Domestic terrorism is Trumpziism: Former Guy is a threat to democracy

#RepublicansAreTheProblem! GOP lies: facts don't matter.

There’s only one way for patriotic Americans to see today’s GOP

Published in the Atlanta Voice, Georgia

By Dean Obeidallah

Obeidallah is the founder and editor of the blog The Dean's Report which addresses topics of the day. Obeidallah is a columnist for The Daily Beast and a CNN Opinion contributor.

June 5, 2021: State Republican parties in North Carolina and Georgia took actions alarming to not just our democracy — but to our nation. 

North Carolina was the first and most dangerous action, where the state’s GOP (GQP!) party welcomed Former Guy Trump to speak at its annual state convention.

Before Saturday, Trump’s only public speaking event since leaving office was at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in February, but that group is not formally part of the Republican Party. 

Former Guy's North Carolina speech was the first time a state Republican (GQP) party publicly embraced Trump in this way. 

And it did so on the eve of the five-month anniversary of the January 6, attack on the Capitol, which FBI Director Christopher Wray testified in March was an act of “domestic terrorism.”

Surprising to no one, Trump repeated Saturday the very lies that incited the Jan 6, insurrection, including calling the 2020, election, “the crime of the century.” 

Moreover, he even added a new line that sounds like something coup leaders would say to defend their action, telling the audience, “I am not the one who is trying to undermine American democracy, I am the one who is trying to save it.”

Trump radicalized Americans to believe his “Big Lie” that he was the real winner of the election — a claim that led his supporters to storm the Capitol to try to stop the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory. We know this because the rioters told us that in real time during the attack, with comments captured on video mid-siege such as, “Our president wants us here.” And the indictments of members of the right-wing Oath Keepers arrested for their roles as alleged conspirators in the January 6, attack suggest they were there because they believed Trump had called them to Washington with his December 19, tweet about a “big protest” on that was going to be “wild.”

Despite those facts, the North Carolina state GOP (GQP) party invited Trump to be their headline speaker. Imagine what Republicans would have said if a Democratic president had engaged in the same conduct as Trump did after losing an election. All of it, from spewing non-stop lies to inciting an act of what the FBI sees as “domestic terrorism” designed to overturn a lost election. And then the Democratic party celebrated that ex-President just months after the attack. Any doubt the GOP leaders would denounce the Democrats as supporting terrorism?

In Georgia, the GOP state convention also showcased their devout loyalty to Trump. First, GOP Gov. Brian Kemp was loudly booed by the crowd, presumably for refusing to help Trump illegally overturn Biden’s win in the state. And then the GOP delegates voted to censure Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, who in the aftermath of the 2020, election rebuffed Trump’s efforts to help him “find” votes to overturn the result. As reminder, there were three recounts in Georgia after the election that all confirmed Biden’s win. After the third one, Raffensperger stated, “Georgians can now move forward knowing that their votes, and only their legal votes, were counted accurately, fairly, and reliably.”

But to the GOP base in Georgia — just as to those in Utah who booed Senator Mitt Romney for voting to impeach Trump — facts don’t matter, the truth is only what Trump says it is. Thus, the GOP voted Saturday to censure Raffensperger for “dereliction of his constitutional duty.” This is akin to Trump saying he wants to defend, not undermine, our democracy with his lies. The Georgia GOP formally condemned Raffensperger, who literally followed the Constitution, for “dereliction” of duty.

The threat today’s GOP poses to our nation, though, goes far beyond these latest two events. We are seeing a multi-faceted assault by the GOP on the very bedrock of our Republic. First, there’s the GOP’s war on voting access. Since January, at least 14 GOP-controlled states enacted 22 new laws between January 1 and May 2021 to make it more difficult to vote, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

Worse, in some cases, these laws in places such as Georgia make it easier to overturn an election after it has taken place. A proposed law in Texas would have had a similar effect had Democrats not blocked a vote on it last week.

Then there’s the GOP’s efforts in various states to effectively criminalize peaceful protests after last summer’s Black Lives Matter movement took to the streets. In Oklahoma, the law there even alarmingly grants criminal and civil immunity to motorists who injure or kill protesters with their vehicles if the drivers believe they are fleeing a riot.

Third, we have the GOP’s war on academic freedom that bans schools from teaching about systemic racism — aka “Critical race theory” (CRT).  As of late May, five GOP-controlled state legislatures had banned CRT or related topics and conservatives in nine other states are pushing for similar measures. This is in essence a modern-day book burning by the GOP.

Today’s GOP is now defined by its embrace and defense of Trump — who incited an act that became “domestic terrorism” — to its war on voting, speech and freedom of thought. How can any patriotic American not see this version of the Republican party as a threat to who we are as a nation?

Dean Obeidallah, a former attorney, is the host of SiriusXM radio’s daily program “The Dean Obeidallah Show” and a columnist for The Daily Beast. 

Donald Truump revelas bombastic instability on a daily basis

Even an obsessed blogger like me who blasts Donald Trump nearly twie a day is having a tough time to stay ahead of all the Trumponian instabilities.  The man is dangerous and not qualified to lead, plus, every indication is that his behavior is decompensating. In other words, he's getting worse.

In any given 24 hour news cycle, Donald Trump tells the media so many  lies it's tragically impossible to keep the truth going, because the next lie is an incredulous surprise.  

Not only are the impending lies incredulous, but they're too unbelievalbe to conceptualize a coherent response. For example, "Judge who ruled to open Trump University files is Mexican", lies Donald Trump.  

Well, here's a picture of the judge Donald Trump wrongly attacked:

Judge Gonzalo Curiel

Born in Indiana

Gonzalo Paul Curiel is a United States District Judge for the United States District Court for the Southern District of California.
Born: 1953, United States of America
Education: Indiana University Maurer School of Law, Indiana University Bloomington

With Trump attack on 'Mexican' judge, has he hit a new low?
By Dean Obeidallah a former attorney, is the host of SiriusXM's weekly program "The Dean Obeidallah Show," a columnist for The Daily Beast and editor of the politics blog The Dean's Report. Follow him on Twitter: @TheDeansreport.  

(CNN) Has Donald Trump reached an alarming new low? (I submit he started his low when he was held accountable by Megyn Kelly:

"Megyn Kelly to Donald Trump: 'You've called women you don't like fat pigs, slobs – and disgusting animals.'"

On Friday, during his campaign rally in San Diego, Trump ripped into federal Judge Gonzalo Curiel who is presiding over one of the two class action lawsuits pending against Trump University and Trump, personally, for allegedly defrauding thousands of people out of money in connection with the now defunct school.

Trump dedicated an incredible 12 minutes of his campaign speech to slam Curiel. 

First, Trump demanded the judge recuse himself because he was a "hater" who had been nominated by President Obama. Then, only a short time after the crowd had been chanting "build that wall," Trump told his rabid fans that Curiel was a "Mexican." But then Trump added, "I think that's fine." (For those who care about actual facts, Curiel is not Mexican; he was born in Indiana.)

If Curiel's Latino heritage was "fine," then why did Trump bring it up at all? Simple: Trump was telling his supporters that Curiel is not one of us, rather he's a "Mexican." He's an other. This has been a central theme in Trump's divisive presidential campaign. After all, Trump kicked off his campaign last year claiming -- despite having no factual support -- that Mexico was sending "rapists" and people who are "bringing drugs" to our country.
Republican politicians slamming federal judges is nothing new. 

We have seen it time and time again with conservatives attacking "judicial activism," such as when Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee went ballistic over the U.S. Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage. 

And to be fair, Democrats like President Obama have been publicly critical of the Republicans, who until recently held a majority on the Supreme Court, and struck down portions of the Voting Rights Act in 2013.

But the difference is that both the Republicans and Democrats who have publicly criticized judges in the past have been focused on constitutional issues that impact countless Americans. 

That's not what Trump is talking about here. 

Rather, Trump is only concerned how this lawsuit will impact one, person, Donald J. Trump.

To be clear, Trump is facing personal liability in this case as well as the other two cases involving Trump University, one in New York and another in California. In 2013, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman filed a $40 million civil lawsuit against Trump personally and the school on behalf of 5,000 former students who had allegedly been defrauded. Schneiderman called Trump 

University "a bait and switch scheme" and noted that Trump could personally face millions in civil penalties under New York law. A separate federal class action lawsuit not connected to Curiel is also still pending in California. 

It alleges that Trump engaged in racketeering in violation of the RICO statute.

If Curiel were truly biased, Trump would have a point. 

But that's simply not the case. Curiel is not some Democratic activist nominated by President Obama in 2011 to the federal bench as payback for his years of political service. Rather Curiel was first appointed in 2006 to the California Superior Court by then-Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Before that, Curiel served for 17 years as a federal prosecutor and was even targeted by a Mexican drug cartel in the 1990s for assassination after his efforts to extradite two drug kingpins from Mexico. And when Curiel was finally confirmed as a federal judge by the U.S. Senate in 2012, it was by way of a voice vote with no recorded Republican opposition. Apparently Trump has not figured out how to use Google or perhaps more likely, he could not care less about the facts.

Even Trump's claim on Friday that Curiel has "given us ruling after ruling after ruling, negative, negative, negative" is undermined by the facts. Just a few weeks ago, Curiel agreed to Trump's request to delay the trial in this case from this summer, as originally scheduled, to after the election. As Curiel stated in making this ruling in Trump's favor and over the plaintiffs' objections, he feared the "media frenzy" could make it impossible for the jury to be unbiased.

But still that ruling was not enough for Trump. 

In Trump's view, this "Mexican" judge still needed to be investigated, without offering any specific facts as to why.

Trump concluded his tirade about Curiel by noting how much he relished the idea of returning to the stand for trial after being elected President.

But he picked back up on Memorial Day by continuing his attacks on the judge in a series of tweets, calling him "unfair" and "Totally biased-hates Trump." (Odd to see the GOP nominee using Memorial Day to attack a judge in a personal lawsuit.)

Hopefully, this case will finally go to trial in November -- like Trump wanted -- after six long years in the court system. 

It will give the plaintiffs, which include senior citizens who have made claims under California state law for "financial elder abuse," a chance to make their case and if successful to be reimbursed for their losses. And here's hoping that when that trial takes place, Trump is simply known as the former GOP nominee, not the President-elect.

Dean Obeidallah, a former attorney, is the host of SiriusXM's weekly program "The Dean Obeidallah Show," a columnist for The Daily Beast and editor of the politics blog The Dean's Report. Follow him on Twitter: @TheDeansreport. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his.