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Roy Moore Can’t Be Impeached And He Can’t Be Re-Elected, So Guess Why He’s Attacking Gays Again?

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Roy Moore is honoring an old American tradition: demagoguing gays to further his career.

Roy Moore, the Alabama State Supreme Court Chief Justice who this week was back in the headlines for ordering to all probate judges to stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Moore’s order, or at obeying it, is illegal, and he likely knows it, but he’s a master of juridicial subterfuge, and has proven he’s willing to risk it all to win. 

RELATED: Alabama Chief Justice Issues Order Blocking Same-Sex Marriage Licenses

Moore was first elected Alabama State Supreme Court Chief Justice in 2001, and removed in 2003 for refusing to remove from the State Supreme Court building a 5,280 pound granite monument of the ten Commandments he had commissioned. After losing in federal court twice, yet still refusing to comply, Moore was removed from office by the only means possible: the Alabama Court of the Judiciary ruled “Chief Justice Moore has violated the Alabama Canons of Judicial Ethics.”

Despite this – or more likely, because of it – Moore was again elected Alabama State Supreme Court Chief Justice in 2012. And despite his recent assault on the rights of Alabama’s LGBT community, the State Supreme Court Chief Justice can’t be impeached.

But as it turns out, when his six-year term expires in 2018, Moore will be 71 years old, and over the legal age limit to run again.

What’s left for Moore to do?

In 2012 he attempted a run for president, which was rather unsuccessful.

A few days ago, when Moore issued his order to probate judges, I dashed off a rare emotional tweet:

I didn’t realize just how right I was.

“Roy Moore is running for governor.”

So says Michele Gerlach, the publisher of a local Alabama newspaper, The Andalusia Star-News.

“Roy Moore wasn’t really hoping to change the practices of Alabama probate judges who are issuing same-sex licenses when he raised the topic again this week,” Gerlach writes, noting there is an age limit for being Chief Justice, but not for Governor.

Alabama’s current governor, Robert Bentley, is on the second term, and thanks to term limits, he cannot run again when his term ends after the November 2018 elections.

“The campaign tactic Moore used this week is an old and familiar one,” Gerlach notes.

“Demagoguery is as much a part of the American political tradition as kissing babies. It is the engine that drives voters to kick the can down the road and into the voting booth,” wrote Gov. George Wallace’s daughter, Peggy Wallace Kennedy, this week in an op-ed piece headlined “Roy Moore is more dangerous than my father.”

Gerlach observes, rightly, that the “more folks on the left decry his order, issued this week, the more folks on the right will vow to support him in the future. And that’s the support he needs to run for governor.”

And as is too often the case, gay people and our rights will be, effectively, on the ballot in Alabama in 2018 once again.

 

EARLIER:

Watch: Fox News’ Megyn Kelly Slaps Down NOM’s Brian Brown

Alabama Judge Calls For Roy Moore’s Resignation

Some Alabama Judges Obey Chief Justice’s Order Banning Same-Sex Marriage, Some Hysterically Defy It

 

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Menendez Quickly Losing Support as Flood of Democratic Senators Call on Him to Resign ‘For the Good of Our Country’

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Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include Senator Booker, the latest Democrat to call on Sen. Melendez to resign, and to update the tally.

U.S. Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) is losing support as more of his Senate Democratic colleagues formally call on him to resign after he was indicted again, this time on federal bribery charges that included allegations of receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and gold bars.

As of Tuesday morning, at least ten Democratic U.S. Senators have now called on the twice-indicted senior Democratic Senator from New Jersey to resign, as they cite the gravity of the charges against him.

U.S. Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) was the first to call on Menendez to resign, on Monday. U.S. Senators Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Peter Welch (D-VT) followed later that day.

On Tuesday morning, U.S. Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), John Tester (D-MT), and Bob Casey (D-PA) all called on Sen. Menendez to resign. by 11 AM, U.S. Senators Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) also called for him to resign.

Minutes later, U.S. Senator Cory Booker, Senator Menendez’s Democratic New Jersey colleague, also called for him to resign. The New York Times reported Sen. Booker’s decision “to condemn Senator Robert Menendez underscores the deepening crisis Mr. Menendez faces after his indictment.”

According to the Dept. of Justice, Sen. Menendez, along with his wife Nadine Menendez, not only are alleged to have received bribes, he is charged with doing so in a scheme “to use his official position to protect and enrich” those he allegedly accepted funds from, and “to benefit the Government of Egypt.”

READ MORE: Trump Appears to Think Jeb Bush Was President: ‘He Got Us Into the Middle East’

“Among other things,” the DOJ alleged, Senator Menendez “agreed and sought to pressure a senior official at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in an effort to protect a business monopoly granted to” a New Jersey businessman “by Egypt, disrupt a criminal case undertaken by the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office related to associates of” another New Jersey businessman, “and disrupt a federal criminal prosecution brought by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey against” a third New Jersey businessman.

Former Dept. of Defense Special Counsel Ryan Goodman on Sunday called Sen. Menendez “a walking national security threat.”

“Imagine US official charged with selling US secrets, embassy security, US defense policy – and showing up for work the next day,” he added.

“From a purely legal perspective, Menendez appears to be a dead man walking,” Goodman continued. “The kind of forensic and documentary evidence in the Indictment is exceptionally strong for these types of cases. It looks inevitable that he will be going to prison.”

READ MORE: ‘Isn’t Glock a Good Gun?’ Trump Asks Before Saying He Is Buying One – Campaign Forced to Deny He Did

 

 

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Trump Appears to Think Jeb Bush Was President: ‘He Got Us Into the Middle East’

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During a rally in South Carolina on Monday, Donald Trump appeared to confuse former Florida GOP Governor Jeb Bush with his brother, former President George W. Bush, while bragging to supporters how he beat him.

Jeb Bush, who was largely considered to be the default Republican Party nominee for the 2016 presidential election when he launched his campaign, dropped out in February of 2016 after the South Carolina primary.

“When I come here, everyone thought Bush was going to win,” Trump said, before claiming he was “up by about 50 points” over Bush. “They thought Bush because Bush was supposedly a military person.”

“You know what he was…He got us into the Middle East,” Trump claimed, wrongly. “How did that work out?”

READ MORE: ‘Isn’t Glock a Good Gun?’ Trump Asks Before Saying He Is Buying One – Campaign Forced to Deny He Did

“But they also thought that Bush might win. Jeb. Remember Jeb? He used the word ‘Jeb,’ he didn’t use the word ‘Bush,’ I said, ‘You mean he’s ashamed of the last name?’ and then they immediately started using the name Bush,” Trump claimed.

The ex-president went on to continue denigrating Jeb Bush, accusing him of bringing his mother to campaign with him.

“Remember,” Trump said, “he brought his mother, his wonderful mother who’s 94 years old and it was pouring and they’re wheeling her around and it’s raining and horrible. I said, ‘Who would do that your mother, 94 years old. How desperate are you to win?”

Media Matters’ Craig Harrington, commenting on Trump’s latest gaffe, observed: “In the past two weeks, Donald Trump has:

– Warned that Joe Biden might start ‘World War 2’
– Confused his 2016 election opponent (Hillary Clinton) with former President Barack Obama
– Confused his 2016 primary opponent (Jeb Bush) with former President George W. Bush.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Careening’ Toward ‘Risk of Political Violence’: Experts Sound Alarm After Trump Floats Executing His Former General

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Fulton County Judge in Trump Case Orders Jurors’ Identities and Images Must Be Protected

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The Fulton County Superior Court judge presiding over Georgia’s RICO, conspiracy, and election interference case against Donald Trump on Monday afternoon ordered the identities and images of all jurors and prospective jurors to remain secret, ordering they may only be referred to by a number.

“No person shall videotape, photograph, draw in a realistic or otherwise identifiable manner, or otherwise record images, statements, or conversations of jurors/prospective jurors in any manner” that would violate a Superior Court rule, Judge Scott McAfee ordered, “except that the jury foreperson’s announcement of the verdict or questions to the judge may be audio recorded.”

“Jurors or prospective jurors shall be identified by number only in court filings or in open court,” he added.

READ MORE: ‘Careening’ Toward ‘Risk of Political Violence’: Experts Sound Alarm After Trump Floats Executing His Former General

Judge McAfee also ordered no juror’s or prospective juror’s identity, “including names, addresses, telephone numbers, or identifying employment information” may be revealed.

MSNBC’s Katie Phang posted the order, and added: “Another important part of the Order: no responses from juror questionnaires or notes about jury selection shall be disclosed, unless permitted by the Court.”

Judge McAfee’s order comes after Donald Trump’s weekend of attacks on his former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley. Trump strongly suggested he should be executed for treason. Trump also strongly suggested he would target Comcast, NBC News, and MSNBC if he wins the 2024 presidential election.

Responding to the news, MSNBC’s Medhi Hasan observed, “We have just normalized the fact that the former president, and GOP presidential frontrunner, is basically a mob boss.”

 

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