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Republicans Just Confirmed a 37 Year Old Who Worked for an Anti-LGBT Hate Group to Become a Federal Judge for Life

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At 37-years old Allison Jones Rushing was just confirmed to become the youngest judge on the federal bench. A lifetime appointment, she will sit on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and based on her age she will be a federal judge for decades, as HuffPost just reported.

Rushing clerked for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and interned for the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which is listed as an anti-LGBT hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. In case there’s any question if her personal beliefs align with the ADF’s, she has said she believes there are “moral and practical” reasons for not just opposing marriage equality, but for banning the marriages of same-sex couples.

Senate Republicans on Tuesday pushed through her confirmation, voting 53-44. Every Republican voted for her. Every Democrat voted against her, as Huffpost’s Jennifer Bendery noted.

“She has practiced law for nine years. How many cases has she tried to verdict or judgment? Four. Has she been the lead attorney on any of those cases? No,” said Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), who serves as the Ranking Member on the Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution. “That is the most scant, weakest legal resume imaginable for someone who’s seeking a lifetime appointment to the second-highest court of the land.”

Senator Durbin made his criticisms known on Monday when the Senate advanced her nomination.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wasted no time in moving her nomination forward. Rushing becomes President Trump’s 32nd circuit court nominee to be confirmed. That’s a lot of judges.

“Trump is appointing and Senate Republicans are confirming young, conservative, anti-black, anti-choice, anti-LGBTQ judicial nominees, like 37-year-old Allison Jones Rushing, who could remain on the federal bench and block new progressive laws for decades,” CNN’s Keith Boykin noted on Twitter.

The National Center for Transgender Equality’s Gillian Branstetter wrote last year that “Rushing has built her short career on promoting homophobic and transphobic prejudice, siding with dogmatic ideologues over the rights of everyday citizens.”

The Alliance Defending Freedom, Branstetter adds, “lead the fight to criminalize LGBTQ people’s existence in countries around the world. including efforts to forcibly sterilize transgender people. They defend the damaging and debunked practice of so-called conversion therapy, which is now banned in 15 states including the District of Columbia,” and “stand by the horrific claim that being transgender is ‘most often’ a result of child abuse.”

The ADF is the conservative Christian legal organization that’s behind the rash of aggrieved anti-LGBT cake bakers and florists who have filed “religious liberty” and “right to discriminate” cases, several of which are making their way through the court system. The Supreme Court in a narrow ruling last year overturned the decision in the case of Colorado cake baker Jack Phillips. ADF has represented Phillips and florist Barronelle Stutzman.

The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit oversees North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia.

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GOP Lawmaker Wants to Fine Transgender People in North Dakota $1500 if They Use ‘Wrong’ Pronouns

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The North Dakota House of Representatives has introduced a bill that would strictly prohibit expanded use of pronouns outside of the gender that the person was assigned at birth.

House Bill 2199 restricts the definition of gender to the “individual’s determined sex at birth” and then requires that all pronoun use be reflective of that same gender. Any violation by anyone who works at an institution that receives state funding, including public schools would be subject to a $1,500 fine.

If gender is challenged, the bill puts the responsibility on the individual to prove their gender.

“Say, they’re a boy, but they come to school and say they’re a girl. As far as that school is concerned in this bill, that person is still a boy. If it becomes contested, the burden will be on the girl, the so-called girl, or the boy, to prove that he is a girl,” said North Dakota State Senator David Clemens while speaking in favor of the bill.

IN OTHER NEWS: ‘Marxist Persecution like never before in USA!’ Trump rants about investigations in incoherent post

The bill’s sponsor was the only testimony given in support of the bill, as nearly 100 separate forms of testimony was provided against the bill. Even the state’s Senate Judiciary Committee voted to not pass the proposed bill.

“I see no way this law would pass any sort of legal challenge based on basic legal construction principles,” North Dakota Human Rights’ Christina Sambor said in an interview with KFYR-TV of Bismarck. “It is vague, fails to advance any legitimate state interests, and not only would cause impermissible, gender-based discrimination, its very purpose is gender-based discrimination.”

The bill now moves to the Senate floor.

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‘I Made Juneteenth Very Famous’: Trump Raged Against ‘These People’ After Being Forced to Reschedule Tulsa Rally

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Donald Trump bristled at moving his comeback rally in Tulsa due to a scheduling conflict with Juneteenth.

The former president had scheduled his first rally since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic for June 19, 2020, but he was notified — by a Black Secret Service agent, he says — of the date’s historical significance and the extra weight it carried in the days following the Minneapolis police murder of George Floyd, according to excerpts from a new book published by The Hill.

Can you imagine “changing the day of the rally in Oklahoma to accommodate these people?” Trump groused, according to New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy. “Have you ever heard of such a ridiculous thing?”

Murphy and his wife had joined Trump for dinner at his golf club in Bedminster, where the former president told the couple that he was looking forward to packing the arena to show off his electoral strength, but he ultimately agreed to reschedule for a day later — and then claimed credit for popularizing the day marking the end of slavery in the U.S.

“I did something good,” Trump said. “I made Juneteenth very famous. It’s actually an important event, an important time. But nobody had ever heard of it.”

The rally ultimately drew a much smaller crowd than had been expected, with at least a third of the seats empty at BOK Center, and a spokesman for his campaign later blamed the paltry attendance on “radical protesters.”

Meanwhile, Trump is scheduled to speak tonight at a rally at 9pm ET tonight in support of embattled Nebraska Gubernatorial candidate Charles Herbster.

After Herbster, a businessman endorsed by former President Donald Trump, was accused of sexually assaulting eight women, including a state senator, Republicans throughout the state washed their hands of him, and sitting Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts told him to end his campaign and “get help.”

But according to POLITICO on Thursday, Trump himself is still all in on Herbster’s candidacy.

“Trump did not withdraw his support for Herbster, or scrap plans to hold a Friday evening rally for the candidate in Nebraska. Instead, he doubled down: The former president relayed word that Herbster wasn’t fighting back hard enough, backing plans for Herbster to hold a press conference aggressively denying the allegations and pushing back at his adversaries,” reported Alex Isenstadt.

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Watch: Newsmax Host Wants to Know Why Movies ‘Have to Be About LGBTQ People?’ in Anti-Gay Rant

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Newsmax propagandist Greg Kelly is jumping on the right’s rapidly growing anti-LGBTQ extremism by denouncing movies with LGBTQ people in them, while likening being LGBTQ to having a hobby – like trains – that he says no one needs to know about.

“I don’t get this be your whole self routine at work or even in art, even in products that you are creating for other people to consume,” Kelly said on Newsmax Wednesday. “For instance, take me, I love model trains. Did you know that? I actually do.”

“I love trains. I love them,” he continued. “I don’t talk about a lot on TV because it’s a pretty niche hobby and not a lot of people are into it. Alright, especially at my age. That’s my thing. I’ll do it on my time and I’m not going to bother you about it fair? You get it? I think that’s a pretty good analogy.”

It’s actually not. What Kelly is talking about is called a hobby. Being LGBTQ is not.

The Newsmax host who, coincidentally is a former Fox News correspondent and host, and the son of former NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly, then played what appeared to be an internal Walt Disney Company video of an employee talking about including LGBTQ characters in her work.

Related –
Watch: Newsmax Hosts Warn of ‘Gender Indoctrination Centers’ in Wild Rant Attacking Trans People

The segment included her stating: “Like I was just wherever I could just basically adding queerness to like, if you see anything queer in the show [undiscernable] no one would stop me and no one was trying to stop me.”

Kelly, who, according to Vanity Fair, has a history of “very racist-seeming tweets,” jumped on that immediately.

“Just have fun with your not-so-secret gay agenda,” he said. “And queerness and putting it in movies and cartoons and where is it been so far? I watch this stuff from time to time. I guess over the years. These are movies you’ve heard of I’ve heard of is this what they’ve been up to all along?” he asked, as the camera pans over classic Disney works like “Mary Poppins.”

(LGBTQ people have been creating Disney classics for decades, or longer. )

“Is this what they will be up to from now on? I don’t think it’s going to help the plotline. You know, movies are about people. Uh, why do they have to be about LGBTQ people or anything like, is the orientation really all that?”

(Full anti-LGBTQ segment on YouTube.)

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