In June of 2009 PBS predicted that -- according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness -- "The recession will force 1.5 million more people into homelessness over the next two years." That was 1.5 million MORE people. That makes best estimates for the number of homeless people...

Mitt Romney has been taking some heat for chronically misspeaking, otherwise known as telling the truth. Whether the faux pas of the day is an admission that hiring undocumented workers -- illegal immigrants in Republican party speak -- was politically bad for him as governor of Massachusetts or his more...

And then there were four. There are now -- because the mainstream media doesn't count the non-corporately supported candidates -- four candidates left in the Republican battle for the presidential nomination.

It used to be a bit taboo in commentary to call candidates "corporate" but that was before the...

You don't need psych classes to know that Maine's Governor Paul LePage hates where he came from as a child. In fact he's just one of many Republicans who has risen to power while kicking to the curb those who are just like him. And in LePage's case, he's attempting...

Dear Santa,

I watched a movie last night about you. It starred Will Farrell and it's called Elf. You may have seen it, and considering Ed Asner did such a great job playing you, I imagine they ran the important parts by you for your approval. So you...

Good news for Hawaii, Newt Gingrich says that people receiving food stamps -- or as they say in the government that Newt so desperately hopes to lead, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) -- are using their electronic benefit transfer (EBT) cards to visit our nation's archipelago paradise.

Just for...

According to information furnished by the American Pulpwood Association and reprinted on the Maine Nature News website we should "respect mother nature." And that admonition is used in conjunction with the proscribed ice thicknesses on Maine lakes when it comes to traveling across them.

Here are a...

Former Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) board chair, Garett Reppenhagen, spent part of his weekend investigating the well-being of Occupy Oakland's most recent casualty, Iraq veteran Kayvan Sabeghi. It turns out that Sabeghi is not a member of IVAW. If Sabeghi had been a member,...

All across the United States homeless advocates are busily working to prepare for their most hectic season. You might call it the holiday season, the time of cheer -- or as Charles Dickens explained in his epic "A Christmas Carol" -- "a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time:...

At 6 a.m. on Labor Day I pulled through a coffee shop drive-through and was greeted by a chipper delightfully friendly person who likely earned minimum wage: no holiday for him. It's hard to imagine that I would have been as pleasant were I earning so little per hour that...

I changed jobs this week. I went to work for one of my heroes. Perhaps you've heard of him, his name is Stephen King. Lots of folks like his books. He's more than an author though. He's a guy who gives a darn about his fellow man. A simple web...

August 6th, thirty U.S. fighting men were shot out of the sky in Afghanistan. If you believe -- like I do -- that history repeats itself then there's nothing to gain by investigating how or why that happened. Sure, it'd be interesting to know just exactly how all those lives...

An awful lot of groups are condemning this week's "compromise" between Congress and the president which raises the debt ceiling and allegedly holds at bay the predicted worldwide economic calamity a U.S. default may have caused. One of those groups was the National Organization for Women. Their website

According to the blogosphere more than 80,000 homes left their porch lights on for Caylee Anthony last week after her mom was found not guilty of murder. 80,000 homes, the number may sound small and I too would guess that it is a gross under-estimate -- but one thing's for...

Far more women in the United States are victims of domestic violence than are injured in car accidents each year. Using information provided by the Centers for Disease Control and the insurance industry the numbers aren't even close -- battering outstrips crashes roughly two to one....

If you knew retired Marine Tom Nugent's story, you might think him unlucky. As a corpsman, Nugent's job was to stabilize the wounded. But Nugent ended up needing the repairs.

He sustained his first injury in a fire fight in Liberia. He had the same problem most young soldiers,...

Thursday, the US Department of Labor made grant applications available for the Urban and Non-Urban Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program (HVRP). Employers have thirty days from that date to apply for an estimated 16 grants totaling five million dollars. Veterans Affairs Committee Member Congressman Mike Michaud of Maine predicts that this...

"If he tries to criminalize the homeless, we'll be right back here again next week!" That promise was made Thursday afternoon by Philadelphia City Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell at a press conference outside city hall.

The "he" Blackwell referred to was her fellow council member -- and current foil --...

Regardless of indications that some welfare funds are used to pay for lavish parties, dinners, alcohol, travel and other perks the U.S. Senate voted this week to continue providing certain welfare recipients with "21 billion dollars over the next 10 years." You can read more about the story

If you work with the poor in the United States it's very easy to believe that this country doesn't like "those people." According to the National Poverty Center nearly fifteen percent of the U.S. lived in poverty in 2009. It's counterproductive to detest 1/6 of the population especially...