News
Gaetz Praises GOP Congressman Who Echoes His Call for Change ‘Through Force’
U.S. Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-FL). largely seen as pushing Speaker Kevin McCarthy‘s Republican-majority House of Representatives toward shutting down the federal government, is praising and promoting remarks made by a freshman GOP lawmaker that appear to suggest the use of violence. U.S. Rep. Eli Crane‘s comments, posted Friday (below), call for change “through force,” remarks echoing Congressman Gaetz’s recent comments which were denounced by an expert on authoritarianism as fascistic.
“The only way we’re going to see meaningful change in this town is through force,” wrote Congressman Crane, Republican of Arizona atop a three-minute video in which he frames what is now an almost guaranteed government shutdown as a “spending fight.” In his video he says, “the only way you’re gonna get any change in this town is through force.” Gaetz in August had said, “we know that only through force do we make any change in a corrupt town like Washington, D.C.”
Congressman Crane is a former Navy SEAL. He has promoted the false “Big Lie” conspiracy theory that there was massive fraud in the election President Joe Biden won, and called “on the state legislature to decertify the 2020 election.” He is one of six House Republicans who voted against McCarthy’s speakership all 15 times in January.
“Congressman Eli Crane is a fountainhead of political courage,” said Rep. Gaetz Friday afternoon. “He holds the line.”
Crane recently came under fire for calling Black people “colored,” during debate on his legislation that would force the U.S. Armed Forces to not use any diversity requirements in its hiring practices.
Just days before he won his House seat last year, The Washington Post reported Crane had urged an “audience to look up an antisemitic sermon at a recent campaign stop.”
“Crane said that he was motivated to run because of ‘radical ideologies that are destroying this country’ and that he was most concerned about ‘Cultural Marxism,’ which the Southern Poverty Law Center has described as an antisemitic baseless claim gaining traction on the American right.”
“He encouraged the audience to watch a speech by a right-wing pastor who blamed cultural change on a group of German Jewish philosophers and condemned Barack Obama for having a ‘homosexual agenda.'”
“If we don’t wake up,” Crane said, according to the Post, “if we don’t study what they’re doing, and if we don’t put people in influential positions that understand what this war is all about, what they’re trying to do and have and have the courage to call it out, we’re going to lose this country.”
In August, while standing next to Donald Trump at a campaign rally, Congressman Gaetz said, “Mr. President, I cannot stand these people that are destroying our country. They are opening our borders. They are weaponizing our federal law enforcement against patriotic Americans who love this nation as we should.”
“But we know that only through force do we make any change in a corrupt town like Washington, D.C. And so to all my friends here in Iowa, when you see them come for this man, know that they are coming for our movement and they are coming for all of us.”
At the time, Raw Story reported, “historian and author Ruth Ben-Ghiat called Gaetz comments alarming.”
READ MORE: Pete Buttigieg Just Testified Before Congress. It Did Not Go Well for Republicans.
“What he is saying is that they are not going to have change through elections or through legislation or through reform. They are going to have change through violence,” she warned.
“And that’s how fascists talk,” Ben-Ghiat added. “So, even if Trump is out of the picture, these are people who have adopted methods very familiar to me as a historian of fascism, that violence and corruption and lying that’s what the party is today.”
Image via Shutterstock
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During one of several rants outside the courtroom Monday during his New York trial for alleged criminal business records falsification, election interference, and “hush money,” Donald Trump repeatedly complained falsely that the judge overseeing the case was appointed by “Democrat politicians.”
Trump is well-acquainted with New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan.
Merchan was the judge who presided over the trial of Trump’s former Chief Financial Officer, Allan Weisselberg, who was convicted. He also presided over the fraud and money-laundering trial of former Trump 2016 campaign CEO and senior White House counselor Steve Bannon.
“We have a corrupt judge, and we have a judge who’s highly-conflicted,” Trump, nearly yelling, told reporters Monday afternoon. “And he’s keeping me from campaigning. He’s an appointed, New York judge, he’s appointed.”
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“You know who appointed him? Democrat politicians. He’s appointed.”
Trump repeated his baseless claims Merchan is “corrupt” and “conflicted,” adding, “he ought to let us go out and campaign and get rid of this scam.”
Trump is incorrect about Judge Merchan’s background: he was not appointed by “Democrat politicians.”
In 2006, Republican New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg appointed Merchan to his first judicial post, to the New York City Family Court. In 2009, Chief Administrative Judge Ann Pfau appointed Merchan as Acting Justice to the Supreme Court of New York. Pfau was appointed to her first judicial post by Republican New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
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Trump also appeared to suggest appointed judges are somehow suspect – despite frequently bragging that he himself appointed three justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, not to mention 234 judges in total he appointed to the federal bench.
Some legal experts believe a system where judges are appointed rather than elected serves justice better.
“The quality of justice suffers when politics invades the judicial sphere, casting doubt on the impartiality of case outcomes and eroding public confidence in our nation’s system of justice,” an article at the American Bar Association reads.
Watch Trump below or at this link.
Trump yelling about the judge pic.twitter.com/IJJUzMALcG
— Acyn (@Acyn) May 13, 2024
Former Trump “fixer” Michael Cohen in damning testimony Monday told jurors about Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s fears in 2016 when the “Access Hollywood” tape dropped, and what his real concerns were about the bombshell audio that nearly ended his nascent political career.
Cohen revealed that in 2015 when the then-real estate magnate announced he was running for president, Trump told him, “Be prepared. There’s going to be a lot of women coming forward,” according to Courthouse News.
Cohen told jurors that in 2016 “he caught wind of the fact that adult film star Stormy Daniels was shopping her story that she had sex with Trump a decade prior. Cohen said that he was concerned about the impact it could have on Trump’s presidential campaign, particularly after the release of the infamous Access Hollywood tape.”
“At this time, Mr. Trump was polling very, very low with women,” Cohen testified, adding that Trump “said to me, ‘This is a disaster.’”
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“‘Women will hate me. Guys, they may think it’s cool. But this is going to be a disaster for the campaign.’”
Cohen also revealed from the witness stand that he had asked Trump how his wife, Melania Trump, was taking the news about Stormy Daniels, the adult film star who Trump allegedly paid hush money to then falsified his business records to hide the transactions in an effort to influence the election, according to prosecutors.
“How long do you think I’ll be on the market for? Not long,” Trump told Cohen, according to his former attorney.
“He wasn’t thinking about Melania,” Cohen said. “This was all about the campaign.”
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins called that a “Remarkable moment.”
The Daily Mail adds, “Asked if Trump was angry during this frantic period of damage control that could surface the Stormy Daniels story, Cohen said ‘Yes. Because there was a negative story that could impact the campaign as a result of women.’ ”
Watch MSNBC’s report below or at this link.
‘He wasn’t thinking about Melania, this was all about the campaign’@mitchellreports and @KatyTurNBC are joined by a legal panel to discuss Michael Cohen’s testimony focusing on the hush money payment and the “Access Hollywod” tape in former President Trump’s criminal trial. pic.twitter.com/rcohWqqybS
— MSNBC Reports (@MSNBC_reports) May 13, 2024
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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.”
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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.
ICYMI: @realDonaldTrump joined @NickKayal & @DawnStensland sharing his perspective on Title IX…
Watch below or listen on @Audacy pic.twitter.com/wzx0QxKPJ7
— Talk Radio 1210 WPHT (@1210WPHT) May 10, 2024
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Johnson Would Contest 2024 Election Results Under the Same ‘Circumstances’
‘Grave Danger’: Trump’s ‘Raw Display’ of Power at Court Alarms Conservative
‘He Wasn’t Thinking About Melania’: Cohen Reveals Trump’s Fears in ‘Hush Money’ Testimony
Trump Wails His Judge Was Appointed by ‘Democrat Politicians’ – That’s False
Trump Wails His Judge Was Appointed by ‘Democrat Politicians’ – That’s False
‘He Wasn’t Thinking About Melania’: Cohen Reveals Trump’s Fears in ‘Hush Money’ Testimony
‘Grave Danger’: Trump’s ‘Raw Display’ of Power at Court Alarms Conservative
Johnson Would Contest 2024 Election Results Under the Same ‘Circumstances’
‘On Day One’: Trump Vows to End Protections for LGBTQ Students
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