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WATCH: Clinton Slams Trump on LGBT Rights in US and Persecution of Gay Men in Chechnya

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  • ‘Let’s Remember 2018’

  • Warns Progress That ‘We Celebrated and Maybe Even Took for Granted May Not Be as Secure as We Once Expected’

Hillary Clinton is clearly not done with politics. The former Secretary of State and Democratic presidential nominee is back, speaking out, and working to help the Democratic party.

At a fundraiser for New York City’s well-known LGBT community center, The Center, Clinton blasted her former opponent, now-President Donald Trump, on a variety of issues, but especially LGBT rights.

“We have to face the fact that we may not ever be able to count on this administration to lead on LGBT issues,” Clinton told attendees at Thursday’s event, which NBC News reports raised $1.75 million for the LGBT group.

“Each time this administration elevates an outspoken opponent of LGBT equality — sometimes in particularly cruel ways like replacing the first openly gay Secretary of the Army with someone who called being transgender a ‘disease’ — I picture all of the joyful, beaming couples that I’ve met across our country … who are so excited to get married, start a family, and begin their lives together,” Clinton, referring to Trump nominee Mark Green, who has yet to be confirmed.

And she demanded the Trump administration do more to stop what are reportedly concentration camps in Russia’s Chechnya, where gay men are being detained, tortured, and murdered.

“It’s not just here in our country that we’re seeing clouds gathering on the horizon,” Clinton told donors at Cipriani on Wall Street, a popular event space and restaurant. “We’ve heard terrifying accounts from Chechnya of gay and bisexual men being taken from their homes and families, tortured, even killed. The US government — yes, this government — must demand an end to the persecution of gay men in Russia.” 

Clinton, who was awarded the group’s Trailblazer Award, also slammed Trump for his administration’s revoking of President Barack Obama’s transgender guidance, that protects trans school children and adults.

“My heart broke for all the parents who are advocating so fiercely for their child’s right to live, learn and go to school just like anybody else,” she said.

Clinton also spoke on the eradication of HIV/AIDS, a program she championed.

“I thought of all our efforts to try to achieve an AIDS-free generation, and we were on the way,” she said, noting the Trump administration’s desire to cut funding. “We can, if we stay on that path, finally realize that dream — but not if we are forced off.” 

“I know that the election hit a lot of us hard,” Clinton said, somewhat jokingly. “But I can tell you this, even when it feels tempting to pull the covers over your head, please keep going.”

She warned that on LGBT rights, “the progress that we fought for … that we celebrated and maybe even took for granted may not be as secure as we once expected.”

“Let’s remember 2018, the midterm elections,” she added, as Politico notes, saying winning elections is “the only way to to make it clear where our country stands” on LGBT civil rights.

“We need to resist, insist, persist and enlist and make sure our voices and our votes count,” she said. “So we’re going to keep fighting together side by side for equal rights. And we’re going to make sure that nobody turns the clock back on what we’ve achieved as Americans.”

Clinton concluded by noting, “As I said in 2011, gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights.” 

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News

‘Long History of Playing Games’: Biden Campaign Shuts Down Trump’s Tantrum

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May 15, 2024

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The Biden campaign on Wednesday proposed a series of two debates with very specific rules, including shutting off the microphone of the candidate not answering a question, and Donald Trump quickly accepted the invitations, including the stipulations, before turning around and proposing an additional series of debates.

In a stinging response the Biden campaign rejected Trump’s proposal.

“Donald Trump has a long history of playing games with debates: complaining about the rules, breaking those rules, pulling out at the last minute, or not showing up at all – which he’s done repeatedly in all three cycles he’s run for president,” said Biden-Harris 2024 Chair Jen O’Malley Dillon in a statement received by NCRM. “He said he would debate President Biden anytime, anywhere, anyplace. In fact, he’s said and posted it dozens of times with varying degrees of comprehension and basic grammar. President Biden made his terms clear for two one-on-one debates, and Donald Trump accepted those terms. No more games. No more chaos, no more debate about debates. We’ll see Donald Trump on June 27th in Atlanta – if he shows up.”

Politico warned Wednesday afternoon the “agreement does not ensure that either of the debates will happen. In fact, shortly after the campaigns agreed to two debates, the Trump campaign proposed two more.”

READ MORE: Johnson Promotes Making ‘Crime a Crime Again’ After Standing Up for Trump at Courthouse

Early Wednesday morning President Joe Biden posted a video to social media, saying, “Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020. Since then, he hasn’t shown up for a debate. Now he’s acting like he wants to debate me again. Well, make my day, pal. I’ll even do it twice.”

Biden also ridiculed Trump’s schedule, which currently has him in court four days a week.

“I hear you’re free on Wednesdays,” Biden mocked.

Barely hours later, Biden, keeping the same tone, posted to social media: “I’ve also received and accepted an invitation to a debate hosted by ABC on Tuesday, September 10th. Trump says he’ll arrange his own transportation. I’ll bring my plane, too. I plan on keeping it for another four years.”

Trump on his social media website wrote, “It is my great honor to accept the CNN Debate against Crooked Joe Biden, the WORST PRESIDENT in the History of the United States and a true Threat to Democracy, on June 27th. Likewise, I accept the ABC News Debate against Crooked Joe on September 10th. Thank you, DJT!”

Also on his Truth Social page Wednesday, Trump had written, “I would strongly recommend more than two debates and, for excitement purposes, a very large venue, although Biden is supposedly afraid of crowds – That’s only because he doesn’t get them. Just tell me when, I’ll be there. ‘Let’s get ready to Rumble!!!'”

CNN’s Kristin Holmes reported Wednesday afternoon the Trump campaign is “a little bit irked right now, the fact that Joe Biden somehow took over the debate narrative despite the fact that Donald Trump has been using this as a narrative at all his campaign rallies.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: Why Are One in Five GOP Voters Still Voting for Nikki Haley Over Donald Trump?

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Johnson Promotes Making ‘Crime a Crime Again’ After Standing Up for Trump at Courthouse

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4 hours ago

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May 15, 2024

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Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, promoting a California sheriff who was once a member of a far-right extremist antigovernment group that has been called “instrumental” in the January 6 insurrection, on Wednesday demanded making “crimes criminal again” just one day after traveling to the Criminal Courts Building in lower Manhattan to stand up for Donald Trump. The indicted ex-president faces 34 felony charges in his election subversion, business records falsification, and “hush money” trial.

“We’ve got to make crimes criminal again,” Speaker Johnson told reporters at a “Back the Blue” Police Week news conference Wednesday, paraphrasing Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco. “I mean, it’s just common sense. And I think everybody in the country who looks at this objectively understands that anybody who’s not involved in the radical woke progressive left understands clearly that you gotta maintain the peace.”

Sheriff Bianco had been invited to speak at the House GOP event. In 2021, NPR reported he “defended” his membership in the Oath Keepers extremist group, which he insisted stands “for protecting the Constitution.”

READ MORE: Johnson Would Contest 2024 Election Results Under the Same ‘Circumstances’

“If you love America, if you’re proud to be an American and you support the Constitution, you are labeled as an extremist,” Bianco said.

Speaking at the House GOP Back the Blue event Wednesday, Bianco launched an attack on the left.

“Over the past decade or so, the rule of law has been severely eroded by a sick and twisted progressive social experiment, fraudulently called criminal justice reform. In this alternate universe, law enforcement officers are the bad guys,  criminals are somehow victims of society. We cannot have a country without respect for law enforcement and adherence to the law and order of our country. There must be consequences for criminal behavior. It is time to make crime a crime again.”

The Speaker on Wednesday also slammed Attorney General Merrick Garland, declaring, “the Department of Justice has clearly been politicized. Some of us consider this actually to be a weaponized DOJ and Merrick Garland is in charge. He is the Attorney General at the top, and I think that they have, they have used our system of justice against political opponents, of course, the most prominent of which is Donald J. Trump. I was with him yesterday in Manhattan, and many in the press have asked, ‘Why did you go there?’ Because I’m a former litigator, I’m a I’m an attorney. This is an egregious violation. a travesty of justice. They are using the judicial system for political purposes and this is something that framers warned us against.”

The Associated Press on Tuesday reported Speaker Johnson had become “the highest-ranking Republican to show up at court, embrace the former president’s claims of political persecution and attack the U.S. system of justice.”

READ MORE: ‘Grave Danger’: Trump’s ‘Raw Display’ of Power at Court Alarms Conservative

“It was a remarkable moment in modern American politics: The House speaker amplifying Trump’s defense and turning the Republican Party against the federal and state legal systems that are foundational to the U.S. government and a cornerstone of democracy,” the AP continued. “Johnson, who is second in line for the presidency, called the court system ‘corrupt.'”

“The speaker is leading a growing list of Republican lawmakers who are criticizing the American judicial system as they rally to Trump’s side, appearing at the courthouse to defend the party’s presumptive presidential nominee. Trump is accused of having arranged secret payments to a porn actress to hide negative stories during his successful 2016 campaign for president.”

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Why Are One in Five GOP Voters Still Voting for Nikki Haley Over Donald Trump?

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7 hours ago

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May 15, 2024

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Sixty-nine days after she suspended her presidential campaign, former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley is still drawing a consistent one in five Republican primary voters away from the indicted ex-president Donald Trump.

Tuesday’s primaries in Maryland, Nebraska, and West Virginia continued that trend, even though she has been nearly totally silent and even though Trump has already gained enough delegates to be the presumptive Republican nominee.

In Maryland Tuesday night, 47,597 GOP voters chose Haley over Trump, for a solid 20% of the vote. In Nebraska, Haley walked away with ⁦36,872 votes, 17.9% of the total. And in West Virginia, she took 21,123 votes, although that was just 9.4%. (All vote totals and percentages are from the Associated Press via Google and are current as of time of publication.)

All three primaries were “closed,” meaning open only to register Republican voters (Maryland and Nebraska) or registered Republicans and independents (West Virginia).

One week ago in Indiana the results were strikingly similar. 128,170 Indiana GOP primary voters – 21.7% – cast their ballot for the former South Carolina governor instead of the presumptive Republican nominee.

READ MORE: ‘Mouths of Sauron’: Critics Blast ‘Mobster Tactic’ of Trump Surrogates ‘Violating’ Gag Order

“Unexpected warning signs for Trump in busy Indiana primary,” Politico reported last week, noting, “Nikki Haley’s performance in the already concluded presidential race could be a sign of trouble for Trump in more competitive states.”

Overnight, Politico reported, “Nikki Haley’s zombie presidential candidacy is still drawing a sizable slice of the Republican vote in the suburbs,” in what it deems “Warning signs for Trump.”

“Donald Trump showed weakness in the suburbs in Tuesday’s primaries, while Joe Biden’s problem with the protest vote appeared to fade,” the news outlet noted. “It’s been a paradox for Democrats fretting about Biden’s standing in the polls: Republicans are more likely to say they’ll vote for Trump in general-election polling than Democrats are for Biden, but there are more protest votes in the primaries against Trump.”

On Monday, before Tuesday primaries, Obama 2012 campaign manager Jim Messina summed it up: “Trump is failing to expand beyond hardcore MAGA base.”

Pointing to Haley’s 20%, Lisa Quigley, who spent more than a quarter century as chief of staff to two Democratic U.S. Congressmen, observed: “These are highly engaged voters, who showed up in a primary, to vote for someone who was going to lose. They did it anyway. This is happening everywhere. They are key to victory in Nov.”

Fox News contributor Marc Thiessen, as far back as March, also pointed to Haley voters as the key to Biden winning re-election.

READ MORE: Johnson Would Contest 2024 Election Results Under the Same ‘Circumstances’

“Nikki Haley won 2.9 million votes in the primary so far. Our Fox News voter analysis shows that somewhere between five in ten and six in ten of those Nikki Haley voters said they won’t vote for Trump in November,” Thiessen said, Newsweek reported. “If even a fraction of those voters deliver on that promise and stay home or vote third party or just split their votes or something, Trump loses.”

Meanwhile, Haley has barely broken her near-total silence, and has not endorsed Donald Trump.

“During a private, two-day donor retreat in Charleston, South Carolina, the former South Carolina governor and U.N. ambassador thanked a group of around 100 donors and her team gave a presentation on her campaign’s fundraising and strategy,” Politico also reported Wednesday. More importantly, Haley has not endorsed Trump nor offered the presumptive nominee any support – including her donor network.

 

 

 

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