7/30/2015 http://bangordailynews.com/2015/07/30/politics/eves-rage-partisan-malice-prompted-lepage-blackmail/
VIDEO
In lawsuit, House Speaker Eves accuses LePage of blackmail
7/2/15 And the Dicktater strikes again- comments are the best.
http://bangordailynews.com/2015/07/02/politics/paul-lepage-to-review-approve-all-state-hires/comments/
LePage caught lying documented by his attorney and the media. Using elders to lie. Scum.
http://bangordailynews.com/2015/07/02/the-point/a-community-radio-station-fact-checked-a-lepage-speech-heres-what-it-found/
http://bangordailynews.com/2015/06/25/politics/after-saying-he-wants-to-shoot-cartoonist-lepage-accused-of-threat-to-lawmakers/
6/26/2015 Raging Threatening Idiot
A day after Gov. Paul LePage told a group of high school students that he would “like to shoot” a Bangor Daily News cartoonist, ( http://bangordailynews.com/2015/06/25/news/here-are-9-of-george-danbys-best-recent-lepage-cartoons/?ref=relatedSidebar ) a top advocate for expanding passenger rail to Lewiston-Auburn said that LePage earlier this month said state lawmakers from Lewiston should be “rounded up and executed in the public square.”
Maine House members launching push to impeach LePage
AUGUSTA | Six lawmakers said Thursday they
will attempt to launch impeachment proceedings against Republican Gov.
Paul LePage for his alleged role in pushing …
1 minute clip of Chuckie LeRage Unglued. The Old Boys Club (bullies) vote for LeRage. Too many old boys go to the polls. He counts on that. http://1drv.ms/1KT46Qo
http://bangordailynews.com/2015/06/08/politics/state-house/lepage-nixes-10-democratic-bills-following-through-on-veto-threat/
LePage made his veto threat to Democrats during a fiery, wide-ranging news conference 10 days ago. Furious that his opposition did not support his effort to kill the income tax, LePage said he would force every bill sponsored by a Democrat to win the support of two-thirds of the Legislature — the necessary threshold to override a veto.
“The governor makes a lot of threats, but we never know which threats he’ll follow through on,” Gideon said. “We expected more from our governor than this.”
Adrienne Bennett, LePage’s spokeswoman, said that because lawmakers have the power to override a veto, LePage isn’t preventing any bill from becoming a law.
“He understands he’s going to be overridden, but he’s making a point,” she said Monday. ...
House Majority Leader Jeff McCabe, D-Skowhegan, was the “leader in the room” who earned LePage’s ire. After the news conference, McCabe said the governor had come “unglued.”
6/8/2015
http://bangordailynews.com/2015/06/08/health/supreme-court-rejects-maine-challenge-to-medicaid-funding/
4/3/15 http://bangordailynews.com/2015/04/02/news/portland/confrontation-with-state-legislator-brings-lepage-town-hall-to-abrupt-end/
3/25/ 15- LeRage fires National Guard link. My comment is posted here- it most likely will be deleted by the BDN, they are Belfast City Hall sympathizers/supporters. http://bangordailynews.com/2015/03/24/news/state/lepage-fires-maine-national-guard-chief/
Below are older posts- haven't kept current on them. I missed a lot- overwhelmed with Belfast corruption.
LeRage- just announced he is asking for 2 million to fund a private attorney to push his agenda and over ride legislature and Attorney General Janet Mills. WHAT??? Yesterday he forced the president of the Community Colleges to resign by threatening to hold funds. Only the Board of Trustees can dismiss MCC president Fitzsimmons, 20? years served, lowest tuition and stellar reputation- one of the only shining stars of Maine institution. The Board praises Fitzsimmons with high integrity and leadershipe. He must have disagreed with LeRage's agenda for our children. Where is the protest?? http://www.wmtw.com/…/maine-community-college-syst…/30701522
He is the hammer slammer to the 99%. The ill in power- we see it and ignore it until...
LePage budget seeks a $2 million private legal contingency
The governor
wants money to hire outside lawyers in cases that the state's attorney
general declines to take, a move that the AG's office calls 'baffling
and unprecedented.'
AUGUSTA – Republican Gov. Paul LePage wants to set aside $2
million in Maine’s budget to cover legal fees in cases not supported by
the state’s top attorney, a Democrat who has disagreed with the governor
on a number of issues during his first term.The $6.3 billion budget proposal that LePage unveiled last week includes $1 million in each of the next two fiscal years for “legal contingencies in which the attorney general declines to represent the state.”
LePage’s administration said that the governor is pursuing an “aggressive agenda” and wants to ensure the funds are available if he must pursue outside counsel in the future.
But Tim Feeley, a spokesman for Attorney General Janet Mills, called it “baffling and unprecedented” that the governor would need $2 million for private attorneys. He said there have only been two cases in which the attorney general has authorized LePage to hire outside counsel because of a disagreement between the two offices.
LePage hired private lawyers last year to appeal the federal government’s denial of his request to remove about 6,000 young adults from the state’s Medicaid program, after Mills told the governor the case had “little legal merit” and wouldn’t be a good use of money.
The Associated Press reported last week that that the administration paid nearly $53,000 out of the governor’s contingency fund to Portland law firm Roach, Hewitt, Ruprecht, Sanchez & Bischoff to pursue the case, according to documents obtained through a Freedom of Access Act request.
His administration has also hired the firm to defend the state in a lawsuit filed by the Maine Municipal Association and two cities that are challenging the state’s policy to withhold General Assistance benefits to immigrants who are living in the state illegally.
Mills has said that LePage doesn’t have the authority to implement the change in welfare regulations.
Peter Steele, a spokesman for LePage, said the governor believes that the money is good to have in case it’s needed. He said LePage wants to use the money in his contingency fund to help nonprofit organizations and community projects, as he typically does, not to pay legal fees.
A similar proposal in LePage’s budget plan two years ago would have transferred $300,000 from Mills’ office to the governor’s office for matters in which she refuses to represent the administration, but it was rejected by the Democratic-controlled Legislature.
Feeley said that the attorney general’s office “provides the best legal advice and representation possible to the administration and its agencies” and that the few times it has decided not to represent the state have been because of an ethical conflict or because it didn’t think the administration could prevail in the case.
“We have no reason to suspect that the governor will persist in pursuing cases against our legal
advice" he said.
A few of his opinions from the BDN article dated 6/2013 pity it hasn't been updated but still mind twisted http://bangordailynews.com/2013/03/30/opinion/lepagequotes/...
• June 20, 2013: Gov. Paul LePage says Democratic Sen. Troy Jackson has “no brains” and a “black heart” and is “claims to be for the people but he’s the first one to give it to the people without Vaseline” after the senator from Aroostook County gives the Democratic response to LePage’s budget veto.
• June 18, 2013: Gov. Paul LePage created a stir again on Tuesday when he ordered his administration to stop speaking to the the Portland Press Herald, Kennebec Journal and Waterville Sentinel.
• May 29, 2013: “Next year I would like you to create a Legislature that doesn’t speak back.” — LePage speaking to students with his second annual Governor’s Promising STEM Youth Awards, who brought robots they had built to the State House for the recognition ceremony.
• May 29, 2013: “The minute we start stifling our speech, we might as well go home, roll up our sleeves and get our guns out.” — LePage commenting about censorship by Democrats, related to the television screen outside his office.
• May 23, 2013: If I have to remove myself from the toxic climate of censorship by Democrats in the State House to defend the taxpayers of Maine, then that’s what I will do.” — LePage threatens to move his office from the State House after Democratic leaders refused to allow him to place a television screen outside his office.
May 19, 2013: “The people of the state of Maine are being played for patsies.” — LePage after being denied the ability to speak to the Appropriations Committee at the conclusion of a rare Sunday meeting.
• March 1, 2013: “I don’t care if it’s my bills. I’ll veto my own bills.” — LePage promises to veto any bill that comes across his desk until the Legislature passes his plan to repay $484 million owed to the state’s hospitals.
• Jan. 9, 2013: “ If you’ve got a job and you’re going to be intimidated, give it up and we’ll get somebody who can do the job. I am asking them for the good of the kids of the state of Maine, please go away. We don’t need you. We need some people with backbones.” — LePage calling on the members of Maine’s charter school commission to resign, a day after the seven-member panel rejected four out of five applications for new charter schools.
• January 2013: “ You guys, you’re idiots and you’re just as bad if not worse than those other guys.” — LePage comparing independent lawmakers to Democrats during a meeting with three independent legislators on alternate approaches to balancing the state budget.
• Nov. 9, 2012: “ If you want a good education in Maine, and I get criticized by my opponents because I’m hard on education, but if you want a good education, go to an academy. If you want a good education go to private schools. If you can’t afford it, tough luck. You can go to the public school.” — LePage discusses school choice during an “Eggs ‘n Issues” talk at York County Community College.
• July 12, 2012: “ The Holocaust was a horrific crime against humanity and, frankly, I would never want to see that repeated. Maybe the IRS is not quite as bad — yet.” — LePage compares the IRS to the Gestapo during an interview with Seven Days, an alternative weekly newspaper in Burlington, Vt. He later apologized for his remarks.
• April 27, 2012: “The problem is the middle management of the state is about as corrupt as you can be. Believe me, we’re trying every day to get them to go to work, but it’s hard.” — LePage responds to a question about fees at a town hall forum in Newport.
• March 31, 2012: “That [criticism] is coming from a little spoiled brat from Portland. He’s very fortunate that his granddad was born ahead of him.” — LePage on Sen. Justin Alfond, D-Portland, when asked about Democratic calls for an investigation of the Department of Health and Human Services.
• March 15, 2012: “The press. Reading newspapers in the state of Maine is like paying somebody to tell you lies.” — LePage to a student who asked him what he didn’t like about his job during his appearance as keynote speaker at a Career Conversations event at Waterville Junior High School.
• March 25, 2011: “ I’d laugh at them, the idiots. That’s what I would do. Come on! Get over yourselves!” — LePage when asked what he would do if people formed a human chain to block the removal of the mural from the state Department of Labor.
• February 2011: “The only thing that I’ve heard is if you take a plastic bottle and put it in the microwave and you heat it up, it gives off a chemical similar to estrogen. So the worst case is some women may have little beards.” — LePage saying he has yet to see enough science to support a ban on BPA, a common additive to plastics that some research suggests may interfere with hormone levels and could cause long-term problems.
• Jan. 14, 2011: “ Tell them to kiss my butt.” — LePage to reporters in response to suggestions from NAACP members and others that his decision not to attend ceremonies honoring Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was part of a negative pattern.
• September 2010: “As your governor, you’re going to be seeing a lot of me on the front page, saying ‘Governor LePage tells Obama to go to hell.’” — LePage telling a crowd of fishermen that, if elected, they could expect to see him stand up to the Obama administration.
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And this article was from a year ago- as Regis Tremblay stated- WE ARE SCREWED http://ctn5.org/shows/issue/issue-bruce-gagnon-regis-tremblay-812
Maine’s Paul LePage Might Just Be the Worst Governor of All
Governor Paul LePage speaks at the State House in Augusta, Maine, 2011. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Now Christie is busy answering questions about blocked traffic, misdirected Sandy aid and political misdeeds. Walker’s facing national and state scrutiny of secret e-mails and illegal campaign operations so intense that even Fox News Sunday’s Chris Wallace interrupted him to say, “But sir, you’re not answering my question.” And Kasich is scrambling to deal with a “Frackgate” controversy touched off by the exposure of a public-relations scheme—apparently developed by his administration, Halliburton and oil and gas industry lobbyists—to “proactively open state park and forest land” for fracking.
The scandals surrounding these prominent Republican governors, some of them potential presidential contenders, are serious. And they raise the question: Could there really be a governor who is more controversial? And whose actions might be even more troubling?
Meet Maine Governor Paul LePage, who ranked in the very top tier of CREW’s “worst” list with this review:
Now, the federal investigation has been completed, and LePage is still very much in the “worst governor” competition. A report from the US Department of Labor Office of the Solicitor General concluded that LePage and his appointees meddled with the process by which unemployment claims are reviewed—apparently with an eye toward advantaging employers and disadvantaging the jobless.The first-term governor packed his administration with lobbyists and used his office to promote their environmental-deregulation agenda, and allegedly went so far as to fire a state employee who testified in favor of policies the administration opposed.Gov. LePage also attempted to gut his state’s open records act, and is under investigation by the federal government for trying to bully employees of the state Department of Labor into deciding more cases in favor of business.
When the governor and his appointees pressured officials who consider appeals from Mainers seeking unemployment benefits, the federal investigation concluded, they acted with “what could be perceived as a bias toward employers.” Specifically, the investigators determined, “hearing officers could have interpreted the expectations communicated by the Governor…as pressure to be more sympathetic to employers.”
The headlines from Maine newspapers Thursday were blunt:
In the Maine legislature, there were
immediate calls for hearings into the governor's actions. State
Senator John Patrick, a Democrat who chairs the Legislature’s Labor
Committee, said, "After
this, I wonder how you can trust the governor to move forward fairly
and in an unbiased way." Senate Majority Leader Troy Jackson, a veteran
Democratic legislator, went further, suggesting that LePage should be
removed from office. “I think he should be impeached,” said Jackson.
“The governor thinks he should be the next [Wisconsin Governor] Scott
Walker, but he should be thinking about being the next [impeached
Illinois Governor] Rod Blagojevich.”
Bombastic as ever, LePage on Saturday responded to the impeachment talk by declaring "if (Jackson) has cause, bring it on."
But Mainers were unimpressed.
The "It's Time for Paul LePage to Resign" petition
circulated by state Representative Diane Russell, a Portland Democrat,
had attracted almost 20,000 signatures by Friday afternoon.
For his part, LePage was complaining that he
was targeted unfairly by the Obama administration. But the investigation
into LePage’s actions go back almost a year and has deep roots in
Maine, as noted by the state's Sun Journal newspaper in a front-page story Thursday:
LePage denied the charges and claimed his communications with the hearing officers were “cordial.” When the US Department of Labor investigation was launched—because hearing officers are paid with federal funds and must follow federal rules—the governor denied it was going on.An April 11 Sun Journal investigation cited sources who said the governor had summoned DOL employees to a mandatory luncheon at the Blaine House on March 21 and scolded them for finding too many unemployment-benefit appeals cases in favor of workers. They were told they were doing their jobs poorly, sources said. Afterward, they told the Sun Journal they felt abused, harassed and bullied by the governor.Emails released under a Freedom of Access Act request echoed complaints made to the Sun Journal by the hearing officers who attended the meeting.
But there is no denying now that LePage has been called out for creating what reasonable people would interpret as an unfair “bias” against the jobless in a state that has a significantly higher unemployment rate than its northern New England neighbors New Hampshire and Vermont.
LePage is expected to seek re-election this year. Among the candidates he will face is Democratic Congressman Mike Michaud, a third-generation paper mill worker who says, “I understand what people are going through, the hard times that they are facing. Whether or not they have a job today or tomorrow, the uncertainty is real.”
Providing a fair process for reviewing unemployment claims helps to address that uncertainty. Infusing bias into the process is not just wrong, it’s cruel. And that cruelty—as much as any political abuse or ethical excess—provides a vital measure for assessing the worst of the worst governors.
Read Next: John Nichols on the Governor Scott Walker investigation
1/16/2015
I googled the Maine Attorney General and saw this disturbing story. The registry of deeds can house proof of the corruption of real estate. In Belfast, City Planner Wayne Marshall immediately stopped recording his final approved site plans in the Waldo County Registry when he came on in 1999? Hello Total Corruption. This article makes me think maybe Diane knows something???
12/30/2014
Somerset County registrar of deeds allegedly locked herself in office
Authorities disclose new details leading up to county officials' decision to put Diane Godin on unpaid leave.
SKOWHEGAN — Newly re-elected Registrar of Deeds Diane Godin, who
remains on unpaid leave, prompted a police response Dec. 4 after locking
herself in her office and refusing to come out after Somerset County
officials had barred her from the building, according to newly disclosed
details released Tuesday by authorities.The new details suggest that Godin disagreed with a decision by county commissioners, made less than a month after she was re-elected, to ban her from the building over allegations that she was being rude and angering the public.
Additional Images
Diane Godin
Godin, who could not be reached Tuesday by phone or at her home for comment, is scheduled to attend a closed-door meeting Jan. 21 with county commissioners to renegotiate her contract, according to County Administrator Dawn DiBlasi.
DiBlasi and other county officials have previously refused to comment on why Godin was placed on leave, though Commissioner Robin Frost said the personnel issue was related to Godin “showing up for work. … She hasn’t been coming at all for normal business hours.”
On Tuesday, Frost said Godin was not wanted in the courthouse until after the January meeting because county commissioners received complaints about her behavior from lawyers using the registry for their work and from members of the public using the registry for research. The department is responsible for recording and keeping track of papers that show evidence of land ownership, mortgages and liens on real estate and other property.
Godin “refused to come to the meeting for the renewal of her contract and because of personnel issues,” Frost said of the move barring Godin from the county building. “She was actually not just not fulfilling her responsibilities, she was actually breaking HR laws by being impossible, derogatory. … There were many, many complaints from the general public about her behavior.”
Frost, whose term as a county commissioner ends Wednesday, said Godin exceeded the number of vacation and sick days allowed in her contract, resulting in her “being slightly overpaid.”
Last year, Godin was paid $40,800 plus benefits, for a total package of $56,029.
Godin, 52, was asked to leave the Somerset County courthouse the morning of Dec. 4 by DiBlasi, according to Skowhegan Police Chief Ted Blais. Godin would not immediately leave and locked herself in her office, refusing to come out and bringing local police to the courthouse, Blais said.
Blais said he was on his way into town about 8 a.m. that day when he heard police radio traffic indicating a problem at the courthouse.
“I heard the call to the county court building for an unwanted person to be removed,” Blais said. “I went over there and the complaining party was the county administrator, Dawn DiBlasi.”
Blais said he entered the courthouse building and DiBlasi pointed in the direction of the registry office and said, “She’s not supposed to be here, she needs to leave,” referring to Godin.
“She was pointing toward the office and the door was shut, and Diane was in her office with the door shut and locked and wouldn’t come out,” Blais said. “According to the county administrator, there was a meeting the night before, and it was determined that she was not to be allowed in the building by the county commissioners.”
Blais said the deputy police chief and other police officers arrived as well. Blais knocked on Godin’s door and she let him in, telling the police chief that she had been duly elected to the post and that it was not right for county officials to keep her from the building.
“In the heat of the moment, they were wound up. Dawn was wound up, and she was wound up and they were pretty verbal for a couple of minutes there,” Blais said. “Then we sat in the office, she calmed down and said, ‘Fine, if they don’t want me here, I’m going to go,’ and she left.”
DiBlasi said Tuesday she could not comment further because it is a confidential personnel matter.
In an email Tuesday, County Commissioner Phil Roy said he thought the action against Godin was legal, but did not cite any state laws that might apply.
State law says that the “removal” of a registrar of deeds can only be done by the Superior Court acting on a filing by the attorney general or a grand jury and entering a judgment for removal if the person is “found guilty of misconduct in his office or incapable of discharging its duties.” So far, Godin has not been removed from office.
Rose Smith, assistant to Maine Attorney General Janet Mills, said Tuesday she had conferred with Mills and with an assistant attorney general and decided that the case should be handled by the county commissioners and the county’s lawyer.
“Other than that, we have no comment at this time,” Smith said.
DiBlasi confirmed that an attorney with the law firm of Jensen Baird Gardner & Henry of Portland was handling the case, but would not say which of the dozen or more lawyers in the firm was dealing with the Godin matter. A call to the law firm Tuesday was not immediately returned.
Somerset County District Attorney Maeghan Maloney said this month that she was aware of Godin’s situation but would not talk about specifics. The investigation is being handled by the county and Maloney said she is not conducting an investigation. No formal complaint against Godin has been filed by the county, she said.
Laura Price, who is the deputy registrar of deeds and ran against Godin in the November election, and other employees in the registry will assume Godin’s duties in the meantime, according to DiBlasi.
Godin is herself a former deputy registrar who was appointed to the top post in 2001 after her predecessor, Marguerite Libby, retired. Godin was elected on her own the following year and defeated opponents to win new terms in 2006, 2010 and again in November.
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