From NJ to Maine, Big Rat Bastard Gummers of a feather flock together: Part 1, "The Idiot Thug Running Maine"

Oh no, there are two of them! Notice how even if you overlap Big Rat Bastard Gummers LePage and LeKrispy by about two-thirds, you still can't fit them in a single frame! Similarly, we're not going to be able to squeeze their current high jinks into a single post.

"Paul LePage has become a terrible embarrassment to the state I live in and love."

-- Maine's most famous citizen, novelist Stephen King

by Ken

As the Bangor Daily News's Mario Moretto reported last week from Becky's Diner in Portland, "On a rain-slickened patio above a bustling diner, Maine Gov. Paul LePage on Wednesday morning became the first Republican governor in the nation to endorse a presidential candidate for 2016: Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey."

Christie and LePage shook hands and exchanged pleasantries with a handful of customers before making their way upstairs to a rooftop deck for a news conference, where LePage announced his endorsement.

“When all of you and your colleagues around the country had me as a dead-walking governor, Chris Christie had faith,” LePage told members of the media. “He believed in us, came up, supported me wholeheartedly, never batted an eye.”

According to campaign finance reports, the RGA under Christie’s watch spent $5.1 million to help re-elect LePage in 2014, the most spent by any group on any candidate in Maine that year.

“I think he’s the real deal,” LePage later added. “He’s been a governor. He knows what hard decisions are. He’s going to make them. He’s not going to be a politician and talk out of both sides of his mouth. He’s going to tell you things you may not want to hear, but you need to. Then he’s going to go to work trying to fix them.”

And LeGovernor LePaul knows the real deal when he sees it. If not for that $5.1 million Governor LeKrispy poured into his reelection campaign last year, very likely he would now be the Nation's Battiest Ex-Governor rather than the Nation's Battiest Governor. It seems only right that now the Krispyman is kashing in -- if an endorsement from this "idiot thug" (to borrow the Daily Beast's epithet -- see below) qualifies.

And just as we couldn't squeeze both of our Big Rat Bastard Gummers in the picture atop this post, we can't squeeze their Big Rat Bastardry in one post, so today we'll focuse on LeGummer LePaul, and tomorrow we'll return to our old pal LeGumer LeKrispy.

When we last looked in on LeGummer LePaul, he was basking in the glow of the publicity generated by his jolly declaration that he'd like to shoot Bangor Daily News cartoonist George Danby -- a jolly declaration made in front of a college audience that included Danby's son. (See Noah's June 30 post, "Maine Gov. Paul LePage Conjures His Inner Terrorist.") Since then LePaul has kept right on making news, to the point where he's got a committee of the state legislature demanding an investigation into his hi jinks, and half a dozen legislators talking about impeachment.

The Idiot Thug Running Maine

Maine’s ultra-conservative governor might have finally messed with the wrong people: a school for disadvantaged kids. Now, he could get impeached for it.

Luke O'Neill
07.06.15 1:00 AM ET

Last week, members of the Maine legislature’s Government Oversight Committee unanimously called for an investigation into Tea Party Governor Paul LePage. At question is whether or not he inappropriately—and potentially illegally—abused his control over the state’s budget to force a charter school to fire a political opponent.

The “combative” governor, as The New York Times called him—which is New England shorthand for “asshole”—hasn’t so much protested his innocence as he has thumbed his nose at the bipartisan committee’s authority.

In a letter to Beth Ashcroft, the director of the oversight group, his counsel cited the legally-binding “You’re Not the Boss of Me” doctrine.

“The Governor and the exercise of his discretionary executive power are simply not subject to OPEGA’s jurisdiction and/or oversight,” the letter explained. “If members of the Legislature wish to ‘investigate’ the Governor, they should look to the Constitution for the authority to do so.”

They might do just that. Six state lawmakers recently said they would begin looking into the process of impeachment over the imbroglio, in which LePage has been accused of withholding more than $500,000 in state money from Good Will-Hinckley—which, sadly, isn’t a straight-to-DVD sequel, but rather a charter school for disadvantaged children.

LePage admits to demanding that the school sever ties with recently hired president Democratic House Speaker Mark Eves. Fearing the substantial and immediate loss of funds, the school promptly did just that. Eves, a longtime political foe, has said he’s considering a lawsuit against the governor.

He might have to wait in line.

Joining the chorus calling for LePage’s sizable head on a buttery roll is the Portland Press Herald, who outlined other instances in which LePage has toed the line of propriety. This time, at long last, the paper’s editorial board argues, he’s gone too far.

“If this is allowed to stand, the governor could intervene in the legislative process at will by using the full power of the state to threaten the livelihood of anyone who doesn’t vote his way,” the state's largest paper wrote. . . .

O'Neill goes on to hit some of the spectacularly lowest of the consistently low points of the governorship of the "idiot thug," and to explore the question "How does such a spittle-lipped, gaffe-prone, 'business-first' governor get elected in the traditionally mild-mannered state of Maine?" And, yes, reelected, in both cases by something like the narrowest of margins. He also directs attention to a column by the Bangor Daily News's Alex Steed, "We can't let LePage become who we are as Mainers," "about how frustrated he's become explaining what the deal is with LePage to people outside of Maine."

He tells The Daily Beast that it’s confounding that LePage managed to pull off another slight victory in 2014 “despite having become known for telling the NAACP to kiss his butt and warning school children against the dangers of reading newspapers.”

“Those things actually happened,” he says.

So yes indeedy, LeGummer LePaul would know "the real deal" when he sees it.


SAME TIME TOMORROW: GLAD TIDINGS
OF OUR OLD FRIEND LeGUMMER LeKRISPY

The KrispyMan has been a regular laff riot too, not least for going on Fox Noise and demanding an "apology" from "the liberal media."

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