WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, Maine Local News and Public Affairs Archives
Audio archives of spoken word broadcasts from Community Radio WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill (weru.org)
Producer/Host: Amy Browne
Studio Engineer: John Greenman
Our multi-partisan panel of local community members convenes for one last discussion of the elections prior to Election Day.
Guests: Trump supporter Thomas White of the Maine Maritime Academy Republicans; Former Libertarian/Johnson supporter (now undecided) Renee Trust; Democrat/Clinton supporter Ken Gleason; Green/Stein supporter Betsy Garrold; and “3rd degree Berner” now planning to vote for Stein, Tim Wilson.
Producer/Host: Amy Browne
Studio Engineer: John Greenman
Our multi-partisan panel tackle Question 3 on Maine’s ballot this November, with a supporter and an opponent of the measure joining us to answer questions from the panel and callers.
Question 3 is a citizen initiative that reads: “Do you want to require background checks prior to the sale or transfer of firearms between individuals not licensed as firearms dealers, with failure to do so punishable by law, and with some exceptions for family members, hunting, self-defense, lawful competitions, and shooting range activity?” (FMI: www.state.me.us/sos/cec/elec/upcoming/index.html)
Panel: Trump supporter Thomas White; Libertarian/Johnson supporter Renee Trust; Democrat/Clinton supporter Ken Gleason; Green/Stein supporter Betsy Garrold; and “3rd degree Berner” now planning to vote for Stein, Tim Wilson.
Supporting Question 3: David Farmer, the campaign manager for “Mainers for Responsible Gun Ownership” (responsiblemaine.org/)
Opposing Question 3: Bruce Ashmore of “Gun Owners of Maine” (www.gunownersofmaine.org/)
Producer/Host: Amy Browne
Studio Engineer: John Greenman
Our multi-partisan panel joins us again to discuss the upcoming elections, and Emily Cain, Democratic candidate for U.S. Congress for Maine’s 2nd District joins us for the first half hour to answers questions from the panel and callers. (Opponent Bruce Poliquin was invited but declined and did not respond to requests to send a campaign aide in his place). We also discuss referendum questions on Maine’s ballot and recent candidate scandals.
Guests:
Emily Cain, Democratic candidate for U.S. Congress for Maine’s 2nd District Congressional. (Opponent Bruce Poliquin was invited but declined and did not respond to requests to send a campaign aide in his place).
Betsy Garrold, Green Party, Dr. Jill Stein supporter
Tim Wilson, former Bernie Sanders supporter now supporting Stein
Ken Gleason, Democrat, Hillary Clinton supporter
Renee Trust, Libertarian, Gary Johnson supporter
Republican Dave Gulya was absent this week.
Producer/Host: Amy Browne
Studio Engineer: Joel Mann
Maine Currents-Independent local news, views and culture
Today our multi-partisan panel of area residents once again meet to discuss upcoming the elections, the candidates and lying in politics, and we take calls from listeners
Guests:
Betsy Garrold (Green Party); Renee Trust (Libertarian Party); Ken Gleason (Democratic Party); Tim Wilson (“3rd degree Berner”/ Sanders supporter now supporting Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party). Absent this week: Dave Gulya, the regular Donald Trump supporter on the panel.
Producer/Host: Amy Browne
Studio Engineer: John Greenman
Hal Crowther and Robert Shetterly debate “voting for the lesser of two evils” and listeners weigh in on that, and on recent news about Gov. LePage’s behavior.
Guest bios:
Rob Shetterly graduated in 1969 from Harvard, with a degree in English Literature. He was active at that time in the Civil Rights and the Anti-Vietnam War movements.
He moved to Maine in 1970. For twelve years he did the editorial page drawings for The Maine Times newspaper, and illustrated National Audubon’s children’s newspaper, and more than 30 books.
Rob’s paintings and prints are in collections all over the U.S. and Europe. For the past 10 plus years he has been painting the Americans Who Tell the Truth portrait series. The exhibit has been traveling around the country since 2003. In 2005, Dutton published an award-winning book of the portraits by the same name.
The portraits have given Rob Shetterly an opportunity to speak with children and adults all over this country about the necessity of dissent in a democracy, the obligations of citizenship, sustainability, US history, and how democracy cannot function if politicians don’t tell the truth, if the media don’t report it, and if the people don’t demand it.
He has engaged in a wide variety of political and humanitarian work with many of the people whose portraits he has painted – including environmental and social justice activists and whistleblowers. Since 1990, he has been the President of the Union of Maine Visual Artists (UMVA), and a producer of the UMVA’s Maine Masters Project, an on-going series of video documentaries about Maine artists. He has received numerous awards and honors. FMI: www.americanswhotellthetruth.org
Hal Crowther has also received many awards and much critical acclaim for his work. Hal is a critic and essayist who lives in North Carolina and spends summers here in Maine. He is the author of An Infuriating American: The Incendiary Arts of H.L. Mencken which was published 2014. He is also a former syndicated columnist, screenwriter and newsmagazine editor, at both Time and Newsweek. His most recent collection of essays, Gather at the River, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle prize in criticism. Crowther’s essays have been published in many magazines and newspapers, from Granta to the New York Times, and included in many anthologies, including the 2014 Pushcart Prize volume for The Joys of Obsolescence. Author and scholar Kirkpatrick Sale has praised Hal Crowther as “the best essayist working in journalism today”. FMI: www.halcrowther.com
Producer/Host: Amy Browne
Engineer: John Greenman
The latest edition of our multipartisan political roundtable discussions of the upcoming elections, with a focus today on Question 5 on Maine’s ballot this fall, a citizen’s initiative that reads: “Do you want to allow voters to rank their choices of candidates in elections for U.S. Senate, Congress, Governor, State Senate, and State Representative, and to have ballots counted at the state level in multiple rounds in which last-place candidates are eliminated until a candidate wins by majority?”.
Guests: Area residents Betsy Garrold (Green Party supporter), Dave Gulya (Trump supporter), Renee Trust (Republican-leaning Libertarian), Steve Godsoe (Clinton supporter) and Tim Wilson (Bernie Sanders supporter) — and (by phone) former State Senator Dick Woodbury, one of the promoters of the ranked choice voting question.
FMI:
http://maine.gov/sos/cec/elec/upcoming/
http://www.lwvme.org/RCV.html
http://www.fairvote.org/rcv#how_rcv_works
https://ballotpedia.org/Maine_Ranked_Choice_Voting_Initiative,_Question_5_(2016)
Producer/Host: Amy Browne
Engineer: John Greenman
The next installment in our series of round table discussions / call-in shows about the upcoming presidential elections.
Guests:
Republicans Renee Trust and Billy Bob Faulkingham, Democrats Bernie Sanders supporter Tim Wilson, and Hillary Clinton supporter Margaret Hannah, and Betsy Garrold of the Green Party.
Producer/Host: Meredith DeFrancesco
Issue: Environmental and Social Justice
Program Topic: Reactions to Elections by people working on social and environmental issues
Key Discussion Points:
a) Today we hear some reflections on the mid term elections, both state and national, by people who work on social and environmental issues within Maine.
b) Guests reflect on at the continued probable impacts on labor, healthcare, social safety net, international free trade agreements, tribal sovereignty, environmental health and climate change.
c) Guests also emphasize the need for people to work outside of the political-economic system to make impactful change at a community level, particularly to address climate change.
Guests:
A) Emery Deabay, president of the United Steelworkers of Maine, union local 1188. .Deabay has worked at the Verso paper milll for over 30 years. He has been active in the Maine Fair Trade Campaign and the Brewer based organization Food and Medicine.
B) Sherri Mitchell, indigenous rights attorney, environmental activist, member of the Penobscot Nation
C) Hedi Brugger, 350 Maine, Seeds for Justice