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Maine GOP Gov. Paul LePage’s racist antics and seriously unhinged behavior have the state's Republicans, Democrats, and just plain old citizens fed up.
The political pressure on Gov. Paul LePage over his recent controversial comments and threats grew over the weekend as Democratic legislative leaders suggested that Republican leadership persuade him to resign, a Senate Republican said a censure of him by the Legislature seemed appropriate, and an online petition signed by thousands of people urged him to step down.
A Democratic state legislator from Portland, meanwhile, said he will start exploring whether there is legislative support for impeachment proceedings against LePage, and a therapist and lobbyist from Hallowell is urging the public to attend a rally Tuesday in Augusta to support having the governor step aside or seek professional help.
To recap, this round of outrages included LePage circling back to his old trope that more than 90 percent of drug traffickers in the state "are black and Hispanic people from Waterbury, Conn., the Bronx and Brooklyn." Then he thought a Democratic legislator called him a racist and left said legislator a profanity-laced tirade culminating in the threat "I am after you." And when the recording got out, he called in members of the media to reiterate that he wanted to have a duel with the legislator, and said he'd point his gun "right between his eyes, because he is a snot-nosed little runt and he has not done a damn thing since he’s been in this Legislature to help move the state forward."
Oh, and he also said this:
LePage then turned to House Minority Leader Ken Fredette, R-Newport, an officer who serves as a military lawyer in the Maine Air National Guard and sat in on the press conference. "Don't you—Ken (Fredette) you’ve been in uniform? You shoot at the enemy. You try to identify the enemy and the enemy right now, the overwhelming majority of people coming in, are people of color or people of Hispanic origin."
So that's a little disquieting for everybody who is not Paul LePage in Maine. But, kind of like their difficult relationship with Donald Trump, the state's Republicans are kind of flummoxed about how to deal with him. Senate President Mike Thibodeau, a Republican, is thinking it over, and "won’t have anything to say until Tuesday when he’ll likely have a news conference," his spokesman told the Portland Press Herald. Republican State Sen. Amy Volk of Scarborough, up for re-election this fall, is thinking maybe the legislature should censure the governor and that "I would welcome the ability to go on the record with a vote." I bet she would.
Meanwhile, a Facebook page called ImpeachGov.LePage has cropped up, and it gained 3,200 signatures over the weekend, aimed at trying to force LePage to step down. You can expect LePage to blow up all over again in response to that very soon. Give him another 24 hours.