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I've removed most of the political positions section because it lacked any sources. Besides, he will be Governor in a week and his positions won't matter; it will be about his time in office.-- TM 23:33, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
His previously stated positions do matter very much. Please don't go removing this section wholesale again. It was a lot of work to summarize concisely from different sources. As BMRR pointed out, the section was originally cited with links. I've converted the bare links to citations. I expect this section to evolve as time passes, but the information here is highly relevant and should not be deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Boondoggle15 ( talk • contribs) 00:11, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
This article is not for covering every incident which makes news coverage for a day or two. I am not sure which sections need to be removed, but there is far too much coverage of every incident which has happened during the past three months.-- TM 16:02, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
As the author (I need to open an account, I know) of today's section on controversial statements, I sensed an evolving theme that, I fear, will likely continue. The Obama and NAACP quotes did reverberate nationally--one such quote is an isolated incident, two is a pattern and three . . . —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.241.197.130 ( talk) 20:37, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
It makes eminent sense to me that someone who was not formally adopted himself by at least two families, would consider this child to be adopted. Paul LePage's informal adoptions (as a child) should be mentioned in the article, imho.
I also don't see why this whole issue is being discussed under "recentism" , and suggest that further discussion re. the adoptions be continued under an appropriate subsection header. -Regards- KeptSouth ( talk) 12:38, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
LePage's transition website says:
"As head of LePage and Kasevich, a private consultancy, he has provided chief executive officer, chief operating officer and chief financial officer services and advice to banks, law firms, client companies, insurance companies, bankruptcy courts and trustees." [1]
This article said:
"he served as head of LePage and Kasevich, a private consultancy, where he has provided chief executive officer, chief operating officer and chief financial officer services and advice to banks, law firms, client companies, insurance companies, bankruptcy courts and trustees."
I will look for another source which is not WP:SELF, and I will rephrase the information before putting it back in the article. - KeptSouth ( talk) 13:45, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
Seems to me we need a new section, to go along with the Statements by LePage, "Misstatements by LePage"--the name on the deed, the adopted son, the NAACP's demand that he meet only with black prisoners? Admittedly I am not a LePage supporter but it seems he creates new fodder for the Criticisms section daily, if not hourly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Birch13 ( talk • contribs) 17:29, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
Is there a specific rule or guideline that says we're not supposed to put the children's names in the infobox (or elsewhere in the article)? I took a look at a few other governors' articles — Deval Patrick, John Lynch, Andrew Cuomo, Scott Walker, Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry, Bob McDonnell — and they all have their children listed in their infoboxes. I understand not wanting to probe too deeply into the LePage Family's private life, but this is public information, there are plenty of reliable sources to back it up, and his children are all adults. – BMRR ( talk) 17:41, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
Can we just agree to leave this out? The article states it's an entry-level position, and that it wasn't illegal to hire her, so what's it matter? (Proud 61%-er here, but still...) -- SarekOfVulcan ( talk) 22:31, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
"Paul LePage" daughter job
. There were 91,500 results. (On the news side, it looks like several hundred mentions.) I think we do a disservice to readers if we omit a news story (not "tabloid journalism") that has gotten so much attention. --
John Broughton
(♫♫)
22:18, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
This section is far too long given the relative lack of importance. Thoughts on shrinking it?-- TM 19:49, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
Actually it's quite interessting Why are the governors of America saying such dumb things? salon.com 87.164.126.8 ( talk) 15:46, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
What happenned to his first wife? Were they divorced or is he a widower? -- Bertrc ( talk) 19:37, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
That section strikes me as a lot of weight on a thoughtless comment. I'd suggest we remove it, and only re-add it if it turns out to have long-term notability. -- SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:39, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
Why was the "Statements by LePage" header removed, along with the line following it? 331dot ( talk) 11:32, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
Over half of this article, I feel, could be shortened to one paragraph, perhaps two and on the outside three. LePage said this, a relevant critic or critics (i.e. not the critics of source 68) said this and Paul responded thus. Criticisms should and could be shortened to something along the lines of one section 'Plainspoken Style' and with another 'Policy Criticisms.' Taking a few sentences from each current sub-header and eliminating "Hiring of family members" and "President Obama" by either integrating the information there or simply eliminating it altogether would be a solid step in the right direction. 108.81.54.45 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.254.88.20 ( talk) 16:50, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
LePage has said that he will not attend the National GOP Convention unless the Ron Paul delegation approved at the controversial state convention is seated. [2] I think this is notable information given that as Governor he would be expected to attend, however I am unsure as to where it should be placed. 331dot ( talk) 01:19, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
Maybe it is early to include it now, but if he indeed does not attend, it is certainly noteworthy that the highest GOP elected official in Maine is refusing to attend his party's convention in protest of the makeup of his state's delegation. 331dot ( talk) 13:34, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
In my opinion, no politician's page should have a separate controversies section. This used to be a common practice, but was stopped on most pages as it is a clear violation of WP:NPOV. There were wiki projects to do this for presidential candidates, but I guess statewide official pages were ignored. For example, Hillary Clinton and Mike Huckabee had long controversy sections that were eliminated. Please keep in mind that I am absolutely not suggesting to remove something potentially negative, but rather keep it all in a chronological and neutral context rather than in a separate controversy section. Again, this is a common wiki practice - prior to running for president, Obama, Clinton, Biden, Giuliani, McCain, Fred Thompson, Chris Dodd and many others had controversy sections. MavsFan28 ( talk) 04:44, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
The section about Congdon and his comments is more about him than about LePage(only saying that LePage removed him) so I'm wondering if it should be placed elsewhere, either in a separate article or some other location. 331dot ( talk) 16:35, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
How is the bit about him being the first Maine Governor to use social media worthy of being in the article? It is a very obscure fact that should be removed in my opinion. Xxavyer ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:29, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
What is the significance of CREW's opinion of LePage? I'm sure there are groups that think the opposite(that he's the best governor), do we need to list them too? 331dot ( talk) 00:58, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
Is there enough about his term of office to spin off into another article, much like Governorship of Chris Christie? 331dot ( talk) 13:13, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
I've restored some deleted material about LePage's meetings with individuals alledged to have been associated with the Sovereign Citizens movement. Without an explanation of what the participant's discussed in these meetings, the reader who isn't familiar with the term "Sovereign Citizens movement" wouldn't know why such meetings would be newsworthy. The newspaper articles about this incident all mention that these sovereign citizens alluded to executing leaders of the state legislature - in fact, that's in the headline of the cited Bangor Daily News article. However, the previous version of the text only mentioned the execution claim in order to say that the participants deny it: all that version of the text says about the matter is: "Two of the men who had met with LePage rejected the claims of ties to the "sovereign citizen movement" and denied any discussions of executions took place." The reader has no context about who the men were supposed to have discussed executing or why, only that they say they didn't discuss it. The editor making the change claimed that "the value to readers [of the content removed] is nil", but I don't think that the sovereign citizens group or its ideology are widely familiar to readers, so the specific things that these men said in the meetings, as well as the actions that the governor took on their behalf, are relevant. GabrielF ( talk) 01:20, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
“ | During the airing of a segment of the Aroostook Watchmen, a radio show broadcast on radio station WXME in February, an account of a meeting between Gov. Paul LePage and members of the Sovereign Citizens movement emerged in a conversation between show hosts Steve Martin and Jack McCarthy.
McCarthy, whose Sovereign Citizen ties include the Constitutional Coalition, says that he was at the State House to discuss the group's concerns with the governor. Among those topics, McCarthy says, was their belief that Democratic Maine Senate President Justin Alfond and House Speaker Mark Eves should both be tried for treason. "And we also discussed this there, that as far as I know, the penalty for high treason hasn't changed in a hundred years, and I didn't say it, but the governor said it - I never opened my mouth and said the word - the governor looked at us and looked at his buddy and said, 'They're talking about hanging them,' " McCarthy said. "That's right," Martin responded. "I said, Praise the Lord - we'll hang a few and be done with this crap,' " McCarthy said. |
” |
“ | The conspiracy theorists, variously organized as the Maine Constitutional Coalition and We The People of Maine, warned the governor and the small number of other people who would listen that all lawyers are “foreign citizens” and associated with the Communist Party, that Maine’s government was unlawful on account of using paper currency and associating with the United Nations to deprive Mainers of their property rights, and that legislators and other officials were guilty of treason, a crime punishable by death.
... According to McCarthy, that first meeting examined such important topics as the U.N. plot to take over Maine’s North Woods and the illegitimacy of Federal Reserve notes and the U.S. Department of Education. They also, McCarthy told his radio audience, discussed punishing State Senate President Justin Alfond and House Speaker Mark Eves for treason. Rather than run away, LePage held another seven meetings with the group, some lasting as long as three hours. At these meetings, the extremists have claimed, they educated the governor on the U.N. plan to create a one-world government, the “myth” of global warming, the coming collapse of society and the government’s plan to wage war against American citizens. They also held a lengthy meeting on wind power, which the group sees as a plot to take away their freedom, which might explain where the governor got the bizarre idea, expressed in public two weeks later, that wind turbines “have an electric motor so that they can show people wind power works.” McCarthy’s agenda for a May 29 teleconference was among the documents Tipping received in a public records request. The conspiracy theorists asked LePage to summon the local sheriff—the only legitimate law enforcement authority by their thinking—and a superior court judge to determine their willingness “to instruct the servant government agents.” If this did not succeed, they warned the governor, “we will be left with the 1776 or the 1865 option,” references to the American Revolution and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. They closed with a little mangled Barry Goldwater: “In the pursuit of liberty there is no extremism.” |
” |
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Result: The material in question should be included.
Four editors supported inclusion of the material and two were opposed. This represents a low turnout, but a clear majority in favour of inclusion. In opposition to inclusion, it was argued that "any statement asserting that LePage holds or supports specific contentious views" would be an "intrinsic violation of WP:BLP, WP:RS". I don't think this is a fair interpretation, since neither policy cited imposes a blanket ban on ascribing controversial views to article subjects. Moreover, as was pointed out in discussion, the material in question does not appear to actually ascribe any particular view to the article subject in this case. It was also argued that the material was not germane to the article. It seems obvious to me that this is not literally true. It may be reasonable to argue that the material doesn't amount to a hill of beans. However, some editors appear to believe it does, and it is not for a closer to supervote on a question of pure editorial discretion (although this is something that may be taken into account when considering BLP policy).
Separately, it was argued that the material should not be included because, by stating that the article subject met with the people it is said that he met with, a misleading impression that he necessarily supports the views of those people may be given. However, the context of this objection was clearly a contingent vote, because the editor in question said that they would be OK with content that avoided this misleading impression. To my mind, it is clear that such content is possible, and it can be reasonably (if not unquestionably) argued that the article in its current state achieves this.
So, it is my view that arguments presented against inclusion fall short of providing sound reasons to ignore the numerical result of the discussion.
It is relevant to give further consideration to BLP policy. It is a requirement that the material in question be reliably sourced and not be present in a way that seriously misrepresents its importance. On the first question, it seems clear that the sources used for the material pass WP:RS. On the second, the section of the article in question is not placed so as to smack the reader in the chops and it does not appear grotesque in terms of its length or detail in the overall context of the article, particularly given that the article includes material relating to other controversies regarding the subject, so that it is not clear why this one might be elided (the article overall may be skewed against the subject for all I know, but that would be a matter for separate discussion). It does appear to me that the material relates to a controversy discussed in multiple sources and which is not a matter of a mere unsubstantiated allegation, but of a set of facts which have been corroborated.
For what it's worth, the content in question does not appear to me to be clearly worded at present. In particular, it is not clear who Jack McCarthy is (I had to use Google) and, in the sentence "They’re talking about hanging them", it is not clear who "they" and "them" refer to.
Should the section on LePage's meetings with alleged members of the Sovereign Citizen's Movement include information on the topics discussed at those meetings, including the suggestion that Maine legislative leaders were guilty of treason and should be executed?
GabrielF (
talk)
14:02, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
Support inclusion GabrielF ( talk) 14:02, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
Oppose Any statements asserting that LePage holds or supports specific contentious views, including allegations he supports murdering people, etc. as being UNDUE, and an intrinsic violation of WP:BLP, WP:RS, as a series of allegations and rumours and fails to be germane to the topic of the article - that is they are not biographical but political claims and allegations. Contentious claims require strong secondary reliable sources. Also note that he held no "meetings with the Sovereign Citizen's movement" nor do any reliable sources make such a claim. This is "silly season" at its worst. Collect ( talk) 14:19, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
'*Support - as reported in numerous secondary and reliable sources, per WP:NPOV and WP:V. - Cwobeel (talk) 17:17, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
I have drafted the following as a replacement:
On June 30, 2014, the website Talking Points Memo reported that LePage had met eight times with members of the sovereign citizen movement between January and September 2013. It was reported that topics discussed at these meetings, some of which lasted nearly three hours, included assertions that the US Dollar and Maine state courts are illegal, and that Maine Senate President Justin Alfond and Maine House Speaker Mark Eves are guilty of treason and should be appropriately punished, [2] and that the US government and the United Nations are planning for a war against Americans. [3] [4] [5]
In phone calls to the Bangor Daily News, LePage stated that he attended the meetings to discuss the Maine and United States Constitutions, but that some of the points made at the meetings were "off the wall", going on to say that “None of this stuff ever happened” and “We did not discuss execution, arrest or hanging", referring to punishments for treason. [2] LePage said he stopped meeting with the movement members because "they got mad and called me all sorts of names" and had stopped listening to him. [2] He also said that those he had met with had called his office on June 30, the day the story broke, to request a meeting, but he declined to do so. [2] The governor's office issued a statement saying LePage has met with “hundreds of Mainers hearing thousands of ideas, concerns and suggestions” and that “hearing those ideas during constituent meetings does not translate to the Governor endorsing the ideas of others.” [4] LePage himself stated that "I met with President Barack Obama, but I'm not a liberal." [2]
Two of the men who had met with LePage rejected the claims of ties to the "sovereign citizen movement" and denied any discussions of executions took place. Along with LePage, they threatened to sue Mike Tipping, the liberal activist making the claims. [6]
To explain:
I welcome further revisions and/or comment. 331dot ( talk) 11:51, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
References
Congrats on finding the worst possible sources for a factual claim. The Politico piece was an editorial "Letter from Maine" by Colin Woodard. I assume you would also use it for "likened the Internal Revenue Service to the Nazi Gestapo, issued blanket gag orders against the state’s largest newspaper chain (whose headquarters he also joked about bombing) and denounced—on camera—a Democratic state senator for always wanting to “give it to the people without Vaseline.”" Not going to work as a secondary reliable source at all. Salon? "MPBN reports, but he also at one point joked with his guests about hanging Democratic politicians in Maine for treason." Nope. MSNBC? Maine Gov. denies talk of 'hanging' opponents: A forthcoming book reports that Maine Governor Paul LePage met 8 times with a Sovereign Citizen group, with whom he reportedly discussed trying Democratic lawmakers for treason. ascribing the "claim" to a "forthcoming book" and not asserting it as "fact" at all. Yahoo? Ascribes the claims to two radio hosts who "described alleged details" of meetings where one of them says He (McCarthy) was the one who said "hang them" as a response to LePage saying "They're talking about hanging them" but trying to read that into a statement by LePage that anyone should be hanged is a very far reach, indeed. HuffPo? "Tipping, who works for the Maine People’s Alliance, a progressive advocacy group, wrote that when the coalition's members met with LePage they discussed arresting and executing state House Speaker Mark Eves (D) and Senate President Justin Alfond (D) for treason and violating the U.S. Constitution." WashTimes? AP article once again -- we do not count every paper using the AP as a separate "source". Sorry -- what you might have is
Anything more is going well past "fact" into political opinion sourceable to a group actively campaigning for the Democrat in the race. Cheers. Collect ( talk) 11:57, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
The "Letter from Maine" is clearly an "opinion piece" and, as such, is not usable for "claims of fact" as I noted. No source says there was a "series" of 8 meetings with a group - so that does not even have an "opinion source." Nor do any sources state that LePage said to hang anyone at all. Sorry - this stinks to high heaven as a silly season set of claims from an employee of a group actively supporting his opponent.
Collect (
talk)
15:47, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
@ Collect:,
I have no idea why you insist on labeling Tipping's book as "unpublished", when it was, at the time, scheduled to be released by a publisher. [10] (in fact, according to Amazon, the publication date was 17 days after the cited PPH article.)
Describing a book as "unpublished" typically means that the book has not found a publisher. A book that has an upcoming release date from a publisher is not "unpublished". It can be described as "forthcoming" or something along those lines, but to describe a book as "unpublished" has a completely different meaning. GabrielF ( talk) 21:56, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
Without getting into whether or not the governor is good or bad, or what his politics mean for Maine or any of that nonsense, this article is an absolute train wreck and needs to be completely redone.
For instance, it seems to have a section for every single time he has ever said or done anything controversial, as though it is a running anthology of all the reasons he is terrible. Now, most of these (if not all) are indeed notable and newsworthy, so I am not suggesting controversial actions and statements are removed from the article, but there is no reason that each and every one of those is in their own section with multi-paragraph explanations of the controversy. Instead, there should be a "controversies" section that makes note of his propensity for being controversial, which describes these things, maybe with a couple of the bigger ticket items getting their own subsection, but generally dealing with the whole thing in a far more comprehensive way.
The tenure of a governor is a lot more than the public pronouncements and irritations he or she may create. This article is so overwhelmed with that kind of information that frankly, I couldn't find a whole heck of a lot about what he has actually done, in terms of legislating and lawmaking and, well, being governor, because it was so lost in the sea of negative edits (which, I suspect, is the point of whoever has been doing that).
Listen, I understand he is divisive and controversial, and that most likely a majority (if not everyone) of editors who have contributed to this page do not personally like him and think he is a terrible governor. That said, this is an encyclopedia, and this mess of an article is not academic, informative, or reflective of his tenure. It should be significantly reworked, to reflect the style and information high quality articles on oft-controversial governors, such as Rick Perry, Jerry Brown, Chris Christie or Andrew Cuomo.
I suppose I will volunteer myself for a complete article revamp, but no matter how good I make it, I'm sure it will continue to need more work after I am done by the community. I simply ask that we fulfill Wikipedia's mission here, and make this a high quality, informative article that is reflective of the subject, and not some kind of partisan mess. MaineRenegade ( talk) 17:48, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
This page is pretty much just a survey of the newspaper articles trashing the guy.
It is plainly an effort by anti-Lepage-niks to deal in the most pain-in-the-neck kind of dissembling.. the half-truth.
It is not clearly stated that the references are to 'newspapers' that take an anti-LePage stand on every issue and which hard-sell objections to LePage and soft-soap those of his opponents.
There almost zero neutral sourcing.. if neutral sources even exist.
E caroline ( talk) 13:27, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
This will eventually require some text on the dispute with Mark Eves(which I've added to that page) and efforts to impeach or otherwise punish [11] LePage for his actions. (forthcoming links are for information only) [12] [13] [14] 331dot ( talk) 20:13, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
He has also said the Lewiston legislative delegation should be "rounded up and executed in the public square"- which is unusual for any governor to say, even if sarcastically or jokingly. [15]. 331dot ( talk) 00:21, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
The lead does not reflect the article's content, per WP:LEDE it needs to summarize salient points including significant controversies. Tagged accordingly. - Cwobeel (talk) 00:21, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
I'd been waiting for the legislative session to finish to get the final veto total(which is likely to be a record) but any discussion of that should include this latest dispute over the validity of several vetoes, with most people (Democrats and many Republicans) saying LePage messed up and LePage saying otherwise. [16] It's getting some level of national attention. 331dot ( talk) 09:07, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
I don't have time to adequately add this to the page right now, but the page should note his losing the Supreme Court case as to whether 65 bills were properly vetoed. Today's ruling (along with a link to the actual opinion) is here; background of the case here.) These sources need not be used if others have different ones and want to add them. 331dot ( talk) 20:36, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
I think this needs to shake out a little more before adding to the page, but LePage has announced he will no longer make nominations to open positions requiring gubernatorial nominations(state boards, etc) with the exception of two judgeships. He has also said he will no longer deal with the Legislature directly and will work to implement his proposals through citizen initiatives;( source) I think a governor refusing to do a major part of his job is notable. 331dot ( talk) 22:34, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
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I came to read the article as an outsider, with no political side on any Maine or general political issue. I surmise that neutrality and perspective have slowly slipped from the article, through the charitable allowances made by editors toward the addition of new material, which has—given the propensity of state news reporting to lean toward controversy, and toward thoroughly riding local political stories—moved the article to longer and longer negative sections, and toward recentism an negativism in the lede.
The fact of the matter is that this man was elected and re-elected governor in a state with complex politics, and did so on a reform platform against vested interests within his state. (A similar outcome characterizes Illinois politics, of which I am more aware, and which informs my views on overindulgence on the part of Wikipedia, in reporting flash-in-the-pan local dust-ups—ad nauseam, in terms of word count relative to true noteworthiness of events—as enduring biographical content.)
Two concluding points. First, the lead should, per WP poicy, summarize the article. It should not slant toward recent events (and thus lose perspective), and should specifically not overemphasis single accusations (particularly if they have led nowhere in terms of formal sanction).
Second, the article itself should reduce its overblown verbiage, mightily, for instance:
An individual who is governing will of course see higher profile stories over scandal, whether real or just perceived. To parrot the density of material on any given story in local news media is to fail in being encyclopedic. Perspective is expected of historians and biographers, including those in encyclopedias such as WP.
Le Prof 50.179.252.14 ( talk) 14:54, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
I found that removing the closing lede paragraph—which elevated one subsection on a recent event above many, many others in the article—added considerably to returning the lede to a body of prose adequately summarising the article. It is placed here to see if others agree. The removed sentences are here, and are not challenged for veracity of content, but for whether they rise above all other content of the article, which they would supersede to become 20% of the introduction:
In 2015, an investigation was launched to determine if he improperly used his office to force a non-profit group that operates a charter school to reverse their hiring of Mark Eves, the Democratic Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives as its president. Prosecutors declined to launch a criminal investigation into the matter. Some Maine legislators attempted to start impeachment proceedings against LePage for that and other matters, but the effort was not successful.
My view is that the lede is fine without it, and if added back, it should be in a single sentence, and weighed for opportunity cost, for what other material it is excluding (and perhaps be added back only as a part of a more concerted effort to make the lede a better overall summary of the article).
When this and the "poor summary" matters are addressed, the lead-rewrite tag can be removed.
Le Prof Leprof 7272 ( talk) 15:11, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
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This article looks like a mess. There are absolutely massive sections completely taken out of perceptive. I made, what I thought were appropriate edits to clean up the article but was reverted. That is fine. Please look at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons and remove anything in violation. The edits I made trimmed down these massive sections that were competently biased. 40dies11 ( talk) 01:15, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
Here's a story in the Portland Press Herald, part of a 10-part series, on the opioid epidemic in Maine, and the role of LePage. This story has been picked up by other media, including the Columbia Journalism Review, and the issues have gotten widespread coverage, including LePage's opposition to Narcan. I'm not sure how much it should be condensed, in order to keep it NPOV.
http://www.pressherald.com/2017/03/26/lost-heroins-killer-grip-on-maines-people/
A deadly epidemic: Addiction to opioids has put an entire generation at risk
By Eric Russell
Portland Press Herald
March 26, 2017
In 2016, rescue workers used Narcan 2,380 times, up from 1,565 the year before, according to state data. Republican Gov. Paul LePage has been critical of Narcan and has used language that suggests people get what they deserve and shouldn’t be saved after a couple of overdoses....
For several years as the problem worsened, policymakers – led by LePage – made it harder to get treatment, not easier. They reduced reimbursement rates for methadone, a drug used to treat opioid addiction. They tightened eligibility for MaineCare, the state’s version of Medicaid, leaving many low-income people without the ability to pay. They fought increased access to Narcan, prompting Attorney General Janet Mills, a frequent adversary of the governor, to sidestep him and use funds her office controls to provide the overdose drug to local police departments.
-- Nbauman ( talk) 18:02, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
I object to the removal of the bartender category. He was hired as a bartender after he was governor(not just in college as the remover claims). Readers interested in reading about bartenders might like to read about one that was governor, or vice versa. It's good for readers. 331dot ( talk) 23:08, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
He is at least as much a bartender as an "American expatriate in Canada", a "Thomas College alumni", a Lewiston High alumni. 331dot ( talk) 23:27, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
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I've removed most of the political positions section because it lacked any sources. Besides, he will be Governor in a week and his positions won't matter; it will be about his time in office.-- TM 23:33, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
His previously stated positions do matter very much. Please don't go removing this section wholesale again. It was a lot of work to summarize concisely from different sources. As BMRR pointed out, the section was originally cited with links. I've converted the bare links to citations. I expect this section to evolve as time passes, but the information here is highly relevant and should not be deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Boondoggle15 ( talk • contribs) 00:11, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
This article is not for covering every incident which makes news coverage for a day or two. I am not sure which sections need to be removed, but there is far too much coverage of every incident which has happened during the past three months.-- TM 16:02, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
As the author (I need to open an account, I know) of today's section on controversial statements, I sensed an evolving theme that, I fear, will likely continue. The Obama and NAACP quotes did reverberate nationally--one such quote is an isolated incident, two is a pattern and three . . . —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.241.197.130 ( talk) 20:37, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
It makes eminent sense to me that someone who was not formally adopted himself by at least two families, would consider this child to be adopted. Paul LePage's informal adoptions (as a child) should be mentioned in the article, imho.
I also don't see why this whole issue is being discussed under "recentism" , and suggest that further discussion re. the adoptions be continued under an appropriate subsection header. -Regards- KeptSouth ( talk) 12:38, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
LePage's transition website says:
"As head of LePage and Kasevich, a private consultancy, he has provided chief executive officer, chief operating officer and chief financial officer services and advice to banks, law firms, client companies, insurance companies, bankruptcy courts and trustees." [1]
This article said:
"he served as head of LePage and Kasevich, a private consultancy, where he has provided chief executive officer, chief operating officer and chief financial officer services and advice to banks, law firms, client companies, insurance companies, bankruptcy courts and trustees."
I will look for another source which is not WP:SELF, and I will rephrase the information before putting it back in the article. - KeptSouth ( talk) 13:45, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
Seems to me we need a new section, to go along with the Statements by LePage, "Misstatements by LePage"--the name on the deed, the adopted son, the NAACP's demand that he meet only with black prisoners? Admittedly I am not a LePage supporter but it seems he creates new fodder for the Criticisms section daily, if not hourly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Birch13 ( talk • contribs) 17:29, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
Is there a specific rule or guideline that says we're not supposed to put the children's names in the infobox (or elsewhere in the article)? I took a look at a few other governors' articles — Deval Patrick, John Lynch, Andrew Cuomo, Scott Walker, Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry, Bob McDonnell — and they all have their children listed in their infoboxes. I understand not wanting to probe too deeply into the LePage Family's private life, but this is public information, there are plenty of reliable sources to back it up, and his children are all adults. – BMRR ( talk) 17:41, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
Can we just agree to leave this out? The article states it's an entry-level position, and that it wasn't illegal to hire her, so what's it matter? (Proud 61%-er here, but still...) -- SarekOfVulcan ( talk) 22:31, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
"Paul LePage" daughter job
. There were 91,500 results. (On the news side, it looks like several hundred mentions.) I think we do a disservice to readers if we omit a news story (not "tabloid journalism") that has gotten so much attention. --
John Broughton
(♫♫)
22:18, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
This section is far too long given the relative lack of importance. Thoughts on shrinking it?-- TM 19:49, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
Actually it's quite interessting Why are the governors of America saying such dumb things? salon.com 87.164.126.8 ( talk) 15:46, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
What happenned to his first wife? Were they divorced or is he a widower? -- Bertrc ( talk) 19:37, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
That section strikes me as a lot of weight on a thoughtless comment. I'd suggest we remove it, and only re-add it if it turns out to have long-term notability. -- SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:39, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
Why was the "Statements by LePage" header removed, along with the line following it? 331dot ( talk) 11:32, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
Over half of this article, I feel, could be shortened to one paragraph, perhaps two and on the outside three. LePage said this, a relevant critic or critics (i.e. not the critics of source 68) said this and Paul responded thus. Criticisms should and could be shortened to something along the lines of one section 'Plainspoken Style' and with another 'Policy Criticisms.' Taking a few sentences from each current sub-header and eliminating "Hiring of family members" and "President Obama" by either integrating the information there or simply eliminating it altogether would be a solid step in the right direction. 108.81.54.45 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.254.88.20 ( talk) 16:50, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
LePage has said that he will not attend the National GOP Convention unless the Ron Paul delegation approved at the controversial state convention is seated. [2] I think this is notable information given that as Governor he would be expected to attend, however I am unsure as to where it should be placed. 331dot ( talk) 01:19, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
Maybe it is early to include it now, but if he indeed does not attend, it is certainly noteworthy that the highest GOP elected official in Maine is refusing to attend his party's convention in protest of the makeup of his state's delegation. 331dot ( talk) 13:34, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
In my opinion, no politician's page should have a separate controversies section. This used to be a common practice, but was stopped on most pages as it is a clear violation of WP:NPOV. There were wiki projects to do this for presidential candidates, but I guess statewide official pages were ignored. For example, Hillary Clinton and Mike Huckabee had long controversy sections that were eliminated. Please keep in mind that I am absolutely not suggesting to remove something potentially negative, but rather keep it all in a chronological and neutral context rather than in a separate controversy section. Again, this is a common wiki practice - prior to running for president, Obama, Clinton, Biden, Giuliani, McCain, Fred Thompson, Chris Dodd and many others had controversy sections. MavsFan28 ( talk) 04:44, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
The section about Congdon and his comments is more about him than about LePage(only saying that LePage removed him) so I'm wondering if it should be placed elsewhere, either in a separate article or some other location. 331dot ( talk) 16:35, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
How is the bit about him being the first Maine Governor to use social media worthy of being in the article? It is a very obscure fact that should be removed in my opinion. Xxavyer ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:29, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
What is the significance of CREW's opinion of LePage? I'm sure there are groups that think the opposite(that he's the best governor), do we need to list them too? 331dot ( talk) 00:58, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
Is there enough about his term of office to spin off into another article, much like Governorship of Chris Christie? 331dot ( talk) 13:13, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
I've restored some deleted material about LePage's meetings with individuals alledged to have been associated with the Sovereign Citizens movement. Without an explanation of what the participant's discussed in these meetings, the reader who isn't familiar with the term "Sovereign Citizens movement" wouldn't know why such meetings would be newsworthy. The newspaper articles about this incident all mention that these sovereign citizens alluded to executing leaders of the state legislature - in fact, that's in the headline of the cited Bangor Daily News article. However, the previous version of the text only mentioned the execution claim in order to say that the participants deny it: all that version of the text says about the matter is: "Two of the men who had met with LePage rejected the claims of ties to the "sovereign citizen movement" and denied any discussions of executions took place." The reader has no context about who the men were supposed to have discussed executing or why, only that they say they didn't discuss it. The editor making the change claimed that "the value to readers [of the content removed] is nil", but I don't think that the sovereign citizens group or its ideology are widely familiar to readers, so the specific things that these men said in the meetings, as well as the actions that the governor took on their behalf, are relevant. GabrielF ( talk) 01:20, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
“ | During the airing of a segment of the Aroostook Watchmen, a radio show broadcast on radio station WXME in February, an account of a meeting between Gov. Paul LePage and members of the Sovereign Citizens movement emerged in a conversation between show hosts Steve Martin and Jack McCarthy.
McCarthy, whose Sovereign Citizen ties include the Constitutional Coalition, says that he was at the State House to discuss the group's concerns with the governor. Among those topics, McCarthy says, was their belief that Democratic Maine Senate President Justin Alfond and House Speaker Mark Eves should both be tried for treason. "And we also discussed this there, that as far as I know, the penalty for high treason hasn't changed in a hundred years, and I didn't say it, but the governor said it - I never opened my mouth and said the word - the governor looked at us and looked at his buddy and said, 'They're talking about hanging them,' " McCarthy said. "That's right," Martin responded. "I said, Praise the Lord - we'll hang a few and be done with this crap,' " McCarthy said. |
” |
“ | The conspiracy theorists, variously organized as the Maine Constitutional Coalition and We The People of Maine, warned the governor and the small number of other people who would listen that all lawyers are “foreign citizens” and associated with the Communist Party, that Maine’s government was unlawful on account of using paper currency and associating with the United Nations to deprive Mainers of their property rights, and that legislators and other officials were guilty of treason, a crime punishable by death.
... According to McCarthy, that first meeting examined such important topics as the U.N. plot to take over Maine’s North Woods and the illegitimacy of Federal Reserve notes and the U.S. Department of Education. They also, McCarthy told his radio audience, discussed punishing State Senate President Justin Alfond and House Speaker Mark Eves for treason. Rather than run away, LePage held another seven meetings with the group, some lasting as long as three hours. At these meetings, the extremists have claimed, they educated the governor on the U.N. plan to create a one-world government, the “myth” of global warming, the coming collapse of society and the government’s plan to wage war against American citizens. They also held a lengthy meeting on wind power, which the group sees as a plot to take away their freedom, which might explain where the governor got the bizarre idea, expressed in public two weeks later, that wind turbines “have an electric motor so that they can show people wind power works.” McCarthy’s agenda for a May 29 teleconference was among the documents Tipping received in a public records request. The conspiracy theorists asked LePage to summon the local sheriff—the only legitimate law enforcement authority by their thinking—and a superior court judge to determine their willingness “to instruct the servant government agents.” If this did not succeed, they warned the governor, “we will be left with the 1776 or the 1865 option,” references to the American Revolution and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. They closed with a little mangled Barry Goldwater: “In the pursuit of liberty there is no extremism.” |
” |
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Result: The material in question should be included.
Four editors supported inclusion of the material and two were opposed. This represents a low turnout, but a clear majority in favour of inclusion. In opposition to inclusion, it was argued that "any statement asserting that LePage holds or supports specific contentious views" would be an "intrinsic violation of WP:BLP, WP:RS". I don't think this is a fair interpretation, since neither policy cited imposes a blanket ban on ascribing controversial views to article subjects. Moreover, as was pointed out in discussion, the material in question does not appear to actually ascribe any particular view to the article subject in this case. It was also argued that the material was not germane to the article. It seems obvious to me that this is not literally true. It may be reasonable to argue that the material doesn't amount to a hill of beans. However, some editors appear to believe it does, and it is not for a closer to supervote on a question of pure editorial discretion (although this is something that may be taken into account when considering BLP policy).
Separately, it was argued that the material should not be included because, by stating that the article subject met with the people it is said that he met with, a misleading impression that he necessarily supports the views of those people may be given. However, the context of this objection was clearly a contingent vote, because the editor in question said that they would be OK with content that avoided this misleading impression. To my mind, it is clear that such content is possible, and it can be reasonably (if not unquestionably) argued that the article in its current state achieves this.
So, it is my view that arguments presented against inclusion fall short of providing sound reasons to ignore the numerical result of the discussion.
It is relevant to give further consideration to BLP policy. It is a requirement that the material in question be reliably sourced and not be present in a way that seriously misrepresents its importance. On the first question, it seems clear that the sources used for the material pass WP:RS. On the second, the section of the article in question is not placed so as to smack the reader in the chops and it does not appear grotesque in terms of its length or detail in the overall context of the article, particularly given that the article includes material relating to other controversies regarding the subject, so that it is not clear why this one might be elided (the article overall may be skewed against the subject for all I know, but that would be a matter for separate discussion). It does appear to me that the material relates to a controversy discussed in multiple sources and which is not a matter of a mere unsubstantiated allegation, but of a set of facts which have been corroborated.
For what it's worth, the content in question does not appear to me to be clearly worded at present. In particular, it is not clear who Jack McCarthy is (I had to use Google) and, in the sentence "They’re talking about hanging them", it is not clear who "they" and "them" refer to.
Should the section on LePage's meetings with alleged members of the Sovereign Citizen's Movement include information on the topics discussed at those meetings, including the suggestion that Maine legislative leaders were guilty of treason and should be executed?
GabrielF (
talk)
14:02, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
Support inclusion GabrielF ( talk) 14:02, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
Oppose Any statements asserting that LePage holds or supports specific contentious views, including allegations he supports murdering people, etc. as being UNDUE, and an intrinsic violation of WP:BLP, WP:RS, as a series of allegations and rumours and fails to be germane to the topic of the article - that is they are not biographical but political claims and allegations. Contentious claims require strong secondary reliable sources. Also note that he held no "meetings with the Sovereign Citizen's movement" nor do any reliable sources make such a claim. This is "silly season" at its worst. Collect ( talk) 14:19, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
'*Support - as reported in numerous secondary and reliable sources, per WP:NPOV and WP:V. - Cwobeel (talk) 17:17, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
I have drafted the following as a replacement:
On June 30, 2014, the website Talking Points Memo reported that LePage had met eight times with members of the sovereign citizen movement between January and September 2013. It was reported that topics discussed at these meetings, some of which lasted nearly three hours, included assertions that the US Dollar and Maine state courts are illegal, and that Maine Senate President Justin Alfond and Maine House Speaker Mark Eves are guilty of treason and should be appropriately punished, [2] and that the US government and the United Nations are planning for a war against Americans. [3] [4] [5]
In phone calls to the Bangor Daily News, LePage stated that he attended the meetings to discuss the Maine and United States Constitutions, but that some of the points made at the meetings were "off the wall", going on to say that “None of this stuff ever happened” and “We did not discuss execution, arrest or hanging", referring to punishments for treason. [2] LePage said he stopped meeting with the movement members because "they got mad and called me all sorts of names" and had stopped listening to him. [2] He also said that those he had met with had called his office on June 30, the day the story broke, to request a meeting, but he declined to do so. [2] The governor's office issued a statement saying LePage has met with “hundreds of Mainers hearing thousands of ideas, concerns and suggestions” and that “hearing those ideas during constituent meetings does not translate to the Governor endorsing the ideas of others.” [4] LePage himself stated that "I met with President Barack Obama, but I'm not a liberal." [2]
Two of the men who had met with LePage rejected the claims of ties to the "sovereign citizen movement" and denied any discussions of executions took place. Along with LePage, they threatened to sue Mike Tipping, the liberal activist making the claims. [6]
To explain:
I welcome further revisions and/or comment. 331dot ( talk) 11:51, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
References
Congrats on finding the worst possible sources for a factual claim. The Politico piece was an editorial "Letter from Maine" by Colin Woodard. I assume you would also use it for "likened the Internal Revenue Service to the Nazi Gestapo, issued blanket gag orders against the state’s largest newspaper chain (whose headquarters he also joked about bombing) and denounced—on camera—a Democratic state senator for always wanting to “give it to the people without Vaseline.”" Not going to work as a secondary reliable source at all. Salon? "MPBN reports, but he also at one point joked with his guests about hanging Democratic politicians in Maine for treason." Nope. MSNBC? Maine Gov. denies talk of 'hanging' opponents: A forthcoming book reports that Maine Governor Paul LePage met 8 times with a Sovereign Citizen group, with whom he reportedly discussed trying Democratic lawmakers for treason. ascribing the "claim" to a "forthcoming book" and not asserting it as "fact" at all. Yahoo? Ascribes the claims to two radio hosts who "described alleged details" of meetings where one of them says He (McCarthy) was the one who said "hang them" as a response to LePage saying "They're talking about hanging them" but trying to read that into a statement by LePage that anyone should be hanged is a very far reach, indeed. HuffPo? "Tipping, who works for the Maine People’s Alliance, a progressive advocacy group, wrote that when the coalition's members met with LePage they discussed arresting and executing state House Speaker Mark Eves (D) and Senate President Justin Alfond (D) for treason and violating the U.S. Constitution." WashTimes? AP article once again -- we do not count every paper using the AP as a separate "source". Sorry -- what you might have is
Anything more is going well past "fact" into political opinion sourceable to a group actively campaigning for the Democrat in the race. Cheers. Collect ( talk) 11:57, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
The "Letter from Maine" is clearly an "opinion piece" and, as such, is not usable for "claims of fact" as I noted. No source says there was a "series" of 8 meetings with a group - so that does not even have an "opinion source." Nor do any sources state that LePage said to hang anyone at all. Sorry - this stinks to high heaven as a silly season set of claims from an employee of a group actively supporting his opponent.
Collect (
talk)
15:47, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
@ Collect:,
I have no idea why you insist on labeling Tipping's book as "unpublished", when it was, at the time, scheduled to be released by a publisher. [10] (in fact, according to Amazon, the publication date was 17 days after the cited PPH article.)
Describing a book as "unpublished" typically means that the book has not found a publisher. A book that has an upcoming release date from a publisher is not "unpublished". It can be described as "forthcoming" or something along those lines, but to describe a book as "unpublished" has a completely different meaning. GabrielF ( talk) 21:56, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
Without getting into whether or not the governor is good or bad, or what his politics mean for Maine or any of that nonsense, this article is an absolute train wreck and needs to be completely redone.
For instance, it seems to have a section for every single time he has ever said or done anything controversial, as though it is a running anthology of all the reasons he is terrible. Now, most of these (if not all) are indeed notable and newsworthy, so I am not suggesting controversial actions and statements are removed from the article, but there is no reason that each and every one of those is in their own section with multi-paragraph explanations of the controversy. Instead, there should be a "controversies" section that makes note of his propensity for being controversial, which describes these things, maybe with a couple of the bigger ticket items getting their own subsection, but generally dealing with the whole thing in a far more comprehensive way.
The tenure of a governor is a lot more than the public pronouncements and irritations he or she may create. This article is so overwhelmed with that kind of information that frankly, I couldn't find a whole heck of a lot about what he has actually done, in terms of legislating and lawmaking and, well, being governor, because it was so lost in the sea of negative edits (which, I suspect, is the point of whoever has been doing that).
Listen, I understand he is divisive and controversial, and that most likely a majority (if not everyone) of editors who have contributed to this page do not personally like him and think he is a terrible governor. That said, this is an encyclopedia, and this mess of an article is not academic, informative, or reflective of his tenure. It should be significantly reworked, to reflect the style and information high quality articles on oft-controversial governors, such as Rick Perry, Jerry Brown, Chris Christie or Andrew Cuomo.
I suppose I will volunteer myself for a complete article revamp, but no matter how good I make it, I'm sure it will continue to need more work after I am done by the community. I simply ask that we fulfill Wikipedia's mission here, and make this a high quality, informative article that is reflective of the subject, and not some kind of partisan mess. MaineRenegade ( talk) 17:48, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
This page is pretty much just a survey of the newspaper articles trashing the guy.
It is plainly an effort by anti-Lepage-niks to deal in the most pain-in-the-neck kind of dissembling.. the half-truth.
It is not clearly stated that the references are to 'newspapers' that take an anti-LePage stand on every issue and which hard-sell objections to LePage and soft-soap those of his opponents.
There almost zero neutral sourcing.. if neutral sources even exist.
E caroline ( talk) 13:27, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
This will eventually require some text on the dispute with Mark Eves(which I've added to that page) and efforts to impeach or otherwise punish [11] LePage for his actions. (forthcoming links are for information only) [12] [13] [14] 331dot ( talk) 20:13, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
He has also said the Lewiston legislative delegation should be "rounded up and executed in the public square"- which is unusual for any governor to say, even if sarcastically or jokingly. [15]. 331dot ( talk) 00:21, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
The lead does not reflect the article's content, per WP:LEDE it needs to summarize salient points including significant controversies. Tagged accordingly. - Cwobeel (talk) 00:21, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
I'd been waiting for the legislative session to finish to get the final veto total(which is likely to be a record) but any discussion of that should include this latest dispute over the validity of several vetoes, with most people (Democrats and many Republicans) saying LePage messed up and LePage saying otherwise. [16] It's getting some level of national attention. 331dot ( talk) 09:07, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
I don't have time to adequately add this to the page right now, but the page should note his losing the Supreme Court case as to whether 65 bills were properly vetoed. Today's ruling (along with a link to the actual opinion) is here; background of the case here.) These sources need not be used if others have different ones and want to add them. 331dot ( talk) 20:36, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
I think this needs to shake out a little more before adding to the page, but LePage has announced he will no longer make nominations to open positions requiring gubernatorial nominations(state boards, etc) with the exception of two judgeships. He has also said he will no longer deal with the Legislature directly and will work to implement his proposals through citizen initiatives;( source) I think a governor refusing to do a major part of his job is notable. 331dot ( talk) 22:34, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
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I came to read the article as an outsider, with no political side on any Maine or general political issue. I surmise that neutrality and perspective have slowly slipped from the article, through the charitable allowances made by editors toward the addition of new material, which has—given the propensity of state news reporting to lean toward controversy, and toward thoroughly riding local political stories—moved the article to longer and longer negative sections, and toward recentism an negativism in the lede.
The fact of the matter is that this man was elected and re-elected governor in a state with complex politics, and did so on a reform platform against vested interests within his state. (A similar outcome characterizes Illinois politics, of which I am more aware, and which informs my views on overindulgence on the part of Wikipedia, in reporting flash-in-the-pan local dust-ups—ad nauseam, in terms of word count relative to true noteworthiness of events—as enduring biographical content.)
Two concluding points. First, the lead should, per WP poicy, summarize the article. It should not slant toward recent events (and thus lose perspective), and should specifically not overemphasis single accusations (particularly if they have led nowhere in terms of formal sanction).
Second, the article itself should reduce its overblown verbiage, mightily, for instance:
An individual who is governing will of course see higher profile stories over scandal, whether real or just perceived. To parrot the density of material on any given story in local news media is to fail in being encyclopedic. Perspective is expected of historians and biographers, including those in encyclopedias such as WP.
Le Prof 50.179.252.14 ( talk) 14:54, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
I found that removing the closing lede paragraph—which elevated one subsection on a recent event above many, many others in the article—added considerably to returning the lede to a body of prose adequately summarising the article. It is placed here to see if others agree. The removed sentences are here, and are not challenged for veracity of content, but for whether they rise above all other content of the article, which they would supersede to become 20% of the introduction:
In 2015, an investigation was launched to determine if he improperly used his office to force a non-profit group that operates a charter school to reverse their hiring of Mark Eves, the Democratic Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives as its president. Prosecutors declined to launch a criminal investigation into the matter. Some Maine legislators attempted to start impeachment proceedings against LePage for that and other matters, but the effort was not successful.
My view is that the lede is fine without it, and if added back, it should be in a single sentence, and weighed for opportunity cost, for what other material it is excluding (and perhaps be added back only as a part of a more concerted effort to make the lede a better overall summary of the article).
When this and the "poor summary" matters are addressed, the lead-rewrite tag can be removed.
Le Prof Leprof 7272 ( talk) 15:11, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
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This article looks like a mess. There are absolutely massive sections completely taken out of perceptive. I made, what I thought were appropriate edits to clean up the article but was reverted. That is fine. Please look at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons and remove anything in violation. The edits I made trimmed down these massive sections that were competently biased. 40dies11 ( talk) 01:15, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
Here's a story in the Portland Press Herald, part of a 10-part series, on the opioid epidemic in Maine, and the role of LePage. This story has been picked up by other media, including the Columbia Journalism Review, and the issues have gotten widespread coverage, including LePage's opposition to Narcan. I'm not sure how much it should be condensed, in order to keep it NPOV.
http://www.pressherald.com/2017/03/26/lost-heroins-killer-grip-on-maines-people/
A deadly epidemic: Addiction to opioids has put an entire generation at risk
By Eric Russell
Portland Press Herald
March 26, 2017
In 2016, rescue workers used Narcan 2,380 times, up from 1,565 the year before, according to state data. Republican Gov. Paul LePage has been critical of Narcan and has used language that suggests people get what they deserve and shouldn’t be saved after a couple of overdoses....
For several years as the problem worsened, policymakers – led by LePage – made it harder to get treatment, not easier. They reduced reimbursement rates for methadone, a drug used to treat opioid addiction. They tightened eligibility for MaineCare, the state’s version of Medicaid, leaving many low-income people without the ability to pay. They fought increased access to Narcan, prompting Attorney General Janet Mills, a frequent adversary of the governor, to sidestep him and use funds her office controls to provide the overdose drug to local police departments.
-- Nbauman ( talk) 18:02, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
I object to the removal of the bartender category. He was hired as a bartender after he was governor(not just in college as the remover claims). Readers interested in reading about bartenders might like to read about one that was governor, or vice versa. It's good for readers. 331dot ( talk) 23:08, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
He is at least as much a bartender as an "American expatriate in Canada", a "Thomas College alumni", a Lewiston High alumni. 331dot ( talk) 23:27, 7 March 2023 (UTC)