Governor Paul LePage of Maine is one of the worst governors in the nation. Twice he was elected by a plurality in a three-way race. He hates public schools. A citizens’ initiative forced him to raise state spending on them. He vowed to get even next year.
LePage started his time in office by doing whatever Jeb Bush wanted, such as agreeing to sign on to Jeb’s Digital Learning business to benefit Jeb’s tech sponsors. He periodically gets in trouble for shooting off his mouth.
Can’t wait until the voters of Maine replace this guy with someone who cares about the future of the state.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Diane It’s the same “problem” with the Republicans in Congress: Those pesky voters.
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There was one time when LePage, on video, condemned out of state drug dealers who visit Maine to sell drugs and get Maine’s citizenry hooked, and then — just to add insult to injury — they’d seduce and impregnate innocent “young white girls,” (LePage’s words) leaving the state with the burden of paying for the illegitimate children left in the drug dealers’ wake. He then said those drug peddlers have names like … and they were all distinctly African-American names … “D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty””‘
On the 1-to-10 Racist Scale, that’s an “11”.
It’s on the net somewhere.
Here it is (with video):
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/paul-lepage-heroin_us_568ef013e4b0cad15e643549
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LePage in Maine, Christie in NJ, Trump in DC, etc., ad nauseam. Excuse me while I projectile vomit. I am hoping that we don’t get 8 years of Trump or of the GOP.
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Jeb Bush runs public education in Maine:
“Maine’s education commissioner had just returned to his Augusta office last October after a three-day trip to San Francisco where he attended a summit of conservative education reformers convened by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education, which had paid for the trip.
He’d heard presentations on the merits of full-time virtual public schools — ones without classrooms, playgrounds or in-person teachers — and watched as Bush unveiled the “first ever” report card praising the states that had given online schools the widest leeway.
But what had Bowen especially enthusiastic was his meeting with Bush’s top education aide, Patricia Levesque, who runs the foundation but is paid through her private firm, which lobbies Florida officials on behalf of online education companies.
Bowen was preparing an aggressive reform drive on initiatives intended to dramatically expand and deregulate online education in Maine, but he felt overwhelmed.
“I have no ‘political’ staff who I can work with to move this stuff through the process,” he emailed her from his office.
Levesque replied not to worry; her staff in Florida would be happy to suggest policies, write laws and gubernatorial decrees, and develop strategies to ensure they were implemented.”
It’s a shame, really. One would hope Maine lawmakers would be drafting laws instead of Jeb Bush’s lobbying shop doing their work for them.
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Chiara says: “Levesque replied not to worry; her staff in Florida would be happy to suggest policies, write laws and gubernatorial decrees, and develop strategies to ensure they were implemented.”
“It’s a shame, really. One would hope Maine lawmakers would be drafting laws instead of Jeb Bush’s lobbying shop doing their work for them.”
Sounds like ALEC. Are they connected, or is this the neo-method of fascist-oligarchs and dictator- corporations? As far as Maine is concerned, it’s the Return of the Zombie Politicians.
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Bush leads “Chiefs for Change” or what I call chiefs for cash. It is an autocratic organization enabling political leaders and complicit school district leaders to turn education into a profitable industry, including failed cyber options. They instruct others in how to manipulate state and local policies to promote privatization as Jeb has done in Florida. Bush’s horrible ideas have spread into other states like the ebola virus. The Bush family has a long history in Maine where they have their summer home in Kennebunkport.
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Oh, I know. We once had a legislative hearing in Ohio where fourteen of the fifteen witnesses came from the ed reform lobby.
They write laws that apply to public schools but public schools are completely excluded from any input.
The extent of the capture is amazing. Whole phrases pulled directly from ed reform lobby marketing lingo. They can’t even bother to come up with their own language- I wait for the phrases- I know they’re coming!
It got so bad in Ohio they once had to pull a bill and draft a caption- they had left the generic lobbyist caption on the law they were about to pass. Your state HERE. They inserted “Ohio”.
I don’t feel sorry for them if people have no faith in them. They haven’t earned any.
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Chiefs for Change is surely not “pocket change.” They see millions in cash.
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OMG! Jeb is GREEDY and really just another slime bucket.
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Does Jeb Bush still shamelessly shill for online product or has he rolled it into the much friendlier sounding “blended learning”?
Why bother paying a legislature if lobbyists are running the country? Can’t we just skip the middlemen? Deal directly with the contracting entity?
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Chiara,
Look at Jeb’s Foundation for Educational Excellence to say where the money is coming from.
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Is it possible the election he won was because it was a three-way race? That the Koch brothers and ALEC have discovered if the voters are confused with too many choices and too much misinformation, conspiracy theories, and endless manipulating lies, too many voters walk away in disgust/confusion and don’t vote, causing the best candidate for the people to lose.
It seems that in today’s elections, it is almost impossible for an honest candidate to stand a chance when the voters are buried in an avalanche of lies. It’s called info overload and the voters end up drowning just like someone in a flooded, rushing river is swept away to their death.
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Lloyd Lofthouse Yes–it seems it’s what the Koch’s are doing. But then, what you say also sounds allot like what Russia’s Putin is doing . . . . aka: destroying democracy.
You wrote: “Is it possible the election he won (Maine’s governor) was because it was a three-way race? That the Koch brothers and ALEC have discovered if the voters are confused with too many choices and too much misinformation, conspiracy theories, and endless manipulating lies, too many voters walk away in disgust/confusion and don’t vote, causing the best candidate for the people to lose.”
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The misleading, hate-based Alt Right media machine is also destroying democracy. Is it possible that Putin is behind that too?
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Lloyd I don’t know. Do you know? (if Russia is behind the alt-right movement and media machine?)
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I don’t know either but it wouldn’t surprise me if Putin was behind it or in cahoots with the American billionaires that are.
For instance, Steve Bannon has been quoted as admitting he is a Leninist and that Lenin led the revolution in Russia that resulted in the USSR and Stalin. Bannon has been quoted saying he wants to bring the system down. That system, of course, is what was build because of the U.S. Constitution. To crash the American system of government is also an assault on the Constitution and the people it was meant to protect from the tyranny of people like Bannon, Trump and Putin.
Then there are the Koch brothers and where the money came from that founded the fortune and company they inherited from their father. Their father went to Russia and worked for Stalin to build the Soviet Unions oil industry. He came home with more than $50 million and used that money in the 1950s to buy up leases for oil land that turned into one of the largest privately held oil companies in the United States. I’ve read that their father hated Communism but what if that isn’t true. What if the Koch family kept links with powerful people in Russia’s oil industry and those connections are still there? In fact, maybe the Koch brothers know Putin and helped him come to power after the fall of the Soviet Union.
The Koch brothers also are responsible for not only ALEC but many other misleading non-profit groups they funded. They even funded the tea party movement. Many of the tactics the Koch brothers use are the same that Putin uses.
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Lloyd: As you know, that doesn’t make the connection concrete–but a brief historical analysis might reveal the truth of it. I do remember reading where the Koch’s father was “useful” to the Russians until they learned his ideas about refining oil, then dispensed with him for their own purposes. And that was why he hated them. (I don’t have the reference for that, however.)
But whatever their attitude about the Russians, they are involved in basically the same destructive activities (and whether they know it or not) but probably working under different premises: Here’s the Koch’s premise: Oligarchs know better. and THAT underpinned by: If it doesn’t make money, then it’s no good. I really don’t know what the Russian’s end-run goals are, or their premises, but have often wondered–what do they think happens after they have destroyed civilization? Or are they just vindictive ego-maniacs with no end-run vision to think about or speak of? (like Trump?)
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The Koch brothers are oligarchs.
Putin is an oligarch.
Russia is ruled by oligarchs, similar to the Koch brothers, who all had links to the Soviet Union of old.
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Bruce Baker explains why LePage doesn’t want to fund Maine schools:
He tweeted “because that’s the obvious solution for a state in $ equity free-fall.”
And his tweet includes a graph showing the collapse of funding for public schools in Maine since LePage took office.
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The reports I have seen say that there were thousands of Russian “bots” tweeting pro-Trump and anti-Clinton memes during the campaign.
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LePage won a plurality in both races, not a majority.
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Chiara: “Can’t we just skip the middlemen (legislatures?)” Not yet. The public hasn’t drunk ALL of the poison yet. We have to wait till the pods are fully mature.
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Here’s the LA Times celebrating the “pro charter majority” on the school board in LA:
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-lausd-school-board-20170704-story.html
Nothing positive or even helpful for existing public schools, although the majority of LA students attend public schools.
Those poor kids and parents. They don’t know they’re in the unfashionable “sector” yet and their schools will be utterly and completely abandoned as charter-mania sucks up all the time, effort, funding and attention.
They’re about to find out.
It took 15 years for the powers that be in Ohio to turn their attention back to the public schools 90% of the kids in this state attend and they had to be forced into doing it. Public employees with zero interest in public schools. Thousands of them. It took 15 years for charter-mania to subside long enough for the adults to remember public schools still exist.
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Since the US Department of Education are reviewing ESSA plans that apply to every public school student in the country shouldn’t they occasionally meet with public school teachers, principals, parents or students?
I know DC is consumed with charters/vouchers this month (as every month!) but they are aware that public schools still exist, right?
They must pass some on their way to work, right? Maybe they think they’re post offices.
The Senators went home this month to visit with their constituents. Should we send them a map with public schools highlighted? I think there are 18 in this county alone and I haven’t heard a word about them.
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