Election 2026 and Voter Fraud is Real

"You know that little voice in your head that keeps you from saying the things you shouldn't say? Yeah, I don't have that!"

By Rich Kozlovich, Tags: My Voter Fraud Commentaries.

Is Maine reflective of all the kind of candidates being offered by the Democrats?  I think it is, as an example take Katie Porter.  While she's now out of it that doesn't change how unhinged she is and was right along.  The rest just hide their .... quirks.... better.  Otherwise people might think they're nuts.  Talking about nuts; there's James Talarico who now claims Christians are ‘Christofascists’ and Islam is a “path to truth”.  Yessir, he's really got a handle on faith, and how to win Texans over.  

Maine Democrats just had a debate with those wanting to take Planter's place as the Democrat candidate for 2026...... and to be kind.... it appears it was a remarkable clown show.  As one writer said before this debate he had trouble understanding how Planter got chosen in the first place, now he gets it.  

• Update 6:05 PM:  Here's how Planter got picked.  This Is What's Happening to the Consultants Who Made Graham Platner.  It's almost unbelievable just how incompetent the Democrat party really is. And here's the scary part that's seemingly going on all over the nations: "If Platner hadn’t been a total scumbag, he would have had a fighting chance as an outsider to win the race."  And that's the theme.... the desire for outsiders!  That's a theme being ignored by everyone except these activists.  I'll have more on that, and the DNC needs to be scared.  

Dems Find An Even Worse Candidate to Replace Graham Platner (VIDEO).  (Ya just gotta see the video) And the hits just keep on coming...... Maine, if this is your best, you have a problem.  The Maine Dem Senate debate could be summed up in seven words:

......."congratulations on your reelection, Sen. Susan Collins"........."The candidates, a motley crew of losers, were a healthy helping of milquetoast—they didn’t know anything"......

1.  Platner Proves Dems Will Put Up With Anything, Except Losing
2.  ‘Ginger Goebbels’: Jen Psaki Is ENRAGED for All of Us About the Whole Graham Platner
3.  If Only Democrats Had Some Sign of Platner’s Dubious Character
4.  Platner Is a Hilarious Symptom of Progressive Failure

Trump has declared the U.S. election system is ‘broken’ and ‘vulnerable’, and has called on the FBI to investigate ‘significant evidence of fraud’ in Michigan 2020 election. 

In 2024 I wrote:

 ........the battle in Michigan over voter fraud is hot and it's being claimed Michigan has about  500,000 on voter rolls other than eligible voters.   The "New RNC", that's working to end this corruption.   In March the RNC filed an election integrity lawsuit targeting Michigan’s handling of absentee ballots  and it appears they've won that ballot case: .......making this their tenth win against Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson"for failing to follow the state's election security law.  Detroit appointed seven times more Democrat poll watchers than Republicans for its primary election, and the RNC Sues Detroit, Alleging City Did Not Hire Enough Republican Poll Watchers.  

That was in 2024, so I really get a kick out of this especially since my Michigan voter fraud file goes back to 2020.  And they're just now discovering it?  Remarkable!

• WATCH: President Trump Lays Bare Massive GBI Strategies Fake Voter Registration Scam in His Nationwide Address—The Gateway Pundit Broke The Story in August 2023

He also stated classified documents show China has actively interfered, and compromised’ at least 18 state voter rolls, which of course they're really upset over Trump’s "false allegations saying:

“This is a false allegation and serious smear that has long been proved to be unfounded. China adheres to non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian told reporters during his briefing. “We never interfere in U.S. elections and have zero interest in that.”

Oh sure, they may murder a bunch of malcontents in order to harvest their organs but nothing so terrible as interfering with a U.S. election in spite of the release of the documents that proving otherwise.

 

“As the documents we are releasing show, CIA reporting explicitly stated, ‘in mid-2018, the Chinese communist party’s policy was to leverage all domestic and foreign elements that were opposed to the U.S. president in an effort to reduce the U.S. president’s votes, and make him resign or prevent his reelection,” he said.

• Trump Speech: China Hacked 220 Million U.S. Voter Files 

Let's not have any delusions, in spite of all the ranting about how the 2020 election was clean.... it wasn't ...... and even the bug man knew that right from the beginning.  Trump states the only reason for the Congress to fail to pass the SAVE America Act is because they want to be able to cheat.  I can understand that for Democrats but what's wrong with the Republicans? 

1. Rep. Jim Jordan Says Senate Republicans Must Nuke the Filibuster Now to Pass SAVE America Act Before Democrats Do It Themselves
2. POLL SHOCKER: Socialism Is Infecting The GOP As Well 
3. Hey, Republicans, Spending Is Still Out Of Control

And of course Trump got the usual support from the Pravda media, they ignored him, and was the reason the Pravda media failed to cover his speech to protect their leftist masters?  The left believes the SAVE America Act ‘belongs in the trash’  And why does it belong in the trash?  Well, I gotta tell ya, I wonder if these nitwits realize what they're saying half the time.  Democrats Sen. Elissa Slotkin from Michigan stated the Save America Act was the Republicans way of rigging the election that would prevent Democrats from winning. 

 

“The other thing that we blocked yesterday was the SAVE Act, right?” she said to loud cheers. She claimed that act “would literally allow this administration to rig our democracy so that it would be hard for any Democrat in any state to win any election.” She also claimed it would “disenfranchise all married women in the meantime.” 

 

First of all, this disenfranchising married women claim is a blatant lie, and secondly, now let me see if I understand this correctly.   She's saying that making sure the people who are voting are actually alive and American citizens with the right to vote will prevent Democrats from getting elected.    Did I get that right?  I didn't miss anything did I?

1. Michigan Democrat Slotkin Admits The Liberal Truth: Is Anyone Listening?

So, that brings us back to my original question.  Is Maine reflective of all the candidates being offered by the Democrats? Let's take a quick look at the party, who they support, what they support and who they've decided to run. 

1. The Hamas wing of the Democratic Party
2. 'Incendiary': Imam who prayed before Congress unleashes vile comment about Lindsey Graham
3. Tim Walz’s love affair with the illegal alien pedophile continues—even though the creep has been deported
4. Gov. Walz Attacks Trump for Deporting Child Rapist: “We Can’t all Be Judged by Our Worst Day.” .  To show just what a sick and warped mind Walz has is can be defined by one person's comment saying it wasn't this rapists worst day.  It was that poor ten year old child's worst day.  
5. Half of House Democrats, Including Pelosi, Vote to End Aid to Israel
6.  Of Marxists and morons 
7.  Democratic socialism is communism-lite
8.  Who are the actual racists in today's America?
9.  Bolshevik Russia and the DSA’s Democrat Party Project, Part I
10.  DSA Calls for Abolishing the Constitution
11. What Does Socialism Actually Deliver?
12.  How identity politics fuels Democratic Party schisms
13.  Bernie Sanders’ hostile takeover of the Democrat Party 
14.  Socialism is Always a Move Towards Communism -- with the Same Result
15.  Democratic Socialists of America Membership Sets Record as 58% of Democrats View Socialism Favorably
16. What’s Really In The Rebooted Democratic Socialist Platform
17. Dems Should Unite With Socialists for Election Victories 
18.  How do we explain the Democratic Socialists’ platform?
19.  Cotton: China Views Dem Socialists as 'Ideological Fellow Travelers
20.  They want reparations, and they’ve come to collect
21.  Sanctuary Massachusetts: 11 Illegal Aliens Accused of Stealing $1.4 Million in Food Stamps, Disability Benefits
22. Ro Khanna Says The Quiet Part Out Loud About His ‘Billionaire’ Tax
23. A Tale Of Two Governors
24. Democratic socialism’s rise: What they won’t tell you

So, after perusing these links I think it might be a good idea to ask and answer this question.  Why would anyone think Democrats couldn't get elected if it wasn't for voter fraud?   Believe me when I tell you all this lunacy didn't just start.  I goes back to the beginning of the 20th century. Please review, Woodrow Wilson’s War Against the Constitution.

Update 5:57 PM:  

• White House: More than Quarter of Million Foreigners Illegally Registered to Vote in Four States
• China Sought to Pay U.S. Journalists to Write Negative Stories on Trump to Sway 2020 Election

Update 9:50PM: 

• Exclusive — Nat Security Experts React to Chinese Election Influence: Revelations Should ‘Galvanize Our Resolve’ 

 

Character Counts

When a man takes an oath, he's holding his own self in his own hands like water, and if he opens his fingers then, he needn't hope to find himself again. Sir Thomas More, Man For All Seasons

By Rich Kozlovich

As I watch the candidates....from both parties....running for political office I just chuckle, roll my eyes, and shake my head, and think to myself nitwits are like cockroaches, you just can't get rid of them. 

It's being touted that former Senator John Sununu (R-NH), a "scion of a prominent GOP political dynasty, Sununu, 61, likely gives Republicans their best chance of flipping the seat after his brother, former Gov. Chris Sununu, rejected the party’s recruitment efforts for another cycle", with him saying " “somebody has to step up and lower the temperature. Somebody has to get things done.”   He thinks he's the guy who can do that.... Really? 

 Two things.  

He's been a supporter of John Kasich, which shows there's something seriously wrong with the man, and Nikki Haley, both now Republican outcasts, and he's been an anti-Trumper.  It appears the Democrat running is beatable, and allegedly, Sununu is considered the best Republican to win.... but.... polls are polls.  Show me the crowds not the polls, and Trump hasn't weighed in on who he thinks is the best Republican.  Based on his relationship with the RINO Sununu clan, I would normally be betting it wouldn't be John Sununu, except I have no doubt the Maine Republican party, like most state Republican organizations is filled with RINO's, who will offer no alternative to Sununu.  

In New Jersey ....and this is a shocker.... a Republican actually has a chance to become the governor, as the Democrat, Rep. Mikie Sherrill, running for governor has issues.  She's a graduate of the US Naval Academy, who wasn't allowed to march with her graduating class because she violated the Honor Code over a cheating scandal at the Academy.  A classmate testified she either "lied or obscured the facts".  Apparently they couldn't prove that for sure, but it's clear they had no doubt she violated the Honor Code.  And while she graduated, the author notes that "outcomes are not exonerations when the process was tainted by dishonesty", and time hasn't been on her side as more information has come forward, and she keeps dodging and twisting to avoid releasing her whole record.  

• Democrat in New Jersey Governor’s Race Changes Story About Naval Academy Cheating Scandal Again-Classmates Aren’t Buying It 

In Maine Senator Susan Collins has been a thorn in the Republican backside, and in my view, a disgrace since first elected in 1997.   But as far left as she is, she actually seems rational compared the Democrat candidate running against her.  A guy sporting a Nazi tattoo, who Bernie Sanders thinks is just grand.  Talk about having two strikes against you.  Graham Platner claims he's shocked that's a Nazi tattoo....imagine that!

Now, ya just gotta see the humor in that given the Democrat penchant for declaring anyone who disagrees with them is a Nazi.   He's been busy deleting  social media posts showing he's an out and out communist and hates the police and he's made it clear he approves of violence.  What could possibly go wrong with a Senator like him?  

Then we have Virginia.  The Democrat gal running for governor started out with a huge lead...and that's crumbling.  Why?  Let's do the numbers.

1. Is it because of she supports mass amnesty for anyone in the world who makes it into the US?  
2. Could it be because she babbles "word salads" about males in girls’ locker rooms, clearly fearing to offend the LGBTQIAXYZCNNCBSABCMSNBCMSNOW movement, totally unconcerned about the girls? 
3. How about the possibility that overall she has a woke DEI, pro-trans, pro-illegal immigrant agenda and loved Joe Biden's massive spending bills that caused record inflation? 
4. Or perhaps it's because she's really unhappy voters in Virginia expect her to condemn the violence promoted by Democrats primarily the Democrat running for Attorney General for the State of Virginia, Jay Jones?

Nah, that's not why her numbers are starting to crash.  It's because, according to MSNBC sexism is the source for her troubles.  Oh, wait, they're blaming sexism for her problems when she's running against another woman and they're calling it sexism? A black woman at that.  So.... is that racism? 

Let's talk about Jay Jones who's running to be Virginia's next Attorney General.  He's been exposed for his reckless disregard for the law, and somehow thinks he deserves special privileges. His willingness to support violence is well documented, including wanting the "head of the cop who donated to the Rittenhouse defense".  This is the guy who claimed he wanted to put bullets in the head Todd Gilbert, the Republican Speaker of the House and "hoped that Jennifer Gilbert’s children would die in her arms, adding,  “I mean do I think Todd and Jennifer are evil? And that they’re breeding little fascists? Yes.”  This is another disgraceful leftist lunatic who if elected claims he will prosecute President Trump because he's bad.  

 

He's anti police and anti-law an order, even wanting to defund the police, and he's running for the top law enforcement job in the state?  Where have we seen that before, and the consequences of those actions?   He's aligned himself with BLM invoking their thug icons George Floyd and Jacob Blake, "wants to pull police from schools, end qualified immunity for law enforcement, and end cash bail", and wants to end the "system that's oppressing black people."  He's an anti white racist, saying, "the daily indignities of being black can be burdensome. If we respond to it all, we would have riots daily.”  

 

He's a race baiting racist, and the Democrat party stands behind him.  Why? According to the Chairman of the DNC Virginians have accepted his apology for those statements. Polls suggest otherwise, except among Democrats.  It turns out 93% of Virginia Democrats think calling for the murder of Republicans and their children dying in their mother's arms is perfectly acceptable.  The Democrat party has descended into violence, willing to assault and even murder anyone who challenges their insanity, and it's contagious on a national scale, even at local level politics such as this school board race.

 

I've written and/or posted a lot about the NYC race, so I won't go into it here, but I really think this is telling.  Both Mamdani and Cuomo say a vote for the other is a vote for Trump, which in a round about way is saying they would vote for each other rather than Donald Trump.  How insane is that?  

 

I think New Jersey and Virginia are going to choose Republican governors, and the NYC race has set off a shocking chain of events exposing the insanity of the Democrat party, exposures that are making an impact nationally.  Even Dana Perino of FOX News,  who isn't one to jump out in front of an issue, believes Democrats will lose New Jersey and Virginia.  Imagine that!

 

How a Rich Kid Politician Was Spun as a Working Class 'Oysterman'

By Daniel Greenfield @ Sultan Knish Blog

There is the Graham Platner that the media wants you to see: Maine oysterman, veteran and gun owner, a working class type who could easily be MAGA, but is running as a Democrat.

Then there’s the real Graham Platner, son of a prominent local attorney, grandson of a major modernist architect, whose business was funded by a nonprofit grant meant for black people.

And by his mother who owns multiple businesses.

While he’s been billed as an outsider candidate with no interest in professional politics, he’s actually the activist son of a council candidate and the husband of a town selectwoman, as well as a local official whom the media had regularly turned to for quotes since at least 2009.

Media write-ups about the Maine Senate candidate’s oyster business typically mention that he grew up in the area leading to the impression that he came from a working-class family from some of the traditional trades, but nothing could be further from the truth about the Platners.

Graham Platner attended the prestigious John Bapst Memorial High School, a college prep school (current tuition: $12,500) and came from a wealthy and prominent local family. At school the leftist activist was described as “most likely to start a revolution” in his yearbook while holding a ‘Free Palestine’ sign which based on speeches still appears to be his biggest issue.

Platner claims that “everyone knows we live in a system that is not built to represent working-class people.” How would he know? He was never a member of the working class.

Bronson Platner, Graham’s father, was not an ‘oysterman’, he was a lawyer, including for a local town, who was reprimanded for professional misconduct, and a former assistant DA. Platner’s father was a major donor to Democrats, including Barack Obama, Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders, donating thousands to the Vermont socialist who would later endorse his son, and Bronson eventually made a failed run for city council in the town of Ellsworth.

One of Bronson’s positions was in favor of painting a crosswalk in LGBTQ rainbow colors.

Bronson Platner had donated over $50,000 to Democrats over the years. This is not the kind of money that a working class family or even a regular lawyer spends on politics as a hobby.

Graham’s grandfather, Warren Platner, was a prominent modernist architect who had worked with I.M. Pei and had designed dorms at Yale and part of Manhattan’s Lincoln Theater. Graham’s aunt is the director of child care at the Yale New Haven Hospital. It’s the kind of family that the New York Times and other media outlets would normally love to write about.

But instead the media ignores Platner’s wealthy Connecticut society roots, his time at George Washington University and portrays him as a hard-working local oysterman.

A month before Platner announced his candidacy, the New York Times stopped by and took a boat tour with him accompanied by photographs of the future Senate candidate in his usual working class drag, gimme cap and t-shirt, harvesting and shucking oysters. Those pictures were then reused for the Times profile on his Senate campaign (a privilege most local candidates don’t get) leaving readers with the impression it’s a one-man operation.

(Tourism at $95 a person appears to form a significant part of Platner’s business.)

Graham Platner’s takeover of an existing oyster business was actually funded by a $20,000 grant from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, a Greek billionaire’s nonprofit, and by his mother, Leslie Harlow, a local businesswoman who owns two restaurants and a gift shop in the area.

“His best customer happens to be his mom,” one description put it. “The fact that I get to have a personal and business relationship with my mom, the fact that my mom has a restaurant that I get to sell my products at, it’s really quite wonderful,” Graham Platner said in a video profile.

The Niarchos Foundation grant that helped finance Graham Platner’s business was supposed to be for small businesses owned by “underserved groups” without “access to capital” like “people of color, women, and veterans as well as those in lower-income communities”.

While Platner was a veteran, he came from a wealthy family and his business was not recovering from the pandemic. The progressive maxed out the $20,000 grant and took money that the Niachos Foundation had intended should go to help black people to build his business.

As a profile politely put it, “with a built-in support system of friends and family in the hospitality industry, Platner bought a boat and began the process of expanding.” It’s unclear who else besides his mother was working in the “hospitality industry”, but it appears that Platner’s business was built on friends and family. And a grant he should never have gotten.

Finally the media narrative about Graham Platner is that he’s an outsider candidate with no interest in professional politics. Platner is actually the son of a political candidate and his wife Amy Gertner was on the Select Board of the town of Hope. And Graham is a local official.

Platner is not an outsider. He’s a ‘progressive’ leftist activist from a family of them.

His Senate campaign tweeted a high school yearbook picture of him holding up a sign reading “Free Palestine” above the headline “Most likely to start a revolution”. Unlikely behavior for a working class family, but quite in keeping with the scion of a wealthy and progressive family.

During his campaign, Graham Platner claims that he left the military because he became disillusioned with the war. “I left the Army in 2012 pretty cynical. I’d become pretty disgusted with American foreign policy. Pretty disgusted with the wars.” he claimed in an interview.

But there was nothing to be “disillusioned” by because Graham never supported the war.

As a teenager, Graham Platner had taken part in anti-war rallies during the Iraq War. He didn’t join the military because he believed in the cause, but as he admitted, “I wanted to be a soldier since I was two years old…at 19, I was also a young man drawn to an adventure – and serving overseas was the ultimate adventure.”

Was Platner really so disillusioned and cynical about the military in 2012? Then why does a $1,000 donation to a Democrat in 2018 list his employer as one of the incarnations of Blackwater? In an interview, Planter was described as having felt a conveniently “renewed call to service” in 2018 that led him to work in Afghanistan as a security contractor.

If you believe Graham Platner, he joined a war he didn’t believe in, then he dropped out because he didn’t believe in it, then he decided to believe in it some more, and then stopped believing in it a few years later, and now he’s running against a war that he switched between being for and against so many times that it would have given John Kerry whiplash.

The most curious thing by far about Platner though is how much interest the media had in him, not just now when he announced his candidacy, but going back as far as the oughts.

Quotes by Graham Platner appear in media stories, not local ones, but in national papers like the Washington Post going back to 2009. One or two might be coincidence, but whenever the media needed to quote an Iraq War veteran, it turned to a seemingly obscure man from Maine.

In 2016, for example, the Washington Post looked to Platner to condemn Trump for not really caring about veterans. “Graham Platner, a Marine who fought in the battle of Ramadi, thinks that Trump is playing the part of ‘patriotic culture warrior’ and thinks that Trump’s ‘knee-jerk patriotism’ plays directly to his base.” That’s something Platner may know a lot about.

Past the gimme cap and the oysterman costume is the shiftless radical son of a wealthy family who joined the military for adventure, spent years at George Washington University on the taxpayer dime without emerging with any obvious employable profession (a Washington Post story from 2009 describes him taking an ‘art history’ class) and then had his mother, friends and family set him up with an existing oyster farm that he then used to conduct tours for tourists.

And sell oysters to his mother’s restaurants.

It’s a less ‘Made for MAGA’ profile than the veteran oysterman grumbling about wasted lives in Iraq that is part of the Senate candidate’s current brand. Truer still is the wealthy prep school kid who held up a ‘Free Palestine’ sign in his yearbook still running against Israel’s war on Hamas which make up a significant part of his ad binge and gave him the nickname ‘Maine Mamdani’.

Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine. Click here to subscribe to my articles. And click here to support my work with a donation.  Thank you for reading.

 

 

 

Appeals Aplenty for Trump 2024

The former president makes his case in Maine.

by Mark Angelides | Jan 3, 2024

Former President Donald Trump has filed an appeal against Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows’ decision to remove him from the 2024 Republican primary ballot. The 11-page appeal filed on January 2 to the Maine Superior Court covers why Trump’s legal team believes Ms. Bellows’ decree should be vacated and, more notably, his argument as to why the 14th Amendment of the Constitution does not apply.

Both the Maine case and a Colorado Supreme Court ruling rely upon the 14th Amendment to disqualify Trump from the ballot in their respective states. As the issue is almost certain to work its way up the court hierarchy, whatever arguments the GOP frontrunner makes now will almost certainly be decided by the US Supreme Court. Thus, the filing offers a unique window into the case that will perhaps give a preview of what is to come.

Here's the Issue!

The Team Trump filing makes four essential claims:

(1) the Secretary was a biased decision maker who should have recused herself and otherwise failed to provide lawful due process;

(2) the Secretary had no legal authority under 21-A M.R.S. §§ 336 or 337 or any other Maine statute to consider the federal constitutional issues presented by the Challengers;

(3) the Secretary made multiple errors of law and acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner; and

(4) President Trump will be illegally excluded from the ballot as a result of the Secretary’s actions.

Accusations of bias were addressed in the initial decision by Ms. Bellows, who wrote that she had “determined that I could preside over this matter impartially and without bias. My decision is based exclusively on the record before me, and it has in no way been influenced by my political affiliation or personal views about the events of January 6, 2021.”

Previously, the secretary had demonstrated her anti-Trump stance publicly on social media and made clear that she thought his Senate acquittal over Jan. 6 was a miscarriage of justice.

Shenna Bellows (Joe Phelan/Portland Press Herald via Getty Images)

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung argued that her bias was blatant, saying, “Make no mistake, the Secretary is a partisan Democrat and former ACLU executive who has decided to abuse the authority of her office to help her preferred candidate …”

But what of the suggestion that Bellows made “multiple errors of law”?

This question hinges on the meaning of the 14th Amendment, a post-Civil War measure used by Bellows to justify her decision. As Liberty Nation reported: “Section 3 of the 14th Amendment prohibits anyone from holding office in the United States if they previously swore an oath to uphold the Constitution and then later ‘engaged in insurrection or rebellion’ against the Constitution … Today, the issues for courts considering these cases are whether Trump was an insurrectionist and if the President of the United States is included in who is covered by the Amendment as an ‘officer of the United States.'”

Does It Apply?

As well as disputing whether Section 3 of the 14th Amendment applies to the president of the United States, Trump’s team makes the case that the secretary of state does not have the authority to remove the former president from the ballot under Maine state law governing ballot access. This contention rests on the idea that the “insurrection” clause is not covered under the eligibility rules that govern the secretary of state’s conduct and that only “false statements” and issues with party designation and residence are covered.

The filing goes on to say that “even if Maine law authorized the Secretary to consider challenges to President Trump’s candidacy under Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment (which it did not), The Secretary could not properly have considered Section Three and erred as a matter of law in doing so.” It states that:

• Disqualification of a presidential candidate under Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment presents a political question reserved for the Electoral College and Congress;
• Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment is not self-executing and requires congressional legislation—of which there presently is none—to give it effect,
• Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment bars persons otherwise subject to its disqualification from holding specified offices, not from running for them from being elected to them.
• Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment does not apply to President Trump because he has never served as an “officer of the United States,” and has never taken an “oath to support the Constitution”;
• Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment does not apply to bar candidates from the presidency because that position is not an “office under the United States”;
• President Trump did not “engage” in “insurrection”; and
• As evidence of President Trump’s conduct, the Secretary relied entirely on President Trump’s public speeches. These speeches did not incite insurrection, and therefore President Trump’s political speech was protected by the First Amendment.

Trump Relief?

The filing closes with four precise demands that include vacating the initial ruling, declaring that the secretary of state lacks the authority to begin any other proceedings under the 14th Amendment against the former president, that Trump be put back on the ballot (although he has not as yet been removed), and that the court grant the petitioner any other ”just” and “equitable” relief. While combined these may seem like a big ask, in fact all they really do is roll back the status quo to what it was before Ms. Bellows unilaterally made the decision to strike 45 from the primary ballot in her state.

The decision on Trump’s appeal will be made in the Kennebec County Superior Court. An agreement between Trump’s legal team and Secretary Bellows has been made to present oral arguments (“at the court’s discretion”) on January 16. Should the former president not persuade the court on that date, the next stop will be Maine’s Supreme Court and, finally, Washington, DC.

Tags: Articles, Good Reads, Law, Politics

 

Read More From Mark Angelides

Maine’s Removal of Trump From the Ballot: Of Course It’s Biased

To call Secretary Bellows unbiased goes beyond parody.

by Liberty Nation Authors | Dec 30, 2023 @ Liberty Nation News

Maine Democrat Secretary of State Shenna Bellows unilaterally voted former President Donald Trump off the state’s presidential primary ballots Thursday, December 28. By her own admission, no other secretary of state had ever issued such a ruling based on their own interpretation of a constitutional issue before. We spoke with Liberty Nation Legal Affairs Editor Scott D. Cosenza to get a better understanding of this novel situation.

James Fite: Secretary Bellows suspended the effects of her ruling until an actual court weighs in on Trump’s appeal – which he was given five days to file. What purpose does this ruling serve if she hasn’t even had it take effect yet?

Scott D. Cosenza: Your question reminds us that this is no court case but a decision by a politician from Trump’s opposition party. The cynical view is that the ruling secures Bellows’ name in the national conversation and will accelerate her political fundraising like pouring gas on a fire. Perhaps she will go after Susan Collins again in another run on the Democrat ticket for US Senator from Maine?

More charitably, and if we take Secretary Bellows at her word, she was bound by law and duty to issue a ruling on the challenges to Donald Trump’s nomination petition. Then, she exercised her discretion with such a novel application of the law by suspending the decision in anticipation of the appeal. That last part, at least, is good judging.

JF: Bellows makes the point numerous times that the rules she’s bound by (the Administrative Procedure Act, or APA) allow her to set all the deadlines and determine what gets entered as evidence and what doesn’t. She chose to base her hearing on a highly partisan report from the Democrat-led House committee that ran the second impeachment of Trump back at the end of his presidency. When the appeal is examined, how likely is the court to follow this same path?

SDC: The Secretary goes out of her way to discuss how few rights the candidate has in the process. It’s a rather staggering amount of power. A Secretary of State who consciously or unconsciously wished to punish the leading candidate from another party might be able to do so even though they weren’t really a traitor or insurrectionist. I suspect the appellate courts will examine her process and find it wanting. And even if they don’t, they will reverse her finding that Trump has committed insurrection by, for instance, not taking some action to prevent it, as Bellows ruled.

JF: Trump said Bellows should recuse herself because she’s biased – and, as LN’s Mark Angelides recently pointed out, her anti-Trump record is well established – but she assesses her bias and declares it non-existent. Is it normal in accusations of bias for the accused official’s own opinion on the matter to be trusted? If she is biased against Trump, why would she admit (or perhaps even realize) it?

(Photo by John Patriquin/Portland Press Herald via Getty Images)

SDC: The answer to your question is that they wouldn’t if they were doing so intentionally and couldn’t if the bias was not conscious. And yet, that doesn’t address the fact that you don’t need a law degree or a judicial robe to know this politician, who opposed Trump’s elections and who ran statewide as a Democrat for federal office, is as biased as you can get. It’s beyond parody. Bellows wrote she would “preside over this matter impartially and without bias. My decision is based exclusively on the record before me, and it has in no way been influenced by my political affiliation or personal views about the events of January 6th, 2021.”

JF: She says this is the first time a Secretary of State has decided that a candidate participated in an insurrection and removed said candidate from the ballot. Are other states likely to follow suit?

SDC: The last time I checked, there were challenges to Trump’s ballot access on these grounds filed in at least 14 states. It looks like next up with a decision will likely be Oregon, whose state supreme court is expected to issue a ruling soon. The arguments have been submitted, and all that’s left is for the seven-member court, all of whom were appointed by Democrat governors, to rule on the case.

The New York Times, citing a “person familiar with the matter,” said Trump would file a Supreme Court challenge to the Colorado decision “as soon as Tuesday,” January 2. A decision on the merits of the 14th Amendment-based challenge in Colorado will apply to all the states with these cases.

Tags: Articles, Good Reads, Opinion, Politics

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