Our governor continues to amaze us with the vastness of his incompetence as chief executive.

He crudely undercut his marine resources commissioner by going behind his back to make deals with the fishing industry and punish perceived enemies in Portland.

His handpicked press secretary had to resign because of foreclosure problems. His environmental commissioner had to resign because of a serious conflict of interest but stayed around to lead another department.

His budget director overlooked an illegal sale of state property.

Without batting an eyelash, Republicans nearly passed a bill allowing weapons in the State House even after a first-term Republican almost shot a news photographer in Augusta. Meanwhile, the majority party passed new gun laws to allow employees to bring concealed weapons to work and public citizens to hide guns while visiting state parks.

LePage signed onto a prayer day proclamation sponsored by Texas Gov. Rick Perry without understanding its transparent political intent. Apparently, our governor didn’t pay attention in history class. This day of prayer is Aug. 6, the day we “Christians” bombed Hiroshima in 1945 killing almost 200,000 fellow human beings.

This is a governor who supposedly cares about “the people.” Which people? He refused to sign LD 860 that would have funded a low-income children’s summer free lunch program, but passed tax laws that primarily favor those making over $120,000 and penalized teachers and retirees for the state’s negligence of the pension system.

Anyone still want the tea party to run the state?

That letter sums up how many of us feel about Paul LePage. L’Idiot! Let’s not let it happen again.

No, actually, mind that. Mind all of those things. After all that, if Michele Bachmann is still the answer in the 2012 presidential race, you must be asking the wrong question.

Am I supposed to be supporting the liberal Republican who championed equal rights for gay people? Or the conservative religious zealot who trashed gay and lesbian Americans on national TV? Or the newly fashioned quasi-moderate who just doesn’t want to talk about the subject?

Am I supposed to be supporting the Massachusetts Republican Governor who created a public health care system in which people pay for private plans in a government marketplace, or am I supposed to be supporting the presidential candidate who belittles a public health care system in which people pay for private plans in a government marketplace because it’s a crazy liberal policy, like those crazy liberals in Massachusetts?

Am I supposed to be supporting the Mitt Romney of yesterday who supported bailouts for automakers, or am I supposed to be supporting the Mitt Romney of today who thinks bailouts for automakers is socialist? What will Mitt Romney think about the subject tomorrow?

Am I supposed to be supporting the Mitt Romney of yesterday who liked a cap-and-trade approach to regulating carbon dioxide emissions, or am I supposed to be supporting the Mitt Romney of today who thinks cap-and-trade is ridiculous?

Way back, Mitt Romney was a credible centrist. Then Mitt Romney reinvented himself as a fire-breathing conservative. Now he says he’s a reasonable businessman with no axe to grind any more. Which of these faces am I to believe?

About the only thing I know I’m supporting with Mitt Romney’s candidacy is the hair-care industry.

Gosh, it’s hard to be a good Republican. I’m beginning to think that maybe there’s some part of that identity I should shed.

While Baker works painstakingly to preserve chemically volatile vinyl stickers in separated layers of plastic and archival silicone-release or alkaline papers, she also has traced the history of bumper stickers back to her home state of Kansas and screenprinter Forest P. Gill. Initially, Gill’s car stickers printed on paper, but were more liable to slough off in nasty weather, even with the application of protective wax or varnish. So Gill introduced self-adhesive vinyl to the automotive world, and the rest is history.

Education? No!
Health care? No!
Peace? No!
Science? No!
Social Security? No!

But they never suggest anything in place of No. The Republicans are the party of No because the Republicans are the party of no ideas.

Whether he’s threatening to murder a particular person who bothers him or telling an entire group they’re not as good as he is, Carl Paladino is like the worst of the playground bullies, posing and flexing and spouting off, completely out of control. It’s only embarrassing in a campaign, but just imagine how bad it would be for New York State in practical terms if this man took the helm. Decades ago, most of the rest of us who live here in New York got past Paladino’s Me-Me-*!#$-Me variety of bigotry. We understand that no matter how different we look from one another we’re all in this together. Hatred does not represent New York in spirit. Hatred should not represent New York in the Governor’s office.

Say no to Carl Paladino for Governor.

To have an International Blasphemy Day would seem oxymoronic, since blaspheming is an act of individual rebellion against a religious system that insists there can be no violation of its self-interested thought barriers. Blasphemy shouldn’t be an organized activity — it should be without limits, not restricted to One Official Day.

But this is a different day. It’s International Blasphemy Rights Day. And when there are tens of thousands of religious bodies in the United States — and millions of religious organizations around the world — dedicated to imposing their religious strictures on everyone else, all to prevent people from questioning the veracity of their often quite wacky suppositions, then by gum there needs to be some organization to push back a little bit, and in order to do it right some organization is called for. This is organization to defend my right, your right, all our rights to believe what we believe and to say out loud what we don’t believe.

You have a right to blasphemy. And if you believe that you have the right, you need to stand up for it.

Allen West, the Republican Party nominee for Congress in Florida’s 22nd District, has made a speech publicly railing against the idea of coexistence:

As I was driving up here today, I saw that bumper sticker that absolutely incenses me. It’s not the Obama bumper sticker. But it’s the bumper sticker that says, ‘CoExist,’ and it has all the little religious symbols on it. And the reason why I get upset, and every time I see one of those bumper stickers, I look at the person inside that is driving. Because that person represents something that would give away our country. Would give away who we are, our rights and freedoms and liberties because they are afraid to stand up and confront that which is the antithesis, anathema of who we are. The liberties that we want to enjoy.

Watch the video of these remarks and you’ll see that Allen West makes these comments without the slightest sense of irony, which is quite sad. The “rights and freedoms and liberties” that are the foundation of American society are found in the Constitution. The very first freedoms are written in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which reads:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

In other words, Government shall not be used as a cudgel for one group to dominate another, for one belief to suppress another, for one religion to eliminate another. The central idea of the U.S. Constitution, which is the Supreme Law of our Land (Article VI), is CoExistence of different people, of different religions, of different expressions, of different ideas.

The GOP’s new nominee Allen West stands against CoExistence.

Allen West stands against the idea of America.

If you are for the American value of coexistence, be against the election of Allen West this November.

It’s true, and the Republican candidate for Governor made it unavoidably plain. When he was asked “Would you support offshore drilling in the waters off the Maine Coast?” in a televised gubernatorial debate in May of this year, Paul LePage gave an unequivocal one-word answer: “Yes.”

We’ve seen what happened to the fishing and tourism industries of the Gulf Coast after BP’s recent oil disaster. Is this what you want to see happening in Maine’s future?

It almost sounds funny, doesn’t it? I mean, come on, the group names itself Hutaree, and is led by people named “Captain Hutaree” and “Guhighllo?” What a laugh, huh?

And then we remember that these reconstructionists, eager to create a kingdom with their understanding of God’s Law, decided that it would be a good idea to kill cops for Christ. Call it like you see it with this bumper sticker against the Hutaree: it adopts the Hutaree badge, right down to the CCR acronym at the bottom. But in this sticker, CCR stands for Crazed Christian Reconstructionism.

Question authority. Question religious violence. Confront the Hutaree and their fellow travelers with this anti-Hutaree sticker.