Tag Archive for: Maine

The Maine Election Scam: Noncitizens, Radical Elites, and the Death of Democracy

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WATCH: Victor Davis Hanson: Nazi Tattoos Used to Be Taboo—Now They’re in the Democratic Party

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of a segment from today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words” from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to Victor Davis Hanson’s own YouTube channel to watch past episodes.

Jack Fowler: So, let’s start off with corruption in Maine. And here’s this—Steve Robinson posted this on X the other day. “Maine Democrats are actively recruiting voters who have never lived in Maine and never paid taxes in Maine.

“Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, who previously tried to disenfranchise Maine voters by removing Donald Trump from the ballot, has publicly admitted that noncitizens are registered to vote in Maine. She’s refusing to give Harmeet Dhillon [from the Justice Department] Maine’s voter files so that the Department of Justice can prevent noncitizens from raiding our elections.

“And Bellows has partnered with the Community Organizing Alliance. This is a, quote-unquote, ‘migrant-run ACORN-style group created by the alleged Medicaid fraudsters at Gateway Community Services.’” Etc., etc.

You know, Maine was once a bastion of republicanism. It has important elections coming up, Victor, and we’re gonna talk about that separately with [Graham] Platner. But this is that infamous woman who tried to keep Donald Trump off the ballot. And she is a pure ideologue and in a position of power.

Your thoughts?

Victor Davis Hanson: Well, I think there’s two issues here. One is Platner and the worry about him. The rumors are, and these are alleged rumors, but I think Mark Halperin mentioned them, that his long social media history, which is pretty crazy. Women need to wear Kevlar pants if they don’t want to be raped. White people, rural people are stupid and lazy. He’s a communist.

Fowler: All cops are bastards.

Hanson: All cops are … Yeah. And I don’t know how you can be on 100% disability for post-traumatic stress syndrome and then say you’re going to run for Senate because you’re disabled. But he’s doing that. And of course, no one has called him on it.

The other thing is if you have a candidate like that and you’re going to nominate him over, she’s not very moderate, the governor, but that he was going to win. And then once he’s in the general—Susan Collins, I know that a lot of the true-blue conservatives like us, Jack, get irritated with her, but she has to operate in the confines of Maine.

And I would say, I haven’t looked at her voting record, but I imagine—don’t you think it’s 75% or 80% with the administration?

Fowler: Yeah.

Hanson: On key votes, the SAVE Act and things like that, she disappoints, but she gets elected. And she’s smart. There’s no comparison between the two.

So, the point I’m making is that he is out of the ordinary. He also represents this new strain of elite, very wealthy—here in California, Tom Steyer is really off the scale, hard-Left, but a billionaire. We saw [Zohran] Mamdani. His two parents are billionaires. I mean, they’re not multimillionaires, but they’re very affluent. They’re from a very exclusive family in Uganda.

And then we go to Platner. He went to Hotchkiss School. He’s the son of a famous architect. His father was a lawyer. His mother is a restaurateur. So, he’s among the elite, and yet he keeps yelling and screaming about billionaires and millionaires. His parents are millionaires, no doubt. He grew up as a millionaire.

So, there’s a problem with him. And when you’re a Democrat and your heart says, I love this guy, but your brain says, he’s not gonna be electable under normal circumstances, then you opt for the change the system. And the change the system is what they always do.

James Carville outlined it. He said, when the Democrats come in, no more filibuster. No more Electoral College with a national voting compact solution to that. Four more Democratic senators under the Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico entrance. And pack the court. What does that show? He doesn’t have confidence in the Democratic message appealing to 51%.

They don’t have confidence that this guy can win. So, when they do that, they either open the border or they try to say that felons can vote or they try to change the system, and that’s what they’re doing, whether it’s off the radar or transparently in Maine because they have a problem.

And as I said, Mark Halperin reviewed his problems, and apparently, allegedly, there’s a lot more to come, Jack, about him. His record.

And it’s very ironic, well, not ironic. I should apologize for that. But the Democratic Party made such a fuss about Elon Musk’s Nazi salute. It wasn’t a Nazi salute. He saluted like we’ve seen everybody do that. Cory Booker, I think Elizabeth Warren. They all do it.

And they’ve said nothing about this Totenkopf death head, Third Panzer Division [tattoo] and also used as the Einsatzgruppen people at the death camps, and he knew. People have said, that were in his cohort, he knew what it was. He bragged about it.

He’s changed his story twice. He said, well, you know, I didn’t really know what it was until I ran for Congress, I mean, for Senate. And they told me what it was. And then he’s also said, well, you know, I was brainwashed. I imbued or absorbed this toxic Marine culture. And that made me do it.

So, he can’t tell the truth. And he thinks he’s going to win. Put it this way. 30 years ago, if you were a Democrat and you wore a Nazi tattoo for 20 years and people knew about it, that would exclude you from being nominated.

Today in the Democratic Party, the fact that he had a Nazi tattoo and he removed it will mean, A, the grandees will explain it away, or wink, nod, it will be something that will be of value because of the rising antisemitism.

It sends a message. It sends a message, and he’s reiterated again and again and again about Gaza, Gaza, Gaza, genocide, Israel, Israel, Israel, cut off—so that sends a message to the new Democratic Jacobin Party. And it’s not the Democratic Party anyway. It’s a Jacobin Party, a French revolutionary party. And they have institutionalized antisemitism. So, when a candidate sends those signals and we think they’re disqualifying, we’re in a time warp. That was 20, 30 years ago.

It’s not now.

Fowler: Victor, I want to—we have to talk about Tucker Carlson now. Here’s a headline: “Tucker praises Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner.” Quote, “I certainly appreciate his foreign policy views, and I appreciate how different they are from everybody else in his party. I haven’t met him yet, and I plan to meet him.”

Hanson: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. How is he different than anybody else? He’s representative of the Democratic party, isn’t he?

Fowler: Other than [John] Fetterman, I guess so, yeah.

Hanson: I mean, everything he’s right with Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders and the older guard that has flipped like Nancy Pelosi and Schumer. They’re for that stuff now. He basically wants open borders, doesn’t care about illegal immigration, critical race theory, DEI, transgender, all of that stuff. He can’t get elected if he wasn’t.

He’s a green guy, no fossil [fuels]—all of that stuff. And the whole He-Man, white working guy, all in the tough talk, and often laced with profanities, all of that is just superficial pablum for this mythical white working class that’ll vote for him because he’s tough.

It’s kind of insulting to the white working class because the people that I see in my neighborhood that are white working class, are pretty well-informed.

Fowler: Yeah.

Hanson: But I don’t know what Tucker-

Fowler: Oh, you said F, I’m going to vote for you.

Hanson: Yeah. I don’t know what Tucker means, but if he says that he would prefer Graham Platner, and I guess he does, because he didn’t say at the same time, he’s an interesting person. I want to interview him. But of course, I’ll also interview Susan Collins because her record, even though I don’t embrace it all, has been more representative of my entire life in the conservative movement. He didn’t say that.

So, I assume that he likes Graham Platner not because his views are at odds—I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt—with the new hard-Left Democratic Party, unless Tucker’s gone the whole Bill Kristol route. I don’t know if he has or not. Or Max Boot route. I don’t think he has.

But he must like him because Graham Platner has been outspoken in his hatred of Israel, Gaza, genocide, all this stuff. And that, it seems to me, that that’s—and he’s had people on—he has appeared with people who have endorsed, and correct me if I’m wrong, I think he’s appeared with or he’s talked with people who have been classified as pro-neo-Nazi. Really, you know, there’s kind of the Darryl Cooper, I don’t know how you’d [say it], revisionist.

So, is that why Tucker is attracted to this new face in the Democratic Party? Because if you look at the totality of what he said, it’s no different than “the squad” or AOC. It really isn’t.

Fowler: Yeah.

Hanson: And I thought Tucker’s criticism of Donald Trump was, I am a principled conservative, and I voted for Donald Trump and campaigned for him and frequented Air Force One and Campaign One. And I was at Mar-a-Lago, habitué a lot. And I did this because I agreed with 90% of his platform. I thought that’s the reason why.

And I still haven’t been enlightened by anybody. Candace. Any of them. Why, if you disagree with him on a particular issue, like you classify the 60-day, and it hasn’t been 60 days of kinetic activity, it’s been 40 days, maybe less, against Iran. You want to classify that as a forever or endless war, that he campaigned against. Okay, that’s a legitimate opinion.

But why would you take one particular issue and then say, well, I thought it over and I don’t like that wall that’s growing on the border. I don’t like the idea there’s no illegal immigration. I don’t like the idea we’re deporting 500,000 criminals. I don’t like the deregulation, the tax cuts. They’re all an abomination.

No. It’s just you crossed me on one issue and I’m done with you. Unless they can cite others, you know, that you don’t like Trump’s language or you feel that his impulsiveness or when he wasn’t respectful of the dead, with Rob Reiner’s passing, or he uses the F-word on his—something like that. But you have to come forward with something that would nullify your whole life’s conservatism.

Fowler: It’s interesting because one of the criticisms from Tucker was—recent criticisms—was that Trump was the Antichrist. And then he was interviewed by The New York Times this past weekend who—and he denied saying it. And they showed the video he clearly—yeah.

Hanson: I saw that. And he said he didn’t know what the Antichrist was, so how could he say that? And that would suggest that somebody always says things he knows.

Fowler: Yeah.

Hanson: Tucker gave an interview with the mayor of Bethlehem, who flat out said that Christians have been fleeing his city because of Jewish pressure, when in fact one of the destinations they go is to Israel, and they’re fleeing Muslim intolerance.

So, you don’t need to know everything to say something. He did say that. The Antichrist—you know, he said he didn’t know what the Antichrist was. And as I remember in the Bible, I’m just doing this—it’s in John, I think. It’s in Revelations, too. The Greek word for it is pseudochristos. The pseudo just means false. The false Christ.

And I have a feeling, isn’t he referred to in Acts or Letters as the person who, as the end of days come, he’s gonna be popular and work miracles?

Fowler: Yes. Right.

Hanson: But he’s not satan or Lucifer. He’s some type of—he’s not referred to very much in the Bible. He’s some person who’s going to emulate Christ and try to deliberately fool people. And then rob them of eternity through his sin. And they’re following his sin as deluded people.

And so if he meant that, I don’t believe he doesn’t—he’s very religious, so when he says, I don’t know what the Antichrist is, when he’s talking about Trump as the Antichrist, and he said that Trump had used foul language on Easter, and that Trump was a very magnetic person, you get the impression he did know.

Because he was trying to, I think, say that Donald Trump led us, in what I thought was a moral crusade, but it was a pseudo-crusade. Maybe that’s what he meant. I think he did. I just don’t believe that someone that aware and well-read and familiar with Christian exegesis does not know what the antichrist is.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.

AUTHOR

Victor Davis Hanson

Victor Davis Hanson is a senior contributor for The Daily Signal, hosting a podcast and producing video commentaries four times per week, and writing a weekly column. Follow on VDHanson. Website:https://victorhanson.com/.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Judge Rules Mom Is TOO Christian to Be a Parent

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Maine judge even bans daughter from church. This isn’t parody — it’s America 2025.

If The Babylon Bee published this headline —“Judge Rules Mom Is TOO Christian to Be a Parent” —you’d laugh, shake your head, and say, “Alright, Bee… take it down a notch.”

Because satire isn’t supposed to be so outrageous that it looks written by a toddler.

Satire, in its purist form, is meant to push reality’s edge just far enough for the truth to slam the head like a hammer — and maybe add a good laugh in the process.

But here’s the problem:

It’s getting hard to tell the difference between satire and news anymore.

Something has shifted in America when the most outrageous, excessive, over-the-top Babylon Bee headline suddenly becomes… the actual story.

And that’s exactly what happened in Maine.

A judge actually ruled that a mother is fit to be a parent, except she’s Christian.

Yes. That sentence is real.

And we’ve officially entered the era where parody has been overtaken by raw lunacy.

What do you even do with a statement like that?

Frame it?

Or ship it straight to The Babylon Bee so they can ask, “Why are you stealing our material?”

I’ll tell you what it does:

It collapses the wall between satire and reality.

Because this judge didn’t just attack Christianity.

He went full scorched earth.

Here’s the background:

The mother in this case, Emily, is raising her daughter, Ava, normally — school, home, church, friends — with zero accusations of harm or instability.

The father, Matt, however, hates Christianity, hates the Calvary Chapel church she attends, and hates the idea of his daughter being baptized.

So, he found the perfect ideological cocktail:

Find an activist judge + a Marxist professor flown in from California to declare Calvary Chapel a “cult.”

And from there, the judge dropped a ruling that looks less like family law and more like the script of a bad dystopian comic book.

The Court Order Reads Like a Satirical Checklist — Except It’s Real

Here’s what the girl, Ava, was banned from doing:

  • No attending her church.
  • No associating with church friends.
  • No Christmas.
  • No Easter.
  • No weddings or funerals if they involve Christianity.
  • No hospital visits from her church friends.
  • No Bible.
  • No religious literature.
  • No volunteering with Christian charities — including Salvation Army.

This is not a joke headline. It’s not a joke court case. And it’s not a Babylon Bee article.

This is an American court order issued by an American judge, in the year of our Lord 2025, in a country with a First Amendment.

America’s judiciary should say, “This judge shouldn’t have a robe, shouldn’t have a gavel, and shouldn’t be anywhere near another judge — or a courtroom.”

And if you’re the attorneys defending the mother in this case — as Liberty Counsel was — you’ve got to be looking at this case and thinking:

“This will be a slam-dunk win. Open-and-shut. No jury needed. Just hand us the trophy.”

Court Rulings are Starting to Read Like Comic Strips

But, not so fast. We’re living in a moment where cultural insanity is moving faster than comedians can mock it.

For years, Christians joked that anti-faith hatred would one day ban Christmas as “trauma-inducing” or label the Bible a “psychological harm.”

Now a judge has done exactly that — in writing — and the father is arguing that the state should have the power to purge his daughter of Christianity if that faith can possibly cause “anxiety.”

My goodness.

If a single moment captures the spiritual crisis of our nation, it’s this:

We’re living in a time when parody looks sane and the real world looks fictional.

Why This Case Matters to Every Christian Family

Here’s the terrifying legal precedent being tested in Maine:

Can a judge violate your constitutional rights if your faith makes someone “uncomfortable”?

If the answer is yes:

  • You can lose your child for taking them to church.
  • You can be declared an “unfit” parent for believing Scripture.
  • Your parenting decisions can be overridden if your faith is labeled “psychological risk.”

This is not just a Maine problem.

This is a national warning flare.

Whatever happens in this ruling will echo through courtrooms across America.

And what began sounding like parody will end as policy.

The Only Difference Between the Maine Court and the Babylon Bee

At this point, the only difference between The Babylon Bee and the Maine trial court is this:

The Bee is still trying to be funny.

The courts aren’t.

The Bee writes jokes.

The courts write orders.

And right now, the orders are more absurd than the jokes.

We’ve entered the era where satire is no longer prophetic. Reality has overtaken it.

And This Is Why the Church Must Speak Up

This case is a signpost — a loud, blaring trumpet — that the country is crossing a line we were never meant to cross:

If one judge can ban a child from her faith, then another judge can ban your child from yours.

And if the courts don’t stop this now, America will wake up one day and discover that the First Amendment is simply a museum exhibit.

We’ve reached the moment when the absurd becomes the authoritarian.

This Maine courtroom isn’t an outlier.

It’s a preview.

If one judge can outlaw a child’s baptism, ban her from church, and erase Christmas because “Christianity causes anxiety,” then tomorrow another judge will do it to your daughter, your son, your grandkids.

The First Amendment isn’t dying of old age.

It’s being murdered in broad daylight by black-robed activists who think the Bible is child abuse.

Silence now is surrender. Scream. Share. Pray like hell is real—because it is.

And stand with the warriors who are fighting this insanity in courtrooms across America.

Emily and Ava need you.

The Church needs you.

The Republic needs you.

Because if we lose this case, the next headline won’t be satire.

It’ll be your family’s name.

Rise up—before the gavel falls on all of us.

AUTHOR

Martin Mawyer

Martin Mawyer is the President of Christian Action Network, host of the “Shout Out Patriots” podcast, and author of When Evil Stops Hiding.

©2025 . All rights reserved.

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Democrats Are Being Torn Apart By Graham Platner’s Sh*tposting

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Democrats are split over Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner after resurfaced Reddit posts and a viral video showing a tattoo resembling a Nazi “Death’s Head” emblem reignited scrutiny of his past.

The contention has divided progressives and party insiders, with some hailing Platner as an outsider unafraid to speak bluntly and others warning he could become a political liability. Platner told the Associated Press he chose to cover the tattoo with a new design rather than remove it, citing limited options for removal in rural Maine.

“Going to a tattoo removal place is going to take a while,” he said. “I wanted this thing off my body.”

Platner’s scandal broke just days after Democratic Gov. Janet Mills entered the Senate race, reportedly after urging from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

Schumer, a key power broker in the party, has distanced himself from Platner. When asked Tuesday whether the scandal should disqualify the candidate, he said he’d “let the people of Maine decide.”

Both Mills and Platner are seeking to unseat Republican Sen. Susan Collins in a race that could determine control of the Senate.

“We think that Janet Mills is the best candidate to retire Susan Collins,” Schumer said. “She’s a tested two-term governor, and the people of Maine have an enormous amount of affection and respect for her.”

Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Ken Martin called Platner’s past “indefensible, hurtful and offensive,” but said they were not “disqualifying.”

Ari Drennen, LGBTQ program director at Media Matters, mocked Platner’s wedding video in a post on X, writing, “Honestly, ‘my wedding gift to my brother was me doing a shirtless lip sync’ is in itself a pretty big red flag.”

Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, however, has continued to defend Platner, reaffirming his support Tuesday when asked about the tattoo scandal and citing his long relationship with the former Sanders campaign supporter, according to Politico.

“Look, I understand this whole platoon — I don’t know too much about it — got inebriated,” Sanders told the outlet. “He went through a dark period. He’s not the only one in America who has gone through a dark period. People go through that. He has apologized for the stupid remarks, the hurtful remarks that he made, and I’m confident that he’s going to run a great campaign and that he’s going to win.”

Krystal Ball, cohost of the “Breaking Points” podcast, also defended Platner in an X post, siding with the Maine candidate’s anti-establishment posture.

“For me personally I’ll take a candidate with a regrettable tattoo over one who has steadfastly supported a genocide.”

Mills has previously spoken about antisemitism at events such as a December 2024 gathering hosted by the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine, according to WGME 13 News.

She expressed strong support for Maine’s Jewish community amid the conflict in the Middle East and criticized municipal leaders in Belfast and Portland for voting to divest from Israel.

“I can say that I hear you, and I can tell you I will not support any similar divestments at the state level should any such legislation reach my desk,” Mills said. 

Emma Vigeland, cohost of “The Majority Report,” criticized efforts by establishment Democrats to sideline Platner, arguing that party elites selectively forgive misconduct when it involves “corporate centrists” such as former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

“Censorious, hall monitor liberalism that refuses to accept growth in people — unless you’re a corporate centrist and all is forgiven, just ask Cuomo supporters — is far more of a threat to the Democratic Party’s chances in the future than anything dug up on Graham Platner.”

AUTHOR

Ashley Brasfield

Reporter

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Maine Mamdani: So-Called ‘Grassroots’ Oyster Farmer Has Deep Connections To Far-Left

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Graham Platner, an oyster farmer running as a Democrat in the Maine Senate primary, is being propped up as a “grassroots” candidate who can win over Trump supporters. His record tells a more complicated story.

Platner, a former Marine who served three tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, is described as a “political novice” who has centered his pitch against Republican incumbent Sen. Susan Collins on “making life better for his state’s working class,” according to a New York Times (NYT) report.

“I’m a veteran, oysterman, and working class Mainer who’s seen this state become unlivable for working people,” Graham wrote in a post on X.

Platner stated in an interview with the NYT that he does not consider himself a progressive or a centrist.

“He laughed at the idea that he would have any challenge in connecting with supporters of President Trump. Half of his friends and colleagues at the dock voted for Mr. Trump, he said,” according to the NYT.

The former George Washington University student and State Department employee’s limited social media history, however, shows him repeatedly retweeting Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders and mocking President Donald Trump. He has previously given political donations to former Vice President Kamala Harris and Sanders.

Screenshots from Democratic Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner’s X profile. (X/Screenshot/Public — User: @GrahamPlatner)

Platner’s platform reveals more of his progressive bonafides; he wants to force corporations to pay reparations for climate change, supports universal health care, and accuses Israel of carrying out “genocide” in Gaza, according to Zeteo.

His affiliations with notable left-wing consultants raises further questions about his pitch to the politically homeless. Platner’s first campaign ad was produced by “Fight Agency,” a Democratic media firm that has created content for Democratic New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, Democratic Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, Democratic Georgia Rep. Lucy McBath, and Sanders.

Morris Katz, a member of the firm and senior advisor to Mamdani, described Platner as the “real fucking deal.” Katz was considered part of Mamdani’s “inner circle,” according to the NYT.

Another senior advisor to Platner’s campaign is Joe Calvello, whose work history includes being a communications advisor for 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, a campaign spokesman for Sanders, a communications official for Planned Parenthood, and chief strategy officer for Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson. Calvello was also a communications director for Fetterman but was part of the staff exodus amid progressive backlash against the senator’s pro-Israel views.

Platner, a “competitive pistol shooter” on weekends, said he finds it “fairly amusing” to be called a liberal, according to a Politico report.

“I’m a firearms instructor. I spent multiple years, obviously, in the service utilizing firearms. I also grew up in rural Maine, where guns are a part of our existence,” he stated.

But just hours after his campaign launch, noted gun control supporter and former Democratic National Committee Vice Chair David Hogg posted a picture with Platner, also calling him the “real deal” who would “make an incredible Senator.”

Platner was also seen at a No Kings rally in Ellsworth, Maine, in June wearing a yellow construction vest with a piece of paper labeled “peacekeeper” taped to it. The No Kings group that organized the mass nationwide protests called the Trump administration “fascist” and “authoritarian.”

The oyster farmer and now senatorial candidate is from Sullivan, Maine and returned home in 2016 after becoming disillusioned with his job as a State Department security contractor in Afghanistan, partially because of the misuse of taxpayer money.

He left the military and contracting behind and began working in aquaculture. Platner bought a boat and began expanding his business with support from friends and family in the hospitality industry.

A large part of Platner’s campaign rests on blaming billionaires for the problems of the working class. His campaign ad is emblazoned with phrases like, “the enemy is the oligarchy” and “the enemy is billionaires.”

But in early 2021 when Platner was seeking additional funding options for his business, he settled on a fund established by a globalist billionaire.

Platner applied for the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Small Business Growth & Recovery Grant, which aims to “help U.S. small businesses — especially those owned by people of color, women, and veterans and those in lower-income communities — find their footing in a challenging economy.”

The Stavros Niarchos Foundation was founded by Greek billionaire shipping tycoon Stavros Niarchos, the founder of Niarchos Group and Hellenic Shipyards.

Niarchos’ bio states that he “understood what it meant to think and act globally long before the term ‘globalization’ came into wide use.”

Platner secured a $20,000 grant — the full amount available — from the organization.

His growing business earned him a visit from Democratic Maine Rep. Jared Golden, who toured Platner’s farm off Hancock Point by boat and later joined him “and several other small business owners for lunch in Ellsworth” in 2024. The coincidental meeting between the two former Marines came years after Platner’s $1,000 campaign donation to Golden in March 2018, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) data.

Platner’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Democrats are looking to 2026 for a chance to unseat Collins, a moderate Republican and Maine’s longest serving member of Congress. Several other previously unknown candidates have jumped into the Democratic primary, but the party is hoping Democratic Governor Janet Mills, who is term-limited from running for reelection, will jump in the race.

However, Mills has not yet committed to challenging the incumbent. Collins in 2020 breezed by Sara Gideon, the Democratic speaker of the Maine House of Representatives, with a nine-point win, despite trailing in pre-election polling and being outspent 2-1.

AUTHOR

Ashley Brasfield

Reportler

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

‘He Lost Me’: Jonathan Turley Rebuts Biden’s ‘Assault On Democracy’ Speech In Less Than 60 Seconds

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George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said that President Joe Biden’s speech about democracy “seemed rather conflicting” in the details Friday.

Biden claimed former President Donald Trump promised an “assault on democracy” during the Friday speech near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, saying defending democracy was a “central cause” of his administration. During the speech, Biden cited the riot at the Capitol building during the certification of the electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021.

“He lost me in the specifics,” Turley told Fox News host Martha MacCallum. “He talks about democracy being on the ballot but the ballot isn’t very democratic, his own party is trying to strip ballots of Donald Trump’s name to prevent people who want to vote for what appears to be the leading candidate for the presidency from doing that.”

WATCH:

Democratic Secretary of State Shenna Bellows of Maine ruled Trump was ineligible for the office of President of the United States Dec. 28, citing the 14th Amendment’s “insurrection” clause. The Colorado Supreme Court ruled Trump was disqualified from appearing on the ballot in the 2024 election in a 4-3 decision Dec. 19. The Supreme Court took up Trump’s appeal Friday.

“So when he’s talking about the freedom to vote and have your vote count, his party is actively trying to prevent that and saying, really, you’re not just voting for me, just think you’re voting for democracy,” Turley continued. “For those people, they really feel like, if we vote for you, do we get democracy back next time? Are we going to have all of the candidates on the ballot? I don’t think that effort will succeed.”

Turley also pointed out the Biden administration’s efforts to censor critics. United States District Judge Terry A. Doughty of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana issued an injunction July 4 prohibiting Biden administration officials with multiple agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Health and Human Services, from contacting social media companies to push for “the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.”

The Supreme Court is considering whether to hear an appeal from the Biden administration.

“It’s worth noting when he talks about the freedom of speech, the Biden administration I have written before, is the most anti-free-speech administration since the administration of John Adams,” Turley said. “I mean, his administration has carried out what a federal court called an Orwellian censorship program with the help of social media companies.”

“Part of the speech was, in fact uplifting, but then when you got down to the details, it seemed rather conflicting for this president,” Turley concluded.

AUTHOR

HAROLD HUTCHISON

Reporter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

COREY LEWANDOSWKI: Donald Trump Is A Juggernaut That Can’t Be Stopped

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That’s right. Let’s face it, many have tried to stop Donald J. Trump, but few, if any have been successful. Yes, it’s true I’ve heard all the stories about who “could” beat former President Donald Trump, Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Gov. Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, etc. etc. etc., but the reality is none of them are going to beat him.

Trump’s biggest concern, that is until the Supreme Court weighs in, is liberal, self-aggrandizing individuals who are using the power of their office to keep him off the ballot. Let’s take for instance the Secretary of State of Maine, Shenna Bellows.

Now, just to be clear, she was NOT elected by the people of Maine to be the Secretary of State. She didn’t win an overwhelming majority and come to office with a mandate. No, no, she was “elected” by the legislature.

Ms. Bellows determined that Trump, a former president of the United States, and the current front runner for the Republican nomination for president will not be allowed on the ballot in Maine because he “took part” in an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.

Not only is that complete nonsense — it’s not based on any sort of fact of law. As we all know, Trump, for all the charges that have been brought against him so far, has never even been charged with the crime of insurrection. So, why is Ms. Bellows attempting to keep Trump off the ballot?

Simple, Trump’s campaign is a runaway train that can’t be stopped. He has a historic lead amongst those polled in the upcoming caucus state of Iowa.

According to the Real Clear Politics (RCP) average Trump has a 32.7% lead over his closest competitor in Iowa. Also, according to RCP, in my home state of New Hampshire, Trump maintains a lead of over 20 points to his nearest rival.

Moreover, in the key battleground states — those five states that will determine the outcome of the next presidential election, Trump is beating Joe Biden in every single one — and it’s driving the left crazy. They simply can’t allow it. They must DO something, anything. But what?

They have decided to make up and convict an individual of a charge he has never been charged with. That’s how they justify keeping Trump off the ballot.

They are so afraid he is going to win again their Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) has gotten in the way of basic logic.

Let’s face it, the media can only do so much to prop up Sleepy Joe. For years the media told us Trump can’t win — the polls no longer bear that out.

Trump currently holds a 2.2% lead over Joe Biden in the RCP average. For years the media told us Biden would unite the country and we would prosper financially — again, didn’t happen.

Here we are, at the beginning of 2024. The unofficial start of the campaign and things are breaking Trump’s way.

The issue of Illegal Immigration is paramount to most Americans — this helps Trump. President Biden’s epic failure to secure our southern border has had a catastrophic impact on our country — even liberal mayors and governors in blue cities and states have had enough.

Biden’s approval rating is woeful, with 40.5% approving and 55.9% disapproving of the job he’s doing. What’s even worse for the Biden Administration is that only 25.1% of respondents believe the country is on the right track while 67.3% says we are headed in the wrong direction.

With the electability argument against Joe Biden out the window and prominent members of the democrat establishment like David Axelrod and Jennifer Palmieri raising alarm bells over Biden’s chances for a second term – Donald Trump just keeps getting stronger and strong.

I am looking forward to the primary season getting fully underway. I will relish Donald Trump’s dominance in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.

Then in early March, it’s super Tuesday. A day that will unequivocally establish President Trump as the GOP nominee in 2024. The only thing that could stop President Trump now is the continued disenfranchisement of voters by people trying to keep Trump off the ballot.

I always say the American people are smart. They see what people like Shenna Bellows and others are trying to do by attempting to keep Trump off the ballot in their states.

This will only embolden the electorate to come out and support Trump more enthusiastically. The result will be Donald J. Trump as the 47th President of the United States. Happy 2024 America.

AUTHOR

COREY LEWANDOWSKI

Corey Lewandowski is a former Trump 2016 campaign manager and 2020 senior adviser.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Meet The Left-Wing Activist Politician Who Kicked Trump Off The Maine Ballot

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Democratic Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, the woman responsible for kicking former President Trump off the state’s 2024 election ballot, is a longtime left-wing activist and Democratic politician.

Bellows unilaterally removed Trump from the ballot Thursday night under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, barring individuals from running for office if they engaged in an insurrection. The former president has not been charged with, or convicted of, engaging in an insurrection.

Bellows became Maine’s Secretary of State in January of 2021 after she was elected by the legislature following two terms in the Maine senate from 2016-20, her official bio states. Her second term began in January of 2023 and goes for two years.

From 2005-13, Bellows was the executive director of Maine’s branch of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a left-wing legal group, until she ran for senate in 2014 and lost handily to current Republican Maine Sen. Susan Collins, who came out against Bellows’ ruling.

Bellows advocated for ranked-choice voting, same-sex marriage and same-day voter registration during her time leading Maine’s ACLU chapter. She got her start with the ACLU in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks as an organizer in the activist group’s Washington, D.C. office, an archived bulletin shows.

Before the ACLU, Bellows graduated from Middlebury College. She lives with her husband Brandon in Manchester, Maine, in the central part of the state. Middlebury is renowned as one of the most progressive liberal arts colleges in the northeast, and has been the subject of multiple political controversies regarding free speech on campus in recent years.

As a state senator, Bellows represented parts of Kennbec County, Maine, in the southern part of the state and chaired the Labor and Housing Committee. Ahead of the 2020 presidential election, Bellows expressed support for then-Democratic candidate Joe Biden and said America must restore its civility.

Bellows called the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot an “insurrection” and called for Trump’s impeachment for his conduct leading up to the riot. “The fundamental right of any American citizen to vote freely, fairly and to have their vote counted is the premise of our democracy. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights are not values to be compromised away,” Bellows previously stated in a Jan. 4, 2022 social media post.

She appeared on CNN Thursday to defend her “unprecedented” decision to remove Trump from Maine’s ballot based on the insurrectionist ban.

“So — again, I am so mindful – and I said this in my decision – that it is unprecedented. No secretary of state has ever deprived a presidential candidate of ballot access based on Section Three of the 14th Amendment. But no presidential candidate has ever engaged in insurrection and been disqualified under Section Three of the 14th Amendment,” Bellows asserted. Her comments echoed an earlier press release her office sent out explaining the decision.

Maine is the second state to remove Trump from its presidential ballot after Colorado’s supreme court ruled on Dec. 19 to disqualify Trump from its GOP primary. The Colorado Republican party is appealing the 4-3 decision to the Supreme Court, allowing Trump to remain on the ballot pending the highest court’s decision.

Trump is the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, according to the RealClearPolitics state and national polling averages.

“The Maine Secretary of State is a former ACLU attorney, a virulent leftist and a hyper-partisan Biden-supporting Democrat who has decided to interfere in the presidential election on behalf of Crooked Joe Biden. We are witnessing, in real-time, the attempted theft of an election and the disenfranchisement of the American voter,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement.

“We will quickly file a legal objection in state court to prevent this atrocious decision in Maine from taking effect, and President Trump will never stop fighting to Make America Great Again.”

AUTHOR

JAMES LYNCH

Investigative reporter. James Lynch can be reached on Twitter @jameslynch32.

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POSTS ON X:

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

‘It’s Not Right’: Blue City Struggles To Keep Up With Homeless, Migrant Crises

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  • The city of Portland, Maine, is scrambling to keep up with a homeless crisis, along with arrivals of migrants in need of city services.
  • The city continues to open up new shelter space and move migrants out to other areas, as well.
  • “The influx of asylum seekers has grown every year since Portland became a sanctuary city and currently the homeless shelter is full of asylum seekers,” Carol Waig, who runs nonprofit My Fathers Hands, which helps the homeless population in Portland, told the DCNF.

PORTLAND, Maine — What’s happening at the border isn’t staying at the border. Thousands of miles north, Maine’s largest city faces a two-pronged crisis as a crush of illegal immigrants has overcrowded homeless shelters and created sprawling tent cities where crime and open drug use run rampant.

The city received more than 1,000 migrants between January and April, according to the city, many of which receive housing and public resources. There are currently around 225 tents making up Portland’s homeless encampments, and individuals inside the encampments, as well as an advocate for the homeless, told the DCNF that there aren’t enough resources to address both problems.

“The influx of asylum seekers has grown every year since Portland became a sanctuary city and currently the homeless shelter is full of asylum seekers,” Carol Waig, who runs nonprofit My Fathers Hands, which helps the homeless population in Portland, told the DCNF.

There were roughly 4,400 homeless individuals in the state of Maine as of January 2022, compared to roughly 2,000 in 2021, according to the Maine State Housing Authority, which says the sharp increase is “likely reflective of a surge in asylum seeking immigrants.”

The city recently created a new emergency shelter to free up 100 to 125 beds, according to its website. It also began busing migrants out of Portland in August, sending them from a temporary emergency shelter in a basketball arena to motels in other areas of the state, Lewiston and Freeport, according to the Associated Press.

“Our staff have been completely at capacity in terms of who they’re able to shelter and assist,” Jessica Grondin, city spokesperson, told the AP at the time.

“People from other countries come here, automatically get housing, get free care, free everything, it’s not right,” Bryce, who said he is homeless in Portland and that he came to the U.S. legally and went through a 10-year citizenship process, told the DCNF of the influx of migrants.

One large homeless encampment in Portland is filled with needles, naloxone used to reverse overdoses and needle disposal containers, the DCNF observed. Drug use is rampant among the camp, one of its residents, who went by Harold, told the DCNF.

“We’re human beings, we don’t want to be here, we really don’t want to be here, we don’t want to live outside, we don’t want to freeze the fuck out every night. Winter time on the Atlantic Ocean in Maine, do you think that’s comfortable when it’s below zero?” Harold said.

Some of Portland’s homeless have been offered shelter and haven’t taken the offers, Grondin told the DCNF.

“Through our [Encampment Crisis Response Team] process we have offered more than 150 shelter beds to people who are in encampments, but have not had overwhelming success in getting people into the shelter,” she said.

“We have expanded our outreach by using our own shelter staff and hiring outreach workers in order to get people into shelter as our focus is on getting people inside,” she continued. “It is our hope that our outreach efforts are successful so we can get people into shelter beds and other resources given that cold weather is now here.”

The migrant arrivals are also expected to continue given Democratic Maine Gov. Janet Mills’ August order to create an “Office of New Americans” and bring in 75,000 new workers by 2029.

The city continues offering assistance to both migrants and the homeless, Grondin said in a statement to the DCNF. Both migrants and homeless qualify for the state’s General Assistance program that provides help paying for housing, fuel, utilities, medical care and burial costs.

City shelters housed an average of 1,200 individuals every night as of June, according to the city website. Some families are also being housed in a contracted hotel.

The city also opened a shelter, the Homeless Service Center (HSC), in March for 208 single individuals, in addition to the city’s family shelter, according to Grondin, who added that the city council in Portland recently “approved expanding capacity at the HSC by 50 beds.”

It is working to provide 120 beds at the HSC that the homeless in Portland’s encampments will have priority to take, Grondin said.

“Our goal is to connect those in encampments with those beds,” she said.

A spokesperson for Mills didn’t respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.

AUTHOR

JENNIE TAER

Investigative reporter.

POST ON X:

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Maine Governor Wants 75,000 More Migrants to Commit Crimes Americans Won’t

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30-year-old Mohammed Sheik and 23-year-old Keyt Hussein were both shot to death.

Maine Gov. Janet Mills has a plan.

Maine Gov. Janet Mills signed an executive order Wednesday intended to establish a new migrant resettlement office, telling the Portland newspaper the administration’s goal is to attract 75,000 new workers to Maine.

The governor announced the goal as part of the press strategy for rolling out an executive order that will eventually create the “Office of New Americans,” a state office that will assist with migrant resettlement and integration throughout the state.

Mills told the liberal Portland Press Herald newspaper that the goal of attracting 75,000 migrant workers to Maine is part of her plan to supply businesses in Maine with “New Mainers” to fill job vacancies.

New Mainers from Somalia have a very important role to play in segments of the Maine economy. Like joining ISIS.

Lewiston woman discovers her ex-husband joined ISIS and was killed in Syria. She’s angry that some are blaming her, labeling her and her children terrorists

Or gang violence.

The Maine State Police Department have identified the two men killed in Lewiston over the weekend. 30-year-old Mohammed Sheik of Auburn and 23-year-old Keyt Hussein were both shot to death.

75,000 more inbound.

You just can’t count on ‘Old Mainers’ to join ISIS or commit random street crime. That’s what the ‘New Mainers’ are for.

AUTHOR

DANIEL GREENFIELD

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

MAINE: Democratic Senate Hopeful Repeatedly Killed ‘Racist’ Bills to Outlaw Female Genital Mutilation

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My latest in PJ Media:

The most revolting news item of the week comes from Maine, where, according to the Washington Free Beacon, “Democratic Senate candidate Sara Gideon repeatedly killed bills to outlaw female genital mutilation during her tenure as the speaker of the Maine House of Representatives.” In amassing this shameful record, Sara Gideon has become Exhibit A of everything that is wrong about identity politics, the Democratic Party, and the Left in general.

The Free Beacon notes that Gideon’s determination to enable the barbaric practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) is abundantly established. She “leveraged her leadership position in the Democrat-controlled legislature to kill two separate bills that would have criminalized the practice of severing the clitoris of infant girls and sewing their vaginas shut.”

Why on earth would Gideon do something as heinous as this? The answer is simple and predictable: “Under Gideon’s leadership, Maine Democrats argued that the bill was racist toward the state’s large immigrant community from Somalia, a country where the practice is ‘nearly universal’ according to the United Nations.”

It’s racist to outlaw FGM? Well, of course it is, because Sara Gideon needs the votes of Maine’s rapidly growing Somali community, and that’s as far as her moral calculus goes. The Free Beacon notes that “Gideon’s efforts have helped make Maine one of only 12 states that have not banned female genital mutilation,” and that “such a legacy threatens to complicate her cultivated image as a champion of women’s rights, one built on her consistent support for abortion access and the #MeToo movement,” but Gideon has shown in opposing efforts to criminalize FGM that she doesn’t really care about women’s rights at all. She poses as a women’s rights advocate when seeking donations from well-heeled Leftists, but she likely knows that those same Leftist donors won’t be concerned in the least about her wanting to allow for the preservation of a time-hallowed Somali cultural practice. After all, any other course of action would be “ethnocentric” and “Islamophobic,” right?

There is much more. Read the rest here.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Maine: African Muslim Refugees Charged in Brutal Murder

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Except apparently it was so brutal that the case (and the autopsy) has been sealed from the media for at least a week! Or, why else would it have been sealed?

Diversity is strength alert!

The story is here at World Net Daily:

Authorities in Portland, Maine, have arrested three Somali-American men in connection with the brutal killing of a man inside his apartment, then moved quickly to seal the case from public view.

Police arrested Abil Teshome, 23, Mohamud Mohamed, 36, and Osman Sheikh, 31, on Thursday. All three are charged with the murder of 49-year-old health-care worker Freddy Akoa.

Mohamed-Mohamud

Mohamed Mohamud, one of three suspects charged in the killing of Freddy Akoa in Portland, Maine. Credit/Portland Press.

[….]

The killing “wasn’t random in nature,” said Police Chief Michael Sauschuck, indicating the alleged killers knew their victim.

The U.S. State Department, in cooperation with the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, has sent 1,379 Somali refugees to Maine since 2002, with 1,010 of them going to Portland, according to the State Department’s refugee database. Records prior to 2002 are not kept online, but the U.N. has been sending Somali refugees to the United States since the early 1990s with the full support of the U.S. Congress, despite the fact that hundreds of them have turned out to be jihadists or criminals.

There is much much more from reporter Leo Hohmann who tells us about how the case is sealed for at least a week from media review.

By the way, my first thought, when I saw the original news yesterday, was that the case involved rival gangs fighting over drugs, but the victim, Freddy Akoa, another immigrant (most likely a Christian, but we don’t know that yet), was by all accounts a successful middle-aged man (with a loving family) working in the health care industry.

Readers often want to know how we know if someone got into the US as a refugee.  For some ethnic groups we don’t know, but virtually all of the Somalis in the US and those in Maine are here as refugees or the children of refugees.  Some may have come illegally, but the Refugee Admissions Program of the UN/US State Department is responsible for the vast majority of Somalis in your towns and cities.  By the way, the accused have not been publicly identified as Somalis yet, but the names of at least two of them are common Somali names.

Hohmann also reports on the bill introduced recently by Rep. Brian Babin of Texas which seeks to suspend the refugee program until questions about the cost and impact on national security have been examined.

Continue reading here.

Maine the welfare state!

We have written a lot about how Somalis got to Maine with the help of Catholic Charities, the primary resettlement agency in the state. Here is a post from 2009 about how Somalis were attracted to Maine welfare.  For years that post was one of our top most-read posts.

The primary resettlement agency in Maine is Catholic Charities.  However, we don’t know if the accused arrived in Maine with the help of a resettlement contractor or were secondary migrants who were resettled somewhere else in America and then moved to Maine to live in one of the Somali enclaves there—in Portland or Lewiston.

Learn about one of the leading figures in Portland promoting more African resettlement for Maine, here.

See our very extensive archive on Maine by clicking here.  There are more murder and crime stories in the archive.

In addition to refugee resettlement, Maine has become a desired state for asylum seekers to head to as it is one of the few states that gives welfare to those seeking asylum who have not yet been granted permission to stay.

RELATED ARTICLE: Buchanan: Immigration the issue of the 21st Century

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of Osman Sheikh, 31, one of the African Muslims in court.