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White House Officially Denies Reality: Insists Health Care Vote Still on, More Republicans Moving to ‘Yes’

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‘I Think the President Has Given It His All’

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer just concluded his daily press briefing, insisting the House will vote on TrumpCare at 3:30 PM Friday, while refusing to accept that the bill, if put to a vote, likely will fail. 

Spicer also played defense, passing blame for the bill’s possible failure on to House Republicans, insisting the White House and President Trump have done everything they possibly could, and at the end of the day they “can’t force people to vote.”

In reality, there are at least 34 “no” votes on TrumpCare, the bill to repeal and replace ObamaCare. Only 22 “no” votes from Republicans are possible for the bill to pass.

Spicer tries to put on a positive spin, but all reporting shows otherwise. He reiterated that there are no second chances on the bill, either they pass it or he will not sign another attempt to repeal.

Make no mistake, this is a massive failure for the nascent Trump administration:

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Lara Trump Says Biden Responsible for Juror Security Issues Amid Reports of Violent Threats

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The 12 jurors who sat for five weeks and reached a unanimous guilty verdict in District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s 34-criminal count prosecution of Donald Trump are now being targeted, apparently by some of the ex-president’s anonymous supporters, with calls to “dox” and even kill them. And they’re using some of the same platforms used by January 6 organizers and insurrectionists.

“On social media and web forums, users called for jurors, judges and prosecutors to be killed after the former president was found guilty on 34 felony counts,” NBC News reports, adding the guilty verdicts have also “spurred a wave of violent rhetoric aimed at the prosecutors,” and the judge.

On Newsmax Friday afternoon, discussing jurors’ security, RNC co-chair, and Trump daughter-in-law Lara Trump blamed President Joe Biden and District Attorney Alvin Bragg for any issues.

“These jurors,” the Newsmax host said, “are gonna be like, they’re gonna find out who these people are. Is Alvin Bragg going to commit to making sure that they maintain their jobs, that they have security, God forbid? Is this what we need to worry about now?”

“It’s a real thing you have to think about,” Lara Trump replied, “thanks to Alvin Bragg, and I’m sure we can say thanks to Joe Biden.”

“Now what happens to them? Now what happens to our country?” she asked.

The non-profit Advance Democracy “said there has been a high volume of social media posts containing violent rhetoric targeting New York Judge Juan Merchan and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, including a post with Bragg’s purported home address. The group also found posts of the purported addresses of jurors on a fringe internet message board known for pro-Trump content and harassing and violent posts, although it is unclear if any actual jurors had been correctly identified.”

READ MORE: ‘Texting About Trump?’: Experts Think Speaker Johnson May Be Talking to SCOTUS Justices

NBC reports there have been calls to “dox,” or post the names, addresses, and other contact information, of the jurors. Judge Juan Merchan had taken strong steps to protect their identities, and it is not known if any have been leaked.

“Dox the Jurors. Dox them now,” one user wrote.

“We need to identify each juror. Then make them miserable. Maybe even suicidal,” wrote another.

“1,000,000 men (armed) need to go to Washington and hang everyone. That’s the only solution,” wrote yet another.

“I hope every juror is doxxed and they pay for what they have done,” still another user wrote, this one on Trump’s Truth Social platform. “May God strike them dead. We will on November 5th and they will pay!”

On Telegram, a post from a Proud Boys chapter read: “War.”

“The posts, which have been reviewed by NBC News, appear on many of the same websites used by Trump supporters to organize for violence ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.”

“One Jan. 6 defendant,” NBC also reported, “who already served time in prison for his role in the Capitol attack also weighed in on X, posting a photo of Bragg and a photo of a noose. ‘January 20, 2025 traitors Get The Rope,’ he wrote, referring to the date of the next presidential inauguration.”

Last month, during jury selection one juror who had been chosen asked to be excused from serving, USA Today reported, noting she had “expressed concern about her identity becoming public.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs’: Trump’s ‘Not Coherent’ Post-Conviction Rant Panned

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‘Texting About Trump?’: Experts Think Speaker Johnson May Be Talking to SCOTUS Justices

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Amid Republican lawmakers’ tsunami of protests and attacks on the American justice system in their rush to defend Donald Trump over his criminal conviction, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has raised some eyebrows.

In remarks defending the ex-president, his party’s 2024 presumptive nominee, the Speaker appeared to suggest he has been talking with conservative justices on the Supreme Court about the Trump criminal trial, as NCRM reported. He further implied the court’s right wing jurists wanted to overturn the conviction.

Johnson, often dubbed “MAGA Mike” by his left wing critics and his right-wing supporters for his close ties to Trump, in a Friday interview with Fox News cloaked his remarks. But critics were left with the impression, or at least wondering if, there may be unethical backchannels at some of the highest levels of the federal government.

READ MORE: ‘Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs’: Trump’s ‘Not Coherent’ Post-Conviction Rant Panned

“Well there’s a lot of developments yet to come but I do think, I do believe the Supreme Court should step in,” Speaker Johnson told Fox News (video below.) “Obviously, this is totally unprecedented. And it’s dangerous to our system. I mean, we’ve all discussed this before. And you all talk about it all the time. This is diminishing the American people’s faith in our system of justice itself. And to maintain a republic, you have to have that, people have to believe that justice is fair that there’s equal justice under law. They don’t see that right now. And I think that the justices on the court, I know many of them personally, I think they’re deeply concerned about that as we are so I think they’ll set this straight but it’s going to take a while.”

As some have pointed out, Johnson’s apparent ignorance of the separation of powers and need for judicial independence came less than 24 hours after the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts, invoked that very requirement in his refusal to meet with top Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee over the Alito ethics scandal.

“This suggests that Speaker Johnson has had conversations with Supreme Court justices on this very topic. Quite interesting, especially given Chief Justice Roberts’ refusal to meet with Senate Dems because of ‘separation of powers,'” wrote journalist Jay Bookman.

The Bulwark’s Bill Kristol, also the director of Defending Democracy Together and a former Republican, asked, “What Justices have discussed the Trump case privately with Trump ally Mike Johnson?”

READ MORE: ‘No Moral Compass’: Legal Experts Call for Intervention After Alito Refuses to Recuse

“Fascinating to hear the GOP Speaker of the House admit to having private conversations with multiple justices who expressed concern to him about Trump’s conviction. I’m sure those justices will recuse from any eventual appeal to avoid sitting on a case they’ve pre-judged,” noted Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern, who writes about the law and the courts. He then offered, “we can reserve the possibility that he feels he read their minds but I think the clear suggestion is that they expressed their concern to him in some way!”

Mother Jones editor-in-chief Clara Jeffrey added, “Why are *any* justices talking to Johnson about this case? That’s outrageous if true.”

U.S. Naval War College national security affairs professor David Burbach: “Supreme Court Justices have been telling a politician how they’d likely rule on a case that isn’t even in front of them yet, but expressing hopes they do get it? Assuming Johnson isn’t making it up — big assumption — that’s a gross ethical violation.”

The advocacy group Take Back the Court did not hold back.

“Chief Justice Roberts says he won’t meet with senators about obvious ethics violations because of ‘separation of powers,’ but his justices are talking politics in the House Speaker’s DMs,” the group said on social media.

“Today,” they added in an official statement, “House Speaker Mike Johnson alluded to conversations he had with Supreme Court justices about Donald Trump’s felony convictions, saying there are justices who are ‘deeply concerned about’ the rulings — and that he believes the court will ‘set this straight.’ This comes as the court considers a case related to Trump’s immunity from prosecution from official acts done while in office.”

“Seems like we really should know more about the personal relationship between the flag-waving Christian nationalist Speaker of the House and the flag-waving Christian nationalist justices on the U.S. Supreme Court,” suggested Alex Aronson, former Chief Counsel, U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee who now serves as Executive Director of the non-profit organization Court Accountability.”

He then asked: “Are they texting about Trump?”

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: Supreme Court ‘Puppetmaster’ Slammed Over Report He’s Flying Alito’s ‘Theocratic’ Flag Again

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‘Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs’: Trump’s ‘Not Coherent’ Post-Conviction Rant Panned

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Speaking for over 30 minutes live on national television in his first official speech after a jury convicted him on 34 felony counts, Donald Trump late Friday morning spewed numerous lies attempting to spin the details of his five-week trial, including the false claim he could go to prison for “187 years,” while vowing to appeal.

Echoing his infamous speech announcing his first run for president in 2015, and even using the phrase, “not good people,” Trump began Friday’s remarks by claiming “millions and millions of people are flowing in from all parts of the world, not just South America, from Africa, from Asia from the Middle East. And they’re coming in from jails and prisons. And they’re coming in from mental institutions and insane asylums. They’re coming in from all over the world into our country. And we have a president and a group of fascists that don’t want to do anything about it.”

Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, continued his anti-immigrant theme, claiming “people are allowed to pour in from countries unknown, from places unknown. From languages that we don’t even that we haven’t even heard of. We have people sitting in schools, with languages where very few people have ever even heard of these languages. It’s not like Spanish or French, or Russian. Language is unknown. We have people coming from all corners of the globe. And many of them are not good people,” he said, while claiming “record levels of terrorism. record levels of terrorists have come into our country, record. They’ve never seen anything like it.”

READ MORE: Johnson on Trump Verdict: SCOTUS Justices ‘Deeply Concerned’ and Will ‘Set This Straight’

The ex-president’s remarks quickly devolved further, randomly complaining about crime, and “migrants…taking over luxury hotels” and “destroying our country.” He also ranted about his opponents, his impeachments, the January 6 Committee, the story about what happened with his Secret Service agent driving him from his January 6 speech, Venezuela, and “veterans living on the streets like dogs.”

“They want to raise your taxes by four times,” Trump insisted. “They want to stop you from having cars with their ridiculous mandates that make it impossible for you to get a car.”

On Friday Trump admitted on-camera he didn’t testify because if he lied he would be charged with perjury.

Critics blasted Trump, and called him “not coherent.”

Other critics quickly weighed in.

“Polluted stream of consciousness. Dude needs a nap and a team of neurologists,” observed foreign policy, national security, and political affairs analyst and commentator David Rothkopf, adding, “Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.”

READ MORE: Chief Justice Refuses to Meet With Senate Judiciary Chairman Over Alito Scandal

“Whoever thought this was a good idea for Trump (and it was for sure only Trump) was deeply wrong. A complete trainwreck,” Rothkopf also declared.

“This press conference is not helping Trump,” observed constitutional law professor Anthony Michael Kreis. “He’d be better just keeping quiet but he’s begging for incarceration at this point.”

“With badly fading hair dye, Trump is currently rambling incoherently about ‘confliction’ and being ‘literally crucified’,” said The Bulwark’s Tim Miller.

Other critics slammed the news networks.

“Why are cable networks right now airing the full, live speech of a convicted felon, a hardened criminal?” asked SiriusXM host Michelangelo Signorile.

Media critic Mark Jacob added, “Trump is lying unchallenged on national television right now, with the assistance of the news media.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Biggest Felony in American History’: Prosecutor’s Closing Argument Against Trump Praised

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