Texas: For First Time, Support For Same-Sex Marriage Outweighs Opposition
The official motto of the state of Texas is “friendship,” and for the majority of its citizens, that’s how they’d prefer to think about same-sex couples. Last month, when the bodies of a Houston same-sex couple were found tossed behind a convenience store dumpster, some local news reports referred to the women as “friends.” They had been together for two years, were raising a daughter together, and were murdered — possibly by one of their fathers — in a possible anti-gay hate crime, but even then, the only designation they had earned from some Texas media was — just like the state motto — “friendship.”
Today, a new poll finds a small but significant change in Texans’ views on marriage equality. For the first time ever, more Texas residents support the right of same-sex couples to marry than oppose it — by a one-percent margin.
48 percent of 454 registered Texas residents support same-sex marriage, while 47 percent do not, according to the poll conducted by Texas Tech University.
“Democrats and Independents strongly support gay marriage, while Republicans are strongly opposed to it,” Texas Tech’s Mark McKenzie, associate professor of political science, said. Unfortunately for marriage equality supporters, “Texas remains a conservative state, and the overwhelming majority of citizens consider themselves Republicans,â€Â McKenzie noted.
Prof. McKenzie also pointed to previous surveys, which pegged support for marriage at only 40 percent, although he did not state when they were conducted.
A January, 2013 poll conducted by the Glengariff Group for Equality Texas (PDF) also found 48 percent support, and 48 percent opposition. That poll was of a far broader sample, 1000 registered Texas voters.
“A University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll in June 2013 found that 39 percent of Texans supported same-sex marriage — only a slight increase from polls over the previous four years,” Lone Star Q reports, adding the important note that “no poll has been conducted since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down part of the Defense of Marriage Act last year — or since a federal judge in San Antonio struck down the state’s marriage bans in February.”
Texas has an estimated 26.5 million residents.
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Image: Participants at the 2009 Great Nationwide Kiss-In. Photo by Bill Taroli via Flickr
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BREAKING NEWS
Watch Live: Special Counsel Jack Smith Holds News Conference After Trump Criminal Indictment Unsealed
Special Counsel Jack Smith will hold a news conference Friday at 3:00 PM ET, after the U.S. Dept. of Justice unsealed its 49-page 37-criminal count indictment against Donald Trump. The indictment also names a Trump aide.
Legal experts reviewing the indictment were stunned at not only the level of detail but the manner in which Trump treated classified documents, including allegedly storing them in boxes on the stage at Mar-a-Lago, in a bathroom, a shower, and a bedroom.
Former Dept. of Defense special Counsel Ryan Goodman, now an NYU professor of law, calls the indictment “devastating,” and concludes: “Extraordinary risks to U.S. national security. Foreign adversaries would pay tens of millions for that info.”
Smith, who was appointed by Donald Trump as an acting U.S. Attorney, also prosecuted war crimes cases at The Hague. he also was the head of the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section.
Watch live below or at this link.
'EXTRAORDINARY RISKS TO U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY'
DOJ Unseals 37-Count Trump Criminal Indictment – Legal Expert Calls It ‘Egregious’ and ‘Devastating’ (Full Text)
The U.S. Dept. of Justice has unsealed its 37-criminal count, 49-page indictment in its case against Donald J. Trump, which includes the previously unknown and damning charge that the ex-president showed classified information to people who were not authorized to see them. One legal expert says America’s enemies would pay “tens of millions of dollars” for the classified documents.”
The indictment includes a Trump aide known in previous news reports as Walt Nauta.
“Dissemination is a much more serious crime,” former top DOJ official Andrew Weissmann said on MSNBC, referring to even allowing someone to see classified information.
Two of the critical passages alleging dissemination:
“In July 2021, at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey (‘The Bedminster Club’), during an audio-recorded meeting with a writer, a publisher, and two members of his staff, none of whom possessed a security clearance, TRUMP showed and described a ‘plan of attack’ that TRUMP said was prepared for him by the Department of Defense and a senior military official. TRUMP told the individuals that the plan was ‘highly confidential’ and ‘secret.’ TRUMP also said, ‘as president I could have declassified it,’ and, ‘Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.'”
and
“In August or September 2021, at The Bedminster Club, TRUMP showed a representative of his political action committee who did not possess a security clearance a classified map related to a military operation and told the representative that he should not be showing it to the representative and that the representative should not get too close.”
Politico’s Sam Stein points to this photo in the indictment that allegedly shows dozens of boxes of documents “stacked on the ballroom stage at Mar-a-Lago.”
Trump, for a period of time, stacked boxes from his time at the White House on a ballroom stage at Mar-a-Lago pic.twitter.com/uEO9WMrH2j
— Sam Stein (@samstein) June 9, 2023
Another damning passage of the indictment states:
“The classified documents TRUMP stored in his boxes included information regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries; United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack; and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack. The unauthorized disclosure of these classified documents could put at risk the national security of the United States, foreign relations, the safety of the United States military, and human sources and the continued viability of sensitive intelligence collection methods.”
Former Dept. of Defense special Counsel Ryan Goodman, now an NYU professor of law, calls the indictment “devastating.”
“I have looked at all prior prosecutions under the Espionage Act and have never seen egregious facts like this,” hew writes. “Trump ‘stored his boxes containing classified documents .. in a ballroom, a bathroom and shower, an office space, his bedroom, and a storage room.'”
Goodman concludes, “Extraordinary risks to U.S. national security. Foreign adversaries would pay tens of millions for that info.”
Special Counsel Jack Smith will speak to the media at 3 PM ET.
Read the full indictment below or at this link.
The United States of Americ… by ABC News Politics
This is a breaking news and developing story. Details may change.
Attorneys representing Donald Trump in the U.S. Dept. of Justice’s prosecution of the former president on what reportedly are seven categories of federal felonies have resigned from representing him, just hours after a grand jury indicted their client.
“Two lawyers who represented Donald Trump in the months before he was indicted on federal charges over his handling of classified documents quit working for him Friday morning,” CNBC reports.
“This morning we tendered our resignations as counsel to President Trump, and we will no longer represent him on either the indicted case or the January 6 investigation,” Trump attorneys Jim Trusty (photo) and John Rowley said in a joint statement, according to CNN’s Alayna Treene.
“The attorneys,” CNBC also reported, “did not explain in detail why they had resigned, other than to say that ‘this is a logical moment’ to do given his indictment Thursday in U.S. District Court in Miami.”
The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports, “Trump announces on Truth Social that Todd Blanche will be his criminal defense attorney in the Mar-a-Lago docs case with another firm yet to be named. Jim Trusty and John Rowley are out.”
This is far from the first time Trump’s lawyers have quit.
Less than one month ago, as Alternet reported, “Timothy Parlatore, an attorney for Donald Trump, made a major announcement on Wednesday, May 17: He is leaving the former president’s legal team.”
Trusty appeared on CNN just Thursday night, to defend Trump.
Watch video below or at this link.
CNN lets Trusty make unsubstantiated claims 5 times, lets him to make false claims about the Special Counsel, lets him call a warranted search a raid (tho does finally call him on talking about THAT but not when he got a target letter). https://t.co/YEoBYnLzRt
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) June 9, 2023
This is a breaking news and developing story. Details may change.
Trump Lawyers in Classified Docs Case Quit Hours After Indictment: Report
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‘Disgraced’ Trump-Appointed Florida Judge Initially Assigned to Oversee Ex-President’s Criminal Case: Report
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Watch Live: Special Counsel Jack Smith Holds News Conference After Trump Criminal Indictment Unsealed
DOJ Unseals 37-Count Trump Criminal Indictment – Legal Expert Calls It ‘Egregious’ and ‘Devastating’ (Full Text)
Trump Lawyers in Classified Docs Case Quit Hours After Indictment: Report
‘Disgraced’ Trump-Appointed Florida Judge Initially Assigned to Oversee Ex-President’s Criminal Case: Report
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