House Democrats Vote to Continue Governor Mills’ COVID Dictatorship
Citizens’ Group Files Federal Lawsuit Against Gov. Mills for
Her Illegal & Unconstitutional COVID Response in Maine
By: David Deschesne
Fort Fairfield Journal, March 24, 2021
AUGUSTA, Maine - In their first in-person meeting of the year, the Democrat-controlled Maine House of Representatives voted to allow Maine’s Democrat governor, Janet “Big Sister” Mills to continue enjoying the sole authority to extend her unilateral, dictatorial powers with no regard to the scientific data on a coronavirus that is now known to have a fatality rate similar to seasonal flu.
By a vote of 81 to 67, the Maine House of Representatives failed on March 10 to enact Joint Resolution (H.P. 596) offered by Rep. Peter Lyford (R-Eddington) to “Terminate the State of Emergency Proclaimed by the Governor.” The measure was the latest in a series of efforts by House Republicans to involve the legislature and the public in COVID-related decisions.
Prior to March 10, the full Legislature had convened only once since March 17, 2020, on December 2, 2020, to be sworn-in. Since December 2, the President of the Senate and Speaker of the House have exercised sole control over when the Legislature meets in person.
“It’s time to return to our Constituents their Constitutionally guaranteed Right of Representation in their government by supporting this resolution,” said Assistant House Republican Leader Joel Stetkis (R-Canaan). “Returning the checks and balances to their government, by them once again having the ability to express their opinion on proposed rules, regulations or laws that we all will ultimately have to live under and pay for. For several weeks now we have been doing the people’s business with proposed bills and committee hearings. There is no longer a reason for the Chief Executive to have to act alone to implement new rules or regulations to deal with the pandemic, we are in session and we are here today assembled to do the people’s business.”
‘Big Sister’ Mills is acting as though she only has the limited information on COVID-19 that was available last March. However, this virus has been the most studied and published in perhaps the history of the world. Esteemed researcher, John Ioannidis from Stanford University reviewed death data for COVID-19 from over fifty locations around the world and found the fatality rate for the disease is very similar to seasonal flu - despite all the establishment left wing news media hype that made the virus appear to be worse than it really is. His research paper was recently accepted by the World Health Organization.
The establishment media hype is what seems to be leading the governor's response, despite all the science proving the hype to be a complete hoax. “Big Sister” continues to renew her “state of emergency” in order to gain federal dollars, even though no real emergency exists - or ever existed in Maine throughout the alleged pandemic - a pandemic that was fueled more by excessive and over-sensitive PCR testing for the disease, not actual hospitalizations.
“The idea that we need endless, unilateral emergency orders to get more federal taxpayer money is wrongheaded thinking,” said Rep. Peter Lyford (R-Eddington). “The federal government isn’t going to forget about Maine because we want our democracy back.”
One the same day Democrats circled the wagons around their governor, the private citizens group, Maine Stands Up (MSU) joined with Ohio-based Make America Free Again (MAFA) in filing a federal lawsuit against Governor Mills for her hysterical and continued unconstitutional COVID response in Maine by continuing to declare a ‘state of emergency’ where no emergency actually exists.
Attorney Thomas Reinz in Ohio, and Attorney Ron Jenkins, in Maine filed the lawsuit to challenge Mills’ state of emergency in federal court.
“It is a true honor and privilege to work with Ron and the amazing people from Maine Stands Up,” said attorney Reinz in a MSU press release. “These are some of the finest people in the country and want nothing more than the right to live their lives.”
MAFA and MSU believe everyone has a right to protect themselves from COVID or any other disease, but do not believe anyone has the right to force others to take similar measures.
The 79 page lawsuit was brought by plaintiffs, Jere Gray, a private citizen; Valerie Kessler, a business owner; Jennifer Jenkins, a private citizen; Heidi Sampson, State Representative for House District 21 and up to 100 other “John and Jane Does.” The lawsuit was brought against defendants, Governor Janet Mills; Dr. Nirav Shah, director of the Maine CDC; Jeanne Lambrow, Maine Health and Human Services Commissioner; Heather Johnson, Commissioner of Maine Department of Economic and Community Development; and up to 20 other “John and Jane Does.”
“For an entire year now, the people of the State of Maine have lived under the cloud of a 'state of civil emergency' that is a legal construct, a unilateral proclamation by Governor Mills, extended by the Governor unilaterally no fewer than 11 times,” the Plaintiffs stated in the opening of their lawsuit. “In this political vacuum, with no legislative oversight, the Governor has issued a series of confusing, contradictory, and ultimately arbitrary and capricious Executive Orders predicated upon the Emergency that she unilaterally declared.”
The lawsuit further outlines how the US CDC changed the death reporting criteria for COVID-19 to artificially inflate the “COVID-19 Death” numbers by arbitrarily labeling any death as a COVID-19 death so long as the deceased had previously tested positive for the virus with a PCR test at some point in the past. It was also shown how Maine uses PCR test kits that were excessively sensitive and produced wildly exaggerated “positive” case numbers throughout the year.
The lawsuit states, “The number reported as 'total cases' is extremely misleading for most people who assume that this figure reflects the actual number of persons who are currently 'infected' and therefore 'infectious,' or who, by symptoms, have been diagnosed as having COVID-19. The public has been brainwashed to believe that a 'case' is an infectious person walking among the public, a dangerous 'silent spreader' of a virus. The public is being misled by the fear-inducing, ever-increasing, cumulative case count that is constantly and verbally projected at them, believing that these numbers demonstrate a serious state of emergency. It is no wonder that so many people are living in extreme panic and hysteria over this disease.”
The reality is the Maine DHHS admits on their own COVID-19 web page that they do not differentiate between unique individual people and those who have been tested more than once - every one of them is a “new case” - even if it's a retest.
The lawsuit also revealed the financial incentive to classify patients as 'COVID-19' and include deaths as COVID-19 deaths; “In Maine, according to Becker’s Hospital Review, hospitals are being reimbursed an additional $200,000 per COVID-19 case, and a death from COVID-19 can qualify as a “case” without a lab test. COVID coding on a death certificate is evidence of a probable case and can result in an additional 20% hospital reimbursement from Medicare under provisions of the federal CARES legislation. CDC Director Robert Redfield acknowledged this perverse financial incentive in sworn Congressional testimony on COVID-19: ‘I think you’re correct in that we’ve seen this in other disease processes too, really in the HIV epidemic, somebody may have a heart attack, but also have HIV – the hospital would prefer the classification for HIV because there’s greater reimbursement.’”
To download a complete copy of the lawsuit, which covers many topics that have been previously reported in depth in past issues of the Fort Fairfield Journal, among other select independent news sources around the world, go to: www.mainestandsup.org and click on the link to the lawsuit.
