Hey Maine, You're Our Friday Special State Of Awesomeness!
Why wouldn't we want to call it the Special States Club? Blue State Special, maybe?
Here at Wonkette Worker’s Paradise, Recipe Hub, and Nonstop Party Palace (until around 9:30, because man, it’s getting late), we love some reader feedback. So when some of you people — the finest folks who ever clicked on a hyperlink, I’ll add — said that you’d seen quite enough of our sycophantic (but redeemingly foulmouthed) fawning over Gretchen Whitmer’s Michigan and Gavin Newsom’s California, we listened as you told us that we should write about the nifty progressive doin’s in your own states, like for instance New Mexico and Minnesota. So we did.
We should have known that people in other states with progressive governments would want a piece of the action, and so, to quell your pitiful demands that we pay attention to your weird shapes on a map that just happen to have good government, we hereby institute the Friday Special States Club. Every Friday when we remember and have time, we’ll call attention to states whose governors and legislatures are into that whole “Government can do good things” attitude we just can’t get enough of.
Yes, we know what we’re getting ourselves into. You’re just going to suggest more neat things your states are doing, and then we’ll have more content, and oh god it never ends!
To suggest a state, just do so in the comments and we’ll probably see it, or not, or you could email us or Xit on our face or something. Name your state, your governor, and some neat things the state government is up to, and we’ll probably get to it. To avoid redundant nominations, we’ve already done Minnesota and New Mexico, and the states we have cued up for future posts are Washington, Colorado, and Illinois, plus of course today’s Blue State Special, Maine and Gov. Janet Mills, who with the state Lege has made us far less likely to say “that fucker LePage” anymore when we think of Maine. Damn right we hold a grudge.
Also, maybe Blue State Special is a better name for these things. Diners are nostalgic, right?
Maine and Mills were nominated for this honor by Alert Wonkette Operative “Pexas Teat,” who wrote,
Everyone ignores Maine, but Janet Mills has done some great progressive stuff here. Amazing leadership on climate, free school lunch, reforming various LePage-fucked elements, etc.
Well Pexas Teat, we smell what you’re steppin’ in, so let’s Maineline that good governance right into our veins. It’s wicked pissah!
Climate Action
Per Mills' governatational website, a few things to brag on when it comes to climate.
Commitment to require Maine’s grid to be “80% renewable energy by 2030” and to “100% renewable energy by 2050.”
With funding from the Inflation Reduction Act (happy birthday!), Maine will implement 100,000 new heat pumps, with financial help to low- and moderate-income Mainers.
“Established new EV programs, supported by VW settlements, which include rebates, charging infrastructure, and public transportation.”
Passed a law to help launch the USA’s first floating offshore wind turbines. Hell of a big deal, because they can be in deeper water offshore, with no underwater towers for fishies to bump into.
Scrapped LePage’s wind energy moratorium, left a pro-offshore oil drilling coalition, and “actively engaged in regional efforts around carbon reductions, transportation, and off-shore wind,” as if Maine is actually part of a community of states, wow.
“Became the 22nd state to join the US Climate Alliance. Maine is now one of 25 states—which are home to 55% of the US population, the equivalent of the 3rd largest economy in the world—with a commitment to meet the Paris Climate Goals.”
Consider your horn tooted, Gov. Mills!
Free School Meals
in 2021, Maine was among the first states to vote to provide meals to all school kids at no cost to parents, even before the pandemic-era federal program funding universal free meals was murdered by Mitch McConnell last year. Kids need good food to be able to learn, and why this isn’t already national policy, I just … named the fucker. And let’s name his accomplices, too. Shame! SHAME!
But not on Janet Mills and the Maine Lege.
Trans Rights, Abortion Rights Too!
Oh, we just did this one last month when Mills signed into law a bill giving minors aged 16 and 17 the right to consent to gender-affirming hormone therapy in certain circumstances, just like young Mainers already have the right to make their own decisions consenting to contraception, abortion, and STI testing. As we noted when Mills signed the new law, she and the Maine Lege had already banned “conversion theory” in 2019, and last year Maine got rid of an old requirement that name changes be advertised as legal notices.
What Else?
We’re short on time so we’ll just steal right from Mills’s own well-deserved brag sheet on the 2023 budget she signed in July:
A new paid family and medical leave program, the 13th in the USA (we’ll be hearing from the other 12, won’t we? Wait, Minnesota is already one!)
Great big boosts to public housing and homelessness prevention
Child care and child tax help, and a raise for childcare workers!
Expansion of Maine’s existing Free Community College program!
Other good stuff we’re sure but we promised to wrap this up goodbye have a nice weekend!
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So, the very first time I visited Maine, I was 4 years old. I was walking with my parents down the sidewalk while my mom held my 2 months old sister in her arms because no one had invented Snuglis in the mid 1970s and she was too bougie to use a simple wrap. This allowed me the freedom to walk without holding the hand of any parent whatsoever! So freedom! Much liberating!
To celebrate I was holding out my arm on the street side, and when I passed each parked car I would tip over slowly sideways then use my hand to bounce off the car and end upright again. This all went fine for a dozen cars or so (like I remember the number of cars, but bear with me) until one nice, curvy VW bug was a little slick and my hand slipped and I kept falling sideways until my head hit the back of the car and then slid down the curve onto the metal bumper where OUCH it lacerated my scalp but good.
But okay, it was just blood in my hair and it didn't hurt that much and LEAVE ME ALONE, MOM, I'M FINE, but dad said it was still bleeding and that it needed stitches and he was a doctor and you have to do what the doctor says when you're sick or hurt. (Which is totally different from doing what your parent says. I don't make the rules, that's just the law.)
So what did he do?
He took me to the local hospital emergency room and said that he was a doctor and flashed his naval ID with his rank and I don't know if it said naval doctor or whatever, but he's in the navy and he has ID and he says he's a doc, so they just let me in the ER without paperwork and gave my dad some saline, betadine, and a needle and thread, and then he sewed me up right there while all the staff fussed over my little sister who was 2 months old, which is much more interesting to the ER staff than some 1 inch scalp laceration because LORDY, THEY WORK IN THE ER DONTCHA KNOW?
But when my dad was done the staff very nicely showed us out and gave me a balloon for being a brave kid and I don't even know why they had balloons there, probably a get well balloon bouquet for someone who up and died so the nurses stole them. I hear that happens in ERs all the time.
ANYWAY, what I'm saying here is that I've had a good impression of Maine for a long time because it means freedom and liberation and cool cars like 6-year old 1968 VW bugs that teach you lessons about the price of freedom is a bloody cut to your head and having to shampoo extra that night and also balloon stealing nurses who are actually pretty cool even if they do pay more attention to your sister.
That's Maine, baby. Good place. Good times.
Here's the thing. Not one of these things should be considered the least bit "Left" or even "Progressive." These things should all be considered Pragmatic, Getting Things Done, Addressing Things We All Know Need To Be Addressed.
Dare I say, Moderate.
Maybe even, some of them, Conservative. Like the energy stuff. Actually conserving finite resources and safeguarding America's National Security.
The rest of the list is of similar ilk. Protecting people's privacy. Encouraging measures that develop a better workforce of people who have what it takes to contribute to society.
When there aren't prying ears around, we can congratulate ourselves on how Progressive this all is, and we do deserve it.
But in public where just anybunny can overhear? We should push this as old-fashioned Americanism, making do with what we gots so we can be Indypendent and Self-Reliant. Spending a nickel now to prevent problems that cost us dollars now, and letting people contribute Big Bucks over the course of their lives. You know, down-home common sense, like our Grandparents did back in the Great Depression to pull America up off our knees by our bootstraps.
Oh, and also, Hooray!
And, also and too, Whar Taco Trucks? A Lobster Taco sounds wicked yummeh.