Democrats in ME are calling on Republican Gov. Paul LePage to resign after a profanity-laced tirade on a state lawmaker’s voicemail and blaming the state’s drug problem on blacks and Hispanics. And I will tell you that 90-plus percent of those pictures in my book, and it’s a three-ring binder, are black and Hispanic people from Waterbury, Connecticut, the Bronx and Brooklyn.
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Maine, like many states, is grappling with a large and growing heroin epidemic.
He said: “When you go to war, if you know the enemy and the enemy dresses in red and you dress in blue, then you shoot at red”.
LePage trained his ire on Democratic state Rep.
“LePage then left an angry voicemail for Gattine, calling the Westbrook lawmaker a “(expletive) socialist (expletive)” and challenged him to “prove I’m a racist”. “And what hope Governor LePage is doing right now is coming up with a graceful transition to resign from office”.
Lawrence Mayor Dan Rivera said LePage, who is white, “wants to make boogeymen out of people that look different than him”.
LePage also “violates fundamental principles of civil discourse” by “framing the devastating drug trafficking and addiction problem our state faces as being fundamentally about race when it simply is not, and by promoting racial profiling”, the statement said. “His actions have become increasingly erratic over the last several years, but he has now crossed a line and we must act”. Drew Gattine, denies that.
“This is a national problem not just a ME problem or a Lawrence problem”.
Over the weekend the cascade of editorials, national talk show discussions and hundreds of thousands of comments on social media continued.
LePage recently downplayed a threat to shoot Gattine between the eyes in a duel. WGME is reporting Volk is recomending censure for the notorous governor. However, Alfond says LePage should step down immediately anyway. I want you to record this and make it public because I am after you.
“To pin the problem on cities like Lawrence and Lowell tells me he is playing to the cheap seats for cheap political points”, Laplante said.
To date, no Maine Republicans have called for his ouster, but some, including State Sen. “I think that about covers it”.
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Baker did not directly address the question of whether drug dealers from Lowell and Lawrence were traveling to ME to sell heroin and fentanyl, but said the governors did discuss whether an effort should be made to reach out to the federal government for help to fight trafficking.
