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‘Let’s Talk About the Nazis’: Republican Opposing Paramilitary Activity Ban Bill Under Fire

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Republican state lawmaker Laurel Libby stood up on the Maine House floor to support the Second Amendment rights and right of freedom of association of neo-Nazis in the Pine Tree State. Rep. Libby, strongly opposing a bill that would place a ban on paramilitary activity or groups working to cause civil disorder, on Wednesday called the legislation “unconstitutional.” 26 states currently have similar laws.

Neo-Nazi groups have been popping up in Maine. The bill Libby spoke against was in response to neo-Nazi events and issues over the past year.

“Let’s talk about the Nazis,” Libby says in a clip (below) posted by the Maine House Democratic Campaign Committee. “I would like to know what they did that was illegal. I would like to know what they did, in detail if folks would like to share, that was wrong, that infringed on another person’s right.”

“Holding a rally, and even holding a rally with guns, is not illegal,” Libby noted.

“We don’t have to like what said Nazis did,” Libby also said, according to Spectrum News. “We don’t have to like what they stand for. We don’t have to agree with their positions. We don’t have to think well of them. But you know what we do have to do? We have to protect their First Amendment right to free speech and association.”

READ MORE: ‘Like Saying Stick ‘Em Up During a Bank Robbery’: Why Trump Just Got Slapped Down by a Judge

“It’s is our duty to protect the Nazis’ right to free speech and association, as long as it does not infringe on someone else’s rights – as long as they are not harming someone else,” Libby said, as the Portland Press Herald added.

In the full version of her floor speech, which she posted to Facebook, Rep. Libby also argues the bill is unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds.

“The First Amendment gives us the right to free speech. Not just free speech, the right to association,” she said, adding, “we have the freedom to associate with others who have a similar political, religious, or cultural beliefs.”

The legislation comes after Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey realized last summer, when a reported neo-Nazi purchased land in Maine to set up a white supremacist training camp, there was no way to stop that activity.

“The bill, sponsored by Rep. Laurie Osher, D-Orono, is aimed at preventing any unauthorized paramilitary group from establishing a headquarters in Maine – something that Christopher Pohlhaus, a prominent neo-Nazi, said he was trying to do in the rural northern Maine town of Springfield last year. It also follows an increase in public displays of white nationalism around the state, including hateful literature drops and public rallies,” the Portland Press Herald reported in February.

Despite Rep. Libby’s opposition, the legislation passed the Maine House, by one vote.

READ MORE: Johnson: J6 Rioters and Insurrectionists Just ‘Happened to Be Walking Through the Building’

Last year, one neo-Nazi “group was seen in multiple locations in downtown Portland chanting, making Nazi salute gestures, and holding a sign that read: ‘Defend White Communities,'” NBC affiliate News Center Maine reported. “According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit dedicated to fighting hate, NSC-131 is a neo-Nazi group based in New England. The group is known to target LGBTQ+ communities, as well as Jewish and anti-fascist groups.”

Online, outrage over Libby’s remarks grew.

“This is the Republican Party in 2024,” said Democratic former Maine Speaker of the House, Ryan Fecteau.

Connecticut Democratic Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff commented, “What the actual $%#@? This is not normal. Vote to save democracy.”

Portland At-Large City Councilor April Fournier wrote: “Grateful to at least have the quiet part said out loud so Mainers and everywhere else can see LL for who she is.”

Maine Democratic state Rep. Amy Roeder said: “You ever been at work, just doing your job and enjoying the day when one of your coworkers stands up and asks why Nazis are so bad? No? Well, lemme tell ya ‘bout my day…”

Watch Rep. Libby’s remarks below or at this link.

READ MORE: Jack Smith’s ‘Blistering’ Response to Judge Cannon Could ‘Remove Her From the Case’: Experts

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

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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

 

 

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

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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.

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

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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’

 

 

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