“If you have an ‘R’ next to your name and you open your mouth, you’re hated. If you’re a Democrat, like Elizabeth Warren, you can say anything you please and get away with it. That’s where we are.”
— Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R), quoted by the Boston Globe, while campaigning for Massachusetts U.S. Senate candidate Geoff Diehl (R).
I will just say this: John Lewis ought to look at history. It was Abraham Lincoln who freed the slaves, it was Rutherford B. Hayes and Ulysses S. Grant who fought against Jim Crow laws. A simple thank you would suffice.
— Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R), asserting “that the NAACP should apologize to white America, making the comment just hours after he weighed in on the president-elect’s Twitter beef with a civil rights icon, saying U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) should be grateful,” the Portland Press Herald reports.
Sometimes, I wonder that our Constitution is not only broken, but we need a Donald Trump to show some authoritarian power in our country and bring back the rule of law because we’ve had eight years of a president, he’s an autocrat, he just does it on his own, he ignores Congress and every single day, we’re slipping into anarchy.
— Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R), standing by Donald Trump in a radio interview, CNN reports.
Dear America: Maine here. Please forgive us – we made a terrible mistake. We managed to elect and re-elect a governor who is unfit for high office. He has a gruff exterior and blunt way of talking that some of us find refreshing, but he has shown again and again that he governs by grudge, and uses his power to beat up on people who cannot fight back.
Asylum seekers — I think the biggest problem in our state — and I’ll explain that to you… And what happens is you get hepatitis C, tuberculosis, AIDS, HIV, the ‘ziki fly’ [sic] all these other foreign type of diseases that find a way to our land.
— Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R), saying that asylum seekers are the biggest problem for his state, MPBN News reports.
Number of bills already processed into law that Maine’s top court has ruled unanimously that Gov. Paul LePage (R) does not have more time to veto, the Portland Press Herald reports. The ruling “delivered a significant blow to the governor, who has been engulfed in criticism and scrutiny in the seven months since he began his second term… LePage indicated in interviews before the ruling that he would not enforce the 65 laws and would seek additional court relief to block their implementation. But Adrienne Bennett, the governor’s spokeswoman, said in an email Thursday that the governor will implement and enforce the laws now that the court has ruled.”
We don’t allow children to work until they’re 16, but two years later, when they’re 18, they can go to war and fight for us. That’s causing damage to our economy. I started working far earlier than that, and it didn’t hurt me at all. There is nothing wrong with being a paperboy at 12 years old, or at a store sorting bottles at 12 years old.
— Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R), telling a trade show audience that 12-year-olds should be allowed to work in Maine, the Portland Press Herald reports.
He’s the first one to give it to the people without providing Vaseline.
— Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R), quoted by the Bangor Daily News, on Democratic rival Troy Jackson (D) who he said has a “black heart” and should go back in the woods “and let someone with a brain come down here and do some good work.”
They are a special interest. End of story…and I’m not going to be held hostage by special interests.
— Gov. Paul LePage (R-Me), ungraciously declining an invitation from Maine’s chapter of the NAACP to participate in a Martin Luther King Day event involving black inmates at the state prison. The biggest surprise is not that tea party backed LePage might be racist, but that Maine has black people. Who knew?
To hear Trump talk, he’s the only one
Who’s ever stood trial for crimes he’s done.
But instead of courtroom drama,
We get Trump in his pajamas,
That’s how he earned his new nickname: Don Snoreleone.
“In America today‚ 2024, women have fewer rights than their mothers or their grandmothers had, because of Donald Trump. I don’t think we’re going to let him get away with it, do you?”
— President Biden at a campaign stop in Tampa, reported by Tampa Bay Times.
“Some of the 49 migrants flown to Martha’s Vineyard by the state of Florida are now able to legally work in the United States and have temporary protections from deportation — because they are considered victims of a potential crime. … The migrants are eligible for these protections because they applied for a special kind of visa meant for crime victims who are helping law enforcement, after they said they were tricked into taking charter flights from San Antonio to Massachusetts with false promises of jobs and other aid.”
“We care more about the safety of our staff than a name attached to an article.”
In its panning of Taylor Swift’s new album (3.6/10 rating), Paste Magazine chose to put “Paste Staff” as the piece’s author instead of the individual who wrote it. That’s because following Paste’s negative review of Swift’s Lover album in 2019, the reviewer received threats of violence from fans who disagreed. As for its critique of The Tortured Poets Department, Paste Staff said its “mid-ness” was the result of “when the artist making it no longer feels challenged, where she strikes out looking.”
“The House is a rough and rowdy place, but Mike Johnson is gonna be just fine. I served 20 years in the military, it’s my absolute honor to be in Congress. But I serve with some real scumbags. Matt Gaetz, he paid minors to have sex with him at drug parties. Bob Good endorsed my opponent, a known neo-Nazi. These people used to walk around with white hoods at night. Now they’re walking around with white hoods in the daytime.”
“Joe Biden will land a major union endorsement Wednesday from North America’s Building Trades Unions, whose leaders say the president has his infrastructure bill largely to thank for it,” CNN reports. “In making one of their earliest ever presidential endorsements, NABTU leaders are kickstarting an eight-figure organizing program to try to deliver their 250,000 members in the battlegrounds of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin for Biden.”
A new Siena poll finds that by a 54% to 30% margin, New Yorkers say Donald Trump’s “hush money” trial is “legitimate” — the view of 77% of Democrats and 44% of independents — rather than a “witch hunt,” the view of 66% of Republicans.
A new Marist poll finds Joe Biden leading Donald Trump nationally among registered voters, 51% to 48%. In a multi-candidate field, Biden is up by five percentage points against Trump, 43% to 38% among registered voters, followed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at 14%, Cornel West at 2%, and Jill Stein at 2%.Among those who definitely plan to vote, Biden leads Trump 46% to 39% in this same multi-candidate field.
NBC News poll: “‘Protecting democracy’ is a salient issue for voters. There’s a difference between what voters identify as the ‘most important issue facing the country’ (on that, “inflation and the cost of living’ registers 23%, followed by immigration/the border, at 22%) and what they identify as the issue most important in determining their own vote (on that, ‘protecting democracy or constitutional rights’ was on top with 28%, followed by immigration/the border at 20% and abortion at 19%).”