Happy Thursday!

Today’s Brew is flavored by the fight for liberty and free speech.

Trump Trials Boogie: Midnight Trainwreck to Georgia

The judge in New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s “hush money” case has former President Donald Trump quoting Patrick Henry. Us as well.

But first, on Tuesday, Stormy Daniels harmed rather than helped the prosecutor’s case against Trump. Then Trump got the good news that the Florida “classified documents” case was being postponed indefinitely. One reason is that Judge Aileen Cannon agreed to hear defense motions over the coordination between Special Counsel Jack Smith, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the White House.

“The liberties of the people never were, nor ever will be, secure when the transactions of their rules are concealed from them.” (Patrick Henry)

On Wednesday, Trump got more good news, this time out of Georgia.

An appellate court will hear Trump’s efforts to have Fani Willis disqualified from the Fulton County election subversion case. Trump and his codefendants appealed Judge Scott McAfee’s decision to allow Willis to stay on the case, despite the “significant appearance of impropriety” stemming from her affair with special prosecutor Nathan Wade. (To say nothing of the evidence that she and Wade lied about their relationship under oath in court.)

There’s additional news in the Fulton County case: Just the News reports the Georgia State Election Board is reprimanding Fulton County after an “independent investigation found that the county likely scanned thousands of ballots twice in a recount of the 2020 election.” The county also violated counting procedures during that election.

As this clip shows, there’s more. The investigation also showed there are missing ballot images. And if you are looking for the original election day ballot images from Fulton County, forget about it.

“Does the investigation confirm that there are missing ballot images?”

“Yes.”

Case closed. No cover up operation can conceal the fact that Fulton County did not have the votes it claimed it had. The recount could not replicate the original results.

Oh, and it’s “news” to… pic.twitter.com/2HxZ4oMiNo

— Liz Harrington (@realLizUSA) May 7, 2024

Dr. Janice Johnston of the State Board of Elections encapsulated a number of the unsettling issues from the 2020 general election in Fulton County.

GEORGIA!🚨 Powerful must watch video
of Georgia State Election Board member Dr. Janice Johnston addressing 2020 election complaints involving fraud, voting machines, and recounts.

Dr. Johnston motioned to amend official recount results and called for further investigation. To no… pic.twitter.com/e1t4aJkGeY

— True the Vote (@TrueTheVote) May 7, 2024

Is any of this going to cause anybody to officially overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results? No. The point is that no one in Fulton County who pulled any of these shenanigans has been charged, but this same Fulton County has charged Trump for complaining about it.

Trump Trial Boogie: New York State of Mind-Numbing

“Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel.” (Patrick Henry)

Back up in the Big Apple, Stormy Daniels is expected back on the stand in the Trump “hush money” trial today to face further cross-examination. When even CNN is saying Tuesday’s cross-examination of Daniels was “devastating” to the prosecution, you know her appearance was a disaster.

Judge Juan Merchan is also getting bashed for his decision to let Daniels testify about her alleged encounter with Trump, since it has nothing to do with the charges. Who knows? Perhaps today we’ll get her political position on Gaza or the open border. Those positions have as much relevance to the case as the other (ahem!) positions she was allowed to talk about on the stand.

Trump does not seem fazed by Merchan’s threat to throw him in jail. In a long post Wednesday morning on Truth Social, Trump shredded the gag order imposed on him, saying the “sleazebags, lowlifes and grifters” can say whatever they want about him, before concluding

“OUR FIRST AMENDMENT MUST STAND, FREE AND STRONG. “GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH!’”

Fighting Back: Teen Student Suspended for Using Phrase “Illegal Alien” Sues School District

Last month, 16-year-old Christian McGhee of North Carolina’s English teacher gave the class an assignment: to write about aliens. McGhee asked, naturally enough, if the teacher meant “space aliens or illegal aliens who need green cards.” He ended up suspended from school because the term “illegal aliens” is now deemed “offensive.” Now, with the help of the Liberty Justice Center, McGhee is suing the Davidson County School District.

Liberty Justice Center attorney Dean McGee (no relation) told Outkick, “The school branded this a racial incident independently. There’s nothing indicating it was. It was a completely neutral legal phrase. Everyone from the Supreme Court justices, to academics, to the actual U.S. code and judges in the very district where we’re filing use the term ‘aliens,’ ‘illegal aliens,’ ‘green cards.’ These are common terms.”

McGhee ended up in the assistant principal’s office because an Hispanic student who heard his question said he was “going to kick his a**.” According to the lawsuit, the student was joking — and indeed, when the school official claimed the Hispanic student was offended by the phrase, the Hispanic classmate denied he was “upset” or offended.”

Said lawyer McGee, “The school’s stance seems to be this was offensive even if no one in class actually found it to be offensive.”

The lawsuit claims the school not only violated McGhee’s rights, and subjected him to bullying and being dubbed a racist, but that the school’s actions will silence other students: “Our client wasn’t trying to make any political point, wasn’t trying to be provocative,” McGee said. “If the school’s decision stands, any kid in any school could be scared just to ask a question in class like our client did.”

A tip of the morning cup to Christian McGhee and his family for standing up.

As Patrick Henry once said, “We are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of Nature has placed in our power … the battle, sir, is not to the strong alone, it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.”

Along The Stream

We’re excited about this one. Yesterday, Al’s Afternoon Tea interviewed the one and only John Zmirak. We got to chat about John’s brand-new book, No Second Amendment, No First.

Dr. Michael Brown weighs in today with “The Deadly Cost of Lesbianism and Feminism.”

Al Perrotta is The Stream’s Washington bureau chief, coauthor with John Zmirak of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration, and coauthor of the counterterrorism memoir Hostile Intent: Protecting Yourself Against Terrorism.