Trump’s Disturbing Message on Lousiana’s Ten Commandments Law

Donald Trump is a big fan of the new Louisiana law that requires the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public classrooms.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee and convicted felon posted his approval early Friday morning on Truth Social in an all-caps post, noting “HOW CAN WE GO WRONG???”

The bill almost certainly will invite a lawsuit on First Amendment grounds, which would likely make its way to the Supreme Court, which, thanks to Trump, has a conservative majority. In past decades, however, the court has struck down similar bills.

But Trump knows what he’s doing. This is a calculated effort to appease the Christian right, along with his attacks on abortion rights, which he tries to disguise but very clearly states to Christian audiences. Somehow, despite his philandering, lying, business fraud, and numerous other violations of the Ten Commandments, he continues to be thought of as a person of faith by 64 percent of Republicans.

Trump depends on support from the Christian right, not just for himself but also to keep the Republican Party behind him. He will need their votes to have any chance of reelection in November, and they are already making plans for what to do if he returns to the White House.

Donald Trump’s media company stock has been steadily slipping in value following his conviction on 34 felony charges, and on Thursday, it dropped back down near its all-time low. 

Since the verdict in Trump’s hush-money case was decided last month, shares of Trump Media & Technology Group, the company behind Truth Social, have dropped in value by nearly 40 percent, according to CNBC. 

The stock market closed Thursday with DJT (Trump Media’s stock symbol) another 15 percent down, valued at just $26.75—dipping dangerously near its all-time low of $22.84, which it hit in April. At the time, Trump stock was doing so badly that Trump Media CEO Devin Nunes wrote a letter to Congress asking them to investigate the anonymous trading of DJT stock. He was previously torched for reaching out to NASDAQ to complain about “naked short-selling.”

It’s been another particularly tumultuous trading week for DJT, beginning with Trump’s stock plummeting nearly 10 percent on Tuesday. After closing that day, the SEC declared that Trump Media’s registration statement had gone into effect, which caused the value to dip another 17 percent in post-market trading.  

The registration statement allowed some investors to exercise warrants, which permit them to swap and sell shares. Unfortunately for standard shareholders, who are not granted the benefit of warrants, this can dilute the value of their shares.

Less than a month ago, everything was different for DJT. Shares of Trump Media stock cost a whopping $49, and Trump’s 114,750,000 shares were worth more than $5.6 billion.

At today’s rate, the former president’s shares would be worth closer to $3.2 billion, and it’s hard to imagine what they will be worth by September, when Trump will actually be allowed to sell. 

DJT continues to prove itself to be a uniquely volatile stock, the value of which is tied to the fate of one convicted felon and his ability to appeal to voters. 

A secretly recorded conversation with Roger Stone suggests that the Donald Trump adviser and confidant is implying that the judge in Trump’s classified documents case, Aileen Cannon, could be in the convicted felon and former president’s pocket.

Liberal filmmaker Lauren Windsor secretly recorded the self-described “dirty trickster” at a Catholics Prayer for Trump event on March 19 at Mar-a-Lago, where he made several comments hinting that Cannon would dismiss the case. MSNBC legal analyst Joyce Vance said that these comments could suggest Cannon is compromised.

“To the extent Stone is insinuating something more sinister, that they have judges in their pocket, that’s entirely different, entirely wrong,” Vance wrote in her Substack newsletter.

“Perhaps he’s just making it up when he says Judge Cannon will soon dismiss the case against Donald Trump and that they have other judges available during the election. But given his background and history, it would be foolish not to be concerned,” Vance added.

Stone was caught on video saying, “We are beating them. I think the judge is on the verge of dismissing the charges against him in Florida,” referring to Cannon.

“They’re delayed in New York City, and they’re now delayed in Washington,” Stone continued, alluding to Trump’s election interference case regarding the January 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.

Stone’s words, if he is hinting at Cannon working with Trump, would seemingly be corroborated by a Thursday New York Times report revealing that the Trump-appointed judge was urged by senior federal judges to hand off Trump’s classified documents case to other judges with more experience, who didn’t have previous involvement interfering in the case, as Cannon had. Cecilia Altonaga, the chief U.S. district judge for the Southern District of Florida and Cannon’s superior, even reached out to Cannon and told her taking the case would be “bad optics.” Cannon turned the judges down.

Cannon’s decisions in the case have been criticized for appearing to favor the presumptive Republican presidential nominee and convicted felon. She’s agreed to hear pretrial motions that have slowed down proceedings, thrown out parts of the case, and postponed the trial indefinitely. The judge has drawn criticism, even from one of Trump’s former lawyers, for seeming to be prone to exploitation,

George Latimer made a bizarre comment to denigrate incumbent Representative Jamaal Bowman, whose seat he’s working to oust, claiming Bowman has an “ethnic benefit” against him. The comment is just the latest in a string of race-baiting comments Latimer has made against Bowman in a desperate attempt to win his seat in the most expensive House primary in history.

Latimer’s comment came during an interview with Punchbowl News released Thursday where Latimer said, “Is [Bowman] going to get at least 40 percent of the vote? Yes. Does he have an obvious ethnic benefit? Yes. Will he get the people who are furthest to the left? Yes. But once you get beyond a couple of constituencies that he has strength in, he’s weak everywhere else.”

This isn’t Latimer’s first bigot-coded remark to swipe at Bowman. During a debate last week, Latimer claimed Bowman’s “constituents are in Dearborn,” a remark widely interpreted to be an anti-Arab and Islamophobic nod to Dearborn, Michigan’s Arab-majority population.

Bowman, who is Black, represents New York’s 16th congressional district, which is 20.4 percent Black and over 40 percent white. Four days before Latimer’s latest comment, Bowman slammed him, saying, “George Latimer’s rhetoric is filled with dogwhistles, but his results are even worse: a decades-long history of obstructing federal desegregation orders.”

Latimer’s comment drew fierce backlash, with critics pointing out Latimer’s history of slow-walking desegregation in Westchester County and his tendency to claim the only reason people support Bowman is because he’s Black.

During their debate on June 11, Latimer accused Bowman of only ever talking about Black constituents, saying, “You don’t mention people who are not Black or brown. There’s a whole district, Jamaal, that you’ve ignored, and the district knows you’ve ignored it.” Latimer’s comment came in response to Bowman accusing Latimer of ignoring Black and brown constituents in Westchester, keenly noting, “Just because you have a few Black friends doesn’t make you anti-racist.”

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. didn’t qualify for CNN’s upcoming presidential debate, and he is not taking it well.

The debate, which will take place on June 27, is set to be a showdown between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, the presumptive nominees from each major party. Unfortunately for Kennedy, CNN said he does not qualify to join them onstage.

“Presidents Biden and Trump do not want me on the debate stage and CNN illegally agreed to their demand,” insisted Kennedy, in a statement released Thursday by his campaign. “My exclusion by Presidents Biden and Trump from the debate is undemocratic, un-American, and cowardly.”

CNN gave Kennedy’s campaign until 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday, June 19, to demonstrate that the independent candidate is on enough statewide ballots to potentially earn the 270 electoral votes needed to actually win the election. Kennedy fell woefully short: His name is confirmed on the ballot in just five states, tallying up to only 42 electoral votes, according to The Washington Post.

CNN generously also counted California and Hawaii, where Kennedy is the presumptive nominee of minor parties but the states have not either confirmed him on the ballot or received ballot paperwork yet. But even including those states, that would only bring him to 100 electoral votes. The anti-vaxxer’s name was reportedly not on the ballot in some of the 13 states where he’d previously claimed to have successfully petitioned.

Meanwhile, as the presumptive nominees, both Biden and Trump should be allowed onto the ballot in every state without having to petition once they are formally nominated. The fact that this hasn’t actually happened yet seems to be what’s infuriating Kennedy.

In the statement, Kennedy’s team went on to accuse CNN of using a double standard against the widely unpopular candidate.

“CNN’s published debate criteria require that ‘a candidate’s name must appear on a sufficient number of state ballots to reach the 270 electoral vote threshold.’ CNN is holding Kennedy to this requirement but is not requiring Presidents Biden and Trump to meet this requirement by claiming they are each the ‘presumptive nominee’ of a political party,” the statement said.

The statement also threatened legal action against CNN for supposedly violating Federal Election Commission guidelines.

“This means CNN, and every member of CNN who is participating in planning, executing, and holding this debate, is at risk of prosecution, as happened to Michael Cohen, for violating campaign finance laws. This risk is now acute given that any further violation would be knowing and willful, and thus could carry with it serious jail time,” the statement said.

The brain worm–haver has continued to delusionally insist that CNN, Biden, and Trump are locking him out of the debate because they are “afraid” he will win.

Kennedy’s statement included a quote from former Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee, who ran a long-shot presidential campaign in 2020 as a libertarian candidate.

“If the American people could hear what all three candidates had to say about the critical issues facing our country, the choice between these three men would be clear,” Chafee is quoted as saying in the statement. “Kennedy would become the 47th President of the United States.”

The reality that Chafee describes looks less and less likely every day.