The Worst of LePage -- Revisited

On these, the last days before the gubernatorial election, we are pulling some past hits out of our archives, representing some of the worst moments of Paul LePage's first four years -- just in case anyone needs reminding about what an incompetent, petulant, and reckless governor he has been.

First up, our satire of LePage's promises about improving the Maine economy by creating more jobs.

Once upon a time, there was a place called Maine — a beautiful land of lakes, mountains, and coastline.  It was never an easy place to live, but people worked hard, and even in the worst of times, the wood and produce from the public orchard helped everyone to get by.
In the midst of one of the bad times, a certain candidate for pooh bah came before the people.  “Jobs,” shouted the people.

“Jobs!” he shouted back — and so they elected him.

On the day after the election, the people stood before him and said, “Excuse us sir, but we would like to have jobs.”

“You will have jobs, but first we need to help the job creators,” said the pooh bah.

“How can we do that?” asked the people.

“They need half of the trees in the public orchard,” the pooh bah replied.

Gasps filled the arena.  The people loved the orchard — and depended on  it.  But they also needed jobs, so they agreed to the pooh bah’s request.  Men came in and cut the trees and sent them up the distant hill to the job creators who lived there . . .  [click to continue]

See http://www.appalledbylepage.com/2014/10/27/lepage-and-jobs-a-maine-parable/ to read the full piece.

Paul LePage and Climate Change

Here it is, the 68-page Maine-generated report on climate change and rising sea levels that Paul LePage doesn't want you to read:

"Adapting to a Changing Climate:  Charting Maine's Course"

To read more on the issue, please see our post, "The LePage Administration and the Science of Denial" at AppalledbyLePage.com

Lies, Lies, Lies -- LePage Makes More End-Runs Around the Truth

As this weeks news again shows us, Paul LePage’s brand of politics all too often involves end-runs around the truth.

LePage has strongly overstated his case, and yes, has told outright lies in his effort to build public support for his proposed MaineCare cuts. A recent BDN article shows LePage is incorrect in his claims that most of the childless adults who receive MaineCare are able-bodied young men. Dirigo Blue documents that one of the MaineCare recipient “facts” LePage mouthed in a WCSH-TV interview last week is an outright lie.

After LePage’s early efforts to eliminate LURC, the land use regulation commission that has long been responsible for overseeing development of the North Woods, was rejected, LePage and the Republicans have changed their approach to re-shape LURC in a way that will result in the deregulation they sought in the first place. Ron Joseph, a former state wildlife biologist, writes in the Sun-Journal that LePage and the Republicans are out to destroy LURC and the Northern Maine Woods. Joseph writes, “If the final recommendations are approved by the Legislature following public hearings in January, McPherson and other developers will have a green light to forever alter northern Maine's undeveloped lakes and forests with disgraceful second home projects . . . A restructured LURC isn’t about balance. It’s about appeasing corporate landowners who sit on millions of dollars worth of shorefront properties on northern Maine’s undeveloped lakes and rivers.” To us, it is unconscionable and a tragedy, that a man who has no apparent appreciation of the North Woods and perhaps has never set foot in them, can play such a huge role in the demise of this vast resource which has been so big a part in Maine’s history and identity.

In his recent radio address, Lepage criticized the proposal that would require Maine to invest in renewable energy, stating the costs will be too high, and justifying his claim by stating Maine’s electricity rates are significantly higher than the national average. What LePage does not mention but Dirigo Blue points out for us, is that Maine’s rates are the lowest in New England and are also lower than thoe in New York and New Jersey.

Child labor laws, health insurance deregulation, the test scores of Maine students, the LePage tax cuts, the economy, welfare, Medicaid, energy, the mural -- on virtually every issue that matters, the Governor has made statements that are significantly misleading if not outright untrue. 

A list of LePage lies, flip flops, and gaffe’s is being maintained here by Dirigo Blue.

More on the LePage lies at AppalledbyLepage.com

LePage and Technical Education: Cutting Square Corners off the Three R's:

During a visit to the Hancock County Technical Center in Ellsworth, Gov. LePage repeated his previously stated belief that Maine has placed too much emphasis on preparing students for 4-year colleges and not enough emphasis on career and technical education.

“What we are trying to do is make career and technical education mainstream instead of second-class education,” LePage said during yesterday’s visit. Beefing up the academic offerings at the state’s 27 vocational and technical centers so that students do not have to travel back to their regular high schools for the academic portion of their program is one way LePage hopes to accomplish this. He also cited the need for the state to show more flexibility in terms of vocational students and the state’s general graduation requirements.

LePage’s proposal makes sense on several levels -- including the common sense one. Maine has and will probably continue to have more jobs for those trained in trades and technical skills over jobs for those with a liberal arts education.

However, this proposal seems to fly in the face of other concerns previously voiced by LePage. His proposal also seems dramtically inconsistent with other current state and national education initiatives.

(1) LePage kicked off his recent focus on education with a complaint that the test scores of Maine students have been stagnating. However, any initiative which places an emphasis on technical education is almost certain to result in backsliding in terms of the core academic subjects of English, math, science, and social studies.

(2) The technical schools themselves have stated a preference for receiving students who have a solid base in the core academic subjects over students who are weak in reading, writing, and / or math but know, for example, how to write a computer program or how to frame a roof.

(3) National movements including No Child Left Behind and the increasing emphasis on standards-based education make it difficult for schools to clear time in a students schedule for extended blocks of vocational and technical education.

LePage Caught in Lie About Welfare

Paul LePage stated that Forbes Magazine had identified "welfare" as one of Maine's structural problems that needs to be cleaned up on Wednesday during a town hall-style meeting at Mt. Abram High School.

LePage's statement comes at a time in which he is trying to convince the legislature to cut more than a two hundred million dollars from MaineCare, Maine's medicare program.  LePage has not only been undeterred by claims that the cuts will eliminate everything from HeadStart programs for impoverished kids to assisted living programs for low-income elderly people, he has taken his campaign to the streets --- and has been misrepresenting the facts.

One misrepresentation is that a major cause of the current budget shortfall is welfare fraud.  The governor provided no facts or statistics to back up this claim that is clearly designed to appeal to the emotions of those who already feel their taxes are too high.

The more recent lie is LePage's statement implying Forbes Magazine told him that Maine had to reduce the size of its welfare program in order to improve from its current last place ranking among the 50 states in terms of climate for business.

Adrienne Bennett, the Governor's press secretary, raised the lie to the level of the absurd by suggesting her boss was referring to"Mainer's welfare" and not to the specific welfare program.

As reported in today's BDN, the conservative magazine took the rare step of correcting LePage for his mis-statement.  "“I certainly didn’t say anything about welfare costs, which has nothing to do with the ranking that we do,” said Forbes senior editor Kurt Badenhausen.  “I didn’t tell them they needed to reduce energy costs. I told them, basically, the best thing they could do, and that any local government could do, was just to try and create more jobs.”

The reader comments below the article show that Mainers are more than fed up with this kind of dishonesty from their governor.

Read more about LePage's campaign against welfare at: www.appalledbylepage.com

LePage-Speak -- A New World of Vocabulary

Conservation is a Ponzi scheme.  Political dialogue is "bullshit."  Our governor flew to Virginia to lay wreaths at the graves of the dead in the same week that he stated his intention to cut access to medical care to the still living.  This and more at www.appalledbylepage.com

Paul LePage's Approval Ratings Are Up . . .

 . . . But not for the reasons you might think.

It's called scapegoating.  You can read about LePage's "Operation Scapegoat" in our recent post at AppalledbyLePage.com