Yesterday the The Bangor Daily News published a letter to the editor from one of my supporters. You can read it here: www.bangordailynews.com/2026/06/03/o... . For those who don't have subscription, I have also include the full text below. Together, we lead! andreaformaine.com

The BYD "guarantee" here is heavily qualified (one year, subject to "proper use") but the entire point of self-driving technology is that someone else is taking legal responsibility... and it's the one thing Elon Musk hasn't promised over a decade of selling "full self-driving" dreams

@rikiwilchins.bsky.social 2026 Jun Reuters Fed judge blocks FL from pursuing a lawsuit against American Academy of Pediatrics for making misleading claims about GAC, agreeing with AAP that FL suit is intended to discourage AAP's right to free speech.

@rikiwilchins.bsky.social 2026 Jun LGBTQnation Boston Pride event intended to highlight menstrual equity and menstrual health needs for trans ppl forced to relocate after right-wing backlash, led by Fox News.

*watching book draft sail off toward the publisher* WELP

While Tom Suozzi is busy testing out the phrase "A new kind of old-fashioned Democrat" at "WelcomeFest" in DC, Cassie is dreaming of visiting the National Mall while her human works hard to fight fascism, oligarchy, and wealth inequality. Please consider making a donation today: votewelch.com

Today's Google Doodle is lovely. doodles.google/doodle/doodl... "This Doodle was created by the winner of the 2025-2026 Doodle for Google contest, Kameirah, a 12th grader from Washington."

As you can imagine I have a lot of thoughts about Gender and this particular primary season but am grateful for Alan for taking a clear moral stance. I agree that the most harmful aspect of these scandals is often not the Bad Man getting elected in & of itself but how others defend him.

Every day I have countless emails and messages from supporters who are feeling energized and hopeful because of my campaign. Remember, today is the last day to request an absentee ballot at your town office. Those ballots then must be returned to the voting clerks by 8pm on June 9th. #mepolitics

A photog covering Delaney Hall had to ditch her camera bag with $10K of gear an injury. The bag was gone when a friend went to get it, but an airtag showed the bag was at the house of a sergeant in the Essex County Prosecutors office, prosecutors now say: www.thecityreporter.nyc/2026/06/04/o...

@rikiwilchins.bsky.social [Reed con't] Nut graph: "These changes did not happen organically. They are the product of a deliberate, well-funded, decades-long campaign by the religious far right [as] ADF has pursued what it calls a 'generational wins' strategy to roll back LGBTQ+ acceptance..." 2/2

Its time for this month's Clippings by @piperbomb.bsky.social! This time we take a look at the life of Monica Helms, the designer of the trans flag as we know it! Read at this link or below in this thread!

Here it is. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/04/u...

They could fund Medicaid for all, but they're stealing trillions of our tax $$ instead. Tax the rich and get these grifters and thieves out of our government.

One of the most overlooked and underrated lessons for baby trial lawyers is learning the rules of procedure. I know - somehow criminal and civil procedure are the most boring classes in law school, taught in a monotone that should be sold in place of melatonin.

exactly the right response

genuinely stunned that a major financial institution is not joining the rush to fast-track SpaceX into index funds and your retirement account

Oh, look, it's Tom Suozzi doing the wrong thing. Again. Please, please help me replace him on 6/23. votewelch.com

Microfiction - Princess Gnarlo’s Bargain 3

1.Medicaid is not a cash payment. 2.Healthy people cost almost nothing to insure. 3.Insurance fraud is orchestrated by providers not recipients

At what point does voicing your gender critical (transphobic) beliefs at/about someone who is trans + become harrassment? Would you say 100 times croses the threshold? I think most reasonable individuals would agree that it does.

‘Bee-autiful’ gold pendant from Bronze Age Crete 🐝 ❤️ Minoan jewellery inspired by nature 3,800 years ago! The ‘Malia Bee Pendant’ is said to represent a pair of bees placing a drop of honey into a honeycomb. Heraklion Archaeological Museum #Archaeology

USAID used to trace and treat Ebola outbreaks. But Trump shut it down. And now we’re seeing people die as the Ebola outbreak intensifies. Global health involves all of us — it’s about saving lives and stopping the spread of diseases. Republicans stopped this critical work.

We heard the same thing during the Biden administration. Unless we actually withhold aid to Israel, Trump's supposed criticisms of Netanyahu mean nothing.

When Democrats fight, we can win. You do not need to be in the majority. You just need to be relentless.

Abolish ICE.

The House FINALLY passed the Iran War Powers Resolution that demands Trump remove U.S. armed forces from hostilities in Iran unless explicitly authorized by Congress. (1/3)

Learn to knock doors and meet Brent Saturday, June 6th at a volunteer rally in Ester Short Park. Hear Brent speak, ask questions, and meet other volunteers. After training and the rally, volunteers will have the opportunity to canvass the neighborhoods adjacent to the park.

Another thing I’ve heard folks doing is joining a professional org where you can buy health insurance as part of that group. I think the AHA allows for this but I don’t know anyone who actually gets their health insurance this way (plz let me know if you do!)

I’m at a Seattle city club event, and local FOX anchor Hana Kim just demanded that Mayor Katie Wilson respond to Spencer Pratt’s claim that people are flooding into Seattle to be homeless because they love the lenient access to drugs here. People are clapping for Spencer Pratt.

Tom Suozzi really loves capitalism and free markets unless a christofascist org happens to offer him subsidized housing. Luckily there is a real democrat on the ballot 6/23: votewelch.com

Federal judge temporarily blocks Trump administration's attempt to dismantle Boulder's NCAR lab www.denver7.com/news/local-n...

I will not adopt a scarcity mindset. There is more than enough to go around. We just have to stop the billionaires from stealing.

A moment of concentration immortalized in stone some 4,500 years ago! This scribe statue was skilfully sculpted from limestone. His lifelike eyes are made of rock crystal and calcite, outlined with copper. Old Kingdom, Dynasty 5, from Saqqara. Egyptian Museum, Cairo 📷 by me #Archaeology

Busy day today! Topsham, Windham, and then back home to Bangor.

Drone tactics adopted by Ukraine are spreading to Lebanon. Hezbollah is now wrecking the Israeli military with kamikaze FPV drones controlled by fiber optic wire. It's rendering tanks useless and leaving IDF infantry defenseless. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/02/w...

Another day on the campaign trail meeting fabulous Mainers and getting folks excited for the future!

@rikiwilchins.bsky.social 2026 Jun Advocate COL enacts new anti-conversion therapy bill which bans imposing a “predetermined outcome” regarding young patients' sex/or or GIE in what it hopes is SCOTUS-friendly wording after Court struck down the original bill. www.advocate.com/politics/sta...

@rikiwilchins.bsky.social 2026 Jun Advocate Kansas Dept of Revenue -- which oversees driver’s licenses -- is sending letters invalidating some trans people's licenses but not others, leaving some stranded and unable to drive and others dreading when theirs will arrive.

The inability of too many men to admit they could learn from others, remains in tact. Pelley no doubt knew firing would be the likely outcome. He used his privilege to speak truth to power. He will be fine. That is how you use your privilege. Well done, Scott Pelley.

In the ongoing battle over whether trans people are allowed to serve in the military, the court says the ban is likely unconstitutional, but only moves to protect the jobs of the servicemembers who brought the lawsuit. @alyssaur.bsky.social brings you the latest update in this ongoing story.

The Senate HELP Committee is currently doing a hearing on gender affirming care for trans youth. Both Dr. Miceli and Chloe Cole are on the payroll of Do No Harm, a group funded by right wing billionaires and Leonard Leo to push white supremacist and anti-trans policies. It's theater by billionaires.

Fascinating that Danny Westneat failed to recognize a pattern of "failure" on homeless shelters until a mayor actually started adding shelter units—unlike the two previous mayors, who oversaw the LOSS of shelter beds. www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news...

it's fascinating to see people in these biohacking communities recommending old-fashioned single-issue forums, first as an alternative to tiktok/facebook ads, and increasingly as an alternative to reddit astroturfing

public sentiment toward autonomous vehicles seems to be trending downward as well, I think what we're dealing with here is bigger than just "AI"... this feels like a broader turn in popular sentiment against Silicon Valley and Big Tech

This was extremely foreseeable (in fact I publicly foresaw it) and I will forever be mad, as a Jew, at my fellow Jews who sold out our hard-fought history of integration into US universities for Bibi and a hyphenated white identity. cooperativeoverlapping.substack.com/p/antisemiti...

btw if you are an Oregon-based buyer in this burgeoning new market for no-tech tractors, I'm trying to help an extended family member get a few bucks for a vintage Farmall Cub in great condition... no kidding, hit me up

everything Elon Musk does is incompatible with basic human dignity

@rikiwilchins.bsky.social 2026 Jun Politico Gallup poll out today finds Rep support for gay marriage has fallen from 55% in 2022 down to 37% today -- 18% drop. ION Andy Ogles [R-TN] sends Pride email saying "Homosexuality has no place in America," then blames it on a staffer and deletes it.

Suozzi wants you to know that his loyalty is to corporations. Today at WelcomeFest, he is "launching a pledge for their party's candidates they hope will act as a rallying cry for centrists, calling for a 'politics of persuasion over purity' and declaring that 'we are capitalist, not socialist.'"