Maine secretary of state who opted to keep Trump off primary ballot is facing threat of impeachment
Maine’s top election official could face an impeachment attempt in the state Legislature over her decision to keep former President Donald Trump off the Republican primary ballot.
At least one Republican lawmaker has vowed to pursue impeachment against Democratic Secretary of State Shenna Bellows despite long odds in the Democratic-controlled Legislature.
Bellows said Friday that she had no comment on the impeachment effort, but said she was duty-bound by state law to make a determination on three challenges brought by registered Maine voters. She reiterated that she suspended her decision pending an anticipated appeal by Trump in Superior Court.
“Under Maine law, I have not only the authority but the obligation to act,” she said. “I will follow the Constitution and the rule of law as directed by the courts,” she added.
I feel like we are living in a simulation. We have to be bcz nobody is this insane to think that Trump didn't break the law, and clearly based on the constitution is ineligible to be president again.. the republican party has gone bat shit crazy in the last 10 years, and it's bonkers that they have any support at all, and somehow 30-35% of the country supports this bullshit??
Republicans are insane right now. They're going full fascist. I don't know what else you call it when they so blatantly ignore the rule of law to disrupt the peaceful transition of power to stay in power.
The attempted coup was standard run-of-the-mill authoritarianism. There are dozens of other examples for why they are irrefutably fascist.
Yeah, but the reaction to being called fascist is that conservatives on lemmy, reddit, etc will always claim their accuser has no idea what fascism is... So ridiculous
Lol true, I should've said authoritarian or tyrannical.
Yeah, the last time this scenario played out, people put up with a lot of bullshit and terror before people got organized to try to stop it ...... that led to a world war where millions died.
The best time to stop this madness is now because if you don't, it takes far more force and even violence as time moves on.
I'm not exaggerating ... I'm being serious because I don't want to live in a timeline that our ancestors fought and died to avoid.
The left has a serious problem with direct action.
Meanwhile the core tenet of fascism is "By any means necessary"
The absolute stupid part of all this is .... this is happening while we are destroying our environment which will lead to our demise or eventual destruction.
The train we're on is on fire and on its way to the end the track that's going to fly us off a cliff .... and we're arguing about who's going to drive the train and where we're going to sit.
Direct action required dehumanizing your opponent, which is largely something those on the left are against but those on the right do constantly. It's at best a small surprise that there isn't more stochastic violence from the left.
Their literal response to one of the most serious crimes in existence was "no you" and there is a realistic chance they could be the next most powerful government in the world.
They know he broke the law- they just don't think he should be held accountable for it.
"I would pardon Trump if he is found guilty (...) What’s in the best interest of the country is not to have an 80-year-old man sitting in jail that continues to divide our country." -Nikki "why wouldn't the party of racist sexist bigots elect a nonwhite woman for President?" Haley.
Insane? There are law professors writing editorials in the New York Times about how, in their expert opinion, Trump actually is eligible. You might think they're wrong (clearly the Maine secretary of state does) but this is a genuinely ambiguous and unsettled matter of law; there's no "insane" side.
It's not a hard concept that when someone attempts coup, they should not be allowed back in power. Many many countries have put leaders in prison for less. Law has to mean something, or your country and institutions will not last. He has broken so many laws while in office it's not even funny, and we've mostly turned a blind eye to it until very very recently.
What they claim is to disagree whether it constituted a coup attempt. Some say “it was unsuccessful” which is of course rather a dimwitted claim. Some still insist it was merely a protest and not a coup attempt. Nobody seems to dispute that Trump was involved and encouraged it. Anyhow, like most things republicans argue, they have a preconceived result and make up nonsense to support it, and it’s very biased - imagine if it had been democrats and Obama involved in something like that? They’d still be completely losing their shit about it and they couldn’t find enough harsh things to say about the participants.
The law isn't about should in that sense of the word. If Satan, the Devil, was running for President, whether or not he was legally eligible to do so would be an entirely separate question from whether or not people should vote for him. The article I linked to argues that
That might plausibly be true no matter how bad Trump is.
Playing devil's advocate doesn't actually mean you need to defend both the literal devil that exists and also the mythological one. It's an expression. No need to take it so literally.
This is a spurious as Trump's lawyers claiming he didn't swear to support the Constitution, only protect it, which is why he can violate it and still run again.
That has to be top 5 of the dumbest arguments I have heard.
That's interesting because the Times also just put out an article referencing Federalist professors who determined he should be disqualified. Looks like they're playing both sides, lol.
Kind of surreal to see someone arguing that an insurrection isn't a disqualifying action for a presidential candidate and that it's clearly just a matter of opinion with a legit argument