ADF On Prop 8: Marriage ‘Shouldn’t Be Overthrown’ By ‘Hollywood Activists’
The Alliance Defense Fund, part of a team of anti-gay lawyers defending Prop 8, today released a statement decrying “Hollywood activists” and claiming that all the rulings to date — now three, which have all found prop 8 unconstitutional, “were little more than an attack on the character and judgment of millions of Californians.”
READ: UPDATED: Prop 8 Case Will Not Be Re-Heard By The Ninth Circuit — What’s Next
Apparently, in the mind of anti-gay bigot attorneys, the law doesn’t matter, only the “judgment of millions of Californians.” In other words, mob rule!
Amusingly, the ADF statement calls marriage “a universal good,” but essentially states that gays and lesbians are not good enough for marriage.
Below is their press release:
SAN FRANCISCO — Defenders of marriage in California will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit against the state’s marriage amendment. Tuesday, the full 9th Circuit declined to review a 2-1 decision by a three-judge panel that struck down the constitutional amendment, which 7 million California voters approved through Proposition 8 in 2008 to protect marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
Alliance Defense Fund attorneys are part of the legal defense team for ProtectMarriage.com, the banner organization for the official proponents and campaign committee of Proposition 8. The ProtectMarriage.com legal team appealed to the full 9th Circuit in February.
“Marriage is a universal good that has been honored by diverse cultures and faiths for the entire history of Western Civilization,†said ADF Senior Counsel Brian Raum. “The Protectmarriage.com legal team looks forward to standing before the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of the people’s right to preserve the fundamental building block of civilization, especially since the dissent accompanying today’s decision strongly supports our arguments. The democratic process and the most important human institution–marriage–shouldn’t be overthrown based on the demands of Hollywood activists.â€
On Feb. 7, two judges on a three-judge 9th Circuit panel in Perry v. Brown agreed with a federal district judge’s decision that California’s marriage amendment–Article I, Section 7.5 of the state constitution–is unconstitutional under the U.S. Constitution.
“The Supreme Court has made it perfectly clear that marriage is constitutional as a matter of state public policy,†explained lead counsel Charles J. Cooper with the Cooper & Kirk law firm. “We’re pleased to petition the Court to hear this case. The lower court opinions were little more than an attack on the character and judgment of millions of Californians, and those decisions essentially ignored all relevant Supreme Court and appellate court precedent. We are hopeful and confident that the Supreme Court will review the 9th Circuit’s decision.â€
A strong dissent accompanied the full 9th Circuit’s decision not to review the case. It states, “Based on a two-judge majority’s gross misapplication of Romer v. Evans…, we have now declared that animus must have been the only conceivable motivation for a sovereign State to have remained committed to a definition of marriage that has existed for millennia…. Even worse, we have overruled the will of seven million California Proposition 8 voters based on a reading of Romer that would be unrecognizable to the Justices who joined it, to those who dissented from it, and to the judges from sister circuits who have since interpreted it. We should not have so roundly trumped California’s democratic process without at least discussing this unparalleled decision as an en banc court.â€
The 9th Circuit’s decision is on hold until the U.S. Supreme Court has a chance to weigh in on whether to review the case.
Related:
Prop 8 Lawyers Push To Remove IRS Rules Prohibiting Churches From Campaigning
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The head of the Republican National Committee is claiming the “Biden White House” killed the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020, before Joe Biden was elected President. The embattled RNC chair, Ronna McDaniel, is again taking criticism, but her false allegations resurface events some may have forgotten.
“This is a Biden White House that was meeting with social media companies, dictating what they put on their platform before the 2020 election,” McDaniel told Fox News on Monday.
“That to me is suppression,” she continued. “This is a White House that killed the Hunter Biden story that we now know is true, that prevented voters from knowing that before the 2020 election.”
That is false.
But it’s also important to take a look back at reporting from 2020 which debunks McDaniel’s false statements.
READ MORE: ‘Denied’: Trump Loses Latest Gag Order Effort
Just days before the 2020 election, NBC News reported that “Trump and his allies say there is evidence of corruption in emails and documents allegedly found on a laptop belonging to Democrat Joe Biden’s son. They say those and other documents show that Hunter Biden used his father’s influence to enrich himself through business deals in Ukraine and China, and that his father not only facilitated that, but may have benefited financially.”
“But the Wall Street Journal and Fox News — among the only news organizations that have been given access to key documents — found that the emails and other records don’t make that case. Leaving aside the many questions about their provenance, the materials offered no evidence that Joe Biden played any role in his son’s dealings in China, let alone profited from them, both news organizations concluded,” the NBC News report states.
Now, despite nearly a year of intense Republican investigations by three House committees and a GOP-majority House leadership that appears determined to make the case to impeach President Joe Biden, those findings in the NBC News report are just as true today as they were when they were published more than three years ago.
In that same report, NBC News also stated, “many questions remain about how the materials got into the hands of Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who has met with Russian agents in his effort to dig dirt on the Bidens.”
READ MORE: Comer Says Biden’s Bank Records ‘Don’t Lie’ but His Claims Are Quickly Debunked
“U.S. intelligence agencies have informed the White House that Giuliani has been in contact with alleged Russian intelligence agents. The FBI has been looking into whether the Russians played any role, and no official has ruled that out.”
At the time, that was the Trump White House, not the Biden White House. Bill Barr was the Attorney General.
One year earlier, in October of 2019, Politico reported, “2 Giuliani Ukraine associates indicted on campaign finance charges.” And just weeks ago, The Guardian reported, “Ukrainian authorities have arrested a controversial MP who was at the heart of efforts by Rudy Giuliani to dig up compromising material about Joe Biden, and placed him in pre-trial detention.”
McDaniel claimed Joe Biden dictated to social media companies “what they put on their platform before the 2020 election.”
Again, that is false. Nor does a presidential candidate have the power to do so.
What actually happened?
“The background here is that the FBI came to us,” Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg told Joe Rogan last year, as the BBC reported, “and was like ‘hey, just so you know, you should be on high alert. We thought there was a lot of Russian propaganda in the 2016 election, we have it on notice that basically there’s about to be some kind of dump that’s similar to that’.”
READ MORE: ‘Authoritarianism’: Florida Says Its Public Schools Exist to ‘Convey Government’s Message’
The BBC added, Zuckerberg “said the FBI did not warn Facebook about the Biden story in particular – only that Facebook thought it ‘fit that pattern’.”
The BBC also pointed to the New York Post report that it says “claimed that a laptop, abandoned in a repair shop by Hunter Biden, contained emails which included details of Hunter introducing a Ukrainian energy tycoon to his father and arranging a meeting.”
“There is no record on Mr Biden’s schedule that such a meeting ever took place,” BBC adds.
“More than a year after the story appeared, the Washington Post conducted its own analysis and concluded the laptop and some emails were likely to be authentic – but the majority of data could not be verified due to ‘sloppy handling of the data’.”
That New York Post “article remains controversial. The hard drive at its centre was provided to the Post by Donald Trump’s own lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.”
Watch McDaniel below or at this link.
McDaniel: This is a White House that killed the Hunter Biden story.. that prevented voters from knowing that before the 2020 election pic.twitter.com/lpzu9o2HJs
— Acyn (@Acyn) December 4, 2023
A New York State appellate judge has denied Donald Trump’s latest attempt to have his very narrow gag order loosened, ruling his request must be heard by a panel of judges, and will not be taken up until at least the day he is scheduled to testify in the $250 million civil business fraud case.
“The application for interim relief seeking an expedited grant of leave to the Court of Appeals is denied, as such motion must be decided by a full panel of this Court. Further, the movant seeks an interim application for a preference is likewise denied, as such determination must be made by a full panel of this Court,” the judge ruled.
MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin reported, “Trump will not be free from the gag order any sooner than late 12/11, the same day he is scheduled to testify” in the State of New York’s civil business fraud case against the ex-president.
READ MORE: Comer Says Biden’s Bank Records ‘Don’t Lie’ but His Claims Are Quickly Debunked
Katie Phang, MSNBC anchor and legal contributor, added, “the fact that the highest court in New York told Trump it wouldn’t let him say whatever he wants to say in the meantime is noteworthy.”
The Messenger‘s Adam Klasfeld suggests the gag order “likely” will not be lifted “during the defense case” either.
The gag order bans Trump and his attorneys from publicly commenting on Judge Arthur Engoron’s court staff, including his principle law clerk.
Republican House Oversight Committee Chairman Jim Comer has been ramping up his media campaign attacking President Joe Biden as GOP Speaker Mike Johnson signals he is readying a vote for a formal impeachment inquiry. On Monday, Chairman Comer released a two-minute video alleging President Biden has been lying and alleging “corruption” related to payments the President’s son, Hunter Biden, sent his father, claiming it is evidence of foreign money flowing to the President.
Reporters were quick to punch holes in the Kentucky Republican’s allegations.
“Today the House Oversight Committee is releasing subpoenaed bank records that show Hunter Biden’s business entity, a Owasco PC, made direct monthly payments to Joe Biden. This wasn’t a payment from Hunter Biden’s personal account, but an account for his corporation that received payments from China and other shady corners of the world,” Comer says in his latest video (below.)
But journalists are calling out Comer, and debunking his claims.
READ MORE: ‘Authoritarianism’: Florida Says Its Public Schools Exist to ‘Convey Government’s Message’
Pointing to Comer’s video, Public Notice founder Aaron Rupar writes, “this is a bold claim for which absolutely 0 evidence is presented in the video.”
“So, these three payments of $1,380 each (totaling $4,140) appear to be Hunter Biden paying his dad back for truck loan/lease payments that his dad paid on his son’s behalf when Hunter was low on cash,” explains journalist Yashar Ali, noting his “source is an NY Post article about Hunter’s finances and emails from the Hunter Biden email archive.”
Responding to Ali’s post, Rupar adds, “James Comer said these payments were linked to China. James Comer is lying. Don’t be like James Comer.”
“These appear to be monthly payments (already reported in the media) of $1,380 for a truck,” writes Mother Jones’ D.C. Bureau Chief David Corn. “I don’t think fronting a son money for a truck is an impeachable offense. Another swing and a miss.”
Even the right-wing Washington Examiner on Monday reported, “An email found on Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop suggests Hunter Biden had listed the $1,380 payments to his father as reimbursements for a Ford Raptor truck.”
READ MORE: ‘Given My Experience’: Gaetz Waiting to ‘Render Judgment’ on Florida GOP Chair Accused of Rape
Watch Chairman Comer’s video below or at this link.
🚨BREAKING🚨
Hunter Biden’s business entity, Owasco PC, made direct monthly payments to Joe Biden. The bank records don’t lie.
Owasco PC received payments from Chinese-state linked companies & other shady entities. Joe Biden knew & benefitted from his family’s business schemes. pic.twitter.com/MfvtA4yEZU
— Rep. James Comer (@RepJamesComer) December 4, 2023
‘Simply Nonsense’: Judge Shoots Down Rudy Giuliani’s Desperate Bid to Escape Liability
‘Given My Experience’: Gaetz Waiting to ‘Render Judgment’ on Florida GOP Chair Accused of Rape
‘Authoritarianism’: Florida Says Its Public Schools Exist to ‘Convey Government’s Message’
Comer Says Biden’s Bank Records ‘Don’t Lie’ but His Claims Are Quickly Debunked
‘Denied’: Trump Loses Latest Gag Order Effort
RNC Chair Falsely Claims ‘Biden White House’ Killed Hunter Laptop Story in 2020
‘Denied’: Trump Loses Latest Gag Order Effort
Comer Says Biden’s Bank Records ‘Don’t Lie’ but His Claims Are Quickly Debunked
‘Authoritarianism’: Florida Says Its Public Schools Exist to ‘Convey Government’s Message’
‘Given My Experience’: Gaetz Waiting to ‘Render Judgment’ on Florida GOP Chair Accused of Rape
News13 hours ago‘Simply Nonsense’: Judge Shoots Down Rudy Giuliani’s Desperate Bid to Escape Liability
News11 hours ago‘Given My Experience’: Gaetz Waiting to ‘Render Judgment’ on Florida GOP Chair Accused of Rape
News10 hours ago‘Authoritarianism’: Florida Says Its Public Schools Exist to ‘Convey Government’s Message’
News7 hours agoComer Says Biden’s Bank Records ‘Don’t Lie’ but His Claims Are Quickly Debunked
News6 hours ago‘Denied’: Trump Loses Latest Gag Order Effort
News4 hours agoRNC Chair Falsely Claims ‘Biden White House’ Killed Hunter Laptop Story in 2020