This is why you don't vote for Democrats. They cheat, lie, steal, and sue, sue, sue.
The
incoming chairman of the House Intelligence Committee this week said
that when the new Congress is seated in January, Democrats plan to
scrutinize whether President Trump abused his authority by taking
adverse action against retail giant Amazon and two of his bitter
left-leaning media rivals: CNN and The Washington Post.
Rep. Adam
Schiff, D-Calif., said in an interview with "Axios on HBO" that he and
his colleagues will employ committee subpoena powers -- which are backed
by the legal threat of contempt of Congress -- to conduct
the triple-threaded inquiry into Trump's possible use of
the "instruments of state power to punish the press."
Specifically,
Schiff charged that Trump "was secretly meeting with the postmaster
[general] in an effort to browbeat" her into "raising postal rates on
Amazon," whose founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, separately owns The
Washington Post.
"This appears to be an effort by the president to
use the instruments of state power to punish Jeff Bezos and The
Washington Post," Schiff said in the interview.
The president
signed an executive order earlier this year mandating a review of what
he called the "unsustainable financial path" of the United States Postal
Service (USPS). And he has reportedly met with Postmaster General Megan
Brennan several times to push for hikes to the shipping rates paid by
companies like Amazon, although there are no indications he did so to
seek political payback.
Trump has long derided the political
coverage at the Post, which is fiercely and relentlessly criticial of
the White House, as a lobbying tool for Bezos. Most recently, the White
House has contradicted the Post's unequivocal reporting that it had shared a "doctored" video of CNN reporter Jim Acosta making contact with a White House intern during a press conference last week, as a Buzzfeed analysis suggested
the changes in the video could have resulted inadvertently from the
conversion of the footage to the lower-fidelity .gif format commonly
used on Twitter.
But Trump has also feuded specifically with
Amazon throughout the year, saying it is taking advantage
of taxpayer-subsidized shipping rates.
In March, he argued in a
series of tweets that the online retailer’s “scam” shipping deal with
the USPS -- which affords Amazon generous discounts -- is costing the
agency “billions of dollars.”
Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO, speaks at The Economic Club of Washington's Milestone Celebration in Washington.
(Associated Press)
While the USPS has
lost money for 11 years, Trump's critics have claimed that package
delivery -- which has been a relative bright spot for the service as it
competes in that space with UPS and FedEx -- is not the main reason.
Boosted by e-commerce, the Postal Service has experienced double-digit
increases in revenue from delivering packages despite offering discounts
to retailers, even as the agency is hit with significantly increased
mandatory pension and health care costs, as well as precipitous declines
in first-class letters and marketing mail.
But it could be that
the USPS is undercharging Amazon for its services. Although federal law
ostensibly requires that the USPS' deals with Amazon be at least a
break-even proposition for the government, the agency's profits from
parcel deliveries are difficult to accurately calculate, owing to
its complicated hybrid-monopoly structure and accountingdocuments that raise questions as to its actual costs.
Schiff
also raised the possibility that the Trump administration's opposition
to AT&T's $85 billion takeover of Time Warner on antitrust grounds
may have been motivated by the president's animus toward CNN, whose
parent company is Time Warner. Trump frequently claims that CNN speads
"fake news" and that when it does so, it is acting as the "enemy of the
people."
"We don't know, for example, whether the effort to hold
up the merger of the parent of CNN was a concern over antitrust, or
whether this was an effort merely to punish CNN," Schiff said, without
offering evidence. WHAT ARE THE MAJOR LEGISLATIVE BATTLEGROUNDS BETWEEN DEMS, GOP IN 2019?
"It
is very squarely within our responsibility to find out," Schiff said.
Along with incoming House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Elijah
Cummings, D-Md., and other top Democrats, Schiff will have a mandate to
serve a slew of subpoenas on the Trump administration.
But former
GOP Judiciary Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, who is now a Fox News
contributor, told Politico in October that Cummings and Schiff shouldn't
get their hopes up.
“If [North Carolina Rep.] Mark Meadows and
[Ohio Rep.] Jim Jordan can’t get documents out of the White House, I
don’t know why Elijah Cummings and the Democrats think they’ll do any
better,” Chaffetz said.
Still, Democrats had signaled even before
last week's midterm elections that they would aggressively investigate
the Trump administration if they took power in Congress. Bogging down
the White House with burdensome document requests and subpoenas could
indeed backfire, political analysts tell Fox News, but there is little
doubt that the strategy -- made more viable by heightened partisanship
and loosened congressional norms -- would impair Republicans' messaging
and even policy goals for the next two years.
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif., speaks to a crowd
of volunteers and supporters of the Democratic party at an election
night returns event at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, on Tuesday, Nov. 6,
2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
"Well, we are responsible," House Minority leader
Nancy Pelosi, who is campaigning to reclaim her role as House
speaker, said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation." "We are not scattershot.
We are not doing any investigation for a political purpose, but to seek
the truth. So I think a word that you could describe about how
Democrats will go forward in this regard is we will be very strategic."
But Pelosi has previously suggested that she would, indeed, use the threat of subpoenea for political gain. MAXINE WATERS, SCHIFF TO TAKE HIGH-PROFILE COMMITTEE POSTS IN NEW HOUSE
“Subpoena
power is interesting, to use it or not to use it,” Pelosi said at a
conference in October, referring to the authority of House committees to
summon individuals and organizations to testify or provide documents
under penalty of perjury. “It is a great arrow to have in your quiver in
terms of negotiating on other subjects." She added that she would use
the power "strategically." (Trump has flatly called Pelosi's
plan "illegal.")
Pelosi's approach would mark the continuation of a
trend. Research conducted by Cornell University political science
professor Douglas Kriner, who co-wrote the 2016 book "Investigating the
President: Congressional Checks on Presidential Power," underscores the
increasingly political nature of House investigations.
"We
examined every congressional investigation from 1898 to 2014 – more than
11,900 days of investigative hearings," Kriner told Fox News. "What we
found is that divided government is a major driver of investigations in
the House. This is particularly true in periods of intense partisan
polarization. For example, from 1981-2014, the House averaged holding 67
days of investigative hearings per year in divided government, versus
only 18 per year in unified government."
Kriner added that modern
congressional probes seem geared toward "maximiz[ing] the political
damage on the White House," rather than producing more substantive
results. "Investigations are less likely to trigger new legislation than
in previous, less polarized eras," Kriner told Fox News.
On
Election Day, Pelosi vowed to “restor[e] the Constitution’s checks and
balances to the Trump administration" by enhancing transparency and
accountability. But Trump last week signaled he had no patience for that
approach, which he characterized as an expensive folly.
"If the
Democrats think they are going to waste Taxpayer Money investigating us
at the House level, then we will likewise be forced to consider
investigating them for all of the leaks of Classified Information, and
much else, at the Senate level. Two can play that game!" Trump tweeted.
The supervisor of elections in Florida's heavily Democratic Palm
Beach County said Sunday that she did not believe her department would
meet a Thursday deadline to complete recounts in the Sunshine State's
historically tight gubernatorial and Senate races, threatening to
further confuse an increasingly chaotic and politically fraught process.
The
supervisor, Susan Bucher, told reporters that she did not expect to
meet the deadline due to aging equipment. Florida Department of State
spokeswoman Sarah Revell told Fox News that under state law, if a county
does not submit their results by the deadline, then the results on file
at the time take their place. Revell added that Florida's Secretary of
State has no authority to grant extensions.
"Supervisors of
Elections are independent officials and they are responsible for
deciding when to upgrade or modernize their equipment," Revell added.
The
recount in most other major population centers, including Miami-Dade
and Pinellas and Hillsborough counties in the Tampa Bay area, were
taking place without incident on Sunday. Smaller counties are expected
to begin their reviews Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday.
Bucher spoke
hours after the campaign of Republican Senate candidate Rick Scott --
which secured an early legal victory against Democratic-leaning Broward
County officials over the weekend -- went back to court with a fresh
salvo of emergency complaints against both Broward and Palm Beach
counties. One complaint requests that state sheriff's officers "impound
and secure all voting machines, tallying devices and ballots when they
are not in use until the conclusion of the recount."
In a separate
lawsuit, Scott's team is asking a judge to throw out votes tallied by
the Broward County Canvassing Board after Saturday's noon deadline, in
apparent violation of state law, which requires that "[t]he canvassing
board shall submit ... unofficial returns to the Department of State for
each federal, statewide, state, or multicounty office or ballot measure
no later than ... noon on the fourth day after any general or other
election."
“The Broward and Palm Beach County Supervisors of
Elections has already demonstrated a blatant disregard for Florida’s
elections laws, making it more important than ever that we continue to
do everything possible to prevent fraud and ensure this recount is
operated responsibly," Chris Hartline, a Scott spokesman, said in a
statement.
Lawyer Marc Elias, who is representing the campaign of Democratic incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson, fired back on Twitter.
"Lets [sic]
be clear about what we are witnessing in Florida," Elias wrote. "The
sitting Governor is seeking to throw out lawful votes and seize the
voting equipment in order to win an election."
"Somebody needs to
cut down on the Red Bull," a Scott spokesperson wrote on Twitter, in
response to a statement by Florida Democrats Executive Director Juan
Penalosa that compared Scott to a Latin American dictator. "We requested
that ballots and voting machines be protected when not in use. The only
reason not to protect the integrity of the ballots and the voting
machines is if you are actively promoting or hoping for fraud."
But
Democrats continued to bash the Republican's effort. "If Rick Scott
wanted to make sure every legal ballot is counted, he would not be suing
to try and stop voters from having their legal ballot counted as
intended," Nelson said in a statement. "He's doing this for the same
reason he's been making false and panicked claims about voter fraud --
he's worried that when all the votes are counted he'll lose this
election. We will not allow him to undermine the democratic process and
will use every legal tool available to protect the rights of Florida
voters."
Unofficial results show that Republican former Rep. Ron
DeSantis led Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum by 0.41
percentage points in the election for governor. In the Senate race,
Scott's lead over Nelson is 0.14 percentage points. State law requires a
machine recount in races where the margin is less than 0.5 percentage
points. Once completed, if the differences in any of the races are 0.25
percentage points or below, a hand recount will be ordered.
The
litigation threw yet another wrench in an increasingly chaotic process
reminiscent of the 2000 presidential election recount fiasco. In Broward
County, the scheduled start of the recount was delayed Sunday because
of a problem with one of the tabulation machines. The Republican Party
accused Broward's supervisor of elections, Brenda Snipes, of continuing
to compromise the process with "incompetence and gross mismanagement"
following the delay, which was resolved within two hours.
Election workers place ballots into electronic counting machines,
Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in
Lauderhill, Fla. The Florida recount began Sunday morning in Broward
County. (Joe Cavaretta/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP)
Broward County election planning director Joe D'Alessandro told Fox News
that machines in Broward are currently resorting some 3.5 million pages
of ballots, and officials said that process could take more than 30
hours alone before any actual counting begins.
Broward County, the
state's second-most populous, is emerging as the epicenter of
controversy in the recount. Broward officials said they mistakenly
counted 22 absentee ballots that had been rejected, mostly because the
signature on the return envelope did not match the one on file.
Brenda Snipes, Broward County supervisor of elections, speaks with
officials before a canvassing board meeting Friday, Nov. 9, 2018, in
Lauderhill, Fla. (AP Photo/Joe Skipper)
It is a problem that appears impossible to fix
because the ballots were mixed in with 205 legal ballots. Snipes, who
has long been accused of mismanaging county elections and has been
sanctioned by a judge for destroying ballots in a 2016 congressional
race, said it would be unfair to throw out all the ballots.
"#BrowardElections
office admits the vote count they submitted to state includes 22
illegal votes," Florida GOP Senator Marco Rubio wrote on Twitter
Sunday. "We know about these 22 because they got caught breaking law in
reviewing 202 ballots. How can anyone trust more illegal votes aren’t in
their final count?"
Election workers place ballots into electronic counting machines,
Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018, at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office in
Lauderhill, Fla. The Florida recount began Sunday morning in Broward
County. (Joe Cavaretta /South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP)
Undervoting -- a phenomenon in which voters don't
cast votes in all the races on the ballot -- has become a prominent
issue in the race. Rubio pointed out that Broward County
is showing that approximately 25,000 fewer votes were cast in the
Senate race than the gubernatorial contest -- a significant
undervote that could be explained by Snipes' ballot design, which placed
the Senate contest directly below the ballot's instructions, out of
line with other races.
In 2006, the last time Nelson was on the
ballot alongside a gubernatorial race, only 4,100 fewer people in
Broward voted in the Senate race than in the election for governor.
(However, at the statewide level this year, 34,051 fewer people voted in
the Senate race than the gubernatorial race, a lower figure than the
35,736 undervote in 2006 -- even though 3 million more votes were cast
in 2018 compared to 2006.)
"How ironic would it be if those who
are now bashing our criticism of Snipes in the end wind up arguing that a
ballot design error made by her is the reason the Democrats lost?"
Rubio said Sunday.
Other Republicans suggested that Democrats shouldn't get their hopes up as the recounts get underway.
A crowd protests outside the Broward County Supervisor of
Elections office Friday, Nov. 9, 2018, in Lauderhill, Fla. A possible
recount looms in a tight Florida governor, Senate and agriculture
commission race. (AP Photo/Joe Skipper)
"Scott trails DeSantis by 10,754 votes in Broward,
and Nelson trails Gillum by 10,343," a Scott campaign source told Fox
News. "The idea that the undervotes in Broward County is an opportunity
for Nelson to significantly close the gap is not and has never been
based on anything but fantasy."
The recount in most other major
population centers, including Miami-Dade and Pinellas and Hillsborough
counties in the Tampa Bay area, was ongoing without incident on Sunday.
Smaller counties are expected to begin their reviews Monday, Tuesday or
Wednesday.
Republicans have repeatedly cried foul throughout the
process, both in court and outside Florida election offices. On
Saturday, GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz compared Broward County to a "banana
republic" and posted video apparently showing him being denied access to
election facilities on "safety" grounds.
Protesters chanted, "Lock her up" outside the building earlier in the day, referring to Snipes.
Rubio
and other Florida officials have posted numerous videos and images on
social media apparently showing boxes of ballots being left behind in
public spaces or improperly loaded onto private trucks.
At an
emergency court hearing on Friday, state Judge Carol-Lisa Phillips ruled
there has “been a violation of the Florida Constitution,” as well as
the state’s public records act, by Broward officials who had not turned
over requested records about the number of votes to be counted. But,
Gaetz said, Florida officials were still blocking Republicans from
monitoring how they were handling boxes of ballots.
"We have very
specific laws in the state to try to prevent fraud," Scott, the
incumbent Florida governor, told "Fox News Sunday" host Chris
Wallace. "We had to go to court to force the supervisor of elections in
Palm Beach County and Broward County to comply with the law, which is
there to prevent fraud."
Scott added: "Sen. Nelson is clearly
trying to commit fraud to win this election, that’s all this is." Asked
to elaborate on his accusation, he replied, "Well, it's his team."
"Sen. Nelson is clearly trying to commit fraud to win this election." — GOP Senate candidate Rick Scott
"His
lawyers said that a noncitizen should vote, that’s one," Scott
continued. "Two, he’s gone to trial and said that fraudulent ballots
should be counted, ballots have already been thrown out because they
were not done properly. He said those should be counted." JUDGE SIDES WITH RICK SCOTT, REPUBLICANS, ORDERS FLORIDA ELECTION OFFICIALS TO COMPLY WITH LAW
Lawyers
for Nelson and Gillum on Friday had objected to the rejection of a
provisional ballot cast by a noncitizen, according to a transcript
obtained by Fox News.
The incident occurred during a canvassing
meeting in Palm Beach County, where provisional ballots were being
examined. According to the draft transcript of the meeting, taken by a
court reporter hired by the Florida Republican Party, a provisional
ballot was ordered excluded from the count, as it came from a non-U.S.
citizen.
The Nelson campaign distanced itself from the objections, which it said that it had not authorized.
The
recount reviews are an unprecedented step in Florida, a state that's
notorious for election results decided by the thinnest of margins. State
officials said they weren't aware of any other time either a race for
governor or U.S. Senate in Florida required a recount, let alone both in
the same election.
Broward County Supervisor of Elections Dr. Brenda Snipes, gives an
update on the progress of ballots that are being counted from the
midterm election Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018. (Carline Jean/South Florida
Sun-Sentinel via AP)
Snipes, the Broward County election supervisor who
has held her office since 2003, is no stranger to controversy. Earlier
this year, Scott's administration said it was monitoring her office
after a judge ruled in May the county broke federal law by destroying
ballots in Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz's 2016 Democratic primary race
against Tim Canova, Politico reported.
Snipes claimed the issue had been "blown out of proportion."
In
August, a judge sided with the Florida GOP in its challenge of how the
county handled absentee ballots. Republicans claimed Snipes' office was
opening ballots in private, preventing people from challenging if they
were properly cast, according to Politico.
And then in 2016,
Broward County violated the law when it posted early voting results
online before polls even closed, the Miami Herald reported.
A crowd protests outside the Broward County Supervisor of
Elections office Friday, Nov. 9, 2018, in Lauderhill, Fla. Florida is
once again at the center of election controversy, but this year there
are no hanging chads or butterfly ballots like in 2000. And no angry
mobs in suits, at least not yet. (AP Photo/Joe Skipper)
TRUMP 'WATCHING CLOSELY' WHAT HAPPENS IN FLORIDA, SAYS DEMS TRYING TO STEAL ELECTIONS
As the recount unfolded, Republicans urged their Democratic opponents to give up and allow the state to move on.
Both
the state elections division, which Scott runs, and the Florida
Department of Law Enforcement have said they have found no evidence of
voter fraud. Gillum and Nelson have argued each vote should be counted
and the process allowed to take its course.
Florida is also
conducting a recount in a third statewide race. Democrat Nikki Fried had
a 0.07 percentage point lead over Republican state Rep. Matt Caldwell
in the race for agriculture commissioner, one of Florida's three Cabinet
seats.
From a distant glance, the recounts might dredge up
memories of the 2000 presidential recount, when it took more than five
weeks for Florida to declare George W. Bush the winner over Al Gore by
537 votes, thus giving Bush the presidency.
But much has changed
since then. In 2000, each county had a separate voting system. Many used
punch cards — voters poked out chads, leaving tiny holes in their
ballots representing their candidates. Some voters, however, didn't
fully punch out the presidential chad or gave it just a little push.
Those hanging and dimpled chads had to be examined by the canvassing
boards, a lengthy, tiresome and often subjective process that became
fodder for late-night comedians.
Now the state requires that all
Florida counties use ballots where voters use a pen to fill in a circle
next to their candidate's name, much like a student does when taking a
multiple-choice test. It also now clearly mandates how the recount will
proceed.
Those ballots are now being run through scanning machines
in each county for a second time under the watchful eye of
representatives of both parties and the campaigns. Any ballot that
cannot be read for any of the recounted races will be put aside.
If
a race's statewide margin falls below 0.25 percentage points after the
machine count, the state will order a manual recount in each county. At
that point, only the rejected ballots for that race will be examined by
counting teams to determine if the voters' intentions were obvious. For
example, some voters circle the candidate's name instead of filling in
the ballot correctly and some cross out their vote and then mark another
candidate.
If either side objects to a counting team's decision
or the team can't make one, the ballot will be forwarded to the county's
canvassing board, with the three members voting on the final decision.
The members are usually the county supervisor of elections, a judge and
the chair of the county commissioners.
Get ready for Hillary Clinton 4.0. More than 30 years in the making,
this new version of Mrs. Clinton, when she runs for president in 2020,
will come full circle—back to the universal-health-care-promoting
progressive firebrand of 1994. True to her name, Mrs. Clinton will fight
this out until the last dog dies. She won’t let a little thing like two
stunning defeats stand in the way of her claim to the White House.
It’s
been quite a journey. In July 1999, Mrs. Clinton began her independent
political career on retiring Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s farm in
upstate New York. Her Senate platform included support for a balanced
budget, the death penalty, and incremental health care reform. It was a
decisive break from her early-1990s self. Hillary Clinton 2.0 was a
moderate, building on the success of her communitarian “It Takes a
Village” appeals and pledging to bring home the bacon for New York. She
emphasized her religious background, voiced strong support for Israel,
voted for the Iraq war, and took a hard line against Iran.
This
was arguably the most successful version of Hillary Clinton. She
captured the hearts and minds of New York’s voters and soared to an easy
re-election in 2006, leaving Bill and all his controversies behind.
But
Hillary 2.0 could not overcome Barack Obama, the instant press
sensation. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Mrs. Clinton held fast
to centrist positions that would have assured her victory in the
general election. But progressive leaders and donors abandoned her for
the antiwar Mr. Obama. Black voters who had been strong Clinton
supporters in New York and Arkansas left her column to elect the first
African-American president. History was made, but not by Mrs. Clinton.
Though she won more delegates from Democratic primaries, activists in
caucus states gave Mr. Obama, who had called her “likable enough,” the
heartbreaking win.
Stacey Abrams' campaign on Sunday filed a federal lawsuit asking a
judge to delay vote certifications in Georgia’s unsettled governor's
race by one day and block counties from tossing some provisional and
absentee ballots that may have minor mistakes on them.
Brian Kemp, her Republican challenger, issued a statement a day earlier calling for Abrams to concede. Kemp has declared victory and said it is "mathematically impossible" for her campaign to force a runoff.
Fox 5 Atlanta reported that Kemp is up by 59,000 votes. Kemp had 50.2 percent of the vote by early Monday.
Abrams,
44, has maintained that she will not concede until every vote has been
counted, and pointed to the 5,000 votes tallied over the weekend that
favored her. The Washington Post reported that she would need 21,700 additional votes to force a runoff.
The
suit, if successful, would prevent officials from certifying county
vote totals until Wednesday and could restore at least 1,095 votes that
weren't counted. The campaign said thousands of more ballots could be
affected.
"The bottom line is this race is not over.
It is still too close to call, and we do not have confidence in the
secretary of state’s office." — Lauren Groh-Wargo, Abrams’ campaign manager
Kemp's
campaign did not have any immediate comment on the lawsuit, according
to the station. The suit was filed over alleged problems in
Democratic-favoring Gwinnett and DeKalb counties in metro Atlanta.
Dara
Lindenbaum, a lawyer for Abrams’ campaign, said the suit intends to
stop ballots with minor mistakes -- like the voter writing the day they
filled out the ballot as their date of birth -- from being rejected.
But Kemp aides previously said Abrams has no path to victory and called her refusal to concede a "disgrace to democracy."
Each
of Georgia's 159 counties must certify final returns by Tuesday, and
many have done so already. Abrams hopes to delay the certification until
Wednesday. The state must certify a statewide result by Nov. 20.
Lauren
Groh-Wargo, Abrams’ campaign manager, told the Post, "The bottom line
is this race is not over. It is still too close to call, and we do not
have confidence in the secretary of state’s office."
Abrams hopes
to become the nation's first black woman elected governor, while Kemp is
trying to maintain GOP dominance in a diversifying state that could be
important in the presidential election in two years.
"So her
margin in those uncounted votes needs to be really high," Jeffrey
Lazarus, who teaches political science at Georgia State University, said
Sunday in an interview conducted by email. "To put it simply, she's
running out of votes."
The Associated Press has not declared a winner.
Allegations
by Abrams supporters of voter suppression, long voting lines and other
balloting problems are hard to ignore given Kemp's "aggressively
partisan conduct as secretary of state," said Michael Kang, who teaches
election law at Northwestern University's law school.
"That said, I
think the Abrams campaign still faces an uphill battle in first
convincing a court about the need for a recount and second, having the
recount net enough votes to force a runoff. As a general matter,
recounts rarely end up changing the outcomes of elections," Kang, who
previously taught at Emory University in Atlanta, said in an email
interview to the Associated Press.
U.S. Army Private 1st Class Raymond W. Maker, left, and the
key he says he took from Verdun, France, around the end of World War I.
His grandson, Bruce Norton, is in France today to return the key back to
the town.
One hundred years ago on this date, U.S.
Army Private 1st Class Raymond W. Maker wrote in his diary “today is one
of the happiest days of my life."
“The War is off, thank God. And
all the boys have gone about half mad with joy. Bands are playing all
day and at night all kinds of flares in the sky,” he beamed, capturing
the relief felt among Allied forces as World War I officially came to an
end.
It was a thrilling moment for Maker who, during the war, had
been hit with mustard gas from the German army, wounded by artillery
fire during the Muese-Argonne offensive – the deadliest battle in U.S. military history – and later went on to earn a Purple Heart for his service.
And
now, a century later, on this Veterans Day – marking the 100th
anniversary of the armistice that ended The Great War – his grandson,
Bruce Norton, is in France retracing Maker’s footsteps and honoring him
by returning a key his grandfather took during the war. Norton is
joining the many Americans remembering the heroics of family members
from generations past.
“My grandfather never spoke about the war
to me, and it was only after his death that war stories were told at
family gatherings about his service in France,” Norton, a former Marine
and military author who is writing a book about Maker’s service, told
Fox News.
The upcoming book, titled “Letters of a Yankee
Doughboy,” contains more than 120 letters Maker wrote from the front
lines of the war to his family in Framingham, Mass.
Maker would often write home to his family during World War I. He
is pictured here as a young boy, on the far right of the bottom row. To
his side, from right to left, are his stepsister Harriet, sister Eva and
brother Clifford (Kip). His uncle Edward, wearing a Union Army
uniform, is second from the left in the middle row, next to Edward's
brother, Andrew. Both of those men fought for 19th Maine Regiment during
the Civil War. Maker's father, Winfield, is standing in front of the
bicycle on the far right.
(Courtesy Bruce Norton)
Norton said he
was given the letters in a box in 1992 while visiting his mother in
Rhode Island. But something else inside that box became integral to his
current trip to France this Veterans Day – a key that Maker took from a
gate in the town of Verdun shortly after the war ended, which Norton is
returning today to its rightful home.
“All I want to do is correct a wrong,” he told Fox News.
The
story of how the iron key ended up in Norton’s possession began in
1914, when Maker joined the Massachusetts National Guard. Three years
later, his unit was activated and became the U.S. Army’s 26th Infantry
Division, which set off to France and encountered heavy combat.
“I
hope that it won’t be so very long before I see you all again and do
not lose heart if you do not hear from me very often because I may be in
places where I cannot get a chance to write but will every time I can,”
Maker wrote home on Oct. 6, 1917, in one of his first letters to his
sister, addressed to “My Dear Eva & all the folks.”
One of the letters Maker wrote.
(Courtesy Bruce Norton)
Over the next few
years, Maker would – sometimes on a daily basis – pen letters to his
family describing his World War I exploits as a wireman, who Norton says
would “go out after these barrages and string communication wire
between positions.” He also kept a diary with shorter entries.
“The
fellow that was with me and myself laid in a large shell hole for about
30 hours running a telephone station, and then we got out and we went
into the woods and found a dugout, and being about all in, we fell right
to sleep and then the Boche started shooting over gas,” Maker wrote to
his brother Kip on July 27, 1918, recalling the moments he was gassed by
the Germans in France.
“We did not hear the shells and a fellow
came running in with his mask on and yelled, “Gas, Gas.” Well, Kip, we
put on our masks but a little too late because it had gotten us before,
while we were asleep. And if that fellow had not yelled when he did, I
would not be writing to you now, I guess,” he added.
Maker mentions the key he took from Verdun in a letter to his sister, Eva.
(Courtesy Bruce Norton)
Maker mentioned
in his writings about being in Verdun in November of that year, the same
month of his 26th birthday and the signing of the armistice. He noted
in a past letter of his travels about amassing a “pile” of German
helmets from the battlefields and a “lot of German stuff,” but it wasn’t
until January 1919 that he made mention in his writings of the key from
Verdun.
“I got a letter from Kip a day ago and he said you got
the helmet OK. Was there a key in the helmet? If there was don’t lose it
because I stoled it out of the north gate at Verdun and it is worth
something,” Maker wrote to Eva.
A 1956 article by the Providence
Sunday Journal, reprinted in a draft version of Norton's book and
provided to Fox News, references the key and further explains that
“besides being six inches long and heavy, [it] has the added value of
belonging to the historic North Gate of the Verdun Citadel where the
German advance was squelched.”
The article makes mention of a Mrs.
Charles A. Post, a Rhode Island resident who traveled to Verdun that
year to return the key she received from Maker, who in response was
given “an official certificate from the senator-mayor of Verdun for this
unexpected addition to the battle site’s historic collection.”
Norton was able to learn more about his grandfather's life through
the dispatches that were sent home from the front lines.
(Courtesy Bruce Norton)
Except, decades later, Norton says he found out the events described in that article were not all that it seemed.
In
an excerpt of Norton’s book, he writes “in October, 1992, during a
visit to Rhode Island, my mother brought out a box from within her
closet and said, “I have some things I want you to have. Here are all of
your grandfather’s letters from World War One, and this is the key to
the North Gate of Verdun, France, the one that Daddy mailed back to Aunt
Eva.
“In 1956, your grandfather gave a key to a lady, a Mrs.
Post, who was traveling back to France and she presented that key to the
mayor of Verdun, but what she did not know was the key that Daddy gave
to her was an ornate iron key a friend of his had made by the Providence
Casting Company in North Providence,” the excerpt adds.
The real
key presumably exchanged hands amongst Maker’s family members in the
years following World War I. Maker died in 1964 after a severe heart
attack and stroke. It is not immediately clear today where the gate
stood in Verdun in which the key was taken from.
The key will be accepted today at the Verdun Memorial in France.
But Norton is now meeting today with Thierry Hubscher, the director of the Verdun Memorial,
to return it, a spokesperson there confirmed to Fox News. The Memorial
says it may put the key into an exhibit about the Americans’ arrival in
the region.
“We are particularly honored that Major Bruce Norton
chose our establishment for the symbolic return of the key to an
important site of the town of Verdun,” Hubscher told Fox News in an
email. “This story is absolutely incredible. This key will have taken a
journey of over 10,000 kilometers before coming back to its place of
origin 100 years later.”
President Trump, first lady Melania Trump, left, and German Chancellor
Angela Merkel attend ceremonies at the Arc de Triomphe Sunday, Nov. 11,
2018 in Paris. (Associated Press).
President Trump joined French leader Emmanuel Macron on Sunday as
nearly 70 world leaders gathered in Paris to mark 100 years since the
end of World War I.
Trump was accompanied by first lady Melania
Trump at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the base of the Arc de
Triomphe. The president also was to attend a leaders' lunch hosted by
Macron.
Afterward, Trump planned to visit and deliver Veterans Day
remarks at the Suresnes American Cemetery and Memorial outside Paris
where more than 1,500 Americans who died during the war are buried.
Rain on Saturday forced the cancellation of Trump's helicopter trip to a different American cemetery in France.
France,
the epicenter of the first global conflict, was hosting the main
international commemoration, pressing home the point that the world
mustn't stumble into war again, as it did so quickly and
catastrophically with World War II.
The world leaders were
scheduled to gather at precisely 11 a.m. Paris time, the moment of the
cease-fire -- but apparently arrived a bit late, the Associated Press
reported.
A cemetery employee walks between graves of American service
members killed during World War I at the American Cemetery in Suresnes,
on the outskirts of Paris, Nov. 9, 2018. (Associated Press)
On the other side of the globe, the first countries
and territories to see the dawn kicked off the commemorations, pushing
for peace with the simple act of recalling how the 1914-1918 war killed
and wounded soldiers and civilians in unprecedented numbers and in
gruesome new, mechanized ways.
Australia and New Zealand lost tens
of thousands of people on foreign fields far away in Europe and, most
memorably in the brutal 1915 battle of Gallipoli in Turkey. Both
commemorated their dead Sunday.
In Paris, the jewel that Germany
sought to capture in 1914 but which the Allies fought successfully to
defend, commemorations were centered around the Arc de Triomphe, where
the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier represents the sacrifice of all those
who gave their lives.
Luis Rodrigo Perez, 23, a Mexican national, is accused of killing three people in Missouri, authorities say.
(Associated Press)
Thank You Democrats!
An illegal immigrant accused of a triple murder in Missouri was
previously jailed and released in New Jersey on domestic violence
charges, authorities said, putting the spotlight on the conflict between
local and immigration authorities nationwide.
Luis Rodrigo Perez,
23, a native of Mexico, is charged with fatally shooting two men and
wounding two others on Nov. 1 and fatally shooting a woman the next day.
He
was being held on domestic violence charges at the Middlesex County
Jail in New Jersey in December 2017 and was released in February, NJ.com reported.
U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials said they placed a
detainer on Perez while he was in custody, but the request was not
honored nor was the agency notified when he was let go, said Corey Price, acting executive director of ICE.
“Yet
again, an ICE detainer was ignored and a dangerous criminal alien was
released to the streets and is now charged with killing three people,”
Price said. “Had ICE’s detainer request in December 2017 been honored by
Middlesex County Jail, Luis Rodrigo Perez would have been placed in
deportation proceedings and likely sent home to his country – and three
innocent people might be alive today.
"It is past time that
localities realize the perils of dangerous sanctuary policies and resume
their primary goal of protecting their residents," Price added.
“Yet
again, an ICE detainer was ignored and a dangerous criminal alien was
released to the streets and is now charged with killing three people.” — Corey Price, acting executive director, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
In
an email to the Associated Press, Middlesex County officials said the
detainer wasn't honored because it didn’t meet the necessary criteria.
“This
order would have authorized Middlesex County to turn over custody of
Mr. Perez prior to, or upon completion of his sentence,” they wrote.
“Instead ICE officials chose to do nothing, which places all
responsibility of Mr. Perez’s actions squarely upon ICE.”
The
county said it adopted a policy last year of honoring detainer requests
from ICE if the inmate has convictions for first- or second-degree
offenses or is ordered deported by a federal judge.
"It
is past time that localities realize the perils of dangerous sanctuary
policies and resume their primary goal of protecting their residents." — Corey Price, acting executive director, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
During Perez’s stint in jail, ICE never requested an order of deportation against Perez, county officials wrote.
Missouri
law enforcement officials believe Perez and Aaron Anderson, 19, killed
their ex-roommates Steven Marler, 38, and Aaron Hampton, 23, after they
were kicked out of their Springfield home. ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT ICE WANTED DEPORTED IS NOW CHARGED IN WIFE'S STABBING DEATH
Perez
is also accused of killing a 21-year-old Sabrina Starr the next day at
her house. He is charged with eight felony counts in the shootings.
Anderson
told investigators he was waiting with Starr in an SUV outside Hampton
and Marler’s home when Perez shot them, adding that he could hear the
victims begging for their lives while on the phone with Perez.
He was charged as an accomplice to first-degree murder and three other felonies.
Perez’s
girlfriend, Dalia Garcia, 23, is charged with tampering with evidence
after she allegedly rode a bus from New Jersey to help burn evidence.
Dalia Garcia, 23, is charged with tampering with evidence in
connection with three deaths in Missouri, authorities say. (Greene
County, Mo., Jail)
President Trump has consistently bashed
municipalities that refuse to cooperate with immigration authorities.
The U.S. Border Patrol officials said Friday that its agents detained
more than 50,000 people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in October.
The
news came on the same day Trump issued an executive order declaring
that anyone entering the U.S. illegally from Mexico outside of
established ports would be ineligible for asylum.
Florida’s secretary of state announced Saturday that there will be
recounts in the Senate and gubernatorial races after the races became
tight enough to trigger them -- amid controversy over the handling of
the counts, with President Trump warning that he will be "watching
closely."
Secretary Ken Detzner issued the order after the
unofficial results in both races fell within the margin that by law
triggers a recount. The results of the machine recount will be due by 3
p.m. ET this coming Thursday. The votes in the Senate race between
Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson and Republican Gov. Rick Scott, and the
gubernatorial race between Republican Rep. Ron DeSantis and Democratic
mayor of Tallahassee Andrew Gillum, will be recounted. There will also
be a recount for the race for agriculture commissioner.
Election
officials in Miami-Dade County said they launched a "machine recount"
Saturday evening, meaning they were loading paper ballots into scanning
machines. The processing of some 800,000 ballots could take several
days, the Associated Press reported.
Earlier Saturday, 266 stray
ballots from a mail sorting facility in Opa-locka arrived at
Miami-Dade's Elections Department, a spokeswoman for the department told the Miami Herald
on Saturday evening. But the Opa-locka ballots won't be counted because
Florida law says that mail-in ballots can be counted only if they
arrive by the time that polls close on Election Day, the newspaper
reported.
Miami-Dade had received some 15,000 mail ballots Tuesday while conventional voters were at the polls, the report said.
On
Saturday morning, a group of protesters outside the Miami-Dade agency's
offices demanded that all ballots be counted, regardless of when they
were received, the Herald reported.
In Florida, a mandatory
recount occurs if the winning candidate’s margin is less than 0.5
percent. If the margin is less than 0.25 percent, the recount must be
done by hand. NEWT GINGRICH: AS DEMOCRATS TRY TO STEAL ELECTIONS, THEIR DISHONESTY THREATENS THE VERY FABRIC OF OUR COUNTRY
Both
Scott and DeSantis led their races after the midterms on Tuesday, with
Gillum conceding to DeSantis. But as the days went on, and more votes
were counted, those leads have all but disappeared.
Scott’s lead by Saturday afternoon was reduced to 0.15 percent and DeSantis’ was 0.41 percent.
The
shrinking leads quickly led to suspicions from Republicans that foul
play was afoot in Democratic strongholds of Broward and Palm Beach
counties. Democrats, meanwhile, have accused Republicans of trying to
stop all votes from being counted. President Trump on Saturday told
reporters that “they are finding votes out of nowhere.”
"What's going on in Florida is a disgrace," he said.
He
reacted within moments to the announcement of the recounts by accusing
Democrats of "trying to steal two big elections in Florida!"
"We are watching closely!" he added.
Scott
had asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate the
counties’ election departments, but a spokeswoman told the Associated
Press there would be no investigation as there was no credible
allegation of fraud.
Gillum welcomed the recount in a news conference on Saturday.
"I
am replacing my words of concessions with an uncompromising and
unapologetic call that we count every single vote," he told reporters.
He also called for calm, and said he was prepared to accept "whatever
the outcome of this election so far as every single vote...is counted."
Scott
took to Twitter on Saturday evening, revealing that "7,500 volunteer
recount representatives" were at the ready in Florida.
"Reps will
be deployed all over FL to make sure any potential issues are reported
so they can be quickly reviewed and resolved," he tweeted. "We won't allow unethical liberals to steal this election!"
In
a sign of the turmoil that could ensue, protesters gathered outside the
Broward elections office ahead of the announcement. Broward in
particular has long been the source of election controversies. In 2016,
Republican poll watchers complained that staff was opening absentee
ballots in private, thereby making it impossible for groups to question
whether ballots were cast, according to Politico. The GOP sued in 2017 to make sure Election Supervisor Brenda Snipes followed the law. BALLOT MIXUP PUTS MORE HEAT ON BROWARD ELECTIONS OFFICIAL AS KEY FLORIDA RACES REMAIN UNRESOLVED
On Friday, the Miami Herald
reported that there were invalid ballots mixed in with about 200 valid
ones, but not solution was immediately found for the problem.
The
announcement was likely to bring back memories for Floridians of the
tempestuous 2000 presidential election, where a chaotic recount decided
the result of the election -- with Republican George W. Bush eventually
nudging out Democratic candidate Al Gore.
Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO, speaks at The Economic Club of Washington's Milestone Celebration in Washington.
(Associated Press)
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif., speaks to a crowd
of volunteers and supporters of the Democratic party at an election
night returns event at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, on Tuesday, Nov. 6,
2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
