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Tags John Lewis , Maine politics , Paul LePage , racism charges , racism incidents , racism issues

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Old 18th January 2017, 04:34 PM   #1
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Racist Paul LePage, Maine Guv, is at it again.

Paul LePage Tells John Lewis He Should 'Thank Lincoln For His Freedom'
Quote:
Maine Governor Paul LePage weighed in on Donald Trump's attack on Rep. John Lewis by siding with the President-elect and demanded Rep. John Lewis look at history and give a "simple thank you" to the white men that gave him his freedom....

He continued, "I will just say this. John Lewis ought to look at history. It was Abraham Lincoln who freed the slaves, it was Rutherford B. Hayes and Ulysses S. Grant who fought against Jim Crow laws. A simple thank you would suffice.”
This is the same guy who said, “Let me tell you something: Black people come up the highway and they kill Mainers.
Quote:
Asked why he brought up the race of the suspects in his binder, LePage criticized the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram for not printing all booking mugshots of those charged with trafficking in heroin.

“That’s what gave me the idea of going to the jail and getting the pictures, and then a couple of weeks later you started to print them again,” LePage said. “You know and I know and everybody in the state knows that the overwhelming majority of the people that have been arrested this year, coming out of Connecticut and New York, have been black and Hispanic, it’s not a matter of race,...

“These are guys with the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty – these types of guys – they come from Connecticut and New York, they come up here, they sell their heroin, they go back home,” LePage said at the Bridgton meeting. “Incidentally, half the time they impregnate a young white girl before they leave, which is a real sad thing because then we have another issue we have to deal with down the road.”

When asked Thursday what he would say to those who believe he’s a racist, LePage said he is not, and that it angers him that his political rivals and the media assume he is racist.
He agreed with Maine Republican Party Chairman Charlie Webster, that there was evidence of voter fraud because he saw blacks voting.

Gov. Paul LePage called Maine’s voting process into question Tuesday, saying that elections – which twice have put him in the governor’s mansion – aren’t “clean” because voters don’t have to show identification at the polls.
Quote:
In 2012, then-Maine Republican Party Chairman Charlie Webster alleged voting irregularities in the election that November, claiming without evidence that hundreds of unknown black people showed up in some rural towns to vote on Election Day.

“In some parts of rural Maine, there were dozens, dozens of black people who came in and voted,” Webster said. When questioned about his assertion he refused to provide details, and no proof was ever found that unknown people were voting fraudulently.
LePage is totally oblivious to how racist he sounds.
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Old 18th January 2017, 04:48 PM   #2
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I will just say this. Paul LePage ought to look at history.

Quote:
But Hayes’ election actually kicked off Jim Crow laws. The governor’s interpretation ignores that and leaves out almost 100 years of history.

Jim Crow laws, which enforced racial segregation in the South, were in place from the late 1870s to the 1960s. Grant’s signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was largely ignored in the former Confederacy.

Then, Hayes won office under the Compromise of 1877, an informal deal after a contested election that gave him the White House in exchange for promising to pull Northern troops out of the South. It allowed Jim Crow laws to take root. That’s why Lewis and others marched in Alabama in 1965, where he was beaten by state troopers.
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Old 18th January 2017, 04:49 PM   #3
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Okay, first, we gotta talk about these nicknames. "Smoothie"? That's a beverage. And "Shifty"?

Trust me, no black guy alive would willingly take on a nickname that sounds like some Dick Tracy character...

Uh, anyway, this is not exactly a shock from LePage. Hopefully the Maine dems can get it together next time their governorship is up for grabs and unite behind a single candidate. As I recall, they basically split their vote last time, which is why this racist, union-bashing fool is still around.

But regardless, his input is not welcome.
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Old 18th January 2017, 04:54 PM   #4
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Originally Posted by Mumbles View Post
Uh, anyway, this is not exactly a shock from LePage. Hopefully the Maine dems can get it together next time their governorship is up for grabs and unite behind a single candidate. As I recall, they basically split their vote last time, which is why this racist, union-bashing fool is still around.
Maine now has ranked choice voting for gubernatorial elections.
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Old 18th January 2017, 05:47 PM   #5
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He's no different from multiple posters on this very forum, who have repeatedly said that Democrats are the real racists because southern Dems opposed civil rights 70 years ago.
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Old 18th January 2017, 06:13 PM   #6
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Originally Posted by Stacko View Post
Maine now has ranked choice voting for gubernatorial elections.
That could help, as well...
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Old 18th January 2017, 06:17 PM   #7
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Originally Posted by Trebuchet View Post
He's no different from multiple posters on this very forum, who have repeatedly said that Democrats are the real racists because southern Dems opposed civil rights 70 years ago.
And who cite revisionist history, just like LePage, that fools no one other than those who want to be fooled, a bunch of folk who justify their bigotry by "Wait a minute! I didn't own any slaves. I can't be the problem."
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Old 18th January 2017, 07:00 PM   #8
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He's a jackass, but he just spoke aloud what most Republicans in government either believe or wish were true.

They want credit for ending slavery but they want to yada-yada over the last 60 years of fighting desegregation.
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Old 18th January 2017, 07:06 PM   #9
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Originally Posted by Loss Leader View Post
He's a jackass, but he just spoke aloud what most Republicans in government either believe or wish were true.

They want credit for ending slavery but they want to yada-yada over the last 60 years of fighting desegregation.
It helps if you look at it in terms of progressivism.

In the 1860s, the Republicans were the social progressives.

Now the tables have turned.

But all of that nuance is, like, hard, and stuff.
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Old 18th January 2017, 07:07 PM   #10
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I think it's very white of the gov to give credit to the white people who ended slavery and Jim Crow laws, and not to mention the non-white people who presumably established them.
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Old 18th January 2017, 07:56 PM   #11
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Originally Posted by Foolmewunz View Post
And who cite revisionist history, just like LePage, that fools no one other than those who want to be fooled, a bunch of folk who justify their bigotry by "Wait a minute! I didn't own any slaves. I can't be the problem."
Lol

None of us owned any slaves but we're still the problem?
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Old 18th January 2017, 08:00 PM   #12
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Originally Posted by Loss Leader View Post
He's a jackass, but he just spoke aloud what most Republicans in government either believe or wish were true.
Total BS. The vast majority of America has fully accepted blacks including republicans in government, but please continue this dishonest narrative, it's helped you so much.
Quote:
They want credit for ending slavery but they want to yada-yada over the last 60 years of fighting desegregation.
Its clear who the credit goes to ending slavery, your side seems to keep reliving it.
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Old 18th January 2017, 08:01 PM   #13
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Originally Posted by Trebuchet View Post
He's no different from multiple posters on this very forum, who have repeatedly said that Democrats are the real racists because southern Dems opposed civil rights 70 years ago.
Its more accurate to say the Dems have destroyed the black community in America, solely to gain power.
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Old 18th January 2017, 08:25 PM   #14
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Originally Posted by logger View Post
Lol

None of us owned any slaves but we're still the problem?
Yep.
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Old 18th January 2017, 08:35 PM   #15
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This came into focus when Rand Paul tried giving a lecture at Howard, a traditionally African American college. He asked the students if they knew Republicans had created the NAACP. They answered in unison with this perfectly bored, "yes." And Paul was dumbfounded. He thought that was his big ace in the hole.

Originally Posted by Washington Post
It turned out that the audience knew the NAACP's history, something Paul said he didn't know would be the case. "This is my first time to go to a historically black college," Paul said. "In retrospect, it sounds like it is a dumb question but it's like, Republicans haven't been going to Howard for 20 years." Most Americans, he noted, probably would not know that fact. "I learned something, that everybody there knows," he said. "I was told that in no uncertain terms."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.27f566ab8d4a
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Old 18th January 2017, 08:45 PM   #16
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Originally Posted by logger View Post
Lol

None of us owned any slaves but we're still the problem?
Who's this "us"? Are you self-identifying with racists? 'Cuz that's who I'm speaking about.

The point is that the new standard for conservatives is a bar that's that low. "I didn't man a firehose in Birmingham. I didn't lynch any black people. I never owned a slave in my life. Q.E.D., I'm not a racist. See? I proved it."



Originally Posted by logger View Post
Total BS. The vast majority of America has fully accepted blacks including republicans in government, but please continue this dishonest narrative, it's helped you so much.
And women. That's why the Republican Congressional caucus is 83% white men. It seems that "accepting" means "tolerating them 'cuz we have to according to the law". It doesn't mean support or vote for or make welcome in the Party.

The majority (not vast, but majority nevertheless) is not racist. That is true. We are talking about the seamier dark underbelly of the conservative movement, who are blatant racists. When the rest of you defend LePage and Paladino and Duke as "not possibly a racist 'cuz they never owned any slaves" and hand-wave their bigotry away, you do yourselves and your country a disservice.

Quote:
Its clear who the credit goes to ending slavery, your side seems to keep reliving it.
Yeah, it's clear. The mid-19th century alliance of progressives and abolitionists that formed the Republican Party. You didn't own no slaves, though. Similarly, you weren't part of the Republican Party of the 1860s. You can't deny one and claim the other. The Republican Party you grudgingly support (because it's the most conservative party available) put up a sign in 1964 - Reopening Soon Under New Management. That's the party your in favor of. If Abe Lincoln showed up here as a new poster, you'd spend all your time calling him a Lefty or a LOL Librul.

Originally Posted by logger View Post
Its more accurate to say the Dems have destroyed the black community in America, solely to gain power.
Yeah, it's still fashionable to quote Lew Rockwell and the rest of the-south-will-rise-again revisionists like Coulter.... in certain circles (well, in an oval office tomorrow), but it's still revisionist bull feces.
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Old 18th January 2017, 09:34 PM   #17
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Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger View Post

FTFY!!!!!!!!
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Old 19th January 2017, 01:02 AM   #18
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Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger View Post
The governor would you use his time better contemplating how that sub human piece of filth became the part of Lincoln's presidential nominee.
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Old 19th January 2017, 01:52 AM   #19
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Originally Posted by logger View Post
Lol

None of us owned any slaves but we're still the problem?
Got that right.
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Old 19th January 2017, 03:57 AM   #20
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Originally Posted by Loss Leader View Post
This came into focus when Rand Paul tried giving a lecture at Howard, a traditionally African American college. He asked the students if they knew Republicans had created the NAACP. They answered in unison with this perfectly bored, "yes." And Paul was dumbfounded. He thought that was his big ace in the hole.



https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.27f566ab8d4a
The funny part is, Paul's actually the member of the GOP who does outreach to black people. He was the only person in the GOP who said "Hey, this is awful!" back when police were driving around in military equipment in Ferguson.

LePage is from the "I love elites and hate the lessers" wing of the GOP. As much as he's an obvious racist, truth is that he'll sell the average white person up the river, too.
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Old 19th January 2017, 06:22 AM   #21
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Originally Posted by Mumbles View Post
The funny part is, Paul's actually the member of the GOP who does outreach to black people. He was the only person in the GOP who said "Hey, this is awful!" back when police were driving around in military equipment in Ferguson.

LePage is from the "I love elites and hate the lessers" wing of the GOP. As much as he's an obvious racist, truth is that he'll sell the average white person up the river, too.
He is one of the few people in the GOP who seem willing to make a stand to the party leadership on personal principles and not as say a teaparty vs mainstream republican principles.
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Old 19th January 2017, 06:54 AM   #22
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My perception of Rand Paul is that he is consistently libertarian and truly stands for libertarian policies.

It is also my perception that many whites seemed to feel that by ending slavery, we solved the race issue ignoring things like Jim Crow. LePage is probably the best example of this.
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Old 19th January 2017, 09:33 AM   #23
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LePage is simply awful. Recall that he also took down a mural dedicated to workers.

I'd never vote for Rand Paul. But when he says that he'd never enter a store that banned people based on race, I think he's telling the truth. I think his visit to Howard was also honest, though he was deeply ignorant as to his audience. There's a certain level of ignorance to his old objection to the Civil Rights Act, for sure. Even he could have made an argument based on the idea that racist businesses had formed a cartel. And of course, I lean liberal.

But I do prefer him to the flat out raging hostility towards black people (or Hispanic people, or LGBT folk) that we often see from Republicans like LePage. And he does seem to stick to some principles, while others bend based on skin color. He's the best of a bad lot, I guess - while LePage is among the worst of the worst.

(BTW, I don't trust Paul to be libertarian towards LGBT folk - and yes, that is a problem)
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Old 22nd August 2017, 03:07 PM   #24
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He's making revisionist history now.

Quote:
Maine Gov. Paul LePage defended monuments to the Confederacy in a radio interview on Tuesday, claiming that 7,600 Mainers fought for the South and that the war was initially about land, not slavery.

Two Civil War historians contacted by told CNN disputed LePage's assertions.

"What was the war? If you really truly read and study the Civil War, it was turned into a battle for the slaves, but initially — I mean, 7,600 Mainers fought for the Confederacy," LePage, a Republican, said in an interview with Maine radio station WVOM. "And they fought because they were concerned about — they were farmers — and they were concerned about their land. Their property. It was a property rights issue as it began. The President of the United States, who was a very brilliant politician, really made it about slavery to a great degree."

...

Jamie Kingman Rice, the director of Library Service at the Maine Historical Society, told CNN that LePage's 7,600 figure "is not a number that is known to the research community."

David Blight, Civil War historian and professor at Yale, told CNN in an interview that it was doubtful more than a handful of Mainers fought for the Confederacy. The state of Maine was one of the strongest supporters of the Union.

Blight also took issue with LePage's claim that the Civil War was initially a conflict over land.

"That's patented nonsense. It's appalling degree of ignorance and misinformation by a governor of a New England state, or any state for that matter," he said.

Blight reiterated that the war was fought over slavery and its expansion into new territories.
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Old 22nd August 2017, 03:19 PM   #25
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Quote:
Blight also took issue with LePage's claim that the Civil War was initially a conflict over land.

"That's patented nonsense. It's appalling degree of ignorance and misinformation by a governor of a New England state, or any state for that matter," he said.
No, it's not. It's an appalling flat-out lie. It would be "ignorance and misinformation" if we were to believe he'd actually heard from someone that 7,000 people from Maine fought for the Confederacy. However, believing that is even more ridiculous than believing the lie itself.

This is one of the problems we're having dealing with these ****** politicians: Even their critics too often avoid calling blatant lies what they are, moderating the tone of their comments as if they're dealing with an honest difference of opinion. There should hardly be a news story about LePage or the current occupant of the Oval Office that doesn't include some variation of the words "but given the number of lies he's told..."
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Old 22nd August 2017, 04:08 PM   #26
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Originally Posted by Babbylonian View Post
No, it's not. It's an appalling flat-out lie. It would be "ignorance and misinformation" if we were to believe he'd actually heard from someone that 7,000 people from Maine fought for the Confederacy. However, believing that is even more ridiculous than believing the lie itself.

This is one of the problems we're having dealing with these ****** politicians: Even their critics too often avoid calling blatant lies what they are, moderating the tone of their comments as if they're dealing with an honest difference of opinion. There should hardly be a news story about LePage or the current occupant of the Oval Office that doesn't include some variation of the words "but given the number of lies he's told..."
Lies are a form of misinformation. You might wish that Blight was more precise, but what he said was accurate.
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Old 22nd August 2017, 04:16 PM   #27
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Originally Posted by phiwum View Post
Lies are a form of misinformation. You might wish that Blight was more precise, but what he said was accurate.
In context, he was saying that LePage was ignorant and misinformed. In other words, it's the benefit of the doubt being given that he was in possession of inaccurate information. It's how you say that someone has made an incorrect statement without calling them a liar. That makes it easier for others to shrug it off because, shucks, who hasn't repeated information that they found out later was wrong?

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Old 22nd August 2017, 04:45 PM   #28
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Luckily LePage is term limited and will be gone next year but I don't think he would be re-elected this time.
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Old 22nd August 2017, 05:13 PM   #29
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Originally Posted by Babbylonian View Post
In context, he was saying that LePage was ignorant and misinformed. In other words, it's the benefit of the doubt being given that he was in possession of inaccurate information. It's how you say that someone has made an incorrect statement without calling them a liar. That makes it easier for others to shrug it off because, shucks, who hasn't repeated information that they found out later was wrong?
Well, it's entirely possible that he actually does believe it. Everything we've seen from LePage points to him being a raging idiot, after all.
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Old 22nd August 2017, 05:31 PM   #30
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LePage:
Quote:
It was a property rights issue as it began.
It was about property rights - whether there was a right to own people as property.

Last edited by Minoosh; 22nd August 2017 at 05:34 PM.
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Old 22nd August 2017, 05:40 PM   #31
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Hopefully he won't get it into his head to run for US Senate, there are clearly enough people in Maine who think he's just great!
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Old 22nd August 2017, 05:43 PM   #32
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Can't wait for Stephen King's comments on this; Maine's most famous current native son and LePage have been engaged in warfare for some time,most famously when Lepage accused King of paying no taxes in Maine....which LePage had to retract.
LePage probably has never heard of the 20th Maine, whose stand at Little Round Top on the Second Day of Gettyburg might have saved the Union.
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Old 22nd August 2017, 05:44 PM   #33
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Maine Gov. Paul LePage defended monuments to the Confederacy in a radio interview on Tuesday, claiming that 7,600 Mainers fought for the South and that the war was initially about land, not slavery.

Two Civil War historians contacted by told CNN disputed LePage's assertions.

"What was the war? If you really truly read and study the Civil War, it was turned into a battle for the slaves, but initially — I mean, 7,600 Mainers fought for the Confederacy," LePage, a Republican, said in an interview with Maine radio station WVOM. "And they fought because they were concerned about — they were farmers — and they were concerned about their land. Their property. It was a property rights issue as it began. The President of the United States, who was a very brilliant politician, really made it about slavery to a great degree."

...

Jamie Kingman Rice, the director of Library Service at the Maine Historical Society, told CNN that LePage's 7,600 figure "is not a number that is known to the research community."

David Blight, Civil War historian and professor at Yale, told CNN in an interview that it was doubtful more than a handful of Mainers fought for the Confederacy. The state of Maine was one of the strongest supporters of the Union.

Blight also took issue with LePage's claim that the Civil War was initially a conflict over land.

"That's patented nonsense. It's appalling degree of ignorance and misinformation by a governor of a New England state, or any state for that matter," he said.

Blight reiterated that the war was fought over slavery and its expansion into new territories.
I'm going to have to use that phrase.

"Your claim of (X) is not known to the research community"
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Old 22nd August 2017, 05:46 PM   #34
Trebuchet
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Originally Posted by C_Felix View Post
I'm going to have to use that phrase.

"Your claim of (X) is not known to the research community"
I'd prefer "Your claim of (X) is complete ******** (male bovine feces)."
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Old 22nd August 2017, 06:23 PM   #35
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Originally Posted by dudalb View Post
Can't wait for Stephen King's comments on this; Maine's most famous current native son and LePage have been engaged in warfare for some time,most famously when Lepage accused King of paying no taxes in Maine....which LePage had to retract.
LePage probably has never heard of the 20th Maine, whose stand at Little Round Top on the Second Day of Gettyburg might have saved the Union.
"Probably"?

Don't you think you're giving LePage too much credit?
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Old 22nd August 2017, 06:32 PM   #36
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Someone hook a generator up to Joshua Chamberlain's grave, it'll power the Western Hemisphere for the next 30 years.
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Old 23rd August 2017, 02:33 PM   #37
dudalb
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Originally Posted by Cleon View Post
Someone hook a generator up to Joshua Chamberlain's grave, it'll power the Western Hemisphere for the next 30 years.
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Old 23rd August 2017, 03:16 PM   #38
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My grandpa would be horrified if he knew Yankees were trying to claim to have been on the right side of the War of Northern Aggression. I mean, Maine? You can't get any more Northern without turning Canadian!
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Old 27th August 2017, 10:41 PM   #39
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Originally Posted by Mumbles View Post
The funny part is, Paul's actually the member of the GOP who does outreach to black people. He was the only person in the GOP who said "Hey, this is awful!" back when police were driving around in military equipment in Ferguson.

LePage is from the "I love elites and hate the lessers" wing of the GOP. As much as he's an obvious racist, truth is that he'll sell the average white person up the river, too.

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Just because LePage has a black son (by adoption) doesn't mean no one can or should question his racial sensitivities. I mean, Justin Volpe, a white New York City police officer who violated Abner Louima, a Haitian immigrant, in a stationhouse bathroom in 1997, had a black girlfriend at the time.
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