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300 Top Republicans (Yes, Republicans) Just Asked The Supreme Court To Support Gay Marriage

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You just won’t believe some of the names on this list of prominent conservatives and Republicans who want same-sex couples to have the legal right to marriage.

Let’s be honest. The Republican Party has been home to almost if not all of the most anti-gay politicians, religious leaders, activists, and power brokers in America. Which is not to say all Republicans are anti-gay, but when being anti-gay is embedded in the actual text of your party’s platform, there’s little room to claim your party supports equality.

So it should come as both a huge surprise and be viewed as a monumental event that over 300 prominent Republicans, some of whom have publicly spoken out against same-sex marriage or LGBT civil rights, have signed on to an amicus brief sent to the U.S. Supreme Court today.

As TIME points out, the brief states its signers “share the view that laws that bar same-sex couples from the institution of civil marriage, with all its attendant profoundly important rights and responsibilities, are inconsistent with the United States Constitution’s dual promises of equal protection and due process.”

Who’s on that list?

Here are a few of the more than 300 names:

Ken Mehlman, whose name is listed as the person behind the group of conservatives.

Rudy Giuliani

Charles Koch

Former EBay CEO and GOP nominee for California Governor Meg Whitman

Retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal

Former Bush Dep. Sec. of Defense Paul Wolfowitz

Former U.S. Senator of Missouri and ordained Episcopal priest John C. Danforth

Ronald Reagan White House Chief of Staff Kenneth M. Duberstein

Mitt Romney presidential campaign Political Director and former RNC Political Director Rich Beeson

Sen. John McCain’s former Press Secretary Crystal Benton 

Sen. John McCain’s former National Spokesman Tucker Bounds

Gov. Scott Walker’s former Deputy Campaign Manager Dan Blum

Former U.S. Congresswoman Mary Bono

Komen for the Cure founder and former US Ambassador to Hungary under George W. Bush Nancy Brinker

Alex Castellanos, CNN contributor and GOP strategist

Mary Cheney

U.S Senator Susan Collins (Maine)

S.E. Cupp

Bush National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley

Abby Huntsman

John Huntsman

U.S. Senator Mark Kirk (Illinois)

CNN’s Ana Navarro

Former Pennsylvania Gov. and Homeland Security Dir. Tom Ridge

Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen

Mitt Romney Press Sec. Andrea Saul 

Perhaps one of the most interesting signatories is Ben Domenech, co-founder of RedState, now run by anti-gay religious right radical Erick Erickson, and co-founder of The Federalist, a conservative website that has published extremely anti-gay articles.

The one take away from the list is it includes many people behind leading anti-gay politicians, like Mitt Romney and John McCain. But it also includes many old guard Republicans, who grew up in a GOP decades before the politics of ignorance were embraced by the Tea Party. And it includes many younger Republicans, 61 percent of whom support same-sex marriage.

One final note about the list: It is extensive and there are many on it who likely deserve to be listed above. We opted to include some of the more surprising names, along with some of the better-known names. There are others who deserve recognition, and we offer our sincere thanks to each and every one.

Image by Pen Waggener via Flickr and a CC license
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News

‘Not an Accident’: Trump’s ‘Unified Reich’ Video Alarms Historians and Fascism Experts

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23 mins ago

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May 21, 2024

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Political experts, historians, and scholars of fascism are sounding the alarm after Donald Trump posted video Monday afternoon that promised a “unified Reich,” once again echoing language used by Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany.

“Trump’s continued use of Nazi rhetoric is un-American and despicable. Yet too many Americans are brushing off the glaring red flags about what could happen if he returns to the White House,” former Trump White House deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews warned. “When someone shows you who they are, believe them.”

The video features made-up newspaper headlines claiming a Trump win of the 2024 presidential election. It asks, “What’s Next for America,” and promotes “the creation of a unified Reich.”

“The 30-second video, which Mr. Trump posted on his social media site, Truth Social, features several articles styled like newspapers from the early 1900s — and apparently recycling text from reports on World War I, including references to ‘German industrial strength’ and ‘peace through strength,'” The New York Times reported. “One article in the video asserts that Mr. Trump would deport 15 million migrants in a second term, while text onscreen lists the start and end days of World War I.”

READ MORE: ‘Wack Pack’: Questions Swirl Over ‘Trump Uniforms’ and Who’s Funding ‘Weird’ Trial Surrogates

“Another headline in the video suggests that Mr. Trump in a second term would reject “globalists,” using a term that has been widely adopted on the far right and that scholars say can be used as a signal of antisemitism.”

Political commentator and former Clinton White House aide Keith Boykin posted an ABC News segment on the “unified reich” video, and remarked: “Donald Trump is openly copying Hitler’s Nazi language about a ‘unified reich’ and warning about ‘poisoning the blood’ of America, and people are still acting like this is a normal election.”

In that ABC News video, reporter Rachel Scott says, “It is normal, of course for presidential candidates to share videos with their vision for the country. It is not normal for those videos to have references to Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler. The Trump campaign tells us this morning that this was a video that was shared by a staffer while the former president was in court saying that staffer missed the reference but as of this morning that video has not been taken down.”

The Biden-Harris campaign quickly responded to the video, posting another video of “Trump saying that only he and his top right-hand man, Dan Scavino, have access to post on his social media accounts.”

The “unified Reich” video remained on Trump’s Truth Social platform for well over 12 hours, and reportedly was still up as of at least 8:00 AM, although it has since been taken down.

“Earlier this month,” The Associated Press reported, “Trump said at a fundraiser that Biden is running a ‘Gestapo administration,’ referring to the secret Nazi police force.”

READ MORE: Law ‘Requires’ Alito and Thomas to Recuse Says Former Federal Prosecutor

“Trump previously used rhetoric echoing Adolf Hitler when he said immigrants entering the U.S. illegally are ‘poisoning the blood of our country,’ and called his opponents ‘vermin.’ The former president has also drawn wide backlash for having dined with a Holocaust-denying white nationalist in 2022 and for downplaying the 2017 rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where white nationalists chanted ‘Jews will not replace us!'”

The Biden-Harris campaign also released this statement:

“America, stop scrolling and pay attention. Donald Trump is not playing games; he is telling America exactly what he intends to do if he regains power: rule as a dictator over a ‘unified reich.’ Parroting ‘Mein Kampf’ while you warn of a bloodbath if you lose is the type of unhinged behavior you get from a guy who knows that democracy continues to reject his extreme vision of chaos, division, and violence.”

Overnight, responding to the “unified Reich” video popular historian Heather Cox Richardson warned: “It is not clear to me how anyone can any longer deny that Trump is promising to destroy our democracy and usher in authoritarianism. But it is also not clear that he is still a figure that any but the extremes of his base will follow to that end. Hence his emphasis on turning them to violence.”

Journalist Gil Duran, who covers “tech fascism,” and “billionaire extremism,” says Trump’s “unified Reich” video ws not an accident.

Former FBI Assistant Director Frank Figliuzzi, now an NBC News National Security Analyst, also noted that the “reference to Hitler’s regime in Nazi Germany is not an accident.”

Former CIA analyst Gail Helt, responding to the Trump campaign’s claim it was posted by a staffer who didn’t see the “unified Reich” text, wrote: “Of course they knew. Of course they saw it. I hate Nazis.”

“Historian here,” wrote Professor of American history Dr. Manisha Sinha, snarkily responding to the Trump video. “Trump calls for a unified Reich but hey we are all being paranoid by calling him a wannabe fascist supported by neo Nazis and neo Confederates.”

Professor of history and expert on fascism and the Holocaust, the extreme right, and neo-Nazis, Dr. Federico Finchelstein, responding g to a report on the “unified Reich” video, called it, “Wannabe fascism in motion…”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: Why Alito’s ‘Stop the Steal’ Flag Story Just Fell Apart

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News

Trump Witness Turns ‘Strawberry Red’ After Judge’s Scalding Scolding

Published

17 hours ago

on

May 20, 2024

By

New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, after becoming visibly angered by Trump defense witness Robert Costello, cleared the courtroom of the jury and the press before admonishing the “MAGA-friendly lawyer” Monday afternoon in the ex-president’s criminal “hush money” trial.

Calling it a “brawl,” The Daily Beast set the scene: “After Costello, a former prosecutor, was reprimanded for delivering outbursts in the court whenever he was interrupted or told not to answer a question that had been objected to and sustained, Costello began to stare down the judge.”

Before the reprimand, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins reported: “Twice now the judge has sustained an objection and Costello answered regardless. Judge Merchan addresses him directly to not answer if he’s sustained the objection. ‘Jesus,’ Costello mutters after it happens again. ‘I’m sorry,’ the judge, visibly annoyed, says to him. ‘I’m sorry?'”

And then, the admonition.

READ MORE: ‘Wack Pack’: Questions Swirl Over ‘Trump Uniforms’ and Who’s Funding ‘Weird’ Trial Surrogates

“I’d like to discuss proper decorum in the courtroom,” Judge Merchan said, according to Collins. “If you don’t like my ruling, you don’t give me side eye and you don’t roll your eyes.”

Collins added: “Then in a raised voice, Merchan asks, ‘Are you staring me down right now?!'”

“The jury was NOT in the room for this,” Collins added. “Merchan sent them out, then admonished Costello, then when he was staring him down, Merchan became furious and cleared the courtroom. So the jury witnesses none of this. (And the press missed whatever was said in the interim.)”

Here’s how it went down, according to MSNBC host and legal contributor Katie Phang.

“Judge Merchan is ANGRY,” she observed, before reporting the dialogue:

“MERCHAN: ‘I’d like to discuss proper decorum in my courtroom’
MERCHAN: ‘If you don’t like my ruling, you don’t say ‘Jeez’ ‘
MERCHAN: You don’t say ‘strike it’ because I’m the only one who can strike it.
MERCHAN: ‘You don’t give me side eye and you don’t roll your eyes’
COSTELLO: I understand.”

Phang added, “When the media were allowed back in, Costello is seated at the witness stand looking decidedly chastened. Merchan looks calm.”

The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports the judge didn’t calmly just clear the courtroom:

MSNBC legal contributor Lisa Rubin called it, “one of the wildest things I’ve ever seen in court.”

READ MORE: Law ‘Requires’ Alito and Thomas to Recuse Says Former Federal Prosecutor

And while CNN’s Collins noted the jury was not in the courtroom for exchange, Phang reports: “Although the dressing down of Costello took place outside of earshot of the jury, they witnessed firsthand Costello’s demeanor and petulance and heard firsthand his quips and remarks from the witness stand. Perhaps Costello just reinforced to the jury why Cohen didn’t want to keep Costello as his lawyer…Costello is pandering for an audience of one: Trump.”

MSNBC legal analyst Kristy Greenberg noted, “Michael Cohen was respectful. Bob Costello is acting like a clown. Jurors will notice and this will hurt Trump. Any concerns that jurors may have had about Cohen have now been overshadowed by Costello’s disrespect to the judge right in front of their faces.”

Lowell also reported that after the reprimand, “Costello is so red in the face he resembles a strawberry.”

See the social media post above or at this link.

 

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OPINION

‘Wack Pack’: Questions Swirl Over ‘Trump Uniforms’ and Who’s Funding ‘Weird’ Trial Surrogates

Published

20 hours ago

on

May 20, 2024

By

Trump trial watchers are raising questions over the increasingly large number of elected Republicans and big-name allies showing up at the Manhattan Criminal Courts Building to show support for the indicted ex-president, often giving angry and factually inaccurate speeches before the cameras, or standing behind the defendant in the background as he delivers his rants to reporters.

They are usually all men, and usually all dressed just as Donald Trump does: blue suit, white shirt, red tie.

Public Notice founder Aaron Rupar on Monday, observed, “they’re all in Trump costumes again. how cute.”

Questions about their “uniforms,” and more importantly, who is funding and organizing their travel, are being raised.

Media critic Jennifer Schulze, a former Chicago Sun-Times executive producer, WGN news director, and adjunct college professor of journalism, commented: “The trump uniforms angle is flying way too low beneath the mainstream news radar. The same is true for how this weird courtroom guest star show is being organized & financed.”

READ MORE: Why Alito’s ‘Stop the Steal’ Flag Story Just Fell Apart

And they are being called “uniforms.”

Filmmaker and podcaster Andy Ostroy declared, “I’m sorry, but all these #Trump capos showing up each day at the trial dressed exactly the same as The Godfather in blue suit and red tie is not only creepy AF but is a chilling foreshadowing of the fascist uniform-wearing government they’re jonesin’ to be a part of…”

Talk radio host Joan Esposito also asked who’s paying for these appearances: “Is the trump campaign paying for these surrogates to fly to & from nyc? If not, who is?”

Political commentator Bob Cesca remarked, “Trump’s fanboys are like the Wack Pack from the Stern show circa 1990.”

Monday’s star surrogates included South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, an election denier who had supported overturning the 2020 presidential election and signed onto what has been called a “false and frivolous” lawsuit attempting to overturn the results.

Also, Republican U.S. Reps. Eric Burlison, Andrew Clyde, Mary Miller, and Keith Self. And John Coale from the Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute, attorney Alan Dershowitz, Trump attorney and GOP attorney general candidate Will Scharf, convicted felon and Trump pardon recipient Bernie Kerik, Trump loyalist and former Trump administration official Kash Patel, and others.

READ MORE: Law ‘Requires’ Alito and Thomas to Recuse Says Former Federal Prosecutor

Op-ed columnist Terry Cowgill last week called them “manservants…standing at attention like automatons.”

“Scary and very very strange” was actress and activist Mia Farrow’s observation last week.

Vanity Fair’s Molly Jong-Fast, an MSNBC political analyst, last week asked, “Why did they all wear the same outfit?”

The Biden campaign was only too happy to post this video last week:

See the social media posts and videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Partisan Insurrectionist’: Calls Mount for Alito’s Ouster After ‘Stop the Steal’ Scandal

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