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RNC Chairman Michael Steele: “Welcome, Gays!” or, Why Gay Marriage Is Not A States’ Issue

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https://youtube.com/watch?v=n7a13GAFc94%26hl%3Den%26fs%3D1

In a close five-way race, (it would have been six but “Barack, the Magic Negro” intervened,) the Republican National Committee elected Michael Steele on Friday as its Chairman. Steele is the former Lieutenant Governor of Maryland. Chris Wallace of “Fox News Sunday” interviewed Steele. The Raw Story reports:

“The newly elected chairman of the Republican National Committee, the first African-American ever to hold that position, says his party must do a better job of courting candidates and voters who support gay marriage and are pro-choice. 

“I think that’s an important opportunity for us, absolutely. Within our party we do have those who have that view,” Michael Steele told Fox’s Chris Wallace Sunday morning.”

Talking about immigration in the video (above), Steele said, “No change in the position of the party. How we message that is where we messed up the last time.” Could Steele could be implying the same about gay marriage?

Steele is looking to broaden the party’s base, no doubt. But he’s using gays to do it, and, unless he’s going to ensure the RNC platform includes support of gay marriage, it’s an insincere, at best, gesture. Perhaps well-intentioned, who knows, but hollow, without substance, and opportunistic. But even if Steele’s RNC were willing to support gay marriage, there are not that many gays who would “switch.”

It’s important to remember that reaching out is not the same as supporting.

Steele goes on to say “yes” when Wallace says, “You also support a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.” At which point Steele says “we can deal with that [a ban on gay marriage] at the state level.” And there comes that famous “states rights” argument.

Conservatives attempting to broaden their base, or those trying to get reelected in more Democratic strongholds are famous for deferring on gay marriage to the state government level. Here’s why that argument is invalid: civil rights are not a states’ issue. Saying gay marriage is a states’ issue is tantamount to saying a century ago that equal rights for blacks were a states’ rights issue. So, in some states a black man could legally marry a white woman, but if they were to cross the state line, he could be thrown in jail for being with her. (In fact, this is a true story.) 

Civil rights are a federal issue, governed by federal law. It’s the Federal Bureau of Investigation (the FBI) that investigates violations of civil rights. Gay marriage is an issue of civil rights. That is the only valid argument when it comes to gay marriage. Religion is not a valid argument, as the Bill of Rights makes clear. Procreation is not a valid argument, as nationwide it has been established the heterosexual marriage is not only for the purpose of procreation. What other argument is left? None, but civil rights, which means there is no argument.

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BREAKING NEWS

Trump Files Sweeping Legal Motion to Try to Block Georgia Grand Jury Findings and District Attorney Fani Willis

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March 20, 2023

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Attorneys for Donald Trump Monday morning filed a sweeping 483-page legal motion asking a Georgia court to block any report from the Fulton County special grand jury and any evidence the grand jury may find, and to force District Attorney Fani Willis to recuse in the investigation into his unlawful attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in that state.

The Daily Beast’s Jose Pagliery first reported the filing. The Atlanta Journal Constitution also reports Trump’s attorneys have filed the motion.

Lawfare Blog’s Anna Bower, who has been covering the Fulton County case, calls the filing “mammoth.”

The news comes just hours after reports District Attorney Willis could be considering RICO, or conspiracy and racketeering charges against Trump.

READ MORE: ‘This Man Is a Criminal’: George Conway Busts GOP’s ‘Completely Ridiculous’ Trump Defense

This is a breaking news and developing story. 

Image via Shutterstock

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‘RICO’: Trump Could Be Facing Racketeering and Conspiracy Charges Used to Prosecute Organized Crime

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March 20, 2023

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Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis is reportedly considering RICO charges against Donald Trump in her probe of his attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, CNN reports. RICO charges are generally used when prosecuting organized crime cases.

“The reason that I am a fan of RICO is, I think jurors are very, very intelligent,” Willis had said last year about a different case. “They want to know what happened. They want to make an accurate decision about someone’s life. And so RICO is a tool that allows a prosecutor’s office and law enforcement to tell the whole story.”

Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, a law professor and an NBC News/MSNBC contributor, Monday morning on Twitter, pointing to CNN’s report, said Willis “is seriously considering a RICO charge.” She repeated that claim on MSNBC shortly after.

READ MORE: Experts Warn Trump Is Encouraging Violence One Day After He Announces Rally at Waco on 30th Anniversary of Siege

CNN reports, “Investigators have a large volume of substantial evidence related to a possible conspiracy from inside and outside the state, including recordings of phone calls, emails, text messages, documents, and testimony before a special grand jury. Their work, the source said, underscores the belief that the push to help Trump was not just a grassroots effort that originated inside the state.”

On-air Monday morning, CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig, a former federal and state prosecutor, explained conspiracy, racketeering, and RICO, saying, “conspiracy” is “a loaded word. But all it really means is an agreement, a meeting of the minds between two or more people to commit a crime.”

But he added, “if we go up to racketeering, now, this is a really powerful tool the prosecutors use. What you have to do is show two things. First of all, the existence of what we call a racketeering enterprise, that can be a Mafia family, that can be a drug trafficking organization, but it could also be a corporation or a political entity, and then you have to show that they engage in what we call a pattern of racketeering activity, meaning that they committed two or more crimes in an organized fashion, which brings us to this other new piece of information. There’s a third phone call we already know about, of course, the infamous phone call to Brad Raffensperger. ‘I just want to find 11,780 votes.’ There’s also a public recording of Donald Trump talking to this investigator, Francis Watson, when he tells her, ‘when the right answer comes out, you’ll be praised.'”

READ MORE: ‘Reacting to a Cult Leader’: Trump Supporters Organizing to ‘Stock Up on Weaponry’ Says GOP Adviser

“Now we know, Trump also called the former Georgia Speaker of the House asking him to convene a special session,” Honig continued. “As we know we’ve heard from some of the grand jurors special grand jurors who’ve come out, they’ve told us that they recommended indictments for more than a dozen people.”

Watch CNN’s report below or at this link.

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‘This Man Is a Criminal’: George Conway Busts GOP’s ‘Completely Ridiculous’ Trump Defense

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March 20, 2023

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George Conway ripped Republicans for defending lifelong “criminal” Donald Trump against a looming indictment in New York.

The ex-president apparently expects to be charged in the Stormy Daniels hush money payoff, and the conservative attorney told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that he richly deserves it.

“The Republicans are behaving like complete disgraces,” Conway said. “They’re basically saying that, by saying that Trump is being persecuted, they’re essentially saying, you can’t touch Trump and Trump is above the law. Whatever slack you might have wanted to cut a former president, that was gone after Jan. 6. This man is a recidivist criminal, he’s committed fraud all his life, he’s lied all of his life.”

“This Stormy Daniels thing was something he cooked up,” Conway added. “The notion that [Michael] Cohen is going to be discredited on it is ridiculous given the paper trail. We see the checks signed by Donald Trump. It’s hard to say he is being picked on for paying $130,000 in hush money to a porn star and concealing that and using a straw donor, which was Cohen, to do that, and saying he’s being persecuted somehow when no one has ever done that it is completely ridiculous.”

RELATED: Georgia weighs slapping Trump with racketeering charges: CNN

Watch the video below or at this link.


 

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