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Opinion: Anti-Semitism Also Part Of NOM’s Hateful Wedge Strategies

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When a judge ordered the release of the so-called National Organization for Marriage’s anti-gay, race-baiting strategy documents, the towering civil rights leader Julian Bond said, “It confirmed a suspicion that some evil hand was behind this.”

The NOM strategy document said, apropos of NOM’s obnoxious “Not a Civil Right” gay-bashing campaign: “The strategic goal of this project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks— two key Democratic constituencies.”

NOM’s hate document also stated that “Fanning hostility” — between anti-gay African-Americans, and LGBTers — (many of whom, of course, are African-Americans) — is “key” to its War on Gays.

The deliberate, shameless, disingenuous lying that NOM officials have been doing about their wedge strategies since the documentation was released only confirms that those officials are absolutely despicable gay-bashing bigot monsters.

Just as NOM’s race-baiting strategies involving African-Americans and Hispanics were manifest and evident before the release of that documentation, it has for a long time been manifest and evident that NOM uses similar, ruthless tactics involving other minorities.

NOM is not entirely antisemitic per se — NOM co-founder and Chairman Emeritus Robert George‘s wife was born to a Jewish family — but National Organization For Marriage bigots exploit antisemitic sentiment in parts of the population, when doing so advances NOM’s War on Gays.

Often, NOM is confined to using dog whistles for Jew haters, because in some parts of the U.S. today, antisemitism is viewed as unacceptable, so can not be spoken forthrightly out loud, in the manner NOM gay bashes daily at the top of their lungs.

What is the historical background of anti-Semitism in the United States? How is NOM able to profit from hatred of Jews?

In colonial Maryland, it was illegal not to believe in Jesus; the third offense got non-believers the death penalty. Jews did not have the vote in the state until 1826, and even then, to vote, they had to sign a paper saying they believed in an afterlife. The reason the United States first had “Jewish” hospitals, was that most Anglo-Saxon-led hospitals would not hire Jews. In the 20th century, most top universities placed maximum quotas on Jews permitted to enter, so there would not be “too many.” The stereotype by which all Jews are rich — and not coincidentally, viewed with suspicion — in this society, that all too often views with contempt the plight of its poor — distracts from the fact that there are indeed poor Jews living in the United States.

My point would be that while antisemitism is far from being the most severe of anti-minority bigotries in America, it exists. The white supremacist vote is a key swing Republican vote; you will almost never hear a Republican candidate unambiguously condemning white supremacists. And, white supremacists hate Jews at least every bit as much as they hate blacks. There are many such groups, with enough supporters that former KKK Grand Wizard and Republican Louisiana State Representative David Duke has been able to make a career off of Jew haters.

President Richard Nixon frequently disparaged Jews. He was especially fond of pointing out that among American conscientious objectors who would not fight in his dirty southeast Asian war — (where innocent men, women and children were maimed and killed with napalm) — Jews were “disproportionately” represented. Understand what Nixon was doing; he was cultivating support for his dirty war among antisemitic Americans — who already thought of Jews as being “not really American” — by leading them to think that the Jewish conscientious objectors were “anti-American.”

On an international level, Jews have been maligned — and often still today are maligned — as the masterminds of world capitalism, socialism and communism.

NOM, of course, is eager — very eager indeed to exploit antisemitism towards anti-gay political ends.

During Elena Kagan’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings, South Carolina’s Senator Lindsey Graham made a point of asking the Jewish nominee where she had been on Christmas. That was a dog whistle for anti-Semites. Nothing about Graham’s question was relevant to her qualifications.

NOM, too, uses dog whistles for anti-Semites. Last week, when the First Circuit court found DOMA unconstitutional, NOM’s Brian Brown said: “It’s obvious that the federal courts on both coasts are intent on imposing their liberal, elitist views of marriage on the American people.”

“Coast,” “liberal,” “elitist;” Brown was using the dog whistles to suggest “Jews.” Notice that Brown talked about the “coast,” “liberal,” “elitist” judges “imposing” equality “on the American people,” (as though gays were not part of the American people, and as though “coast,” “liberal,” “elitist,” (bigot dog whistle code for: Jews) were not part of the American people; this is similar to Nixon’s dirty trick of hinting that Jews are not real Americans, or even perhaps, that they are anti-American, simply because of a progressive human rights-related view.

Brown and NOM have few if indeed any evidence-based, constitutional arguments to make against equality — (in talking about “elitist coast liberals,” they conveniently forget to mention that Iowa judges ruled for equality) — but now NOM seeks to identify — in their gay-bashing bigot followers’ minds — federal court votes for equality with “Coast,” “liberal,” “elitist;” — you know, like Elena Kagan. Where was she on Christmas?

Sometimes NOM subcontracts the antisemitism to its best friends, in hopes of avoiding having the accumulated stench of all of it sticking only to NOMzis. In the Kagan confirmation matter, for example, NOM was raucously beating the drums against Kagan. One NOM online donation form actually allowed donors specifically to give money to “expose” Senators who were supporting Kagan. Notice 1) that Vision America’s Rick Scarborough has appeared at conferences together with NOM’s Brian Brown and Jennifer Roback Morse, and then notice 2) that NOM friend Rick Scarborough published a piece titled Elena Kagan and the War Against Christianity.  Get it? Kagan equals Jew equals a war against Christianity. Nice! Logical!  Here, if you can bear to look at them, are photos of a conference attended by NOM’s Maggie Gallagher and John Eastman along with their very close anti-gay bigot ally Phyllis Schafly.  What did Schafly say to demonize nominee Elena Kagan? Schlafly used, as a weapon against Kagan, that Kagan as Dean of the Harvard Law School once had invited — as a speaker — former Israeli Supreme Court Judge Aharon Barak, who favors equality.  Schafly, obviously, calculated a value to smearing Kagan with her association with another Jew who not only favors equality, but also happens to share, with the man who nominated Kagan, the Middle Eastern-sounding name Barak/Barack. And, there was a broader, fraudulent effort among U.S. Christian, anti-gay reactionaries to tar-and-feather the Jewish Kagan with the Jewish Barak and the Jewish Barak with the Jewish Kagan.  It was a giant “Where were you on Christmas?” festival. Despite Kagan having once referred — for reasons of her own — to NOM’s Robert George as one of the country’s “most respected legal scholars,” NOM was busy ripping Kagan a new one, accusing her left and right of “sabotaging” a DOMA-related case as Solicitor General. (Meanwhile, after House Speaker John Boehner appointed Robert George to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, he was sworn into that office by the Jewish woman his Catholic NOMzis had pursued with unrelenting vengeance, Justice Elena Kagan).

How else is NOM willing to exploit hatred and resentment of Jews in order to further its War on Gays?

Maryland State Senator Anthony Muse, an anti-gay African-American minister, works closely with NOM, who have made robo-poll calls for him. The stated aim of the robo-polls was “to identify marriage equality opponents who they can push to support Mr. Muse in the Democratic Primary.”

Look what Muse did here. He created a campaign flyer that suggested President Obama had endorsed Muse in the 2012 Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, when in fact, Obama had endorsed the incumbent Senator Ben Cardin, a Jew who has co-sponsored legislation to repeal DOMA. The Muse campaign flyer shows the “Composition of the 112th Senate,” purportedly broken down by race. There are no African-American U.S. Senators. On whom does Muse pin the blame for that? On the Jews. His racial breakdown gives “White” and “Jewish” as separate races. The Muse hate document shows that there are 84 “white” Senators, and that “whites” are 62% of the U.S. population, and it shows that there are 12 Jewish Senators, and that Jews are 1.8% of the population, while blacks are 12% of the population.

This sickening, cynical hate document has NOM’s fingerprints all over it. We know that NOM actively planned to “drive a wedge” between other minorities; we know that NOM said that “fanning hostility” between minorities is “key” to its strategy. The Muse pamphlet very conspicuously sought to “drive a wedge” and to “fan hostility.” Remember; NOM’s goal in the Democratic primary was “to identify marriage equality opponents who they can push to support Mr. Muse in the Democratic Primary.” Having identified Democratic marriage equality opponents — many of them African-Americans — Muse sought to stoke African-American resentment and/or hatred of Jews by separating whites from Jews as “races,” and showing that while there are fewer Jews than blacks in the population, there are 12 Jewish U.S. Senators, but no African-American ones. Of course, the Jew-clobbering strategy was dependent on Muse’s opponent, Senator Ben Cardin, being a Jewish LGBT equality supporter.

Cardin won the primary, but NOM’s involvement in the Muse campaign left the area poisoned with elevated antisemitic feeling and enhanced hatred of gays and lesbians.

NOM’s boycott of Starbucks, because of Starbucks’ support for equality, also manifests appeals to antisemitism. Microsoft and Apple are at least as dedicated to LGBT equality as Starbucks, but Bill Gates and Tim Cook are not Jewish, while Starbucks’s Chairman Howard Schultz is. Do you get it? “Coast,” “liberal,” “elitist;” “Schultz.” The NOMzi gay-bashers simply can not get enough of saying his name, either, because in American Jew haters’ minds, the words “coast,” “liberal,” “elitist,” and “Schultz” just naturally are a fit for negative stereotyping and resentment. Maggie Gallagher — who has deliberately and shamelessly lied about NOM’s race-baiting strategies — published an article about Schultz and Starbucks in the National Review. It’s title? Church of Starbucks, with the conspicuously Jewish-sounding complete name Howard Schultz mentioned twice.  Do you get it? Jews don’t go to churches — and Gallagher is mocking Schultz’s heritage, beliefs and philosophy by talking sarcastically about Schultz’s Jewish, pro-gay-rights “Church of Starbucks;” this is another NOM antisemitic dog whistle. “Starbucks is no Christian church,” Gallagher seems to be telling her readers, “and this homosexuals-loving Jew Howard Schultz sure as hell doesn’t go to any other Christian church, either,” she seemingly implies. If Gallagher now attempts to deny that she was making a calculated appeal to the anti-Semites in her NOM base, just tell her to shut her lying mouth.

Does this mean that NOM will not now come up with one of its outlier nutbag gay-bashing Jewish supporters to say they do not mind all of this intentional appeal to antisemitism?  Meet NOM’s loony friend Yehuda Levine, who says that acceptance of gays causes God to send earthquakes. Not exactly consensus Jewish-American thinking.

NOM’s international presentation of its Starbucks boycott, too, relies on appealing to hatred of Jews. That NOM has translated its anti-gay hate materials into Arabic and placed them online, for consumption in those countries that have barbaric, murderous anti-gay attitudes at the official government level, is in itself detestable.

Yet additionally, the complicated Starbucks corporate picture in the Middle East must be taken into account. Firstly, it is essential to know that standard-issue Arab propaganda says that all homosexuality in the Middle East is the “fault” of Jewish Israelis. There are no Starbucks in Israel. You can find some anecdotal reports, not necessarily credible, alleging that the Israelis simply did not take to Starbucks coffee. It is possible, meanwhile, that in order to gain entry to the wider Middle East market, Starbucks entered into tacit agreements not to set up shop in Israel. However that may be, NOM has stepped into the Middle East picture, identifying Starbucks as a Jewish-led company that — horror of horrors — supports gay rights.

Get it? NOM is hoping to simultaneously stoke resentment of Jews and Israel, to Middle East populations that widely allege that all homosexuality in the Middle East is the “fault” of Jewish Israelis. NOM’s malevolent intent to deal Starbucks fatal blows, no matter what it takes, is evident. Extremely troubling is NOM’s publication of maps showing the precise locations of every Starbucks in Saudi Arabia, and other such places, with instructions for gay-bashers — who in those environments, could eventually turn out to be suicide bombers — to go to those mapped locations to protest Starbucks’s support for gay marriage.  There is no chance that Saudi Arabia is about to institute marriage equality; so think about NOM’s broader, evil goals in pushing its Starbucks boycott in such a place.

Additionally, it is hardly a coincidence that in its fund-raising video starring the “Spirit Day” gay basher Daniel Glowacki, NOM prominently featured this gay Jewish reporter’s articles about the lying Glowacki.

NOM of course also is stoking anti-Muslim bigotry in order to advance its War on Gays; that will be the topic of a future article.

NOM is comprised entirely of monsters.

And oh — I almost forgot. NOM’s founder Robert George also is founder of the American Principles Project. George sent Thomas Peters — also involved with both NOM and the American Principles Project — to attend a conference in Poland hosted by the notorious anti-Semite and Holocaust denier Father Tadeusz Rydsyk. Rydsyk’s “Radio Marija” once mounted an on-air defense campaign for a cleric charged with child molestation and anti-Semitism.

This tells us everything we need to know about Robert George’s and NOM’s “Principles.” And the amoral Mitt Romney has a lot to answer for, as regards his signature on the hateful NOM pledge.

Remember what Julian Bond said about the document — had only through court-ordered release — that confirmed NOM’s despicable tactics:  “It confirmed a suspicion that some evil hand was behind this.”

New York City– based novelist and freelance writer Scott Rose’s LGBT– interest by– line has appeared on Advocate .com, PoliticusUSA .com, The New York Blade, Queerty .com, Girlfriends and in numerous additional venues. Among his other interests are the arts, boating and yachting, wine and food, travel, poker and dogs. His “Mr. David Cooper’s Happy Suicide” is about a New York City advertising executive assigned to a condom account.

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‘Assassination of Political Rivals as an Official Act’: AOC Warns Take Trump ‘Seriously’

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Democratic U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is responding to Thursday’s U.S. Supreme Court hearing on Donald Trump’s claim he has “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution because he was a U.S. president, and she delivered a strong warning in response.

Trump’s attorney argued before the nation’s highest court that the ex-president could have ordered the assassination of a political rival and not face criminal prosecution unless he was first impeached by the House of Representatives and then convicted by the Senate.

But even then, Trump attorney John Sauer argued, if assassinating his political rival were done as an “official act,” he would be automatically immune from all prosecution.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, presenting the hypothetical, expressed, “there are some things that are so fundamentally evil that they have to be protected against.”

RELATED: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

“If the president decides that his rival is a corrupt person, and he orders the military, or orders someone to assassinate him, is that within his official acts for which he can get immunity?” she asked.

“It would depend on the hypothetical, but we can see that could well be an official act,” Trump attorney Sauer quickly replied.

Sauer later claimed that if a president ordered the U.S. military to wage a coup, he could also be immune from prosecution, again, if it were an “official act.”

The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols, a retired U.S. Naval War College professor and an expert on Russia, nuclear weapons, and national security affairs, was quick to poke a large hole in that hypothetical.

“If the president suspends the Senate, you can’t prosecute him because it’s not an official act until the Senate impeaches …. Uh oh,” he declared.

RELATED: Justices Slam Trump Lawyer: ‘Why Is It the President Would Not Be Required to Follow the Law?’

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blasted the Trump team.

“The assassination of political rivals as an official act,” the New York Democrat wrote.

“Understand what the Trump team is arguing for here. Take it seriously and at face value,” she said, issuing a warning: “This is not a game.”

Marc Elias, who has been an attorney to top Democrats and the Democratic National Committee, remarked, “I am in shock that a lawyer stood in the U.S Supreme Court and said that a president could assassinate his political opponent and it would be immune as ‘an official act.’ I am in despair that several Justices seemed to think this answer made perfect sense.”

CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen, a former U.S. Ambassador and White House Special Counsel for Ethics and Government Reform under President Barack Obama, boiled it down: “Trump is seeking dictatorial powers.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

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Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

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Legal experts appeared somewhat pleased during the first half of the Supreme Court’s historic hearing on Donald Trump’s claim he has “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution because he was the President of the United States, as the justice appeared unwilling to accept that claim, but were stunned later when the right-wing justices questioned the U.S. Dept. of Justice’s attorney. Many experts are suggesting the ex-president may have won at least a part of the day, and some are expressing concern about the future of American democracy.

“Former President Trump seems likely to win at least a partial victory from the Supreme Court in his effort to avoid prosecution for his role in Jan. 6,” Axios reports. “A definitive ruling against Trump — a clear rejection of his theory of immunity that would allow his Jan. 6 trial to promptly resume — seemed to be the least likely outcome.”

The most likely outcome “might be for the high court to punt, perhaps kicking the case back to lower courts for more nuanced hearings. That would still be a victory for Trump, who has sought first and foremost to delay a trial in the Jan. 6 case until after Inauguration Day in 2025.”

Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern, who covers the courts and the law, noted: “This did NOT go very well [for Special Counsel] Jack Smith’s team. Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh think Trump’s Jan. 6 prosecution is unconstitutional. Maybe Gorsuch too. Roberts is skeptical of the charges. Barrett is more amenable to Smith but still wants some immunity.”

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Civil rights attorney and Tufts University professor Matthew Segal, responding to Stern’s remarks, commented: “If this is true, and if Trump becomes president again, there is likely no limit to the harm he’d be willing to cause — to the country, and to specific individuals — under the aegis of this immunity.”

Noted foreign policy, national security and political affairs analyst and commentator David Rothkopf observed: “Feels like the court is leaning toward creating new immunity protections for a president. It’s amazing. We’re watching the Constitution be rewritten in front of our eyes in real time.”

“Frog in boiling water alert,” warned Ian Bassin, a former Associate White House Counsel under President Barack Obama. “Who could have imagined 8 years ago that in the Trump era the Supreme Court would be considering whether a president should be above the law for assassinating opponents or ordering a military coup and that *at least* four justices might agree.”

NYU professor of law Melissa Murray responded to Bassin: “We are normalizing authoritarianism.”

Trump’s attorney, John Sauer, argued before the Supreme Court justices that if Trump had a political rival assassinated, he could only be prosecuted if he had first been impeach by the U.S. House of Representatives then convicted by the U.S. Senate.

During oral arguments Thursday, MSNBC host Chris Hayes commented on social media, “Something that drives me a little insane, I’ll admit, is that Trump’s OWN LAWYERS at his impeachment told the Senators to vote not to convict him BECAUSE he could be prosecuted if it came to that. Now they’re arguing that the only way he could be prosecuted is if they convicted.”

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Attorney and former FBI agent Asha Rangappa warned, “It’s worth highlighting that Trump’s lawyers are setting up another argument for a second Trump presidency: Criminal laws don’t apply to the President unless they specifically say so…this lays the groundwork for saying (in the future) he can’t be impeached for conduct he can’t be prosecuted for.”

But NYU and Harvard professor of law Ryan Goodman shared a different perspective.

“Due to Trump attorney’s concessions in Supreme Court oral argument, there’s now a very clear path for DOJ’s case to go forward. It’d be a travesty for Justices to delay matters further. Justice Amy Coney Barrett got Trump attorney to concede core allegations are private acts.”

NYU professor of history Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an expert scholar on authoritarians, fascism, and democracy concluded, “Folks, whatever the Court does, having this case heard and the idea of having immunity for a military coup taken seriously by being debated is a big victory in the information war that MAGA and allies wage alongside legal battles. Authoritarians specialize in normalizing extreme ideas and and involves giving them a respected platform.”

The Nation’s justice correspondent Elie Mystal offered up a prediction: “Court doesn’t come back till May 9th which will be a decision day. But I think they won’t decide *this* case until July 3rd for max delay. And that decision will be 5-4 to remand the case back to DC, for additional delay.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

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Justices Slam Trump Lawyer: ‘Why Is It the President Would Not Be Required to Follow the Law?’

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Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court hearing Donald Trump’s claim of absolute immunity early on appeared at best skeptical, were able to get his attorney to admit personal criminal acts can be prosecuted, appeared to skewer his argument a president must be impeached and convicted before he can be criminally prosecuted, and peppered him with questions exposing what some experts see is the apparent weakness of his case.

Legal experts appeared to believe, based on the Justices’ questions and statements, Trump will lose his claim of absolute presidential immunity, and may remand the case back to the lower court that already ruled against him, but these observations came during Justices’ questioning of Trump attorney John Sauer, and before they questioned the U.S. Dept. of Justice’s Michael Dreeben.

“I can say with reasonable confidence that if you’re arguing a case in the Supreme Court of the United States and Justices Alito and Sotomayor are tag-teaming you, you are going to lose,” noted attorney George Conway, who has argued a case before the nation’s highest court and obtained a unanimous decision.

But some are also warning that the justices will delay so Special Counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of Trump will not take place before the November election.

READ MORE: ‘To Do God Knows What’: Local Elections Official Reads Lara Trump the Riot Act

“This argument still has a ways to go,” observed UCLA professor of law Rick Hasen, one of the top election law scholars in the county. “But it is easy to see the Court (1) siding against Trump on the merits but (2) in a way that requires further proceedings that easily push this case past the election (to a point where Trump could end this prosecution if elected).”

The Economist’s Supreme Court reporter Steven Mazie appeared to agree: “So, big picture: the (already slim) chances of Jack Smith actually getting his 2020 election-subversion case in front of a jury before the 2024 election are dwindling before our eyes.”

One of the most stunning lines of questioning came from Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who said, “If someone with those kinds of powers, the most powerful person in the world with the greatest amount of authority, could go into Office knowing that there would be no potential penalty for committing crimes. I’m trying to understand what the disincentive is, from turning the Oval Office into, you know, the seat of criminal activity in this country.”

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She also warned, “If the potential for criminal liability is taken off the table, wouldn’t there be a significant risk that future presidents would be emboldened to commit crimes with abandon while they’re in office? It’s right now the fact that we’re having this debate because, OLC [Office of Legal Counsel] has said that presidents might be prosecuted. Presidents, from the beginning of time have understood that that’s a possibility. That might be what has kept this office from turning into the kind of crime center that I’m envisioning, but once we say, ‘no criminal liability, Mr. President, you can do whatever you want,’ I’m worried that we would have a worse problem than the problem of the president feeling constrained to follow the law while he’s in office.”

“Why is it as a matter of theory,” Justice Jackson said, “and I’m hoping you can sort of zoom way out here, that the president would not be required to follow the law when he is performing his official acts?”

“So,” she added later, “I guess I don’t understand why Congress in every criminal statute would have to say and the President is included. I thought that was the sort of background understanding that if they’re enacting a generally applicable criminal statute, it applies to the President just like everyone else.”

Another critical moment came when Justice Elena Kagan asked, “If a president sells nuclear secrets to a foreign adversary, is that immune?”

Professor of law Jennifer Taub observed, “This is truly a remarkable moment. A former U.S. president is at his criminal trial in New York, while at the same time the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing his lawyer’s argument that he should be immune from prosecution in an entirely different federal criminal case.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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