The Shame Of Maine Would Have Let Prince Die A Week Ago

You might think you have a rotten governor but, really, has any of them vetoed a measure to save people who took a drug overdoes because it just means they're going to die of another anyway?  Even as we have record breaking numbers of opioid overdose deaths*?

TMZ is reporting that, six days before he passed, Prince was forced to make an emergency stop in Moline on his way home from an Atlanta concert date for the purpose of having a "save shot" that would reverse a possible opiate overdose. It's hard to imagine today, but this could have been worse: He could have had to land in Maine.

But in his veto letter sent to lawmakers on Wednesday, LePage said the bill would allow pharmacists "to dispense naloxone to practically anyone who asks for it." "Naloxone does not truly save lives; it merely extends them until the next overdose," LePage wrote, repeating a contention that has caused controversy before. "Creating a situation where an addict has a heroin needle in one hand and a shot of naloxone in the other produces a sense of normalcy and security around heroin use that serves only to perpetuate the cycle of addiction."   

Of all the Republican governors who have run their states into the ditch over the past seven years, human bowling jacket Paul LePage is the most perfect combination of policy ignorance and boneheaded, talk-show confidence in his own righteousness of them all. He's an embarrassment to enlightened democracy. Hell, he's an embarrassment to human thought. But he's also a cautionary tale for us as a country.

Yep, I've been saying that for the past seven years, beginning when it was obvious that the millionaire vanity candidate, Eliot Cutler, would be running as a spoiler.  Too conservative for Maine Democrats - and considering how conservative the past two Democratic governors have been, that's saying something - Cutler did the Maine Independent thing of running as a self-financed independent, putting the worst governor in our state's modern history into office, not once, but twice.

The only reason LePage was elected in the first place was because there were four candidates on the other side, and the only reason he was re-elected two years ago, is because one of them, Eliot Cutler, ran as a third wheel again.

In his concession from Portland's Ocean Gateway, Cutler vowed to work toward ways that would improve chances for future independent candidates. "I'm going to spend an awful lot of time over the next year trying to get ranked choice voting implemented in Maine," Cutler said. "I think it will get rid of the negative campaigning, it will get rid of the negative advertising and restore civil discourse." About whether he'd considered running for another office after this: "Who knows? Never say never." In his victory speech, LePage said the campaign had elevated his respect for Cutler and that Cutler would make an excellent attorney general.
Yeah, that was going to happen.

Cutler's fans were dedicated and sincere. A lot of drug addicts are likely to die in Maine now. People should remember that.

ə 'ah, that's what is happening here in the State of Embarrassment, the state that is shameless as it is alleged to be quaint, the state that I now have to be as ashamed of being from as I used to be grateful I wasn't from New Hampshire when it had a string of the most putrid Republican governors up till the current Republicanfascist era.

I can honestly say that the only Maine personality I loathe more than Paul LePage is Eliot Cutler.  I save a place high on that list for the idiot liberals of the past who made ballot access so ridiculously open to spoiler candidates because it felt so groovy to open up the process and be so liberalish.   That was among the stupidest of all of the stupid reforms to come out of Augusta in the past half century. We had some pretty rhum and pretty bad governors in the past, but nothing like LePage.  We have not had a real liberal since Ken Curtis had to retire in 1976, as I recall, just about the time that the "reform" effort of that period was in process.

* According to the Maine Attorney General’s office, the overall number of drug overdose deaths in 2015 was 272, which eclipsed 2014 as the worst year on record by more than 30 percent. That is unacceptable, and it further underscores the need for action.