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Abortion: Herman Cain Is Not Just A Flip-Flopper But Fatally Flawed

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Accusing Herman Cain of being a flip-flopper — as Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum all did this past week — is a fair start but only a start. Cain is certainly a flip-flopper on social issues like abortion and gay marriage, but he’s also incredibly ignorant on those same culture war issues, and on how the actual process of government works. Making him fatally flawed as a presidential candidate.

Now the GOP frontrunner — thanks not to his policy prowess but to his marketing magic — Cain said he is pro-life but believes that the decision of whether or not to get an abortion “ultimately gets down to a choice that the family or that mother has to make.” During a CNN/Piers Morgan interview this past week, Cain added, “Not me as president, not some politician, not a bureaucrat. It gets down to that family. And whatever they decide. I shouldn’t have to tell them what decision to make for such a sensitive issue.”

That, dear friends, as any junior high school student knows, is the very essence of the definition of pro-choice.

Unsurprisingly, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum all pounced on Cain.

“It is a liberal canard to say I am personally pro-life but government should stay out of that decision,” ABC News quoted Texas Governor and former front-runner Rick Perry saying Saturday night at the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition Presidential Forum. “If that is your view, you are not pro-life, you are pro having your cake and eating it too.”

“Being pro-life is not a matter of campaign convenience,” Perry added.

ABC News on Sunday added,

“Herman Cain’s out there, and he’s in his first real run for office and a serious campaign and I think he’s still finding his way through,” Santorum said following his speech at the Iowa Faith and Freedom forum.  “This is a pretty big and important race to be finding your way through issues, particularly on issues of this fundamental importance.”

He received further criticism today from Michele Bachmann, who called Cain out as a flip-flopper.

“You can’t have all of these flip-flops in our nominee,” Bachmann said on Fox News Sunday. “I think it’s giving people pause, and they’re asking real questions about, what does he believe, truly, and how would he govern as president of the United States? And I can tell you, here in Iowa, people want to make sure that our nominee is 100 percent pro-life.”

In an interview published Saturday night, Cain was asked by the Christian Broadcasting Network’s David Brody, “Are you for some sort of pro-life amendment to the constitution that in essence would trump Roe v. Wade?”

“Yes. Yes I feel that strongly about it. If we can get the necessary support and it comes to my desk I’ll sign it. That’s all I can do. I will sign it.”

Actually, that’s not only all he “can do.” As president, Cain can’t even do that.

As every junior high school student also knows, constitutional amendments don’t get signed by the president, they are ratified by the states in a two-part process including the legislative — not the executive — branch of government. Cain not knowing this simple yet important fact about how government works doesn’t make him ineligible to run government, it just reinforces the general — and accurate — perception that Cain is woefully, and intentionally, ignorant.

Cain also told Brody he would support (and presumably, “sign,” if the constitution actually worked that way,) a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, adding that, “there are already attempts by some states and some groups to weaken the Defense of Marriage Act.”

“I think marriage should be protected at the federal level also. I used to believe that it could be just handled by the states but there’s a movement going on to basically take the teeth out of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act and that could cause an unraveling, so we do need some protection at the federal level because of that and so yes I would support legislation that would say that it’s between a man and a woman.”

In addition to being ignorant on how government actually works, and on the subject of abortion — the pro-choice vs. pro-life culture war debate that Roe v. Wade was supposed to have resolved in 1973 — in general, Cain is obviously, painfully ignorant — and yes, bigoted — on the subject of abortion in relation to civil rights.

It certainly is not unfair to highlight who a candidate is in examining what filters and lenses they use to examine issues, and which ones they are willing to utilize to make their points.

That Herman Cain, an African-American, would deign to use the African-American Civil Rights Movement as a tool to remove rights from women, is not only frightening, but offensive.

David Brody told Cain, “The social conservative groups one of the things they’re telling me is that they want a President that’s going to use the bully pulpit on the life issue. It doesn’t mean you have to get bogged down on all of this, but they want to see a president if not advance the legislation at least use the bully pulpit to talk to America about this issue. What’s your sense on that?”

Cain’s response?

“Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was one of the greatest leaders this country has ever seen. How did he bring about the movement that resulted in the Civil Rights Act of 1964? He touched the hearts of people. That’s what a President needs to have the ability to do, in order to change peoples’ minds.”

Yes, because what America needs is a man who was an adult — an African-American who as an adult, lived through segregation — using the African-American community’s greatest hero, and one of the most important fruits of that hero’s labors, as an opportunity to deny women their basic civil rights.

Herman Cain doesn’t have policy stances, he doesn’t have real ideas or answers, he has marketing slogans, like 9-9-9, which don’t even address the real issues Americans want fixed. Americans aren’t as concerned about the taxes they might have to pay when they don’t have salaries to tax because they don’t have jobs.

As every junior high school student also knows, using a proposed change to the tax plan does not strengthen employment, just as using a proposed change to abortion rights does not strengthen the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Cain is not only a flip-flopper on these and other issues, his ignorance about them makes him fatally flawed as a candidate.

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News

CNN Smacks Down Trump Rant Courthouse So ‘Heavily Guarded’ MAGA Cannot Attend His Trial

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April 26, 2024

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Donald Trump’s Friday morning claim Manhattan’s Criminal Courts Building is “heavily guarded” so his supporters cannot attend his trial was torched by a top CNN anchor. The ex-president, facing 34 felony charges in New York, had been urging his followers to show up and protest on the courthouse steps, but few have.

“I’m at the heavily guarded Courthouse. Security is that of Fort Knox, all so that MAGA will not be able to attend this trial, presided over by a highly conflicted pawn of the Democrat Party. It is a sight to behold! Getting ready to do my Courthouse presser. Two minutes!” Trump wrote Friday morning on his Truth Social account.

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins supplied a different view.

“Again, the courthouse is open the public. The park outside, where a handful of his supporters have gathered on trials days, is easily accessible,” she wrote minutes after his post.

READ MORE: ‘Assassination of Political Rivals as an Official Act’: AOC Warns Take Trump ‘Seriously’

Trump has tried to rile up his followers to come out and make a strong showing.

On Monday Trump urged his supporters to “rally behind MAGA” and “go out and peacefully protest” at courthouses across the country, while complaining that “people who truly LOVE our Country, and want to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, are not allowed to ‘Peacefully Protest,’ and are rudely and systematically shut down and ushered off to far away ‘holding areas,’ essentially denying them their Constitutional Rights.”

On Wednesday Trump claimed, “The Courthouse area in Lower Manhattan is in a COMPLETE LOCKDOWN mode, not for reasons of safety, but because they don’t want any of the thousands of MAGA supporters to be present. If they did the same thing at Columbia, and other locations, there would be no problem with the protesters!”

After detailing several of his false claims about security measures prohibiting his followers from being able to show their support and protest, CNN published a fact-check on Wednesday:

“Trump’s claims are all false. The police have not turned away ‘thousands of people’ from the courthouse during his trial; only a handful of Trump supporters have shown up to demonstrate near the building,” CNN reported.

“And while there are various security measures in place in the area, including some street closures enforced by police officers and barricades, it’s not true that ‘for blocks you can’t get near this courthouse.’ In reality, the designated protest zone for the trial is at a park directly across the street from the courthouse – and, in addition, people are permitted to drive right up to the front of the courthouse and walk into the building, which remains open to the public. If people show up early enough in the morning, they can even get into the trial courtroom itself or the overflow room that shows near-live video of the proceedings.”

READ MORE: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

 

 

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‘Assassination of Political Rivals as an Official Act’: AOC Warns Take Trump ‘Seriously’

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17 hours ago

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April 25, 2024

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Democratic U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is responding to Thursday’s U.S. Supreme Court hearing on Donald Trump’s claim he has “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution because he was a U.S. president, and she delivered a strong warning in response.

Trump’s attorney argued before the nation’s highest court that the ex-president could have ordered the assassination of a political rival and not face criminal prosecution unless he was first impeached by the House of Representatives and then convicted by the Senate.

But even then, Trump attorney John Sauer argued, if assassinating his political rival were done as an “official act,” he would be automatically immune from all prosecution.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, presenting the hypothetical, expressed, “there are some things that are so fundamentally evil that they have to be protected against.”

RELATED: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

“If the president decides that his rival is a corrupt person, and he orders the military, or orders someone to assassinate him, is that within his official acts for which he can get immunity?” she asked.

“It would depend on the hypothetical, but we can see that could well be an official act,” Trump attorney Sauer quickly replied.

Sauer later claimed that if a president ordered the U.S. military to wage a coup, he could also be immune from prosecution, again, if it were an “official act.”

The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols, a retired U.S. Naval War College professor and an expert on Russia, nuclear weapons, and national security affairs, was quick to poke a large hole in that hypothetical.

“If the president suspends the Senate, you can’t prosecute him because it’s not an official act until the Senate impeaches …. Uh oh,” he declared.

RELATED: Justices Slam Trump Lawyer: ‘Why Is It the President Would Not Be Required to Follow the Law?’

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blasted the Trump team.

“The assassination of political rivals as an official act,” the New York Democrat wrote.

“Understand what the Trump team is arguing for here. Take it seriously and at face value,” she said, issuing a warning: “This is not a game.”

Marc Elias, who has been an attorney to top Democrats and the Democratic National Committee, remarked, “I am in shock that a lawyer stood in the U.S Supreme Court and said that a president could assassinate his political opponent and it would be immune as ‘an official act.’ I am in despair that several Justices seemed to think this answer made perfect sense.”

CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen, a former U.S. Ambassador and White House Special Counsel for Ethics and Government Reform under President Barack Obama, boiled it down: “Trump is seeking dictatorial powers.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘They Will Have Thugs?’: Lara Trump’s Claim RNC Will ‘Physically Handle the Ballots’ Stuns

 

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Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

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20 hours ago

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April 25, 2024

By

Legal experts appeared somewhat pleased during the first half of the Supreme Court’s historic hearing on Donald Trump’s claim he has “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution because he was the President of the United States, as the justice appeared unwilling to accept that claim, but were stunned later when the right-wing justices questioned the U.S. Dept. of Justice’s attorney. Many experts are suggesting the ex-president may have won at least a part of the day, and some are expressing concern about the future of American democracy.

“Former President Trump seems likely to win at least a partial victory from the Supreme Court in his effort to avoid prosecution for his role in Jan. 6,” Axios reports. “A definitive ruling against Trump — a clear rejection of his theory of immunity that would allow his Jan. 6 trial to promptly resume — seemed to be the least likely outcome.”

The most likely outcome “might be for the high court to punt, perhaps kicking the case back to lower courts for more nuanced hearings. That would still be a victory for Trump, who has sought first and foremost to delay a trial in the Jan. 6 case until after Inauguration Day in 2025.”

Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern, who covers the courts and the law, noted: “This did NOT go very well [for Special Counsel] Jack Smith’s team. Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh think Trump’s Jan. 6 prosecution is unconstitutional. Maybe Gorsuch too. Roberts is skeptical of the charges. Barrett is more amenable to Smith but still wants some immunity.”

READ MORE: ‘To Do God Knows What’: Local Elections Official Reads Lara Trump the Riot Act

Civil rights attorney and Tufts University professor Matthew Segal, responding to Stern’s remarks, commented: “If this is true, and if Trump becomes president again, there is likely no limit to the harm he’d be willing to cause — to the country, and to specific individuals — under the aegis of this immunity.”

Noted foreign policy, national security and political affairs analyst and commentator David Rothkopf observed: “Feels like the court is leaning toward creating new immunity protections for a president. It’s amazing. We’re watching the Constitution be rewritten in front of our eyes in real time.”

“Frog in boiling water alert,” warned Ian Bassin, a former Associate White House Counsel under President Barack Obama. “Who could have imagined 8 years ago that in the Trump era the Supreme Court would be considering whether a president should be above the law for assassinating opponents or ordering a military coup and that *at least* four justices might agree.”

NYU professor of law Melissa Murray responded to Bassin: “We are normalizing authoritarianism.”

Trump’s attorney, John Sauer, argued before the Supreme Court justices that if Trump had a political rival assassinated, he could only be prosecuted if he had first been impeach by the U.S. House of Representatives then convicted by the U.S. Senate.

During oral arguments Thursday, MSNBC host Chris Hayes commented on social media, “Something that drives me a little insane, I’ll admit, is that Trump’s OWN LAWYERS at his impeachment told the Senators to vote not to convict him BECAUSE he could be prosecuted if it came to that. Now they’re arguing that the only way he could be prosecuted is if they convicted.”

READ MORE: Biden Campaign Hammers Trump Over Infamous COVID Comment

Attorney and former FBI agent Asha Rangappa warned, “It’s worth highlighting that Trump’s lawyers are setting up another argument for a second Trump presidency: Criminal laws don’t apply to the President unless they specifically say so…this lays the groundwork for saying (in the future) he can’t be impeached for conduct he can’t be prosecuted for.”

But NYU and Harvard professor of law Ryan Goodman shared a different perspective.

“Due to Trump attorney’s concessions in Supreme Court oral argument, there’s now a very clear path for DOJ’s case to go forward. It’d be a travesty for Justices to delay matters further. Justice Amy Coney Barrett got Trump attorney to concede core allegations are private acts.”

NYU professor of history Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an expert scholar on authoritarians, fascism, and democracy concluded, “Folks, whatever the Court does, having this case heard and the idea of having immunity for a military coup taken seriously by being debated is a big victory in the information war that MAGA and allies wage alongside legal battles. Authoritarians specialize in normalizing extreme ideas and and involves giving them a respected platform.”

The Nation’s justice correspondent Elie Mystal offered up a prediction: “Court doesn’t come back till May 9th which will be a decision day. But I think they won’t decide *this* case until July 3rd for max delay. And that decision will be 5-4 to remand the case back to DC, for additional delay.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Doesn’t Care if Pregnant Women Live or Die’: Alito Slammed Over Emergency Abortion Remarks

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