California having issues with the First Amendment.
Views: 16
Why do Progressives have issues with the First Amendment? Musk sues California. If it’s not California, it’s New York, If it’s not Illinois it’s Massachusetts, and it goes on and on.
But all have the same thing in common. Violating people’s first Amendment rights. If it’s not parents it’s other politicians, lawyers, or people from the business world like Musk.
In Musk’s case, they’re not going after him in court, California is passing laws that take away free speech. What’s next with these loons?
The mayor of Newburyport, Massachusetts, decided he didn’t like the message being offered in his community by a parental rights organization.
That group, Citizens for Responsible Education, had concerns regarding public school indoctrination and certain troubling instruction happening locally.
So members planned a forum, called “What is Social-Emotional Learning? What every parent needs to know about SEL and culturally responsive teaching in our public schools.”
Subjects to be covered include critical race theory; gender identity ideology; sex education curriculum; and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
That was a message Mayor Sean Reardon decided he would not tolerate. So when the parents posted flyers advertising their meeting, Reardon ripped them down.
Now the resolution to that fight has resulted in a significant victory for free speech, according to a report from the American Center for Law and Justice.
“In addition to receiving a monetary payment to cover the damages CRE suffered, Newburyport’s Mayor Reardon agreed to issue a public statement acknowledging that his actions in ‘remov[ing] flyers from bulletin boards’ and the city’s posting policies should have better promoted the constitutionally protected free speech rights of CRE and, in the future, postings may not be censored based on their content or the viewpoints expressed,” the ACLJ reported.
“Additionally, Newburyport has agreed to revise its posting policies by removing its prohibition on religious flyers and its vague flyer review and approval process.”
The ACLJ reported that Matt Petry, a reporter for The Daily News of Newburyport, posted on social media that Reardon had confirmed he was ripping down the flyers.
The mayor claimed, to the reporter, the content “was not in line with the city of Newburyport’s values of being an inclusive and welcoming community.”
The parents initially asked the city to change its posting policy, but the city refused to respond.
Then, the ACLJ reported, the Massachusetts Family Institute and Attorney Kenneth A. Tashjy served a demand letter on the city, warning the policy was unconstitutional and a willful violation of free speech rights.
An election worker verifies a ballot on a screen inside the Maricopa County Recorders Office, Thursday, Nov. 10, 2022, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Matt York)
A practice used by some, if not all, Arizona counties to verify signatures on early ballots may be illegal.
And that could result in election officials across the state have to change their procedures – and potentially result in more signatures on ballot envelopes being questioned.
Yavapai County Superior Court Judge John Napper, said state law is “clear and unambiguous” that election officials must compare the signatures on the envelopes with the voter’s actual registration record. And that, he said, consists only of the document signed when a person first registered along with subsequent changes for things like altering party affiliation.
And what that means, the judge said, is it is illegal for county election officials to instead use other documents to determine if the signature on that ballot envelope is correct and should be accepted.
John Napper
Napper’s conclusion is not the last word.
Strictly speaking, he only rejected efforts by Secretary of State Adrian Fontes to have the lawsuit by two groups challenging the process thrown out. Napper has not issued a final order.
“We look forward to the issue being litigated,” said Paul Smith-Leonard, spokesman for Fontes.
But the judge, in his ruling, made it clear that he is not buying arguments by the secretary of state that the rules in the Elections Procedures Manual allowing the comparison of signatures against other documents – the practice now widely in use – complies with what state law clearly requires.
And Kory Langhofer, who represents those challenging the practice, said Napper’s refusal to dismiss the case means “there’s nothing left to fight about.”
Central to the fight is a section of law which requires the county recorder, on receiving early ballots, to “compare the signatures thereon with the signature of the elector on the elector’s registration record.”
Langhofer, in his court filing, acknowledged that there is nothing in state law that explicitly defines what is a “registration record.”
But he argued that “most naturally” means the state or federal documents by which someone signs up to vote and provides certain other information. And what it also includes, Langhofer said, are updated state or federal forms.
Only thing is, he said, is the most recent version of the Elections Procedures Manual, prepared by the Secretary of State’s Office, says county recorders “should also consult additional known signatures from other official election documents in the voter’s registration record, such as signature rosters or early ballot request forms.”
In some cases, Langhofer said, counties are using signatures on early ballot envelopes from prior elections for their comparisons.
Pima County Recorder Gabriella Cazares-Kelly doesn’t go that far. But she said her office relies on much more than the voter registration record.
It starts, she said, with the fact that some people register to vote when they get a driver’s license. But those licenses, she noted, can be good for up to 45 years.
“As everybody should know, signatures vary by time and place and how much time you have,” Cazares-Kelly said. “You will change your signature a number of times throughout your life, going from adolescent to full adulthood.”
And she said even her own signature changes given having to sign “a hundred documents a day.”
So other documents can be helpful.
“We receive other notifications from the voters,” Cazares-Kelly said.
“Every single time we receive something in writing, it goes into their voter file,” she continued. “So every single thing that has a signature on it, it is another indication, another touch point, another opportunity to update what those signatures look like.
Cochise County Recorder David Stevens said his office also relies on signatures on other correspondence it has received from a voter. He also said that ballot signatures can be compared with those on file with the Motor Vehicle Division.
Fontes, in asking Napper to dismiss the lawsuit, argued that other documents listed as acceptable in the Elections Procedures Manual are within the definition of a “registration record.” And if the judge wasn’t buying that, Fontes said that phrase is ambiguous, meaning that the manual can interpret it as part of his duties.
Napper was having none of that.
“The language of the statute is clear and unambiguous,” the judge wrote. “The common meaning of ‘registration’ in the English language is to sign up to participate in an activity.”
And Napper derided the idea that other documents submitted by a voter fit that definition.
“No English speaker would linguistically confuse the acting of signing up to participate in an event with the act of participating in the event,” the judge wrote.
“Registering to attend law school is not the same as attending class,” he continued. “Registering to vote is not the same as voting.”
Nor was Napper impressed by the claim that the phrase “registration record” is ambiguous, allowing the secretary of state some latitude to interpret it.
“Pursuant to the statute, the recorder is to compare the signature on the envelope with the voter’s prior registration,” he said, quoting from the law. “If they match, then the vote is counted.”
The judge also noted there is a procedure in state law that allows county election officials, if they question whether a signature on a ballot matches the official record, to contact the voter. That allows the voter to verify that it is his or her signature and offer an explanation that could be related to age, illness or injury.
Langhofer represents the Arizona Free Enterprise Club. It has backed various measures to impose new identification requirements on voters while opposing efforts to restore the state’s permanent early voting list.
Also suing is an organization called Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections. It bills itself as opposing laws changes in election laws that seek to give one group a partisan advantage and enforcing “constitutional standards against voting laws and procedures that threaten or dilute the right of qualified citizens to vote.”
Reuters says that that founders of RITE, formed last year, include former U.S. Attorney General William Barr, Karl Rove who was a top adviser to former President George W. Bush, and hotelier Steve Wynn.
Mostly White Progressive Supremacists rioting. Again. GP Photo
Views: 24
Over 60 Lions of Liberalism ( Antifa ) arrested in Georgia riots. Leftists always love a good riot. It never fails. Build something good, and they will come. Bringing their violent acts with them.
Well we see that they have been rioting the past year or so trying to shit down a police training center. Allegedly the government has stepped in. Over 60 Antifa militants have been indicted under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act over the Atlanta “Cop City” riots and attacks on officers.
I see one of the rioters works for a noted hate group. Tom Jurgens, appears to be a staff attorney for a far-left extremist organization, the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Fani ignoring the Constitution. New Civil Rights Movement website photo.
Views: 44
How crazy is this? Fani says defendants have no Constitutional rights. Fani Willis stated that based on Georgia law, asking for a speedy trial or separation from the other defendants causes this.
“Defendants cannot now argue that they are entitled to the State’s discovery responses ten (10) days in advance of trial.”
“Defendants cannot now argue that they are entitled to notice of the State’s similar transaction evidence ten (10) days in advance of trial.”
“Defendants cannot now complain that they received less than seven (7) days notice of the trial date in this case.”
Lmfao! This isn’t true! It’s not how the law works.
But this really is a mask off moment.
Fulton County DA threatens to violate the rights of the defendants because she’s not prepared for trial. https://t.co/xTYtgcykHR
This article is from 2014, but very relevant today. Progressives are even worse today than they were in 1898.
Editor’s Note: In our Spring 2014 Civitas Review magazine, Civitas’ Susan Myrick looked back at a dark chapter in North Carolina history — the “White Supremacy” campaign of 1898. White progressive Democrats ran an avowedly racist campaign to remove blacks from political life. The photo on the front page of the web site is from the Wilmington race riot, the culmination of the campaign’s propaganda and incitement.
“What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence. The question is, What can you make people believe you have done?” ― Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet
It shouldn’t have come as a surprise in 2013 that North Carolina Democrats and self-styled progressives reacted with fury when Republicans took over the General Assembly and the governor’s office. That’s because Democrats and Progressives reacted the same way when their hold on power was threatened more than a century ago.
A little over a year ago, on February 22, 2013, the Charlotte Observer broke the story of a leaked strategy memo from leftist group Blueprint NC that described the game plan “progressive” groups should use to “eviscerate” the Republican leadership. While the memo itself was scandalous, it exposed the liberal Left’s determination to regain the power that had been lost to conservatives in the 2010 and 2012 elections. No student of North Carolina history would underestimate what the Left will do in such circumstances.
To understand this, we must look back to the late 1800s, when Democrats in the legislature controlled almost every level of government, including the state’s county commissions. The County Government Act of 1877 provided that the legislature would appoint justices of the peace, who would then select county commissioners, giving the Democrats in the legislature control of the commissions, and thus of much of the rest of local government.
By the 1890s North Carolina had two other political factions, the Republicans, including most black voters, and Populists, who attracted many poor whites. These two groups devised a plan to defeat Democrats by creating a “Fusion” movement. In 1894 the two parties agreed to challenge every Democratic candidate and in their separate conventions voted on a slate of candidates that included candidates from both the Populist and Republican parties. In 1894, Fusion candidates won a majority in the legislature and won both U.S. Senate seats. During the Fusion era, African Americans voted and held elective and appointed office throughout North Carolina in this era. The Fusion plan worked again in 1896, when the alliance retained control of the legislature and elected a Republican governor, Daniel Russell. Russell, however, would be the last Republican governor in North Carolina until James Holshouser was elected in 1973. Democrats – led by their Progressive wing – struck back in 1898 with the “White Supremacy Campaign.” The name was accurate: White supremacy was its main tactic and ultimate result.
Then as now, Progressives thought of themselves as having lofty goals for the betterment of the people. But in 1898, Tar Heel Progressives decided they could only attain their aims by playing the race card to divide and defeat the Fusion coalition. Furnifold Simmons, chairman of the Democratic Executive Committee, and Josephus Daniels, publisher of the News & Observer, were leaders of the White Supremacy Campaign. (See p. xx) The campaign stoked racial hatred, used intimidation as a weapon, and ultimately incited violence. These shameful tactics worked. The drive effectively rolled back the gains the Fusion alliance had achieved in the previous two election cycles.
The Democratic Party disenfranchised black voters and returned to its dominant role on all levels of government. The defeat weakened the Republican Party to the point that it took the GOP 112 years to gain control of both houses of the General Assembly. Yet Democrats and progressives still deny that it was their political forebears – their heroes – who acted in such a despicable way.
That’s the rub: North Carolina’s liberals/leftists must always work to distance themselves from their movement’s ugly roots: racism and bare-knuckle politics. Today’s liberals attempt to brand the White Supremacy Campaign as a conservative movement, but its leaders and members were mostly known Progressives. That’s also why today’s liberals gloss over the fact that during the era of segregation Democrats totally dominated the state.
Today’s liberals even go so far as to suggest that racists in the Democratic Party, after the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act were passed in 1964 and 1965 respectively, defected to the Republican Party. But there is no evidence to prove this assertion, in either voter registration changes or instances of prominent Democratic politicians who voted against these bills leaving the Democratic Party to join the Republican Party. For example, Democratic U.S. Sen. Sam Ervin was a segregationist who voted against both of Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Yet he continues to be hailed as a hero of the liberal Left, mostly for his role in the Watergate hearings. Indeed, both of North Carolina’s U.S. Senators and all of its congressional delegation (of which there were two Republicans) voted against these two pieces of legislation. It doesn’t matter to the progressive Left that the truth is Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in much larger percentages than did Democrats, and without strong Republican support the laws would not have passed. It doesn’t matter, because they know that if you repeat a lie enough, people won’t search for the truth and the progressive media is always at the ready to repeat lies to defeat conservatives.
Perhaps that is why liberals in North Carolina consistently call their enemies racists – to deflect attention from liberalism’s own sordid history. We heard their hate-filled rhetoric during the 2013 legislative session. The leaked strategy memo gave us a peek into North Carolina’s liberal/left organizational structure and revealed their desperation to get back the power they had held for generations.
It’s hard to deny that the left enthusiastically and relentlessly executed the Blueprint NC memo’s strategic plan: “Cripple their leaders ([Gov.] McCrory, [House Speaker] Tillis, [Senate President Pro Tem] Berger etc.)” and “Eviscerate the leadership and weaken their ability to govern.” A swarm of liberal, progressive and socialist groups rallied at the legislative building every Monday (and some other days) during the legislative session to protest the new legislative majority’s work and at the same time accuse them of racism and bigotry. We are even hearing William Barber, president of the NC NAACP describe these groups as the “fusion movement”.
Today, the tide has turned in North Carolina partisan politics. In the 2010 General Election, running in districts drawn up by Democrats, Republicans won majorities in both the state House and Senate but had to battle against Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue’s 19 vetoes. In 2012 they added to their numbers and gained the majorities they needed to override a Governor’s veto, thought that could be viewed as a luxury because a Republican was elected governor. And, it was the first time four Republicans were elected to the state’s Council of State in one year.
Moreover, the North Carolina Democratic Party is in a shambles. The party’s decline can be attributed to a list of disgraced politicos and a state party embroiled in controversy, including a sexual misconduct scandal, the forced resignation of the state party’s executive director, and the failed attempt to replace the state chairman ahead of the 2012 election. More recently, the party has fired the executive director hired in May 2013 to replace the one accused of sexual harassment, and the turmoil has continued this year. Some even suggest that William Barber, president of the NC NAACP and the leader of the coalition of groups that have protested against the legislature on Mondays during the last session, is the face of and de facto head of the Democratic Party. William Barber definitely has the progressive/liberal credentials and rhetoric to be such a leader. What may be even more ominous for the liberal Left, but probably not as widely known, is who the voters of North Carolina voted for in the 2012 General Election. Using the Civitas Partisan Index model and comparing the votes for Democratic Party and Republican Party in Council of State races, we see a dramatic shift from 2008 to 2012 – more than five percentage points. In 2008, statewide, Tar Heels gave Democratic candidates 53.4 percent of the vote and 46.6 percent for Republican candidates; in the 2012 model, the average vote statewide was nearly even: 50.6 percent Democratic to 49.4 percent Republican. While it is true that historically, in Council of State races, North Carolinians tend to vote for Democratic candidates, in the 2012 CPI we see a possible shift in that voting pattern.
The liberal Left (and that always includes the mainstream media) is adept in defining the Right, whether it’s labeling the tea party as racists or charging that conservatives are waging war on women. History and the facts belie the liberal/left’s rhetoric concerning the workings and the history of the progressive movement in North Carolina. We only have to glance at history to get a clear picture of how progressives reacted when they lost power for a short time in the 19th century. It should be no surprise that they would react with such vitriol in the 21st.
Judge’s order in Mark Meadows case “could be very bad news” for Fani Willis.
By Areeba Shah.
U.S. District Court Judge Steve Jones on Tuesday ordered Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and former president Donald Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows to offer opinions on a key matter essential to addressing Meadows’s argument that his Georgia prosecution should be tried in federal court.
Jones asked both parties to provide their views on whether “a finding that at least one (but not all) of the overt acts charged occurred under the color of Meadow’s office [would] be sufficient for federal removal of a criminal prosecution under [the federal removal statute].”
When Meadows took the stand on Tuesday, he argued he was acting in his capacity as Trump’s top White House aide when he reached out to Georgia officials following the 2020 elections. Fulton County prosecutors, on the other hand, asserted that Meadows’ actions went well beyond the responsibilities of his federal position.
Meadows was charged in Willis’ sprawling racketeering indictment, which accuses him and 17 others of conspiring to subvert the results of the 2020 election in Georgia.
In court documents, his legal team has already revealed their plans to seek the dismissal of the charges from a federal judge if the case is transferred to federal court, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Even if a judge doesn’t dismiss the charges, the shift to federal court would provide Meadows with a broader and potentially more conservative pool of jurors and bar cameras from entering the courtroom.
The pivotal point of contention for the removal hinges mainly on whether Meadows can prove that he was indicted for actions he carried out in his capacity as a federal official.
Clark Cunningham, professor of law at Georgia State University, also weighed in on X, formerly Twitter, arguing that this order “could be very bad news” for Willis.
“If I were the DA, I would ask grand jury for a superseding indictment that removes the name of Mark Meadows from Acts 5, 6, 7, and 19 of Count 1 (but continuing the allegations as to Donald Trump),” he wrote.
The first three alleged overt acts by Meadows (Acts 5, 6 and 7) are not necessary to establish his liability under RICO, but keeping them in the indictment now runs an “enormous risk” for the DA of losing the removal issue, in light of Judge Jones’ order, since these overt acts come closest to meeting the test for federal officer removal, he added.
Cunningham explained that Acts 5 and 7 involve White House meetings between Trump and state legislators, for which Meadows made “plausible claims” on the witness stand that his role was limited to what the Chief of Staff typically does. Act 6 alleges only that Meadows asked a member of Congress from Pennsylvania for the phone numbers of the leaders of the state legislature in Pennsylvania, again saying this was a typical task for a chief of staff.
“Act 19 alleges that Trump & Meadows met together with another White House staffer, John McEntee and asked him to prepare a memo for a strategy to disrupt the January 6 session of Congress,” Cunningham wrote. “Meadows testified firmly that Act 19 did not describe anything he had done and it is not worth continuing to try and prosecute Meadows for Act 19.”
Jones ordered that Willis and attorneys for Meadows file their briefs by 5 p.m. on Thursday.
Dershowitz And Turley Pour Cold Water on Idea That Trump’s Trials Will Begin Before Election.
Story by Arjun Singh
Legal experts said that former President Donald Trump’s criminal trials are unlikely to occur before the 2024 general election.
Trump’s criminal proceedings in four jurisdictions are currently in a pre-trial phase, involving discovery, motions, jury selection and interlocutory appeals — which experts believe will delay the process by over a year.
“It’s like asking a brain surgeon to perform an operation with three days’ notice,” said Alan Dershowitz.
Legal experts have said that former President Donald Trump’s trials in four separate criminal proceedings are unlikely to be held before the general election in November 2024.
Trump, who is the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, has been indicted four times in New York, Florida, Washington, D.C. and Georgia on state and federal charges. Following Trump’s initial appearances, prosecutors in each jurisdiction have been seeking a speedy trial despite protests from his legal team, with experts saying it’s likely that the trials will occur after the general election.
“They’re trying to get convictions before the election,” said Alan Dershowitz, the Felix Frankfurter professor emeritus at Harvard Law School and author of the book “Get Trump,” to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “[But] they can’t get it done in two weeks, they know it will take longer than that.”
https://twitter.com/i/status/1695150791248490953
Dershowitz’s comments refer to the initial attempt by Special Counsel Jack Smith, who is prosecuting Trump in Miami and Washington, D.C., to have the latter trial begin on Jan. 2, 2024, two weeks before the Iowa Caucuses. Trump has moved to have the trial pushed back to April 2026.
Meanwhile, in Florida, a federal judge tentatively set Aug. 14, 2024, as the beginning of his trial in Smith’s other case, where Trump is accused of violating the Espionage Act by refusing to return classified documents he stored at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida, during his presidency.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has requested that Trump’s Georgia trial begin on March 4, 2024. After one of Trump’s co-defendants, Kenneth Chesebro, asserted his constitutional right to a speedy trial, Willis’s office moved for the trial to begin on Oct. 23, 2023.
Trump has opposed Willis’ request and filed a motion in opposition on Thursday. The complexity of the case and others Trump is facing, as well as the likelihood of appeals to pre-trial proceedings, lead legal experts to believe that it is unlikely any of Trump’s trials will begin before Nov. 5, 2024, when the general election is held.
“[I]t seems unlikely that most [trials] will proceed as scheduled. There are threshold challenges and dispositive motions that will have to be addressed. Some may involve appeals,” said Jonathan Turley, the J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro professor of public interest law at The George Washington University Law School, to the DCNF. He added that “[t]hese dates seem highly optimistic and a tad opportunistic by prosecutors.”
In New York, where Trump has been indicted on 34 counts for allegedly falsifying business records related to his $150,000 payment to Stormy Daniels via former attorney Michael Cohen, his trial date has been scheduled for March 25, 2024, according to a judge’s oral order reported by The New York Times. By that date, all but four states will have held their presidential primary contests, according to 270ToWin.com.
“It’s like asking a brain surgeon to perform an operation with three days’ notice,” said Dershowitz, who said the prosecutors are trying to obtain “convictions [of Trump] before the election … it’s a rush to injustice.” He added that the courts will “probably need at least a year” in order to dispose of all pre-trial matters.
Those matters include the process of “discovery,” referring to the defendant’s efforts to gather evidence from the prosecution and construct a defense, motions to exclude evidence, jury selection and interlocutory appeals to the trial judge’s decisions by either party. “Jury selection alone in Georgia’s cases will take several months,” Dershowitz said, adding that “if [the courts] don’t accept the discovery timeline of Trump’s team, these are issues that could be appealed.”
The volume of discovery in each case is voluminous, particularly in Washington, D.C., where Trump has been charged related to his attempts to prevent Congress from certifying the 2020 election on Jan. 6, 2021. In that case, prosecutors turned over 11.6 million pages of discovery to Trump’s legal team following his arrangement on Aug. 3, much of which is subject to strict viewership requirements to safeguard witnesses, according to a court order
“If Trump loses his motions, he will appeal. If he loses at appellate court, he’ll ask to be heard before the Supreme Court. If there’s a ruling in favor of Trump, the state will likely appeal,” said Ronald Carlson, the Fuller E. Callaway professor emeritus at the University of Georgia School of Law, to the DCNF.
Trump’s team is cognizant of this fact and has invoked his criminal proceedings in other jurisdictions to seek later trial dates, according to an Aug. 17 filing by Trump’s attorneys at the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia, opposing the special counsel’s proposed trial date. “President Trump must prepare for each of these trials in the coming months. All are independently complex and will require substantial work to defend … these cases will include numerous pre-and-post trial hearings,” they wrote.
The most immediate of these matters concern the removal of state court cases to federal court, which some of Trump’s co-defendants, such as former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, have petitioned to do. While a federal judge rejected his attempt to remove his case in New York, experts believe that Trump is likely to do so in Georgia.
“There will be multiple motions to remove the Georgia case to federal court for defendants like Trump and Meadows,” said Turley. Carlson said that the likelihood of a removal petition by even one defendant — given that Wills has vowed to prosecute all defendants together — means that pre-trial proceedings in that case “could take up to a year.” These motions create an “ample opportunity for him to delay the trial,” Carlson claimed.
For these reasons, it is unlikely that Trump will face a jury in any of his cases before voters cast their ballots on Nov. 5, 2024. Over 60% of Americans, including 89% of all Democrats, want Trump’s trials to be held before the election, according to an Ipsos poll released on Friday.
Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
A photo of conservative writer Andy Ngo after having a milkshake thrown at him by alleged "Antifa" members. Ngo was rewarded $300,000 in a default ruling Tuesday, after individuals accused of attacking him at a protest failed to appear in court.
MORIAH RATNER/GETTY IMAGES
Views: 12
Conservative Journalist Andy $300,000 After ‘Antifa’ Assault at Protest. Progressive group Antifa in this country started out, as the military wing of BLM. BLM would start the protests and riot. Antifa would attack those who opposed BLM riots.
Back in 2019, Katherine Belyea, Madison Allen, and Joseph Evans—attacked him at the event. Evans, who now goes by the legal name Sammich Overkill Schott-Deputy, was accused of striking Ngo and initiating the confrontation. Allen was accused of hitting him with a sign, while Belyea was accused of throwing a milkshake at him.
Former President Donald Trump, left, can’t expect much of a fair trial on charges being brought before U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, right. Chutkan has effectively pronounced Trump guilty already — and in open court. (Alex Brandon / AP ; Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts / AP)
The trial of former President Donald Trump in the District of Columbia isn’t even close to starting yet, but Americans who support the 45th president can already be sure of one thing: The judge has already reached her own verdict.
It’s been clear from the get-go that U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan is biased in the case being brought by Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith that accuses Trump of four counts related to the Capitol incursion of Jan. 6, 2021: conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.
But a review of Chutkan’s handling of Capitol incursion defendants by the website RealClearInvestigations yielded an explosive result: Chutkan is not only biased, she’s tacitly pronounced Trump guilty, in open court, of what are essentially the charges against him.
And she’s done it more than once.
In one case, Chutkan sentenced Christine Priola, a Cleveland woman, to 15 months in prison after Priola pleaded guilty to obstructing an official proceeding and aiding and abetting, according to WJW in Cleveland.
But judging by Chutkan’s words from the bench at the Oct. 28 hearing, the real culprit was Donald Trump, and he deserved to be in prison, too.
The participants in the incursion “were there in fealty, in loyalty, to one man — not to the Constitution, of which most of the people who come before me seem woefully ignorant, not to the ideals of this country, and not to the principles of democracy,” Chutkan said, according to RealClearInvestigations.
“It’s a blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day.”
WHY IS SHE NOT REMOVED FROM THIS CASE?
“Free to this day”? Sounds an awful lot like Chutkan was wishing she was putting Donald Trump behind bars, not a former occupational therapist from Ohio.
In another case, she sentenced Texas resident Matthew Mazzocco to 45 days behind bars when, according to The Washington Post. Prosecutors had only asked for probation.
And, in Chutkan’s words, she made it clear that Trump was the man who should have been standing before her instead.
Mazzocco, Chutkan said, “went there to support one man who he viewed had the election taken from him. In total disregard of a lawfully conducted election, he went to the Capitol in support of one man, not in support of our country or in support of democracy.”
And that “one man” is going to be relying on Chutkan to dispense impartial justice in her courtroom?
With that kind of record, it’s more than understandable that Rep. Matt Gaetz, the Florida Republican firebrand, has introduced a measure to censure Chutkan for her comments — not only regarding Trump himself but also comparing the Capitol incursion, unfavorably, to the Black Lives Matter rioters who burned American cities during the summer of 2020.
“But to compare the actions of people protesting, mostly peacefully, for civil rights, to those of a violent mob seeking to overthrow the lawfully elected government is a false equivalency and ignores a very real danger that the Jan. 6 riots posed to the foundation of our democracy,” she said at Mazzocco’s sentencing hearing, The Washington Post reported.
Gaetz clearly knows, just like any honest observer knows, that Chutkan has reached her own decision on the Trump case — and the decision is clearly going to color every decision she makes as it proceeds.
A kangaroo court is a parody of justice, where predetermined verdicts get the color of due process, the fiction that a legal proceeding has ensured the rights of the accused, as well as the rights and duties of the society whose rules he is supposed to have violated.
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