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Donald Trump outside the New York courthouse
Donald Trump
Hours before the start of opening arguments and the second week of the trial of the first former U.S. president to face criminal charges, Donald Trump is urging his supporters to “rally behind MAGA” and “go out and peacefully protest” at courthouses across the country, as he laments the protections and high security at Manhattan’s Criminal Courts Building.
Trump’s remarks come just days after a man set himself on fire last week outside the same courthouse where jury selection was underway in Trump’s criminal trial. That man later died.
Seizing on current news stories, Trump claimed “Palestinian protesters, and even rioters,” are “allowed to roam the Cities, scream, shout, sit, block traffic, enter buildings, not get permits, and basically do whatever they want including threatening Supreme Court Justices right in front of their homes.”
NCRM has found no reports of pro-Palestinian protestors “threatening Supreme Court Justices right in front of their homes.” Over 100 pro-Palestinian protestors were arrested in New York City last week, according to Reuters.
Trump also complained that “people who truly LOVE our Country, and want to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, are not allowed to ‘Peacefully Protest,’ and are rudely and systematically shut down and ushered off to far away ‘holding areas,’ essentially denying them their Constitutional Rights.”
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled areas designated to house protestors are legal, including at courthouses depending on the protestors’ motivations.
“America Loving Protesters should be allowed to protest at the front steps of Courthouses, all over the Country, just like it is allowed for those who are destroying our Country on the Radical Left, a two tiered system of justice. Free Speech and Assembly has been ‘CHILLED’ for USA SUPPORTERS. GO OUT AND PEACEFULLY PROTEST. RALLY BEHIND MAGA. SAVE OUR COUNTRY!”
Trump concluded by misquoting the famous Democratic U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt: “THE ONLY THING YOU HAVE TO FEAR IS FEAR ITSELF.”
This is not the first time Trump has urged his followers to show up and show support for him. Ahead of his expected indictment in New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s criminal case against the ex-president, Trump told his supporters to “protest,” and “take our nation back!” in all-caps.
Last week, MSNBC‘s Lawrence O’Donell “explain[ed] how Donald Trump’s wish for a revolution during his first criminal trial did not happen because his supporters did not show up.”
Donald Trump has been criminally indicted in four separate cases and is facing a total of 88 felony charges, including 34 in his New York criminal trial for alleged falsification of business records to hide payments of hush money to an adult film actress and one other woman, in al alleged effort to suppress their stories and protect his 2016 presidential campaign, which could be deemed election interference.
Reprinted with permission from Alternet.
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Dave McCormick
David McCormick, who is Pennsylvania's presumptive Republican U.S. Senate nominee, has often suggested he grew up poor in a rural community. But a new report finds that his upbringing was far more affluent than he's suggested.
The New York Times reported Friday that McCormick — a former hedge fund executive who lived in Connecticut as recently as 2022 — has been cagey with voters about his childhood. McCormick has tweeted that he was "raised in Bloomsburg working on his family's farm," said on a 2022 podcast that he "started with nothing" and told CBS News that same year that he "didn't have anything" growing up as the son of two schoolteachers.
But according to the Times, McCormick's father, Dr. James H. McCormick, was appointed president of what is now Bloomsburg University by Gov. Milton Schapp (D) in 1973. He moved his family into Buckalew Place — the official mansion for presidents of the school that currently spans 5,500 square feet — when his son was just eight years old. The Times reported that he was paid a salary of $29,000 at the time, which is more than $200,000 in today's dollars.
"He had a very privileged childhood," 76-year-old Linda Cromley — a lifelong Bloomsburg resident who attended church with the McCormicks for a stretch — told the Times. "He didn’t grow up a poor kid. Which doesn’t mean that he has to — but don’t pretend that you were."
During a roundtable discussion earlier this year, McCormick referred to himself as a "farmer that's got a big farm in Columbia County." However, that's a reference to his family's 600-acre Christmas tree farm that they purchased after the McCormicks had already been living at Buckalew Place for several years.
Mary Gummerson, who rented part of the farm with her husband for more than three decades, told the Times that while David McCormick had spent some summers baling hay and trimming trees, his description of himself as a "farmer" was somewhat misleading.
“They were hunters and he grew up in a farm kind of environment," Gummerson said. “But no, he’s not planting corn.”
McCormick didn't respond to the Times' interview request, but clarified in a statement that "growing up, we lived on campus at Bloomsburg State College and my parents owned a farm 10 minutes down the road." He added that the Times' highlighting of the discrepancies between his descriptions of his biographical details and the actual details of his upbringing were "hair-splitting, frivolous, cherry-picked distortions of what I have always said."
Pennsylvania's U.S. Senate primary is Tuesday, though McCormick has no Republican opposition. He will face off with Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) in the November election, who is seeking a fourth six-year term. According to RealClearPolitics' polling average, Casey leads McCormick by more than five points.
Reprinted with permission from Alternet.
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