A piece of work our Trump. Even if Trump's statements were false, they are protected as a valuable contribution to public discourse.
He can salute those he incited to commit crimes on J6 but also attend a cop’s funeral. Also he has more of a right to merchandise Bibles than sign them. But signing them is protected as a valuable contribution to public discourse?
Trump lawyer argues for Georgia election interference indictment to be dismissed on free speech grounds
In the ongoing hearing in Atlanta, Steve Sadow, an attorney for Donald Trump, asked judge Scott McAfee to dismiss the charges related to election interference against the former president, saying they were attempting to criminalize speech protected by the first amendment
www.theguardian.com/…
"I don't think there's any question that statements, comment, speech, expressive conduct that deals with campaigning or elections has always been found to be at the zenith of protected speech," Trump attorney Sadow argued, saying that even if Trump's statements were false, they are protected as a valuable contribution to public discourse.
Trump’s attorneys have argued that any false statement he made were protected by the first amendment, an argument prosecutors are encouraging the judge to reject.
In the words of Georgia State University law professor Anthony Michael Kreis, today’s arguments boil down to this:
(2019) PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — President Donald Trump was just doing what he could to raise spirits when he signed Bibles at an Alabama church for survivors of a tornado outbreak, many religious leaders say, though some are offended and others say he could have handled it differently.
Hershael York, dean of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary School of Theology in Louisville, Kentucky, said he didn’t have a problem with Trump signing Bibles, like former presidents have, because he was asked and because it was important to the people who were asking.
“Though we don’t have a national faith, there is faith in our nation, and so it’s not at all surprising that people would have politicians sign their Bibles,” he said. “Those Bibles are meaningful to them and apparently these politicians are, too.”
But the Rev. Donnie Anderson, executive minister of the Rhode Island State Council of Churches, said she was offended by the way Trump scrawled his signature Friday as he autographed Bibles and other things, including hats, and posed for photos. She viewed it, she said, as a “calculated political move” by the Republican president to court his evangelical voting base.
apnews.com/...
One month after releasing a line of gilded high-tops for $399, Donald Trump revealed on Tuesday a new item: the Bible. “All Americans need a Bible in their home, and I have many,” the former president explained in a video promoting the country singer Lee Greenwood’s version of a King James translation, the “God Bless the USA Bible.”
“It’s my favorite book,” Trump added.
Throughout the rest of the clip, as if daring us into a collective disgust, Trump swerved through random opportunities to rail against bureaucrats and a country under threat—all while hawking a holy text.
But his latest sales pitch also prompted some legitimate questions. Such as: What the hell is going on? And: Excuse me? Here, we try to answer some of the queries.
So, that first question—what the hell—but more formally: What exactly is Trump promoting and how much will it cost me to shell out for this?
Trump is encouraging his supporters to buy a Bible endorsed by himself and Lee Greenwood. It costs $59.99, without taxes or shipping included. That seems to sit on the more expensive end of Bibles on sale at Barnes & Noble. But those books presumably don’t include copies of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the handwritten lyrics to the chorus of Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA.”
The “God Bless the USA Bible” does include these items.
www.motherjones.com/...
Responses to Trump’s social media announcement called the endorsement “sacrilege,” “heresy” and “borderline offensive” and cite lessons directly from the Bible that suggest taking advantage of people’s faith for money should be condemned.
“It is a bankrupt Christianity that sees a demagogue co-opting our faith and even our holy scriptures for the sake of his own pursuit of power and praise him for it rather than insist that we refuse to allow our sacred faith and scriptures to become a mouthpiece for an empire,” said Rev. Benjamin Cremer on X.
Jason Cornwall, a pastor from South Carolina, said on X that Trump’s Bible endorsement was a violation of one of the Ten Commandments of the Hebrew Testament that forbids taking God’s name in vain.
However, the criticism doesn’t end with whether or not Trump’s endorsement is un-Christian or not. In fact, it’s just the beginning.
https://t.co/VlQk4D7TzM
