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23-Year Old Beheaded In Anti-Gay Hate Crime Murder In South Africa

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A 23-year old transgender and gay man was beheaded in his home town of Kuruman, South Africa Friday, in an anti-gay hate crime. Thapelo Makutle, who was crowned Miss Gay Kuruman, was murdered by two men who remain at large. Reports state that police, for reasons of language and training, are not classifying the murder as a hate crime, and do not understand the significance of the attack. On report states the police reject that Makutle was beheaded, but acknowledge his throat was slashed.

Mamba Online reports:

According to the group Legbo Northern Cape, Thapelo Makutle was attacked at his place of work in the John Taolo Gaetsewe district on Friday. The organisation said that there was an argument related to “his sexuality and homosexuality”.

His two attackers are believed to have followed him to the room where he lived and on Saturday cut his throat, decapitating him.

They left his body under a blanket as though he were sleeping.

Makutle, who identified as both gay and transgender, was a volunteer for Legbo Northern Cape. He recently participated in the Kimberley Out In Africa Gay and Lesbian Festival, was known as a beauty queen named Queen Bling and was recently crowned Miss Gay Kuruman.

“It’s so sad. I can’t describe the pain that we are feeling right now,” Shaine Griqua, director of Legbo Northern Cape, told Mambaonline. “We have lost a young, talented, gay man who was open about who he was. The last few days have been like a dark cloud.”

He said that no arrests have yet been made in connection with the murder. He expressed his frustration with the lack of support for LGBT people in the Northern Cape and noted that hate crimes are on the rise in the province.

“We recently had a lesbian stabbed three times in a bar because they said that she should be a woman and not a man. She chose not to press charges because she didn’t want her family involved,” Griqua said.

“The government is not interested in this problem,” he added.

A later report form Mamba Online states:

According to the Mothibistad police, Thapelo Makutle’s body was found lying on the floor of his rented room. It is alleged that the victim has been out with his friends that night. He left unannounced and his friends assumed that he had gone home to sleep.

Shaine Griqua, Director of Legbo Northern Cape, who first reported the attack, said that confusion around the state of the body likely stems from miscommunication due to most people in the area not speaking English as a first language.

Griqua believes that the attack was a hate crime and said that he has information that Makutle was killed as a result of an argument about his sexuality and gender appearance, but police have yet to confirm this, saying that the motive is as yet unknown.

He told Mambaonline that the police in the area are ill-equipped to deal appropriately with a hate crime.

“These people [the police] are not reliable. They don’t even know what a hate crime is. If you ask them if it was related to his sexuality they will say ‘no’ because they don’t understand the context,” Griqua insisted.

Global Post adds:

In a statement, Cosatu’s Northern Cape secretary Anele Gxoyiya condemned “this brutal attack on a young, brilliant and educated soul whose head was chopped off in a hate crime.”

While South Africa is one of the few countries in the world to extend equal rights to homosexuals, and the only nation in Africa to allow same-sex marriage, the reality of life in townships and rural areas for gays and lesbians has been one of often brutal violence.

In a high-profile incident last year, Noxolo Nogwaza, a lesbian activist based in KwaThema township near Johannesburg, was gang-raped and then stabbed and stoned to death, in what the New York-based group Human Rights Watch described as part of an “epidemic” of hate crimes against gays and lesbians in South Africa.

Politics Web published a statement in response to the murder, by Lindiwe Mazibuko MP, Democratic Alliance Parliamentary Leader:

This violent and gruesome assault is yet another reminder that many of our country’s people are still denied the basic rights and freedoms which our Constitution enshrines.

There is a spate of homophobic hate crimes which have recently taken place across our country, including the repugnant and unconscionable crime of so-called “corrective rape” committed against lesbian South African women.

At this time, South Africa needs strong leadership from President Jacob Zuma, and an indication of his commitment to ensuring that all South Africans are able to live their lives free from fear of discrimination or violence.

Unfortunately, the silence from the Presidency has been deafening. This silence is made worse by the fact that President Zuma has in the past shown himself to be prejudiced towards homosexuals.

Last year, the DA welcomed the establishment of a government-led Joint Task Team on a “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI) Intervention Strategy”, established in September 2011, under the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development.

Unfortunately, this task team has yet to make any report on its work.

Meanwhile, the spate of crimes continues.

President Zuma must speak out against this weekend’s horrific murder, and the many others like it, which are in danger of becoming all too commonplace in our country today.

I will today be calling for a debate in Parliament about the prevalence of these crimes in South Africa, and calling on MPs to discuss what can be done by the government to address this ongoing problem.

In addition, I will also be writing to the President to ask what immediate steps his government will be taking to address the violence and intimidation that homosexual South Africans must face on a daily basis.

Such crimes, and the President’s silence on them, cannot be allowed to continue.

Hat-tip: Towleroad

 

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News

‘This Isn’t Justice’: Legal Experts Blast Cannon for Postponing Trump Case Indefinitely

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U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon late Tuesday afternoon issued an indefinite postponement of the court date in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of Donald Trump on Espionage Act charges, in the indictment commonly referred to as the classified documents case.

Claiming it would be “imprudent and inconsistent with the Court’s duty to fully and fairly consider the various pending pre-trial motions before the Court,” along with other matters, Judge Cannon, a Trump appointee, wrote: “the Court finds that the ends of justice served by this continuance…outweigh the best interest of the public and Defendants in a speedy trial.”

Politico’s Kyle Cheney reports, “It may be months before we know the new schedule.” Trial had been slated to begin May 20.

“With 13 days before her trial was supposed to kick off, Judge Cannon finally says what has been obvious to every legal journalist I know: She’s not just canceling the existing trial date; she’s also not picking a replacement,” MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin reports.

READ MORE: Johnson Demands All Trump Prosecutions Cease, Vows to Use Congress ‘In Every Possible Way’

The 37 count indictment was brought after Trump removed well over 1000 items, including hundreds of classified documents, out of the White House, retained then refused to return them, allegedly violating several statutes under the Espionage Act.

“Trump mishandled classified documents that included information about the secretive U.S. nuclear program and potential domestic vulnerabilities in the event of an attack,” according t0 the federal indictment, Reuters reported last year.

The trial now is not expected to conclude before the November presidential election this year.

This is news but it’s hardly unexpected,” declared professor of law, former U.S. Attorney, and MSNBC contributor Joyce Vance wrote. “Judge Cannon seems desperate to avoid trying this case. This isn’t justice. defendants aren’t the only ones with speedy trial act rights, we the people have them too.”

“After the election,” professor of law and former chief White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter commented, “if Trump wins Jack Smith gets fired, the case gets dismissed, and Judge Cannon is ready for SCOTUS.”

READ MORE: Trump Threatens to Violate Gag Order and Go to Jail: ‘I’ll Do That Sacrifice Any Day’

Attorney and author Luppe B. Luppen noted, “Judge Cannon’s rationale for indefinitely postponing Trump’s classified documents trial is that a large number of pretrial motions remain unresolved—a state of affairs she has literally engineered by failing to resolve them.”

Professor of law and noted election law expert Rick Hasen asked: “Is it too cynical to believe that Judge Cannon timed the announcement of the postponement of a Trump classified documents trial to take away from the salacious sex details from Stormy Daniels’ testimony today?”

National security attorney Brad Moss served up a “silver lining to Cannon not setting a new trial date: she isn’t blocking the DC or Georgia election cases from resuming in the late summer/early fall, pending SCOTUS ruling on immunity.”

Foreign policy, national security, and political affairs analyst David Rothkopf added, “Justice delayed is justice denied. Both the defendant and the public have the right to a trial ‘without unnecessary delay.’ (Sixth Amendment.) When does Jack Smith seek a remedy for the problem Judge Cannon clearly represents? Tick freaking tock.”

READ MORE: Judge Hands Trump ‘Incarceration’ Threat as Experts Say Next Time He’ll Toss Him in Jail

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News

Trump Battled to Go to Son’s Graduation – So Why Is He Speaking at a Fundraiser That Day?

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Last month Donald Trump falsely told reporters Justice Juan Merchan had blocked him from attending his youngest son’s high school graduation, refusing to give him the day off from his required attendance at his New York criminal court case.

Justice Merchan had actually told Trump he would take the request under advisement, but Trump quickly ran to reporters painting the judge as heartless.

On April 15 Trump said, “it looks like the judge will not let me go to the graduation of my son who’s worked very, very hard and he is a great student.”

“It looks like the judge isn’t going to allow me to escape this scam. It’s a scam trial,” Trump alleged.

The Associated Press reported, “Trump then furthered his criticism of the judge on his Truth Social platform, writing in one post both that he ‘will likely not be allowed to attend’ and that ‘the Judge, Juan Merchan, is preventing me from proudly attending my son’s Graduation.’ He wrote in another post less than two hours later that he is ‘being prohibited from attending.'”

READ MORE: Johnson Demands All Trump Prosecutions Cease, Vows to Use Congress ‘In Every Possible Way’

None of that was accurate.

Last week Judge Merchan granted Trump the day off from court to attend his son’s high school graduation.

But The Lincoln Project and others on Tuesday posted the announcement for “Minnesota’s 2024 Lincoln Reagan Dinner With Special Guest DONALD J. TRUMP” on Friday, May 17, 2024.

Trump, as The New Republic notes, will be the headline speaker at the event in Saint Paul, Minnesota, which starts at 5:00 PM.

The fundraiser offers supporters the opportunity to spend $100,000, which grants them “10 VIP Dinner Seats | 10 VIP Reception Passes | 3 Photo Opportunities with President Trump.”

Or, for example, for $50,000, a supporter can get a “Chairman’s Host Table – 10 VIP Dinner Seats | 10 VIP Reception Passes | 1 Photo Opportunity with President Trump.”

KARE reports “the visit is expected to be the former president’s first trip to Minnesota of the 2024 election cycle.”

READ MORE: ‘I’m Not Talking About That Meeting’: Noem Implies She May Have Met With Kim Jong Un

Trump has strong motivation to head to Minnesota.

Over the weekend, as NBC News reports, “Top officials for former President Donald Trump’s campaign believe they can flip Democratic strongholds Minnesota and Virginia into his column in November, they told donors behind closed doors at a Republican National Committee retreat Saturday.”

Barron Trump’s graduation from Oxbridge Academy in Palm Beach, Florida reportedly will be the same day, May 17. Depending on timing, It’s possible Trump could fly from Florida to Minnesota to get to the fundraiser by 5 PM.

Watch Trump’s remarks from April 15 below or at this link.

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OPINION

Johnson Demands All Trump Prosecutions Cease, Vows to Use Congress ‘In Every Possible Way’

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In a clear attack on the executive branch, the judicial system, states’ rights, and the rule in law in America, Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson vowed on Tuesday to use all the powers of Congress at his disposal to end all four current criminal prosecutions of ex-president Donald Trump.

Johnson’s remarks late Tuesday morning came at the exact same time Stormy Daniels was giving sworn testimony about her alleged sexual relationship with Trump in a Manhattan Superior Court case. The presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee is on trial for 34 felonies related to falsification of business records when he allegedly paid hush money to the adult film star then covered up those payments in what prosecutors say was election interference.

“President Trump has done nothing wrong here and he continues to be the target of endless lawfare,” Speaker Johnson told reporters Tuesday during an official House news conference (video below). “It has to stop. And you’re gonna see the United States Congress address this in every possible way that we can, because we need accountability. Ultimately, at the end of the day, it’s bigger than President Trump. It’s about the people’s faith in our system of justice. And we’re gonna get down to the bottom of it. All these cases need to be dropped, because they are a threat to our system.”

Johnson’s remarks also come as he faces an ouster threat from far-right MAGA Republican Christian nationalist Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. The Speaker, who repeatedly has said he speaks to Trump frequently, spent the weekend at the ex-president’s Florida resort and residence, Mar-a-Lago. He also traveled there just weeks ago as Greene’s threats were heating up. Trump and Johnson held a joint press conference on “election integrity,” an image some say was a show of strength and support from the leader of his party.

READ MORE: Trump Threatens to Violate Gag Order and Go to Jail: ‘I’ll Do That Sacrifice Any Day’

Johnson’s job is being protected by Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and the vast majority of the Democratic caucus, who have promised to protect him should Greene call up her motion to vacate.

Claiming Republicans are “trying to keep steadying hands on the wheel here and keep the legislative branch moving and operating in the best interest of the people,” Johnson also alleged: “one of the things that is also in jeopardy right now is our judicial branch. And it’s our system of government itself. And I don’t think we can say often enough here how much of that has been abused under this administration, and with local prosecutors, state prosecutors, and at the federal level, who are using lawfare. They’re using our judicial system to go after political opponents.”

The Speaker continued his targeting, declaring Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s “case should never have been brought.”

“If there’s ever been an example of lawfare. Everybody can look at that and see, the trial is being orchestrated by Democrats, supporters of President Biden who are trying to make a name for themselves. I mean, they’re they’re pretty open about that. They used it in their campaign flips. We’ve got a Democrat District Attorney, a Biden donor judge, whose daughter is a Democratic political consultant and has clients that use the case in their solicitation emails to raise money.”

Justice Juan Merchan, CNN reported last month, made a $15 donation to the Biden campaign, amid a total of $35 total in 2020.

Johnson also called Justice Merchan “a well known Democrat” who “is pursuing an indefensible gag order on President Trump,” and “trying to override President Trump’s constitutional right to defend himself against the constant smears of his political opponents.”

READ MORE: ‘I’m Not Talking About That Meeting’: Noem Implies She May Have Met With Kim Jong Un

Pointing to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of Donald Trump in the Espionage Act case, often called the “classified documents” case, Johnson called it “the weaponization of our justice system.”

He called all the cases against the ex-president “a clear attempt to keep Donald Trump in the courtroom and off the campaign trail. That’s what this is. It’s an election interference. It is borderline criminal conspiracy and the American people see right through it.”

Watch a short clip of Johnson’s remarks below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Israel Aid, Ukraine Aid, Kitchenaid’: Dem Mocks GOP’s ‘Hands Off Our Appliances’ Week

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