LePage: Lewis Should Thank White Presidents

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.

LePage Says We Need an Authoritarian to Fix ‘Broken’ Constitution

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.

LePage Blames Asylum-Seekers for Bringing ‘Ziki’ Flies to Maine

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.

LePage Loses Bid to Block 65 Maine Laws

65

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.”

Maine Gov. LePage Wants to Put State’s Children to Work

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.

Verbatim

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?