This week the Pulse tackles the Tuesday address — her final State of the State speech — of Governor Janet Mills.
It was very obviously a campaign speech, mostly aimed at strengthening her progressive bona fides against the insurgent campaign of Graham Platner. Mills spent most of the evening attempting to assume the mantle of a True Progressive, dispensing with any pretense that she is moderate, centrist, or otherwise “of the middle.”
She also, however, made several bewildering claims about the state of things in Maine today — things that are very obviously untrue. And, of course, her attitude during the speech was bitterly hostile, patronizingly talking down to her political opposition by constantly making a dubious claim and then saying, “you’re welcome.”
This is also a week that saw another tragedy in Minnesota, and an announced end to the enhanced enforcement efforts of ICE in Maine. We tackle those two issues and try to bring context to an issue which has become the hottest of hot-buttons.
There’s plenty more in this edition of the Pulse. As this episode was on the longer side, it is worth a quick reminder that both here on Substack and on Spotify, you are able to see the podcast broken up into topics and sections, and can skip back and forth at your leisure to listen how you want to, which will help you listen no matter how much time you may have.
Also, if you missed our most recent conversations with candidates for governor, make sure you check out this week’s interview with Independent Rick Bennett, as well as Republicans Bobby Charles, Jim Libby, David Jones, Owen McCarthy, Ben Midgley, or Jonathan Bush. You can find all these discussions at our interview archive to catch up on them today.
