Shenna Bellows knows it was a multi-month effort. Conservative SCOTUS should feel shame, but shills and operatives have no conscience.

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Maine SoS: I Found Trump Guilty of Thing He Wasn’t Charged with Using a Lower Standard ‘Different’ from a Trial https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2023/12/30/maine-sos-i-found-trump-guilty-of-thing-he-wasnt-charged-with-using-a-lower-standard-different-from-a-trial/

Are you kidding me?!?!?

Maines DEMOCRAT Secretary of State Shenna Bellows has REMOVED Donald Trump for the Republican primary ballot.

We are living in a BANNAN REPUBLIC!

Republican domestic terrorists strike back.

Victor Davis Hanson

@VDHanson

Who Are the Real Insurrectionaries? Part One Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows just ordered Trump’s name removed from the primary ballot in May. She claimed he is guilty in her view of “insurrection”—a crime Trump has never been charged with, much less convicted of. Her evidence, mostly gleaned from popular news accounts and video reports, would not stand up in a court of law. Bellows has no law degree. She was appointed by a majority vote of the Democratic-controlled Maine legislature, not through a popular ballot. Her legal expertise seems to be derived from years of political activism with the ACLU. We can see where the ultimate trajectory of this usurpation is going—once a single official decides to remove the leading primary and general election candidate of the opposition from the ballot by fiat. Tit-for-tat will likely follow and would unwind the republic. Take Bellows’ action and then apply it to any future candidacy of Hillary Clinton. And by these new rules she surely would fail to qualify to have her name on a state ballot. Remember, in 2016 Hillary Clinton illegally hired a foreign national (by law forbidden to work in presidential campaigns), Christopher Steele, to create a “dossier” of smears and fake-news accounts, aimed at destroying her presidential opponent Donald Trump by extra-legal means. Clinton hid her illicit payments to Steele behind the paywalls of the DNC, the Perkins-Coie law firm, and Fusion GPS. Her leftwing associates and partisans in the waning Obama administration, the DOJ, State Department, FBI, and CIA worked hard to brand the slurs as credible, as they variously passed them off and leaked to the media on the eve of the election. They and Democrats in congress later engineered the appointment of a special counsel, whose investigations consumed two years of the Trump administration’s term, before finding no “collusion”. Even three years after the election in 2019 and the special counsel’s findings, Clinton could still persist that Trump was an “illegitimate” president: “He knows he’s an illegitimate president”. She also declared that year that the 2016 election had been “stolen”: “I think it’s also critical to understand that, as I’ve been telling candidates who have come to see me, you can run the best campaign, you can even become the nominee, and you can have the election stolen from you”—de facto asserting the balloting was fraudulent. She was prepping the battlefield for 2020. So Clinton continued her denialism right up to the eve of the 2020 election, further claiming the 2016 election was rigged, “There was a widespread understanding that this election [in 2016] was not on the level.” To be continued…

A very sarcastic thank you to whoever did this for trying to delegitimize an actually legitimate movement. Swatting is not a joke-people will die. If you do this, you deserve the prison time you'll get. She deserves to be fired and possibly investigated for very obviously violating the Constitution, not potentially shot.

More of this! More of this!

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Maine Secretary of State, a Non-Attorney, Makes Legal Ruling Striking Trump from Ballot Based on YouTube Videos https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/12/29/maine-secretary-state-makes-legal-ruling-striking-trump-ballot-based-youtube-videos/

When faced with the possible return of President Donald Trump, the current agenda of the Democratic Party is summed up simply as “We had to destroy democracy to save it.”

The effort shares a common theme: any means necessary are justified to prevent the people from choosing their own president, given the fear that a majority might vote to elect Donald Trump.

Sometimes the anti-democratic paranoia has been outsourced to state and local officials and prosecutors to erase Trump from the primary and likely general election ballots as well.

One unelected official in Maine, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, is a Democrat, an official never elected by the people, and a non-lawyer rendering a legal edict. Yet she has judged Trump guilty of “insurrection.”

And presto, she erased his name from the state’s ballot.

Yet Trump was never charged, much less convicted, of “insurrection.”

The statute Bellows cites is a post-Civil War clause of the 14th Amendment. It was passed over a century and a half ago. It was never intended to be used in an election year by an opposition party to disbar a rival presidential candidate.

In the earlier case of Colorado, the all-Democrat Supreme Court, in a 4-3 vote, took Trump off the ballot.

In sum, just five officials in two states have taken away the rights of some 7 million Americans to vote for the president of their choice.

Note that Trump continues to lead incumbent Joe Biden in the polls.

Sometimes, indictments are preferred to prevent Americans from voting for or against Trump.

Currently, four leftist prosecutors—three state and one federal—have indicted Trump.

They are petitioning courts to accelerate the usually lethargic legal process to ensure Trump is tied up in Atlanta, Miami, New York, and Washington, D.C., courtrooms nonstop during the 2024 election cycle.

Their aim is to keep Trump from campaigning, as he faces four left-wing prosecutors, four liberal judges, and four or five overwhelmingly Democratic jury pools.

Yet all the indictments are increasingly clouded in controversy, if not outright scandal.

Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis campaigned on promises to get Trump. She now faces allegations that she outsourced the prosecution to an unqualified personal injury lawyer—her current stealth boyfriend who was paid handsomely by Willis’s office and traveled on pricey junkets with her.

New York partisan attorney general Letitia James likewise sought office on promises to destroy Trump.

She preposterously claims Trump overvalued his real estate collateral to a bank. Yet it eagerly made the loan, profited from it, and had no complaints given that Trump paid off the principle and interest as required.

Manhattan prosecutor Alvin Bragg is even more desperate. He is now prosecuting Trump for campaign finance violations from nearly a decade ago, claiming a nondisclosure agreement with a purported sexual liaison somehow counts as a campaign violation.

Federal special prosecutor Jack Smith claims Trump should be convicted of improperly removing classified documents after leaving office. In the past, such disagreements over presidential papers were resolved bureaucratically.

Joe Biden, for example, improperly took out classified files after leaving the Senate and vice presidency and stored them in unsecure locations for over a decade.

All of these prosecutors are unapologetic anti-Trump progressives.

Some have communicated with the White House legal eagles, even though Joe Biden is likely to face Trump in the November election.

Some prosecutors are themselves facing controversies, if not scandals. Some wish to synchronize their drawn-out investigations and indictments to hinder the Trump reelection effort.

At other times, the effort to neuter Trump is waged by his rival Biden himself.

He has hammered Trump as an insurrectionist and guilty of a number of egregious crimes against democracy—even as Biden’s own Attorney General has appointed a special counsel to try Trump on just those federal charges concerning the January 6 demonstrations, a dead horse that Biden periodically still beats to death to scare voters.

Biden periodically smears half of America who supported or voted for Trump as “ultra-Maga” extremists and “semi-fascists” who would destroy democracy.

Yet the more Biden and the Left weaponize the judicial system to prevent Trump from running, and the more Biden screams and yells that Trump supporters are anti-American and anti-democratic, the more Trump soars in the polls while Biden sinks.

The left privately knows that its historically unprecedented strangulation of democracy is increasing Trump’s popularity. But like an addict, it cannot quit its Trump fix.

In sum, the Left is creating historic, anti-democratic precedents that will someday boomerang on Democrats should Republicans win the November election and follow the new Democrat model of extra-legal politics.

Democrats are tearing apart the country in a manner not seen since the Civil War era—apparently convinced democracy cannot be trusted and so itself must be sacrificed as the price of destroying Donald Trump.

By Jon Queally

Common Dreams

Jan 05, 2024

“The American people deserve a fair and impartial review of Trump v. Anderson, free from any conflicts of interest."

A progressive advocacy group was among those immediately calling for Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself after the U.S. Supreme Court announced Friday that it would hear arguments in the Colorado case seeking to bar former President Donald Trump from appearing on the state's 2024 presidential ballot due to his role in fomenting the January 6, 2021 insurrection.

Thomas is not one of the court's three Trump-appointed justices but has been repeatedly called to recuse himself in cases involving the events of January 6 due to the active role his wife, right-wing activist Ginni Thomas, played in the effort to stop the official certification of the 2020 election results.

"The American people deserve a fair and impartial review of Trump v. Anderson, free from any conflicts of interest," said Christina Harvey, Stand Up America's executive director, in a Friday statement referencing the name of the Colorado case.

"Justice Thomas' continued refusal to recuse himself from this case and others related to the efforts to overthrow the 2020 election—efforts his wife participated in and pressured state officials to support—raises questions about the integrity of the judicial process and the influence of political bias," Harvey said.

"As trust in the Supreme Court reaches new lows," she added, "decisions like these only reinforce Americans' belief that Supreme Court justices are politicians in robes. To begin to restore public confidence in our nation's highest court, Thomas must recuse himself."

The Colorado Supreme Court ruled last month that Trump should not be on the state's primary ballot because the 14th Amendment bars anyone who took an oath to the U.S. Constitution and then "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" from holding office. As NBC Newsreports, "Among the novel legal questions presented by the case are whether the language applies to candidates for president and who gets to decide whether someone engaged in an insurrection."

U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a constitutional scholar and the lead Trump impeachment manager after the 2021 insurrection, called for Thomas' recusal during a televised interview on CNN Sunday.

A letter on Thursday signed by eight other House Democrats—led by Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.)—also called on Thomas to recuse.

The letter addressed to Thomas says the justice must recuse "because your impartiality is reasonably questioned by substantial numbers of fair-minded members of the public, who believe your wife Virginia ('Ginni') Thomas' substantial involvement in the events leading up to the January 6 insurrection, and the financial incentive it presents for your household if President Trump is reelected, are disqualifying."

After making the detailed case for recusal, the letter from the lawmakers concludes:

Fewer than half of all Americans trust the Supreme Court, and that number will fall even lower if you rule in this case. A justice should not sit in judgment of his own wife's behavior, nor in judgment of his wife's professional and financial fortunes. Yet that is exactly what you would be doing should you refuse to recuse in this case. To protect the court's integrity and the legitimacy of its decision in this monumental case, you must recuse yourself.

In addition to the case in Colorado, Trump also this week appealed a decision by Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, who determined that Trump's actions leading up to the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol make him ineligible for the ballot in that state.

That case could be impacted by what the Supreme Court decides in the Colorado case, but it could also run through the federal court system on its own path. The brief from the court released Friday said the Colorado arguments will be held on February 8.

Wednesday, January 3, 2024

Less sustainable (NYT) The federal debt starts the new year at a level that is hard to grasp: $34 trillion. That is 1.2 times the U.S.’s annual economic output. Both parties have contributed to the situation. Republicans have passed large tax cuts. Democrats have enacted ambitious climate and health care initiatives. Both funneled money to Americans in response to the Covid pandemic. For years, many economists believed the country’s debt was not a problem. But times have changed, and federal deficits now look scarier. In November, the financial firm Moody’s lowered its outlook on U.S. debt from “stable” to “negative.” The solution remains unclear. And the economy may be able to continue growing at a steady clip for years despite the debt. At some point, though, the federal government will likely need to raise taxes and cut spending in ways that many Americans will find unpleasant.

Biden and Trump are poised for a potential rematch that could shake American politics (AP) U.S. presidential elections have been rocked in recent years by economic disaster, stunning gaffes, secret video and a pandemic. But for all the tumult that defined those campaigns, the volatility surrounding this year’s presidential contest has few modern parallels. In the coming weeks, the high court is expected to weigh whether states can ban former President Donald Trump from the ballot for his role in leading the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Meanwhile, a federal appeals court is weighing Trump’s argument that he’s immune from prosecution. The maneuvers are unfolding as prosecutors from New York to Washington and Atlanta move forward with 91 indictments across four criminal cases involving everything from Trump’s part in the insurrection to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his hush money paid to a porn actress. On the Democratic side, President Joe Biden is seeking reelection as the high inflation that defined much of his first term appears to be easing. But that has done little to assuage restless voters or ease widespread concerns in both parties that, at 81, he’s simply too old for the job.

Maine Secretary of State Targeted by ‘Swatting’ After Trump Ballot Decision (NYT) Maine’s secretary of state was the victim of a “swatting” call to her home, the authorities said, the latest politician to be targeted in recent weeks by people reporting fake crimes to the police, hoping to provoke heavily armed responses. A hoax call was placed on Friday night, just a day after the secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, barred Donald J. Trump from the state’s ballot, a politically fraught decision that drew criticism from Republicans across the country. The state police said that in the call, a man claimed to have broken into Ms. Bellows’s home in Manchester, just outside the capital city of Augusta. State troopers searched the residence, but did not find anything suspicious. Swatting incidents have risen in recent years, and advances in technology have made it easier for perpetrators to make 911 calls sound more credible. In the days before the hoax call against Ms. Bellows, numerous other high-profile politicians said swatters had targeted their homes.

Brazil’s economy improves during President Lula’s first year back, but a political divide remains (AP) Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva likes to boast he had a good first year after returning to the job. The economy is improving, Congress passed a long-overdue tax reform bill, rioters who wanted to oust him are now in jail, and his predecessor and foe Jair Bolsonaro is barred from running for office until 2030. Still, the 78-year-old leader has struggled to boost his support among citizens and lawmakers. Some major setbacks, including a series of votes by Congress to override his vetoes, signaled that Lula’s future could be less productive in a Brazil almost evenly split between his supporters and Bolsonaro’s. “Brazil’s political polarization is such that it crystallized the opinions of Lula and Bolsonaro voters beyond the economy,” said political consultant Thomas Traumann, the author of a recent best-selling book on Brazil’s political divisions. “These groups are separated by very different world views, the values that form the identity of each group are more important than food prices or interest rates.”

British fish and chips is endangered (NBC News) Ever since she was old enough to walk, Terrilea Coglan was climbing aboard fishing boats that set sail each morning from the rocky beachfront of Hastings to harvest the key ingredient in Britain’s most iconic dish: fish and chips. The day’s catch travels just a short way from the boats up to the seaside fish and chips shops, or “chippies,” that pride themselves as much in the freshness of the fish as in the secret recipes for their gooey batter. Now, all along the British coast, towns like Hastings are being squeezed by a cost-of-living crisis that’s hit the supply chain behind fish and chips, pushing up prices beyond what some are willing to pay for a humble, if comforting, weeknight meal. The cost of diesel to power the fishing boats, the sunflower oil to fry the fish and the electricity to run the friers have all skyrocketed. The high prices are threatening a billion-dollar business and a staple of the British menu: Every year, Brits eat more than 382 million orders of fish and chips, the federation says.

Heavy Russian missile attacks hit Ukraine’s 2 largest cities (AP) Ukraine’s two largest cities came under heavy Russian missile attacks on Tuesday, killing one person and injuring dozens. Oleh Syniehubov, the governor of the Kharkiv region, said one person died and 41 were injured in Russian missile strikes that hit the center of Kharkiv city and other areas. In Kyiv, the capital, five areas of the city were hit in the strikes and at least 12 people injured, according to mayor Vitali Klitschko. The barrage of the cities continued Russia’s escalated attacks on Ukraine in recent days that began on Friday with its largest single attack on Ukraine since the war started, in which at least 41 civilians were killed.

Myanmar’s ‘watermelons’: Soldier on the outside, rebel inside (Reuters) For about two years, says 24-year-old Yan, a former Myanmar police officer, he risked his life pretending to serve the military junta while secretly spying for the armed resistance. “I freed myself from unfair orders,” he told Reuters from a room in a town near the Myanmar border where he said he was taking refuge after fleeing the country in April. Opposition groups said it was difficult to determine how many members of the security forces supplied information to the resistance, and their number was likely small given the risk, but they play a crucial role. They have supplied intelligence, including about the transportation of military supplies, that has helped opposition groups plan attacks, a spokesperson for People’s Goal, a group that supports defectors, told Reuters. Sources inside the security forces are known in Burmese as “watermelons”—green on the outside, appearing loyal to the army, but red, the colour of the ousted National League for Democracy government, on the inside.

China Is Pressing Women to Have More Babies. Many Are Saying No. (WSJ) Chinese women have had it. Their response to Beijing’s demands for more children? No. Their refusal has set off a crisis for the Communist Party, which desperately needs more babies to rejuvenate China’s aging population. With the number of babies in free fall—fewer than 10 million were born in 2022, compared with around 16 million in 2012—China is headed toward a demographic collapse. China’s population, now around 1.4 billion, is likely to drop to just around half a billion by 2100, according to some projections. When Beijing said it would abolish its 35-year-old one-child policy in 2015, officials expected a baby boom. Instead, they got a baby bust.

South Korean opposition leader is stabbed in the neck by a knife-wielding man (AP) South Korea’s tough-speaking liberal opposition leader, Lee Jae-myung, was stabbed in the neck by an unidentified knife-wielding man who attempted to kill him during his visit to the southeastern city of Busan, police said. Lee, 59, the head of the main opposition Democratic Party, was airlifted to a Seoul hospital for surgery after receiving emergency treatment in Busan. Police and emergency officials earlier said he was conscious after the attack and wasn’t in critical condition, but his exact status was unknown.

Planes collide and catch fire at Japan’s busy Haneda airport, killing 5 (NYT) A Japan Airlines flight carrying 367 passengers and 12 crew members collided with a Japan Coast Guard aircraft today while landing at an airport in Tokyo. The crash killed five Coast Guard members and caused the passenger jet to burst into flames. But the airline said that every person on the Japan Airlines plane was able to evacuate to safety. “The crew was spectacular in their reaction times,” one aviation expert said. “It really is a miracle.” The Coast Guard members had been en route to deliver supplies to the region affected by the powerful earthquake that struck western Japan yesterday, killing at least 55 people.

The U.S. and Israel: An Embrace Shows Signs of Strain After Oct. 7 (NYT) No other episode in the past half-century has tested the ties between the United States and Israel in such an intense and consequential way. The complicated diplomacy between Washington and Jerusalem since Hamas terrorists killed 1,200 people and seized 240 hostages has played out across both governments, in direct interactions between the leaders and intense back and forth between military and intelligence agencies. The relationship has grown increasingly fraught as Mr. Biden has involved himself more intensely in the conflict than almost any other issue in three years in office. Mr. Biden has seen growing internal resistance to his backing of Israel, including multiple dissent cables from State Department diplomats. In November, more than 500 political appointees and staff members representing some 40 government agencies sent a letter to Mr. Biden protesting his support of Israel’s war in Gaza. Congressional Democrats have been pressing him to curb Israel’s assault, and the United States has found itself at odds with other countries at the United Nations. The friction appears to be coming to a head as the new year arrives. The Biden team recognizes that its challenge is not just Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, since Israelis across the board support the military operation that according to the Gaza Health Ministry has killed more than 20,000 people. But there is no serious discussion inside the administration of a meaningful change in policy, like cutting off the arms supply to Israel.

Ethiopia signs pact to use Somaliland’s Red Sea port (Reuters) Landlocked Ethiopia signed an initial agreement with Somalia’s breakaway region of Somaliland on Monday to use its Red Sea port of Berbera, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s office said. The Horn of Africa country currently relies on neighbouring Djibouti for most of its maritime trade. President Abdi said as part of the agreement, Ethiopia would also be the first country to recognise Somaliland as an independent nation in due course. Somaliland has not gained widespread international recognition despite declaring autonomy from Somalia in 1991. Somalia says Somaliland is part of its territory.

Books (YouGov) A new poll found that 46 percent of Americans did not read a book in 2023 as of a December 16-18 poll. Overall, 26 percent of respondents reported reading between one and five books, 10 percent somewhere between six and 10 books, 8 percent between 11 and 20 books, and 11 percent more than 20 books so far. Indeed, the most active readers are reading a whole lot of books: 6 percent of respondents said they read over 40 books, a truly impressive stack.

I can't believe Shenna Bellows isn't gonna be remembered as the lady who campaigned against Maine's vulgar license plates

The Secretary of State of  Maine!  SHENNA BELLOW should be removed from office! | Lewiston / Auburn, Maine Newspaper Rebuttal

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