Gattine, the House chair of the Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee, said it was “hard to believe” the message came from the governor, the Press Herald reported.
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“When you go to war. you try to identify the enemy”, LePage said Friday. I want you to record this and make it public because I am after you.. “The enemy right now, the overwhelming majority of people coming in, are people of color or people of Hispanic origin”.
His comments came the day after he left an expletive-laden voicemail for ME representative Drew Gattine.
Maine Governor and big-time Donald Trump supporter, Paul LePage, wants you to know he isn’t a racist, although he is. I’ve spent my life helping black people, and you little son of a b–, socialist. “And we would have a duel, that’s how angry I am, and I would not put my gun in the air, I guarantee you, I would not be (Alexander) Hamilton. Thank you”, he added. “I’m not going to play that game with the governor”, Gattine told Sciutto.
In a statement Alison Beyea, executive director of the ACLU of ME said, “According to the governor, ME police are nine times more likely to arrest people of color for selling drugs than white people, even though we know white people are just as likely to commit drug offenses”.
“According to the governor, ME police are nine times more likely to arrest people of color for selling drugs than white people, even though we know white people are just as likely to commit drug offenses.
Legislators like Gattine would rather be politically correct than work with me to stop this crisis that is killing five Mainers a week”, LePage said in a statement. “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”.
The Press-Herald editorial board apologized to the United States for electing LePage, who they called obviously unfit for office and expressed relief that he is term-limited.
Governor LePage once again made national headlines Friday, this time: an extremely inappropriate voicemail sent the day prior to a ME lawmaker.
LePage says being called a racist is “the absolute worst, most vile thing you can call a person”.
LePage stirred controversy recently for his comments that the vast majority of drug offenders in ME are black or hispanic and from out of the state. “Calling somebody a racist is one of the worst things you can ever call somebody”. I didn’t know Drew Gattine from a hole in the wall until yesterday. “That’s how angry I am”. I am a history buff, and I referenced how political opponents used to call each other out in the 1820s – including Andrew Jackson, the father of the Democratic Party.
On Thursday, amid uproar over LePage’s comments, Democratic Rep. “He sounded like if I’d been in the room with him that he’d be attacking me physically”, he said.
Gattine provided a copy of the voicemail to Maine Public Radio News Friday morning. “This alarming disparity in arrests raises significant concerns that ME law enforcement is participating in unconstitutional racial profiling”, the ACLU’s ME executive director, Alison Beyea, said in a press statement, citing studies that black and white people use and sell drugs at similar rates.
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LePage also spoke with reporters Friday afternoon.
