For the past week, the restaurant and owner have dominated the news. Neugebauer has also caused a firestorm on social media. Why? Because she slammed her hands on a counter and told an out-of-control two-year-old who was disrupting the restaurant to “shut up.”
With the media frenzy this has created, do you think there is a correlation between meaningless stories such as this, which dominates the news cycles, and low-functioning voters?
In an effort to incorporate their strictly altruistic views and policies, a group of progressive Republican and Democratic legislators have banned together and thumbed their noses at the Maine voters’ wish for comprehensive welfare reform. In their minds, these arrogant elitists feel they understand the problem by listening to the daily banter inside the confines of the State House as opposed to the average person who is exposed daily to welfare abuse.
In order to carry out these policies, they need a distraction—a distraction that will focus voters’ attention away from the real issue. An untruth repeatedly fed to the public is their attempt to create a politically and social-morality charged atmosphere. They demonize and marginalize anyone opposed to their “We’re educated, we know what’s right for you” policies.
They have focused on Governor Paul LePage, Senator Eric Brakey and myself for our opposition in using local and state money to support non-citizens, known as asylum seekers—a group whom our federal government neither recognizes nor will help.
Those who revel in making Maine an intake center for asylum seekers argue that Maine is aging and needs younger blood. They point out that many of these non-citizens hold degrees and are well educated. They are horrified over the small percentage of college degrees held by native Mainers. They lament as to how the state will move forward.
Easy! Maine in its heyday was built by many people with little or no education. Today, those with high school degrees are the builders, painters, electricians, plumbers and landscapers who build and maintain the houses, businesses and properties of those holding a college degree. Their earnings as non-degree professionals stay in their pocket, not used to pay off school loans.
Another thing that perplexes me is the fact that these “highly educated, professional non-citizens” have to depend on the support of local people to survive. They come to the United States on visitor or educational visas. It is my understanding that to obtain this type of visa, the issuing embassy must satisfy itself that those being issued the visa will return home when the time on their visa expires.
One of the things checked by each embassy is the financial health of those being issued a visa to ensure they are solvent. When a person arrives in the United States and asks for asylum, their finances are known by the federal government and should be shared with the local general assistance office in order to determine if, in fact, they need assistance.
Lastly, let me leave you with something to ponder. If it takes several weeks to obtain a visa, how much danger could one be in? Then, prior to leaving their native country on a commercial airliner, those coming on visas must run a gauntlet of government officials who rubberstamp their exit. How does this equate with their life being in imminent danger?
Apparently apoplectic that Governor Paul LePage and myself “demonize” the Maine taxpayers’ biggest enemy—the Maine People’s Alliance (MPA)—Lewiston’s former mayor, who used to occupy this space, sent a letter to the local daily newspaper extolling the MPA.
It appears he believes the Governor and I should appear in a public square dressed in sackcloth, covered with ashes and groveling for forgiveness. You see, in this new politically correct world it is a grievous sin to criticize anything that is liberal progressive.
They advocate for enhanced Social Security benefits. Really? It seems that my Social Security check, along with many others, is getting smaller each year because of the Medicare increases brought on by ObamaCare and miniscule COLAS.
While the elderly struggle, layabouts and non-citizens appear to be taken care of better than those who have contributed all their life to the system. Protests and carrying signs result in nothing more than wasted time spent protesting and carrying signs.
Progressive liberal Democrats had a chance to pass Social Security reform a few years ago when both houses of Congress and the White House were controlled by Democrats. Nothing happened. Fifteen years ago, Maine State Democrats tried to pass a bill that would have allowed the State of Maine to tax your Social Security check.
Social Security is an emotional issue rolled out before each election, then put back in its crate minutes after the polls close.
Then we have healthcare as a human right. Translation: those of us who actually pay health insurance premiums will see an increase in our premiums in order to cover layabouts and non-citizens. This comes at a time when there is a move to encourage doctors to dissuade elderly patients from expensive treatments that might prolong their lives. This would allow more dollars to be spent on the medical needs of younger people.
Also listed is safe housing. I’m going to make a big assumption here. This probably refers to buildings owned by people the MPA refers to as “slum lords.”
I will concede that a few fall into this category, but the majority have buildings in a state of disrepair due to tenants not paying rent (some for a few months), opening apartment windows during the cold of winter, driving up heating costs, and removing batteries from lifesaving smoke-detector units found in their apartments, occasionally even removing entire units from the apartment wall.
They fill the halls with clutter, sometimes blocking fire exits. But hey! According to MPA, these conditions are the landlords’ fault.
Then there is protecting the environment. What does this mean? After shoveling several feet of snow this winter and seeing my heating bill skyrocket, you’re going to try and convince me this was due to global warming?
Their environmental stance does nothing but drive up the average person’s heating and gasoline costs. They are also driving out and preventing businesses from considering relocation in Maine.
They claim they are fighting to protect children from toxic chemicals. So is everyone else! As part of the Mayors’ Coalition, I was among the many who successfully testified for a bill lowering the acceptable rate of lead in the blood of children.
The former mayor further states the MPA helps small businesses. He then goes on to say the MPA supports a minimum wage, paid family medical leave and paid sick days. How do these added expenses help small businesses? This goes to show how out of touch they are with the realities of running a small business.
Lastly, the MPA was successful in lobbying the Legislature into passing a rewritten version of LD 369. This forces Lewiston taxpayers to support a certain number of immigrants who refuse to go home. They can now legally bleed the taxpayers because federal officials are not performing their Constitutional duties.
Finally, the former mayor characterizes the views of both the Governor and me as biased. I would characterize his views as both delusional and enabling.
To conclude my “5 Ways in 5 Days” series, I wanted to tell you about one of my favorite tools I use to gain more traffic. I would say that while majority of my blog traffic comes from Pinterest, most of it actually starts with Tailwind. How? Because of bloggers supporting bloggers! In other words, bloggers help each other by sharing each others content on Pinterest, which gives more content exposure.
When I first publicized my blog, I was nervous to invest in anything. I obviously didn’t want to lose money. A reasonable concern, right? What was nice is I was able to try a free month of Tailwind, and then determine if it was worth the time and money. And, it totally was! After another month of trial at the lowest plan, I loved it so much, I had absolutely no concern about it being my biggest expense. Obviously, you need to know how to use it and how it helps you gain readers, though. So, read on to learn 5 ways to use Tailwind to gain more traffic!
Tailwind tribes are a group of like-minded content creators that help each other out by sharing pins. Each tribe is categorized by type (lifestyle, travel, etc.), and it can even be broken down further (budget, mental health, etc.).
Each tribe has their own set of rules. Some tribes are “open”, which means anyone can join, and some are closed- you have to request to join. The tribes all have guidelines, which vary, but the general rule is if you submit a pin, you are expected to reciprocate. By sharing other people’s content, you are also pinning more, which is great to gain more traffic to Pinterest!
This is exactly what it sounds like- Tailwind gives you the ability to connect your Instagram and Pinterest, and share your Instagram photos to Pinterest. If you are a blogger or business owner like me, who has shoppable images on Instagram, you want them to get as much exposure as possible! Pinterest has a different audience, which means more people who can discover you on different forums!
In order to schedule it’s quite simple, you go to “publisher” on the left hand side, “pin from Instagram”, press schedule on the post of your choice, and you can choose which board the pin goes to! Yay double exposure!
The pin scheduler is a clever tool that allows you to schedule pins, which keeps you from constantly manually pinning. It has multiple components to it:
You can “set” or schedule intervals for pins. Say you would like post the same pin to multiple boards, but you don’t want them to post at the same time. You can use the set interval feature and chose a duration between pins, such as 1 hour, 2 hour, etc.
You have the ability to schedule UNLIMITED amount of pins, whether they are yours or from one of the tribes you are in!
There are a few analytics for Pinterest- profile performance, board insights, pin inspector, and website insights.
Profile performance tells you follower loss or gain, the amount of pins you submit per week/all time, how many repins you receive, and engagement rates.
Board insights tells you how many pins each of your boards have, followers, repins and how well they are doing.
Last, but not least, is website insights. This tells you the trends from your website, meaning what people pin more of from the site.
For Instagram, there is profile performance and post inspector. The concept is almost the exact same!
How did you like this 5 day series? Are there any blog related topics you would like to see on another series? Let me know in the comments!
I’ve made and validate the photo card option, but the tweets within my timeline appear wih the link “view photo”. Is it possible to have the tweets expanded already without pressing the link?
There is no singular way to pre-expand a card. On web, you can pin a card to your timeline, which will expand it.