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Investigation Request Filed Regarding Suspicious NOM-Regnerus Anti-Gay Study

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A study carried out by Mark Regnerus of the University of Texas, Austin, aroused suspicion when the public learned that the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage‘s co-founder Robert P. George had arranged for $785,000 of the funding for the study.

Though Regnerus’s stated aim in the study is to compare children raised up through the 1990’s by “intact biological families” with those raised by homosexual parents, Regnerus did not use proper methodology for surveying actual adult children raised by gay parents.

Though Regnerus’s written conclusion to the study is hedged with nuance, when he talks about the study on television, the nuance is gone, and his bottom line message is identical to NOM’s; “Homosexuals are dangerous to children.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center has noted NOM’s predilection for conflating homosexuals fraudulently with pedophiles.

Since the release of his study, Regnerus has been propagandistically criticizing past, more positive studies about gay parenting outcomes, on grounds that those studies were “convenience samples” instead of samplings from the general population.

To understand how absurd Regnerus’s criticism is, think of it in these terms; if you needed to survey members of the Jane religion, would you do a convenience sampling of Janes, or would you put out feelers in the general population and hope to find a couple of Janes in the mix?

In addition to having used a bogus methodology for surveying adult children of “gay” parents, Regnerus has aroused suspicion about his motives with many of his public statements.

Without doubt, his study was ready in time for one of its main patrons, NOM’s Robert George, to use it as a political anti-gay-rights weapon in the 2012 election. Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has signed Robert George’s NOM pledge. When a local University of Texas venue interviewed Regnerus, and asked him why he did not seek funding for his study from the National Institute of Health, here is what he said:

“I had a feeling when we started this project that it would not survive the politics of, in my opinion, the peer review system at the National Institute of Health (funding) — and it takes so long to get money from them, and there are revisions and revisions; I understand that works to the long-term benefit of science, but some scholars don’t feel like going that route.  I don’t have a shop with grant after grant.”

Despite Regnerus’s protests against National Institute of Health study protocol, and not having a shop with grant after grant, his study on Race and Religion in Adolescent Sexual Norms and Conduct was funded by the NIH.

An appearance has been created that Regnerus had some awareness of the timetable by which George required the study to be completed, and of the correspondence of the desired completion date to Robert George’s plans for political uses of the study. Regnerus, faced with questioning about Robert George’s connections to the study, has disingenuously said, “Professor George is a philosopher, I don’t think he has much to say about sampling theory.” With that quote, Regnerus appears to be feigning ignorance of NOM’s Robert George’s political connections and aims. It is not credible, that Regnerus would not be familiar with Robert George’s anti-gay politicking. NOM received condemnation from most mainstream commentators when a court-ordered release of its strategy documents revealed the organization’s plans to “drive a wedge” and to “fan hostility” between the African-American and gay communities. NOM appears also to fan the flames of antisemitism, where doing so will advance its anti-gay rights agenda. The NOM strategy documents revealed a plan to hire an employee specifically to find children of gay parents, willing to denounce their parents on camera. While that effort appears to have flopped, the Regnerus study could be viewed as an underhanded attempt to make it appear — on false pretenses —  that children of gay parents have provided “testimony” against all gay parents.

It might be considered noteworthy, furthermore, that a Regnerus study, “National Study on Youth and Religion,” was funded by the Lilly Endowment, one of the few major foundations to fund religion. The Regnerus-Lilly Endowment study alleged to have found that children do better when raised in conformity with a religious tradition. Regnerus’s Trinity Christian College bio says that he believes his anti-gay-rights faith should inform his research.

Between Regnerus 1) saying that it takes too long to get money from NIH; and 2) his admission that going through NIH, instead of through NOM’s Robert George for funding would have worked  “to the long-term benefit of science;” one might have an impression that Regnerus was eager for the money, and willing to compromise his professional integrity by rushing his study through in order that his patron  — NOM’s Robert George — should have it in time for use as a political weapon in the 2012 elections. If Regnerus is a scientist, and getting funding for the study from the National Institute of Health would — by his own admission — have worked to the long-term benefit of science, then why instead of serving his profession in the most honorable method did Regnerus take funding from an anti-gay-rights political activist, and then get the study finished with a slant favorable to his anti-gay-rights campaigning, and in time for the 2012 elections?

Since the release of the study, various organizations connected with Robert George, as well as the entire religious right wing have been promoting the study as proof that gays hurt children and so must not be given rights.

Meanwhile, Regnerus school, the University of Texas, Austin, has an academic dishonesty policy that forbids using misinformation in an attempt to hurt others.

I am going to repeat that for emphasis: the University of Texas, Austin, has an academic dishonesty policy that forbids using misinformation in an attempt to hurt others.

Therefore, this reporter has filed a Scientific Misconduct Complaint against Regnerus through the EthicsPoint online system, which the Texas State University System uses for receipt of complaints.  An EthicsPoint official told me that the complaint will not be delivered to the UTA employee implicated in it, but that university officials are the only persons with authority to decide whether to investigate. An initial report about the status of the investigation is due in ten days.

Wayne Besen of Truth Wins Out has started a petition, asking UTA President William Powers, Jr. to investigate Regnerus.

Regnerus’s written report says that his study was supported “in part” by the $785,000 grants had through NOM’s Robert George’s Witherspoon Institute and Bradley Foundation.

This reporter asked UTA media contacts for information about who supplied Regnerus with the rest of his funding, and how much they gave. I also asked for a record of disbursement of study funds. I have specified that I want to report how much Regnerus paid himself out of the grant monies for completion of the study.

UTA’s College of Liberal Art’s Director of Public Affairs David Ochsner says that only Witherspoon ($675,000) and the Bradley Foundation ($90,000) supported the study. Yet, Regnerus in his written report on the study unambiguously makes it sound as though support for the study only came “in part” from Witherspoon and the Bradley Foundation. Here is how he put it: “The NFSS was supported in part by grants from the Witherspoon Institute and the Bradley Foundation.” If Regnerus can not use English precisely for so simple a detail related to his study, why should anybody trust him to use English any more accurately to reflect his study findings? This error in wording speaks to how study quality suffered as a result of  the study being rushed to make a deadline. At the same time, we must be mindful that there actually might have been additional funders, whom Regnerus is shielding by denying that anybody other than Witherspoon and the Bradley Foundation supported his study.

Another eyebrow-raising tidbit: Ochsner informs that the Witherspoon Institute money included a $35,000 “planning grant.” Evidently, had Witherspoon not been pleased with Regnerus’s planning of the study, Witherspoon might have taken the rest of its money elsewhere.

Regnerus’s study was published in the journal “Social Science Research,” edited by James Wright, who has written demeaningly about same-sex marriage in some of his published papers. Wright simultaneously published in his journal an article by Loren Marks, who was educated at the severely anti-gay Brigham Young University. Although Marks in his article seeks to discredit researchers who have found positive results of gay parenting, observers have noted that anti-gay-rights groups attempted to use Marks as an “expert witness” in a Proposition 8-related case, but his video testimony had to be stricken from the record after it was revealed through questioning that he had not at all studied same-sex parents, a circumstance not altogether unlike that involving Regnerus’s study.

To sum up the case: 1) Regnerus admits that the way he carried out his NOM-Robert George-funded study was not in the best long-term interest of science; 2) Regnerus converted from evangelical Protestantism to Catholicism; his Church is actively involved worldwide in fighting against gay rights; 3) Regnerus admits in his published study that he can not claim any causation between having a gay parent and a bad child outcome, but, nonetheless; 4) he appears on ABC television, strongly suggesting that his study did show that homosexual parents are dangerous to children, and his activity in promoting the study that way is 5) totally in line with the way NOM and George’s other anti-gay groups are promoting Regnerus’s study. Additionally, though serving science well with this study would have required that Regnerus spend more time to complete it, he completed it in time for his funder Robert George to use it as an anti-gay-rights political weapon in the 2012 elections. And finally, the University of Texas, Austin, has an academic dishonesty policy that forbids using misinformation in an attempt to hurt others.

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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OPINION

Chief Justice ‘Shaken’ by Public Reaction to Him Handing Trump Near-Total Immunity

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October 8, 2024

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Last year, when Donald Trump’s attorneys declared he had “total immunity” from prosecution, many in the legal community scoffed. No president in all of American history had ever proclaimed they could not be convicted for serious violations of law—most infamously, President Richard Nixon had to have been keenly aware he might be criminally prosecuted.

Just eleven days after Nixon resigned the presidency in 1974, TIME reported, “Nixon’s new status as a private citizen puts him in grave peril.”

In fact, TIME continued, “the Watergate grand jury had vigorously wanted to indict Nixon while he was President.”

The American public is aware presidents can be prosecuted for certain crimes, and there is a foundational expectation of that possibility. In February of 2021, after the Democratic House impeached Donald Trump, Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell declared the ex-president should face criminal prosecution rather than impeachment.

“Donald Trump’s legal troubles are far from over, despite his acquittal in the U.S. Senate impeachment trial that ended on Saturday,” Reuters reported on February 16, 2021. “Minority Leader Mitch McConnell noted this just moments after voting to acquit Trump, saying the courts are the proper forum for holding the former president accountable for his role in the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters.”

READ MORE: ‘They Are Partners’: Experts Warn on Trump and Putin After Bombshell Woodward Revelations

We now know that after Special Counsel Jack Smith asked the U.S. Supreme Court to settle the claim of “presidential immunity” by Trump’s attorneys, it refused, waiting for a lower court to weigh in. Chief Justice John Roberts sent a “scathing critique of [that] lower-court decision and a startling preview of how the high court would later rule,” The New York Times reported last month.

“Behind the scenes, the chief justice molded three momentous Jan. 6 and election cases that helped determine the former president’s fate,” according to The Times’ reporting.

“’I think it likely that we will view the separation of powers analysis differently’ from the appeals court, he wrote,” The Times reported, offering this interpretation for the Chief Justice’s message: “In other words: grant Mr. Trump greater protection from prosecution.”

During oral arguments at the Supreme Court, Trump’s attorney, John Sauer, had literally argued a president could order a coup and be protected by immunity because it was an “official act” of the presidency.

Sauer also argued a president could order the assassination of a political rival and still have immunity from prosecution.

Chief Justice Roberts responded to the “momentous trio of Jan. 6-related cases…by deploying his authority to steer rulings that benefited Mr. Trump, according to a New York Times examination that uncovered extensive new information about the court’s decision making.”

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In short, the Chief Justice used his powers to intervene and craft an opinion that some experts have said creates new law—certainly nothing that is found in the U.S. Constitution.

“There’s no legal authority for it,” remarked CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen back in December.

Nor, as the “originalist” far-right justices on the bench have adopted, does Chief Justice Roberts’ ruling lie in the “history and tradition” of the United States.

And yet, despite decades of history starting with Richard Nixon, and despite the scathing dissenting opinion from Justice Sonia Sotomayor, CNN reports on Tuesday, Chief Justice Roberts “was shaken by the adverse public reaction to his decision affording Trump substantial immunity from criminal prosecution. His protestations that the case concerned the presidency, not Trump, held little currency.”

“The Roberts Court has been in sync with the GOP political agenda largely because of decisions the chief justice has authored: For Trump and other Republicans. Against voting rights and racial affirmative action. Against federal regulations over environmental, public health and consumer affairs,” CNN’s Chief Supreme Court Analyst Joan Biskupic reported. “Roberts, joined by his five fellow conservatives, found that the former president was entitled to presumptive, if not absolute, immunity for actions related to his official acts. Roberts’ view of official acts, as opposed to private ones, was vast.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissenting opinion on Trump’s immunity blasted Roberts and the far-right justices, famously declaring:

“Today’s decision to grant former Presidents criminal immunity reshapes the institution of the Presidency.  It makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government, that no man is above the law. Relying on little more than its own misguided wisdom about the need for ‘bold and unhesitating action’ by the President, the Court gives former President Trump all the immunity he asked for and more.”

She also wrote:

“The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military dissenting coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune. Let the President violate the law, let him exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, let him use his official power for evil ends. Because if he knew that he may one day face liability for breaking the law, he might not be as bold and fearless as we would like him to be. That is the majority’s message today.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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‘They Are Partners’: Experts Warn on Trump and Putin After Bombshell Woodward Revelations

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18 hours ago

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October 8, 2024

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Political experts and top journalists are delving into reports from Bob Woodward’s new book, and issuing warnings about Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin as Americans face a historic and pivotal election just four weeks from today.

CNN obtained a copy of Woodward’s latest, titled, “War.” In it, the Watergate journalist delivers stunning revelations.

Donald Trump, the ex-president and Republican Party’s presidential nominee, has continued his secret relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Christian nationalism-aligned autocrat and alleged war criminal. According to excerpts from Woodward’s book, Trump has spoken to Putin at least seven times since he left office in January of 2021.

Another bombshell: Trump sent Putin COVID tests at the height of the deadly pandemic while Americans were desperately seeking them. Putin warned the U.S. president to not tell anyone, “because people will get mad at you, not me.” More than 1.2 million Americans died from the deadly disease.

And still more: President Joe Biden knew months ahead of time that Putin would attack Ukraine, via a “treasure trove of intelligence,” including human intelligence from inside the Kremlin, and warned President Zelenskyy, who did not believe the Russian president would be so foolish. Later, as the illegal war was going badly, Biden administration officials warned Putin to not use nuclear weapons, which he had been considering. Reportedly, there was a 50-50 chance Putin would go nuclear.

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“’That fucking Putin,’ Biden said to advisers in the Oval Office not long after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to Woodward,” CNN reports. Biden added: “Putin is evil. We are dealing with the epitome of evil.”

Critics are expressing anger and astonishment amid the latest revelations.

David Rothkopf, the noted foreign policy, national security, and political affairs analyst and commentator shared his observations via social media: “So, let me get this straight, Donald Trump was sitting in Mar-a-Lago on a trove of stolen U.S. national secrets and while there, had Vladimir Putin on speed dial for regular private chats? After he tried to overthrow our government? And Putin is helping his campaign now? And there are people who would actually vote for this guy? It’s obvious he has no qualms about betraying the U.S. The question is why are those who support him willing to help him do so?”

The New Yorker’s Susan Glasser added, “This day is a reminder that Trump kept a trove of secret classified foreign intel at Mar-a-Lago. Will there ever be a trial???”

Matt McDermott, a Democratic strategist remarked: “Americans were dying by the tens of thousands and supply shortages were paralyzing our country’s pandemic response, and all Donald Trump cared about was helping Vladimir Putin. This is unconscionable.”

Dr. Norman Ornstein, the well-known political scientist and AEI emeritus scholar noted: “So Trump sent Covid tests to Putin when there was a shortage here. Meaning it is very likely that some people died as a consequence of his sucking up to his dictator buddy. Then add that he talked to Putin multiple times after leaving office. What top secrets did he share?”

Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell wrote: “Hard to believe this guy is still a coin flip away from a second term.”

Dan Barr, Chief Deputy Attorney General of Arizona responded to Rampell, writing: “Trump’s fan boy fascination with Vladimir Putin will someday be fertile ground for psychobiographers, but for now it is disqualifying for him to be President of the United States. Ronald Reagan would certainly think so, as do all his former aides who now support @KamalaHarris.”

READ MORE: ‘Trafficking in Nazi Race Science’: Trump Blasted After ‘Vile Trifecta’ of Antisemitism

Some noted that as Trump secretly sent Putin COVID tests, “in at least three instances” he “played politics and deliberately delayed disaster relief as president” because he did not want to send it to Democratic areas of the country, according to PEOPLE.

Ian Sams, senior national spokesperson and senior adviser to the Kamala Harris presidential campaign, posted this to social media:

Alexander Vindman is the former Director for European Affairs for the U.S. National Security Council (NSC). His congressional testimony on the Trump-Ukraine alleged extortion scandal led to Trump’s first impeachment.

On Trump’s “7 meetings with Putin,” he warns: “It is reasonable there is a recording of these calls in an exquisite intel program. Trump would not be the target of the collection, but because Putin is a high-value target, Trump would be caught in the collection. The Russians definitely have a recording of every call.”

“Trump’s 7 calls with Putin also explain why Putin was emboldened to launch the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and sustain more than 2 years of war. Putin has made a huge investment in Trump and expects that investment to payoff,” Vindman adds. “It’s clear now more than ever that @realDonaldTrump was the decisive factor in convincing Putin to wage a wider war on Ukraine. Trump has taken the world to the brink of Armageddon. A second Trump term would have America—& with it the entire world—go over the precipice. Trump was, is, & will be a clear & present danger to the United States.”

Investigative journalist Dave Troy, who has written extensively about Vladimir Putin, in April at The Washington Spectator warned: “Trump’s Peace Plan? Nuclear Blackmail.”

On Tuesday he weighed in on the Woodward bombshells.

“The best way to understand Trump’s ongoing fealty to Putin is that they intend, together with Musk, Vance, Gabbard, Ramaswamy, Thiel, RFK, Orban, Kim Jong Un, and friends, to reorder the world using nuclear blackmail,” he wrote at the start of a lengthy thread on X. Troy concludes, “when you read that Trump sent Putin COVID tests in 2020, and has spoken with him seven times since being out of office, know why: they are partners.”

Watch MSNBC’s report below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Trump Did This’: SCOTUS Blocks Biden Emergency Abortion Mandate in Texas

 

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‘Dangerous’: Musk Laughing at Idea of ‘Puppet’ Kamala Harris Being Killed Sparks Fury

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20 hours ago

on

October 8, 2024

By

The U.S. Secret Service reportedly intervened last month after tech billionaire Elon Musk, whose companies have received billions in taxpayer dollars through federal defense and intelligence contracts, subsidies, tax credits, and loans, posted a so-called “joke” on his social media platform X claiming no one is even attempting to assassinate President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris.

In a nearly two-hour interview with Tucker Carlson that posted Monday, Musk and the far right-wing host wisecracked about both his original post and his thoughts that led to the now-removed tweet.

After laughing about what will happen to Musk if Donald Trump loses his presidential bid, Musk suggested he will be imprisoned and wondered if he will see his children.

“I’ve been trashing Kampala nonstop,” Musk told Carlson, appearing to pronounce the Vice President’s name incorrectly. “Well, the Kamala puppet, I call her, you know, the machine that the Kampala puppet represents.”

READ MORE: ‘Trafficking in Nazi Race Science’: Trump Blasted After ‘Vile Trifecta’ of Antisemitism

“Yeah, she’s irrelevant,” Carlson declared, waving his hand in the air dismissively.

“I made a joke, which I realized I deleted, which is like, ‘nobody’s even bothering to try to kill Kamala, because it’s pointless’,” Musk said, laughing with Carlson. “What do you achieve? Nothing. Just buy another puppet.”

“Nobody’s trying to kill Joe Biden,” Musk added. “It would be pointless.”

“Some people interpreted it as I was, as though I was calling for people to assassinate her,” Musk explained. “But I was like, but I was like, doesn’t it seem strange that no one’s even bothered to try?” he asked, laughing.

“Nobody tries to assassinate a puppet,” Musk concluded.

The Daily Beast reports Musk is a “longtime financier of Republican causes,” and “joined Trump last Saturday for his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania—the site of July’s assassination attempt. After jumping around on stage—a move that he was widely mocked for on his own site—the X CEO dished out some fear-mongering about how, if Trump doesn’t win, ‘this will be the last election.'”

Back in February The Wall Street Journal described Musk’s SpaceX as “a major national-security contractor” that “is deepening its ties with U.S. intelligence and military agencies.” The company has “a $1.8 billion classified contract with the U.S. government.”

“The Pentagon has more recently done business with SpaceX’s Starlink broadband service, including agreements to pay for Ukrainian internet links during Ukraine’s war with Russia,” The Journal also reported, noting Starlink has a $70 million U.S. military contract.

A short excerpt (bel0w) from the Musk-Carlson interview dropped Monday night, garnering 5 million views in about 13 hours. It prompted many to express outrage, anger over the violent rhetoric, and concern over a military government contractor joking about presidential assassinations. Some said they believed the FBI or Secret Service should get involved.

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Brad Moss, a well-known national security attorney, commented: “If one of my clients made this ‘joke’ their clearance would be suspended before the interview ended.”

National security expert Olivia Troye served as Vice President Mike Pence’s Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Advisor, and has had roles at roles at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, in the intelligence community (at the National Counterterrorism Center,
Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Department of Energy), and at the Department of Defense (DOD) according to her official biography.

“Joking about assassinating our elected leaders is not just tasteless—it’s dangerous,” she warned. “In today’s divided climate, we need responsible voices, not reckless rhetoric that normalizes violence. It’s un-American for Elon Musk & Tucker Carlson to make light of such serious threats. Our leaders—and all Americans—deserve better.”

Christopher Burgess, a writer, speaker and commentator on national security issues who served for over 30 years at the CIA, commented: “Reaction: DISGUSTING

Racist – Misogynist – Cultist

All on display in one 10-15 second sound bite – there is no place for this – anywhere let alone the United States of America”

“Nothing to see here,” remarked gun violence prevention advocate Shannon Watts. “Just a man with classified federal contracts worth billions fantasizing about the assassination of the President and Vice President.”

“Deport this clown,” urged Esquire columnist Charles P. Pierce.

Journalist Jon Ralston, CEO/Editor of The Nevada Independent remarked: “These people are grotesque, the vanguard of Team Trump, simpering fools joking about assassinations. Musk, once thought a visionary, is a pathetic troll on a site he has destroyed.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: Greene Mocked for Weather Control Claim as NC Lawmaker Pleads for Conspiracy ‘Junk’ to End

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