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After Orlando John Oliver Reveals Secret of Beating the NRA: ‘You Have to Show Up Every F*cking Day’

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HBO Pundit Challenges America to Force Congress to Allow Research on Preventing Gun Violence – Because That’s Currently Illegal, Thanks to the NRA

John Oliver Sunday night looked at gun violence in America in the wake of the Orlando anti-LGBT hate crime mass shooting terror attack, and focused his sights on the NRA. 

After examining a few responses to the Orlando tragedy, including Donald Trump’s attempt to frame the terrorist as foreign, even though, as Oliver notes, he was born in Queens, just eight miles from where Trump was born, Oliver went after Congress for failing to respond to our nation’ gun violence crisis.

“Here we are again after another mass shooting with weak legislation due to failure. And there is clearly a disconnect between public opinion, which favors—to varying degrees—a number of different gun control measures, and any practical action in Washington. And it is pretty clear what is standing between those two things, and it is the National Rifle Association,” Oliver accused.

The “Last Week Tonight” host observed that efforts to block gun control often begin with Republicans saying there’s no proof gun control works, and that’s very convenient, because in 1997 they passed the Dickey Amendment, which specifically bans the CDC from studying gun violence or advocating for gun control. Efforts to repeal the Dickey Amendment, which are even supported by Jay Dickey, the now-former U.S. Congressman who sponsored the legislation, consistently fail, thanks to the pull the NRA has on many members of Congress.

Making it illegal to study gun violence and ways to reduce or eliminate it gives Congress the out it wants to refuse to pass gun control measures.

“So how the fuck has the NRA managed to accomplish all of this? Because the truth is, they’re not that large an organization. They claim they have a membership of around 5 million, but that is three million fewer members than Planet Fitness—and the members of Planet Fitness have almost no power. Most of them don’t even have the power to go to Planet Fitness,” Oliver quipped. “The real power of the NRA are in its members who are highly motivated and can be mobilized quickly.”

The HBO pundit noted the NRA is also successful because it mobilizes its members to show up and tell Congress “no.” They aren’t for anything, they are against everything. They have one message and one goal, and that makes it easy for their members to show up in Congress and to call their Congressmen and Senators to demand they vote “no” on all gun control efforts.

“The truth about politics is it’s about showing up. Remember the Manchin-Toomey Amendment?,” he asked, speaking of the 2013 bill offered in the wake of the Sandy Hook slaughter of 20 first grade students and six administrators. “Well, a national poll at that time found that 88 percent of people supported universal background checks, and yet Manchin’s office maintains that of the calls they received, they ran 200 to 1 in opposition to the bill, and that’s why it’s actually important to call your congressman,” said Oliver.

Oliver wants America to repeal the Dickey Amendment so we can once again study gun violence and ways to reduce it. He calls the NRA’s success at blocking information on guns its “most ingenious and insidious” tactic. And he says you will have to get involved, and not give up.

“You’re going to have to call and remind them, again, and then call them on their birthday and say, ‘Happy birthday! And also get rid of the Dickey amendment.’ Call them on Arbor Day and say, ‘Happy Arbor Day, whatever that is. By the way, what’s going on with that Dickey amendment?’ Call them on days when there wasn’t a mass shooting — and I know those days are getting fewer and farther between — but say, ‘Hey, it’s me again, what the f*ck’s up with the Dickey amendment?'”

Repealing the Dickey Amendment “is not asking much,” Oliver pleads. “It’s not gun control! It’s enabling us to have an informed conversation about what that could look like. And if or when a proposal you like is on the table, you’re going to have to make all those calls again, because remember, it doesn’t take much to outnumber the NRA. Planet Fitness members outnumber them. But it’s time for us to learn what those members haven’t. If you’re going to see serious changes, you actually have to show up every fucking day.”

Watch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyZKcQEs73c

 

 

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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 2020 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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14 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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‘Election Interference’ and ‘Corruption’: Experts Explain Trump Prosecution Opening Argument

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17 hours ago

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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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