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North Carolina Tea Party Republicans File Bill To Establish Official State Religion

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North Carolina state Tea Party Republican lawmakers have filed a bill to allow the state to establish an official state religion. The move is a direct assault on the U.S. Constitution and wholly ignores the Fourteenth Amendment. The two sponsors of the bill, freshmen House Representatives Harry Warren and Carl Ford, have already managed to get nine co-sponsors who conveniently have ignored the fact that Rep. Ford’s full-time job: the owner of two North Carolina Gospel music radio stations.

The bill claims “each state in the union is sovereign and may independently determine how that state may make laws respecting an establishment of religion,” and mentions the Tenth Amendment three times. It also argues First Amendment “prohibition does not apply to states, municipalities, or schools.”

Article 6 Section 8 of the North Carolina state constitution reads:

The following persons shall be disqualified for office: First, any person who shall deny the being of Almighty God.

The Huffington Post adds:

The religion bill comes as some Republican-led states seek to separate themselves from the federal government, primarily on the issues of guns and Obamacare. This includes a proposal in Mississippi to establish a state board with the power to nullify federal laws.

“They basically want to ensure that a long line of U.S. Supreme Court rulings have no validity either here in Rowan County or here in the entire state,” [Dr. Michael] Bitzer of Catawba College told the Salisbury Post:

“They’re basing it on — to put it mildly — discredited legal theory that the states can deny the power of the federal government within their jurisdiction. We saw this in the aftermath of Brown v. Board of Education. The belief is that the states hold more power than the federal government. If the federal government does something, the states can simply ignore it.”

The legislation also references a freedom for those in public schools — which could open the door for schoolhouse prayer, Bitzer said.

“They’re ramping up,” he said of [Reps.] Warren and Ford. “They’re throwing the gauntlet down. How much this is going to be binding — it’s a joint resolution — but they’re basically making it known where they’re drawing the line. This will play well within the base, but it calls into question any historical understanding of the past 200-plus years of legal precedents for both understanding the role of religion in the public sphere and the role of states to the federal government.”

The ACLU filed suit on behalf of residents Nan Lund, Liesa Montag-Siegel and Robert Voelker in early March to stop commissioners’ use of sectarian prayer during official meetings. They alleged a civil rights violation in the action.

In a statement released Tuesday, ACLU of North Carolina Legal Director Chris Brook took aim at the resolution.

“The bill sponsors fundamentally misunderstand constitutional law and the principles of the separation of powers that date back to the founding of this country,” Brook wrote.

Gary Freeze, a history and politics professor at Catawba College, said the legislation also goes against a longstanding North Carolina tradition of religious establishment.

“I can tell you with 100 percent confidence there is no tradition of wanting an established religion in this state’s heritage,” Freeze said.

He also described the bill as “the verge of being neo-secessionist.”

“It’s almost anti-nationalist. It has elements of not being American,” Freeze said. “I think it goes far beyond religion and frankly doesn’t have a lot to do with North Carolina or tradition.”

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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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