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Can Maggie Gallagher, NOM Get The NY Same-Sex Marriage Law Repealed?

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Can Maggie Gallagher, NOM, Archbishop Timothy Dolan, New York State Senator and Reverend Rubén Díaz, or, really, anyone, actually get marriage equality in New York state repealed now that Governor Cuomo has signed the right to same-sex marriage in to law? Maggie Gallagher, and her anti-gay National Organization for Marriage (NOM), have pledged “$2 million to reverse same-sex marriage in New York.” At 11:49 PM Friday, six minutes before Governor Cuomo signed into law his same-sex marriage equality bill, Gallagher — known for her hostility when on the losing side of a battle (remember Carrie Prejean, anyone?) — threatened in her National Review column that, “The GOP Will Pay a Grave Price,” and flung the tepid threat, “Consequences to be continued.” But are these the empty promises of an embattled bigot on the losing side of history? Or can an unholy trinity of Maggie Gallagher and NOM, Archbishop Dolan, and New York State Senator and Reverend Rubén Díaz — or, anyone else — actually stage an effective campaign that repeals marriage equality from New York’s same-sex couples, after they have been given equal rights, just like Prop 8 did to California?

READ: Archbishop: If Marriage Equality Law Passes NY Will Be Like North Korea

In the weeks, days, and hours leading up to Friday’s historic vote that delivered marriage equality to same-gender New York couples — by a vote in the NY State Senate of 33-29 — talk of religious “carve-outs,” religious exemptions, or, simply, state-sanctioned religious discrimination — depending on your political position on the bill — flooded the news wires. On Monday of last week, New York Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos told reporters the issue is not just religious carve-outs, but “severability.”

In other words, New York’s Republican lawmakers, in an unholy partnership with New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan and the Catholic Conference, were working on language to make the bill judicial hammer-​proof. Republicans and religious leaders didn’t want lawyers and “activist-judges” going back after the bill became law and removing the religious exemptions.

Could severability, also known as “no contest,” really be the key to killing marriage equality in New York? The bill indeed is judicial hammer-proof — but not in a good way. In contract law, and in law-making, severability is important. Generally, it’s beneficial to ensure that if one part of a bill or contract can be deemed invalid by a judge, the rest of the law or contract can still be in effect. Not so with the New York marriage equality bill. If a judge finds any part of the law unconstitutional or legally invalid, could same-sex marriage equality be tossed out?

 

“Our best deterrent to backlash is to take our well organized coalition, just coming off a victory here in the Empire State, and focus attention on national efforts to repeal federal DOMA. The more we keep our opponents on defense the better chance we have of moving forward.”

 

We spoke with noted New York City civil rights attorney Yetta Kurland — who currently is defending Lt. Dan Choi in his federal trial for chaining himself to the White House fence to protest Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) — about Maggie Gallagher and NOM’s prospects of being able to “reverse” Cuomo’s marriage equality law. Here’s what she told The New Civil Rights Movement, via email, literally three hours after Cuomo signed the bill.

“While of course there is always a threat of backlash from people like Maggie Gallagher and others who seek to push back efforts towards equality, it would certainly be an uphill battle for them to repeal or overturn this statute,” Kurland, founder of Kurland, Bonica, and Associates, P.C., says. “That is not to say that there won’t be efforts, unfortunately, including, potentially, efforts to exploit the ‘no contest’ clause in the statute which says if any part of the statute is found to be invalid then the entire statute is invalid.”

“But this provision was meant to deter suits against religious entities for exercising the religious exemptions of the law, and there is some question about whether or not such a clause could be enforced,” Kurland definitively states, and adds, that “unlike in California where the right to marry was created through judicial action, this was an affirmative right created through legislative action. That means the Maggie Gallagher’s of the world have the onus on them to prove that the law is somehow invalid, unconstitutional, etc.”

READ: Victim Or Victimizer? Catholic Church, Diaz’s Gay Equality Intolerance

“We are now the 6th state in a country of 50 states to have marriage equality. There is much work to be done,” Kurland reminds, and much like Senator Kirsten Gillibrand stated Saturday, Kurland had the foresight to say, “our best deterrent to backlash is to take our well-organized coalition, just coming off a victory here in the Empire State, and focus attention on national efforts to repeal federal DOMA. The more we keep our opponents on defense the better chance we have of moving forward.”

Gallagher’s empty threat, at eleven minutes to the stroke of midnight Friday, was beneath the veteran professional hater of homosexuals. No doubt Gallagher and her partner in equality-fighting, NOM president Brian Brown, are licking their financial chops at the thought of all the cash that will pour in to their coffers. But the nascent, four-year old anti-gay group will need to come up with more than fake polls, lies, faded football players, and robocalls to turn the tide of public opinion in New York. No doubt, laughing or crying, they’ll be pulling out all the stops, and New Yorkers can expect even more ugliness from the anti-equality bigots from NOM, Archbishop Dolan’s Catholic Conference, and separation of church and state violators like New York State Senator and Reverend Rubén Díaz.

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News

‘Pay-to-Play’: Trump Offers ‘Fully Expedited’ Approvals for $1 Billion Investments

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December 10, 2024

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President-elect Donald Trump pledged to fast-track permits and tamp down regulations, including environmental, for any entity that wants to invest $1 billion or more in America, while offering no specifics or parameters, including how the federal government could arbitrarily overrule state and local laws.

“Any person or company investing ONE BILLION DOLLARS, OR MORE, in the United States of America, will receive fully expedited approvals and permits, including, but in no way limited to, all Environmental approvals. GET READY TO ROCK!!!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social website.

During the campaign, Trump told oil and gas executives and lobbyists at a closed-door Mar-a-Lago fundraiser that if they invested $1 billion in his campaign, he would scale back or remove environmental regulations.

READ MORE: ‘Swarm of MAGA Attacks’ Making Hegseth Confirmation Seem More Likely: Report

“Attendees included executives from ExxonMobil, EQT Corporation and the American Petroleum Institute, which lobbies for the oil industry,” The New York Times had reported in May. “The event was organized by the oil billionaire Harold Hamm, who has for years helped to shape Republican energy policies.”

Trump has announced his nominee for Secretary of the Interior will be North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum.

“Under the National Environmental Policy Act,” Forbes reports, “the federal government is required to conduct environmental reviews before approving energy production plans, infrastructure builds and other projects.
​ How Trump will help investors get around regulations isn’t clear, but Trump has vowed to increase domestic production of oil and natural gas, projects that are often stymied or killed in the regulatory process.”

Critics blasted Trump’s statement.

314Action, which says it is “the only organization in the nation focused on recruiting, training, and electing Democrats with a background in science to public office,” wrote: “To tackle the climate crisis, Congress needs to pass and enforce bold, evidence-based legislation. However, Donald Trump doesn’t believe that billionaires should have to follow the law. In his world, they can pay-to-play and bypass crucial environmental protections. That’s why we’ll always fight to #ElectScientists who will fight back against his anti-science agenda and hold these bad actors accountable.”

“A government of oligarchs that will exist to solely serve the interests of oligarchs while distracting working people with culture wars. Foreign corporations & persons can loot & pollute the US and bypass regs that protect the health of Americans as long as they got lots of cash,” observed MeidasTouch editor-in-chief Ron Filipkowski.

Journalist David Leavitt asked, “How many animals will go extinct because of this? How much quicker will this hasten the destruction of our planet?”

READ MORE: Hegseth Successfully Gaslights on Women in ‘Combat’

Image via Shutterstock

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News

‘Swarm of MAGA Attacks’ Making Hegseth Confirmation Seem More Likely: Report

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19 hours ago

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December 10, 2024

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The Secretary of Defense nomination of Pete Hegseth, the ex-Fox News weekend co-host under a cloud of allegations ranging from sexual assault and sexual harassment to abuse of alcohol to financial mismanagement of two charities, appears to have turned around after several media appearances, and the support from key Republican Senators, especially Joni Ernst, who is being subjected to a “swarm of MAGA attacks,” Politico reports.

Senator Ernst, a combat veteran who sits on the critical Armed Services Committee and initially appeared skeptical about Hegseth running the world’s largest and most lethal military, has opened the door to the possibility of giving him the thumbs up.

Ernst “previously said she wasn’t ready to back Hegseth. But after their second meeting on Monday, she said she’d be ‘supporting him through this process’ — though she would not say whether she would ultimately vote in favor of his confirmation,” ABC News reports.

Meanwhile, Politico reports Ernst’s possibly changed stance may have something to do with the extraordinary pressure she is receiving, thanks to Trump’s transition team and MAGA allies.

READ MORE: Hegseth Successfully Gaslights on Women in ‘Combat’

“In recent days, allies of Trump adopted an approach that is not novel for the president-elect and his followers: Make life extremely uncomfortable for anyone who dares to oppose him. The swarm of MAGA attacks that Sen. Joni Ernst has experienced is a warning of what’s in store for others who express skepticism of his personnel choices.”

Politico adds that “the palpable shift demonstrated how grassroots pressure, combined with the influence of Vice President-elect JD Vance, helped bolster Hegseth only days after Trump was drawing up contingency plans to tap Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis instead.”

“People in Trump’s orbit believed that if Hegseth’s nomination was ‘sacrificed’ to Ernst, it would become a ‘feeding frenzy’ with the president-elect’s other controversial picks.”

Senator Lindsey Graham, who served in the military for decades, on Tuesday appeared dismissive of the numerous allegations against Hegseth, claiming that they were made anonymously. He seemed prepared to afford the nominee the same civil rights as if he were being prosecuted and tried in a court of law, and not a presidential cabinet nominee to head the Pentagon, which has a budget of just under $1 trillion.

“The accusations are anonymous, the police report I’ve read uh, right now, he’s in pretty good shape,” Graham told CNN’s Manu Raju (video below). “I think he’s very smart, I actually was with him in Afghanistan what he’s doing is his duty, I was over there very briefly as a reservist. So, the accusations about mismanaging money and about, um, nonconsensual behavior, if they come forward, I will listen to those accusations, but they have to be credible and they have to be presented in a fashion that Pete can rebut.”

READ MORE: ‘USA Is a Threat’: Canadians Slam ‘Bully’ Trump’s ‘Arrogant’ Mockery of ‘Governor Trudeau’

“So he’s much better off this week than he was last week,” Graham said.

Raju reports there currently are no GOP Senators who have said publicly they absolutely will not vote for Hegseth.

But Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal “says a number of his GOP colleagues are opposed to Pete Hegseth’s nomination to be Defense Secretary,” reports CBS News Congressional Correspondent Scott MacFarlane. “But he says GOP colleagues might still vote for Hegseth because ‘Trump is a bully and a tyrant.'”

Watch below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘I Love His Charisma’: Republican Lauds ‘Man of Integrity’ Hegseth Who Will ‘Get Rid of DEI’

 

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OPINION

Hegseth Successfully Gaslights on Women in ‘Combat’

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22 hours ago

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December 10, 2024

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He’s been called the “least qualified nominee in American history,” and has insisted to reporters that his confirmation battle will not be played out in the press, but Donald Trump’s nominee for U.S. Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, after multiple appearances before the cameras, appears to be gaining ground on what some assumed last week was a nomination that was dead in the water.

Hegseth has put to use his decade of experience as a Fox News host and leveraged his ties with his former employer to turn the ship around.

In addition to charges of being “wholly unqualified,” Hegseth is attempting to overcome numerous damning allegations, including tattoos that reflect an affinity for Christian nationalism, alleged “aggressive drunkenness,” possible alcohol intoxication on the job, alleged sexual assault of a woman who attended a Republican conference with her husband and children and says she was trapped by Hegseth in his room, and alleged financial mismanagement of two charities that support veterans.

He is also trying to change the accurate perception that he opposes women in combat roles. Women have been in combat roles in the U.S. Armed Forces since 2015. But Hegseth has long been opposed to women in combat.

READ MORE: ‘USA Is a Threat’: Canadians Slam ‘Bully’ Trump’s ‘Arrogant’ Mockery of ‘Governor Trudeau’

Last month, Hegseth took heat after declaring, “I’m straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles,” and that “men in those positions are more capable.”

“Rather than fight, women are best suited to ‘carry the banner of Christian love’ into war as nurses and support staff members, Hegseth writes,” opinion columnist Carlos Lozada reported at The New York Times last week, citing passages from Hegseth’s book. “Women’s physical shortcomings compared with male warriors — in terms of bone density, muscle mass and lung capacity — would make the U.S. military ‘softer’ and easier to defeat. He also emphasizes that women are naturally ‘life givers,’ so do we really want to train them to become killers? Besides, if men grow accustomed to treating women as equal targets in wartime, he reasons, ‘then you will be hard-pressed to ask them to treat women differently at home.'”

Even top news outlets and political pundits appear to have been hoodwinked after Hegseth’s appearance on Fox News’ “Hannity” Monday night.

Telling Sean Hannity he had a “great” meeting with U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) on Monday, the fast-talking Hegseth launched into apparently pre-scripted remarks (video below):

“I mean, people don’t really know this. I’ve known Senator Ernst for over ten years. I knew her when she was a state senator, running to be the first female combat veteran, and we support her in that effort and have continued to, because, you get, you get into these meetings and and you get, you get to listen to senators as an amazing advise and consent process, and you hear how thoughtful and serious and substantive they are on these key issues that they pertain to our Defense Department, and Joni Ernst is front and center on that, so able to have phone calls and meetings time and time again to talk over the issues is really, really important.”

“And the fact that she’s willing to support me through this process means a lot, and I also want an opportunity here to clarify comments that have been misconstrued that I somehow don’t support women in the military.”

“Some of our greatest warriors, our best warriors out there are women, who who serve raised their right hand to defend this country, and love our nation, want to defend that flag, and they do it every single day around the globe. So I’m not presuming anything, but after President Trump asked me to be his secretary of defense, should I get the opportunity to do that, I look forward to being a secretary for all our warriors, men and women, for the amazing contributions they make in our military.”

READ MORE: ‘I Love His Charisma’: Republican Lauds ‘Man of Integrity’ Hegseth Who Will ‘Get Rid of DEI’

What Hegseth did was change the framing of the controversy.

Hegseth isn’t under fire for saying he doesn’t want women in the military, he is under fire for saying he does not believe women are capable of serving in combat—even after nearly a decade of them doing so.

And yet, that’s exactly what he said on Monday, when he conflated “warriors” with combat soldiers, saying, “I also want an opportunity here to clarify comments that have been misconstrued that I somehow don’t support women in the military.”

And he’s getting help from the media.

Here’s CBS News on Tuesday morning, almost using his words as their own reporting: “now clarifying comments he made that women should not serve in military combat roles.”

His “clarification” did not state he now believes women should serve in combat roles.

NBC’s “Today” show on Tuesday published a report on YouTube titled, “Pete Hegseth appears to reverse views on women in combat.”

David Axelrod successfully served as Barack Obama’s chief strategist for both of his presidential campaigns, and as a White House Senior Advisor to the President. Now a CNN senior political analyst, here’s what he wrote on Tuesday:

“Watching Hegseth proclaim his appreciation for women in combat, months after denouncing the idea of women in combat, is reminiscent of the SCOTUS nominees who told skeptical senators that Roe v. Wade was ‘settled law.'”

And while he is correct about the justices, the only woman he proclaimed his appreciation for being in combat was Senator Ernst, who largely holds the key to his confirmation.

Watch Hegseth’s “Hannity” interview and the other videos above, or all at this link.

READ MORE: ‘You Have to’: Trump Confirms Plan to Deport US Citizens With Undocumented Parents

 

 

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