02b U.S. Politics – Progressive

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Excerpt from www.politicususa.com

A Craigslist ad is recruiting people to attend Trump’s Las Vegas rally for branding and marketing purposes.

Here is the text of the ad:

Looking for someone to attend the Trump rally on Sunday. It would be a marketing promo so we would ask you to wear a shirt of the brand and also carry a sign. Bonus payment ($50) if you end up on broadcast!

Picking up shirts / signs + attending event estimated at a total of 3-4 hours of work. $75 flat payment + $50 potential bonus.

We ask that you take photos of the event for confirmation and marketing purposes.

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Excerpt from www.politifact.com

As the jury in the Manhattan trial of former President Donald Trump headed toward deliberation May 29, Judge Juan Merchan gave jurors their instructions.

Once the instructions filtered onto social media, however, they were distorted.

“Judge Merchan has instructed the jury they do not need to have a UNANIMOUS verdict in order to convict former President Donald J. Trump,” former Fox News writer and producer Kyle Becker wrote May 29 on X.

“This is insane,” the conservative End Wokeness X account posted a few minutes later to its 2.5 million followers. “New York Judge Merchan just told jurors that they DO NOT have to unanimously agree on what crime Trump is guilty of.”

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Excerpt from thehill.com

 

A coalition of attorneys general from various states urged the Department of Justice (DOJ) to open a civil rights investigation into the murder of a Black Lives Matter (BLM) protester in 2020 after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) pardoned his killer two weeks ago.

The group of attorneys general, all Democrats, said that Garrett Foster, the protestor, was “exercising” his First Amendment right at the time when he was shot. They also slammed the case, saying the facts of it were “egregious.”

The group, in their letter addressed to Attorney General Merrick Garland, expressed concern over the “stand your ground” law, which Abbott mentioned when announcing Daniel Perry’s pardon in mid-May.

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Excerpt from crooksandliars.com

Steve Bannon and Alex Jones ranted like fools when they both claimed that Merrick Garland and the FBI wanted to inflict serious bodily harm to Trump when they searched Mar-A-Lago.

These two are some of the worst traitors in US history.

BANNON: The deep state, you’ve seen this in Garland. Look, you just had Judge Cannon come out today and basically crap all over Jack Smith’s head. At 10 o’clock at night on Friday, on the holiday weekend, Alex, Jack Smith filed and said, oh, this is terrible.

Julie Kelly, Steve Bannon, Mike Davis, they’re saying everything about this assassination attempt. And let me be blunt, this was not a standard operating procedure.

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Excerpt from www.dailykos.com

The GOP has a ‘candidate quality’ Senate problem—again

You’d think they’d have learned their lesson from the last election. And yet …

New study finds one-third of Congress is now iffy on democracy

This will give you nightmares.

The white supremacy strategy at the core of Trump’s plans for a second term

If Trump has his way, racism will be super-sized.

Cartoon: Georgia—the peach state

Tough but fair.

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Excerpt from www.politicususa.com

Actor Robert De Niro took down a Trump supporter after he called 1/6 police officers Michael Fanone and Harry Dunn traitors.

Read: Samuel Alito Is The Insurrectionist Threat To Democracy On The Supreme Court

Video of De Niro:

After the man can be heard calling the police officers traitors, De Niro said, They’re traitors? I don’t even know how to deal with you, my friend. They stood there. They didn’t have to. They stood there and fought for us. They fought for you, buddy. You’re able to stand right here. They are the true heroes. I’m honored to be with these two heroes today.”

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Excerpt from www.dailykos.com

Last week, Nikki Haley became the latest Republican to come crawling back into the fold to endorse Donald Trump after his abuse and humiliation.

“I think she’s going to be on our team,” he told a local New York journalist in response, kindly refraining from his frequent nickname for her: “birdbrain.”

Exactly what kind of team member will she be this time around, after serving as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations in his first term? It probably depends on what she can do, and continue to do, for the multi-indicted Trump.

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Excerpt from www.dailykos.com

Donald Trump would no doubt tell you he was a better president than Ronald Reagan … and Abraham Lincoln … and George Washington. But, as we all know, Trump just says things, and if they’re even tangentially connected to the truth, it’s usually just an accident.

That said, in at least one significant way, Trump is hoping to seriously one-up the Gipper, who—not for nothing—led us down the faux-patriotic primrose path to the front gate of the abattoir.

Wednesday night, after a long day putting the finishing touches on his health care, infrastructure, and reproductive rights plans (all available in two weeks!), Trump promised that Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who’s currently being detained in Russia and has been jailed for a year, would be released “almost immediately” after the November election—but only if Trump wins.

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Excerpt from www.politicususa.com

Christina Bobb, the RNC’s election integrity lawyer, was arraigned on criminal charges related to the fake elector scheme in Arizona.

MSNBC.com reported:

The defendants appeared in court, in person and virtually, on Tuesday in Phoenix. Giuliani, who appeared without a lawyer, called in, telling the judge that he didn’t have a copy of the indictment but has a “general familiarity with the charges from reading it in the newspapers.” He pleaded not guilty.

Others arraigned Tuesday include former Arizona Republican Party chair Kelli Ward and Christina Bobb, who served as a 2020 Trump campaign adviser and is now an “election integrity” lawyer for the Republican National Committee. They all pleaded not guilty.

Rudy Giuliani is the big headliner in this group, but it is unfathomable that the “election integrity” lawyer for the Republican National Committee is facing criminal charges for election-related crimes, and it doesn’t generate even a ripple in mainstream media coverage.

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Excerpt from www.politicususa.com

Trump claimed that Putin will release detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershovich only if he wins the election

Trump posted on Truth Social:

Evan Gershkovich, the Reporter from The Wall Street Journal, who is being held by Russia, will be released almost immediately after the Election, but definitely before I assume Office. He will be HOME, SAFE, AND WITH HIS FAMILY. Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, will do that for me, but not for anyone else, and WE WILL BE PAYING NOTHING!

Instead of calling on the detained reporter to be freed, Trump is fine with the reporter being held for ransom, and that ransom is the return of Trump to the White House. What Trump posted about Gerschovich was un-American. If he returns to the White House, Trump signaled that he will only work to free American hostages, and let’s face it, an unjustly detained journalist is being used as a hostage if there is something in it for him.

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Excerpt from www.dailykos.com

Senate Democrats prepare to launch a big fight for reproductive rights

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Excerpt from www.motherjones.com

The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the constitutionality of a South Carolina congressional map that a lower court had previously found diluted the power of Black voters. In a 6-3 decision authored by Justice Samuel Alito, the Court’s conservative supermajority wrote that “the Challengers provided no direct evidence of a racial gerrymander, and their circumstantial evidence is very weak.”

The court’s ruling protects the seat of GOP Rep. Nancy Mace, a onetime relative moderate who has veered sharply to the right after Republicans redrew her district following the 2020 census to make it more GOP-friendly. She was one of eight House Republicans who voted to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and she subsequently endorsed Donald Trump despite once saying that she held him responsible for the January 6 insurrection. Mace defeated Democrat Joe Cunningham by one point in 2020, but she won reelection in her redrawn Charleston-based district by 14 points in 2022.

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Excerpt from crooksandliars.com

MAGA Rep. Anna Paulina Luna told traitor Steve Bannon her plan to have the Sergeant at Arms arrest Attorney General Garland and jail him until he turns over audio to Congress, audio they’re hoping will diminish President Biden.

Rep. Luna-tic finally read the rules manual and thinks she has an idea to confine Garland until he complies with Republicans’ fishing operation.

BANNON: Tell me what’s going on, America on the contempt citation. I thought that was going to move too quickly, but then you’re coming out, you’ve got a plan B, is it?

LUNA: So, uh, so to kind of just quickly explain to the listeners, there’s two types of contempt of Congress. There’s criminal contempt, which Congress can bring towards anyone that violates a subpoena.

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Excerpt from www.politifact.com

Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker’s recent commencement address at Benedictine College has drawn criticism for his remarks about motherhood and sparked misinformation.

We’ve already debunked a claim that Butker said society would be better off if “women had more babies than thoughts.”

Another, in which the Kansas City Chiefs coach allegedly threatens to quit if the team drops Butker, is also fake.

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Excerpt from www.politicususa.com

Trump came up with the conspiracy theory that it is fascists who are controlling the Oval Office who are behind his prosecution.

Trump said, “Such a disgrace. So sad to see what’s happened to our country. Our country is going to hell under Biden, but look at the person, why don’t you look at the person that argued their case to almost the entire case? Look at the, he comes from unbelievable. He came from Biden and I don’t know if it’s Biden because I don’t think Biden has any idea what the hell is happening. But it’s from the fascist circle in the Oval Office. They circle the Resolute Desk. The beautiful resolute desk that’s being stinked up.”

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Excerpt from www.motherjones.com

The trial of fugitive Chinese mogul Guo Wengui kicks off in New York Wednesday, as federal prosecutors prepare to lay out what they have called a “complex” conspiracy involving elaborate financial schemes, dozens of offshore accounts, and evidence translated from Mandarin. But the heart of the case is a simple and familiar American phenomenon: political grift—a confidence job in which a demagogic leader allegedly translated partisan passion into personal gain. If the case against Guo sounds a bit like what critics say about Donald Trump, that’s no coincidence. Guo’s rise was aided by some of the same people who have boosted the former president.

Guo grew up in China, made a fortune there through allegedly corrupt real estate maneuvers, and arrived in the United States in 2015 as a billionaire. Once in America, Guo built an eclectic empire of organizations, created a public brand as a leading critic of the Chinese Communist Party, and amassed large following of fellow Chinese emigres—people whose loyalty is reflected by their self-description as “ants.”

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Excerpt from www.dailykos.com

At least a few Republicans have issued mildly critical responses to Justice Samuel Alito’s upside-down flag, a symbol of support for Donald Trump, while the Supreme Court was debating election issues in 2021.

It’s been a long time since any statement from Donald Trump, no matter how outrageous, generated more from congressional Republicans than a kind of selective ignorance, or, of course, an announcement from Sen. Susan Collins that she is “very concerned.”

In the case of Alito, even reliable Trump lap dogs feel compelled to take a gentle poke. As HuffPost reports, that includes Sen. Lindsey Graham, who said that flying the inverted flag was “not good judgment.” Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana said that Alito’s flag suggested “a partisan take” on an issue before the court. And Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota simply called it “weird.”

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Excerpt from www.politifact.com

Former President Donald Trump in a May 21 campaign email and social media posts falsely accused President Joe Biden of putting his life at risk in an August 2022 FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago.

“BREAKING FROM TRUMP: BIDEN’S DOJ WAS AUTHORIZED TO SHOOT ME!” read an all-caps subject line on an email from Trump’s campaign.

“It’s just been revealed that Biden’s DOJ was authorized to use DEADLY FORCE for their DESPICABLE raid in Mar-a-Lago. You know they’re just itching to do the unthinkable…Joe Biden was locked & loaded ready to take me out & put my family in danger,” the email said.

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Excerpt from crooksandliars.com

Sloppy Steve Bannon spoke with Bloomberg News’s Joshua Green to ask him about his deep dive into Trump World in his latest piece. Bannon seems to think it’s cute when Trump talks about staying in power for more than two terms. Green noted that that’s a concern for voters, and they’re taking it seriously, Media Matters reports. And they should take it seriously.

“So my piece is called “Trump Forever?” with a question mark, and it’s based on, you know, I get to sit in on how to focus groups and stuff from time to time,” Green said. “Strategists in both parties will let me do this just to kind of get a pulse of what voters are talking about and worrying about.”

“And one thing that I picked up on was that a lot of undecided voters and a lot of voters who actually voted for Biden in 2020 but then have turned against him are hesitant to vote for Donald Trump because they’re afraid that if Trump is reelected, he’ll never leave the White House, that he’ll wipe out term limits, declare himself king and essentially establish a permanent presidency,” he continued. “And this is a real fear among real people who are out there.”

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Excerpt from crooksandliars.com

Does the FBI really need to point this out? This is the state of our nation, when a presidential candidates uses this accusation (that the FBI planned to kill him) to fundraise. Not only was this standard procedure, it was the exact same language used in the warrant to search the Biden properties! But facts will never get in the way with this bunch. Via ABC News:

The FBI has issued a rare statement after former President Donald Trump and several GOP lawmakers spread false claims suggesting President Joe Biden authorized his assassination during the search of his Mar-a-Lago resort in 2022.

In a fundraising email responding to right-wing media reports that offered a distorted reading of a newly-unsealed court filing in Trump’s classified documents case, Trump falsely claimed Biden was “locked & loaded ready to take me out.”

[…] “The FBI followed standard protocol in this search as we do for all search warrants, which includes a standard policy statement limiting the use of deadly force,” the FBI said in a statement Tuesday evening. “No one ordered additional steps to be taken and there was no departure from the norm in this matter.”