From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE
"Guess what? Not one of those things I said in the last two years. It was always said in the first two years. So even a Frenchman can be taught to cool down."
---Maine Gov. Paul LePage, Oct. 9 candidates debate
Perhaps more than any sitting governor of the teabag persuasion, the one sitting in office 55 miles north of me is the foot-in-mouthiest. Now that it's reelection time, Paul LePage (aka Paul LePlague, a greater menace to Maine than anything ebola will ever throw at us) wants us to believe he started out clumsily, but he's been clean as a whistle for the last two years. So I went through the C&J archives for the past 24 months to see just how he "cooled down." Here's a sample of what I found:
December 2012 While swearing in our newly-elected state senators and representatives, LePage went off-script and called out a "tracker" taping his public events and said, "I think it's vulgar, I think it's vicious and I think it's vile to me and my family." Then he said he'd never speak to Democratic leaders again until the tracker was let go.
June 2013 Performing a twofer by using an anal sex reference and then insulting Maine's timber workers as brainless:
"[Democratic State Senator Troy Jackson] claims to be for the people but he’s the first one to give it to the people without providing Vaseline. … People like Troy Jackson, they ought to go back into the woods and cut trees and let someone with a brain come down here and do some good work."
August 2013 While trying out a fighter-jet simulator at a Pratt & Whitney office, LePage said, "I want to find the Portland Press Herald building and blow it up."
Also in August President Obama "hates white people."
October 2013 "About 47% of able-bodied people in the state of Maine don’t work. About 47%. It’s really bad.”
March 2014 Calls Medicaid expansion, which would cover 70,000 Mainers, "Sinful.”
May 2014 “This is the commander in chief of the Maine National Guard!!!”
---LePage's first angry words to a Portland Press Herald reporter on a phone call after the governor got caught not knowing about plans to transfer one of Maine's most valuable National Guard units to Pennsylvania.
June 2014 Angrily refers to Social Security and Medicare as "welfare, pure and simple."
July Even Stephen Colbert noticed this one:
"Out of the 52,000 [refugee] children in federal custody, Uncle Sam is unfairly saddling Maine with a whopping eight of them. Eight! … Thankfully, Maine Governor Paul LePage caught wind of this plan and declared, 'We cannot become a state that encourages illegal immigration. We simply cannot afford it.' Folks, I never realized Maine was in such dire financial straits. They’re just one octomom away from bankruptcy."
October 2014 When a patient is tested (and comes back negative) for ebola at Maine Medical Center, LePage plays the scary immigrant card, saying, "We’re on top of this. The bigger issue right now is whether or not this individual had the proper papers.”
And this from August, 2013:
"I can’t keep my mouth shut. I promised my staff: Now till Election Day, when I want to say something that is off-color, I’m going to tape my mouth shut.”
Right.
Want another four years of this clueless meathead? Me neither. Let's help elect Democrat Mike Michaud---a cool-headed Frenchman who knows how to engage brain before opening mouth.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Note: To prevent eggs from slipping out of your grasp, moisten your fingertips before removing them from the carton. And then call for Obama's impeachment for not telling you this sooner. Hugs, Heloise
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11 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til Hillary Clinton's 67th birthday:
5
Days 'til the
Maine Brewers Festival:
11
Number of people who have registered to vote in Ferguson, Missouri since Michael Brown was murdered by Darren Wilson:
3,000
(Source:
USA Today)
Minimum number of days Americans took during a vacation in 1975:
7
Number of days we took for the average vacation in 2010:
3.8
(Source:
The New York Times)
Number of northern white rhinos
left in the world:
6
Total box office gross of
Atlas Shrugged: Who Is John Galt?:
$847,000
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Tuesday Words of Wisdom from the Right-wing Blogosphere:
We stand back in wonderment, how can our people be so stupid ?
Education, "indoctrination" government support, Judicial mandates, monetary manipulation and I am sure you can rattle off more. Wonder how it will sound in Arabic, the Pledge of Allegiance ?
---Commenter "lerp" at RedState
All together now: 1…2…3…
Classy!
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Puppy Pic of the Day: John Oliver rules the world
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CHEERS to leading by example. Early voting started yesterday in all but a dozen or so states, and President Obama was in Chicago to cast his ballot and urge others to do the same. In yet another example of how distant and aloof the president is, check out his reaction when the boyfriend (Mike) of the woman he's voting next to tells him, "Don’t touch my girlfriend":
I don’t think Mike had to worry. That was a different president who had the wandering eye. And shame on you, Harding.
CHEERS to tailgating the turtle. By any reasonable standard, Mighty Political Machine Mitch McConnell should be ten or twenty points ahead of Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes. The beltway wants to write her off so bad they can taste it. And yet, she just keeps nipping at the minority leader's heels:
Not down. Not out.
Not by a long shot.
Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes remains very competitive in the Kentucky Senate race against Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, according to a new poll released just two weeks before Election Day. McConnell leads by a mere 1 point among likely voters---44 percent to 43 percent---in a Bluegrass Poll released Monday, well within the survey's margin of error of 3.9 percentage points.
Fourteen days out and McConnell is not closing the deal. That means he's close to fulfilling our number-one goal: making him a one-term unemployed guy.
JEERS to a bad way to win hearts and minds. A United Nations report says that Iraq has executed 60 people so far this year, many of them " based on questionable evidence and systemic failures in the administration of justice." Said Texas Governor Rick Pwerry when he heard about the report: "Only sixty? Lightweights."
CHEERS to flying fingers. On October 21, 1918, a typing speed record was set by Margaret Owen of New York City: 170 words per minute on a manual typewriter. Here's a sample:
Jig Thyebeg ehdrhi slaw 948has no jdo0-fghbf reydhgnc convkde braggadocio 94u8457b og nut arkblarg Gimbel manly th rocks
If she was alive today she'd be enjoying a lucrative career writing RNC press releases.
CHEERS to "a fortuitous track." It kicked up surf and blew around the odd shingle or two, but Hurricane Ana largely left Hawaii alone. And with the end of Atlantic Hurricane season just 40 days away, here's the current map:
Nothing but deep acidifying blue sea, collapsing fisheries and gigantic plastic garbage patches. [
Sigh.] How comforting.
CHEERS to the hunt for the Reds in October. Not often you hear about the Swedish Navy going up against Russia, but that seems to be happening as Sweden tries to find a Russian submarine hiding off its coast in the Baltic Sea. Let's listen in for a moment and see how it's going:
"B…seven."
"Miss!"
"J…four."
"Miss!"
"E…five."
"Hit! Er...miss!"
"Hey! You better not be moving your ships around!"
"Shut up! I'm not!"
"Mom! Billy's cheating!"
"Boys! Don't make me come down there!"
Oops. Sorry. That was a childhood flashback. Anyway, they're looking for a sub or something. I bet ABBA's involved.
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Five years ago in C&J: October 21, 2009
JEERS to the worst pundit in Punditland. I don’t not watch Morning Joe because of Joe Scarborough, but rather because of his sidekick, Mika Brzezinski, who treats her audience every morning to a series of facial contortions and twisting body language that suggest she's not sure where she is or why all these lights and cameras are pointed at her. She's also, let's just say it, not the brightest bulb in MSNBC's marquee. Proof: she just told Politico that she believes Pat Buchanan is the best guest ever because...
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"Because he says what we are all thinking."
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Um...we're all thinking that
Hitler was a gentle, misunderstood peacemaker??? Okay then. Make a note of that in your history books, kids.
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And just one more…
Now THAT'S a giant!
CHEERS to balls and strikes. Unless ebola intervenes, the major League World Series starts tonight---the San Francisco Giants vs. the Kansas City Royals. I understand they're both wild card teams, which I think means they won their berths in a poker game. You can read about
why the Giants will win, unless you prefer Kansas City, in which case the same link explains
why the Royals will win. Me, I look at these things literally. You got the Royals on the one hand---people with swords and scepters and maybe a catapult or two, but usually their hands are too soft to deal with mechanical things. Then you've got the Giants, who are basically put on this earth to stomp people flat. But…the giants might feel obligated to obey the Royals when they're given a command like, "Stompeth on me not and
begone, you feral beast!" But if I was a Giant, I'd smush 'em anyway. I want that ring! So
put me down for San Francisco to win it 4 games to 2. And
then pass me a dog and a beer.
Have a grand-slam Tuesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
"Gosh, can you imagine if Bill in Portland Maine was the president right now? He was right on Twinkies, he was right on candy corn, he was right on underpants."
---Scott Brown
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