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Republican Party Announces It Is Officially The Party Of God

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Over the weekend, the Republican Party (RNC) announced it is officially the party of God. In an embarrassing tweet that links to an even more embarrassing petition, the RNC announced “Religious freedom is our God-given right.”

The image, in a blazing denial of states’ rights — what the GOP claims as its mantle — included an American flag without any stars. The American flag’s stars represent each state, but the RNC chose one without any at all.

But that misstep pales in comparison to the petition the tweet launched.

“TELL OBAMA TO DEFEND RELIGIOUS FREEDOM,” it commands. “Make sure America is defending this God-given right.”

The “religious freedom” President Obama is supposedly not defending is not his to defend. The petition chastises the President for “not taking freedom of religion seriously” because “for the second time in his term,” President Obama has left vacant a ceremonial post, the Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom.

Yes, international religious freedom.

The Ambassador heads the Office of International Religious Freedom within the United States Department of State.

The office itself was created when Democratic president Bill Clinton signed a bill forming it into law in 1998. The position has been vacant as many times as it has been filled: three. It was vacant under George W. Bush between 2001-2002, and under President Obama from 2009-2011, and most recently starting in October of last year.

Until October it was occupied by Suzan Johnson Cook, who resigned to work in the private sector so her sons could have a “debt-free college education.”

So, the Republican party is now attacking President Obama for not quickly filling a largely ceremonial post that has nothing to do with anything a President should be policing — religious freedom abroad — while not accepting the fact that their policies have made going to college so expensive and unwieldy that a U.S. Ambassador had to resign to put her sons through college.

Further, they are ignoring that that office was created by a Democratic president.

But by comparison, let’s talk about all the judicial nominations and other federal positions nominated by the President that the Republican Party has blocked. Surely we can all agree that filling the federal bench at home, filling important positions in the Judicial and Executive Branch is far more important than filling one religious position (in an office that truly has no business even existing within the federal government) abroad?

For example, in March, an eminently qualified surgeon general nominee, Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, had to withdraw because the NRA didn’t like that he supports gun control measures.

Why isn’t the GOP upset that the United States hasn’t had a Surgeon General since July of 2013, longer than the ceremonial Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom?

Also in March, the Republicans in the Senate killed the nomination of Debo Adegbile to become the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice.

Why?

Because in 2009 Debo Adegbile filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court that argued a man sentence to death had been wrongly convicted due to racial discrimination in jury selection.

That man had been convicted of murdering a police officer, and the right immediately branded Adebbile a cop-killer supporter.

The Republican Party has made it clear it has zero intention of actually governing, zero intention of performing the duties it is paid to by the American people, and zero desire to do anything but lie and harm President Obama’s agenda.

This, my fellow Americans, is the official party of God.

Do with that information what you will.

 GOP

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

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April 22, 2024

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Republican U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake is promoting a conspiracy theory suggesting Hillary Clinton wants to assassinate her. Her remarks came just one day before she lost her attempt to have the Supreme Court review what some have called her conspiracy-theory fueled lawsuit about electronic voting machines.

“Lake, who filed the lawsuit during her failed campaign for governor in 2022, challenged whether the state’s electronic voting machines assured ‘a fair and accurate vote.’ Two lower courts dismissed the suit, finding that Lake and former Republican state lawmaker Mark Finchem had not been harmed in a way that allowed them to sue,” CNN reported Monday.

Also on Monday Law&Crime reported that when she filed her lawsuit, a Dominion Voting Systems spokesperson “rejected Lake’s cybersecurity claim, telling Law&Crime it was ‘implausible and conspiratorial.'”

Democracy Docket, founded by top Democratic elections attorney Marc Elias, called it “the end of the road for a conspiratorial lawsuit,” and Lake and Fincham, “election deniers.”

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

Lake, a far-right conspiracy theorist who has yet to concede the 2022 election, which she lost to Democrat Katie Hobbs, has a history of pushing exaggerated and baseless claims.

On Sunday, as MeidasTouch Network reported, Lake promoted an old, anti-Clinton conspiracy theory but twisted it to try to make it appear she was in danger from former U.S. Secretary of State and former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

Lake on Newsmax listened to a clip of Secretary Clinton calling Trump’s fondness for Russian President Vladimir Putin a “bromance,” and saying the ex-president is “just gaga over Putin, because Putin does what he would like to do: kill his opposition, imprison his opposition, drive, you know, journalists and others into exile, rule without any check or balance.”

Then Lake promoted a thoroughly debunked conspiracy theory by responding, “Oh, boy. Oh, that’s really rich coming from a woman like Hillary Clinton, who’s, how many of her friends have just like, mysteriously died or committed suicide?”

“I mean, honestly, that’s rich of her. What President Trump wants is to root out the corruption and deliver our government back to We The People and she looks very nervous. She talked about her friend Mark Elias, Mark Elias has meddled in in his and his cohorts have meddled in the elections.”

She called Democratic policies, “destructive, deadly and frankly, in some ways, diabolical,”and added, “it’s almost comical that Hillary Clinton is talking about Trump wanting to kill his opponents.”

READ MORE: ‘Election Interference’ and ‘Corruption’: Experts Explain Trump Prosecution Opening Argument

“I just want to say as I’m as I’m speaking about this topic, I want everyone out there to know that my brakes on my car have recently been checked and they work. I’m not suicidal. And Hillary, I don’t mean any harm to you. Please don’t send your henchmen out to me. We understand what you’re about. ”

Watch below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Rally Behind MAGA’: Trump Advocates Courthouse ‘Protests’ Nationwide

 

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

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19 hours ago

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April 22, 2024

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MSNBC top host Rachel Maddow, inside Manhattan’s Criminal Courthouse on Monday declared Donald Trump appeared “old and tired and mad,” as she delivered observations about the ex-president on trial for 34 counts of falsification of business records alleged in the alleged pursuit of election interference to protect his 2016 presidential run.

Trump “seems considerably older, and he seems annoyed. Resigned, maybe, angry. he seems like a man who’s miserable to be here,” the award-winning journalist told MSNBC viewers Monday afternoon.

“I’m no body language expert,” she conceded, “and this is just my observation. He seemed old and tired and mad.”

The New York Times’ Susanne Craig, from inside the courthouse Monday morning reported: “Trump is struggling to stay awake. His eyes were closed for a short period. He was jolted awake when Todd Blanche, his lawyer, nudged him while sliding a note in front of him.”

The Biden campaign was only too happy to pick up and report Craig’s observation, adding “feeble.”

Former Obama senior advisor David Axelrod, pointing to his piece at The Atlantic, wrote of Trump: “He has charmed & conned, schemed & marauded his way through life. He was bred that way. But the weariness & vulnerability captured in courtroom images betray a growing sense in Trump that he could wind up as the thing his old man most reviled:
A loser.”

Watch Maddow’s remarks below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Election Interference’ and ‘Corruption’: Experts Explain Trump Prosecution Opening Argument

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News

‘Election Interference’ and ‘Corruption’: Experts Explain Trump Prosecution Opening Argument

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21 hours ago

on

April 22, 2024

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Prosecutors for the State of New York in their opening statement drew a direct line between the October 2016  “Access Hollywood” leaked audio and Donald Trump’s alleged “hush money” payoff to two women, including the adult film actress Stormy Daniels, telling the jury it was “election fraud, pure and simple.”

Legal experts are dissecting the prosecution’s opening argument. Professor of law, MSNBC contributor and former FBI General Counsel Andrew Weissmann summed it up, saying New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg “squarely places the NY criminal trial in the election interference/corruption bucket– exactly what the DC and GA indictments allege, just 4 years later.”

“And the NY alleged ‘cover up’ is reminiscent of the two MAL [Mar-a-Lago] alleged obstruction schemes post-presidency, to keep prosecutors from uncovering evidence of that scheme,” Weissmann added.

Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo late Monday morning in his 45-minute opening argument told jurors, “This case is about criminal conspiracy and a cover up,” according to MSNBC’s Joyce Vance.

READ MORE: ‘Rally Behind MAGA’: Trump Advocates Courthouse ‘Protests’ Nationwide

“The defendant, Donald Trump, orchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election,” Colangelo told jurors, CNN reports. “Then he covered up that criminal conspiracy by lying in his New York business records over and over and over again.”

“This was a planned, coordinated long-running conspiracy to influence the 2016 election, to help Donald Trump get elected through illegal expenditures,” Colangelo, a former U.S. Department of Justice Acting Associate Attorney General, told jurors.

“Another story about sexual infidelity, especially with a porn star, on the heels of the Access Hollywood tape would have been devastating to his campaign,” Colangelo added. “’So at Trump’s direction, Cohen negotiated the deal to buy Daniels’ story,’ and prevent it from becoming public before the election.”

“It was election fraud, pure and simple.”

Vance, an MSNBC legal analyst, professor of law and former U.S. Attorney, explains: “The scheme the prosecution is outlining is catch & kill to elect Trump-awful but lawful. Trump crossed the line into illegality when he created false business records to conceal his payments to Cohen to cover up the payments to Stormy Daniels.”

READ MORE: Fox News Host Suggests Trump ‘Force’ Court to Throw Him in Jail – by Quoting Him

“It’s always the cover up,” she adds.

Professor of law and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Harry Litman adds, the prosecution told jurors “a straight election-interference story.”

Colangelo, Litman says, told jurors that Trump’s then personal attorney Micheal Cohen “then discussed the [Stormy] situation with Trump who was adamant he did not want the story to come out. Another story…on the heels of the Access Hollywood tape would have been devastating to his campaign.”

MSNBC legal contributor Katie Phang describes Colangelo’s opening argument, saying he is “working methodically and chronologically through the conspiracy, identifying the main characters and their involvement. He speaks clearly and succintly [sic].”

Trump has been criminally indicted in four separate cases and is facing a total of 88 felony charges, including 34 in his 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 could be deemed election interference.

Watch an MSNBC clip below or at this link.

 

READ MORE: Gaetz: ‘Corrupt’ Republicans Could ‘Take a Bribe’ and Throw House to Dems, Blocking Trump Run

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