New Teabagger Governor determined to ruin Maine

[marmar]

from Grist:




It's not just Michele Bachmann. Maine's new Tea Party-backed governor, erstwhile furniture salesman Paul LePage, is also embarrassing his fellow Republicans.

First, he appointed his 22-year-old daughter to be assistant to his chief of staff. This would be an ill-advised move in any administration, especially when your state has high unemployment, but it's particularly unwise if you've never held public office before and could clearly benefit from a staff that knows what it's doing.

Next, his clashing with the NAACP over Martin Luther King Jr. Day ("tell them to kiss my butt") involved his bizarre claim that he should be exempt from criticism because he has a black "son." (The young man in question, though he did live with the LePage family for a few years, was never adopted by LePage and in fact already has a father in Jamaica.)

This week, LePage made the leap from abrasive style to corrosive substance. As the Portland Press Herald reports, LePage proposed a dramatic rollback of state environmental protections He wants to:

* open 10 million acres of northern Maine for development

* weaken a new law that would require manufacturers to take back and recycle old products

* reverse a ruling that the chemical bisphenol A (linked to cancer, obesity, and learning disabilities) should be phased out of children's products

* relaxing air emissions standards

* replace the state Board of Environmental Protection,

* weaken state environmental standards that are stronger than federal standards ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.grist.org/article/2011-01-27-paul-lepage-new-maine-guv-takes-aim-at-the-environment

[Drale]

1. Lets hope that people learn from this horrible experience

and either don't vote for tea baggers or get out and vote in general. I'm just going to say it, all you people who said I'm not going to vote to "teach those democrats a lesson" THIS IS YOUR FUCKING FAULT! ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?

[Matariki]

6. Maine has always been primarily Republican.

They're Senators are among the more reasonable Republicans - but the Tea Party Idiocracy is that probably the logical conclusion of current Republican policy and strategy - so perhaps this will be a difficult but necessary lesson for Republicans. On the other hand, when things fall apart, they have the tendency to blame the policies that would actually rescue the situation. So, we'll see...

[jpak]

28. Not true - the legislature, recent Govs. and Congress folk have been Democrats

Snowe and Collins only get elected because they act more like Democrats than Teabaggers.

yup

[eShirl]

37. what jpak said.

[Richard Steele]

8. If people LEARNED from experience,shitheads like him wouldn't be DOGCATCHERS, let alone GOVERNORS.

Clearly, the human race has NOT learned from 'horible experience',
and we are entering a phase of history
which will make the DARK AGES look shiny in retrospect.

They have the mechanisms in place to re-establish FEUDALISM,
but this time they have the INTERCONNECTED TECHNOLOGY to make it last
for a hundred thousand years.
And they are doing it right now, right in front of us.

[backwoodsbob]

14. you are joking right?

Dark Ages and feudalism?

hyperbole much?

[Richard Steele]

20. Not even a little bit.

The "company store" system of the 1890s was just feudalism
by another name, and the rise of the Trade Unions was just
a minor setback to the "Robber Barons" long-term plans...

The Robber Barons never went away, but the Trade Unions
sure did.

Our 'elected representatives' are SPONSORED by corporations,
the laws of our nation are WRITTEN by corporations, and you think that
my talk of feudalism is HYPERBOLE. :eyes:

Wake up and smell your chains- they reek of 'reality shows'
and downloaded cellphone ringtones.

[jpak]

27. The horrible experience is that he won with only 38% of the vote

yup

[northoftheborder]

2. Is the legislature of Maine Republican also?

[jpak]

29. This year, yes for the first time in decades, thanks to small rural districts

That will change in 2012 when people see LePage for what he really is - an embarrassment to the Great State of Maine.

yup

[monmouth]

3. Would it be possible to enact a recall?...n/t

[jpak]

30. No, but we have a referendum process called "The People's Veto"

That can nullify legislation.

[Initech]

4. The people who vote for these idiots deserve what they get.

We're not gonna learn until lessons are taught. And this is one of them.

[RKP5637]

7. Yep!!! And one would have thought eight years of Bush would have been enough to have educated

Americans on what not to vote for, but apparently not. Some Americans love the teabaggers.

[Initech]

11. It's like Stalin said - you repeat the lie long enough and it becomes fact.

[RKP5637]

18. Yeah, quite true. One of my friend's in law used to say it sometimes doesn't matter if

the points in your case are right or wrong, if you keep repeating it long enough most will eventually believe it right or wrong. That seems to be the Regressive (Republican) pitch today, say what you want because there are enough fools in the US to believe it ... Stalin would have had a field day with the US of today - so many are so ignorant and gullible.

[northernlights]

23. he's called the 38%er

There were something like 5 or 6 candidates, but the real race was between 3. The democratic candidate frankly ran a shitty campaign. And turned into the spoiler, sucking up 20% of the vote. One of the independents was a former dem, moderately green in his views, and came closest to beating Mr. 38%.

I waited until the last minute to vote, as did several other people on DU. When it was clear the democratic candidate had no choice, I voted for the independent. There was one DUer who voted early for the democrat and then regretted it. But didn't have time to go change her vote.

Had the democratic candidate dropped out, or had some of the democratic voters been more awake and voted for the independent, we wouldn't have ended up with this teabagger asshole shitting all over the state. And no, we don't deserve the 38%er because of a stoopid democratic candidate who ran a shitty campaign and then wouldn't drop out when it was clear she had no chance.

[bluestate10]

33. The democratic candidate should have dropped out when she saw

her support drop to a level that she could not possibly win. She should have thrown her support behind the leading independent, who with that support would have beaten LePage. The Maine race is similar to the one in Hawaii when two democrats split the vote and allowed a completely unacceptable republican to win, democrats later corrected their folly and took back the seat.

[DainBramaged]

40. You can't teach anything to stupid, determined people

That is the lesson from the Reagan years I learned. And America is growing stupider by the day, in Maine, NJ, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and dozens of other states where smart people have figured out a way to get the ignorant to the voting booth and vote benevolence out and usher malevolent government in.

[RagAss]

5. You voted him in....you live with it !

[cynatnite]

9. And the same goes for people who didn't vote for him!

:sarcasm:

[RagAss]

22. Those who stayed home, in essence, voted for him too.

[cynatnite]

24. Oh, yeah...damn them, too! Along with everyone in the entire state...

whether they voted for him or not!

:sarcasm:

It's still silly to tell people that they deserve whatever they get because they make a mistake. Besides, these grand proclamations of his still have to get through a state legislature and I'm not confident of that.

[bluestate10]

34. People that don't make an effort to vote, or who vote stupidly deserve whet they get. nt.

[cynatnite]

39. What a load of crap....

How many Republicans in NOLA deserved what happened to them after Katrina? How many republican mothers and fathers who lost their sons and daughters in Iraq deserved that for voting for Bush?

[cali]

19. only 38% of Mainers voted for him.

[jpak]

31. Rural Mainers that have fished, hunted, camped and snowmobiles in Maine's unorganized townships

for decades will wake up shortly to McMansionvilles, gated communities, No Trespassing and No Hunting Signs throughout "their" North Maine Woods.

Thanks to their Gov. LePew.

Can you say "buyers remorse"?

yup

[eShirl]

38. you are aptly named.

[TheCowsCameHome]

10. He's nuts. But Maine knew that on election day.

Good luck with your purchase.

[Initech]

12. How stupid does Maine have to be to say "we want a furniture salesman to represent us!!!"

[jpak]

26. He "won" with 38% of the vote, in a multi-candidate field

So 62% of Maine voters did not "say "we want a furniture salesman to represent us!!!"

LePage is associated with the Mardens store chain - that specializes in fire/flood/bankruptcy sail items.

When LePage took over management, 79% of employees had company health insurance.

LePage fired most of the workers and hired them back part-time.

Only 15% of Mardens employees now have company subsidized health insurance.

That is the kind of asshole he is.

yup!

[Initech]

32. Mind = blown.

How does one fail to get 62% of the vote and still win the election? I suspect foul play here.

[bluestate10]

35. No. It was one arrogant democrat who knew she could not win.

And did not look out for her state and throw her support to and beg her supporters to vote for the one candidate that could have beaten Le Page and by doing so, spared Main four years of embarrassment.

[northernlights]

42. multiple independents in the race, with a dem that couldn't win and wouldn't quit

The independent that came in a very close second, Eliot Cutler, would have won with a landslide had Libby Mitchell called it a day. The other independents picked up a few percent total. Mitchell finished with about 20%. Cutler led for a while until the most rural parts of the state were counted. He was second by only a small amount.

[proud2BlibKansan]

13. Will he let billboards go up?

That was my favorite thing about Maine. No billboards. I just loved that.

[peacefreak]

15. Holey, Moley guys

have a little compassion for those of us who didn't vote for him. Just think what a nightmare it is for us who are still staggering from the Bush Years. There are many of us who realize the disaster ahead. We have a Republican Legislature now also & are praying there are enough moderates who will not cave to this Neanderthal.
There are many, many in the state of Maine who are horrified by the actions of Paul LePig.

[onethatcares]

16. it could be worse, a whole lot worse, you

could move to Floriduh and watch prickscott and the ever so ethical repiglican legislature kill the state so the developers can have it all without caring.

[high density]

17. LePage said in the campaign that he wanted to put Maine in "reverse"

So he is wasting no time in doing that. The guy LePage has nominated who will likely head the DEP says that the ultimate arbiter in land use is the free market.

LePage doesn't seem to realize that our top industry is tourism, and he is doing everything he can to destroy the place so nobody will want to visit.

I still have not heard from LePage what specific regulations are hindering what specific new businesses that want to start up in the State, and no reporter has asked that question. Instead we continue to hear empty campaign rhetoric that there's too much regulation which is blocking business and jobs.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

21. I thought Republicans of late were fundamentalist Christians.

Even though they spout it but don't read it, the bible tells Christians to protect the Earth. It is a gift, not something to be shat on and stripped in the name of Greed. I love how they pick and choose what they want to out of the bible to believe and spout. UGH. Loath is not a hateful enough word for how I feel about these neanderthals.
Duckie

[northernlights]

25. 62% voted AGAINST LePage

But their votes were spread around a bit.

Personally, I blame the democratic candidate who ran a shitty campaign and the party line voters who stood by their democrat instead of realizing she didn't have a chance.

With 20% of the vote, she was the spoiler here.

But I guess that just means the 62% of Mainers who did not vote for LePage deserve to have our lives wrecked by the 38% of assholes who did vote for him. :shrug:

[bluestate10]

36. The democratic candidate in Maine reminds me painfully of.

Martha Coakley in Massachusetts, who ran an incredibly incompetent campaign against Scott Brown. I blame democratic primary voters, mostly liberals and extreme liberals for sending Coakley into the general to give away a democratic seat. Moderate votes were split between two better choices, one of whom should have dropped out and threw his support to the other competent candidate. Now it looks like Coakley is angling to run for Governor when Governor Patrick is done, but if democratic primary voters select her over the outstanding Lieutenant Governor, the party deserves to loose the governorship.

[eShirl]

41. LePage to Chamber of Commerce: "our proposed reforms come directly from you"

http://www.sunjournal.com/oxford-hills/story/978290