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UPDATE III: Supreme Court Blocks Virginia Same-Sex Marriage – Order By Full Court

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With just hours to spare, the full U.S Supreme Court has just halted all Virginia same-sex marriages that were slated to begin tomorrow.

The Chief Justice was originally petitioned, but this afternoon’s ruling is unsigned, indicating it is from the full court.

“Although Chief Justice John Roberts is responsible for stay requests in the Fourth Circuit, the order indicates he referred the matter to the entire court,” Chris Johnson at the Washington Blade reports. “The vote by the Supreme Court on the decision isn’t included in the order.”

The request came from the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), representing Michèle McQuigg, who filed suit against Timothy Bostic, the lead plaintiff in Bostic v. Schaeffer.

The original case was filed last year as Bostic v. McDonnell, then, as Bostic v. Rainey, and now, as Bostic v. Schaefer. The request for a stay was McQuigg v. Bostic.

 

This is a developing news story — stay tuned for more details.

UPDATE I 3:27 PM EDT:

“This Supreme Court’s stay of yet another freedom to marry ruling underscores the urgency of the Court’s granting a full review and bringing the country to national resolution by next year,” Evan Wolfson, president of Freedom to Marry, said in a statement immediately following the ruling. 

“Americans across the country are being deprived of the freedom to marry and respect for their lawful marriages, as well as the tangible protections and precious dignity and happiness that marriage brings. It is time for the Supreme Court to affirm what more than thirty courts have held in the past year: marriage discrimination violates the Constitution, harms families, and is unworthy of America.”

Opponents have begun the process of seeking Supreme Court review of each of the three appellate rulings in favor of the freedom to marry so far, including the Virginia case in the Fourth Circuit and Utah and Oklahoma cases in the Tenth Circuit. Since the Supreme Court struck down the heart of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act in June 2013, 37 state and federal courts have upheld the freedom to marry, with only 1 ruling the other way. Every appellate ruling has been in favor of the freedom to marry.

UPDATE II 3:58 PM EDT:

Alliance Defending Freedom, the anti-gay religious legal firm that requested the stay, issued this statement:

“Virginians deserve an orderly and fair resolution to the question of whether they will remain free to preserve marriage as the union of a man and a woman in their laws. By granting our request to place a hold on the 4th Circuit’s decision, the Supreme Court is making clear, as it already did in the Utah marriage case, that it believes a dignified process is better than disorder. The Supreme Court acted wisely in restraining the lower court from implementing a ruling of this magnitude before the high court has a chance to decide the issue.”

UPDATE III 4:11 PM EDT:

Via AFER, the legal group representing the plaintiffs fighting for marriage equality:

“Never before have federal courts across this country so swiftly, convincingly, and unanimously come to the same conclusion on an imperative constitutional question as they have when presented with the issue of marriage equality,” said Plaintiffs’ lead co-counsel David Boies of Boies, Schiller & Flexner, LLP. “The federal court system agrees, the majority of Americans agree, and the President of the United States agrees that it is time this country treats its same-sex couples and their children just the same as all other loving families. We are confident that when the Supreme Court reviews the Bostic case, it too will agree and end the flagrant injustice of segregating Americans based on sexual orientation.”

Should the Supreme Court agree to hear the case, the stay issued today will remain in place until the case has been fully briefed, argued, and decided by the high court.

“Tony and I look forward to the day that we can finally be married in our home state,” said Tim Bostic, Plaintiff. “While we are disappointed that marriages will have to wait, this was not unexpected. We feel that this case deserves to be heard by the Supreme Court and be finally decided for all Americans. There are thousands of couples just like us in 30 other states waiting to get married. It is time for all Americans to be able to enjoy the freedom to marry, no matter what state they live in.”

 

 

Image via AFER

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News

Gag Order Breach? Trump Targeted Cohen in Taped Interview Hours Before Contempt Hearing

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April 24, 2024

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Hours before his attorneys would mount a defense on Tuesday claiming he had not violated his gag order Donald Trump might have done just that in a 12-minute taped interview that morning, which did not air until later that day. It will be up to Judge Juan Merchan to make that decision, if prosecutors add it to their contempt request.

Prosecutors in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office told Judge Juan Merchan that the ex-president violated the gag order ten times, via posts on his Truth Social platform, and are asking he be held in contempt. While the judge has yet to rule, he did not appear moved by their arguments. At one point, Judge Merchan told Trump’s lead lawyer Todd Blanche he was “losing all credibility” with the court.

And while Judge Merchan directed defense attorneys to provide a detailed timeline surrounding Trump’s Truth Social posts to prove he had not violated the gag order, Trump in an interview with a local television station appeared to have done so.

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

The gag order bars Trump from “commenting or causing others to comment on potential witnesses in the case, prospective jurors, court staff, lawyers in the district attorney’s office and the relatives of any counsel or court staffer, as CBS News reported.

“The threat is very real,” Judge Merchan wrote when he expanded the gag order. “Admonitions are not enough, nor is reliance on self-restraint. The average observer, must now, after hearing Defendant’s recent attacks, draw the conclusion that if they become involved in these proceedings, even tangentially, they should worry not only for themselves, but for their loved ones as well. Such concerns will undoubtedly interfere with the fair administration of justice and constitutes a direct attack on the Rule of Law itself.”

Tuesday morning, Trump told ABC Philadelphia’s Action News reporter Walter Perez, “Michael Cohen is a convicted liar. He’s got no credibility whatsoever.”

He repeated that Cohen is a “convicted liar,” and insisted he “was a lawyer for many people, not just me.”

READ MORE: ‘Old and Tired and Mad’: Trump’s Demeanor in Court Detailed by Rachel Maddow

Since Cohen is a witness in Trump’s New York criminal case, Judge Merchan might decide Trump’s remarks during that interview violated the gag order, if prosecutors bring the video to his attention.

Enter attorney George Conway, who has been attending Trump’s New York trial.

Conway reposted a clip of the video, tagged Manhattan District Attorney Bragg, writing: “cc: @ManhattanDA, for your proposed order to show cause why the defendant in 𝘗𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘷. 𝘛𝘳𝘶𝘮𝘱 should not spend some quiet time in lockup.”

Trump has been criminally indicted in four separate cases and is facing a total of 88 felony charges, including 34 in this New York criminal trial for alleged falsification of business records to hide payments of “hush money” to an adult film actress and one other woman, in an alleged effort to suppress their stories and protect his 2016 presidential campaign, which experts say is election interference.

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Blood on Your Hands’: Tennessee Republicans OK Arming Teachers After Deadly School Shooting

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OPINION

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

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2 hours ago

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April 24, 2024

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Minutes before Donald Trump addressed his MAGA crowd at the Ellipse on January 6, 2021 his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump spoke to his supporters, vowing to “take our country back” because the Trump “family didn’t get in this fight for just four years. We are in this fight to the bitter end.”

Fast forward to April, 2024.

Lara Trump is now co-chair of the Republican National Committee, after Donald Trump’s efforts to install her and his hand-picked RNC chairman, Michael Whatley. Whatley is a North Carolina Republican who served on George W. Bush’s Florida recount team for the 2000 presidential election that was decided at the U.S. Supreme Court. Years later Whatley declared, “it was really the first time that Republicans got down into the trenches and fought,” and claimed, “if we were not there, they were going to steal it.”

Now both Michael Whatley and Lara Trump are leading the RNC, and with Donald Trump as the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, they are continuing the ex-president’s focus on “election integrity.”

Tuesday night Lara Trump served up some insight into what they’re planning.

READ MORE: Trump Complains He’s ‘Not Allowed to Talk’ as He Gripes Live on Camera

“We now have the ability at the RNC not just to have poll watchers, people standing in polling locations, but people who can physically handle the ballots. We want people all across this country –” she said before host Eric Bolling interrupted her.

“I want to hear this, this is really fascinating to me,” Bolling said. “You have 100,000 people who are, I think I saw paid at one point, but whatever – irrelevant, but, so they will be stationed inside polling places? I didn’t even know you can do that. Tell us about it.”

Trump replied, “there was a moratorium for about 40 years on the RNC actually training people to work in these polling locations in the tabulation centers where the mail-in ballots come in. And last year, the judge who implemented that passed away, so that was lifted, and that gives us a great ability as we head into what I assume everyone understands is the most important election of our lifetime.”

Bolling went on to ask, “Will these people, will they be allowed to physically handle the ballots as well, Lara?”

“Yup,” Trump replied. “And that means Eric that they should know and they can count how many ballots come in, and how many ballots should go out of every single polling location.”

READ MORE: ‘I’m Not Suicidal’: Kari Lake Pushes Hillary Clinton Murder Conspiracy Theory

She went on to say if anyone cheats, “we will prosecute you to the full extent of the law.”

“It is not worth it to cheat in a federal election, that is a crime my friends you do not want to commit.”

Bolling was referring to the more than 100,000 attorneys and volunteers the RNC reportedly has lined up to monitor vote counting. In a joint statement the Trump campaign and the RNC called it, “the most extensive and monumental election integrity program in the nation’s history.”

Former RNC Chairman Michael Steele blasted Lara Trump.

“Lara, you know why there was ‘a moratorium on the RNC for 40 years’? Because the RNC was caught cheating. The RNC was placed under a 1982 Consent decree for voter caging. Voter caging hinders an eligible voter’s ability to vote. The process involves efforts to identify and disenfranchise improperly registered voters solely on the basis of undeliverable mail. It often leads to the unwarranted purging of election rolls of otherwise eligible voters.”

“So,” Steele continued, “given the continued lies about the 2020 election and your daddy-in-law claiming if he loses in 2024 it’s because the election is rigged, you’re planning to have your people ‘physically handle the ballots’–and we’re supposed to think that’s a good idea?”

NYU professor of history Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a scholar on fascism, authoritarianism, propaganda, and the protection of democracy, also served up strong criticism.

“What does this mean, they will have thugs to physically take the ballots to make sure they are marked for Republican candidates?” Ben-Ghiat asked. “Sounds like a perfect authoritarian election plan to me.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: Biden Campaign Hammers Trump Over Infamous COVID Comment

 

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News

‘Blood on Your Hands’: Tennessee Republicans OK Arming Teachers After Deadly School Shooting

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20 hours ago

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April 23, 2024

By

Republicans in the Tennessee House passed legislation Tuesday afternoon allowing teachers to carry concealed weapons in classrooms across the state, thirteen months after a 28-year old shooter slaughtered three children and three adults at a Christian elementary school in Nashville.

The measure is reportedly not popular statewide, with Democrats, teachers, and parents from the school, Covenant Elementary, largely opposed. The Republican Speaker of the House, Cameron Sexton, at one point literally shut down debate on the bill by shutting off a Democratic lawmaker’s microphone and then smiling.

Ultimately, Republican Rep. Ryan Williams’s legislation passed the GOP majority House as protestors in the gallery shouted their objections: “Blood on your hands.”

READ MORE: Trump Complains He’s ‘Not Allowed to Talk’ as He Gripes Live on Camera

The legislation bars parents from being informed if their child’s teacher has a gun in the classroom.

State Troopers were called to “prevent people from getting close to the House chambers,” WSMV’s Marissa Sulek reports.

“You’re going to kill kids,” one woman had yelled at Rep. Williams from the gallery on Monday, The Tennessean reports. “You’re going to be responsible for the death of children. Shame on you.”

READ MORE: Biden Campaign Hammers Trump Over Infamous COVID Comment

Democratic state Rep. Justin Jones said on social media, “This is what fascism looks like.”

“In recent weeks,” the paper also reports, “parents of school shooting survivors, students and gun-reform advocates have heavily lobbied against the bill, with one Covenant School mom delivering a letter to the House on Monday with more than 5,300 signatures asking lawmakers to kill the bill.”

The bill, which already passed the state Senate, now heads to Republican Governor Bill Lee’s desk. He is expected to sign it into law.

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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