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NOM’s Numbers Problem With Marriage Equality Polls

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NOM, the National Organization for Marriage, has a numbers problem with recent polls that show a majority of Americans support marriage equality. Ever since last Friday’s ABC News/Washington Post poll that found 53% of voters in America support same-sex marriage, NOM has been on the attack.

The first shot across the bow was, incidentally, in the Washington Post’s own article announcing the poll results, which included a response from NOM president Brian Brown.

“Opponents of same-sex marriage took issue with the poll, which asks respondents: “Do you think it should be legal or illegal for gay and lesbian couples to get married?” Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage, argued that the term “illegal” could be inferred to mean that violators could be imprisoned, which most Americans would consider harsh.”

Later, the Washington Post adds, “Post-ABC News polls have used the same “legal or illegal” wording in every poll about same-sex marriage since 2003. Other surveys by the Pew Research Center, the Associated Press and CNN show similar trends.”

Then, on Monday, in her National Review column, Maggie Gallagher, NOM’s Chairman, wrote, sarcastically, “Major meme alert: A majority of Americans now allegedly support gay marriage! This is very hard to believe given, say, November exit polls showing just 40 percent support SSM (and 54 percent oppose it). It’s also very hard to believe given that gay marriage is having a hard time gathering majority support even in deep-blue states, from California to Maine to Maryland.”

But Gallagher has revealed her hand, and turned the case of whether or not a majority of Americans support same-sex marriage into one of “my poll is better than your poll.” And if that is the game, Gallagher has already lost.

Who among us would opt for a four-month old exit poll (or, just exit polls, period) over a reputable ABC News/Washington Post poll that has asked the same question the same way for the better part of a decade, and can compare all the results?

Add to that the fact that this is not the first major, credible, national poll that finds the same fact: support for marriage equality in America has reached the majority.

In an email blast to “Marriage Supporters,” NOM president Brian Brown states on Monday that the “Human Rights Campaign is crowing about a new poll supposedly showing that 51% of Americans oppose DOMA. You know that’s wrong, and I know that’s wrong.”

The question is, why “is that wrong?,” (it’s not — the HRC study is very accurate,) and, why didn’t Brown include the ABC News/Washington Post poll in his email? Why didn’t Brown mention that, based on the HRC study, conservatives are evenly split on DOMA repeal? Could it be because NOM’s email marriage supporters are foolhardy enough to dismiss an HRC study, but smart enough to believe an ABC News/Washington Post poll?

Last year, before Gallagher’s November exit polls, two August polls found the same fact. A CNN poll found 52% of Americans believed “gays and lesbians should have a constitutional right to get married and have their marriage recognized by law as valid,” and an AP/Roper poll found 52% of Americans answered “Yes,” to the question, “Should the Federal Government give legal recognition to marriages between couples of the same sex, or not?”

But wait, there’s more!

Gallagher didn’t dare to touch the most-shocking aspect of the ABC News/Washington Post poll that found a startling 63% of Catholics support same-sex marriage. Why? It’s often been asked if NOM is a front for the Mormon Church, or a consortium of religious institutions, and how much it benefits from religious donations. Could this be the reason Gallagher has refused to touch upon that aspect of the poll?

In her National Review column, Gallagher also drops a rather unkind remark, stating that what she calls a “Democratic hack” poll that shows only 31% support for marriage equality (“when offered the alternative of civil unions or no recognition at all,”) is the most accurate, because it is a robo-calling push poll, “and Americans are becoming scared to say what they really think on the issue.”

If that’s really true (of course it’s not!) then Gallagher should hand in her keys to the company car. NOM has spent millions upon millions of dollars in key marriage equality battlegrounds, twisting and tweaking and successfully changing outcomes by appealing to the radical extremists. If she now thinks that all her time and money has led to a nation of sheep, perhaps it’s time to take another tack?

In her NOM blog, Gallagher adds, “Gay marriage advocates are no longer persuading, they are intimidating and silencing. If people are afraid to tell the strange person on the phone their real views on marriage, that in itself is evidence of a culturally significant shift–but not one to crow about.

“This is an interpretation and time will tell: but this interpretation has the advantage of being totally consistent with the results of recent elections on the issue.”

Which is why the NOM folks — Maggie and Brian — are the first to claim, “The only poll that counts is a free and fair vote on the part of the people.”

But is that true?

Civil rights activists, and many in this country consistently state that the majority should never vote on the rights of the minority. We at The New Civil Rights Movement agree. Why? terms like the “tyranny of the majority,” for one. But as Thomas Jefferson wrote, “that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate would be oppression.”

[image Maggie Gallagher standing (almost) alone: lost in miami]

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News

Gag Order Breach? Trump Targeted Cohen in Taped Interview Hours Before Contempt Hearing

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April 24, 2024

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Hours before his attorneys would mount a defense on Tuesday claiming he had not violated his gag order Donald Trump might have done just that in a 12-minute taped interview that morning, which did not air until later that day. It will be up to Judge Juan Merchan to make that decision, if prosecutors add it to their contempt request.

Prosecutors in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office told Judge Juan Merchan that the ex-president violated the gag order ten times, via posts on his Truth Social platform, and are asking he be held in contempt. While the judge has yet to rule, he did not appear moved by their arguments. At one point, Judge Merchan told Trump’s lead lawyer Todd Blanche he was “losing all credibility” with the court.

And while Judge Merchan directed defense attorneys to provide a detailed timeline surrounding Trump’s Truth Social posts to prove he had not violated the gag order, Trump in an interview with a local television station appeared to have done so.

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The gag order bars Trump from “commenting or causing others to comment on potential witnesses in the case, prospective jurors, court staff, lawyers in the district attorney’s office and the relatives of any counsel or court staffer, as CBS News reported.

“The threat is very real,” Judge Merchan wrote when he expanded the gag order. “Admonitions are not enough, nor is reliance on self-restraint. The average observer, must now, after hearing Defendant’s recent attacks, draw the conclusion that if they become involved in these proceedings, even tangentially, they should worry not only for themselves, but for their loved ones as well. Such concerns will undoubtedly interfere with the fair administration of justice and constitutes a direct attack on the Rule of Law itself.”

Tuesday morning, Trump told ABC Philadelphia’s Action News reporter Walter Perez, “Michael Cohen is a convicted liar. He’s got no credibility whatsoever.”

He repeated that Cohen is a “convicted liar,” and insisted he “was a lawyer for many people, not just me.”

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Since Cohen is a witness in Trump’s New York criminal case, Judge Merchan might decide Trump’s remarks during that interview violated the gag order, if prosecutors bring the video to his attention.

Enter attorney George Conway, who has been attending Trump’s New York trial.

Conway reposted a clip of the video, tagged Manhattan District Attorney Bragg, writing: “cc: @ManhattanDA, for your proposed order to show cause why the defendant in 𝘗𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘷. 𝘛𝘳𝘶𝘮𝘱 should not spend some quiet time in lockup.”

Trump has been criminally indicted in four separate cases and is facing a total of 88 felony charges, including 34 in this New York criminal trial for alleged falsification of business records to hide payments of “hush money” to an adult film actress and one other woman, in an alleged effort to suppress their stories and protect his 2016 presidential campaign, which experts say is election interference.

Watch the video below or at this link.

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OPINION

‘They Will Have Thugs?’: Lara Trump’s Claim RNC Will ‘Physically Handle the Ballots’ Stuns

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3 hours ago

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April 24, 2024

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Minutes before Donald Trump addressed his MAGA crowd at the Ellipse on January 6, 2021 his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump spoke to his supporters, vowing to “take our country back” because the Trump “family didn’t get in this fight for just four years. We are in this fight to the bitter end.”

Fast forward to April, 2024.

Lara Trump is now co-chair of the Republican National Committee, after Donald Trump’s efforts to install her and his hand-picked RNC chairman, Michael Whatley. Whatley is a North Carolina Republican who served on George W. Bush’s Florida recount team for the 2000 presidential election that was decided at the U.S. Supreme Court. Years later Whatley declared, “it was really the first time that Republicans got down into the trenches and fought,” and claimed, “if we were not there, they were going to steal it.”

Now both Michael Whatley and Lara Trump are leading the RNC, and with Donald Trump as the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, they are continuing the ex-president’s focus on “election integrity.”

Tuesday night Lara Trump served up some insight into what they’re planning.

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“We now have the ability at the RNC not just to have poll watchers, people standing in polling locations, but people who can physically handle the ballots. We want people all across this country –” she said before host Eric Bolling interrupted her.

“I want to hear this, this is really fascinating to me,” Bolling said. “You have 100,000 people who are, I think I saw paid at one point, but whatever – irrelevant, but, so they will be stationed inside polling places? I didn’t even know you can do that. Tell us about it.”

Trump replied, “there was a moratorium for about 40 years on the RNC actually training people to work in these polling locations in the tabulation centers where the mail-in ballots come in. And last year, the judge who implemented that passed away, so that was lifted, and that gives us a great ability as we head into what I assume everyone understands is the most important election of our lifetime.”

Bolling went on to ask, “Will these people, will they be allowed to physically handle the ballots as well, Lara?”

“Yup,” Trump replied. “And that means Eric that they should know and they can count how many ballots come in, and how many ballots should go out of every single polling location.”

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She went on to say if anyone cheats, “we will prosecute you to the full extent of the law.”

“It is not worth it to cheat in a federal election, that is a crime my friends you do not want to commit.”

Bolling was referring to the more than 100,000 attorneys and volunteers the RNC reportedly has lined up to monitor vote counting. In a joint statement the Trump campaign and the RNC called it, “the most extensive and monumental election integrity program in the nation’s history.”

Former RNC Chairman Michael Steele blasted Lara Trump.

“Lara, you know why there was ‘a moratorium on the RNC for 40 years’? Because the RNC was caught cheating. The RNC was placed under a 1982 Consent decree for voter caging. Voter caging hinders an eligible voter’s ability to vote. The process involves efforts to identify and disenfranchise improperly registered voters solely on the basis of undeliverable mail. It often leads to the unwarranted purging of election rolls of otherwise eligible voters.”

“So,” Steele continued, “given the continued lies about the 2020 election and your daddy-in-law claiming if he loses in 2024 it’s because the election is rigged, you’re planning to have your people ‘physically handle the ballots’–and we’re supposed to think that’s a good idea?”

NYU professor of history Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a scholar on fascism, authoritarianism, propaganda, and the protection of democracy, also served up strong criticism.

“What does this mean, they will have thugs to physically take the ballots to make sure they are marked for Republican candidates?” Ben-Ghiat asked. “Sounds like a perfect authoritarian election plan to me.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

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News

‘Blood on Your Hands’: Tennessee Republicans OK Arming Teachers After Deadly School Shooting

Published

20 hours ago

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April 23, 2024

By

Republicans in the Tennessee House passed legislation Tuesday afternoon allowing teachers to carry concealed weapons in classrooms across the state, thirteen months after a 28-year old shooter slaughtered three children and three adults at a Christian elementary school in Nashville.

The measure is reportedly not popular statewide, with Democrats, teachers, and parents from the school, Covenant Elementary, largely opposed. The Republican Speaker of the House, Cameron Sexton, at one point literally shut down debate on the bill by shutting off a Democratic lawmaker’s microphone and then smiling.

Ultimately, Republican Rep. Ryan Williams’s legislation passed the GOP majority House as protestors in the gallery shouted their objections: “Blood on your hands.”

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The legislation bars parents from being informed if their child’s teacher has a gun in the classroom.

State Troopers were called to “prevent people from getting close to the House chambers,” WSMV’s Marissa Sulek reports.

“You’re going to kill kids,” one woman had yelled at Rep. Williams from the gallery on Monday, The Tennessean reports. “You’re going to be responsible for the death of children. Shame on you.”

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Democratic state Rep. Justin Jones said on social media, “This is what fascism looks like.”

“In recent weeks,” the paper also reports, “parents of school shooting survivors, students and gun-reform advocates have heavily lobbied against the bill, with one Covenant School mom delivering a letter to the House on Monday with more than 5,300 signatures asking lawmakers to kill the bill.”

The bill, which already passed the state Senate, now heads to Republican Governor Bill Lee’s desk. He is expected to sign it into law.

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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