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NOM’s ‘Elite’ Hoodwinking Of Middle Class Voters

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It is commonly alleged that today’s Republican Party employs ruthless strategies to scare middle class voters into voting Republican, though doing so works mainly against those voters’ economic interests.

How might that allegation be tested against the manifest political strategies of the so-called National Organization for Marriage, which — despite its occasional affiliations with freak Democratic anti-gay bigots like New York State Senator and Reverend Rubén Díaz, Sr. — is a resolutely Republican organization?

Consider NOM’s abuses of the word “elite.”

Elite acquires specific meanings in context. When people speak, for example, of “an elite athlete,” the word has an almost entirely positive connotation.

NOM’s anti-gay propaganda, however, uses “elite” as a pejorative. Consider these examples:

Yesterday, when the First Circuit Court ruled 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.”

Never mind that two of the First Circuit judges were Republican appointees. Brown’s propaganda clearly is targeted at a Bible-belt, gays-hating demographic, and encouraging that demographic to feel that something is being “imposed” on it by figures on “both coasts” with “elitist views of marriage.”

Notice that Brown makes no actual legal argument; anybody who even remotely appears to want to undo sexual orientation apartheid in marriage is smeared as “elitist.” NOM’s sheer, hateful gall in using this tactic is all the more deplorable that they are using “elite” — with implications that those so described have unmerited advantages over others — in the service of a political movement that benefits the 1% at the expense of workers, as well as of those who do not suffer marriage discrimination.

If you are not legally barred from marriage, you are hardly being imposed on by a supposed “elite” that is legally barred from marriage; you have the unmerited legal advantage over them, in fact.

Leave aside whatever you may think of the MIT-educated David Koch’s politics; clearly Koch himself does not think of the Reagan-appointed First Circuit Court Chief Judge Juan Torruella, who ruled that DOMA is unconstitutional, as an “elitist” in any pejorative sense. Brown is, I repeat, with his anti-gay propaganda targeting a demographic distinct in its fortunes from those of the Koch brothers.

Here is another example of NOM’s propagandistic abuses of the word “elite.”

Recently in the U.K., The Law Society, a group steadfastly committed to LGBT equality, canceled a planned anti-gay conference, which NOM’s Brian Brown was scheduled to attend, after learning that the organizers were gay-bashing bigots.

Brown’s press release about the cancellation is exceedingly “elite” heavy. In a foaming rage, Brown 1) calls The Law Society “an elitist organization;” 2) says that “in many ways the effort to redefine marriage represents a conflict between the elites and the people;” 3) says that  “the elites in The Law Society look down their nose at” those who oppose marriage equality; and 4) says that “The elites scoff at such things, and prefer to substitute their views for those of the vast majority of citizens.”

Brown very obviously laid it on thick with a trowel, to be sure that his target demographic of “non-elites” would have the idea that they were under a most hideous attack from the “elite” Law Society, whose crime according to Brown is that it furthers the cause of LGBT equality, at the alleged expense of “the  people.” Obviously in the context of Great Britain, references to “the people” do not generally include Lady Trudeliese Poppysmith and the Right Honorable Baron of Higgensbottom.

Additional examples of NOM’s propagandizing against “elites” are easy to find, but we must not overlook that Brown’s selfsame press release pointing angry fingers at the “elitist” equality supporters in The Law Society happens to mention that NOM’s Brian Brown studied at Oxford University. For persons unaware, the University of Oxford is an elite British institution of higher learning.

NOM’s other leading anti-gay bigots also are products of “elite” schools. Maggie Gallagher earned a B.A. in Religious Studies at Yale University. NOM’s current Board Chairman John Eastman holds a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School (academic settings do  not come any more “elite” than that of U. of Chicago) and a Ph.D. in Government from the Claremont Graduate School. Earlier in his career, Eastman clerked for federal appellate court judge J. Michael Luttig and for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

You might think it would take a particular level of nerve for NOM’s Eastman, as a former Supreme Court clerk to participate in attempted smearings of federal judges on “both coasts” with “elitist” views of marriage, and you would be right, and yet, Eastman is surpassed in his Republican gay-bashing bigot’s shamelessness by NOM’s actual mastermind, its founder and “chairman emeritus” Robert George.

George earned a B.A. at Swarthmore College, a J.D. at Harvard Law School, an MTS at the Harvard Divinity School, and a D.Phil. at Oxford. He is on the faculty of Princeton University, and recently, Speaker John Boehner appointed him to the U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom.

Clearly, George as a multi-degree-holding Princeton University professor, and United States government official, can not credibly disparage anybody else as an “elitist,” for any reason, really, but still less merely because they disagree with his gay-bashing bigotry. Just as clearly, George, who is listed on NOM’s website among its current personnel, was involved in writing and refining the notoriously anti-gay NOM pledge, signed very willingly by the likes of Michele Bachman and Rick Santorum, leaving Mitt Romney — (who once ran against Ted Kennedy by saying he would be the stronger supporter of gay rights) — no choice but to sign it in order not to be overcome by the likes of Santorum in the early and middle stages of the Republican presidential primaries.

The NOM pledge (non-bindingly) commits the signer, Romney, to appointing federal and Supreme Court judges, and attorneys general, who always will rule against same-sex marriage rights. NOM’s intent is hardly that such judges and attorneys general should not be culled from elite backgrounds. Robert George cultivates political and personal connections with the right-wing members of the Supreme Court, including Antonin Scalia, whose praise for George often is cited on George’s bio blurbs. George has introduced Scalia when Scalia has spoken at Princeton.

Ask yourself, if Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and Princeton University Professor Robert George are talking to each other, are they going to say “We are not the elite. Only elitists want same-sex marriage.”? Then ask yourself when NOM will publish on its blog, “We get most of our money from a very small cadre of elite political investors.”

NOM’s despicable tactics of branding equality supporters negatively as “elitists” come right out of the Karl Rove playbook of whipping up anti-gay hatred to get bigots to vote Republican, even if doing so is against those voters’ own economic interests. Where NOM’s donor rosters have come to light, (and we have seen that NOM gets the lion’s share of its funds from a very small sampling of large donors,) it becomes clear that the meme of “only elitists support same-sex marriage, which is against God” is directed at a downscale Bible-thumping demographic, in order to get that downscale Bible-thumping demographic voting for the Republicans that NOM’s big donors want in office.

That NOM is a Republican proxy organization is further evidenced in its relentless attempts to get African-American voters to vote Republican, mainly if not only because of their opposition to same-sex marriage. There are not many means to stop an overwhelming majority of African-Americans from voting for President Obama, but NOM and its large, wealthy white Republican donors are working hard to attempt to get enough African-Americans in one or two swing states to vote for Romney, as part of a larger Republican strategy of throwing tight swing states to the Republican.

A May 31, 2012 NOM Blog post concerning attempts to repeal equality in Maryland showed only African-Americans as gay-rights opponents and contains a puke bucket full of NOM ploys for angering black anti-gay bigots over same-sex marriage being called a civil right, even though the NAACP has declared that it is one. Also on May 31, NOM Blog carried a post titled “Black Church & Civil Rights Leaders Convene Press Conference Opposing President on Gay Marriage.” The white NOM Republican leaders know that most African-Americans have not wavered in support for Obama because of same-sex marriage, but are counting on a cold-blooded, unending barrage of malevolent anti-gay propaganda directed at African-Americans throughout the election to yield fruit with some black voters, by hate-mongering them into voting for Romney. NOM’s handful of big donors are gay-bashing bigots, to be sure, but banning same-sex marriage is not their chief political objective in giving money to NOM.

There has been one instance of NOM using the word “elite” in what it thought was a non-pejorative sense. NOM’s notorious gay-bashing strategy documents — the ones that revealed evil plots to drive wedges between minorities and to fan hostilities against gay people — also called for the deployment of “non-cognitive elites” to gay bash “across national boundaries.” NOM used “non-cognitive” as a euphemism for “dingbat.” NOM’s elite leaders wanted dingbats to spread the message of anti-gay hate, to get other dingbats to vote Republican. Carrie Prejean — whom NOM dumped after discovering her porno past — was one such “non-cognitive elite” willing to gay bash across national boundaries.  Do not miss reading Fred Karger’s letter, dripping like an over-ripe mango with sarcasm to Maggie Gallagher about her fallen dingbat-savior Carrie Prejean.

Here is the bottom line on this.

NOM’s leaders all have elite educational backgrounds, making it all the more repugnant that they engage in Rove-style political gay bashing.  With malice aforethought, the NOM elite demonize all equality supporters as “elitists” — to downscale Bible-thumpers who do not understand how the financial-trickery-wool is getting pulled over their gay hating eyes — in order to get those downscale Bible thumping gay haters to vote for Mitt Romney, who wants to lower his own taxes while raising theirs.

 

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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April 25, 2024

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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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15 hours ago

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April 25, 2024

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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.

READ MORE: ‘Doesn’t Care if Pregnant Women Live or Die’: Alito Slammed Over Emergency Abortion Remarks

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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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17 hours ago

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April 25, 2024

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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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