My state's governor has lost it

[alien space marine]

Seriously, he's always been an awful person, but now... now he's gone too far, to a crazy degree.

So, Paul LePage, Governor of Maine and just re-elected last November because the people in this state made some bad decisions in the voting booth, basically is throwing a massive fit right now. Fortunately the State House stayed Democratic, so while the Republicans picked up the State Senate, they don't hold all the power.

This most recent set of incidents started with him getting mad that the state representatives won't pass the tax plan he wants. The Republicans and Democrats in the statehouse worked together and passed a budget, without his regressive tax changes included. He vetoed it (back to vetoes soon), and they overrode the veto and passed it. This made him mad.

So, he vowed to veto every single bill that had a Democratic co-sponsor until the Dems cave in and give him his stupid tax plan. They refused, so the vetoes started mounting up. And when Republicans in the statehouse decided to support over-riding some of those vetoes, he ... promised to veto almost every single bill with either a Republican OR Democratic sponsor! Yes, that means pretty much everything. Wonderful. He also put 72 line-item vetoes in to try to change that budget to cut things he disliked; the statehouse overrode all 72. Now, some of his numerous vetoes of bills did hold up, but most have been overridden. This whole veto-everything idiocy made me seriously start wondering if he's lost it.

And then... then he did something worse than anything he's done before: He got the Democratic leader in the statehouse fired from his new job. Now, state legislators don't make nearly enough money to live off of that salary, so they need other jobs. This guy, Mark Eves, is a teacher, and got a job at a charter school for disadvantaged children. Charter schools are an idea the right love but liberals do not (basically, most charter schools draw students and money out of the public school system, hurting most students), and only were approved for the first time fairly recently. Eves opposed allowing charter schools when they came up to vote, but it did pass, and now he was going to work at one... until LePage decided that he didn't want that to happen.

So, LePage threatened the school, telling them that he would REVOKE THEIR STATE FUNDING if they let Eves stay at his new job, purely because of his personal dislike of Eves' politics. So, the school was forced to fire Eves, they don't want to be shut down. But this didn't stay hidden, and the news of this insane overreach has become something of a scandal. I hope it hurts LePage badly, you cannot get someone fired just because you dislike them for their political opinions, that's insane!

Some talk is starting up of impeachment, but that would require a 2/3rds majority in the Republican-led state Senate, so that'll be difficult. It sure would be nice if LePage would go, though.

Oh, in other news about LePage, he just made a hilarious joke about shooting a Bangor Daily News cartoonist who he disagrees with. Isn't he just a riot? :bummed:

Some relevant articles:
http://www.pressherald.com/2015/06/25/ev...was-fired/
http://www.wcsh6.com/story/news/local/au.../29270647/
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/06/25...howAll=yes
http://www.pressherald.com/2015/06/25/ma...st-lepage/

http://www.pressherald.com/2015/06/25/le...artoonist/

http://www.pressherald.com/2015/06/10/ma...ge-vetoes/
http://www.pressherald.com/2015/06/18/le...7b-budget/

If they go to the courts and the press grills him, the republicans will be forced to pressure him to resign If he becomes a liability to the party. The best the public can do is to continue provoking and pushing his buttons, so he'll pull a tantrum and shoot himself in the foot.
Eventually Maine will turn the Page ;)

The right wing for all their talk of freedom this and freedom that, there always the first to expand the power of the state security Apparatus And hack away at rights, with Orwellian bills like the patriot act or Bill C-51,They always leave vaguely worded loopholes in Anti-terrorism bills to enable them to be used against opposition groups who clearly Are not al-Qaeda or even violent, such as environmentalists ,native american activists, labor unions.