Free Republic

Republican lawmakers in Maine are preparing impeachment orders against Secretary of State Shenna Bellows following her decision to remove former President Donald J. Trump from the Maine GOP presidential primary ballot.“I wish to impeach her on the grounds that she is barring an American citizen and 45th President of the United States, who is convicted of no crime or impeachment, their right to appear on a Maine Republican Party ballot in March,” Rep. John Andrews (R-Paris) said in a statement. “This is raw partisanship and has no place in the office of our state’s Constitutional Officers,” Andrews said. Bellows, a...

Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME) voiced his objection to the ruling by Maine’s secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, to keep former President Trump off the primary ballot.That move should only have been made if Trump was convicted of a crime, the Democrat argued.“I voted to impeach Donald Trump for his role in the January 6th insurrection. I do not believe he should be re-elected as President of the United States,” Golden said in a statement posted on X. “However, we are a nation of laws, therefore until he is actually found guilty of the crime of insurrection, he should be allowed...

Maine’s Democratic Secretary of State Shenna Bellows on Thursday disqualified former President Donald Trump from the state’s 2024 ballot, citing the 14th Amendment’s insurrection clause. -snip “I do not reach this conclusion lightly. Democracy is sacred,” Bellows wrote in her 34-page decision on multiple complaints challenging the 77-year-old Trump’s eligibility for the primary ballot in Maine based on his actions leading up to and during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol. “I am mindful that no Secretary of State has ever deprived a presidential candidate of ballot access based on Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment. I...

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows has decided Donald Trump is ineligible to appear on the state’s 2024 Republican primary ballot.

Maine’s highest court has ruled that Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie will not appear on the 2024 ballot after his campaign failed to gather enough certified signatures from registered voters. The decision stems from an appeal brought by Christie’s campaign in response to a previous decision by Secretary of State Shenna Bellows that he did not gather the necessary 2,000 certified signatures. Bellows claimed that the Christie campaign turned in just 844 signatures. “We appreciate that the court upheld the integrity of Maine’s well-established ballot access requirements,” Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said in a statement. “Every candidate, including...

A top Maine state environmental agency delayed a highly-anticipated vote to approve a sweeping electric vehicle (EV) mandate amid a storm that caused widespread power outages. The Maine Board of Environmental Protection (BEP) announced that it had indefinitely postponed the meeting, which was slated for Thursday afternoon, until further notice following the storm. Democratic Maine Gov. Janet Mills, who has pursued an aggressive green energy agenda, declared a state of emergency this week, an action that closed state government offices. "Governor Janet Mills declared a State of Civil Emergency for 14 Maine counties following a significant wind and rain storm...

Hundreds of illegal Chinese-owned marijuana growing operations have been popping up across Maine over the past three years.A criminal marijuana growing operation in Henryetta, Oklahoma. Illegal grow operations are a nationwide problem, responsible for billions in revenue. (Picture courtesy Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics)On Tuesday, Nov. 28, local law enforcement shut down an illegal marijuana grow that was being operated in a building located behind a licensed marijuana cultivation facility in Franklin County.Officers from the Wilton Police Department were assisting investigators from the Maine Office of Cannabis Policy (OCP) during a routine follow-up inspection of a licensed facility in Wilton when...

A suburb of Portland, Maine removed a Star of David from its annual holiday lights display. A local Arab-American organization complained and called it “offensive.” The reason is the Israel-Hamas war. How convenient for the normalization of antisemitic sentiments. Unlike most Arab countries, there is religious freedom in America. There is, however, a separation between church and state. Mayor Michael Foley is using the excuse of the Constitution’s Establishment Clause for the removal. Religious displays are forbidden on public property. Here is the kicker – local Jewish groups agreed and want the Star of David removed and replaced with a...

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is in danger of not appearing on Maine's primary ballot after he fell short of the minimum 2,000 signatures needed from Maine voters to qualify for the state's Republican presidential primary, state officials said Friday. A letter from Maine's Director of Elections Heidi M. Peckham said Christie's campaign only submitted "844 names certified by municipal registrars." Candidates had to file signatures with the municipal clerks for certification before submitting them to the Secretary of State's office by 5 p.m. Friday. Christie has five days to appeal the decision in Maine Superior Court. "The campaign...

Sen. Angus King (I-ME) joined three Senate Democrats on Thursday to introduce a ban on the most popular semiautomatic rifles in America, describing such firearms as “lethal capacity weapons.” The Senate Democrats are Martin Heinrich (NM), Mark Kelly (AZ), and Michael Bennet (CO). The ban is titled the Gas-Operated Semiautomatic Firearm Exclusion (GOSAFE) Act.

Mayor Eric Adams is leading a coalition of 62 mayors across the nation in calling for US House Speaker Mike Johnson to pass a ban on assault weapons following the mass shooting in Maine. During a news conference on Thursday, Adams pointed to the massacre in Lewiston, where 18 people were killed, as the latest example of why the federal government needs to revive its former assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004. “Eighteen Mainers were stolen from us by yet another disturbed man, wielding an assault rifle that had no business on our streets,” Adams said. “Mass shooting deaths...

Illegal Chinese marijuana grows have taken over much of rural Maine. The government is either incapable — or unwilling — to do anything about it. The Maine Wire has identified more than 100 properties that are part of a sprawling network of Chinese-owned sites operating as unlicensed, illicit cannabis growing operations in rural Maine. According to an unclassified memo from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) obtained by the Maine Wire, the illicit grows are operated by Asian Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs). The properties cover Somerset County, Penobscot County, Kennebec County, Franklin County, Androscoggin County, and Oxford County. The...

President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden visited Maine to grieve with a community reeling from a mass shooting that left 18 people dead and 13 others wounded. The Bidens arrived in Lewiston on Friday afternoon, where they met with survivors, families of the victims and first responders. They were greeted upon their arrival by Governor Janet Mills, Lewiston Mayor Carl Sheline and other local officials. Their first stop was Schemengees Bar, one of the locations of last week's mass shooting. Biden carried a bouquet of white flowers in one hand and held the first lady’s hand in the...

Mass shooter Robert Card was turned away from a Maine gun store when he tried to buy a silencer for his assault rifle months before he launched a massacre at a bowling alley and bar — a move that possibly saved countless lives. Card, 40, went to Coastal Defense Firearms in Auburn on Aug. 5 to pick up the accessory he ordered online — but was turned down when staff learned about his mental history, ABC News reported. “He came in and filled out the form. He checked off a box that incriminated himself saying he was in an institution,”...

Facts are now emerging in the case of Maine mass shooting suspect Robert Card which suggest a string of failures, at least to follow through, and at least one success on the part of a firearms retailer, preceded the Oct. 25 tragedy in Lewiston, Maine that left 18 people dead and 13 injured.And there is something else: Maine is a gun rights friendly state, yet none of the victims was apparently able to fight back. CNN is reporting that the Maine National Guard “asked local police to check on” Card back on Sept. 16, after another soldier reported the suspect’s...

The Maine man accused of killing at least 18 people and injuring 13 others in the nation’s deadliest mass shooting so far this year was reportedly known to be a “gun fanatic” who neighbors knew to stay away from in the Lewiston community. The suspected shooter, Robert Card, a 40-year-old U.S. Army Reservist and petroleum specialist is being sought in a tense manhunt in connection with the Wednesday night massacres spread across a bowling alley and bar, according to authorities. (ED NOTE: HE’S DEAD, JIM) Local resident Liam Kent, who grew up near the Card family, claimed in an interview...

<p>PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Barely four years before a gunman's deadly rampage in Maine, a state that is staunchly protective of gun rights, the governor signed a law aimed at preventing a mass shooting like the one Wednesday night that claimed at least 18 lives.</p>

Officials are working to determine how long Robert Card had been deceased The Maine Army Reservist who slaughtered 18 of his neighbors and wounded 13 others in a mass shooting Wednesday night has been found dead Friday — more than 48 hours after he inflicted carnage in Lewiston and sparked a massive manhunt in the peaceful New England state. Robert Card II is believed to have died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, authorities announced at a press conference Friday night. Officials did not provide many details on the circumstances that led to the discovery of his body in the nearby...

The man suspected in Wednesday's massacre that killed 18 people in Lewiston, Maine, has been found dead, sources told the NBC10 Boston Investigators Friday night. Robert Card was the subject of a dayslong manhunt that followed mass shootings at the Just-In-Time Recreation bowling alley and Schemengees Bar and Grille. The update comes after days of angst as an armed and dangerous man was unaccounted for after 18 people were killed and 13 injured.

Police in Maine planned to trawl the waters of the Androscoggin River with divers and sonar on Friday in their search for U.S. army reservist Robert R. Card, who they suspect is the mass shooter who killed 18 people at a bar and bowling alley in Lewiston this week. Officials ordered tens of thousands of area residents to shelter in place for their safety and indicated that the manhunt could continue for at least several days more. Part of the search played out on live television Thursday night when officials executed several search warrants in the neighboring town of Bowdoin,...