With the closing of the 2010 election cycle, there are have been many victories and gains to herald for our State, but there has also been a significant loss.  There is no equation that can quantify the loss of knowledge, experience, and commonsense leadership that exits our fair State and, specifically, Piscataquis County with the retirement of Senator Douglas M. Smith a life long resident of Dover-Foxcroft.  While the loss has been tempered by the election of a strong conservative successor, Maine will not soon see the equal of the legal and political mind of Senator Smith.

After graduating from Foxcroft Academy Class of ‘65, he received his Bachelors in International Affairs and Political Science from the University of Maine in 1969.  He secured his law degree from the University of Maine Law School in 1974.   It is more than impressive to note here that, while doing his post-graduate studies, Doug Smith was elected to the House of Representatives.  He served from 1970 to 1976, during which time he was appointed to the Legal Affairs Committee (2 years), Appropriations and Financial Affairs (4 years with 2 as House Chair), and Joint Select Committee on Forest Resources (Chair).  In 1975 he began his own private Law practice, which he operated for 5 years before merging with the Bangor based firm Eaton Peabody.  He continued to practice Law for 26 years.  He again entered public service as Judge of Probate from 1979 to 2006.  In 2006, Doug Smith ran for Senator of District 27.  He won and has served with distinction until his recent retirement this past year.

Doug Smith began his political career as a Democrat.  He grew more and more uncomfortable with the anti-business and anti-private sector platform of the Democrat Party.  In the early 1990’s, the weighty decision was made to leave the Democrat Party.

Upon his enrollment in the Republican Party, many would have characterized Mr. Smith as a Moderate.  His strong passion for business growth and fiscal sanity soon accelerated a marked evolution in his beliefs towards Conservatism.   He quickly formed a friendship and allegiance with Paul Davis, perhaps the most Conservative politician in the State of Maine.  Together, they soon established themselves as one of the more powerful duos of advocacy for Conservative principles in the State.

Representative and former Minority Leader Paul Davis describes Doug Smith a good man, a wise man and one of a kind.  He further describes the Senator as a gentleman who worked for the best of Piscataquis County.  Senator Smith understood, Davis says, better than most what it takes to revitalize an economy and the “bitter medicine” that entails.

Representative Pete Johnson of Greenville said in my phone interview with him that he regarded Senator Smith as the “best Senator the State of Maine had”.  He admired the way the Senator could analyze issues and translate solutions into ready to work legislation.  Much of his work was trampled by the Democrats who were in the majority and preferred to seek out more ways to inhibit job growth, over-regulate business, and stifle the Maine economy than to create viable working solutions.  Perhaps, it would be in the best interest of the new Republican majority to resurrect some of the legislation of this great legal mind whose primary passion was the betterment of his beloved State.

On a personal note, this columnist first met the Honorable Douglas M. Smith at the Piscataquis County Courthouse as a young teenage boy who came to plead his case that Maine State Troopers had unfairly targeted him for speeding.  As I stood before the Judge, which is now my personal nickname for him, a certain State Trooper named Paul Davis flanked me, to my left.  I had barely spoken the customary “I’ve been framed, I’m innoce….”, when the Judge looked at Trooper Davis for his opinion.  Trooper Davis simply cleared his throat, the gavel slammed, quite harshly I might add, and I was unceremoniously marched out of the room to pay my fine.

It would be Senator Smith, a few years later, who would tag me with the nickname Andy Torment, to which Paul Davis maintains a gleeful sworn duty to make sure it sticks.  Humor aside, I am so thankful to have Doug Smith as a friend and mentor.  I am always impressed at his keen ability to immediately find the root of the problem and find a commonsense solution.  His calming influence during the stressful times in campaigns was a walking training session.  He will be sorely missed.  I am thankful that he has promised to continue to make himself available to Piscataquis County and the State in an advisory capacity, but he is still, in the estimation of many, irreplaceable.  Thank you, Doug Smith, for your sacrifice and service to Maine.

President

Napolitano Visit Aimed at Beefing Up Afghan Border Security, Customs

By Mike Levine

Published December 31, 2010

| FoxNews.com

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KABUL, Afghanistan — During an unannounced New Year’s Eve visit to Afghanistan, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano traveled to the country’s mountainous border region near Pakistan to see first-hand her department’s efforts in the war effort there.

“Seeing is worth a thousand words,” Napolitano said after the tour, to which Fox News was granted exclusive access. “This all involves safety and security in this part of the world. And that is something that has direct connection as well to the United States.”

She described her department’s role in war-torn Afghanistan as a “complement” to the military operations there.

Her agency has about two dozen officials in Afghanistan, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, Customs and Border Protection officers, and Border Patrol agents. Many are training Afghan security forces to manage their country’s borders.

Although the Afghan government receives most of its money from foreign allies, customs fees and tariffs account for more than half of the money Afghanistan generates on its own. Increasing that revenue flow is a top priority for U.S. officials working to stabilize the chaotic country.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano eats lunch Dec. 31 with troops at Torkham base near the Pakistan border.

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Earlier Friday, Napolitano and her staff met with Ambassador Karl Eikenberry at the U.S. embassy in Kabul. Hours later, a fleet of military helicopters took Napolitano, her staff and a Fox News crew to Torkham Forward Operating Base, about five miles from Torkham border crossing, a main access point for supplies coming through Pakistan to NATO forces in Afghanistan.

At the base, she ate lunch with some of the troops who protect her agency’s officials in the war zone. She called it an “honor.”

The trip to the border region culminated with a helicopter flight over the Torkham border crossing. Getting to the crossing by ground was deemed too dangerous.

In May, according to Pakistani reports, security forces at Torkham crossing “defused an explosive device fitted to a container taking supplies to NATO forces in Afghanistan.”

Nearly three months ago, Torkham crossing was shut down for 11 days by Pakistan after a U.S. helicopter strike in the border region killed two Pakistani soldiers. The crossing was reopened after American officials apologized, but during the shutdown about 150 trucks were destroyed and many people were injured as they became easy targets.

Nevertheless, U.S. officials described the Torkham area as generally not hostile toward the U.S. military.

Officials said the growing Homeland Security presence in Afghanistan is the product of an effort launched under the Obama administration. Officials say it is part of a “vision” from the late U.S. envoy to the region, Richard Holbrooke, who sought to include more federal agencies in the war and nation building effort here.

In early November, customs and border officers and agents from Homeland Security’s investigations unit conducted a one-week workshop for 44 officers from Afghan law-enforcement agencies, training them on the interdiction and investigation of cash smuggling. Such criminal activity funds terrorist and criminal organizations.

In January 2010, a “Customs Academy” opened in Kabul, training as many as 200 recruits in an effort to turn the Afghanistan Customs Department into “a modern service,” as the U.S. embassy put it in a press release.

In addition to the Homeland Security officials already on the ground in Afghanistan, several more are expected to land there over next month. Those ranks don’t include the more than 50 former CBP officials hired privately to support the DHS mission there.

Napolitano was expected to ring in the New Year with U.S. personnel at the embassy in Kabul. A bonfire was being prepared as of early Friday evening.

The New Year’s Eve trip was Napolitano’s first to Afghanistan since joining the Obama cabinet.

She was in the country once as Arizona governor.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/12/31/napolitano-visit-aimed-beefing-afghan-border-security-customs/#ixzz19nI55tNf

From the Iowahawk Congressional Outplacement Services

A select quote:
“Psychological studies tell us a lost re-election campaign is the single most stressful event in the life of a congressional incumbent, even topping the indictment of a campaign contributor or an appearance at an unscripted town hall meeting. Also, a ballot box layoff is, next to death, the second-leading cause of leaving Congress. The good news is that there are positive, proactive steps you can take to reduce stress and smooth your transition to your new life in the great unknown outside I-95.”

For your holiday pleasure read it all at:

http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2010/12/so-you-lost-your-election.html

And also this lapidary metaphor from a Russian emigre:

“Some heads contain an enormous number of facts that never bind with one another to form a fertile soil from which original ideas will grow. Each piece of information exists independently from the others, all of them continuously shifting and rolling around like grains of sand, forming ephemeral dunes in the lifeless deserts of their minds…..Every new whiff of wind or shaking of the head tosses the sand in more quirky patterns, forming new whimsical outlines. As previously covered facts are exposed and facts once exposed are concealed, a semblance of new ideas will emerge without any true change in content.”

The British mercantile system, some could argue, was the catalyst that brought to fruition the act of revolution, which in turn, birthed the framework upon which this great Nation is founded.   The English government so controlled the marketplace that its citizens, including the colonists, had their purchase choices made for them.  In essence, if the government can control what products can be sold, it can control what you buy.  This was intolerable to many colonists who, much to the chagrin of English monarchy, had been infected by an incurable strain of freedom.  With the carrot of Liberty dangling with tantalizing clarity on the horizon, our forefathers fought, made history and set about establishing a founding document, which would substantially widen the course of history.  The stream of Liberty’s hope burst forward cascading down into the mammoth river of Liberty’s reality.  This document was the Constitution.

We have all watched with, first, utter disbelief and, now, seething rage as, over the years, progressives have trampled and disdained our Constitution.  Now, we are faced with the ultimate test of our resolve.  Will we, as citizens, hold to said resolve and demand our government adhere to the wisdom of our forefathers or capitulate like sheep and become European?  Since the War of 1812, Europe has been maneuvering to regain control of America.  A quick read of most European newspapers will find editorials filled with consternation to why Americans don’t want to be like them.  They often admonish Americans to embrace socialism while they themselves struggle to find ways to get free of it.  In truth, Europe wants control over what we have and they do not, wealth and the ability to make wealth.

With the oppressive confines of English mercantilism still fresh in their minds, the framers of the Constitution established the Commerce clause to protect and encourage free trade between the States.  Recently Judge Henry Hudson, after his ruling that The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional, wrote in his opinion “the unchecked expansion of congressional power to the limits suggested by the Minimum Essential Coverage Provision would invite unbridled exercise of federal police powers”.  The Minimum Essential Coverage Provision is the fundamental tenant of ObamaCare.  It is essential to its intended implementation.  This begs the question.  Do the Democrats believe in freedom of choice the same as our forefathers?

Health and Human Services Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, warned insurance providers on September 9^th that any messages sent to the public warning them of the dangers of the new healthcare law would be punished.  What about free speech?  Can you hear the soldiers tramping in Valley Forge?  How can the Government be so brazen?  They control the product so they control the producers.  Although the government has added new provisions to mandated healthcare, they are calling them basic.  Karen Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, warns, “It’s a basic law of economics that additional benefits incur additional costs”.  Secretary Sebelius’ response is to say shut your mouth, deal with it or be punished.

In Maine, we have a health mandates similar to ObamaCare.  In this plan, men are required to carry maternity leave.  This, I do not consider a basic service for my person.  I do not believe child bearing is in my job description nor do I want it to be.  This is what happens when government tries to control your personal decisions.

We were told that the elderly and infirmed would be neglected if we did not pass this bill.  Now we learn that the elderly and infirmed will be neglected, by reduced coverage for them, to pay for the high costs of ObamaCare.  This is too dastardly to simply call ironic.  There is much more information on this new law that you can research at www.ncpa.org.

Never trust what a politician says.  Look at his record.  Those old sayings still hold true like “you can’t judge a book by its cover”, “actions speak louder than words” or, my favorite, “by their fruits you shall know them”.  It is still our choice.  Is it the Constitution or Europe?