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For our lightning round this week, our analysts are going to go under the hood of some recent headlines to give us some insight on what may actually be happening behind *** few recent controversies and seeming contradictions. So let's begin. President Trump has said he wants to stop illegal immigrants from coming to America, but recently he ended *** legal refugee resettlement program. More than 260 legal refugees who were about to come to Maine were stopped by an executive order from the president. Additionally, agencies working to resettle legal immigrants in Maine were recently told they will no longer be reimbursed for short-term aid to these families, including housing and food assistance in their 1st 90 days. Looking under the hood here, Phil, tell me what's happening here. Is Trump stopping legal immigrants and why? Yeah, clearly he is. I think the answer to your question is they're trying to get *** hold of who's here already. Are they here legally, adjudicate those who are not here here legally and then begin an orderly, hopefully *** new and refreshing immigration policy, Ethan. Yeah, you know, sadly this is just tragic. These are folks who are coming over to join their families. They've been through the legal process. There's no question about who they are, what their intentions are. They've waited in line the way Republicans have often said immigrants must in order before they can come in the country, and now they're being stopped. I think. This unfortunately just reflects on *** concern that *** lot of people have that this is really more of an anti-immigrant policy, that it's America first ideology is much more about Americans first, and we don't want anybody else here. So I think it's very unfortunate, but it's exposing something about them we thought might be there. Issue 2, the Maine commission overseeing public defender says it needs more money than what the governor has offered to address *** constitutional crisis in Maine. Courts, uh, the Maine courts, that is in regard to underrepresented low income clients charged with crimes. In Governor Mill's state of the budget address, she forcefully said she has already increased their budget by tens of millions of dollars, and the agency needs to change its rules so that more attorneys are able to represent these Mainers. The current system has become *** disastrous example of the perfect becoming the enemy of the good, you know, because just *** few years ago, we had, All the lawyers we needed but not enough accountability now we have *** system that's so focused on rules that it has driven away the lawyers. Then looking under the hood and checking the oil, what's really happening here and why hasn't Maine solved this problem, which is *** pretty basic one in American politics and government. Yeah, I mean, it's *** pretty basic one in Maine. I, you know, I think that the Governor Mills is kind of bending the facts *** little bit there. There's never been *** time where we've had tons of lawyers taking care of everybody. That that's sort of been the problem. We haven't had *** public defender system and while yes, tens of millions more dollars have been put into that system, that's because there was no system there before and you had to build it up. I think those who are on the front lines. Saying look, we don't see all these lawyers that she's talking about. What we know we need is to be able to pay lawyers better, and we need the resources to deal with this backlog, and I think until that backlog gets dealt with, it's going to cost money and we have to be willing to spend it. Bill, you know, it just seems to me this is ironic. At one point we're hearing that we have, we have lawyers but we have no money. Now we have money and we have no lawyers and so I'm gonna defer to the governor. She's wasn't *** practicing attorney uh she was uh uh an attorney, uh, district attorney as well. She's governor. I'm deferring to her if she's saying the system is too complicated for lawyers to be attracted to doing this, uh, let's follow her lead. Issue three Maine students in 2024 had the lowest test scores in three decades in both reading and math, according to data from the US Department of Education. In three of four testing categories, Maine students had the lowest average scores since 1992. 4th grade students had the lowest average in reading and math scores since 1992 and 196 respectively. 8th grade students have the lowest scores ever in both reading and math. Now putting this one up on the list to get *** good look, Phil, what's happening here? Why after all of this, are Maine's test scores still so low? Yeah, yeah, this is troubling, uh, to state it another way. Uh, Maine 4th graders, there's only 10% of them in the state that are, are able to do math and reading at 4th grade level. That's alarming and I think we have to. Uh, not blame the teachers. In fact, we need to support the teachers and we need to make sure that school boards and superintendents are focused on what do we need to do to help the students in the classroom first, Ethan. And I avoid answering this question. This is kind of like, uh, you know, one of those, uh, that kind of gets me right on the tail because, uh, look, for those of us who have been fighting for *** long time for more money in schools, the state has stepped up and it is unfortunate that we aren't seeing better results, but I do think that those of us who have been fighting for more resources in the schools still recognize that we have to. Of course, you know, it's never just money. You've got to make sure that you, you know, doing the good work on the ground. You have great leadership and as Phil says that's really at the local level in Maine and maybe that's something we're going to have to look at. Are we going to have our school systems be so locally controlled that the state doesn't have an ability to say, you know what, we need higher standards across the board. Issue 4, *** private school operated by Sperwink, is suing to expel *** special education student after it was ordered to keep teaching him by the state of Maine. The complaint alleges that the student was frequently violent and needed to be, uh, uh, needed to be removed. The parents objected, saying schools have an obligation to keep *** student in their current placement while the family seeks *** new school and *** state hearing officer agreed. The lawsuit seeks to overturn that decision. Now Ethan, this is *** tough one, but looking under the hood and taking this one for *** test drive, what's really happening here? Yeah, this is very tough. You know, I ran an alternative high school for about 19 years. We had *** lot of kids in our program, very tough. We had kids who were violent, um, you know, and those were kids we often had to work with other agencies with who were more skilled at that. But the one thing that we never wanted to do was to say that *** kid was going to be kicked out and nobody was going to be able to take care of that kid. You feel terribly for the parents. They love this child desperately, of course, and they don't. They know how to handle it, but you know, when you look under the hood of this one and try to figure out what to do, I do think that Sperwink has to take responsibility for this child. The state has to take responsibility for this child until they find the right placement. Bill, you know, this is heartbreaking. Nobody wins in this situation. You get teachers in the classroom that are perhaps fearing for their safety. The parents, of course, want to do whatever they can to support their child. Uh, they've had to go to the legal, legal system to get. Uh, an, an opinion as to who's gonna take responsibility and that I think what this is all about is having the judicial system called balls and strikes and issue 5. This is *** familiar story for *** lot of us. *** New Hampshire Republican legislator has sponsored *** resolution. That urges Congress to ask President Trump to designate the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard as part of Portsmouth, not Kitter, Maine. The legislator's reasoning is that New Hampshire does not have *** state income tax, and shifting the border would shield shipyard workers from Maine income taxes. Kittery's town manager says if they want the island they'd better be ready to build *** bridge directly there so Kittery doesn't keep getting all the road damage from New Hampshire drivers. So Phil, looking under the hood and perhaps the Kittery Bridge, what's happening here? Why is this lawmaker doing this now when we've adjudicated this in the past? How many times has this been in front of, uh, the courts frequently, frequently, frequently. How about if we just lower the tax rate in Maine and maybe that have the problem. Way of course I'm not going to get the Democrats' support on that, but I, I do think it's, it's very clear throughout history. Uh, it's in the middle of the river which is determined to be the state of Maine. That's right, you know, and Ethan, I think originalists, *** lot of people describe themselves that way. This is based on *** colonial decree by King George II that says this is, this is the map here and the states are split by this river. So and that's what the Supreme Court US Supreme Court ruled the last time in 2001. One saying over and over again the middle of the river is the middle of the river. It it's, it's kind of hard to figure out how anybody would look at the phrase middle of the river and say to themselves, it could mean something any different than that. And I rarely like to defer to kings. I will be clear about that, but in this case we're going to have to defer to the king. Maybe New Hampshire will give us their toll booth in exchange for Portsmouth for the Naples Air Station. I might be willing to make that deal. Well, we'll, we'll work on it. We've got, we got dealmakers all around us now.