Author: Ethan Strimling
Ethan Strimling served for 10 years as the progressive mayor and state senator representing Portland. He also spent 19 years as the executive director of LearningWorks, a social service agency helping to break the generational cycle of poverty through education. Currently, he is a community organizer for progressive causes around the country, an active member of Maine DSA, and one third of the podcast “In The Arena” with Pat Callaghan and Phil Harriman.
Amidst all the important issues being debated this election cycle in Maine’s U.S. Senate and Congressional races — affordability, abortion, the oligarchy, Iran, tariffs, taxing the rich — the one that may matter the most is missing. Corruption. No, not Sen. Susan Collins’ false claims against Troy Jackson or even the concerning issues uncovered in…
Attention Cumberland County voters: Stephanie Anderson, candidate for District Attorney, is not who she wants you to think she is. For 28 years, Stephanie Anderson served as the DA for Cumberland County. For all of those 28 years, she was a Republican. After she retired in 2018, she ran for the state senate as a…
Among the myriad reasons to elect Hannah Pingree governor this fall, one policy she is pushing stands out — her intention to create a public health insurance option in Maine. Having Maine create a government administered health insurance plan would be transformative for Mainers, in part because the state can do things private insurers can’t.…
The irony of former Gov. Paul LePage’s outrage that a member of his family was swept up in an ICE raid would be laughable, were it not for the similar tragic consequences hundreds of Maine families are also experiencing. If you didn’t hear the news, LePage recently announced that his daughter-in-law’s father was being deported…
Well, we knew the shape shift was coming. The highly-paid lobbyist Bobby Charles won the Republican primary for governor by portraying himself as the most Trumpy of the Trumpy MAGAs running. But general election voters are probably looking for something different, right? So it began. Less than a month after Charles’ primary win, he authored…
I love the Hearts of Pine. Been to my share of games. Have spent hundreds of bucks on gear. I’m on a first name basis with one of the owners. And I appreciated the statement they made last month calling for accountability after ICE murdered Johan Sebastian Guerrero Duran. All that said, the city of…
Let’s be honest. Matt Dunlap has a tough race in front of him for the open 2nd Congressional District seat. But I think he’s gonna win. We hear a lot about the steep hill Dunlap’s trying to climb — running against a well-known former governor in a district that voted for Trump three times. National…
In case you forgot, with all the attention over the past month on Graham Platner’s implosion in the US Senate race and Troy Jackson’s rise to challenge Sen. Susan Collins, there is a race for governor in Maine this year. Truthfully, the fact that this race is barely cracking the political zeitgeist is probably a…
When confronted with a human tragedy like the one we are now seeing under ICE, I rarely like talking about the economic consequences. Does the financial impact really matter in the face of almost 75,000 Palestinians massacred by Israel in Gaza? Did the economic turmoil really matter on the night of Kristallnacht – when over…
“He’d tell me he was gonna stay awake holding my hand all night, so that when morning came, I’d still be there for him … As if all the strength that [my son] had in that little hand could counter generations of corporate greed … ” That is from a speech Troy Jackson gave in…