On today’s BradCast, Maine’s Republican Governor Paul LePage is melting down. [Audio link posted below.]
We’ve been reporting on the two-term, ‘Tea Party’ dimwit for years, describing him variously as both the nation’s dumbest Governor and the worst in history. But now, at the seeming climax of a months-long saga concerning racist comments by LePage, a threatening and obscene voicemail he recently left for a Democratic state lawmaker, comments about shooting that lawmaker in the head and, this week, an apparent emergency intervention by GOP state legislators, the possibility of resignation — or, perhaps, mental breakdown — is seeming likelier by the minute.
We cover that insane story today, how this loon became a two-term Governor in the first place in an otherwise not-insane state (hint: you can thank third party challengers), and how, even after all of the years of LePage’s various embarrassments, Donald Trump has said this month that he’d be delighted to consider the Maine Governor for a role in his White House cabinet!
Then, Apple owes $14.5B in back taxes in Europe, but it could cost the U.S.; One county official in Colorado is standing up to a major coal company in bankruptcy to force them to pay what they owe in taxes; Desi Doyen joins us for an unusually uplifting Green News Report; and, finally, closing the circle on today’s show, how some residents of an impoverished area of Maine (LePage voters, no doubt) tried to block a land grant and millions of dollars to the local community in order to prevent President Obama from establishing a new national monument in that portion of the Maine North Woods…
I grew up in Maine + most of my family is still there. Great story, btw…Please educate yourselves re the presence of 3rd parties in BOTH elections! The 1st one Eliot Cutler was a real spoiler + LePage got only 38% of the vote!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...election,_2010 In the 2nd election in 2014, even more Mainers voted for LePage-48% yikes! http://www.pressherald.com/2014...-eliot-cutler/
Dina –
Though I note on today’s show that the split opposition allowed LePage to win both times, I hate referring to such third-party candidates as “spoilers”. Nobody is entitled to win an election. That said, as I also noted today, folks do need to understand what their vote means and doesn’t mean, so they can cast that vote with full, clear knowledge of the possibilities and likelihoods.
Yes, elections have consequences. And folks need to understand that consequences before “pulling the lever”. (The “lever” that doesn’t exist anymore, but that’s a different issue!) 🙂
Two points.
1. It is unfortunate that FCC regs prevented both you and Rachel Maddow from broadcasting an unedited version of the voicemail of the call from LePage to Gattine:
Here’s the unedited version:
I’ve spent my life helping black people and you little son-of-a bitch, socialist cock sucker. You…I need you to, just friggin. I want you to record this and make it public because I am after you. Thank you.
(Voicemail available here)
2. Potentially, LePage could face something far more serious than removal from office.
18 U. S. C. §875(c) makes it a federal crime to transmit in interstate commerce “any communication containing any threat…to injure the person of another.” In its 2015 decision, Elonis v United States, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that such a communication is unlawful if the defendant made it for the purpose of issuing a threat or with knowledge that the communication will be viewed as a threat.
It is not entirely clear whether Page’s remarks to the Press Herald about wishing it were 1825 and that he’d point a gun “right between his eyes” was made over the phone.
A telephone is an instrument of interstate commerce. It is not implausible that a competent federal prosecutor, by placing the gun right between the eyes comment in the context of the earlier “I am after you,” could persuasively argue that LePage had crossed the line between protected free speech and an unlawful threat. Surely LePage understood that the two remarks amount to a threat to injure another person within the meaning of the relevant federal criminal statute.
What your story failed to point out was: with better voting systems than the USA’s asinine “plurality” system — specifically approval or range voting — LePage would not have won office, either in 2010 or 2014. Mainers did not want him either
year but the voting method did not allow them to get what they wanted:
http://www.rangevoting.org/Maine2010gov.html
http://www.rangevoting.org/Maine2014Exit.html
You (Brad F.) have in the past told me you thought voting methods were a minor issue, but election fraud risk a major issue. Perhaps you in view of your own story here, should reconsider that stance. No fraud was alleged, the problem in both 2010 and 2014 was the voting method.
Also, note that in both cases LePage’s victory was related to 3rd party (actually independent) candidate E.Cutler’s run; but it seems rather unfair to blame this on Cutler, since e.g. in 2010 he finished ahead of the Democrat L.Mitchell by a large margin, and if she’d dropped out of the race Cutler would have won (but if Cutler dropped out, LePage still would have win) — so if you are going to blame this on somebody running it is fairer to blame it on Mitchell. The real blame lies with the voting system, not any candidate.
It appears, Warren D. Smith, that what you refer to as “range voting” is a variation of what is known as “instant runoff voting” (IRV).
See this article and others linked to therein for an explanation of why IRV is not a good idea.
Perhaps ME would do well to adopt a system that requires a runoff between the top two candidates if no candidate receives a majority.
Ernie Canning said @3:
Doesn’t “interstate” mean the communication needs to be made across a state border? If so, I think your legal point wouldn’t survive, even before reaching the merits, because LePage was speaking in Maine about someone else in Maine. If I’m misunderstanding the definition of “interstate” here, please let me know.
As I recall, that one was not on the phone, but in person, to reporters.
Warren D Smith said @4:
Just for the record, I disagree with your characterization of what you suggest I’ve said in the past. So, just to try and quickly clarify any misconception you may have or may be offering to others here: I believe that the citizenry needs to be able to oversee their own elections and know that the results are accurate. The voting system you have been advocating for years (Range Voting) does not allow for that. It requires centralized computers to tally an impossible to understand voting scheme.
(Approval Voting, which you also reference in your comment, is a different matter and something that, as I suspect you recall, I said I’d be willing to compromise with, since it allows for both hand counting and tallying by existing precinct based op-scanners and it easily understandable by the public — Vote “yes” or “no” for each of the candidates.)
It’s not a stance of mine, so it doesn’t require reconsideration, but I’ll entertain your point nonetheles…
No. The problem was the voters ended up selecting LePage. Why is that the fault of “the voting method”??
I didn’t “blame” any candidate. Nor did I blame the voting system, though I know advocating for Range Voting has been your one and only hobbyhorse for more than a decade. Thus, it’s not a surprise you’d attempt to mischaracterize past conversations and twist the current one in order to somehow get another ride on that same dead horse.
Brad @7 asks:
No. It entails making a threat on an instrument of interstate commerce. For example, the Elonis case involved the federal prosecution of an individual who had posted graphically violent language on Facebook. The case was brought when his former employer informed the FBI that he perceived the Facebook post as a threat. It didn’t matter whether the person threatened resided in the same state. The graphically violent language had been posted on the Internet, which is an instrument of interstate commerce.
The telephone, like the Internet and the mail, is an instrument of interstate commerce. U.S. v. R.J.S., JR. (2004).
Well, anyway, Paul LePage is hilariously stupid.