What has LePage done
The writer of the July 31 letter to the editor feels Gov. Paul LePage is being disparaged and bullied by the media. She suggests the press should present a more balanced approach because he has a big heart and great love for our state.
Perhaps she could write a follow-up letter listing, as she stated, “the wonderful things” he has done for Maine.
David Gaw
Guilford
Boston bullying
Unfairness is my pet peeve. I dislike the importance male sports have in American society (including government subsidies), but I dislike unfairness even more.
Boston has always been New York’s negative-sportscasting scapegoat. I grew up in Woburn, Massachusetts, and as a young girl I watched Boston sports teams with my father. The negativity back in the 1950s and 1960s was just as bad as today. My father told me it had been going on since he was a boy. It was so ugly we turned down the volume and just watched the game. I still turn down the volume.
Roger Goodell should have stopped this Deflategate travesty before it got going. If Goodell is trying to acquire prestige or credibility by making Tom Brady an example, he would have done better to go after issues more socially prominent like domestic violence, child and animal abuse seen among some NFL players.
The saddest thing is that, after all his do-nothing actions, Goodell severely punishes Brady and the Patriots, proving he and the NFL have no backbones or respect for women, children and animals. News of other NFL owners challenging Goodell to “stick it to” Robert Kraft and the Patriots is pathetic. Unfortunately, I believe Kraft gave into Goodell’s initial punishment of docking the team’s first-round draft pick and a $1 million fine too quickly, thinking Goodell might go easy on Brady.
This condoned and enjoyed “Boston bullying” has to stop, and Boston sports fans have had to endure it for way too long.
Jackie Freitas
Friendship
Obama should dig clams
Rep. Larry Lockman’s July 5 OpEd, “‘Gang of Four’ budget deal a disaster for Mainers,” was correct and right on target. The Legislature failed the people of Maine. Gov. Paul LePage’s budget to reduce taxes, government spending and waste is just what the state needs.
Especially after the poor use of taxpayers’ money on the Legislature. Many of the governor’s critics sound like mean, hateful people.
Maine people should focus their attention on Washington, D.C., where waste, corruption and lies are running rampant. Why should taxpayers foot the bill for President Barack Obama’s million-dollar vacations?
Why doesn’t he vacation here again, spend money and dig clams with Down East clam diggers to see how real Americans work and earn a living?
The federal government and Obama give billions of our tax dollars to foreign countries who hate America. These monies should be kept here to fund our infrastructure, elderly and military.
Fred Hartman
Whiting
Planned Parenthood funding
The Senate on Monday blocked an effort to defund Planned Parenthood. A BDN editorial last week stated that this “would deprive poor women of needed health care.”
In the Bangor area, we have a federally qualified health clinic called Penobscot Community Health Care and rural clinics that give great care to all, regardless of insurance, including women’s health.
The funds Planned Parenthood receives should go to these clinics because they don’t provide abortions.
Philip Michaud
Bangor
LePage’s behavior
Gov. Paul LePage has been making both state and national headlines recently for his alleged blackmail of the nonprofit Good Will-Hinckley that forced House Speaker Mark Eves out of a job. While I’m happy to see that a nonpartisan investigation is under way, the spiteful hypocrisy with which the governor has conducted himself during this legislative session, and throughout his administration, shows me he was never fit to be governor.
I have just read the Portland Press Herald about LePage not being involved with the budget process.
This also turns out to be false because his staffers provide tax analysis to legislators. Again and again he does nothing to create jobs but continues his false statements.
Maine can’t afford this type of behavior.
Rob Copeland
Bath