ISBL Asshat of the Week: Maine’s Racist Republican Governor, Paul LePage

We’ve all been so caught up in the rantings of that racist, bigoted, carnival sideshow barking GOP nutjob Donald [t]Rump, that we almost, almost, missed that other racist, bigoted —and homophobic — carnival side barking GOP nutjob, Maine’s Republican governor, Paul LePage, who went off the rails in spectacular fashion recently.

As [t]Rump did early on in his campaign to become Hater-In-Chief by remarking that Mexicans are rapists, drug dealers and murderers, Governor LePage came out and said that “90 percent-plus” of those arrested for dealing drugs in Maine “are black and Hispanic people from Waterbury, Connecticut, the Bronx and Brooklyn.”

Cuz, you know, all the good white folks in Maine wouldn’t buy, sell, or do drugs; it’s those nasty Blacks and Mexicans.

And shortly after that, when Drew Gattine, a Democratic representative for the state of Maine,  criticized him for those remarks, LePage called Gattine a “cocksucker” and then warned Gattine that he was “after” him”:

“I want to talk to you. I want you to prove that I’m a racist. I’ve spent my life helping black people and you little son-of-a-bitch, socialist cocksucker. You, I need you to, just freakin’, I want you to record this and make it public because I am after you. Thank you.”

And so Gattine did make it public, which may not have been what LePage really wanted because he then did that GOP non-apology-apology thing that they do, by apologizing to the people of Maine:

“I called Gattine … the worst word I could think of. I apologize for that to the people of Maine, but I make no apology for trying to end the drug epidemic that is ravaging our state. Legislators like Gattine would rather be politically correct and protect ruthless drug dealers than work with me to stop this crisis that is killing five Mainers a week.”

He then said that his threat to go “after” Gattine was just his way of saying he would “do everything I could to see that he and his agenda is defeated politically.”

Yeah, except he didn’t say that.

Now, this might come as a surprise … to some … while others realize that this kind of divisionism is what the GOP does … but LePage has been off-the-rails crazy for the last half-decade.

As a candidate, he vowed to tell President Obama to “go to hell,” while also telling the NAACP to “kiss my butt.” He demanded that the state’s able-bodied unemployed “get off the couch and get a job,” and said that asylum seekers bring “hepatitis C, tuberculosis, AIDS, HIV, the ziki fly” — I think he meant the Zika mosquito — to Maine and warned that out-of-state men with names like “D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty,” come to Maine to sell drugs and “impregnate a young white girl” before leaving.

Yeah, so the idea that people think Paul LePage is a bigot, a homophobe, a racist, and a nut job has seemingly been proven by the very words of Paul LePage. But then, think again, the things he’s saying are the same kinds of things the big GOP nutjob, the one with the dead raccoon on his said, has been saying for months, to throngs of supporters.

But there might be good news out of Maine; after calling LePage “unfit to serve as governor right now” — ya think? — Assistant House Democratic Leader Sara Gideon said Republican leaders should stage an intervention to get LePage “the help he needs” if he does not resign 

LePage responded by saying he would resign … if Gattine did as well.

And then, because racists cannot seem to help themselves, he stepped even deeper into the Looney pool that Donald [t]Rump created for the GOP by telling a room full of reporters that people of color are the “enemy” in Maine’s war on drugs and that they must be … wait for it, this man’s a politician, an elected official … they must be killed:

“Look, a bad guy is a bad guy, I don’t care what color it is. When you go to war, if you know the enemy, the enemy dresses in red and you dress in blue, you shoot at red, don’t you? You shoot at the enemy. You try to identify the enemy. And the enemy right now, the overwhelming majority right now coming in are people of color or people of Hispanic origin. I can’t help that. I just can’t help it. Those are the facts,”

LePage then played show-and-tell with a binder full of drug offenders' mug shots to bolster his bogus claim that 90% of drug offenders in Maine are black or Hispanic men from other states.

I could go on because this man is fodder for a rant of epic proportions, but I think I’ll let one of Maine’s most famous citizens, author Stephen King say his piece:

"Our governor, Paul LePage, is a bigot, a homophobe, and a racist. I think that about covers it."

Well, except that in addition to all of that, Paul LePage is also the ISBL Asshat of the Week!

NY Daily News