News of the World

[DerVVulfman]

  This week, we get to play PING PONG with the U.S. election cycle.  First, the Ping...

TRUMP BACK ON COLORADO BALLOT

Colorado’s secretary of state said Thursday that former President Donald Trump will remain on the 2024 primary ballot for certification next week, as the state Republican Party appeals a court ruling that had found him ineligible for office earlier this month.

“With the appeal filed, Donald Trump will be included as a candidate on Colorado’s 2024 Presidential Primary Ballot when certification occurs on January 5, 2024, unless the US Supreme Court declines to take the case or otherwise affirms the Colorado Supreme Court ruling,” Jena Griswold’s office said in a press release.

The Colorado Supreme Court ruled 4-3 on Dec. 19 that the former president could not receive the Republican nomination because he had unconstitutionally participated in an “insurrection” against the US government on Jan. 6, 2021.

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment includes a clause that bars those who have taken an oath of office from being elected again to govern if they have violated the Constitution by having “engaged in insurrection or rebellion.”

“Donald Trump engaged in insurrection and was disqualified under the Constitution from the Colorado Ballot. The Colorado Supreme Court got it right. This decision is now being appealed,” Griswold said in a separate statement. “I urge the US Supreme Court to act quickly given the upcoming presidential primary election.”

On Wednesday, the Colorado Republican Party asked the Supreme Court to overturn the ruling from their state’s high court, saying the party “has been irreparably harmed by the decision” to disqualify the 77-year-old ex-president.

“The state has interfered in the primary election by unreasonably restricting the Party’s ability to select its candidates,” states the 45-page petition from the Colorado GOP and the nonprofit American Center for Law and Justice.

“As a natural and inevitable result, the state has interfered with the Party’s ability to place on the general election ballot the candidate of its choice. And it has done so based on a subjective claim of insurrection the state lacks any constitutional authority to make.”

The high court has yet to make a decision on the ruling, which would need to occur before a Jan. 5 deadline for candidate names to be certified by both parties for the Colorado ballot.

The Colorado court in its decision cited a prior ruling by Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, who oversees the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes the Centennial State

Attorneys for Trump have yet to appeal the Colorado ruling to the Supreme Court.

The Colorado Supreme Court stayed its ruling rendering Trump ineligible until Jan. 4, 2024, but the US Supreme Court may still issue its own stay of the decision ahead of its first conference day of the new year, which falls on Jan. 5.

The Centennial State will host its primary on March 5, the day after the former president is scheduled to appeal in Washington, DC, federal court on his four-count indictment for trying to overturn the 2020 election results.

Trump remains the favorite for the 2024 Republican nomination by more than 50 percentage points, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average, with competitors Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley in a distant second and third place, respectively.

The former president is also leading President Biden in recent surveys, including in several swing states that he lost to the Democrat in 2020.

  Of course, there are the other considerations such as Impeachment is a political process and not a legal one. The democrat's footage of Trump's speech would have landed the editor in legal trouble with doctoring footage.  The second is that there was no Federal Court trial to convict.  And third, this is a federal matter and not the purview of the states.

And now the Pong...

MAINE'S SECRETARY OF STATE
REMOVES TRUMP FROM BALLOT

I think they hob-nob together...

Maine's Democratic secretary of state on Thursday disqualified former President Trump from the state's presidential primary ballot.

In her ruling, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows cited Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution which bans from office those who "engaged in insurrection."

Bellows made the ruling after some state residents, including a bipartisan group of former lawmakers, challenged Trump's position on the ballot.

Trump's lawyers requested Bellows disqualify herself over tweets that they believed showed bias. In the tweets, Bellows, a lawyer and former executive director of the ACLU, called the U.S. Capitol attack an "insurrection" and bemoaned that Trump wasn't convicted by the U.S. Senate after being impeached by the U.S. House.

Trump Campaign spokesman Steven Cheung derided Bellows as "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," Cheung said. "Democrats in blue states are recklessly and un-Constitutionally suspending the civil rights of the American voters by attempting to summarily remove President Trump’s name from the ballot.

"Make no mistake, these partisan election interference efforts are a hostile assault on American democracy. Biden and the Democrats simply do not trust the American voter in a free and fair election and are now relying on the force of government institutions to protect their grip on power."

Maine law mandated that Bellows hold a public hearing over the issue, which she did in December. Bellows allowed each side to submit additional arguments after the Colorado Supreme Court's historic Dec. 19 decision that Section 3 of the 14th amendment barred Trump from the ballot.

Bellows suspended her ruling until Maine's state Superior Court rules on the matter.

A ruling from the Colorado Supreme Court earlier this month booted Trump from the ballot there under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. Colorado is a Democratic-leaning state that is not expected to be competitive for Republicans in November.

But even though Maine has just four electoral votes, it's one of two states to split them. Trump won one of Maine's electors in 2020, so having him off the ballot could have significant consequences for the election – should he emerge as the Republican candidate. If he's not on the ballot there, he would start his 2024 campaign down one Electoral College vote.

Similar battles are playing out in other states, where activists have asked election officials to remove the former president from their states' primary ballots under Section 3 of the 14th amendment.

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to make a final decision on whether Trump can still run for president early next year.

 So this time, she wants to remove someone from an election.  It was early this year she testified she was against Voter ID, a means to strengthen election integrity. Her claim it forces one to carry a specific form of photo identification is bogus when 'State IDs' (not Drivers Licenses) can be readily accessible and its damn required to get a job anyway.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene
and others target of
Swatting Attempts

A swatting attempt targeted the U.S. Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Christmas at her Georgia residence, police say.

Swatting is a deliberate, illegal harassment practice of making false crime reports to emergency services in order to draw local police or SWAT teams to a particular location. It's often used to target someone's residence or place of work and can be fueled through social media to spread misinformation.

Greene posted about the incident on X, formerly known as Twitter, saying it is the eighth attempt.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene
@RepMGT - Follow

I was just swatted.

This is the 8th time.

On Christmas with my family here.

My local police are the GREATEST and shouldn't have to deal with this.

I appreciate them so much and my family and I are in joyous spirits celebrating the birth of our savior Jesus Christ!

10:48 AM - Dec 25, 2023

According to The Associated Press, Kelly Madden, a spokesperson for the city of Rome, Ga., confirmed that the call was a hoax and did not send officers to Greene's house. Madden told the AP that a man in New York called a Georgia suicide hotline and claimed he had shot his girlfriend at Greene's home and was going to kill himself next.

"My local police are the GREATEST and shouldn't have to deal with this," Greene said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

She also wrote that she was swatted on Dec. 21, when a man sent death threats on social media. According to her post, a suspect has not been arrested yet.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene
@RepMGT - Follow

I was swatted this morning on Christmas Day and a few days ago - Thursday Dec 21st. we received this death threat where this man is saying I will be shot in the head and skinned to make a "parasol" making a reference to Gein, who was a psycopath killer who could make things out... Show More

3:58 PM - Dec 25, 2023

"Swatting is extremely dangerous and people have been killed as a result from swatting calls. It's also a waste of police time and resources and harassment," Greene wrote. "I will be introducing legislation to track down swatters."

Rome police said it has formed a close working relationship with Greene's security detail and is in the process of identifying the latest harasser, Madden told the AP.

This is not the first time the congresswoman, who is known for embracing conspiracy theories, has been targeted. Last month, a man in Georgia was arrested after threatening to kill her.

GERMANY EXPECTS EU DEAL ON UKRAINE AID,
EVEN WITHOUT HUNGARY
Budapest blocked the 50 Billion Euro deal in December

Germany expects European Union member states to pass their next Ukraine support package either way, even if Hungary should continue to block an unanimous decision.

EU leaders have been looking for ways to get around Budapest’s intransigence after talks over the €50 billion ($55 billion) package for the government in Kyiv broke down at a summit in mid-December.

A potential back-up option that has been floated is having member states funnel money to Kyiv outside of the EU budget process, an option Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban signaled may be viable.

The proposal would involve national guarantees from member states to raise funding in the markets should Hungary continue to block the review of the EU’s long-term budget at an extraordinary summit on Feb. 1.

Speaking at a regular government news conference in Berlin, Foreign Ministry spokesman Christian Wagner said Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition government will provide military support for Ukraine worth €8 billion in 2024 and Berlin will continue to “campaign vigorously” for the adoption of the bigger EU aid package worth €50 billion early next year.

“The EU will also continue its support for Ukraine, in any case,” Wagner added. “The EU-26 will of course also be able to act. But I don’t want to speculate now on how such support could be organized. This also requires further consultation in Brussels.”

Ukraine is seeking to manage its government spending and military resources as the war approaches the two-year mark, with more than $110 billion in financial aid from the US and the EU delayed by political disputes in Washington and Brussels.

After its counteroffensive largely failed to oust Russian forces from occupied eastern and southern Ukraine, fighting on the front line is largely at a stalemate.