Scott Miller

Having failed to select a topic for the upcoming Beyond Labels meeting, we’ll open the floor to follow-ups to some recent topics (the Trump transition, municipal role in protecting local dams, etc.) or new ones, like the fall of the Assad government in Syria.

Consider what you think would be good fodder for our discussion.

After several weeks of national politics (for understandable reasons), we’ll turn our attention on Monday to some local–i.e., Blue Hill Peninsula–issues. One subject getting press attention and affecting five nearby towns directly (and all of the Peninsula indirectly) is the petition by the owner of the Bucksport paper mill to abandon three dams. These dams created what we now recognize as Toddy Pond, Alamoosook Lake, and Silver Lake.

Here’s a recent Weekly Packet article summarizing where matters currently stand; the petition has been covered for months by the Packet, the Ellsworth American, the Bangor Daily News, the Maine Monitor, and local TV news channels. Pick your source.

I’m sure we’ll have time to discuss some other local issues, so give some thought as to what’s working well, what’s not, and what we can do about it.

As a reminder, the library is closed on November 11 (Veteran’s Day). On November 18, we’ll take up the topic as agreed last week…the day before the election: an election debrief.

At the time, we thought we’d be discussing a flurry of litigation over who had won a close race for president—I guess that won’t take too much time. Instead, we can discuss some (or all) of the following:

Democrats

• Why did Kamala Harris lose/what would have had to happen for her to win?
• Have Democrats stopped listening to working class Americans as David Brooks suggests?
• What lesson will Democrats take from the election overall:
  • Move firmly toward the working class (go to center)?
  • Double-down on progressive initiatives (go to left)?
  • “Steady as she goes” (perhaps this election was an anomaly and the overall platform is solid)?
• To what degree will they support Republican initiatives on key voter issues (such as immigration)?

Republicans

• To what degree will Trump’s actions be more moderate than his rhetoric?
• To what degree will congressional Republicans push back on the Administration’s most aggressive initiatives?
• How will Republicans manage high public expectations in light of the likely “tri-fecta” (Presidency plus a majority of both houses of Congress)? [Maybe a “quad-fecta” with a conservative majority on the Supreme Court as well.]
  • Will the Senate filibuster fall (or be constrained to narrower voting subjects)?