Special Counsel Jack Smith has had it with Trump-appointed Federal Judge Aileen Cannon. Judge Cannon has been indulging every questionable whim used by Trump's lawyers in the classified documents case in order to stall it. Her decisions have been blatantly partisan; perhaps Trump promised her a seat on the US Supreme Court – not that he's famous for following through on loyalty.
Jack Smith filed a motion asking Cannon to get moving with the case – with the implied threat that he will appeal to the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit to have her overruled or even removed from the case. The 11th Circuit had already, in a unanimous decision, vacated a previous order of hers which would have delayed the proceedings.
Time To Fire The Cannon?
Putting Trump back in office would allow him to appoint more dubious judges like Aileen Cannon. Defeating Trump would not just protect democracy but would prevent the federal judiciary from becoming a corrupt Trump tool.
A prominent anti-LGBTQ+ activist has slammed Donald Trump for “pro-homosexual policies” ahead of an upcoming Log Cabin Republicans (LCR) event at Mar-A-Lago at which Melania Trump is a guest of honor.
Trump, it should be noted, is arguably the most anti-LGBTQ+ president of all time. A 2021 study found that LGBTQ+ people experienced a greater increase in extreme mental distress during the Trump presidency than non-LGBTQ+ people as a result of his anti-LGBTQ+ policies.
Past studies have found that suicide hotline calls to Trans Lifeline quadrupled after Trump’s attacks on transgender people, trans teen suicide attempts may have spiked because of his tweets, and areas that voted for Trump experienced increased reports of school bullying.
Nevertheless, Peter LaBarbera — founder and president of the anti-LGBTQ+ organization Americans for Truth About Homosexuality — believes Trump isn’t extreme enough in his anti-LGBTQ+ views and actions.
LaBarbera claimed that Melania’s role at the LCR fundraiser indicates Trump is “escalating his pro-homosexual policies in advance of a possible second term.”
“Far from Making America Great Again, Trump is contributing to our nation’s moral and spiritual decline,” LaBarbera said, adding that Trump should “read the Bible rather than merely sell it.”
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Melania will indeed be the guest of honor at an April 20 Log Cabin Republicans event at Mar-a-Lago. But according to LGBTQ Nation columnist John Gallagher, the former First Lady’s role in the event by the conservative LGBTQ+ group is a symbol of the group’s waning relevancy.
“Now, in the age of Trump, LCR is little more than window dressing, an opportunity for members to content themselves in the belief that they really are part of the MAGA universe,” Gallagher wrote. “But by and large, the new LCR holds LGBTQ+ people in the same contempt that the Trump universe does. For proof, look no further than the ‘ambassador’ LCR hired last year: Isabella Riley Moody. She has openly wished for a more homophobic society, has called gay people ‘groomers,’ and said ‘Heil Hitler’ after interviewing an antisemite.”
Donald Trump was the most anti-LGBTQ+ "President" in American history, but even that isn't good enough for rabid homophobe Peter LaBarbera, as he criticized Trump due to his wife Melania being honored at an event by the Log Cabin Republicans at Mar-A-Lago.
(Left to right) Deborah Blohm, Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and Gwendolyn Beck at a party at the Mar-a-Lago club, Palm Beach, Florida, 1995. The names of former associates and victims of deceased sex offender Epstein have been released. AFP/Getty Images
Nearly 90 Names Were Included In The Documents, With Four Redacted.
Trump and his cronies have been claiming that Bill Clinton kept some tapes of interviews for a possible biography in his sock drawer after he left office. However, in a 2012 decision, the court determined that the tapes were Clinton’s personal property. In other words, they were NOT top secret classified documents like Trump took when he left office. Here’s the story:
Writing for the Maddow blog, [Steve] Benen recalled that while serving as president, Clinton frequently spoke with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tylor Branch, resulting in several tapes that were perhaps to be used as part of a memoir or biography. At one point, however, those tapes were stored in a sock drawer.
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“[U]nmentioned by Trump’s defenders who began raising the issue of the sock drawer case last month is that Jackson’s ruling explicitly states that the Presidential Records Act distinguishes presidential records from ‘personal records,’ defined as documents that are ‘purely private or nonpublic character,'" CBS News reported.
Benen explained that the major difference is that Trump didn't merely take tapes of his conversations with a reporter, he took classified documents involving the nuclear capabilities of a foreign country as well as documents that were such a high level of classification that only Cabinet-level or higher could view them.
John F. Kennedy was assassinated 60 years ago today. Before becoming president, he wrote a book called Profiles In Courage about people who took courageous political stands.
If JFK returned and decided to write a sequel, he'd find no material for that book in the current House Republican Caucus.
Speaking of House Republicans, their leader just made a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago to kiss Trump's butt.