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WATCH: Thousands March for Equality in D.C. and Across the Country

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‘We are all a Part of the Community This President has Attacked’

Thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets in D.C. for the Equality March for Unity and Pride.

The march, coinciding with Washington D.C.’s Pride event, describes itself as “a grassroots movement which will mobilize the diverse LGBTQ+ communities to peacefully and clearly address concerns about the current political landscapes and how it is contributing to the persecution and discrimination of LGBTQ+ individuals.”

The Equality March’s website further notes that while “progress has been made over the past decade… there’s still so much more to be done,” advising that the “progress we’ve achieved is currently being threatened by increased hostile rhetoric, discriminatory policies, and violence perpetrated against the most vulnerable in our communities.”

Hundreds of sister marches are planned across the country, all aiming to “support, uplift, and bring attention to those in [the LGBTQ+] communities who are targeted due to immigration status, ethnicity, religion, skin color, gender, and disability.”

Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign, spoke with CNN concerning the march, pointing out that “we are women. We are Muslims. We are asylum seekers.”

“We are all a part of the community this President has attacked day in and day out,” he said.

You can watch demonstrators below:

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Republican Calls for Economic ‘Shut Down’ While Accusing Biden of Marxist Agenda

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U.S. Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN) is calling on Congress to “shut down” the U.S. economy over the southern border, while accusing President Joe Biden of Marxist policies and denouncing his border legislation that Donald Trump ordered killed months ago.

Congresswoman Spartz on Tuesday spoke to Fox News Business host Maria Bartiromo in a rambling interview on the Senate bipartisan border bill that Donald Trump ordered killed. Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is one again trying to pass it.

Rep. Spartz said, “we need to get them back, you know, to really put pressure to control the border. So I just don’t see anything else left there because no one wants to shut down the economy, unfortunately. We should really for such a serious issue, but Republicans are not gonna do it. And, and you know, and we’re not just going to let Democrats have messagings bill with lots of loopholes. There are way more loopholes in that bill than people even realized.”

The economy is a top issue for 2024 presidential election voters.

READ MORE: ‘Not an Accident’: Trump’s ‘Unified Reich’ Video Alarms Historians and Fascism Experts

After calling to shut down the economy, which economists for months have shown is doing extremely well, she then falsely accused President Joe Biden of socialism and enacting “socialist policies by Karl Marx.”

“I think we need to have a serious discussion what really Bidenomics is and how it resembles socialist policies by Karl Marx where it’s not just, you know, Biden administration had failed policy in a lot of fronts with its supply chain, whether we’re dealing with energy, but also they’ve been subsidizing corporations very close to the government in trying to control financial markets, in order in essence control the means of production and financial markets. That’s what socialism really is.”

The Biden administration fixed the supply chain crisis created during the Trump administration, improved the supply chain, and continues to massively invest in it.

“And now they are trying to use you know, the government power to pick losers and winners and you know, this, winners are going to be people who can pay, give campaign contribution to Biden’s reelection campaign, and losers are going to be all of us. And this is a serious discussion we need to have because this level of spending and subsidy cannot continue, it’s destructive and inflation is going to destroy the middle class and people low income.”

Donald Trump recently asked top oil and gas executives to donate $1 billion to his campaign in exchange for lower taxes and a rollback of President Biden’s climate and environmental protections.

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Wack Pack’: Questions Swirl Over ‘Trump Uniforms’ and Who’s Funding ‘Weird’ Trial Surrogates

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‘Not an Accident’: Trump’s ‘Unified Reich’ Video Alarms Historians and Fascism Experts

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Political experts, historians, and scholars of fascism are sounding the alarm after Donald Trump posted video Monday afternoon that promised a “unified Reich,” once again echoing language used by Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany.

“Trump’s continued use of Nazi rhetoric is un-American and despicable. Yet too many Americans are brushing off the glaring red flags about what could happen if he returns to the White House,” former Trump White House deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews warned. “When someone shows you who they are, believe them.”

The video features made-up newspaper headlines claiming a Trump win of the 2024 presidential election. It asks, “What’s Next for America,” and promotes “the creation of a unified Reich.”

“The 30-second video, which Mr. Trump posted on his social media site, Truth Social, features several articles styled like newspapers from the early 1900s — and apparently recycling text from reports on World War I, including references to ‘German industrial strength’ and ‘peace through strength,'” The New York Times reported. “One article in the video asserts that Mr. Trump would deport 15 million migrants in a second term, while text onscreen lists the start and end days of World War I.”

READ MORE: ‘Wack Pack’: Questions Swirl Over ‘Trump Uniforms’ and Who’s Funding ‘Weird’ Trial Surrogates

“Another headline in the video suggests that Mr. Trump in a second term would reject “globalists,” using a term that has been widely adopted on the far right and that scholars say can be used as a signal of antisemitism.”

Political commentator and former Clinton White House aide Keith Boykin posted an ABC News segment on the “unified reich” video, and remarked: “Donald Trump is openly copying Hitler’s Nazi language about a ‘unified reich’ and warning about ‘poisoning the blood’ of America, and people are still acting like this is a normal election.”

In that ABC News video, reporter Rachel Scott says, “It is normal, of course for presidential candidates to share videos with their vision for the country. It is not normal for those videos to have references to Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler. The Trump campaign tells us this morning that this was a video that was shared by a staffer while the former president was in court saying that staffer missed the reference but as of this morning that video has not been taken down.”

The Biden-Harris campaign quickly responded to the video, posting another video of “Trump saying that only he and his top right-hand man, Dan Scavino, have access to post on his social media accounts.”

The “unified Reich” video remained on Trump’s Truth Social platform for well over 12 hours, and reportedly was still up as of at least 8:00 AM, although it has since been taken down.

“Earlier this month,” The Associated Press reported, “Trump said at a fundraiser that Biden is running a ‘Gestapo administration,’ referring to the secret Nazi police force.”

READ MORE: Law ‘Requires’ Alito and Thomas to Recuse Says Former Federal Prosecutor

“Trump previously used rhetoric echoing Adolf Hitler when he said immigrants entering the U.S. illegally are ‘poisoning the blood of our country,’ and called his opponents ‘vermin.’ The former president has also drawn wide backlash for having dined with a Holocaust-denying white nationalist in 2022 and for downplaying the 2017 rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where white nationalists chanted ‘Jews will not replace us!'”

The Biden-Harris campaign also released this statement:

“America, stop scrolling and pay attention. Donald Trump is not playing games; he is telling America exactly what he intends to do if he regains power: rule as a dictator over a ‘unified reich.’ Parroting ‘Mein Kampf’ while you warn of a bloodbath if you lose is the type of unhinged behavior you get from a guy who knows that democracy continues to reject his extreme vision of chaos, division, and violence.”

Overnight, responding to the “unified Reich” video popular historian Heather Cox Richardson warned: “It is not clear to me how anyone can any longer deny that Trump is promising to destroy our democracy and usher in authoritarianism. But it is also not clear that he is still a figure that any but the extremes of his base will follow to that end. Hence his emphasis on turning them to violence.”

Journalist Gil Duran, who covers “tech fascism,” and “billionaire extremism,” says Trump’s “unified Reich” video was not an accident.

Former FBI Assistant Director Frank Figliuzzi, now an NBC News National Security Analyst, also noted that the “reference to Hitler’s regime in Nazi Germany is not an accident.”

Former CIA analyst Gail Helt, responding to the Trump campaign’s claim it was posted by a staffer who didn’t see the “unified Reich” text, wrote: “Of course they knew. Of course they saw it. I hate Nazis.”

“Historian here,” wrote Professor of American history Dr. Manisha Sinha, snarkily responding to the Trump video. “Trump calls for a unified Reich but hey we are all being paranoid by calling him a wannabe fascist supported by neo Nazis and neo Confederates.”

Professor of history and expert on fascism and the Holocaust, the extreme right, and neo-Nazis, Dr. Federico Finchelstein, responding to a report on the “unified Reich” video, called it, “Wannabe fascism in motion…”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: Why Alito’s ‘Stop the Steal’ Flag Story Just Fell Apart

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Trump Witness Turns ‘Strawberry Red’ After Judge’s Scalding Scolding

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New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, after becoming visibly angered by Trump defense witness Robert Costello, cleared the courtroom of the jury and the press before admonishing the “MAGA-friendly lawyer” Monday afternoon in the ex-president’s criminal “hush money” trial.

Calling it a “brawl,” The Daily Beast set the scene: “After Costello, a former prosecutor, was reprimanded for delivering outbursts in the court whenever he was interrupted or told not to answer a question that had been objected to and sustained, Costello began to stare down the judge.”

Before the reprimand, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins reported: “Twice now the judge has sustained an objection and Costello answered regardless. Judge Merchan addresses him directly to not answer if he’s sustained the objection. ‘Jesus,’ Costello mutters after it happens again. ‘I’m sorry,’ the judge, visibly annoyed, says to him. ‘I’m sorry?'”

And then, the admonition.

READ MORE: ‘Wack Pack’: Questions Swirl Over ‘Trump Uniforms’ and Who’s Funding ‘Weird’ Trial Surrogates

“I’d like to discuss proper decorum in the courtroom,” Judge Merchan said, according to Collins. “If you don’t like my ruling, you don’t give me side eye and you don’t roll your eyes.”

Collins added: “Then in a raised voice, Merchan asks, ‘Are you staring me down right now?!'”

“The jury was NOT in the room for this,” Collins added. “Merchan sent them out, then admonished Costello, then when he was staring him down, Merchan became furious and cleared the courtroom. So the jury witnesses none of this. (And the press missed whatever was said in the interim.)”

Here’s how it went down, according to MSNBC host and legal contributor Katie Phang.

“Judge Merchan is ANGRY,” she observed, before reporting the dialogue:

“MERCHAN: ‘I’d like to discuss proper decorum in my courtroom’
MERCHAN: ‘If you don’t like my ruling, you don’t say ‘Jeez’ ‘
MERCHAN: You don’t say ‘strike it’ because I’m the only one who can strike it.
MERCHAN: ‘You don’t give me side eye and you don’t roll your eyes’
COSTELLO: I understand.”

Phang added, “When the media were allowed back in, Costello is seated at the witness stand looking decidedly chastened. Merchan looks calm.”

The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports the judge didn’t calmly just clear the courtroom:

MSNBC legal contributor Lisa Rubin called it, “one of the wildest things I’ve ever seen in court.”

READ MORE: Law ‘Requires’ Alito and Thomas to Recuse Says Former Federal Prosecutor

And while CNN’s Collins noted the jury was not in the courtroom for exchange, Phang reports: “Although the dressing down of Costello took place outside of earshot of the jury, they witnessed firsthand Costello’s demeanor and petulance and heard firsthand his quips and remarks from the witness stand. Perhaps Costello just reinforced to the jury why Cohen didn’t want to keep Costello as his lawyer…Costello is pandering for an audience of one: Trump.”

MSNBC legal analyst Kristy Greenberg noted, “Michael Cohen was respectful. Bob Costello is acting like a clown. Jurors will notice and this will hurt Trump. Any concerns that jurors may have had about Cohen have now been overshadowed by Costello’s disrespect to the judge right in front of their faces.”

Lowell also reported that after the reprimand, “Costello is so red in the face he resembles a strawberry.”

See the social media post above or at this link.

 

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