Bends Toward Justice

First, none of what follows is intended as an argument against honoring our veterans.  Their choice of service and sacrifice deserves all the respect and thanks we can give.  The decision they make, to risk their lives and well-being based on the collective judgment of society and our leaders, makes it incumbent upon all of us to ensure that such a judgment is never made lightly.   In a Veterans Day assembly this year the speaker evoked Hitler as an example of an evil so great it had to be confronted and stopped.  He derided “the foolish notion” that we could call our military personnel home and leave others to confront such evil.  He was right to say so; however, such language implies a false dichotomy: do nothing, or send young people to kill and die.  The pep rally-like nature of assemblies like ours, I worry, may lead people young and old to accept without question the need for slaughter. Veterans Day is a commemoration of the armistice ending Worl...

"Recent reports have identified Maine as one of 20 states where income inequality is growing: we have the fourth fastest rate of income inequality growth in the nation. This is a direct result of 2011 Lepage tax cuts, which disproportionately favored the wealthy." "it’s not revenue shortfalls that gave rise to deficits that must be bridged; nonprofit hospital greed has caused the deficit problem."

"My professional observation is that we are watching a slow-moving public relations train wreck. " Republicans stepping away from the Governor...

Governor LePage apologizes to Republican lawmakers...

Making National news. "Maine Governor Paul LePage's latest quote is either nothing out of the ordinary or outrageously shocking. Those familiar with LePage will react with a sort of irked nonchalance --  Oh, of course he said that  ..."

It's often the coverup, not the original offense. Given his track record, I think LePage could have agreed that he said it and taken it a step further and it would blow over in a week. This doesn't look that way. http://www.dirigoblue.com/2013/08/republican-insider-accuses-lepage-and-legislative-republicans-of-cover-up-regarding-obama-remarks/

Several high-level members and office holders in the Maine Republican Party have left it.  I am not familiar with many names in Maine state politics, but this looks to me like a Tea Party walkout. These people are angry with other Republicans for not supporting the governor at his most extreme, and angry at the governor for signing a law they find too intrusive. Is this only the first break of a larger fracturing? Is Maine ripe for three- or four-party politics? Is the country? http://agreetodisagree.bangordailynews.com/2013/08/19/maine-politics/13-members-flee-republican-party/

Imagine if a student said this about his school! http://www.pressherald.com/politics/LePage-threatens-to-blow-up-Press-Herald-building.html

I see a lot of people expressing outrage toward Rolling Stone  for putting  Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on the cover.  I want to take a little room to say that people doing that are wrong .   Some of those folks are suggesting that Boston first responders would have been more appropriate cover subjects; however,  Rolling Stone' s cover story is about how Dzokhar became radicalized; it's an in-depth investigative piece about him, not a news report on the bombing itself. Given the subject of the story, it's appropriate for him to be on the cover. A cover showing first responders would have been misleading.   Some might object that the story should have been about the first responders, but that story has been done.  Many stories have been done about the heroic actions of police, bystanders, and others.   This story is about one of the bombers, and Rolling Stone  claims there are revelations about him in their story.  I think there is an audienc...

Read "Twenty-five Stupid Things Paul LePage Has Said" as a word document here .

Fear and Loathing of Newspapers and More "Reading Newspapers in the State of Maine is like paying somebody to tell you lies." Or reveal your lies? At a fishermans' forum in March 2011, LePage got some laughs by quoting this line from an unnamed state senator.  He liked the line well enough to repeat it to an audience of middle-schoolers about a year later.  In February 2013 he escalated from disliking newspapers to fearing them.  Again speaking to students, he said: "My greatest fear in the state of Maine: newspapers." LePage expanded that he believes other media in Maine are less biased than the newspapers.  But, when he was running for governor in September 2010, he blew up at MPBN reporters questioning his wife's claims of citizenship in both Maine and Florida, and the tax and tuition savings his family gained by them. "Let's stop the bullshit." Within minutes of "stop the bullshit," LePage tells an easily-checked...

What can one make of it? One shrugs," Hubbell said. "There's a lot of things with this governor that you have to shrug about." LePage Pens Note Chiding Lawmakers...

1. Democratic Sen. Troy Jackson “claims to be for the people but he’s the first one to give it to the people without Vaseline.” 2. LePage also said that Jackson has a “black heart” and that he should go back in the woods and cut trees “and let someone with a brain come down here and do some good work.” O ccasionally Governor LePage says something so stupid it draws national attention. After Senator Jackson gave the Democratic response to LePage’s budget veto, LePage attacked Jackson with those words, offending Maine’s Democrats, lumberjacks, sexual assault victims, and just about anyone with any feelings.  M y running theme here will be that LePage's statements are stupid because the alienate people. In politics you need people's cooperation to accomplish things. LePage cannot accomplish what he wants to because he has alienated not only his political enemies, but many who should be his allies. D ownload my epub "Twenty-five Stupid Things Paul LePage Has Sai...

Shortly after Paul LePage was elected governor of Maine, I observed to a friend that the state’s newspapers were going to have to start saving column space every Monday for his spokesman to explain “what the Governor really meant.” A weekly space hasn’t been necessary; however, his two years in office readily yielded enough material for the following posts. They concentrate solely on stupid things he said, ignoring political posturing, and the merely mean or factually erroneous.

Since I wrote the WalMart post, I haven't been using this blog. Now I feel compelled to share some political commentary. I don't care to be a political ranter on fb, so this seems like a good alternative. My initial intent, and the purpose of the next several posts to come, is to work against Paul LePage's reelection as Governor of Maine; however, I have strong feelings about many other political issues and I expect them to work their way in over the next few years.