It’s not unusual for Gov. Paul LePage to say something offensive off-the-cuff. But what’s disturbing about his most recent blunder, calling the Internal Revenue Service “the new Gestapo,” is that it wasn’t a slip-up. He purposefully put the language into his Saturday radio address after it was drafted by staff.
LePage was talking about President Barack Obama’s health care law, but instead of taking the time to inform Mainers about the Affordable Care Act’s benefits and challenges, he turned to painful rhetoric. His comments should be made out for what they are: an unfortunate maneuver that likely will rally conservatives.
This was not about health care:
“Now that Congress can use the taxation power of the federal government to compel behavior or lack thereof, what’s next? More taxes if we don’t drive Toyota Priuses or if we eat too much junk food or maybe even pea soup? The decision has made America less free. We the people have been told there is no choice. You must buy health insurance or pay the new Gestapo — the IRS.”
These words have no substance or truth. Congress already has taxation power. Priuses, junk food and pea soup have nothing to do with health care and serve only as an inflammatory touch. And comparing the IRS to Nazi Germany’s secret police force is both reprehensible and inaccurate.
It’s predictable that Democrats are capitalizing on LePage’s statements (the Democratic Party sent out a mass email lambasting the governor and also asked for donations) and that Republicans are blaming them for capitalizing. But we’re disappointed that more Republicans have not decried LePage’s foul comparison and are instead supporting him.
Maybe LePage and Republican leadership underestimate the power of statements coming from the governor’s office. The backlash has been swift, and it’s quite possible LePage has not only rallied conservatives but energized Democrats.
The Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine asked LePage to retract his statements. So did Democratic leaders, bloggers and the Anti-Defamation League. The Holocaust & Human Rights Center of Maine pointed out that the Gestapo and IRS are nothing alike, as the Gestapo during World War II controlled police and intelligence services and cases of sabotage and espionage.
The coverage of LePage’s comments has been widespread and embarrassing to Maine — no way to encourage businesses to move here. The unfortunate matter was picked up by the Huffington Post, Fox News, CNN, the Boston Globe and across the Internet.
It’s regrettable that Maine’s governor has drawn national attention again for saying something senseless that overshadows the more important issues at hand. Instead of letting Mainers judge the intellectual validity of LePage’s argument against the Affordable Care Act, the matter has become one of emotion.
So let’s turn to the intellectual argument.
LePage said in his address that there are “still too many uncertainties for Maine to implement Obamacare.” He’s right that there are unknowns and that creating the necessary health care exchanges is complicated. But if there are too many uncertainties to carry out the law, why are other states starting the process? LePage and other Republican governors are using the uncertainties as a guise to stall implementation.
LePage had a chance to apologize publicly once he saw the far-reaching impact of his words, but instead he issued a clarifying statement, saying it was not his intent to hurt anyone. That’s akin to shoving someone and then saying you didn’t mean to offend the person. He already has apologized privately to the director of the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine. If he truly understood the impact of the word “Gestapo,” he’d say he was sorry publicly.
As common as it is for LePage to blurt out some attacking remark, the Gestapo comment was planned insensitivity. It did nothing to further real debate about the Affordable Care Act and brought embarrassment to the state.
The Tea Party Healthcare Plan,
If you don’t have a plan,
Incite a riot!
Oh we have a plan. Those who don’t have a work ethic and live off the government will naturally be bloodthirsty when conservatives shut off their government cheese.
Unfortunately Jonathan your Depends are completely full of your conservative BS.
Is that all you got pal? LOL!
You ain’t seen nothing yet PAL … wait till Nov.
Do you realize how many hard working people there are that are making $8.00 to $15. per hour and can not afford to buy insurance, if their employer does not provide their insurance. I guess your answer is gee that’s to bad or do you have an alternative?
… AND cutting off the promised bond funding, blowing off the 75% matching private funds all just so no economic improvements are seen between now and election day, too.
I don’t think “government cheese” exists anymore. collecting it was far to demeaning.
Larry!
Thats what you call a Metaphor!
YOU may call it a metaphor.
What I call it is BS
Yeah, let’s get all those cancer patients who can no longer work, and those with other debilitating illnesses. We’ll show them.
Your TeaRadical plan is “Let’s help the insurance company CEO’s buy more mansions, and those who don’t have healthcare can just DIE QUICKLY! Yay, hurray, yippy!!”
And as to “work ethic,” how about the oil corporations to whom YOU give YOUR tax dollars, like all the rest of us, even though they are making record profits. You right wingers spend every waking moment kissing the toes of the USELESS UNPATRIOTIC UNCHRISTIAN MILLIONAIRE JOB KILLERS while millions of Americans go without healthcare. Jesus Christ would be disgusted with you, and it is entirely SHAMEFUL.
Work Ethic?
I worked for 40 years before I lived off the Government!
LOL
Please give an instance when a right wing tea party extremist has incited a riot.
I can give you ten times as many that were started by left wing socialists occupy moderates.
Thats “ALL” that the Tea Party guys do!
Wave American flags call people socialist and communist, condemn the poor as leaches that need drug testing for being poor. Condemn your fellow man that happens to have a better job then you such as hard working Teachers, firemen, policemen and Public Union employees. Proclaiming violation of rights when it suits them and when it doesn’t turning a blind eye!
The “only” reason you dont see the Actual riots is that most of us have the reserve and resolve to just write the Tea Party off and let it fade away into the American history books in infamy as the time when Individual Selfishness and Greed almost destroyed it!
And don’t forget, all the while those disgusting hypocrites are ranting against “government programs,” they are holding up signs saying “Keep Your Government Hands Off My Medicare!” What a bunch of total idiotic UNCHRISTIAN UNPATRIOTIC HYPOCRITES these TeaRadicals are. Yet it is fine and dandy for THEM to collect Social Security, and for THEM to collect Medicare, and for THEM to collect unemployment insurance when needed, and for THEM to use TONS of GOVERNMENT programs and services from public roads to public schools to public parks, and on and on. And yup, come November we are going to CRUSH the TeaRadicals and send them packing in a big way.
Gee “What a bunch of total idiotic UNCHRISTIAN UNPATRIOTIC HYPOCRITES” these so called “liberals” are.
You should stand up and proudly claim “I AM A PROUD COMMUNIST AND WANT TO BRING DOWN THE ONLY COUNTRY THAT IS FREE DOWN.”
That would at least be honest, both with the world and yourself.
There is and never has been nation on Earth that was more free and supportive of freedom for everyone than these United States.
Paul Ryan collected his dead fathers Social Security while attending college!
Tou know what? When I was in the military there was a term used that pretty much sums up you people. ID ten T.
You screech about how evil anyone that disagrees with you is. Twist ANYTHING to suit your own needs. and worse say the dumbest thimgs.
“The “only” reason you dont see the Actual riots is that most of us have the reserve and resolve”?? Every riot that has occured in this country during the last centur has been started by you and your fellow anti american ID10T’s.
I dare you all to leave this post on the board, but I will be surprised if it makes it past the censors here that it will stay here more than 5 minutes before one of you haters will have it removed so that you don’t have to see yourselves. You have the gall to call ANYONE a hypocrite.
I want to thank you for your service in the Military, now its time to stop and reflect on why you where there.
We the People! —-That means everyone.
Not ,
Tea the people.
Your welcome.
Sometimes I regret that the right to be an ID10T could be abolished but alas it can not.
Regrettably their plan is both plain and disgusting, all in one shot. It’s chant being ‘Stay healthy but if you do get sick, please, die quickly so we don’t have expend any money or effort on you’. Some folk’s laughed at Anthony Weiner from New York and Alan Safford from Florida’s plan for the Public Option when they put the GOP Health Plan up on a flow chart in the House for all to see and follow by comparision. No one’s laughing now, Boehner, Cantor and McCarthy are looking like the 3 Stooges on camera since they don’t have anything but their $ 1000.– suit’s to show off, Romney is spouting theatrical hysteria as his political position and the current VP shopping spree is looking more and more like a bad SNL show. And some folk’s have the nerve, or stupidity, to espouse that these folk’s are the one’s to solve the health care crisis ? If there was ever a demonstrated need for the Presidential debate’s, and a VERY SERIOUS drug test, this is it.
“His comments should be made out for what they are: an unfortunate maneuver that likely will rally conservatives.”
So… Apparently, that’s a criticism?
“These words have no substance or truth. Congress already has taxation power.”
Even by the IRS’s standards, income tax is VOLUNTARY. Wrap that around your brain, if you can. Never mind the fact that the tax is illegal… Which is why they have to coax you to pay a “voluntary” tax under the threat of imprisonment!
“But we’re disappointed that more Republicans have not decried LePage’s foul comparison and are instead supporting him.”
You can’t make everyone happy. The grass is always greener on the other side!
“The Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine asked LePage to retract his statements.”
Oh boo-hoo! Would it had been more appropriate to say they’re the Secret Police? Because it seems that is what the IRS has always been. Go look up what the IRS did to “The Jewish Mother”, a restaurant in Virginia Beach, Virginia. If that isn’t irony at its best, I don’t know what is!
But that’s only one incident in which the IRS has destroyed the lives of people, and there are many more!
“Voluntary Taxation” if you live in Narnia perhaps. When was the last time our representatives in Washington actually stood up for those of us who work for a living?
Lest anyone not pay their taxes based on this post, I am posting the below link, and especially the fourth bullet, which dispels the myth that income tax is voluntary:
http://docs.law.gwu.edu/facweb/jsiegel/Personal/taxes/IncomeTax.htm
The author of the page is a law professor at George Washington University,
The power to tax was granted to the federal government by the founding fathers. It’s listed in the US Constitution.
LePage is certainly not the first politician to use a reference to the Gestapo in a speech. You can look to the 1968 Democratic National Convention and remarks by Senator Abraham Ribicoff: “with George McGovern we wouldn’t have Gestapo tactics on the streets of Chicago.” I don’t recall anyone demanding apologies from Ribicoff at that time.
I wonder why there wasn’t this much outrage over Obama’s “Special Olympics” comment which was on national tv? Apparently a slight against special needs kids is allowed…interesting.
Using the term, “gestapo” to describe a group that seemed to have unlimited power to do as they please has been around for at least the past 30 years. I have heard it used countless times (and by that I mean without somebody being so outraged at its use.
Does that make it right?
See; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin’s_law
“As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches … there is a tradition in many newsgroups and other Internet discussion forums that once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever debate was in progress;
Sorry, Guv. you lost.
Despicable rhetoric from a despicable Governor.
Mr LePage is correct… and by the time they come for you, there will be nobody left to protect you. Sad but True
His choice off words might be off the wall but there is a lot of truth to what he is saying. It only offends those who want everything for nothin.
If you mean people who want to contribute to society but can’t because they are too sick, or are bankrupt and lost their homes because they had to give the hospital all their money, yeah, it offends them.
Yeah it sucks having to choose between coffee brandy, and lottery tickets and health care.
Which one did you pick?
Unlike all of the layabouts infesting Maine I have never tried coffee brandy and I know way too much about probabilities to ever buy a lottery ticket.
That is a very Republican thing to say.
It sucks having people say stuff like that. How Catholic of you!
“It only offends those who want everything for nothing”
… and Jews, Gypsies, liberals and gays, ,people who you, him, and his staff writers think would never vote for the his GOTEA Party, anyway.
They all are making their own bigotry come true, too.
How sad is it when there is the only bright side of this embarrassing stupidity ?
You could have shortened the terms about Jews, Gypsies, liberals and gays. Just use the formal term: Democrats.
You mean like your millionaire buddies who run the oil corporations making record profits but insist on needing more corporate welfare subsidies from us the taxpayers? Gee, funny how right wingers never talk about all THAT welfare.
The federal government makes more from a gallon of gasoline by taxing it than the oil companies make by finding, collecting, refining, and bringing to market a gallon of oil.
Google oil profits and then come back for sympaty.
All of my Jewish friends are college educated and work very hard. None of them want anything free. I work very hard, am on no type of government assistance and do a great deal of volunteer work in my spare time. I am a fiscal conservative and have worked hard for what I have acquired and accomplished. I am deeply offended.
You would be.
“Mr LePage is correct… and by the time they come for you, there will be nobody left to protect you. Sad but True”
Yeah, sure, okay, whatever you say, but you have missed point of what you sorta quoted:
That when the right wing bully boys, the hysterical followers of the party line, come for you, because you are no longer pure enough of political thought,
just a RINO, suddenly, because you don’t want drop the gas pellet, personally, there will no one left to help you.
Never again, mean again to you ?
What is embarrassing is the way liberals react to this type of nonsense. They have no problem calling Bush a murderer or glorifying the occupy terrorists, but don’t you dare demonize their beloved IRS!
Keep it up Gov! You are gaining support every time you speak the truth. If a liberal is complaining you must be doing something right.
AMEN…
Now that Congress can use the taxation power of the federal government to compel behavior or lack thereof, what’s next? More taxes if we don’t drive Toyota Priuses or if we eat too much junk food or maybe even pea soup?
That’s right LePage, be very afraid of that tax on junk food and pea soup….make that a priority to worry about for yourself, stock up while you can! Now if we could only claim stupidity credits from comments you make…….
The power to tax was granted to the federal government by the founding fathers. It’s listed in the US Constitution. If you have a problem with that then you should just move back to where ever you came from.
I will forward your comment to Mr LePage, he seems to have a problem with taxation power
Except when it’s him giving away our $17 million to his friends in Canada.
Governments have tried to use taxes to promote activities or dissuade activities since time began.
Giving tax breaks for charitable contributions, lower taxes for married couples, tax credits for solar power to encourage those activities or the Bush Administration giving tax credits for buying gas guzzling trucks, to name a few to encourage people.
Taxing cigerettes and alcohol to try to lower the number of people doing those activities for other examples.
Another Liberal comment berating our conservative governor. Still think the BDN has been taken over by Donald Sussman and his wife Chellie Pingree.
You are free to not read the BDN or, better yet, start a conservative newspaper if you dislike the editorial views of the paper.
The BDN is a liberal paper. Almost all papers not owned by Rupert Murdoch are. That’s because you have to be smart to start a paper.
Right, that is is part of the reason the liberal rags are tanking.. as well as with cable networks, all that smart thinking..
Any paper that prints the real news and facts is called a Liberal Rag by the Right but I bet if you wanted to know what was really happening in Japan (for example) after the earthquake you didn’t go to Fox News or any of Murdock’s other news outlets. Or the other right wing news outlets like the Boston Herald, New York Post or the Washington Times.
I love Paul Lepage. Any reasonable thinking accountable minded Mainah knows that our Governor needed to grab the bull by the horns and make the tough decisions that baldy couldn’t to get our economy in order. Thanks again for your efforts, and to think The Dummycrats would or could try to spin your dead on Gestapo comments? The entitlement lifestyle of the lefties continue to be a parasitic load on our fragile economy. Hopefully will will get some relief this November.
It’s not tough to look at numbers and make budget cuts. That’s easy. What’s tough is to look into the eyes of the people affected by budget cuts like children in schools and explain to them why they have to be in a class with 30 kids getting no attention from the teacher so someone can save 20 bucks on their taxes.
Oh great, the “common sense” argument. You’ve convinced me!
I grew up in a manufacturing town and was taught by the members of the community that people of certain backgrounds were inferior to others. I hought I was over that, more expansive in my views, but LePage sometimes kindles the old tinder. He isn’t of foreign heritage, is he?
He has a wife and two kids in Canada. He went their during the Vietnam war and then he abandoned his Canadian family when he move back to the US and got a residence tuition rate at UMO.
*there
Sorry I,m not gay. I hope you find someone soon.
There are many “men” that skipped to Canada and have come back as bigger heroes than those that went north. Or got educational deferments or got classified as not enlistable for some crap excuse
If you are going to condemn lepage for this then everybody that did it needs to be condemned for it too.
If Lepage and his dwindling army of supporters are going to condemn every person who has trouble surviving in this economy or who has problems affording their own healthcare. Well then Lepage and his hate mongers should get called out on their cowardice and treason.
Yes M’lord, you know everything and deserve to tell everyone what is good for them.
What a pant load you are.
There your pants.
You admit that you’d steal my pants to fill them with a load of crap? Thanks for that admission.
I’ll watch my dirty laundry.
I thought that was what you did for a living.
Some how I doubt that you know anything about me, you don’t seem to know anything about anything.
keep your day job larry the stand up routine isn’t cutting it for you
Sorry, I wasn’t attempting to be funny.
Ok!
Mitt went to France !
I wont vote for him either!
So who are you going to vote for?
The person that followed the teachings of his church and tried to bring what he believes to be the truth to others.
Orrrr
The lying, SOB that is now in the Whiet House that has spent Millions of dollars and the power of the entire US government to keep his past a secret from the public. I am not refering to where he was born, but his entire life from the time he entered this country to the present day. He is a total man of mystery and anyone that can not understand that is an absolute fool or doesn’t care.
{ The person that followed the teachings of his church and tried to bring what he believes to be the truth to others. }
Mormons believe in Space Aliens as Gods, and you criticize where Obama came from?
LOL
Did you ever bother to read about the teachings Jeremiah Wright? Shameful but rarely mentioned in the news media. I’ll bet any amount that Mormons will be what the next election is all about led by democrat idiots and a liberal news media. Guess where you fit in.
Like the Right tried to make the 2008 election about the Rev. Wright?
Have you heard the song, Jerimiah was a Bullfrog?
He was a good friend of mine!
If aliens(from another world not another country) landed anywhere on Earth as recently two centuries ago they would have been gods, so maybe that is where the “myth” of God came from. I am open to discussion.
I DO NOT QUESTION WHERE OBAMA WAS BORN. I DON”T CARE. What I question is his history from the time he was using marijuana and coke in highschool until he became a social activist and Senator from Chicago.
This part of his history is totally hidden from the voting public, at the expense of millions and apparent subopning of perjury.
Since he has become President his open and transparent administration has blocked legitimate investigation into Federal government malfeasance, if not outright treason.
I found it!
So can you!
You found transcripts of high school and college? You found out how someone in Hawaii or Chicago or whereever got a Social Security number from Conneticut?
I suspect that the onlything you found was the end of your arms.
Actually I found that the reason that he lost his license to practice law was because he gave it up rather than fight against the court because someone ratted him out about some unpaid traffic tickets in college that he didn’t disclose to the bar association.
Somehow I doubt that some unpaid traffic tickets would be enough to get someone disbared. I also doubt that they are the reason for million dollar campaign to keep the records secret.
Larry!
The Bar exam ask’s the question do you have any outstanding fines or obligations to the legal system, if you answer falsely on your exam application you can be disbarred.
And lying to the evtire country gets you what? Almost unlimited power.
Our government lies to ua ALL the time and it is time to clean house. Our present President is just the worst offender.
High School and college transcripts are private records not open to the public. Have you seen Romney’s HS and college transcripts or Bush’s or McConnell’s or any other political persons?
As for Obama’s SSN, I doubt anyone but Obama knows what it is since it as a very private document. That being said, you get your SSN from the region you applied for it not the region you were necessarily born in or live in as an adult.
Sooo, we are to believe that student Obama discovered that he had no Social Security number and traipsed off to Conneticut to apply for one. Yeah right.
I believe that Bush 2’s college transcripts were demanded by the Gore campaign which is when we discovered that Gore dropped out of Divinity school and that “W” did fairly well in college.
My point was that our president is a total mystery from the time he came to the continental US until becoming a “Community Organizer”.
Not sure why the last post was flagged for reveiw. It only had a link to snopes disproving the Social Security Number for Obama.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/birthers/ssn.asp
S it was just a simple typo. And the claims made in bios during his uounger years that he was born in Kenya were errors that werent caught by proof readers but were corrected after he went into politics. And contradictions in his own writings and the huge amount of tiume spent on hiding his education records … bring you no questions?
There seems to be something there and the media does not seem to be willing to look into it. Call me crazy but … there is an odd smell here that needs investigation.
The liberal press could care less, they got what they wanted when Obama was elected.
HAHAAH you seriously think Romney is religious???? I bet you called out for Jesus Barabbss to.
I’d be willing to believe anyones claim of being religious if they would at least put a name to it.
There are the “normal” religions Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Budists Wiccan, and so forth and then there are the unusual religions that people do not claim such as praying to the government, ecology, heck I think that there are even people of both the right and especially the left that worship hatred.
Have you heard this joke?
Mormons have one too many books in their bible and one too many m’s in the name. ( fyi, a Morman told me that joke so don’t go all PC on me.).
Why would they call themselves Ormans?
The person that told you that joke may have been raised a Morman but obviously has rejected those beliefs.
It would be like you making fun of your lord and savior. All hail Obama.
Must be time for you to check the laundry again.
The Mormons also change their doctrine/teachings when threatened by our government that their tax free status will be eliminated…polgymy, blacks are descendents of Cain and are relegated to the back of the line when it comes to absolution..All will have to receive it (according to their Bible) before any blacks and the sin of Cain is carried in their seed to pass onto every generation. That teaching?
The guy in the White House for sure!
Your option, hope you will take some of the blame for what will come if it is allowed to stay there.
Oh you mean he came back and took advantage of that SOCIALIST public UMO? Hmmmm… Gee, I guess Mr. LeBUFFOON-TEAPARTIER is as much a SOCIALIST as anyone. But that can be said of any of the TeaRadical hypocrites.
His entire business model at Marden’s was cashing welfare checks and making sure his employees only got 20 hours so they would qualify for food stamps.
Paul Richard LePage is the best thing that could possibly happen for democrats. He is single handedly handing this falls election to the democrats. Any republican who has LePage with them on the campaign trail is basically committing political suicide. Bruce Poliquin tried to wrap himself in LePage in his campaign for the republican nomination for the US Senate and got slaughtered. Proving that even republicans are fed up with LePage. Sure he will have his die hard supporters who actually think that remarks like he made on Saturday are cute and they will all have their little laughs. They are the same people who thought LePage saying that he would tell the President of the United States to go to hell, the NAACP to kiss his butt, calling Mainers who did not agree with his taking down “The Mural” and hiding it “idiots”, and telling jokes to his tea party friends in Washington about pregnant nuns so very funny. He is systematically offending practically every segment of Maine’s society with his big mouth and making our State the butt of jokes. He promised us JOBS, JOBS, JOBS when he was asking for our votes. While unemployment is coming down, albeit slowly, in the rest of the Nation in Maine it is on the rise and has been since late last year. The vast number of Maine people have had it with his lies, bullying ,ignorant remarks and his take from the poor to give to the wealthy attitude. Mainers will turn out in November to put an end to this tea party foolishness.
Be carefull , Don’t underestimate stupid people!
He is single handedly handing this falls election to the democrats. Ya think? We’ll see.
No author on this article? Too scared to print your name on an editorial? As an opinion piece, it needs to be clear whose opinion is being conveyed. Instead, the author hides behind the BDN. LePage is not hiding. He is in Augusta doing the people’s work. I am not embarrassed to say I live in Maine. I say I am embarrassed my senators are RINO’s who vote with the left as much as with the right.
The author is the whole BDN…LOL…Liberal moon bats…
Why do you read a paper run by “liberal moon bats”? Fox News is available in one form or another 24/7.
Editorials are never signed in any newspaper and never have been. It’s a longstanding tradition. News articles may or may not be. Columns are. You can look up the members of the editorial board if you wish.
we love paul lepage!! He says things you will never forget. If he has to use off color wording to get simple minds to listen… than that is the way to go!
even if you dont like him, you will remmeber him.
Liberal Democrats constantly conjure up remarks to belittle Christians and Conservatives by calling them “Nazis”, Gestapo”, “Fascists”, and other derogatory terms means to imply that traditional conservatives are akin to some type of jackbooted death squad. Guess what Maine – you cannot have it both ways. If you don’t like the term – apply your judgement evenly and stop showing glaring hypocrisy simply because you hate our Governor. LePage would do well to be more tactful but consider that President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, AG Eric Holder (essentially any career Democrat) have made comments fare more malicious and offensive. If “Gestapo” to describe something other the dreaded Nazi unit offends you – remove it from the vocabulary of politics period. Don’t be narrow minded in passing judgement. What is wrong for one person is wrong for all if a term is offensive regardless of their political persuasion.
Good for him. Too many cowards with entitlement mentalities in Maine that will never appreciate the crippling effects of taxation and an IRS gone rogue. Perhaps LePage’s comments offend the quintessential 20 something able bodied male fraudulently collecting SSI or food stamps while they sit in public housing playing video games.
The power to tax was granted to the federal government by the founding fathers. It’s listed in the US Constitution. If you have a problem with that then you should just move back to where ever you came from.
Note to right wing electorate … Better think twice the next time you elect a junk store manager as Governor of Maine.
Note to left wing – the right wing finally mobilized and you are welcome to your opinions and personal lifestyles at your houses and your communal areas, but we are going to exercise our rights for freedom and liberty and protect your rights to do whatever it is you do on your own dime – not on ours.
Who represents “our dime” ?
Who represents our dime?
The majority of Mainers who use common sense; work or volunteer; and don’t wait for someone to take care of us. A vast majority of us don’t care about sexual, religious, eating, driving, and overall lifestyle preferences selected by people. We just don’t want to be told what to do and how to live by Progressives who think they know what is good for all of us. Progressives are interested in one thing – raw power. Currently people identifying as conservatives (no matter what party assignment they have) more closely represent the freedom movement of the 1960’s than the neo-liberals of today. In the 1960’s, the liberals wanted “the Man” out of their hair. Now people identifying themselves as liberals can’t get enough government intervention. Conservatives want majority rule (not minority control); freedom of speech (not regulated politically correct speech); freedom of commerce (not government run enterprise); secure borders (aka “Good Fences Make Good Neighbors”); and fair taxes (enough for those with their hands-up NOT hands out).
-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-
It’s we the “people”,
Not “Our Dime”!
And THATS what’s what makes ALL the differance between Conservatives and the rest of US!
A minority believes what’s mine is yours and what’s yours is yours. Laws of physics: output equals input. We the people is a gaurantee of opportunity for prosperity not a gaurantee of prosperity no matter what.
Things are not perfect but pretty darn good compared to alternatives on this planet.
Thats right! That Minority is the 1 % who are Job Creators!
They believe that they have a right to pay you a wage that will not afford you health care thus cashing in on “your” right to life!
“…Conservatives want majority rule (not minority control);…” Is that why Republican’s have used a record number of filibusters in the Senate, majority rule?
“…freedom of commerce (not government run enterprise);…” Translation: the ability to make money anyway they can even if that means polluting the environment, paying wages that are below subsistance levels, not having to provide a safe work environment and last of all privatizing profits while socializing losses.
“…and fair taxes (enough for those with their hands-up NOT hands out).” Means rich and corporations not paying their fair share of taxes on the profits they make off the sweat and tears of the workers.
Someone wrote earlier that there are more educated liberals who own profitable businesses in Maine than educated conservatives. I have to observe you could not justify the conclusion based the writing and language arts skills of the the liberal bloggers to this article.
Quite frankly, I stopped blogging for a while and just re-started on this article. I can see now a clearly vocal group and little educated (or at least unwilling to apply the education received if you are educated) much like those of the past in other countries and failed states more than willing to give up their freedom based on greedy politicians falsely promising wealth and prosperity for all whether or not you are willing to work or make a difference in your community.
I think it is back to community volunteering, growing my garden, raising my livestock and not reading or participating in these senseless blogs. Most of you are too depressing to be with and I thank my lucky stars I don’t live in your negative skins. Most of you are energy/life suckers and not energy/life producers. You Progressives deserve whats coming your way after you create an environment where the government is free to oppress you at will.
Karma has a way of dealing with everything – I am comfortable and confidant with my life decisions, mistakes, confessions and ablutions. I recommend some of you consider yours. Signing out.
Note to right wing ….. mobilized? the wheels fell off your clown car a long time ago. You speak of Rights; it’s enough to make one puke as the clowns of democracy try to steal an election by restricting voting rights and subvert our democratic processes. Save your self-serving nonsense for clown shows like LePage hosted over the weekend, don’t waste them on me, I’m not buying any of it.
Why does the right insist that anyone who is open minded and concerned with the well being of others that they leach off the system? I would dare to say that there are more liberals who are c0llege educated and have successful careers than conservatives in this state.
You’re probably right. After 8 years of the failed Baldacci administration drove out many of the productive, educated conservatives and attracted a bunch of welfare collecting layabouts.
I work in a local convenience store and I have a customer who likes to talk politics with me. He is usually mis-informed about most issues, he rails against Obama and Liberals ruining the country every chance he gets then pays for his stuff with his EBT Card and complains about how hard it is to live off of his unemployment check. I just have to chuckle everytime he leaves.
000
Stay off my roads tax cheaters!
The traitors in the Paul Lepage love party are to drunk to even think once, much less twice.
Don’t get your hopes up, thinking once was difficult enough!
Point well taken.
The Gov. is out of touch with the people. I am Rep. almost everyone I know is Rep., and we all support and want the new health care law.
Why?
You don’t get out much do you?
The IRS…Hmm..You’re guilty unless YOU prove you’re innocent..The can seize your property and assets without a warrant or hearing in court…They can walk into your business seize EVERTHING and wrap the building in yellow tape and shut you down without a warrant or hearing in court.They can force your employer to dock your pay , again without a warrant or hearing in court..Hmm , sounds like the Gestapo to me…They also have heavily armed SWAT teams now as well..Spot on Governor…
The power to tax was granted to the federal government by the founding fathers. It’s listed in the US Constitution. If you have a problem with that then you should just move back to where ever you came from.
The ACA also specifically states that the IRS cannot put you in jail or put a lien on your property to collect the penalty. About the only thing they can do to you is withhold your tax refund(if you have one)
“sounds like the Gestapo to me”
This quote abundantly demonstrates your historical ignorance of the Gestapo
If he’s got your panties in a bunch he has done something good in my book…Penguin ?? What are you , like 8…LOL…
You missed the point BDN. Gov LePage is trying to prevent a second holocaust. Most Eastern European immigrants are in horror and shock when they see where some Americans are taking our country. It is time for people like Governor LePage to speak their mind in plain English and not political doublespeak that no one even understands. You may not agree, but he speaks clearly and distinctly and most of us get it (and we agree).
I don’t need some x- commie telling me how to run my country.
Oh, we are using the c-word to invoke scare tactics. Clever!
Us, We, Our, you should start your own country, you sure don’t like our democracy based on your comments.
I love our country because you and I can actually say how we feel and not risk prison. Keep voting for people who want to increase government regulation and neither of us will be able to have this conversation. When the Patriot Act came out, I was against it because I was confident the power would shift over time (as it has) and the act may be used inappropriately. Consider power will continue to shift as you support various rules that seem like a good idea at the time and then consider you might not always agree with the person holding the switch.
absolutely agree with you on patriot act. That was hysteria based reaction that provided us with no greater security as a nation and does threaten our liberties directly far more than any provision in the ACA. That is something all American’s should be concerned about. While I will not engage in the offensive hyperbole of the Governor the language and powers in that law are reminiscent of cold war era steps to discover the “traitors” in our midst.
LePage can’t spell holocaust, you’re kidding no one.
Have they seen Mitt Romney?
If some people like his “tell it like it is” attitude, then lets call him what he is when it came time to serve his country, and he fled to Canada, i’t’s called being a yella coward!
Did you say this about Clinton? Obama was never in the military. Most of those in government “service” have much the same cowardice.
Mitt Romney went to Paris instead of Vietnam because he had a very pressing Mormon mission to do there.
While in the military I knew a young man that was in the military as his mission, all Morman young males take a mission during their late teens and early 20’s.
Did he take that specific mission to keep out of Vietnam, Possibly but you certainly don’t know either.
I am very comfortable believing he took his mission when he did to avoid military service he could have delayed it and served his country.
LePage too.
And I am extremly comfortable believing that almost every member of Obamas administration should be impeached, tried for treason and punished.
Most of Congress too
that’s just crazy talk
Wow,
could you provide a bill of indictment of high crimes and misdemeanors that would go with that comfort level. By the way appointed executive branch people don’t get impeached they get fired.
For a start, impeding Congress’ ability to oversee criminal acts done by the federal government. He is protecting Holder from investigation of his involvement with illegal purchase of firearms, transporting said fireaarms to a foreign country, and the murder of a US law enforcement agent.
Since at least two agencies, Justice and Homeland Security, seem to have some responsibility in these crimes there seems to be far more than reasonto cause an investigation.
In my youth there were I met a fair amount of Amish young men who were conscientious objectors. They were given jobs in Mental Hospitals or other public service to make up for their service.
Some also became combat medics, so what?
Can you tell me when Clinton, Obama, or any other sitting president labeled a whole group of government workers as Gestapo agents, or corrupt?
CLiton got a college exemption, he was a Rhodes Scholar, and Obama did not serve in the military and was to young to be drafted into the army for Vietnam.
LePage, on the other hand, fled the country to avoid his service to the nation.
I suspect that everyone that reads these posts knows that you think Cliton and Obama can do no wrong and that LePage can do no right.
What is incorrect about my post?
It is you who feels that LePAge can do no wrong and Clinton and Obama can do no right.
No I disagree with some things that LePage has done and agree with of some things that Clinton did but can find very little that I can agree with Obama on.
If Obama gets something right I will admit it and when Lepage does something I don’t agree with Iwill admit that too.
How about these for Obama
Dramatic increase in the expelling/deportation of criminal aliens
rescue plan for GM (being paid back in full with interest)
I will grant that the deportation of some of the violent illegal immigrants is the right thing to do, and killing bin Laden were the right things to do but what were the motives? While we will probably never know them look at a possible one. In both cases doing the right thing cost nothing and avoids a very nasty political issue, Not doing the right thin in both cases would political suicide.
“Saving GM” keeps money in the political coffers of some of his biggest supporters, labor unions, and gives him the ability that he saved the US auto industries.
Since the media will allow the myth that the “loan” is being paid off, after allowing him to lie and claim it was already paid in full and early over a year ago. That was an outright lie and has been changed to still paying off the loan in full with interest.
It isn’t Lepage’s fault. Bennett put Lepage’s diapers on too tight that morning.
lepage has a recurring problem of mouth in gear and brain in neutral.
LePage is a disgusting Bully who just can’t keep his foolish mouth closed. His ignorance is way beyond belief.
True!
Even his Ignorance exceeds him!
As is yours.
The gov. should engage his brain, if he has one, before putting his mouth in gear.
Simple answer for that!
He just needs to lean forward, Stones Roll Downhill!
The irony of his insipid statement is that he tried to implement the establishment of his own type of special police to oversee legislators a few short months ago.
Nope, you appear to be another conservative who just can’t seem to stay on (Or perhaps even see) the topic. I’m very, very far from Maine today yet still had a person ask me about “That LePage fella” after I’d informed them where I was from. Thankfully for me, as an open minded liberal I had no problem simply informing them that everyone in Maine feels embarrassed by this dolt. Things will get better on November 6th when he become a lame duck that also happens to equate nicely with his personal and political positions.
Not everyone is embarrassed and you don’t speak for “everyone” in Maine. I like you used to be from Maine . But unlike you , I came back, raised my kids here and like other “conservatives” have created private sector jobs here
in Maine.
You presume too much and too often. I’ll be home late tomorrow and ready to vote this bum’s support structure (Current slim House and Senate majorities) out of office in November. If by then you also come to see how insulting this man is to “Everyone” in our state then come on over, it’s getting crowded in the “We’re ashamed of our State Leader” voting block but there’s always room for one more within the “We were brought up better than this” majority. Private sector jobs? HA!!! You must mean really private, like for LePages ONLY! We’re falling further and further behind every NE State every day. Just plain sad and embarrassing.
And like most liberals your more than willing to comment and criticize , how many paychecks have you signed? Put your money where your mouth is and make this a better state by creating futures rather than putting down the people who take the risks and only want to keep a little of the rewards.
I’ve authorized quite a few paychecks.Not all those who make jobs are consevatives.Just those who think they are the only ones who do.
Right on. Like shipping jobs overseas?
Like Democrat Warren Buffet did to Dexter Shoe?
No. Like Romney, giving tax breaks to those who do.
Lots of room for criticism there.
Maybe If true. But what if the Obama campaign is lying?
http://factcheck.org/2012/06/obamas-outsourcer-overreach/
This state is chock full of Democrats and progressive to moderate Independents who create jobs all over this state every day. We are sick and tired to right wingers blathering about how they think they are the only ones who own businesses. And right wingers CONSTANTLY use all those “socialist” government programs and services that they turn around and decry like the pathetic hypocrites that they are. Right wingers use public roads, bridges, and sidewalks. They use fire and police services. They adore the totally socialist military and their socialist no-bid military industrial complex contracts. Right wingers love totally socialist military and VA hospitals. Right wingers are deeply in love with THEIR Social Security and THEIR Medicare. I certainly don’t see them lined up to refuse those SOCIALIST benefits. Right wingers love local, state, and national public parks and recreation services of all kinds. Right wingers adore their PUBLIC schools and those SOCIALIST sports teams that THEIR kids play on all the time. And right wingers never decry all the socialist corporate welfare that they help finance with their tax dollars, like subsidies for oil corporations. And the lists go on and on. Republicans are as SOCIALIST as ANYONE else. So enough of the lies and hypocrisy.
That diatribe makes no sense at all…Who do you think pays the bill for all the aforementioned benefits? All of us. So why would you think anybody would be stupid enough to say I have paid in for myself and MANY others( who have paid NOTHING but receive the same benefits), but I will not use the roads , send my kids to schools?
This is typical hyperbole coming from Libberblic. Usually doesn’t make any sense other than to him/herself. Complicate the issue so it’s near impossible to retort. He/she is correct in Libbers creating jobs in this state. Too bad it’s usually confined to bottom feeder jobs like coffee barista’s, gift shop attendants, tour guides, and tourist industry based worker bee’s.
Jeez, I’m currently and have been in the military for over 30 years and will go out on a limb and say that the vast majority of the people I’ve had the proud distinction of serving with are openly conservative, not to mention the rank structure is certainly not based on socialism. The VA was formed on the promise from the federal government that all warriors that served in combat and or have a service connected disability will be taken care of medically for defending their country. Do you speak from experience? I also have been a part of the military acquisition system from time to time and everything goes out to bid, and usually the contract will go out to low bidder or if a company claims minority status, they will get the bid. Social security was incepted during the FDR administration which is a Democrat originated program, supposedly a retirement system, and obviously anyone including Republicans that pay into the system will draw on the system when eligible. Local, state, and national parks are paid by taxpayer money to be enjoyed by all, I’m not sure where you are going with that. Public schools are also funded by taxpayer money which in it’s purest form is a form of socialism, but again, everyone benefits whether they pay taxes or not. Youth sports are designed to promote physical fitness and teamwork, along with teaching the differences between a win and a loss, (no not everyone gets a trophy). I don’t see where there is a trace of socialism in youth sports. If you feel the military is a socialist environment and you would like the benefits of being in the military, perhaps you should join and serve your country. You should fit right in as a fellow socialist.
what choice do people have ,when people like you stuff the crap down our throats for years.maybe you should talk for yourself and not others,you have no idea what anyone thinks but you.
WOW ! You’ve made it abundantly clear that “right wingers’ are a worthless and contemptible pile of refuse. If you could have your way (without any legal repercussions) what would you suggest be done with these scum of the earth blathering right wingers?
; )
Re-read the post … StillRelaxin said LePage’s “support structure”, not LePage himself.
you said you were far from maine ,living elsewhere.so how can you vote in maine if you are living in another state?
What is making me happy is that your vote will not count, my voting the opposite of you will cancel you out. LOL.
Private sector jobs? HA!!!
***************************
HEY!! It takes time to get them all off the couch. Gov. LePage might have to resort to ordering cranes into their living rooms to lift them off the couch and transport them to a workplace site.
BTW….what does “assamed” mean?
Since when are “conservatives” the only ones who own businesses and employ people?
Since the beginning of time !
My Mom used to say ” He’s to Dumb to be Embarassed” !
LOL
I am sorry your Mom used to tell people that about you while you were right there…. Are you seeing anyone to help you along?
I wasn’t a Downeaster, I could tell who she was refering to!
So much for wasting tax-payers money on public education.
“He’s to Dumb to be Embarassed” should be: He’s too Dumb to be Embarassed” ! …and evidently you’re too dumb to know when to use to or too.
Good for you. You may be the last to create any jobs in this state. No business that has any scruples at all will come to a state when it’s governor tells the President, regardless of party, to go to hxxx or tell the NAACP to kiss my axx. These aren’t mistakes. Even his own people told him not to use the gestapo word and he told them to go to hxxx. (I can’t use profanity in these posts, even though the governor’s profanity has been and is printed many, many times.) He knows exactly what he’s doing. He said he wanted to create jobs. At best he’s broken even and at this point, we’ll probably start losing jobs. He said he would put people before politics. He has been nothing BUT political. He has put politics before people EVERY TIME. He is a profane man with only his ego to stoke and he cares not for anyone or anything except himself. I have lived here 74 years. In my lifetime I have willingly, proudly and respectfully contributed to my community and my state. All I can say to his misled defenders is – watch your back.
So does that mean that you are cast from the same mold? Obviously at least 38% of Mainer are. Sigh. The people I know are more than embarrassed, they are appalled (and that includes many party loyal Republicans). I sure hope they are the majority of Mainers.
I am in contact with people, vendors and business contacts all over the country. More folks than Paul LePage feel that way about the healthcare law. Generally people don’t blame the IRS as much as the healthcare law. It’s just that the Democrats put the IRS up as the enforcement arm.
No matter what is said about it!
It is still a “Conservative Plan” by design,
and don’t forget it!
Using the government to strong arm is a Democrat liberal authoritarian thing.
Using government to protect the people…. in this case their health, is a Democrat thing you are right. Um, actually that is the purpose of government….. you know the common good. How come Republicans are so bad at it?
Romney is not a true conservative.
Both Plans came from the Heritage Foundation!
The—- Conservative —Think Tank!
Totally irrelevant Liberal justification to run over the American people. . Whats counts is that not a single republican Congressperson voted for it. Not one. In fact 39 Democrats voted against it as well.
Well, it’s law now, isn’t it?
Never the less. Your initial point was/is irrelevant. We will see how long this thing holds up. It’s already being cut up , ignored, evaded and plans being made for its destruction. Its cost will rise, it won’t cover the numbers of people they say it will, and as its real impact becomes apparent opposition will grow.
It may be tweeked in the years ahead. But everywhere I check I find the conclusion to be that it will cost too much to repeal it. In other words, it is designed to save money. The only people who will lose out are those who make huge profits on our fears. All insurance is fear-based. Is that why Republicans support the health care system as it was? I am tired of a fear-based society. It is boring, unproductive and takes advantage of the most vulnerable. Let it go.
No, Insurance is “risk tolerance” based. It’s only fear based to people who don’t know what insurance is to explain their ignorance of its purpose.
It is still a “Conservative Plan” by design.
***************************************
And who cares! It was an ignorant dogpile hack plan by Conservatives and no Republican or Conservative is surprised that Obama/Pelosi/Reid picked up the stinking pile of dung, rammed it down our throats on a partisan vote only and had the unmitigated gall to call it “healthcare.”
It is, in fact, Insurance Reform. And it’s the largest (unconstitutional) transfer of power to the Executive Branch ever attempted in our history.
Obamacare is a ruse. It was designed to lure us into believing that the health care bill is actually about affordable health care when it is really about taking control of our lives and limiting our freedoms.
But lots of people feel not that way about the healthcare law. And, most of those negative feelings are based on predictions they have heard, not facts. How do people feel about what is in place at this time? Do they want those reforms to go away? Most people when you ask about specific aspects of the law say no, that is a good idea and would not want to see it “repealed”. And what I hear is that it will not be repealed because it would cost too much. Way more that the ACA will cost to implement. Will some things need to be ‘tweeked’? Of course, doesn’t your budget need that occasionally. Mine needs it every month, but that is because I operate on a shoestring. Not unlike most of our government agencies. I am not sure there is anyone that is overpaid anywhere in public service. That only happens in the private sector.
Is this another way of saying we won’t know whats in the law until we pass it? Maybe the new paraphrase of that is “We won’t know the true damage we’ve done until we implement it?”
We all know the government implemented the more popular parts of the law upfront in an attempt to show people things aren’t all that bad, reserving the (big) taxes and many new consumer costs until 2014. The funny thing is those popular items (pre-existing condition children on parents plan) could have been passed without the sweeping changes to healthcare that is coming. Business is smarter than that planning years ahead. That’s why the resistance.
Many people, individuals, businesses, and entire states are set to resist this law. Maybe the Republican Congress is just “playing” at repeal right now but their actions reflect the opinion of the majority of the American people. Every survey says this is true.
This resistance is what you can expect when you implement a law without securing first the will of the people and secondly securing the votes of at least some of the opposition.
One other thing, by passing this law and how they did it, the Democrats have done irreparable harm to the trust needed by the people for their government in a Democracy.
Sour Grapes!
Sour Grapes when a majority of the American people disagree with something and Democrats do it anyway??? Sour Grapes …Really…. or is it a reaction to tyranny?
The Majority of the people wanted a single payer Universal Healthcare,The R’s had their chance they “Refused” to cooperate!
We got what we got because of the R’s !
Lead follow or get the —–out of the way!
That is incorrect. You made that up. Provide data.
See my above post about this falsehood and the implications that you espouse will be forthcoming. Since the premise is false, the conclusions are false.
Not sure which of your posts you mean.
Obama’s minions (Sebelius and Berwick) have been furiously busy drafting 13,000 pages of ACA regulations. Just think how fun that will be when those regulations get jammed down our protesting throats. The vermin that dreamed up 2500 pages of the Insurance Reform Act (aka Obamacare) are straight out of the entrails of hell.
Silly you. That is what the Executive Branch is supposed to do when the Legislative Branch passes a law. If it were a Republican designed law you would be screaming if they were not.
You keep harping on polls and continue to fail to address the fact that 10% of those who disapprove do so because ACA did not go far enough. That puts those that approve in the clear majority. I pointed this out to you before. Why do you keep repeating falsehoods? Oh, you are a Republican.
Actually the number is not 10%. The most generous repeal number I have seen is 10% “of those that favor repeal”, which is generally about 5.5%.
I refer you to http://pollways.bangordailynews.com/2012/07/10/national/the-paranoid-caucus-reality-and-obamacare/ as a counterpoint to your fallacious argument.
What argument is that?
Btw that source is a biased Democrat.
It’s important to understand that if you vote for a Republican this November, you are sending someone to Augusta to support this knucklehead.
I am going to vote for a Republican this November, I will try to send someone to Augusta and Washington DC to support that Governor.
And you benefit how from these policies and approaches to governing?
I am not at all embarrassed by him. He says what’s on his mind, I appreciate the candor as do many other Maine people.
Do you know what candor means? From M-W: Definition of CANDOR. 1. a: whiteness, brilliance. 2: freedom from prejudice or malice : fairness. 4. : unreserved, honest, or sincere expression . Fails on all but unreserved and sincere. I do believe he is quite sincere and he is definitely unreserved. And, to me, that is scary, not refreshing.
OR do you people refuse to see a larger picture? Does LePage say dumb things? or is it just that anything anyone says can be made to sound stupid if someone else wants to make it seem to.
I am pretty sure that if I tried to I could make anyone seem out of touch, especially if I bought ink by the barrel.
It would be far more useful to try to understand the point of the other individual and find common ground but I doubt that those like you are capable of doing that.
oh paaaalllleeeeeeaaaazzzzzzeeee! No one has to take LePage comments out of context – he removes that edit all by himself—just watch follow up interviews on stupid comments he has made, no one is writing those scripts! You will need a longer shovel to dig him out of his own stupidity, sir.
I would need strip mining equipment just to get to where his stupidity can even be shown. Those putting over fill on his statements have been very busy with their garbage.
What’s with this????.”paaaalllleeeeeeaaaazzzzzzeeee!” Aren’t you just the Drama Queen…
Not really, just my first reaction to the utterly ridiculous insuation that it is the press “misquoting” the Governor to be made to ‘sound stupid’. Drama has nothing to do with it Kiki…just a statement…….by the way, are you trying to make me seem out of touch by making what I say sound like it is more than it is? Is Drama your specialty?
Commenters who spell out “please” as paaaalllleeeeeeaaaazzzzzzeeee or use chatter like bwa..waa..waa (laughing) or anyhoo for anyhow annoys me. Nothing to do with out of touch or “drama.”
Well, 57% are embarrassed by this dolt anyway. Including me.
Ahhhhh Stillrelaxin and Bangorian have come alive again with their hatred toward Gov LePage.
Neither one of them offer any solutions and will never be happy until an incompetent Dem is back is office.
I’m not embarrassed. He speaks the truth. To bad most liberals can handle the truth.
You should stop using the term “everyone in Maine feels embarrassed by this dolt”. I am from Maine, am NOT embarrassed by Gov. LePage. As a matter of fact I am embarrassed by people like you trying to make others believe you liberals are some kind of annointed to speak for us. You are the lame duck. I cannot go further as much as I would love, BDN and Disqus will then censor me for speaking my mind and using my right to free speech.
if you have resigned yourself to one side or the other in a 2 party paradigm then how open minded can you be?
No, real downeast values should suggest to you Maine’s need for an election run off law so that we have majority rule once more.
Where were you when we had to suffer through 2 terms of the failed Baldacci administration?
I hope today’s young people why people are so upset by this comment. The Gestapo was such a heinous, terrifying organization, that to compare an American government agency to it is dastardly.
oh god …for shame!
Give me a break,..
I have read about half of the posts here and have decided that ANYONE with half a brain can read this ego driven, hypocrytical, nonsensible garbage and decide that almost all of the posters here should not be allowed out of their cells at the asylum, nevermind voice their opinion.
Riddle me this larryincamden, who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool that follows him?
-E. Nigma, Akrham Asylum
I wonder that every time I hear liberals speak.
Grammar school tactics, very mature.
Did you make that observation to just me? I am flattered.
your earlier comment put the gun to your head.
with this one you pulled the trigger.
This can only be termed as ….. bad Zeitgeist.
LePage’s language may be colorful, but it is expressive and clear. There seems to be far too much hypersensitivity over the language and far too little civil debate over the issue.
But, then, there are those who believe they can make more points by attacking the delivery of the message than debating the issue.
This opinion and most of these posts are not constructive. They are an attack on the person and not conducive of problem resolution.
Most people wont carry on a conversation with someone that has four letter words coming out of their mouth on every other word. Most find it offensive when someone compares real issues of today with the Holocaust. Why would you expect ANYONE to want to have an intelligent conversation with someone who is so completely disrespectful to anyone that doesnt see things HIS way?
Get real. You say it’s better to actually debate and discuss the issues and that we shouldn’t attack those delivering the message. Well how exactly does claiming that an attempt at universal healthcare is akin to what happened during the holocaust fit into that? The only thing clear is that it was clearly a stupid remark and it in no way constitutes “debating the issue.”
I don’t recall LePage using the term, “holocaust”, in his remarks. Others made the association between “Gestapo” and “holocaust” in order to create the controversy and paint him into the extreme ..
Using Gestapo to engender an image of “an overwhelming government force” is not the same as comparing that force to those would be torture and kill an innocent population.
You have to be joking. You’re going to try and pretend that the Gestapo had no role in the holcaust? It’s a direct reference. You’re not being honest here.
Get a life!
Once again we see that LeBUFFOON has well earned the BUFFOON title. He is a disgrace to the state and to his office. And his ridiculous nonsense will ensure that his TeaRadical Party is pounded out of sight at the polls in November.
You wish.
Buh bye Teabullies.
Obama is a highly intelligent Harvard educated constitutional scholar with tremendous class and integrity. LePage is a bumbling buffoon and a corporate puppet toadie liar with a big ignorant nasty mouth and zero class. LeBUFFOON is a disgrace and an embarrassment to this state. And underneath all your right wing talking points, you know it. And your silly joke of a party is going to get SMASHED in November. Most Mainers have had it with LeBUFFOON and the TeaRadicals who defend his every disgusting word.
I think he’s of average intelligence. He has terrible diction away from the teleprompter. He says ignorant comments like “these ones” or “those ones”. Going to Harvard doesn’t mean one is smart and it doesn’t make one smart. Just because a cat has kittens in the oven, it doesn’t make them biscuits.
He’s so smart that he’s ashamed to release his transcripts and as the editor of the Harvard Law review he never wrote an article for it. Affirmative action for the unqualified is not just for pretend native Americans you know.
He will be remembered as one of the Great Modern Presidents. And, the current Congress (Republican controlled) will be known as one of the worst.
Sense when did the Republicans gain control of the Senate? All credibility lost…
They have just enough control to screw it up, and that is what they are doing. Just to make the President look bad, but what they are really doing is screwing over the country.
Mr. Obama is capable enough to make himself look bad !
Your quote: “Just to make the President look bad? ”
Dream On! The unemployment rate is 8.2%. The unemployment rate for blacks is 14.4%. Hispanic rate is 11%. That’s only “one thing” that makes Obamalinsky-in-Chief look bad.
Now that’s funny !
Please, educate yourself about what you are talking about: http://www.harvardlawreview.org/about.php . So while he was a student at Harvard he is being criticized as the editor for not having written a piece for the publication? And here in his own words is what he intended to do as president, not editor (there is an editorial board composed of students), of the Review : http://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/06/us/first-black-elected-to-head-harvard-s-law-review.html . Elected by his peers. So you are misinformed it seems. Imagine.
Ole Barry was at Columbia the same time as I was and I would be happy to release my transcripts as well as my application. None of which he has or will do. Having been there at that time and seeing first hand the quota system in place, I am not surprised he will not release any information about his academic past. Don’t you think if his academic record was in any way positive he would be touting his academic prowess?
Expect more from this tea party puppet, and less from the people chosen to represent you in Augusta.
The tea clan loves to wave swastikas and SS insignia and tack Adolph mustaches under Obama’s nose. Like his fellow clansmen, Le Page’s “Gestapo” flip at the IRS was a kind of boomerang aimed at the president.
Stiff nosed republicans can praise this man and back him for all they’re worth. There are a few who carefully and almost fearfully express some concern about his atrocious behavior. The once proud “conservatives” have nothing to brag about with this man.
Like all teapublicans, they garner the media’s attention with such outbursts. The following day, they issue an “apology” of sorts. Nothing to take too seriously. Consider the source and the frequency of his belligerence.
Ms. Bennett admits that she had a hand in the “Gestapo” reference in the man’s radio address, and like always, scripted his alleged apology for the media to play the next day.
Like a child in a high chair – anything for attention. It works.
If you are defending and or agreeing with this bufoon we have for a governor you need to change your posting name because they sure as hell are not downeast values as your name implies His incredibly insensitive remarks are ignorant of history at the very least and indicative of a person who has no worldly values as someone who is in the lofty positionof governor of a state should be. His judgement is appaling, no public apology cowardly and I am ashamed and embarrassed by him.
His judgement is appaling, no public apology cowardly and I am ashamed and embarrassed by him.
***************************
Oh my ! Do you think you can make it through the day?
After reading some of the stuff on this forum I may not.
I think the Bangor Daily News is an embarrassment to Maine and to the world of journalism.
What a thoughtful reply.
Very insightful!
the meadows don’t seem so bright to me
You can’t fix STUPID.
The good people working at General Motors would TOTALLY disagree with you, as well as a majority of your fellow Mainers. One day they will write a book about how President Obama saved the country from a depression by cleaning up a mess created by little Bush. Please vote, its for your own good, and good of the country.
Of course the GM workers support Obama. He screwed GM bond holders and gave the company to the workers.
the Republicans and Romney said let it die ! Probably wanted china to take all of it.
Jeffrey Immelt, Obama’s Jobs Czar, is shipping jobs to China at a blistering pace. Apparently, this is all part of a “plan to invest about $2 billion across China” over the next few years.
But moving core pieces of its business overseas is nothing new for GE. Under Immelt, GE has shipped tens of thousands of good jobs out of the United States. Perhaps GE should change its slogan to “Imagination At Work (In China)”.
If Obama’s Job Czar has been entrusted with solving the unemployment crisis is shipping jobs out of the country, what hope is there that things are going to turn around any time soon?
You Obamabots are so clueless.
Does it bother you that over a million people are still employed by GM, Chrysler and their subcontractors, dealers, etc.?
The good people working at General Motors would TOTALLY disagree with you, as well as a majority of your fellow Mainers. One day they will write a book about how President Obama saved the country from a depression by cleaning up a mess created by Bush.
If you don’t think the IRS is a gestapo, then you probably don’t pay much in taxes.
Did you know that the IRS can charge you a penalty and interest for failing to pay the correct estimated taxes? For instance, your 2012 taxes are not due until April 2013. However, if your withholding or estimated taxes (for us small business owners) are not enough based on your return from last year, they can make you pay a penalty and interest – even before your taxes are due. This is a pain for small businesses because we actually don’t know what our taxes will be for the year until the end of the year in many cases. Therefore, even if I pay my taxes in full when they are due, I will have paid more than my actual taxes due to the penalties and interest.
The issue here is the added power being given to the IRS by Pres. Obama & the liberal/progressive followers. People may not approve of or like the G-word, but it may turn out to be more accurate than anyone believes.
I heard they are staring to build concentration camps in Arlington, VA, (LOL)!
I’m sorry but no new power has been given to that agency
People just don’t see healthcare for what it is. We live in a country where people clutch their freedoms very tightly… including freedoms such as eating all the garbage you want, smoking, drinking, etc. People confuse the RIGHT to do something with the RIGHT thing to do. As a result we have a very unhealthy society. Also as a result, the cost of uncovered patient care gets folded back into the health insurance ratepayer’s rate… costing ME more for health care than I should be paying. I am being “taxed” for other people’s inability to exhibit self control. Is that REALLY the right approach? Why should I be on the hook for the guy down the street that has smoked 3 packs a day and now has emphysema or lung cancer? Wasn’t my choice… yet somehow HIS freedom to be irresponsible is encroaching on my financial freedom.
They can say what they want, but these freedom fighting nut cases are taking money from people’s pockets… and that is just as much a socialist value as it is getting the money from the tax base.
I say.. add a healthcare tax adder to known “bad things”. Twinkies, cigarettes, booze.. hell even gas. Want to control your health-care expenses? Stop buying this crap. You then have the power to control your own health care expenditures. Conservatives, apparently, would rather leech off of the people that actually pay healthcare premiums.
This was not about health care: exactly the complete Obamacare bill is not about health care.It is about sucking money from working Americans to support the stay at home and mooch crowd .Adding more agents to the I.R.S to collect this taxation without representation is exactly what lepage says.Like i said early he should have gone further and added pickpockets to his comment.
So we no longer will have elections to vote in our representatives? News to me.
you have low information or you’re misinformed
I’d say both
The additional IRS personnel are being hired to process tax BREAKS offered under the health care reform law and the so-called “tax” is being imposed only on those irresponsible individuals who refuse to insure themselves and wind up in emergency rooms and get expensive care on the taxpayers’ dime.
LePage is an inspiration only to the insane right, like the “true patriot” who crashed his plane into the Austin office of the IRS two years ago, killing a Vietnam vet who was only trying to make a living as a janitor.
How quickly we forget.
(I have to admit, I enjoy reading the insults that we hurl at each other…. especially since they let us vent and no one really cares! It’s great!)
Ummm…I have a brain & understood exactly what Mr. LePage meant. I wasn’t the least bit embarrased. Your head line is a bit to “sweeping” BDN. Don’t pretend to speak for the citizens of Maine.
Unfortunately, LePage can’t seem to help insulting those who have struggled long and hard to get health care reform on the table. He may not agree with the way it’s being addressed, but at least the Democrats are addressing it. The ACA was developed with the assistance of Republican ideas – such as the mandate – so why can’t the Republicans get behind it? Because it would make the President look good and that’s unacceptable, particularly in an election year. Can they come up with a better solution? Not unless it involves cutting taxes on the rich and doing away with regulations. Sorry, been there, tried that, it didn’t work. Let’s move forward, not backward!
I’m not embarrassed at all. I know what he meant. The government has acquired sweeping powers of confiscation recently.
Read your own story about how the government “recovers” unpaid student loan money from low income folks. No court procedure, no “due process” just reach into a person’s bank account and drain it.
Read Kello v New London. A municipal entity may now take your home by eminent domain, and give it to any person or business who will pay more property tax than you paid.
If you can go to jail for unpaid student loans, I’m sure (eventually) the government will confiscate your property and place you in jail for failure to “be a good German” and pay your health insurance premium.
How far are we form totalitarianism?
I’d say collecting taxes is pretty far from collection humans for genocide. That’s just me though.
Collecting taxes? You bought that Roberts piece of political theater?
Ask those actors in Congress, Cantor, Boehner, and McConnell.
It’s a hell of a lot closer to collecting taxes than it is to genocide.
In a discussion about “Gestapo” The BDN won’t allow the word “Naz!” to appear. Now that is more embarrassing than the LePage thing.
No, Gov LePage is not a phony politician and he never meant to offend anyone. It is perfectly ok for the left to use that term when it’s aimed at the right. You need to follow the guidelines when talking about the governor. Why does the BDN allow you make fun of the gov by calling him a penguin all the time. Gov LePage will be reelected gov if he chooses to run again.
So you think more than 38% of the people will vote for him again? I know many in the 38% who say they will not be voting for him. But we will all have to wait and see. And Maine will get what it deserves.
I am not embarrassed so speak for yourself. I have lived in Maine for most of my life and I am darned proud of LePage’s ability to tell it like it is. Sometimes the truth hurts but it doesn’t stop it from being the truth.
So the truth is that these IRS agents are going to come to our homes and collect us to be killed? I will need a better lock then.
What other word would you use to describe agents used for coercion of the People?
First, define coercion. Then illustrate, with fact from the law, where a government agency is coercing through terror or immoral means. Continue on to describe clearly how this law came to be and how it is or is not the result of a single man or the process of several branches of government. In fact, it has been proposed by the executive branch, voted into law by the legislative branch and upheld by the judicial branch. This is democracy and what we defend through war, law and governance.
Your insinuation, like LaPages, is fiction, crafted to reify the imagination of those made angry about unreal things. Think for just a moment about what is real. Doing this with calm an consideration of what can be examined, you and LaPage might actually produce something we can consider in the realm of reason.
What you’re describing isn’t new then. So to claim that there is suddenly a “gestapo” (by this definition of coercion) is a lie. There has always been punishment for tax evaders.
Very sad that this one man is making all of us Mainers out to be uneducated fools!!!
LOL. Uneducated fools are by far, more clued-in, practical and down to earth than “educated fools.”
The word police strike again… or maybe it should be the “word gestapos”. Perhaps he should have used the word “KGB” instead. After all, the commies killed millions more people than the gestapo ever dreamed of and probably no one would kick. Folks, it’s drama, period. Attack the man on the substance of what he said instead of being petty and grasping at straws.
I believe we are attacking him on the substance of what he said. The invocation was divisive not informative. He invoked hate as a form of debate, which speaks volumes about how he devalues those who think differently then he does.
Your projection is interesting to me. Lets hear our governor talk substance rather then catch phrases geared to incite a contingency. This isn’t the state of LaPage, its the state of Maine.
His substance was as wrong as his words were.
He truly believes that we are all going to take what he says ‘to the bank’ because he said it. Rather than educate anyone on the pro’s and con’s – he chooses to ‘force feed’ every Mainer his own opinions and as he would say, ‘to hell with everything else.’ What he doesn’t see is that Maine people are smarter than the average fifth grader and can see through the bully tactics. His lack of class is a negative reflection upon Maine, the way our people really are and the way life should be……our only consolation is he is not native……………
Its just sad, he keeps doing this. It’s not a consertitive or liberal thing at all. Nothing gets done on either extreme, people need to meet in the middle and statements like this just keep polarizing the extreme on either side. The Govener represents why people are giving up on politicians either right or left, they are too extreme to get what needs to be done for the common person. I find it odd that all the people that are telling you this health care program is wrong and unfair don’t have to worry about their health care cost as it will be paid for for the rest of their lives.
Ned please tell me where the middle ground is when faced with racism and antisemitism? Is a half racist better than a whole one? This shows the bankruptcy of the “middle.” Can’t stand in the middle of a fight between Jesus and the devil can you? There is right and wrong.
Hugh, your argument is inappropriate. Suggesting that the middle, politically speaking, is akin to limping between right and wrong, or as you said, “standing between Jesus and Satan” is contradictory and can not be defended. To be true we would need to accept the premis that one side of the isle is right and the other is unequivocally wrong. Are you suggesting that LaPage or Obama could possibly process so complete a paradigm or so wrong a motive to be totally right while the other is totally wrong? That is nonsensical.
The issue isn’t that the middle is undecided, its that somewhere in the middle is an appreciation that our views are imperfect and we need to embrace others with dignity and respect, inorder to persevere. One might call this fellowship, or perhaps citizenship and humility. Your argument is illogical and indefensible.
BJ,
I think you and Hugh are talking past eachother. Let’s use Margaret Chase Smith as an example. She was a staunch conservative who believed in self reliance, smaller government, limitaitons on federal power, etc. She also understood as you do that nothing was achieved through inflexible demagoguery. But she also understood as Hugh points out that there is no compromising with evil. Thus she stood against a powerful member of her own party in denouncing the extremist political activities that threatened the fabric of our republic in her time. Susan Collins learned at the feet of Senator Smith and she carries on the legacy of principled pragmatism. What the Governor and those supporting him seem unable to grasp is that it is possible to be staunch and firm in ones principles, work together with those of different opinions to find a pragmatic solution on policy issues while all the time behaving decently with respect and dignity even towards those we disagree with. That is my definition of a leader. Let’s see if we in the Republican party of Maine can find a few more like Senators Smith, Cohen, Collins and Snowe to serve not only in Congress but also in the Statehouse.
@facebook-100003963677032:disqus Well said.
Gestapo is a word in the dictionary, the IRS can certainly be viewed as the gestapo by many. The statement stands and I am not embarrassed by it. When I voted for LePage I knew I was not getting a politician that talks out of both sides of his mouth, I knew I was getting a business leader to help correct our financial problems. Toughen up your skin and get off the Emily Cain bandwagon it is not a pretty place to be….
His teabilly backers jump for joy at every racist/ anti -Semitic comment he makes. Sure most of us are appalled but to the racists and Jew haters he’s just what the doctor ordered. Look at the comments below. He’ll say something racist and then he sits back, watches us freak out and then says” Oh I didn’t mean THAT.” He’s a creep using racism and antisemitism to advance his status with the bigots. And there are lots of bigots in this state. When he’s gone they will lament his passing for at least 50 years. ” Oh things were great when we had Paul, he told the n*****r president just where to go.” Paul Le Page the bigot’s choice. He’s a Jew baiter and a race baiter, I’ve had lot’s of experience with these creeps and I was born to take them down and consign them to the ash heap of history. So Paul enjoy the company of your fellow bigots, David Duke, George Wallace, Ross Barnett, Louise Day Hicks, why the list goes on and on. Meanwhile the multicultural coalition will re-elect the President by a landslide and for the next two years Maine will suffer as no one will bring a company in this state. We will be relegated to the land of the bigots and this will take years to get over.
According to the Declaration of Independence we separated from England for “Imposing taxes on us without our consent.”. Unfortunately, congress approved the affordable health care act; therefore, giving consent to the tax federally.
That should also hold water for anyone doing busines across state or national lines. Not for people doing businesses within a state, that should be up to the state.
Great Shoe cartoon this morning in the print BDN. An editorial: we need politicians with an open mind not an open mouth.
The new IRS will be the Gestapo and everybody knows that. What’s the big deal? Is it because LePage stated the obvious?
OH MY GOD ! A Republican, in Maine, who see’s LePage for what he is and is publicly in favor of the Affordable Care Act. That’s it folk’s, Christ is returning. Ya’ll had better get right and do it real quick !
Geeez girls, get over it! A guy speaks his mind and the world is all over him. This guy is trying to do the right things for this State…..give him a little slack, will ya!
the dems are to blind to see that the door has been jimmied open and the government has been granted a free hand to enact whatever new mandate they decide is required by all. just as the germans started out, government will soon grow more arrogant, and demanding. soon even the dems will see what obama has really accomplished with their help.
You mean arrogant like LePage?
You have been ” attacking ” him from the day he was elected by calling him Penguin. You are no better !
Funny how when we finally have someone in office with guts enough to speak the truth people get embarrased by it. Sometimes the truth isnt all sugar coated and this is one of those times
He didn’t speak the truth on this and has yet to speak the truth on just about anything.
Crude language and brusk ations do not mean you are telling the truth, only that you have a limited ability to communicate.
I’m no apologist for LePage; I’d say half the “likes” I get in these forums are when I comment on his latest stupid comment.
Having said that, though, if the IRS is offended at being called the Gestapo, maybe the leadership should quit acting as if they were the Gestapo. My daughter’s life has been in virtual chaos for the last nine months over a matter of $700. It has taken that long to get an answer to what she owes, and why. Meantime, she has had to drop out of law school, move back here from St. Louis, and who knows when she’ll be back on track?
All over $700 stupid dollars (truth be told, if she could have a 1 percenter’s tax accountant, the IRS probably owes HER more than that) — and it has taken nine freakin’ months.
I’d hate to see the IRS version of the Nacht und Nebel Befehl (Night and Fog Decree)……
I’m with LePage on this one. The IRS is an arrogant organization with way too much power, and it thinks that it has first call on every dollar that you and I earn.
This is evidence once
again that Paul LePage is a big, brutish blowhard who apparently suffers from a
psychopathic antisocial personality disorder and megalomania. But anyone
who was paying attention when he was campaigning knew that. Perhaps he
will qualify for professional help under the Obamacare health care reform.
Anyone who doesn’t think that the IRS is similar to the Gestapo has never had to deal with them.
Oh come on BDN, I am from Maine, it did not embarrass me at all when he used that term, you democrats have got to chill.
I am from Maine and I am not embarrassed by this remark. It is obviously an extreme juxtaposition but nonetheless the ACA is a huge expansion of central government and hiring an 16500 IRS agents on top of the 44,000 positions already created to conduct audits and enforce a complex and convoluted tax code is akin to a secret police force. obviously the IRS isnt going around summarily executing people on the street or torturing citizens but, they will be very avidly invading our privacy.
I know as a politician lepage should really self edit and filter what he says however… people are tearing him apart for a sentiment shared by many conservatives.
I remember in the war protests and 2004 election when george bush was compared to Hitler by many liberals. I didn’t take offense to that as people are to this. Obviously GW was not rounding up ethnic groups in the U.S. into concentration camps and committing genocide. However, he did end up having some national socialistic/fascist policies. I saw the parallels and recognized the sentiment but I am intelligent enough to realize that GW was obviously not hitler, just like now liberals need to realize obviously the IRS isnt the gestapo.
I think it’s fair to point out inconsistencies, but the example here is different. He’s the governor of the state. It’s also bizarre to only compare the IRS to the gestapo now considering nothing is changing. Punishment for tax evasion and tax penalties aren’t something new.
Reelect LePage
Here is the latest on this: http://www.flackcheck.org/they-said-what/wow/gov-paul-lepage-said-what-new-gestapo/