Connect with us

News

‘Train Wreck’: Herschel Walker Criticized for New Ad Claiming God Helped Him ‘Overcome’ His Mental Illness

Published

on

After a damning article claiming he paid for one of his girlfriend’s abortions, Republican U.S. Senate nominee for Georgia, Herschel Walker, is out with a new ad that claims he has “overcome” his mental illness thanks to God, while he attacks his incumbent opponent, Democratic U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock, who he baselessly says “doesn’t even believe in redemption.”

Walker’s own campaign compared the Daily Beast’s report – that says Walker even signed a card mentioning the abortion he reportedly paid for – to Donald Trump’s 2016 “Access Hollywood” video, which almost cost him the election.

Back then, Republicans denounced Trump for a few days before immediately coming back to support him. The Walker revelations are arguably worse, given the GOP’s attempts to ban all abortion, calling fetuses “unborn babies” that deserve all legal protections of born human beings, while declaring abortion murder.

READ MORE: Watch: Herschel Walker Says if Georgia Voters Don’t Elect Him They Won’t Even ‘Have a Chance to Be Redeemed’

And yet, not one Republican has denounced Walker. Donald Trump even rushed out a statement supporting him.

“Reverend Warnock’s running a nasty, dishonest campaign,” Walker says in his new ad, not mentioning – not even denying – that he paid for his girlfriend to have an abortion.

“The Reverend doesn’t even tell my full story,” Walker cries, as if that’s his political opponent’s job.

“As everyone knows, I had a real battle with mental health. Even wrote a book about it. And by the grace of God, I’ve overcome it,” he claims.

READ MORE: ‘Everything Has Been a Lie’: Christian Walker Drops Damning New Video Blasting His Father’s ‘Lies’ Over Abortion

“Warnock’s a preacher doesn’t tell the truth, he doesn’t even believe in redemption,” Walker says, a claim he has repeatedly made despite offering nothing to support the claim. Warnock has even written about redemption.

The ad was posted online by Walker’s deputy campaign manager.

It was immediately panned.

CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski, the head of its fact-checking unit, says the new ad, “presumably in response to [the] Daily Beast story, mentions his book ‘Breaking Free’ being about [a] redemption story — it is worth noting the alleged abortion took place a year after the book was released.”

Speaking of redemption, Walker’s repeated attack that Warnock does not believe in redemption appears wholly false.

Warnock, who is also the senior pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, which was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s church until his assassination, criticized then-President Donald Trump in 2018 after the president called certain African nations “shithole countries.”

Trump signed a proclamation honoring Dr. King, in hopes of not losing more support.

“To sign a proclamation honoring Dr. King hours after this kind of hate-filled speech makes a mockery of Dr. King,” Rev. Warnock said on CNN. “I would argue that a proclamation without an apology is hypocrisy.”

“There is no redemption without repentance and the president of the United States needs to repent,” Warnock said, belying Walker’s recent claims.

Attorney Luppe B. Luppen expands on Kaczynski’s reporting.

“Walker published his book “Breaking Free” on April 1, 2008, approximately a year and a half before he reportedly wrote a check to reimburse a woman he had been dating for an abortion on September 17, 2009.”

Walker has stated he was diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder, which was once known as “multiple personality disorder” or “split personality disorder.”

Political consultant and former Republican, Tim Miller, now an independent and a well-known guest on cable news shows, panned Walker’s ad.

“The end of this ad is absolutely sick,” he observed.

Talking Points Memo founder and publisher Josh Marshall summarizes Walker’s ad:

“So the ad actually says Warnock is a liar and then references mental health battle to I guess imply some or all of the stuff is true. Still I used to be violent and crazy but I’m totally better now is a tough closing message.”

Constitutional law professor Anthony Michael Kreis, referring to the infamous “I am not a witch,” campaign ads, tweeted, “Did Christine O’Donnell direct this?”

University of Florida professor Michael McDonald took that one step further, commenting, “I am not a witch.”

Baptist minister Brian Kaylor, Word&Way Editor & President and author of four books on religion and politics blasts Walker.

“Ad is theological & political train wreck. He claims without evidence Warnock (Baptist pastor) doesn’t believe in redemption. And why is he asking voters to decide state of his soul. ‘Saved by Grace’ as political slogan? He’s acting like there should be religious test for office.”

Watch Walker’s new ad above or at this link.

Continue Reading
Click to comment
 
 

Enjoy this piece?

… then let us make a small request. The New Civil Rights Movement depends on readers like you to meet our ongoing expenses and continue producing quality progressive journalism. Three Silicon Valley giants consume 70 percent of all online advertising dollars, so we need your help to continue doing what we do.

NCRM is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. From unflinching coverage of religious extremism, to spotlighting efforts to roll back our rights, NCRM continues to speak truth to power. America needs independent voices like NCRM to be sure no one is forgotten.

Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Help ensure NCRM remains independent long into the future. Support progressive journalism with a one-time contribution to NCRM, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click here to donate by check.

News

Peter Navarro’s Latest Attempt to Get Out of Jail Smacked Down by SCOTUS

Published

on

Former top Trump White House advisor Peter Navarro, in prison for criminal contempt of Congress, has failed in his latest attempt to be released early, after the U.S. Supreme Court once again denied his request.

Navarro, 74, the first and only former White House official ever to be imprisoned for contempt of Congress, is serving out his four-month sentence in Miami. His efforts to stay out of jail were first denied by Chief Justice John Roberts, before he reported to the prison in mid-March. He was found guilty in September after a short trial. After his arrest he hawked his book and begged for money on national television.

CBS News reports “15 days into his sentence, Navarro renewed his request to halt his surrender to Justice Neil Gorsuch, which is allowed under Supreme Court rules. His bid for emergency relief was referred to the full court, which denied it. There were no noted dissents. Attorneys for Navarro declined to comment.”

CNN called the decision to petition Justice Gorsuch “a procedural maneuver that has not worked in decades.”

RELATED: ‘Bro, You’re Already Facing Charges’: Protestor Mocks Peter Navarro as He Tries to Grab ‘Trump Lost’ Sign

“Gorsuch referred the request to the full court, which considered it during its closed door conference on Friday. The court denied the request on Monday without comment.”

Navarro’s prison sentence is the result of his refusal to comply with a subpoena issued by the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack. Navarro claims he had executive privilege, but offered no proof, and refused to show up as ordered.

Legal experts accurately had predicted a “quick conviction” after Navarro, called a “conspiracy theorist” who promotes “fringe” economic theories, had called no witnesses. The jury deliberated for under five hours. He faced up to two years in prison.

CBS News adds Navarro “is not the only member of the Trump administration to be convicted of the charge. Steve Bannon, former White House chief strategist, was found guilty of two counts of contempt of Congress and sentenced to four months in prison. The judge overseeing that case, however, put his prison term on hold while Bannon appeals.”

READ MORE: Noem Doubles Down With ‘Legal Cover’ For Shooting Her Puppy to Death

 

 

Continue Reading

News

Noem Doubles Down With ‘Legal Cover’ For Shooting Her Puppy to Death

Published

on

South Dakota Republican Governor Kristi Noem has been under bipartisan fire since Friday after an excerpt from her soon-to-be published book reveals her bragging about shooting to death her 14-month old puppy, and later that day, a goat. Noem, considered at least until last week a top contender to be Donald Trump’s vice presidential running mate, is doubling-down defending herself but now she’s serving up some “legal cover” as well.

“I can understand why some people are upset about a 20 year old story of Cricket, one of the working dogs at our ranch, in my upcoming book — No Going Back. The book is filled with many honest stories of my life, good and bad days, challenges, painful decisions, and lessons learned,” she wrote on Sunday, after The Guardian‘s damning report. “The fact is, South Dakota law states that dogs who attack and kill livestock can be put down. Given that Cricket had shown aggressive behavior toward people by biting them, I decided what I did.”

Law & Crime on Monday reports the governor is “providing herself legal cover for the act.”

Noem “acknowledged that ‘some people’ were upset about the story — and she specified that it happened two decades ago, seeming to place the incident well beyond the statute of limitations.”

RELATED: Noem Defends Shooting Her 14-Month Old Puppy to Death, Brags She Has Media ‘Gasping’

“Noem additionally cited South Dakota law in support of her decision,” Law & Crime adds, noting the “reported book excerpt had said that Cricket tried to bite Noem and attacked her chickens.”

“The fact is, South Dakota law states that dogs who attack and kill livestock can be put down,” Noem wrote, an apparent attempt to preempt any possible legal issues. “Given that Cricket had shown aggressive behavior toward people by biting them, I decided what I did.”

Law & Crime explains that “South Dakota notes that an exemption to animal cruelty laws is the ‘destruction of dangerous animals.’ The law specifies that ‘[a]ny humane killing of an animal’ and ‘[a]ny reasonable action taken by a person for the destruction or control of an animal known to be dangerous, a threat, or injurious to life, limb, or property’ are exempt from prosecution.”

Noting that Noem’s attempt “to lean into the right’s embrace of political incorrectness … didn’t fly with members of her own party,” The Daily Beast pointed to well-known Republicans including former Trump White House communications director Alyssa Farrah Griffin and Meghan McCain who publicly condemned Noem’s actions.

READ MORE: President Hands Howard Stern Live Interview After NY Times Melts Down Over Biden Brush-Off

The Guardian’s excerpt from Noem’s book does not state that Cricket bit people, although Noem states Cricket “whipped around” to bite her. It’s possible biting others is in the book but did not make it into The Guardian’s report.

Describing Cricket killing chickens, Noem “grabbed Cricket, she says, [and] the dog ‘whipped around to bite me’. Then, as the chickens’ owner wept, Noem repeatedly apologised, wrote the shocked family a check ‘for the price they asked, and helped them dispose of the carcasses littering the scene of the crime’.”

“Through it all, Noem says, Cricket was ‘the picture of pure joy’,” The Guardian reports. “’I hated that dog,’ Noem writes, adding that Cricket had proved herself ‘untrainable’, ‘dangerous to anyone she came in contact with’ and ‘less than worthless … as a hunting dog’.”

Meanwhile, MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski on Monday said Noem’s pride and decision making surrounding killing the puppy make her unfit to be “in charge.”

Describing how she grew up on a family farm, Brzezinski said they hunted, and “there was absolutely a dense of life and death.” There was “never a joy in killing and there was a respect to it, and a process if you were hunting.”

READ MORE: CNN Smacks Down Trump Rant Courthouse So ‘Heavily Guarded’ MAGA Cannot Attend His Trial

“But this story was more about how she felt killing an animal, and that’s what’s scary about it – the impatience, kind of like a switch flipped in her brain and she decided she needed to kill it? Like this is not someone you want in charge, not someone thinking through the process of life and death.”

“The most remarkable part of it,” Scarborough added, “is that the conservative movement has been so corrupted by Donald Trump and his reached such new lows, that she actually put that in, about the killing of a happy puppy because she thought it would help her with the base.”

Watch below or at this link.

Continue Reading

News

CNN Smacks Down Trump Rant Courthouse So ‘Heavily Guarded’ MAGA Cannot Attend His Trial

Published

on

Donald Trump’s Friday morning claim Manhattan’s Criminal Courts Building is “heavily guarded” so his supporters cannot attend his trial was torched by a top CNN anchor. The ex-president, facing 34 felony charges in New York, had been urging his followers to show up and protest on the courthouse steps, but few have.

“I’m at the heavily guarded Courthouse. Security is that of Fort Knox, all so that MAGA will not be able to attend this trial, presided over by a highly conflicted pawn of the Democrat Party. It is a sight to behold! Getting ready to do my Courthouse presser. Two minutes!” Trump wrote Friday morning on his Truth Social account.

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins supplied a different view.

“Again, the courthouse is open the public. The park outside, where a handful of his supporters have gathered on trials days, is easily accessible,” she wrote minutes after his post.

READ MORE: ‘Assassination of Political Rivals as an Official Act’: AOC Warns Take Trump ‘Seriously’

Trump has tried to rile up his followers to come out and make a strong showing.

On Monday Trump urged his supporters to “rally behind MAGA” and “go out and peacefully protest” at courthouses across the country, while complaining that “people who truly LOVE our Country, and want to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, are not allowed to ‘Peacefully Protest,’ and are rudely and systematically shut down and ushered off to far away ‘holding areas,’ essentially denying them their Constitutional Rights.”

On Wednesday Trump claimed, “The Courthouse area in Lower Manhattan is in a COMPLETE LOCKDOWN mode, not for reasons of safety, but because they don’t want any of the thousands of MAGA supporters to be present. If they did the same thing at Columbia, and other locations, there would be no problem with the protesters!”

After detailing several of his false claims about security measures prohibiting his followers from being able to show their support and protest, CNN published a fact-check on Wednesday:

“Trump’s claims are all false. The police have not turned away ‘thousands of people’ from the courthouse during his trial; only a handful of Trump supporters have shown up to demonstrate near the building,” CNN reported.

“And while there are various security measures in place in the area, including some street closures enforced by police officers and barricades, it’s not true that ‘for blocks you can’t get near this courthouse.’ In reality, the designated protest zone for the trial is at a park directly across the street from the courthouse – and, in addition, people are permitted to drive right up to the front of the courthouse and walk into the building, which remains open to the public. If people show up early enough in the morning, they can even get into the trial courtroom itself or the overflow room that shows near-live video of the proceedings.”

READ MORE: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

 

 

Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © 2020 AlterNet Media.