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‘Let’s Talk About the Nazis’: Republican Opposing Paramilitary Activity Ban Bill Under Fire
Republican state lawmaker Laurel Libby stood up on the Maine House floor to support the Second Amendment rights and right of freedom of association of neo-Nazis in the Pine Tree State. Rep. Libby, strongly opposing a bill that would place a ban on paramilitary activity or groups working to cause civil disorder, on Wednesday called the legislation “unconstitutional.” 26 states currently have similar laws.
Neo-Nazi groups have been popping up in Maine. The bill Libby spoke against was in response to neo-Nazi events and issues over the past year.
“Let’s talk about the Nazis,” Libby says in a clip (below) posted by the Maine House Democratic Campaign Committee. “I would like to know what they did that was illegal. I would like to know what they did, in detail if folks would like to share, that was wrong, that infringed on another person’s right.”
“Holding a rally, and even holding a rally with guns, is not illegal,” Libby noted.
“We don’t have to like what said Nazis did,” Libby also said, according to Spectrum News. “We don’t have to like what they stand for. We don’t have to agree with their positions. We don’t have to think well of them. But you know what we do have to do? We have to protect their First Amendment right to free speech and association.”
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“It’s is our duty to protect the Nazis’ right to free speech and association, as long as it does not infringe on someone else’s rights – as long as they are not harming someone else,” Libby said, as the Portland Press Herald added.
In the full version of her floor speech, which she posted to Facebook, Rep. Libby also argues the bill is unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds.
“The First Amendment gives us the right to free speech. Not just free speech, the right to association,” she said, adding, “we have the freedom to associate with others who have a similar political, religious, or cultural beliefs.”
The legislation comes after Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey realized last summer, when a reported neo-Nazi purchased land in Maine to set up a white supremacist training camp, there was no way to stop that activity.
“The bill, sponsored by Rep. Laurie Osher, D-Orono, is aimed at preventing any unauthorized paramilitary group from establishing a headquarters in Maine – something that Christopher Pohlhaus, a prominent neo-Nazi, said he was trying to do in the rural northern Maine town of Springfield last year. It also follows an increase in public displays of white nationalism around the state, including hateful literature drops and public rallies,” the Portland Press Herald reported in February.
Despite Rep. Libby’s opposition, the legislation passed the Maine House, by one vote.
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Last year, one neo-Nazi “group was seen in multiple locations in downtown Portland chanting, making Nazi salute gestures, and holding a sign that read: ‘Defend White Communities,'” NBC affiliate News Center Maine reported. “According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit dedicated to fighting hate, NSC-131 is a neo-Nazi group based in New England. The group is known to target LGBTQ+ communities, as well as Jewish and anti-fascist groups.”
Online, outrage over Libby’s remarks grew.
“This is the Republican Party in 2024,” said Democratic former Maine Speaker of the House, Ryan Fecteau.
Connecticut Democratic Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff commented, “What the actual $%#@? This is not normal. Vote to save democracy.”
Portland At-Large City Councilor April Fournier wrote: “Grateful to at least have the quiet part said out loud so Mainers and everywhere else can see LL for who she is.”
Maine Democratic state Rep. Amy Roeder said: “You ever been at work, just doing your job and enjoying the day when one of your coworkers stands up and asks why Nazis are so bad? No? Well, lemme tell ya ‘bout my day…”
Watch Rep. Libby’s remarks below or at this link.
On the house floor today Laurel Libby (R-Auburn) stated “Let’s talk about the nazis…I would like to know what they did that was illegal.” We won’t stand for this MAGA extremism in Maine. Check out who we have running against her: https://t.co/d9J0zuPmKX #MAGACult #MEpolitics pic.twitter.com/omET9ldEPs
— Maine House Democratic Campaign Committee (@MaineHDCC) April 3, 2024
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
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