Beacon Podcast

This week on the Beacon Podcast, Taryn has an observation, a question and a reflection about the state budget and argues that we should still have faith in the referendum process.

Also: A timely speech from Heather McGee of Demos from this year’s Rising Tide Dinner in South Portland.

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

With a final state budget deadline looming, Taryn and Mike discuss how Republicans have begun moving in the opposite direction from compromise, basically upping the ransom for the state they’re holding hostage. Democrats have already given up so much that the middle ground of current law is far in the rear-view mirror.

Also on the podcast this week: activism is working on the U.S. Senate health care repeal bill and brief critiques of British literature from Percy Bysshe Shelley to Harry Potter.

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 talk about some bills being considered by the legislature that aren’t the state budget (for a few blissful moments), then give a budget update, discuss the Senate health care repeal bill, and explore Ben’s theory for national political change. Plus, rays of hope!

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 the roots and context of the state budget impasse and issue their weekly reminder that the conversation in the State House is completely divorced from public opinion. Mainers overwhelmingly oppose a tax cut for the wealthy paid for through education and other cuts and regressive tax increases and they want referendums respected.

They also discuss how Sen. Susan Collins is saying supportive things about the Senate Republicans’ health care repeal bill, plus a conversation about the UK and Virginia elections and the international progressive moment.

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

This week on the Beacon podcast, Taryn and Mike discuss the hostage situation that is the legislature’s budget negotiations, a crisis manufactured by Republicans made worse by House Democratic leaders compromising on both voter-enacted law and fundamental progressive values.

They also cover bills on addressing the crisis of substance-affected infants and repairing the voter-approved ranked choice voting law and a disruptive protest over Penobscot water rights. Plus some real rays of hope!

This week on the Beacon podcast, Mike interviews Democratic State Senator Shenna Bellows of Manchester. They discuss the threats to the minimum wage, her internet privacy bill, and how Mainers can best influence their legislators and make their voices heard in Augusta.

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

This week on the Beacon Podcast, Ben, Taryn and Mike discuss the retirement of Mary Mayhew, the Maine Supreme Court decision on ranked-choice voting and the path forward for the state budget.

Ben makes an important point about the broader potential consequences of the legislature ignoring the will of the voters on multiple fronts and the attempts to undo or at least chip away at every one of the policies passed by citizen initiatives last November:

As a society, we are in this very dangerous spot where our public institutions, whether media, government, political parties, whatever, have this dangerously low level of credibility. People feel like these systems are rigged, not representing what they want, that the spirit of democracy isn’t really real. There are also troubling signs if you look at public opinion research, with increased desires for authoritarian attitudes, for people who just come and want to get stuff done, these kind of non-democratic values.

And what’s driving all of this is people feel like the will of the people is not being adequately represented, that there’s this elite set of folks who just don’t listen to people when they actually vote, who go in and do whatever the heck they want, and that is just critically dangerous for our democracy.

This connects directly to conversations we’ve had about Trump and it connects directly, frankly, to how referenda are being interpreted in Maine right now. So, it’s more than ranked-choice voting. We’ve talked about this with minimum wage, I think we’re going to talk about this with the budget as well. Every time that elite leaders just put this division in between what people have expressly said they wanted and what actually happens, it’s not just a matter of policy; you’re eroding this fundamental social compact that is already frayed, dangerously so. I really think people are playing with fire there.

Listen to the whole episode for more fun rants like this about the downfall of our republic.

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

This week on the Beacon podcast, Ben, Mike and Taryn discuss the fast downward spiral of the Trump administration and what Maine’s experience with our own lying, racist, power-abusing chief executive can teach us about what happens next in Washington.

They also discuss Gov. LePage and Mary Mayhew’s latest attempt to cut health care coverage for the poor and the ideological “welfarization” of Medicaid. Plus, rays of hope!

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

This week on the Beacon Podcast, Joby Thoyalil of Maine Equal Justice Partners joins Taryn and Mike to discuss the LIFT act, Gov. LePage’s missing money and his politicization of poverty.

Also: Why is Senator Collins the only one who bought Trump’s lies about firing the FBI director and Bruce Poliquin gets some pink slips.

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

Photo via Andi Parkinson.

This week on the Beacon Podcast, Taryn and Mike talk about Rep. Bruce Poliquin voting to strip health care from more than 24 million Americans and then immediately lying about it.

Also: updates from Augusta on a universal health care bill, Mary Mayhew’s attempts to deny Medicaid coverage and Maine potentially joining the Atlantic Time Zone.

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

You can leave a message for the show at (207) 619-3182.