 619-3182.

Subscribe to the podcast feed right here using your favorite podcasting app or subscribe using iTunes.

This week on the Beacon Podcast, Ben and Mike discuss Representative-elect Jared Golden’s victory in CD2, Rep. Bruce Poliquin’s sore-loser lawsuit, and the historical precedent for Maine’s system of voting (with Ben sharing some surprising history from the 1840s). They also acknowledge the hard work of hundreds of activists who held Poliquin to account for his votes to repeal health care and give massive tax breaks to the wealthy and who paved the way for his electoral defeat.

Also: Rep. Ryan Tipping, chair of the legislature’s taxation committee, stops by to give a preview of the upcoming legislative session.

Plus: Taryn has an important update on the race for Attorney General and Ben has a new favorite song.

You can ask a question or leave a comment for a future show at (207) 619-3182.

Subscribe to the podcast feed right here using your favorite podcasting app or subscribe using iTunes.

(Photo: More than a hundred activists deliver “pink slips” to Rep. Poliquin’s Bangor office in May, 2017)

Update: This episode was updated to include an interview with District Attorney Maeghan Maloney.

In this special episode of the Beacon podcast, Taryn Hallweaver interviews all four Democratic candidates running for Attorney General in Maine. This important position will be selected by members of the legislature later this week. Maine is the only state that uses this relatively under-the-radar process to choose an AG.

Listen to Sen. Mike Carpenter, Sen. Mark Dion, Rep. Aaron Frey, and Tim Shannon describe their positions on the opioid crisis, criminal justice reform and more. If you have a favorite candidate by the end of the podcast, be sure to call your newly-elected state senator and state representative and let them know.

You can ask a question or leave a comment for a future show at (207) 619-3182.

Subscribe to the podcast feed right here using your favorite podcasting app or subscribe using iTunes.

(Photo via Flickr user North Charleston)

With Democrats having won the governorship and Maine House and Senate by wide margins in Tuesday’s elections, the new governing majority has a chance not just to undo many of the backwards policies of the LePage administration but to move the state forward on a wide range of important issues.

This week on the Beacon podcast, Taryn, Ben and Mike discuss the election results in Maine and across the country, what comes next, and the work it will take to enact real change.

Plus: Ranked-choice voting in CD2, the drubbing of Question 1, and a preview of Taryn’s interviews with Maine’s four candidates for Attorney General (which will be released soon as a special episode).

You can ask a question or leave a comment for a future show at (207) 619-3182.

Subscribe to the podcast feed right here using your favorite podcasting app or subscribe using iTunes.

(Photo via Jeff Kirlin)

This week on the Beacon podcast, Taryn, Ben and Mike go up and down the ballot, discussing Question 1 (and some last-minute pleas from Maine nurses and veterans), the governor’s race, the U.S. Senate contest and the close race in CD 2.

Plus: a discussion of the rise of white nationalism in Maine politics, framed by Crash Barry’s investigative report on Larry Lockman’s hate machine in The Bollard and a recently-published Beacon interview with journalist Andy O’Brien, who tracks alt-right influence in Maine.

You can ask a question or leave a comment for a future show at (207) 619-3182.

Subscribe to the podcast feed right here using your favorite podcasting app or subscribe using iTunes.

Rep. Poliquin is running an ad that the Bangor Daily News calls “a whopper” and WMTW labelled “just plain false.” Taryn, Ben and Mike get into details on the podcast this week.

They also explore the evolving sign war and other updates on Question 1, the universal home care initiative, and discuss U.S. Senate candidate Eric Brakey’s use of white nationalist rhetoric.

Plus: Ben is named one of the Frederick Douglass 200 and other rays of hope.

You can ask a question or leave a comment for a future show at (207) 619-3182.

Subscribe to the podcast feed right here using your favorite podcasting app or subscribe using iTunes.

U.S. Senator Angus King joins the podcast this week to discuss the Kavanaugh confirmation, the IPCC climate change report, the Mueller investigation and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s remarks on paying for the Republicans’ tax cuts for large corporations and the wealthy by cutting Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

Plus: a quick book review of his 1994 campaign monograph and a plug for his weekly podcast, Inside Maine.

King is running for re-election in a ranked-choice contest this November. Listen to the Beacon interview with his Democratic opponent, Zak Ringelstein, right here.

You can ask a question or leave a comment for a future show at (207) 619-3182.

Subscribe to the podcast feed right here using your favorite podcasting app or subscribe using iTunes.

Ben and Taryn explain the strategy behind the lo-fi look and analyze all the TV ads in the gubernatorial race. They also pick a winner for best ad, and their choice may surprise you.

Also: Reactions to Sen. Susan Collins’ pro-Kavanaugh speech and an update on Question 1, the universal home care initiative.

Plus: how reading science fiction can make you a better activist.

You can ask a question or leave a comment for a future show at (207) 619-3182.

Subscribe to the podcast feed right here using your favorite podcasting app or subscribe using iTunes.

This week on the Beacon podcast, Taryn, Ben and Mike discuss a video that went viral Thursday demanding that Senator Susan Collins come home to Maine and look sexual assault survivors in the eye.

Also: Mainers can now vote early in favor of Question 1, the initiative to guarantee universal access to home care to seniors and Mainers with disabilities. Absentee ballots arriving at town offices across the state this week, and voters can now cast their ballots in-person, requesting a ballot by mail, or visit VoteEarly.me

Plus: Marking progress in the 18-year legal fight by Maine People’s Alliance and Natural Resources Defense Council to hold one of Maine’s top polluters accountable, an engineering report ordered in 2015 to assess the costs of cleaning up mercury contamination of the Penobscot River estuary was filed in federal court in Bangor Tuesday, moving the massive cleanup project one step closer to beginning.

Subscribe to the podcast feed right here using your favorite podcasting app or subscribe using iTunes.

This week on the Beacon podcast, Taryn, Ben and Mike discuss the testimony of Professor Christine Blasey Ford, the bravery of women who are telling their stories and the choice now before Sen. Susan Collins.

You can call Collins at (202) 224-2523.

Also: James Myall of the Maine Center for Economic policy explains how minimum wage opponents have been proven wrong about every aspect of the effects of raising wages, from employment, tips and prices to the number of children in poverty.

Plus: and update on money raised and spent in the race for governor.

You can ask a question or leave a comment for a future show at (207) 619-3182.

Subscribe to the podcast feed right here using your favorite podcasting app or subscribe using iTunes.