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Justice Alito’s Secret Speech ‘Spiking the Ball’ on Revoking Abortion Seen as Worsening Court’s ‘Credibility Crisis’

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One week ago conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito delivered a speech in Rome on religious liberty that is being denounced from the left and the right as furthering the Court’s “credibility crisis” while further placing the 72-year-old Bush appointee’s judgment into question.

Alito delivered the keynote address at the University of Notre Dame Law School’s Religious Liberty Summit gala dinner on July 21. The invitation-only speech at the event hosted by the 153-year-old Catholic institution was not announced in advance to the public, nor even made known until one week later, when the law school posted a news release and full video of the speech. The Supreme Court Justice was not on the schedule of speakers posted online, as Reuters’ Lawrence Hurley, who covers the Supreme Court, noted on social media.

While it’s unclear why the speech was kept secret, American media was quick to latch onto some of Alito’s remarks but did not do a deep dive into the 35 or so minute-long speech, which has raised eyebrows and elicited anger among legal experts, court watchers, and the general public.

READ MORE: SCOTUS Justice Alito Delivers ‘Tirade’ Claiming Same-Sex Marriage Infringes on Civil Rights of Anti-LGBTQ Americans

CNN and Politico noted Alito lambasted several foreign critics of his majority opinion rescinding five decades of settled U.S. law in the Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade, revoking the constitutional right to abortion and opening the door to further assaults on liberty and autonomy.

His targets were not opinion writers or pundits, but political leaders of America’s top allies.

Alito mocked the embattled, now former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, robustly declaring, “he paid the price.”

READ MORE: Justice Alito’s Gay Marriage Questions: Could It Legalize Polygamy, Did Ancient Greeks Allow It?

Politico added that Alito “went on to note that President Emmanuel Macron of France and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada ‘are still in office’ despite the salvos they launched at the ruling.”

And he went after Britain’s Prince Harry, falsely characterizing the Duke’s remarks.

“What really wounded me was when the duke of Sussex addressed the United Nations and seemed to compare the decision whose name may not be spoken with the Russian attack on Ukraine,” Alito said. “Despite this temptation, I’m not going to talk about cases from other countries.”

And while mainstream media focused on some of the low-hanging fruit in his remarks, others who apparently watched his speech, posted by Notre Dame, expressed outrage at what they seem to see as his intolerance of freedom of and from religion, intolerance toward women, and mocking of those who dare criticize his attack on the right to abortion.

READ MORE: SCOTUS Justices Prayed With Evangelical Group Whose Legal Brief Was Cited to Overturn Roe Says Christian Activist: Report

NYU professor Barbara Malmet, an artist, activist, triathlete, and producer who has a huge Twitter following, did not hold back in denouncing Alito’s remarks.

“Alito working the room, basking in the laughs. Bearded, in a tux, at a religious liberty speech in Rome. He thinks it’s a fucking joke that women no longer have agency over their own bodies in many states in America because of his own religious beliefs?” she tweeted.

Hours later she again commented, this time writing, “I am still spinning about Alito in Rome at a Notre Dame event, cracking jokes about his devastating abortion ruling while women are reeling here.”

Well-known economist David Rothschild, an avid commentator, attacked Alito and his audience: “Cannot get over mix of arrogance, entitlement, general derision towards American people & democracy that Republican Partisan Hack in Robes Alito showed in speech trashing foreign leaders in Rome to laughing audience of (what I can only assume) are also authoritarian misogynists.”

Novelist, playwright, essayist, and screenwriter Paul Rudnick: “Samuel Alito made a speech in Rome praising the repeal of Roe and condemning the left for a ‘hostility to religion.’ Alito uses his faith to punish women and he wants to not only ban marriage equality but criminalize LGBTQ lives. His religion is a weapon of mass destruction.”

Conservative attorney John David Dyche: “Regardless of one’s view on Dobbs it is hard to see how an arrogant & injudicious Alito ‘spiking the ball’ in political comments at a Notre Dame event in Rome will do anything but further erode public confidence in a court already diminished by a multi-faceted credibility crisis.”

Jezebel editor-in-chief Laura Bassett wrote: “This was Alito’s speech in Rome about ‘religious freedom.’ And it always boggles my mind that to these guys, religious freedom doesn’t apply to anyone but those in their own religion.”

Award-winning investigative reporter Paul Barry: “If Justice Alito wants to claim overturning Roe v Wade was based entirely on law, it’s maybe better not to do it at a conference on religious freedom in Rome.”

Veteran journalist Jim Roberts: “In a speech in Rome, the obviously shameless Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito jokes about the overseas reaction to the Roe v. Wade ruling that he authored.”

Other social media critics were equally angered.

“Who the hell is responsible for holding SCOTUS justices accountable, because there’s no way alito should be in Rome behaving like a GOP congressman.”

“What an undignified, crass, embarrassment to the country this smug, condescending seditionist is. Whoever imagined a (laughably ‘impartial’) SCOTUS Justice, out taking *political* shots at America’s allies? Absolutely unacceptable.”

“Wow! We’re not even pretending that the Supreme Court is not political. Alito is having a good old time in Rome mocking the loss of reproductive rights for US women.”

“Justice Samuel Alito is a dangerous clown who should be nowhere near our SCOTUS. Going to Rome to speak on ‘religious liberty’ as he wages a war on women, and then criticizes our allies?? WTF. He’s an embarrassment to the United States.”

“Christian Dominionism, anyone? With a side of gaslighting and projection, and snark as an aperitif.”

 

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‘On Day One’: Trump Vows to End Protections for LGBTQ Students

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Donald Trump says the day he enters the Oval Office for a second term he will end anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ students implemented by the Biden administration.

Serving up a scattershot series of complaints with the hosts from the Philadelphia-based right-wing talk radio show “Kayal and Company” on Friday, Trump compared LGBTQ+ protections to a “cuckoo’s nest.”

“A lot of things don’t make sense, having to do with what they’re doing, from the border to all of the men playing in women’s sports. I mean, the world is like a cuckoo’s nest right now with what they do,” Trump declared.

One of the hosts alleged President Joe Biden has engaged in “manipulation” of Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools that receive federal funding. She claimed parents now have to “pinch some pennies” to be able to afford private Christian schools for their children, to remove them from the enhancements that go into effect this summer.

“Many schools are grappling with what they’re going to do,” she said, “because as of August 1, as you know, because of Biden’s manipulation of Title IX, these kids, the school boards, have no choice, they’re meeting right now they, many of them perplexed, and they don’t know what to do, Mr. President, because they’re so upset over this that at August 1 a biological boy can change in a locker room.”

READ MORE: ‘Rejection of Trump’: 1 in 5 Indiana GOP Voters Just Cast Their Ballot for Nikki Haley

Trump replied, “It’s crazy. Crazy.”

“We’re going to end it on day one,” Trump vowed. “We’re going to change it on day one. It’s going to be changed. We’re going to end it. That’s right.”

“The whole thing is crazy. Look, it’s like men playing in women’s sports. It’s like open borders for the world to come in. Send all their prisoners. We’ll take as many as you can give us. Send all their people from mental institutions.”

“We’ll get that changed. Tell your people not to worry about it. It’ll be signed on day one. It will be terminated,” Trump promised, vowing to end the LGBTQ+ protections which include protections for sexual orientation and gender identity.

On his first day in office, President Biden implemented “the most far-reaching of any federal protections yet” for LGBTQ+ people, according to NPR.

In an explainer on the new expanded rules, Ms. Magazine reports “The 2024 regulations prohibit discrimination not only on the basis of sex, but also on the basis of sex characteristics, pregnancy or related conditions, sexual orientation, and gender identity.”

According to GLAAD, which is tracking “the Biden administration’s executive orders, legislative support, speeches and nominations that affect LGBTQ people and rights,” President Biden has made 337 “moves” in 1206 days.

Listen to a short clip below or at this link.

READ MORE: Bannon Will Be ‘Going to Prison’ After Criminal Contempt Conviction Upheld, Experts Predict

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Ari Fleischer Offers Donald Trump Advice Attorney Says ‘Effectively’ Violates Gag Order

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A Fox News panel discussing the Trump New York criminal trial debated whether or not the indicted ex-president could attack the judge’s daughter, with former Bush 43 press secretary Ari Fleischer insisting he should, and claiming doing so would not violate the terms of the gag order.

“President Trump needs to stop calling the judge ‘conflicted.’ He needs to explain why he’s conflicted,” Fleischer said Friday to a panel that included former Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany. “Every day of the trial he goes in there, he says, ‘the judge is conflicted, conflicted bigger than I’ve ever seen anywhere in my life.’ He doesn’t explain how or why. He needs to say that the judge’s daughter works for a Democratic political consulting firm that does anti-Trump business. He needs to explain it. Otherwise, it’s just an assertion with no proof. And the President if he’s going to say it, back it up. Explain.”

“I think that’s a violation of the gag order, is it not?” a Fox panelist replied.

“No, he can criticize the judge,” McEnany responded.

READ MORE: Bannon Will Be ‘Going to Prison’ After Criminal Contempt Conviction Upheld, Experts Predict

“Not the judge but the family,” the panelist added.

“But when he says the judge is conflicted, you can still explain how and why, and I think comply with a gag,” Fleischer insisted.

The panelists then agreed Donald Trump has been “measured” in his remarks.

National security attorney Brad Moss weighed in on social media, posting the relevant portion of the gag order and writing that Fleischer “effectively recommends Trump violate the terms of the gag order.”

The gag order in part reads: “Defendant is directed to refrain from” … “Making or directing others to make public statements about (1) counsel in the case other than the District Attorney, (2) members of the court’s staff and the District Attorney’s staff, or (3) the family members of any counsel, staff member, the Court or the District Attorney, if those statements are made with the intent to materially interfere with, or to cause others to materially interfere with, counsel’s or staffs work in this criminal case, or with the knowledge that such interference is likely to result.”

Despite Trump’s repeated attacks, an ethics panel last year cleared Judge Juan Merchan of any issues surrounding his daughter’s work.

On Monday, Judge Merchan warned Trump he may throw him in jail if he violates the gag order again.

Watch below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Undisguised Corruption’: Critics Slam Trump for ‘Selling the White House’ to Big Oil

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Bannon Will Be ‘Going to Prison’ After Criminal Contempt Conviction Upheld, Experts Predict

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A federal appeals court panel of three judges has upheld the criminal contempt of Congress conviction of Steve Bannon, the far-right provocateur and former Trump chief strategist and senior White House advisor. Legal experts say he can appeal but ultimately he will he headed to prison.

Bannon had refused to comply with a subpoena lawfully-issued by the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack.

“Bannon was sentenced to four months in jail in 2022 by U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols after a jury convicted him of two counts of contempt of Congress,” Politico reports Friday. “But Nichols, a Trump appointee, agreed to postpone the jail term while Bannon appealed the decision, agreeing that the complex mix of laws that govern executive privilege and testimonial immunity for White House aides could be overturned by higher courts.”

The appeals court panel includes judges appointed by President Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden, according to CNN’s Zachary Cohen.

In their ruling the judges wrote: “Public accounts indicated that Bannon had predicted on a January 5, 2021 podcast that ‘all hell [wa]s going to break loose’ the next day,” and noted, “In addition to the podcast prediction, Bannon had reportedly participated in discussions in late 2020 and early 2021 about efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.”

READ MORE: House Ethics Committee Extends Investigation Into ‘Ultra MAGA’ Congressman

Politico noted the “three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Bannon’s argument, saying the former aide and prominent podcaster had no legal rationale for his blanket refusal to appeal before the Jan. 6 committee — and that long-standing case law.”

Bannon is a peddler of conspiracy theories whose podcast “was crowned the top peddler of false, misleading and unsubstantiated statements among political podcasts,” according to The New York Times, citing a Brookings study.

“Bannon is unlikely to have to report to prison immediately,” NBC News reports.

Legal experts weighed in on the question of prison for Bannon.

READ MORE: ‘Undisguised Corruption’: Critics Slam Trump for ‘Selling the White House’ to Big Oil

“And now it’s time for Bannon to be given a date to report to the federal Bureau of Prisons to begin serving his sentence,” remarked MSNBC and NBC News legal analyst Glenn Kirschner, a former federal prosecutor.

“Bannon is effectively out of appeals,” observed professor of law and MSNBC legal analyst Joyce Vance, former U.S. Attorney. “He can delay a little bit longer, asking for the full court to review the decision en banc & asking SCOTUS to hear his case on cert, but neither one of those things will happen. Bannon is going to prison.”

Professor of law and former chief White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter remarked, “it’s slammer time.”

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