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‘Propagation Of Our Species’: SC GOP Senators Move To Ban Gay Marriage In US Constitution

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A group of South Carolina Republican state senators are working to amend the U.S. Constitution to ban same-sex marriage.

A South Carolina Senate subcommittee today passed a resolution to add an amendment – not to their own state’s constitution – but to the U.S. Constitution, that would ban same-sex marriage. The measure was passed onto the Senate Judiciary committee, where it would likely pass as well.

The resolution, S 0031, charges that “opponents of the traditional, sacred definition of marriage as union of a man and woman have gone to court to force their contrary view upon the majority of Americans.” It posits that “marriage has long been defined by relationships between men and women. The tradition is measured in millennia, not centuries or decades,” and “marriage being defined as a union between a man and a woman has, until recently, been adopted by all governments and every major religion in the world.”

It could also effectively nullify current same-sex marriages if licensed by states that choose to later ban them.

South Carolina Republican State Senators Larry Grooms (image) and Danny Verdin are the sponsors of S 0031. 

“It has to do with the propagation of our species,” Grooms said today, according to The Post and Courier. “It is what is in the best interest of our species. Now we’re told through a federal judge that now we have to change that. It throws out of kilter all of our laws that have been based on the foundation of a man and a woman (being married).”

On Facebook today, Grooms added, “It is high time the states step up and do what we can to preserve life and liberty for the future generations.”

GOP State Sen. Lee Bright reportedly stated that federal judges who have made same-sex marriage legal should be impeached.

Subcommittee Chairman Shane Massey weighed in as well.

“Marriage is one man and one woman, and I believe that’s the way it’s been in the history of mankind up until the last 15 years,” he said.

The two Democrats on the subcommittee opposed the resolution.

 

Image: Screenshot via YouTube

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Alito’s ‘Unmistakable Breach’ Warrants Recusal in Trump Case: Judicial Policy Expert

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Justice Samuel Alito accepting a telephone call from Donald Trump, hours before the President-elect would file a motion with the U.S. Supreme Court to delay sentencing in his criminal business fraud case, was an “unmistakable breach” of ethics and judgment, and warrants recusal from the case, a longtime judicial ethics and policy expert says.

Alito told ABC News the two did not discuss the case, and reportedly said Trump called for a job reference regarding a former clerk of Alito’s.

“It’s obviously an unmistakable breach of protocol,” Gabe Roth, founder and executive director of the nonpartisan, nonprofit organization Fix the Court, told NPR‘s Michel Martin Thursday morning. Alito has “got to know better,” and “should have not taken the call, and known that this is inappropriate.”

“You have an individual in the President-elect who is petitioning the Supreme Court related to his sentencing in the hush money case, a Supreme Court justice, who frankly should know better,” he explained. “This conversation should not have taken place.”

READ MORE: ‘All Eyes on SCOTUS’ After Trump Loses Sentencing Bid at Top NY Court

Roth said “it doesn’t make sense,” and that the former clerk, whom he named as Will Levi, “has plenty of other credentials.”

“He worked for [Republican U.S. Senator] Mike Lee, he could have Mike Lee call.”

“He’s been a partner in the law. His dad’s a former federal judge, his grandfather was the Attorney General.”

Roth said that “this episode shows the justices don’t really care about the ethics because they know that no one’s going to stop them from doing whatever it is that they want to do.”

And while he doesn’t see that any laws were broken, Roth said, “there are certain protocols that if you are a Supreme Court justice, you really don’t intermingle with the executive branch or the incoming executive branch,” and, “especially at a time when President Trump we know is going to have all these executive orders coming down the pike whose fate will be decided by the justices, this to me just seems like an opportunity for him to have a an audience before one of the nine people determining his administration’s fate in so many of these issues.”

Calling the Trump “hush money” case “fairly significant,” Roth asked if the Supreme Court justices are “going to stand for the rule of law and stand behind what the New York jury” decided.

READ MORE: Trump Blames Wildfires on ‘Biden/Newscum Duo’ in Multiple Attacks as Californians Lose All

Alito’s breach “potentially could violate a rule. There is a federal law that applies to the Supreme Court justices that says, a justice shall recuse himself from a case when his impartiality might reasonably be questioned. People are a reasonably questioning Alito’s impartiality given this call with Trump, so that would mean he would be required to recuse from any Trump related cases.”

But, Roth acknowledges, “there is no way to enforce that” because it’s “all self enforcing and self policing.”

“Usually the justices are better at at hiding their ethnics issues, but I guess, you know, now that the Supreme Court green lit near absolute immunity for the president, and Congress has refused to pass any sort of enforceable ethics for the justices, it looks like they’re not even trying to hide it.”

Listen to Roth’s remarks via NPR below or at this link.

READ MORE: DOJ to Release Special Counsel’s J6 Report on Trump, His Lawyers Expected to Object: Report

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‘All Eyes on SCOTUS’ After Trump Loses Sentencing Bid at Top NY Court

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The clock is running out on Donald Trump’s efforts in the New York judicial system to delay criminal sentencing, as a judge in the state’s highest court rejected his motion Thursday morning. Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts of business fraud stemming from his “hush money” case. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg declared the convictions were for “falsifying New York business records in order to conceal his illegal scheme to corrupt the 2016 election.

Trump’s last hope appears to be for the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene, a request he made Wednesday. Some experts have suggested the Supreme Court lacks jurisdiction in the case—an argument Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is now making.

On Thursday morning, a judge at New York’s Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, denied Trump’s motion to delay sentencing, which is slated for Friday morning.

READ MORE: Trump Blames Wildfires on ‘Biden/Newscum Duo’ in Multiple Attacks as Californians Lose All

“Three levels of New York courts have now rejected Donald Trump’s efforts to delay tomorrow’s criminal sentencing,” Courthouse News’ Erik Uebelacker reported. “All eyes are now on the U.S. Supreme Court,”

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday, responding almost immediately to Trump’s request to delay sentencing, ordered Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to respond to the President-elect’s motion.

Bragg’s response is damning.

“Defendant now asks this Court to take the extraordinary step of intervening in a pending state criminal trial to prevent the scheduled sentencing from taking place—before final judgment has been entered by the trial court, and before any direct appellate review of defendant’s conviction. There is no basis for such intervention,” Bragg writes.

Citing federal statute, Bragg states the U.S. Supreme Court “lacks jurisdiction over a state court’s management of an ongoing criminal trial when defendant has not exhausted his state-law remedies,” and there has been no final judgment rendered.

He also states that Trump “has not satisfied the stringent standards necessary to support the ‘extraordinary remedy’ of a stay.”

READ MORE: DOJ to Release Special Counsel’s J6 Report on Trump, His Lawyers Expected to Object: Report

Trump’s “assertion that any invocation of presidential immunity automatically entitles him to a stay pending appeal is incorrect; this Court must instead consider whether a stay is appropriate for the particular claims of immunity that defendant has raised.”

Bragg continues to hammer away at Trump’s arguments.

The “defendant claims that his recent election as President immediately entitled him to the same immunity from prosecution as the sitting President and thus exempts him from the January 10 sentencing,” Bragg writes. Trump, he says, “makes the unprecedented claim that the temporary presidential immunity he will possess in the future fully immunizes him now, weeks before he even takes the oath of office, from all state-court criminal process. This extraordinary immunity claim is unsupported by any decision from any court.” [Italics are in the original document.]

Noting that “there is only one President at a time,” Bragg adds, “Non-employees of the government do not exercise any official function that would be impaired by the conclusion of a criminal case against a private citizen for private conduct. And as this Court has repeatedly recognized, presidential immunity is strictly limited to the time of the President’s term in office.”

He also says there is a “compelling public interest” to move to sentencing, and notes that Judge Juan Merchan has already stated he will not sentence Trump to jail time.

“Now we find out if there are enough votes on SCOTUS to give Trump even more immunity than he already has,” observed Professor of Law and former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance.

The question of votes comes amid news, first reported by ABC News, that on Tuesday, Trump called U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, one of the most far-right jurists on the top court, purportedly to discuss a job reference.

“We did not discuss the emergency application he filed [Wednesday], and indeed, I was not even aware at the time of our conversation that such an application would be filed,” Alito said, ABC reported. “We also did not discuss any other matter that is pending or might in the future come before the Supreme Court or any past Supreme Court decisions involving the President-elect.”

While the Supreme Court is under no obligation to respond before Trump’s sentencing Friday, it likely will.

“The Court will probably issue its order this evening,” notes The Economist’s Supreme Court reporter Steven Mazie.

RELATED: ‘Bananas’: Congressman Asks How Trump’s ‘Insane’ Threats Benefit Americans Economically

 

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Trump Blames Wildfires on ‘Biden/Newscum Duo’ in Multiple Attacks as Californians Lose All

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Less than two weeks before his inauguration, President-elect Donald Trump took time on Wednesday to criticize—four times—California Governor Gavin Newsom, as three “wind-fueled wildfires” tore through Los Angeles and surrounding areas. The fires caused several deaths, destroyed more than one thousand buildings—including homes and businesses—and left massive devastation in their wake.

The Los Angeles Times called it “one of the most destructive firestorms to hit the region in memory.” At least 70,000 people have been evacuated, according to the latest AP report, and, as ABC News notes, more than 1.5 million are without power.

Wednesday afternoon, Trump blamed the massive destruction directly on Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom: “He is the blame for this,” Trump declared, calling him “Gavin Newscum.”

“Governor Gavin Newscum refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snow melt from the North, to flow daily into many parts of California, including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way,” Trump wrote on his social media website.

READ MORE: ‘Mexican America’: President of Mexico Trolls Trump With Vintage Map

Trump’s claim about refusing to sign a “water restoration declaration” was deemed false in a statement from the governor’s office.

“There is no such document as the water restoration declaration – that is pure fiction,” the governor’s office stated. “The Governor is focused on protecting people, not playing politics, and making sure firefighters have all the resources they need.”

Trump’s attacks continued, claiming Newsom “wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt, by giving it less water (it didn’t work!), but didn’t care about the people of California. Now the ultimate price is being paid. I will demand that this incompetent governor allow beautiful, clean, fresh water to FLOW INTO CALIFORNIA! He is the blame for this. On top of it all, no water for fire hydrants, not firefighting planes. A true disaster!”

Later on Wednesday, Trump appeared to delight in the wildfire disaster.

“As of this moment, Gavin Newscum and his Los Angeles crew have contained exactly ZERO percent of the fire. It is burning at levels that even surpass last night. This is not Government. I can’t wait till January 20th!”

Trump continued to blame Newsom, and added President Joe Biden to his attack.

“The fires in Los Angeles may go down, in dollar amount, as the worst in the History of our Country. In many circles, they’re doubting whether insurance companies will even have enough money to pay for this catastrophe. Let this serve, and be emblematic, of the gross incompetence and mismanagement of the Biden/Newscum Duo. January 20th cannot come fast enough!”

On Wednesday, in an all-caps rant, Trump also wrote: “No water in the fire hydrants, no money in FEMA. This is what Joe Biden is leaving me. Thanks Joe!”

The Hill reports that “Newsom and President Biden announced last month new rules to carry water to California farmers, as well as Los Angeles area residents, as a modification to the 2019 Trump-era regulation. Environmental advocates had pushed for the new rule in order to protect fish, including smelt.”

READ MORE: DOJ to Release Special Counsel’s J6 Report on Trump, His Lawyers Expected to Object: Report

On the campaign trail in September, then-candidate Trump threatened Newsom with withholding federal funds “to put out all his fires.”

Former Obama spokesperson Tommy Vietor blasted Trump, saying: “Everyone in LA is terrified right now and trying to figure out what to do, where to go, and how to keep their kids safe from fire and smoke. Our president-elect’s response is to launch another stupid political attack and pretend that the governor can stop the Santa Ana Winds.”

Meanwhile, Republicans jumped on the bandwagon and began attacking California.

Far-right U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona attacked California, suggesting they are not managing water properly, while also attacking FEMA, and spreading a false, debunked claim that the federal agency “diverted, uh, well over a billion, almost two billion dollars, to illegal alien care, and not emergency management care.”

“So we’ve got a lot of a lot of uh things that we need to assess at the federal level, uh, and and I I don’t want to jump all over this too much, but don’t forget that California uh, they, they really need to do a job statewide, managing their water resources. They, the millions of acre feet of water that they just allowed to flow out to to the uh the ocean every year.”

Independent journalist Justin Glawe, who writes the Substack newsletter “Welcome to American Doom,” noted: “If you want an idea of the capacity for empathy from the American right, Sean Hannity is kicking off his radio show right now by blaming California wildfires on Democrats and claiming Trump was right about ‘raking’ forest floors in 2018.”

President Joe Biden, who is in California, met with Governor Newsom and offered support.

“The White House said it was surging resources to the impacted areas of California, including five U.S. Forest Service air tankers, 10 federal firefighting helicopters and dozens of fire engines from the Forest Service,” The Hill adds.

“Newsom offered praise for Biden’s response to the fires, saying during Wednesday’s briefing that it was ‘impossible for me to express the level of appreciation and cooperation we’ve seen from the White House and this administration. So on behalf of all of us, Mr. President, thank you for being here.'”

Juliette Kayyem, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy school, a CNN national security analyst, and a “national leader in homeland security and crisis management,” remarked: “In all my years in and studying disaster management, I have never seen a president (elect) blame a jurisdiction WHILE the disaster was still out of control.  It distracts, is cruel to first responders and victims, and could impede effective response.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

RELATED: ‘Bananas’: Congressman Asks How Trump’s ‘Insane’ Threats Benefit Americans Economically

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