Are you running for office, or going camping?

From the Morning Sentinel:

AUGUSTA -- The state ethics commission voted 5-0 today to require a Maine Senate candidate to reimburse the Maine Clean Election fund for purchases deemed primarily personal in nature.

Independent candidate Dana Kadey of Princeton, who is running for Senate District 29 in Washington County, will be required to pay back the state for a $1,363 truck cap and roof rack; $109.62 spent on mileage to buy the cap and rack; $414 for a Global Positioning System; and $188 for a cooler with electronic cooling and warming capabilities.

Kadey told the commission he is willing to pay back the money. He said he worried that if he used his own money to pay for those items, which he believes are related to his campaign, he would have violated clean election guidelines.

Maine (Blind) Lawyer Gone Wild

From the Associated Press:

PORTLAND - The chief executive officer of Maine's Iris Network faces criminal charges after flying into a rage over his daughter’s $5,000 cell phone bill.

James Phipps, 50, grabbed his 20-year-old daughter and repeatedly spanked her in a dispute over the cell phone bill and her boyfriend, the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Department said. There is some dispute over who is responsible for the bill, investigators said.

The Iris Network is a nonprofit organization that helps people who are visually impaired or blind become independent. Phipps, a Portland lawyer, is blind.

Members of the Iris Network’s board say it’s too early to say whether the incident would affect his job there, the Portland Press Herald reported.

Investigators say Phipps spanked his daughter repeatedly with his hand as a dispute escalated in his home on Chebeague Island. The daughter then went upstairs to call her boyfriend and another scuffle broke out that involved the daughter taking her father’s cell phone, authorities say.


Not much I can say. Wow, just wow.