Introducing the Expanded Crash Report

Fighting words by political scientist Amy Fried plus a tale of bad weed seeds and a gunned down Trump supporter.

Amaryllis in full bloom on the farmstead. Feb 10, 2025

Welcome to the new-and-improved Crash Report. Now with more content and published more frequently in order to monitor extremism, toxic politics and its impact on the most vulnerable in Maine communities. Over the next several weeks you’ll be meeting the nine (and counting) writers, artists and a poet who will contribute reporting from varied perspectives to explain wtf is happening to our country and state.

Today, we unveil the first of many “Federal Correspondent” columns by the political scientist and writer Amy Fried. From 2011 until last month, Amy wrote for the Bangor Daily News opinion page, but recent cuts at the newspaper eliminated that gig. She’s also a Professor Emerita at UMaine. (She recently retired.) All of that to say, I’m sure her previous day-jobs limited her — at times — to what she could say and write about the state of American government and elected officials. But now, writing for The Crash Report, Amy can take the gloves off and punch as hard as she wants, both literally and figuratively. (One of her hobbies, IRL, is boxing.) I’m talking bare-knuckled political analysis filtered through the lens of a scientist trained to notice patterns, trends and skullduggery. Today, part 1 of the series “The Constitutional Crisis Cabal.”

Also in this edition of The Crash Report, I share the very weird and sad tale of an armed standoff that resulted in the murder of a K-9 officer, the death of the chuddish gunman and a cop getting a bullet in the shoulder.

In these wacky times, with legacy media collapsing and madmen running amok, independent journalism is more important than ever. And The Crash Report goes places where others won’t. So please subscribe at $6 monthly or sixty bucks annually. Sign up before March 17th to save a buck a month.

Federal Correspondent:

The Constitutional Crisis Cabal, Part I

by Amy Fried

Imagine a world where no one is checking if your chicken is full of nasty bacteria that could kill you. Or lobstermen can’t get forecasts from NOAA and go off to haul their traps, unaware of storms brewing. Cancer research is shut down. Food and heating assistance programs don’t exist. Doctors can’t find out what infectious illnesses are where. Meanwhile, unmonitored Ebola in villages far away comes to the United States. Then Americans start bleeding through their orifices and dying in droves.

While that sounds like a barely believable dystopian movie, these things have either already happened or could happen because of what Donald Trump, Elon Musk and complicit Republicans are doing. A lot of swing voters picked Trump because they believed he’d help them, but what they’re getting is very different than what he promised.

We’re seeing an administration working to grind the faces of the poor into the dirt, take away job protections for the middle class and make it harder to get educated, so people can learn and earn more. They’re working to decimate the United States’ impressive biomedical and scientific programs and government’s monitoring of everything from weather and food safety to disease outbreaks and environmental toxins, all while removing consumer protections from fraudulent bankers, stock traders and businesses.

This administration isn’t focused on fighting “waste, fraud and abuse” but rather is disassembling parts of government that assist people and loosening constraints that punish private actors who cause damage. Elon Musk is from the tech startup world, and Silicon Valley insiders warn of his links to a “neo-reactionary,” explicitly anti-democratic movement seeking the rule of “techno-monarchism” by “an American Caesar.”

The threat is not down the road, but at the door and inside. Sure, congressional Republicans and Trump are working on a budget and tax structure aimed at shoveling money from the working and middle class to the rich. Maine’s Sen. Susan Collins flew down to Florida to develop that legislation with Trump and GOP leaders.

But before the big bills even appear, we’re having a constitutional crisis, created by a cabal that’s blowing up parts of government that make our lives better. They’re not waiting for laws to be passed or regulations to be rewritten and repealed. Those processes take time and time enables opponents to organize and possibly defeat what’s been proposed. So Trump and company took a different route, one that ignores the executive branch’s co-equal branch, Congress, and the laws Congress passed. They’re in a hurry and started creating new circumstances on the ground that can’t easily be repaired.

Not all is lost. Lawsuits have been a tool to resist this cabal and Democratic politicians have increasingly recognized the threat and tried to stop it. Sen. Angus King has raised the alarm about these unconstitutional, illegal encroachments and the harm they cause. Welcome to the resistance, Angus.

The constitutional crisis cabal is complex. Step one is understanding what is going on. Here are two main parts of it.

One: Trump and his Project 2025 buddies have asserted unbridled presidential power.

With a wave of executive orders Trump started his administration with shock and awe. Then his Office of Management and Budget (OMB) generated a memo freezing a massive amount of federal funding. Susan Collins mildly criticized the sudden stop as “too sweeping.”

The OMB Memo

I put the memo’s list of prohibited activities through my handy dandy MAGA language interpreter. It translated advancing “Marxist equity” as anything helping low and middle income Americans; “transgenderism” as respecting transgender people and allowing appropriate medical care, and “green new deal social engineering policies” as making the environment safer and countering climate change and its harms.

But that memo was even more damaging. As I wrote in my final regular Bangor Daily News column, it halted medical research and stopped communication about infectious diseases. Cancer research and monitoring the bird flu isn’t some Marxist plot, but Trump was peeved when the National Institute of Health’s Dr. Fauci corrected ridiculous things Trump said about covid, and parts of Trump’s coalition are anti-science, anti-higher education and anti-government.

Judges stopped the freeze. They told the Trump administration they were wrong about who decides what’s spent.

The Trump administration had claimed that, “Career and political appointees in the Executive Branch have a duty to align Federal spending and action with the will of the American people as expressed through Presidential priorities.” But that’s not so. As a federal judge explained, “The Executive Branch has a duty to align federal spending and action with the will of the people as expressed through congressional appropriations, not through “Presidential priorities.”

In other words, laws set spending.

Still, while all the frozen grants should have been restored immediately, the Trump administration didn’t fully follow judges’ orders. Penobscot Community Health Care, with over a dozen health care facilities serving 60,000 Mainers, discovered after the rulings that they could not access funds to pay employees. In a Facebook post the PCHC warned “There may be service interruptions” because their federal grant funding isn’t arriving and noted “We are not the only federally qualified health center facing this crisis across the country, having the same or similar issue in the last two weeks.”

Indeed. This has been happening to other federally qualified health centers, fantastic organizations focusing on primary care, preventing serious illnesses and managing chronic ones, and thus lower costs. FQHCs were vastly expanded as part of the Affordable Care Act; this expansion is arguably Bernie Sanders’ greatest policy contribution in his political career. So what happens if their funding goes poof? More crowded emergency rooms and walk-in clinics. Longer waits. Lack of care. Unnecessary suffering. Death.

Meanwhile confusion reigned in Maine. While the Bangor Daily News initially reported PCHC finally got their funding back, that wasn’t certain. So the paper included a box at the top with these words:

“Update: A spokesperson for U.S. Sen. Susan Collins said Wednesday that the funding had been restored to Penobscot Community Health Care, but the health provider said Thursday that it had not yet received the funds.”

Since then, PCHC’s funding came through, but uncertainty makes it harder for them to operate and could dissuade sick people from seeking care. And besides all the damage to individuals and the organizations serving us, Trump autocratically withholding funds appropriated by Congress is illegal and unconstitutional.

A key player in this cabal is Russell Vought, an architect of Project 2025 who believes the president is essentially a monarch who can decide what federal money gets spent and where. Trump picked him to lead the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

In giving power to Trump, Vought and the rest of the cabal are taking it away from someone else. This is a key way power works. And they’re shifting it from the body the founders wanted to control spending and taxes -- Congress. Whatever criticisms we have about Congress, they do hear from the people in their states and districts about how, say, funding for kids with disabilities matters to them. Congress can be vulnerable to public pressure.

Susan Collins knows that Congress's constitutional place is to write spending (and other) laws that bind the president. But, in voting for Vought, she voted to reduce her own power and undermine some of her rationales for re-election.

Like other D.C. elected officials, Collins often brags about the funds she brings to her constituency. Because of her position on the Senate Appropriations Committee, she can bring home the bacon. Yet Collins voted to take away her power over deciding who gets what from the federal government. And she did so in a strictly party line vote. Once again contradicting another core campaign claim of hers: that she embraces bipartisanship.

In announcing she’d stick with the cabal and back Vought, Collins put the onus on the courts to stop him. If he holds back appropriations, she claimed, “I believe it will end up in court, and my hope is the court will rule in favor of the 1974 impoundment and budget control act."

Evidently Collins doesn’t think it was her job to oppose a nominee who she correctly perceives will act illegally as the head of the OMB. Instead, she proclaimed it was her “hope” the judiciary does its job to hold Vought in legal and constitutional bounds. In contrast, Sen. Angus King not only recognized Vought’s threat, calling him “one of the ringleaders of the assault on our Constitution,” but also his senatorial responsibility. King voted against Vought.

Collins has gotten a lot of attention from the national press over the years for things she says. But they’re now recognizing that her words don't necessarily match what she does. Take this Bluesky post by a Bloomberg News reporter who covers the Senate.

But Maine media often paints Collins the way she wants to be seen. Just look at the headline of the Portland Press Herald article quoting Collins’ “hope” that courts will constrain Vought. Instead of focusing on her actions and how her vote contradicted her words, it read “Sen. Collins meets with other lawmakers critical of Elon Musk’s moves to cut agencies, workforce.” Bangor’s WABI summarized the Vought confirmation in their headline as “Maine senators express concern about executive overreach.”

Really? It’s surely obvious that hopes and concern are not going to stop this blatant executive overreach and constitutional crisis and the last thing we need is sanewashing Collins’ votes.

Two: The unelected Elon Musk and tech bros steal power.

The richest man on the planet, Elon Musk, wasn’t elected to anything, but was given free rein by Trump. Musk acts as if he can decide what the federal government does and how it does it. Musk organized a blitzkrieg of young, inexperienced tech bros that showed up at federal departments, commandeering them. This crew dove into computer systems, including the one controlling virtually every dollar the federal government pays out -- for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, schools, food banks and food stamps, Meals on Wheels and heating assistance. One young Musketeer started screaming “at senior developers and calling them ‘idiots.’” It’s possible Trump gave them security clearances, but, if so, the FBI wouldn’t have had the time to do background checks. So consider Edward Coristine, a nineteen-year-old who could never normally get a clearance. That’s because, according to Wired magazine, a Telegram handle tied to him “solicited a cyberattack-for-hire service.” Plus, he’s worked for a company that hires hackers, and started a business doing business in Russia.

How bizarre and dangerous. Musk’s posse shouldn’t be rummaging through our data and throwing their weight around. As Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy put it, “We don't pledge allegiance to the creepy 22 year-olds working for Elon Musk.”

Through all this, the Musk team has ignored privacy and security protocols. And that scares the security apparatus -- who the Washington Post says only talked to reporters “on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.” Particularly because hacks by “foreign intelligence services” have happened before. Or our data could get leaked or sold. Government lawyers warned Musk that those actions are illegal and a contractor who assesses security called this access to the payment system an “unprecedented insider threat risk.”

The contractor who issued this warning was then fired.

The work ethic of “go fast and break things” from the startup tech world often causes companies to fail. In the case of our federal systems, Musk and company could have accidentally created serious problems. It’s a no-brainer that this crew shouldn’t have access to our Social Security numbers, bank routing numbers, or information about what Medicare and Medicaid paid for. And they shouldn’t be able to stop payments required by law because they don’t like the goal of the funding or want to punish political opponents.

Plus, according to Wired Magazine, they’ve been mucking around in the computer code. Twenty-five year old Marko Elez had “the ability not just to read but to write code on two of the most sensitive systems in the US government: the Payment Automation Manager and Secure Payment System at the Bureau of the Fiscal Service (BFS). Housed on a secure mainframe, these systems control, on a granular level, government payments that in their totality amount to more than a fifth of the US economy.”

It looked like Elez wouldn’t be doing that anymore because he resigned after the Wall St. Journal found he backed eugenics, wrote “I was racist before it was cool” and opposed the Civil Rights Act. But then Vance spoke up for him and Musk said he'd hire him back. Also before Elez resigned, a judge ruled that Elez and Tom Krause, another Musk staffer, a comparative elder at 40-something, could look at Treasury records but not change anything. Although it’s not clear if that ruling applies to the code.

That judicial limit on Kraus was undermined after the Trump administration made him the financial assistant secretary of the Treasury Department. As the Washington Post reports, Kraus “replaces David A. Lebryk, who resigned after objecting to Krause’s demands to stop payments on foreign aid — a measure Lebryk resisted as illegal. Krause’s position will give him control over the Treasury Department system responsible for disbursing more than $5 trillion in annual payments, including for Social Security, Medicare, tax refunds and thousands of other measures.”

As of today, the judicial order was still in force and a mad Musk called for impeaching the judge.

Meanwhile, Musk already seriously harmed an essential part of government Congress has continuously funded since it was founded under President John F. Kennedy. USAID has been a major way the U.S. exerts “soft power,” building goodwill with other countries via food and medical assistance, and encouraging democratic movements, (including the one against apartheid in Musk’s homeland, South Africa, On February 3, Musk bragged he destroyed the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Founded under JFK in 1961, Congress has funded USAID ever since. Luckily, a lawsuit has been filed to stop this.

Because soft power is real power and power loves a vacuum, destroying USAID gives Russia and China a gift: More power. Thanks to this move by Trump and the GOP’s cabal, there will be more desperate and hungry people in the world. There will be more illness and death. There will be more political instability. More violence. More terrorism. And more endless war.

To be clear, it is unbelievably dumb and short-sighted to defund USAID and the World Health Organization. Our expensive military can’t battle Ebola outbreaks. That’s why we have -- well, now had -- public health and medical personnel trained to do the job.

Unfortunately, Musk teams have invaded many other agencies. One is the Department of Labor, which oversees workers’ rights. Since the nonpartisan professional staff at the Bureau of Labor Statistics issues the unemployment rate, making the bureau political is sure to cause problems. As a former Labor Department official said, “Would Elon and Trump use a takeover of BLS to cover up unfavorable economic statistics? A couple of weeks ago, that would have seemed impossible. Today it seems more than likely.” If no one trusts those figures, businesses, markets and everyone else are in trouble.

Musk’s tech bros also stormed into NOAA, which monitors oceans and runs the National Weather Service. Their forecasts and emergency warnings, currently free, are used by fishermen, farmers, communications and transportation companies (not to mention people planning their commutes and visits to grandma). Project 2025 called for taking apart NOAA, with parts blown up or privatized. And now Musk is there, messing around, trying to help make that happen. Which of course is more bad news, since his private satellite company presents a clear conflict of interest. If the National Weather Service ceases to exist, it’ll be easy for him to go into the weather monitoring business and make yet another fortune.

In other other news: Musk said he wanted to root out government fraud, but then he placed the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on his kill list, empowering fraudsters in suits. All thanks to the cabal. And after Trump put Vought in charge of the agency, its website has gone dark and Vought ordered employees to stop working.

All of these agencies were created and funded by Congress and so it’s illegitimate and illegal for Congress to be bypassed.

Speaking about our constitutional design, Angus King explained, “The whole idea was that no part of the government, no one person, no one institution had or could ever have a monopoly on power” because “concentrated power” is dangerous. Thankfully, by criticizing Musk’s activities and voting against Vought, King recognized his “profound responsibility” to his oath of office to protect and preserve the Constitution, but also took action.

Which is more than we can say about Maine’s senior senator. On Musk, Collins has proven she’s all talk and no action. Collins weakly weighed in on the billionaire and his crew. “There’s no doubt that the president appears to have empowered Elon Musk far beyond what I think is appropriate,” she said. These are appropriate words. At least in contrast to the silence or support from virtually all the rest of Republicans in Congress.

Later Collins told reporters about a letter she’s working on, to ask Secretary of State Marco Rubio about USAID “to address some of the most egregious cases that appeared to violate the legislation that we appropriators wrote saying that you cannot, for example, with USAID, you cannot reorganize it, [or] shut it down.” But Collins’ focus on Rubio is odd. The only reason why Rubio has anything to do with USAID is because Trump put him in charge of the remnants of the agency that Musk, in his words, put “through the woodchipper.”

Again, if Collins was so concerned about violating legislation she helped write, she shouldn’t have voted for Vought, who wrote in Project 2025 that the OMB “can direct on behalf of the President the amount, duration and purpose of any apportioned funding.”

As Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Collins could act strongly. She could exert her power to call Musk as a witness. She could join with Democrats to stall votes and delay confirmations. She could slow the budget reconciliation bill Republicans are writing to slash taxes for the rich and cut programs for the poor and middle-class. She’s been telling Mainers for years how powerful and bipartisan she is. And the Maine media has often said so, too. Now is the time to show it. If Collins doesn’t act, it’s obvious she doesn’t want to use her power.

While it might feel that we can’t stop this dystopian future, we can. What can be done? For more on how the cabal is attacking civil rights and using the FBI and DOJ to go after enemies, plus concrete strategies to fight back, look for Part Two of “The Constitutional Crisis Cabal” on Friday, in The Crash Report.

Amy Fried spent many years as a political scientist at the University of Maine, teaching and mentoring, earning multiple awards and her current title of Professor Emerita, and publishing research in numerous academic books and articles. At various times, she served as the faculty advisor for the College Republicans, College Democrats and the Young Americans for Liberty. She is probably best known in Maine for her biweekly column in the Bangor Daily News which ran from fall 2011 to early 2025. Fried also publishes outside of academia in national venues and is interviewed widely for her political analysis. Fried has helped other professors develop skills for engaging with the public, press, community groups and elected officials. She loves to kayak, box and travel. You can find her on Bluesky at @asfried.bsky.social

Donald Trump Weed Seed Farmer Killed by Police

This story can be only be described as sad, tragic and bizarre.

by Crash Barry

A trans-bashing and anti-immigrant cannabis seed grower with an abortion-obsession and an affiliation with the “Donald Trump Weed” company is dead, following a nine-hour armed standoff with cops at his home in Aroostook County on Feb. 3. The impasse ended, according to Maine State Police, when 29-year-old Steve Righini shot and killed a K-9 officer and then pointed his weapon at police, which resulted in the cops opening fire, killing him instantly. As per routine in police shootings, the two state troopers and one Aroostook Sheriff’s deputy are on leave, pending the outcome of an investigation by the AG’s office.

When the cops arrived at the scene in the tiny town of Portage Lake last Monday morning, they were responding to a report of a domestic dispute. They found an 18-year-old woman (the mother of Righini’s month-old daughter) standing outside the residence, but her baby was still inside with Righini. The cops surrounded the building and the standoff ensued.

At one point, around 11:45 a.m., negotiators lured him outside and, according to Righini, deputies attempted to tase him and take him into custody. That’s when, according to the cops and media reports, Righini “pulled a gun from his waistband” and fired a shot at police. Then he retreated into his house, grabbed another weapon and fired at the police cruiser fleeing from his driveway, putting a bullet in the shoulder of Aroostook Sheriff's Deputy Shane Campbell.

We know the approximate time, thanks to a two-and-a-half minute livestream posted on Twitter by Righini, during which he explained how he was fighting the cops because, he claimed, they were trying to take his baby away from him. His tweet accompanying the livestream read, “Had to do this. It was them or me. Sorry for my family and God bless!”

You can watch the video below. While there is no actual violence in the livestream — thankfully — it’s clear from his ranting and raving that the dude wasn’t in his right mind. “My state has been the number one abortion and gay rights state in the entire country and I’ve been segregated [sic] against for my beliefs. Now they’re trying to arrest me simply because I don’t believe in gay rights and abortion.”

As we know, that’s not true. The cops were on the scene in response to him being a threatening dickhead to the 18-year-old woman he called his wife. And at the time he streamed the video, the place was being surrounded with even more cops, because he’d just shot and injured a sheriff’s deputy.

“I’m in a shootout with authorities,” Righini declared during the livestream, “who are protecting the rights of doctors to murder babies. And they’re protecting [[sic]] the rights of children to be ripped out of the womb and killed. I’m here with my baby daughter who they also are trying to take away.”

Obviously, he was nuts and not thinking clearly. After all, he’d just been in an armed confrontation with the cops, which probably meant his brain was frazzled and stressed. Perhaps he realized that he screwed up, big-time, so he shifted into victim/hero mode in order to cope and make himself appear valiant. After all, it would sound cooler to his fellow chuds that he had a shoot out with the fuzz to protect unborn kids. Much better than admitting the truth: he’d been in a spat with the mom of his one-month daughter and he held the infant “hostage” for the whole ordeal.

In the video, btw, there are a couple glimpses of the weapon he was toting during the livestream. According to the Crash Report’s resident Gun-Guy, Righini appears to be holding an “AR-10, chambered .308, which is bigger than an AR-15 chambered in .223,” as my weaponry expert explained. “Definitely a chud choice. It’s like a lifted Ford F-250 shopping mall crawling truck versus a Toyota Tacoma.”

For another eight hours, after the initial shootout, the standoff continued. Obviously, due to the baby girl inside the abode, the SWAT team couldn’t use their preferred tactic of lobbing tear gas and storming the joint. Meanwhile, Righini continued to tweet, defending his perspective and actions.

Eventually, around 8 p.m., Righini left the baby inside the house and tried to escape by jumping into his car, which police had disabled earlier. Somehow, though, he was able to exit the broken vehicle. That’s when he ended up shooting the police K9, a four-year-old Belgian Malinois named “Preacher.”

RIP Preacher

Gotta say, the death of Preacher hits harder than the cop getting plugged or Righini getting killed. The pooch was just doing his job, happy-go-lucky, eager for the next treat from his Pop-the-Cop. The dog — unaware of the life/death paradigm and the danger of interacting with a mentally ill gun nut — is one of the real victims here, along with the shooter’s family, and his wife and newborn daughter.

Once Righini shot the dog, two state troopers (including Preacher’s handler) opened fire, ending the standoff. According to news reports, the baby was uninjured and returned to her mother.

***

Righini’s Twitter feed vanished on Feb. 8, but not before I was able to read each post and watch all his videos. Retrospectively, it’s easy to see that this dude was a loose Christian-Nationalist canon. His “FarmerRigs-DTS” feed was full of threats, conspiracies and gripes that have become the mantras of the modern day MAGA GOP. (The DTS in his Twitter handle, btw, stands for “Donald Trump Seeds.” More on that later.) In general, he blamed immigrants, the LGBTQ community and modern medicine for his woes and tribulations. Specifically, he held everyone responsible, except himself, for his inability to find work while living in rural Aroostook County.

A brief aside: I happened to stay in Portage Lake last fall at the town’s lone motel, Dean’s Motor Lodge (5-stars with good restaurant on site), which is located a stone’s throw from the crime scene. During the standoff, the motel was turned into the police command center. After my brief visit to the area, it’s easy to understand how a 29-year-old with zero discernible skills and a short-fused temper wouldn’t easily find a job in that neck of the woods. A half hour of south of Eagle Lake and almost three hours north of Bangor, Portage Lake is literally in the middle of nowhere.

Gotta wonder why he even moved there. (According to property tax records, the combo-garage-house is owned by Righini’s dad living in Massachusetts, who bought it a couple years ago for $100k.) The locale is too far north — with a short growing season — for cannabis cultivation, Righini’s apparent passion. His surly and angry disposition wasn’t about to get him hired at a normie job. And his constantly bickering with neighbors didn’t help him on his mission to find decent employment.

In a long series of now-deleted tweets, Righini tells his alleged side of an on-going feud with a neighbor named “Nigel” over a piece of abutting land that Righini claims was left to him by Nigel’s partner, who apparently killed herself in 2024. I can’t find any more details, despite Righini claiming the case was currently in the court system. However, his Nigel-related beef demonstrated how prone Righini was to escalation. In a handful of rants, he insinuated that Nigel was somehow responsible for the woman’s death and perhaps murdered the deceased neighbor. Also, he claimed that Nigel, allegedly a British national, had a six foot tall statue of Satan in his house.

Another example of his easily escalated temper was at the end December 2024, just days prior to the birth of his daughter. Again he took to Twitter to attack and denigrate his enemy. This time, his object of derision was a mid-wife at the Northern Light AR Gould Hospital in Presque Isle. In a series of tweets, he identified the mid-wife, by name, who was overseeing his baby-momma’s pregnancy. Several times, in all seriousness, he called her a witch. He also mocked the way she looked and spoke while casting dispersions on her professional skills and abilities.

(I’ve reached out the mid-wife for comment, but she hasn’t responded.)

Mixed among his screeds against his enemies and pics of him playing with his newborn child, Righini took time to bootlick his idol Trump.

Interestingly, the dude only followed four people on Twitter: Trump, First Lad Elon Musk, a rando street preacher and “Senator” Eric Brakey. If you’re lucky enough NOT to have made his acquaintance, Brakey is the 37-year-old former Maine lawmaker who “retired” from the Legislature last fall to move to New Hampshire to become the executive director of the libertarian “The Free State Project” for a $45k annual salary.

For some reason Brakey, who is quite chummy with all sorts of far-right extremists, still insists on being called Senator.

Another common thread in Righini’s tweets of grievances was how the world never appreciated his horticultural prowess in connection to cannabis. And based upon some pictures I’ve seen, I can understand why he was ignored by the canna-community. His plants and flower looked like garbage.

Nobody appreciated him, that is, until Righini started selling “Donald Trump Seeds” in collaboration with the “Donald Trump Weed” company, an on-line seller of cannabis flower and concentrates that uses a loophole in federal law to sell mail-order ganja (and seeds) to right-wing stoners across America. I don’t need to bring you down the “Donald Trump Weed” rabbit hole right now… suffice to say, there’s a whole lot of reefer being sold on-line by many cannapreneurs who believe Trump’s 2018 farm bill legalized weed.

***

First, a brief explainer for those not familiar with our local cannabis industry. In Maine, the ganja that gets you high falls into two categories: Medical and Recreational. The med side — the OG legal weed first approved in 1999, then improved and re-approved by voters in 2009 — is far less regulated than the recreational weed which Mainers voted to legalize in 2016.

In addition to the med and rec categories, hemp cultivation is allowed, under licenses granted by the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry. Hemp, according to the state, is “low-THC Cannabis sativa that is grown for CBD, fiber, food … and meets USDA’s definition for hemp (Total THC is at or below 0.3%) and can be marketed nationwide.”

According to records from the Office of Cannabis Policy, Righini was a licensed medical marijuana caregiver since 2020, supposedly based in the Penobscot County town of LaGrange (where his wife lives) a couple hours south of his house in Portage Lake.

Also, according to the photo below (that Righini poorly redacted, then posted on Twitter), he had registered, at one point, as a hemp grower. And it appears he was growing hemp — with the landowners permission — on an abandoned blueberry field, “Off the Cove Road” in East Machias, down in Washington County, a 3.5 hour drive from his home in Portage Lake.

According to the 2024 hemp growers list provided by the state, Righini was not licensed to have a hemp farm that year. According to his now-deleted socials, tho, he harvested hemp plants from the place in mid-November.

There were several photos on his now-deleted Twitter feed of the East Machias hemp farm. And, let me tell you, as someone with lots of experience with the growing, processing and use of cannabis, his plants looked like shit. Unfortunately, I didn’t screenshot his bad weed portraiture before his Twitter disappeared.

However, in the two videos below, you get glimpses of a couple of his plants while hearing Righini talk about cannabis and Trump. In the first video, a mere 13 seconds long, you get a taste of Righini’s intensity and love for both. Especially at the end, when he says “Donald Trump made weed legal.”

The second video is a half minute “advertisement” promoting his “Trump Made Seeds Legal” seeds for a purple-flowered strain of cannabis. “For just a dollar a seed, you’ll never know what you’re gonna get,” he pitched. “So why not give it a try? The rarest and most affordable seeds on the entire internet.”

Let’s talk about seeds. Specifically, the production of cannabis seeds to sell to folks who want to grow their own. In the olden days, because of prohibition and dumb laws, it was a much more difficult endeavor to buy seeds. Mostly, because in terms of quality, you really didn’t know what you were getting. And there was zero customer service.

(Also, for you non-cannabis enthusiasts out there, the marijuana flower currently consumed is seed-free, aka sinsemilla. Meaning that cultivators intentionally DON’T pollinate female flowers in order avoid pesky seeds that are the by-product of fertilization.)

These days, seeds are a lucrative and interesting part of the cannabis industry. For modern cannabis cultivators, it’s important that a plant has “good genetics” in order to grow the most dank and potent nugs that consumers have come to expect in the modern competitive ganja marketplace.

Growers have to consider several variables when deciding which variety of cannabis to plant. That’s especially important for those growing outdoors (like Mainers have been doing for over 50 years), because certain strains perform better than others depending on your locale. In Maine, for instance, our outdoor growing season is relatively short. Thus, more indica-dominant strains do better than sativa, which require additional time and sun to come to full fruition.

Average harvest yield, obviously, is another important genetic variable, because more is better. Also, the taste and smell of the grass, aka terpenes, are significant genetic traits. Another vital characteristic is the strain’s genetic resistance to the diseases that can destroy a plant’s salability - like powdery mildew and botrytis, aka gray mold.

So, obviously, the breeding of quality seed is important for growers, both backyard and commercial. It involves lots of painstaking work in order to create problem-free hybrids. From planting to pollination and harvest, there’s a whole bunch of record keeping and organization required in order to create dependable — and marketable — seeds.

All that to say, anyone who would purchase the “Trump Made Seeds Legal” cultivated by Righini is a dummy.

Righini, as we used to say, was a “pollen chucker” aka an irresponsible “breeder” looking to merely produce seeds for sale. From all indicators, he didn’t give a damn about the selective breeding, culling and testing necessary to create a good strain. Instead, he planted rando seeds in the late spring and prayed to his Christian God for occasional summer rain. Then in August, the downeast winds would blow pollen from the unculled males, carrying lightweight gametes in the breeze, looking to land and fertilize a female plant’s flower, all with the goal of creating seeds, so Righini could sell ‘em to a select group of customers: Right-wing pot smokers who can’t stand liberal weed and wanna grow plants with their daddy’s name on it.

And, like almost everything bearing Trump’s name, it’s a grift.

For instance, rather than doing the careful selection and reproduction necessary to create a bigly strain, Righini’s “Trump Tower Lights” seeds simply came from the tallest plant (of unknown variety) on his “farm.”

Here’s the word salad, directly from the product description, of the “Trump Tower Lights” seeds:

“Introducing our latest triumph from the harvest, the Trump 2024 Strain—a botanical marvel that stands tall, just like the legendary plant it originated from. Cultivated from the seeds of the largest plant in our expansive field, towering over 12 feet in a resilient [sic] northern climate, this strain is a testament to nature's grandeur.

Named after President Trump's iconic gilded skyscraper, this pheno embodies the same spirit of opulence and resilience. Much like the golden hues that adorn Trump Tower, the buds of our Trump 2024 Strain showcase a stunning palette of gold, purple, and green, creating a visual spectacle that's as captivating as it is aromatic.

Elevate your cannabis journey with the Trump 2024 Strain—a harmonious blend of potency, beauty, and a nod to the future. Embrace the legacy, savor the flavor, and let the Trump 2024 Strain be your choice for a truly presidential smoking experience. Make your cannabis moments great again!"

This is a marketing ploy, obviously, pitching to dumb Trump supporters who, as we’ve seen countless times, will buy anything that has their orange overlord’s name on the label. Literally nothing in the description informs the grower about the actual seed.

Also, despite his boasting, a 12-foot tall cannabis plant isn’t worth bragging about. Righini was growing what’s known, colloquially in cannabis growing-circles, as a “Christmas Tree.” That’s basically an untended plant, with its apex meristem reaching for the sun above. The result is apical dominance, meaning one big bud at the top and a bunch popcorn down below.

In other words, garbage. Good for nothing, except producing shitty seeds in order to rip off stoner chuds.

Of course, that didn’t matter to a seed-slinger like Righini. Not like anyone who bought his seeds would be able to track him down and complain.

Especially now.

Also, back in that video promoting his Trump seeds as the rarest and most affordable seeds on the Internet, he was right. Sort of. Due to his slapdash breeding technique, the seeds harvested in 2024 are super-rare. Because of his mad methods, there’s no way to replicate, for instance, his proprietary stains like “Trump Towers Light” or “the Vaccine” or “Chinese Spy Balloon” or “Illegal Alien” or “Liberal Lady” ever again.

As for “most affordable” on the Internet, his seed prices are cheap, especially compared to some of the top-shelf genetics on the market. Even cheaper now, since since the fella who sells Righini’s seeds is having a sale at DonaldTrumpWeed.com.

“Love him or hate him, Steve wanted people to grow their own weed. If there’s one thing he'd want, it’s for everyone to have cheap seeds and stick it to the system in their own way. So we're just gonna offload the inventory at a discount (as low as $0.50 a seed). He was all about helping other poor farmers build their fortune, so if you want to start your cannabis growing empire, now is your chance… Use code “RIP-STEVE” for 50 percent off.”

Yikes.

***

Unfortunately, none of Righini’s rantings are surprising. He reminds me of many of the chuds I’ve reported on in recent years. Often raised as “Rush-babies” by Tea-Party dads, educated by Alex Jones and other nutjobs, these fail-sons are grievance-prone and full of complaints. From “White Replacement Theory” to “the Great Reset” to “Men in Women’s Sports,” they all spew similar talking points that allows them to play the victim.

In other words, Righini was singing the ballad of petulant man-boys who insist that attempts to level the playing field is akin to the oppression of white Christian males.

This type of racist, homophobic and hateful blather has drifted into the mainstream. Chatter once hidden in the darkest recesses of the internet is now spoken aloud from podiums at White House press briefings and in so-called non-denominational Christian churches. And from the mouth of Righini in the days and weeks leading up to being gunned down by the police.

The fringe is now the center. In Maine, it’s totally obvious thanks to the local GOP. Echoing the rants of the now-dead madman, the core issues bleated by current Republicans serving in the state Legislature are basically a mashup of Q-Anon (circa 2019) and the Christo-Fash Project 2025. Thanks to the Maine Policy Institute’s non-profit Maine Wire, hateful ignorance is spewed on the regular, easy to absorb and quick to impact and inspire the thinking of mentally-ill chuds like Righini.

Obviously, I’m not a shrink. After watching his videos, however, my instinct tells me that Righini would probably have benefited from some meds. And I’m not talking the herbal kind.

After absorbing Righini’s content, researching his life and tracking his digital footprint, it’s obvious that the dude had some serious mental issues and made people IRL uncomfortable with his outbursts, critique and harassment. I watched a couple videos, for instance, of him dropping to the ground in convenience store aisles, doing 100 push-ups while chanting “Christ is Lord.”

That sort of behavior has gotta be tough for the wife and kid. Also, his extended family down in Massachusetts are likely devastated. By all appearances on the socials, his relatives seem pretty normal and nice.

However, despite being mentally ill, we can’t ignore that in the last couple years, he acted like a real asshole to those he loved and hated. In a rambling missive Righini wrote, printed up, then photographed and posted on Twitter, he admits as much. (You can read the redacted version below.)

As I said earlier, in retrospect, there’s no surprise here. Just another societal reject, brainwashed by the toxic manosphere, fed lies by crypto-bros and hoodwinked by their orange savior. They’ve been brain-washed to be scared of “the other.” Their enemies are the gays, the trans and the New Mainers with a different color skin.

None of whom, as we well know, did anything to Righini and his brother chuds. Blinded by faux-rightousness, hardened with hate and indoctrinated by fear, it’s doubtful that these dudes will ever understand that it was late-stage capitalism, home-schooling and End Times churches that ruined their lives. Not diversity, equity and inclusion.

Sadly, in the case of Righini, his wife and baby will be impacted forever. And there’s no predicting the long-term impact on his daughter. Memories and stories of him will be stained by his violence and rhetoric. His actions will haunt his lineage.

Soon, though, he will likely be forgotten by all except his family. Until next fall, that is, when weed-growing chuds finally harvest some “Trump Towers Light,” grown from “Donald Trump Legalized Weed” seeds. Then, if there’s any flower left after trimming away the bud-rot and powdery, they’ll smoke a blunt of shitty weed in memory of their fallen comrade.