Hellbound and Down

The Energy Crisis Escalates: The Dual Threat Of More War In The Middle East And Hurricane Isaias Damaging U.S. Refineries In The Gulf Is Pushing Oil Prices Even Higher

Just when it seemed like we had hit a period of relative calm, global events are starting to accelerate again. Within the past 24 hours, there have been a couple of absolutely enormous developments. First of all, Tropical Storm Isaias has become Hurricane Isaias and we are being told that it will make landfall along the Gulf Coast. That is potentially a major problem because the Gulf Coast accounts for over 50 percent of the crude oil refining capacity in the United States. If any of that capacity is taken offline for an extended period of time, that will drive fuel prices substantially higher. Meanwhile, Iran has been attacking tankers at a very alarming pace this week, and President Trump is reportedly considering a new wave of airstrikes on Iran…

This is a major bombshell.

If the U.S. starts extensively bombing Iran again, the war in the Middle East could spiral completely out of control.

The good news is that President Trump is now pledging that the U.S. will not be bombing Iran until after the midterms…

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AOC Goes Full Woke On ‘Trans Rights’ Because She’s A ‘Girl’s Girl’

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said at a Maine town hall Thursday that she defends transgender rights because she is a “girl’s girl,” telling the crowd she does not support trans rights just to protect her own, but supports “the rights of trans women because I’m a girl’s girl.” She added that compromising one trans person’s rights compromises every citizen’s.

The event was a “Students vs. Billionaires” town hall at the State Theatre in Portland on Oct. 22, hosted by the group More Perfect University, where she appeared with Democratic Senate nominee Troy Jackson, the Bangor Daily News reported. Newsweek said students asked about healthcare, transgender rights and foreign policy; its account does not say what she answered on the last one.

Asked by a transgender-identifying college student why many Democrats are backing away from the issue, Ocasio-Cortez said “They’re wrong.” She said she was ashamed of people who “scare so easily after an election,” the Daily Wire reports. She then accused the Trump administration of using the issue to go after Title IX, the federal ban on sex discrimination in schools that receive federal funding.

She tied the sports fight to sexual assault, saying it attacks “all women’s ability to stand up against their abusers.” The remark was about campuses. The Daily Wire is the only outlet found so far that reports her answers on the issue, so the wording above is its transcription.

The Democrats she was rebuking are mostly in competitive races. Ohio Rep. Marcy Kaptur, in an ad covered by the Nationl News Desk on Oct. 8, says she “voted with Republicans to keep transgender ideology out of our schools”. North Carolina Rep. Don Davis’s ad says “states should decide what’s right for protecting women and girls.” New York Rep. Ritchie Torres, who co-chairs Equality PAC, called such ads “deeply offensive,” according to that report, which cites Axios.

In Iowa, state senator Sarah Trone Garriott released a spot saying she opposes “letting men in women’s locker rooms.” The Washington Examiner reported in August that she had voted as a state senator against bills restricting trans students in girls’ sports and locker rooms, and that Republican Rep. Zach Nunn’s campaign was running ads on the vote.

Maine is where Ocasio-Cortez’s pitch is being tested. The Senate race is a toss-up, and three October polls reported by Newsweek have Jackson ahead of Republican Sen. Susan Collins: Suffolk University 49% to 47%, InsiderAdvantage 49% to 47%, and a Washington Post/George Mason University poll 50% to 46%. Newsweek noted that polls underestimated Collins in 2020, when she won with more than 50% after trailing in surveys.

At the event, Ocasio-Cortez urged Maine women to back Jackson and faulted Collins for her vote to advance the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and her vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh. Collins spokesman Blake Kernen answered that Jackson spends time with “far-left progressive office holders,” the Bangor Daily News reported. The Daily Wire noted that Ocasio-Cortez is reportedly considering a 2028 presidential run.

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Democrat Scandal Unravels in Wisconsin – Involves Rotating Candidates and the Infamous Magic Flash Drives …Update: More Coming!

Wisconsin media is reporting on a MAJOR Democrat Party scandal just days before the November 3rd midterm elections.

This involves the Wisconsin race for governor.

Democrat primary candidate and Milwaukee County Executive, David Crowley announced on Wednesday, July 8th, that he was suspending his campaign.

That leaves current Wisconsin Lt. Governor Sara Rodriguez in the primary race against unhinged communist

But Sara Rodriguez dropped out of the race two weeks later on July 17th. Her campaign discovered “serious mismanagement and inaccuracies” in its campaign finance reports, leading to the firing of campaign manager Kara Spencer.

That’s when David Crowley jumped back in the race less than 24 hours later after Rodriquez’s departure.

At this point the Democrat gubernatorial primary race pitted David Crowley against Francesa Hong, a wacky and unapologeticly socialist candidate.

The primary election was now less than a month away.

The squirrely socialist was squaring off against the Milwaukee county executive.

But the Democrat primary election scandal only just starting.

On election night, the dim-witted, holiday-hating communist who had emerged as one of new ‘stars’ of the Democratic Party lost her primary in a stunning upset to a largely unknown establishment opponent following a late drop and chaos in Wisconsin’s largest city.

That’s right.

As CNN reported, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley narrowly defeated 37-year-old state assemblywoman Francesca Hong, who almost everyone assumed was going face Wisconsin GOP nominee Tom Tiffany in the general election.

The state results showed Crowley holding roughly a three-thousand-vote lead, less than half a percentage point of the vote.

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Racist? UK Charities Are Paying White People A Third Less Than Ethnics

Oxfam paid its white staff a median of 33% less than colleagues who described themselves as black or a person of colour last year, according to the charity’s own annual report. Cancer Research UK and the British Red Cross reported similar negative ethnicity pay gaps in favour of ethnic minority staff.

The figures, drawn from the organisations’ voluntary disclosures, have prompted questions about how “positive action” provisions in the Equality Act 2010 are being applied in practice. Critics argue the measures, intended to address under-representation, are producing outcomes that disadvantage white employees in recruitment, promotion and pay.

Oxfam’s ethnicity pay gap stood at -33.0% on the median and -12.9% on the mean, based on data from 69.2% of staff who shared their ethnicity. Black or people of colour (BPOC) staff made up 10.5% of the workforce. The median gap had been -10.4% the previous year.

The charity noted that a higher proportion of staff in the top two pay quartiles disclosed their ethnicity, and that lower overall numbers of BPOC colleagues “may be driving a skew in the pay gap.” It stated the figures “cannot be seen as conclusive” but were “suggestive of lower average pay at the charity for white workers.”

A spokesman for Oxfam said the organisation was “committed to fair, inclusive recruitment practices that value diversity and ensure everyone has the opportunity to thrive. We do not operate a policy of positive discrimination,” adding that the “reported ethnicity pay gap is not evidence of unequal pay for the same work.”

Cancer Research UK reported that white staff were paid 7.6% less on average in 2025. The charity has recorded a negative gap in favour of ethnic minority employees since 2020, though it said the figure is now “the closest to being neutral it has ever been.”

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Paris Police Chief Sparks Outcry By Advising Shopkeepers To Hire Private Security Ahead Of Saturday’s Far-Left Protests

Shop owners in Paris are bracing for a new weekend of far-left protests against the rising cost of living, after last week’s demonstrations devolved into violence, looting, and arson across France.

In the capital, 451 shops were vandalized on Oct. 17 and 18, including 228 that were looted, according to the City of Paris. The government counts about 3,000 businesses hit nationwide.

On Oct. 22, nearly every store along the Champs-Élysées was barricading its storefront with metal shutters, security grilles, or wooden boards, as bewildered tourists looked on, The Epoch Times observed. Chanel, Lacoste, and Louis Vuitton all had been targeted by looters last week.

Near the Place de la République, workers have been screwing plywood panels over windows and doors, while posters on the boards invite residents to join a neighborhood WhatsApp group against break-ins.

Shops were not the only targets on Oct. 17. In Paris, individuals also forced their way into residential buildings, The Epoch Times witnessed.

Hire Private Security Agents

In a letter sent on Oct. 21 to Paris’s local elected officials, reported by France Info, Police Prefect Patrice Faure urged shop owners near the protest routes to hire private security agents, “possibly with dog-handler teams,” lower their shutters, and consider not opening on Saturday.

The reinforced police deployment cannot on its own guarantee the protection of every establishment, the letter states.

The advice sparked outcry from critics who said protecting citizens is the state’s job, not shopkeepers’.

“The government is asking shopkeepers to pay for private security guards out of their own pockets. This is an admission that it can no longer fulfill its most fundamental duty: protecting the French people,” Sarah Knafo, a member of the European Parliament and one of the leading figures of the conservative Reconquest party, said on X.

“In return,” she said, “can shopkeepers stop paying taxes to the government?”

David Lisnard, the president of New Energy, wrote on X that this is “an unacceptable admission of powerlessness and a complete reversal of fundamental principles.”

“Shopkeepers pay for the repairs, pay taxes so that the state ensures their security, and are now expected to pay a third time for private security,” he said.

Faure later conceded a “clumsiness” in his wording, while stating that protecting shop owners remained the authorities’ responsibility and priority.

Unarmed and Outnumbered

Requests for quotes have doubled since the riots, according to the French Union of Security Professions, the industry federation.

“Calls to our switchboard and email requests have multiplied,” Raphaël Mashhadi, manager of the Paris firm Gardiennage Paris RMS, told The Epoch Times.

Clothing boutiques, grocery stores, and hotels are booking guards in advance “on top of physical protections such as wooden panels,” he said.

A 12-hour night shift costs 420 euros (about $470) before tax, Mashhadi said, against the 10,000 to 20,000 euros he said a smashed storefront window can cost.

“The difference speaks for itself,” he said.

Cyril Baudouin, who runs RPro Sécurité, told The Epoch Times that his activity had risen by 5 percent to 15 percent and that he would turn down requests he could not staff. He called the appeal “a bit unfortunate” for shop owners who already suffered losses and must now pay for their own protection.

“It might have been preferable for the state to pay for the service, or to requisition private security companies, since prefects have the power to do so,” Baudouin said.

Under French law, security guards are normally confined to the premises they are hired to protect, and they can only carry a weapon when lives are considered to be at “exceptional risk,” and even then only with the prefect’s sign-off for each individual assignment.

“We cannot be armed the way police officers and gendarmes are,” Mashhadi said.

Baudouin said a prefectoral order could at least have allowed agents to carry pepper gel on the street during the protest.

“A security agent alone can do nothing. What we saw was not even a crowd; it was a horde of rioters, violent people, and there were many of them,” Baudouin said.

The only option is to evacuate staff, lock up, and call the police, he said, stressing that guards may block a doorway but can’t strike anyone, as a single complaint can cost them their license.

“We are there to prevent, deter, alert, and assist.”

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PolitiFact Rates 2 Democrat-Backed Attack Ads Against Rep. Ashley Hinson ‘Mostly False’

PolitiFact has rated two attack advertisements targeting Republican Iowa U.S. Senate nominee Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-IA) as “Mostly False,” finding that WinSenate, an operation of the Democratic Senate Majority PAC, made misleading claims about her personal finances and voting record concerning the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

PolitiFact examined advertisements that accused Hinson of becoming $8 million richer during her five years in Congress and voting against releasing the Epstein files.

The first advertisement, dated October 19, accused Hinson of substantially increasing her wealth since taking office.

“After just five years in Washington, she’s $8 million richer,” the advertisement’s narrator said. “Ashley Hinson got rich. Iowa got left behind.”

Although the advertisement’s onscreen text qualified the figure as “up to” $8 million, its narration omitted that distinction.

Turek has made similar accusations, suggesting Hinson’s wealth increased by as much as 15 times since taking office. One of his campaign advertisements repeated the claim that Hinson was up to $8 million richer.

PolitiFact found that WinSenate arrived at its figure by comparing the lowest estimated value of Hinson’s assets in 2020 with the highest estimated value in 2025, rather than using consistent measures.

According to the financial disclosures examined by PolitiFact, Hinson reported assets valued between $726,000 and $2.4 million in 2020, with debts ranging from $65,000 to $150,000. Her 2025 disclosure listed assets between $2.3 million and $8.8 million, with no debt.

WinSenate calculated an approximately $8.2 million increase by subtracting Hinson’s maximum reported debt from her minimum reported assets in 2020, then comparing the resulting $576,000 figure with her maximum reported assets in 2025.

“It’s not an apples-to-apples comparison to compare the low-end estimate from one year to the high-end estimate from another year,” Michael Beckel, research director for the campaign-finance advocacy organization Issue One, told PolitiFact.

PolitiFact found that comparing the averages of the reported financial ranges instead produced an estimated increase of approximately $4 million, roughly half the amount highlighted by WinSenate.

The organization also found that much of the increase was associated with Hinson’s husband, Matt Arenholz, who sold his local insurance agency to Highstreet Insurance Partners in 2021.

Arenholz’s ownership stake in the agency had been valued between $250,000 and $500,000 in Hinson’s 2020 disclosure. Following the sale, Arenholz received a stake in Highstreet’s parent company, which Hinson spokesman Billy Fuerst said came in the form of private stock options.

Hinson’s 2025 disclosure valued that investment between $1 million and $5 million.

“It has no connection whatsoever to Ashley’s service in Congress, and the sale was in process before Ashley was elected to Congress,” Fuerst told PolitiFact.

PolitiFact concluded that WinSenate’s comparison presented the largest possible increase in Hinson’s reported wealth while omitting the significance of her husband’s business transaction, rating the claim “Mostly False.”

A separate WinSenate advertisement, dated September 25, accused Hinson of voting against releasing files related to Epstein while accepting campaign contributions from individuals named in the documents.

“Her top donors appear in the Epstein files over 700 times,” the advertisement stated.

“In Congress, Hinson voted against releasing the files,” the narrator continued. “When given another chance, she skipped the votes. Instead, she was raising money from a billionaire who’s in the Epstein files over 20 times.”

Another WinSenate advertisement accused Hinson of accepting nearly $90,000 from individuals named in the Epstein files and voting to keep the documents secret.

PolitiFact found that Hinson supported procedural motions in 2025 that prevented legislation concerning the release of the Epstein files from advancing, but noted that the advertisements omitted her subsequent vote in favor of the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

On July 15, 2025, Hinson joined other Republicans in supporting a procedural motion that passed 211-210. Defeating the motion would have allowed further consideration of an amendment introduced by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) requiring the attorney general to release the Epstein files within 30 days.

PolitiFact also identified two additional procedural votes in July and September 2025 in which Hinson supported motions that prevented legislation related to releasing the files from advancing. She also declined to sign a discharge petition led by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) to force a House vote.

However, Hinson voted in favor of the bipartisan Epstein Files Transparency Act, introduced by Massie and Khanna, when the legislation reached the House floor in November 2025.

The legislation required the Department of Justice to release records related to its Epstein investigation and passed the House by a vote of 427-1 after President Donald Trump directed lawmakers to support the measure.

Fuerst pointed PolitiFact to Hinson’s affirmative vote and described the July vote cited by WinSenate as a “procedural motion to advance several bills, including a defense appropriations bill.”

The fact-check also examined WinSenate’s allegations concerning Hinson’s campaign contributors.

PolitiFact reported that Federal Election Commission records and news reports showed Hinson received donations from individuals whose names appeared in Epstein-related documents, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Stephen Schwarzman, and Apollo Global Management CEO Marc Rowan.

PolitiFact emphasized that the individuals were not accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein’s crimes and that being mentioned in the documents did not establish wrongdoing or a close relationship with Epstein.

The organization also cited a Daily Beast report that Hinson and affiliated political action committees received nearly $90,000 over three campaigns from contributors named in the documents, although PolitiFact could not independently verify that total.

PolitiFact further noted that Turek himself received a contribution from venture capitalist John Doerr, whose name also appeared in Epstein-related documents. Doerr was not accused of wrongdoing, and the records did not reflect direct correspondence between him and Epstein.

While acknowledging Hinson’s opposition to earlier procedural efforts, PolitiFact determined that WinSenate’s characterization of her record was misleading because it omitted her eventual support for the legislation requiring the files’ release.

The organization rated the claim “Mostly False.”

The two PolitiFact ratings come after Turek himself incorrectly linked Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA) and Randy Feenstra (R-IA) to the Dignity Act, immigration legislation that would establish a pathway to legal status for certain illegal aliens. During an interview with NBC News anchor Tom Llamas, Turek said, “I agree with Representative Nunn and Miller Meeks and Feenstra in the Dignity Act that there should be a pathway available for you. If you’re willing to pass a background check.” When Llamas pressed him on whether illegal immigrants should be deported, Turek replied, “Not an immediate deportation.” However, neither Miller-Meeks nor Feenstra is a cosponsor of the legislation, which was introduced by Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL).

On October 23 that Turek attended a San Francisco fundraiser hosted by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), an environmental organization that has advocated reducing red meat consumption, opposed a proposal for year-round E15 ethanol sales, and supported a $1.6 trillion Green New Deal proposal for public schools. Tickets for the fundraiser cost up to $10,000, and Turek received at least $19,500 from NRDC leadership. The organization has advocated eliminating a quarter pound of beef per week to reduce global warming and reducing red meat purchases by 30 percent. Iowa ranks second nationally in red meat production and leads the country in ethanol production, supporting approximately 42,000 jobs statewide. Turek also opposed permanent relief from the estate tax for more than 2 million family-owned farms, missed a vote on the Iowa Farm Bill, and voted to allow imitation-meat labeling for products in Iowa public schools.

During an October 8 Senate debate, Hinson criticized Turek for missing 58 percent of legislative votes this year and collecting more than $20,000 in taxpayer-funded per diem payments. “I think it’s really important to note that my opponent decided not to show up for work 58 percent of the time this year on policies that could have helped to support Iowans and Iowa farmers, including the Iowa Farm Bill, chose to not show up to vote for that bill,” Hinson said.

Turek, meanwhile, proposed requiring members of Congress to hold at least one annual in-person town hall, arguing that Hinson had not held one during her Senate campaign. “I did 47 town halls during my time in Congress, so you all at this table have covered many of them and understand clearly that I am a transparent and accessible representative,” Hinson responded.

Returning to Turek’s per diem payments, Hinson said, “So you took the per diem; you stole from taxpayers. You should refund that money.”

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Anthony Fauci’s Darkest Hours

“Out, damned spot! Out, I say!” said Lady Macbeth as she paced in a hallucinatory state, reliving in her subconscious the murders she helped plan. She rubbed her hands as if washing them, to wash away the sin, following up the promise to her son that “a little water clears us of this deed.”

The line comes to mind from the latest dump of entries from the diaries of Anthony Fauci that cover the months December 2021 to May 2022. These were the darkest months of the Covid era.

Confidence that the virus was a lab creation was growing. That points directly to Fauci. The lockdowns had given rise to growing population-wide fury. And the shot was not working, not stopping infection or spread while groups reporting deep injury from injection could not be censored fast enough to make them vanish completely, though tech companies certainly tried.

Fauci still held his position at NIAID with certainty that he would keep it under President Biden, whose confidence he enjoyed. He was daily in touch with the people who were actually running the government – aides Ron Klain and Jeff Zients – and coordinated his decisions with them. They trusted him to continue the Covid operation, which they all knew to be a national security issue beyond the control of any political player. Fauci was the front man but an effective one, until he became a liability.

We know from previous entries that Fauci at first hoped the new virus would get lost in the mix of a bad flu season. This was mid-January 2020. The CDC called him out on that. His first scheme failed because a savvy businessman in China spilled the beans by posting the sequence on a pay-to-play website in mid-January.

After pressing a friend and former colleague to use his personal credit card to download the sequence, Fauci launched plan B, which was to deny the lab leak and prepare a nationwide inoculation to make it all go away.

The audacious scheme was to keep population immunity at the lowest levels possible through lockdowns while the shot went through clinical trials and was ready for distribution. Fauci knew for certain that this was the type of virus that would mutate rapidly. His hope was to take the energy out of the pace of mutation by reducing the infection rate as low as possible.

Sadly for him, the new and most powerful variant had appeared just as his shots hit general distribution. Delta disabled their protection that had been formulated for wild type and Alpha. The race was on, as mutations appeared faster than repeated boosters could catch.

The spot would not go away no matter what he did.

The darkest hours open with the appearance of Omicron in December of 2021, the fastest spreading but least virulent strain. He now had a new problem. With Omicron operating as a form of inoculation itself, there was less reason for vaccination than ever, especially given the risk of injury. And yet his goal of 90 percent coverage was nowhere in view, while population opposition to the entire Covidian regime was rising.

Fauci might as well have thrown up his hands, admitted defeat, apologized for putting the country through the biggest trauma of our lifetimes, and ruining the lives of students everywhere, in addition to crushing the dreams of millions of small business owners.

But that is not who he is. He would not and could not accept responsibility for doing this. He ended up demonizing the opposition, scrambling for cover, wrapping himself in ever more layers of fame for protection, and clinging to the lies he told himself as self-justification as his career and legacy were permanently tarnished beyond repair, even as he developed a severe and strange case of germaphobia in a Macbeth-like way.

Two weeks before this tranche begins, Biden had gone on TV to declare the following: “We are looking at a winter of severe illness and death for the unvaccinated – for themselves, their families and the hospitals they’ll soon overwhelm. But there’s good news: If you’re vaccinated and you have your booster shot, you’re protected from severe illness and death.”

It was an intense claim even as the weakest of all variants had just appeared, even as evidence poured in that these injections provided no protection whatsoever. Regardless, the Biden administration was dedicated to ruining a second holiday season with terrifying warnings all in the hope of maximum shot coverage.

Fauci begins his diary close to Christmas in a dispute with the CDC, which was starting to open up a bit and lighten up on its diktats. It wanted to permit people to choose whether to get tested yet again after recovering from Covid. Fauci smelled a rat – that dread thing called freedom – and tried to strangle the baby in the crib.

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The Nevada Supreme Court Refuses to Rule on the Voters’ Right to Verify Their Vote is Counted

Voters across the country are denied by design the right to verify the only ballot that matters: the ballot that actually gets counted. In electronic tabulation your votes are computed from an electronic “version” of your ballot, a version you are never allowed to see. If you cannot see it, you cannot verify it before it’s counted.

This matters immensely because the explicit design of electronic tabulation completely rejects voter oversight of what goes into the count. The count determines results, and the design of electronic tabulation denies any and all voters the opportunity to personally confirm that their votes are exactly what is being counted. Rather, you are forced to assume it. Federal law, so we are told, is there to “help” Americans “feel confident” that their votes are counted accurately. But this is not so. Besides the fact that those who are not Americans are routinely voting, Americans are forbidden the opportunity to ensure that their votes–which are their commands–are in fact obeyed

A hand-counted paper process can help make the problem with electronic tabulation controlling the counting of the votes even clearer: in a hand count, the very paper voted on is the very paper counted. In that process, the voter can see that the paper they cast is exactly the same as what is read into the count. This cannot happen in electronic tabulation. Even if paper ballots are used in your state–and this includes mailed ballots–the paper only supplies a later scan. After the paper is surrendered and the scan is finished, we are forced to assume that accurate data is generated, if any relevant data at all, to supply the count and reveal the results.

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DOJ Sending Federal Monitors to Maine as Videos Show Somali Translators Allegedly Directing Votes and NGOs Busing Voters to City Hall

The Maine Wire has published video and witness accounts from Lewiston City Hall during early voting showing groups of Somalis being dropped off by NGOs, met by translators at the door, escorted into the voting area, and assisted in ways that observers say have crossed into illegal electioneering.

In one video, translators approached Somali voters who had not requested help, even after poll workers told them not to.

The Department of Justice has announced it is sending election monitors to polling places in Portland and Lewiston for the midterm elections, the Maine Secretary of State’s office confirmed after the videos dropped.

Maine Wire reporter Jon Fetherston said he spent multiple days documenting the activity and personally observed it more than 100 times.

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Hire Private Security Agents

Unarmed and Outnumbered

The Maine Wire has published video and witness accounts from Lewiston City Hall during early voting showing groups of Somalis being dropped off by NGOs, met by translators at the door, escorted into the voting area, and assisted in ways that observers say have crossed into illegal electioneering.