Day: March 24, 2009

Is the Anti-Gay National Organization for Marriage (NOM) a Secret Mormon Front Group?

Jon Ponder

Leaked documents detailing the formation of an anti-gay front group by the Mormon Church in Hawaii over a decade ago have prompted a call for an official investigation into the church’s relationship with the National Organization for Marriage, a group formed in 2007 to promote Proposition 8, the anti-gay marriage amendment, in California last year.

“The [anti-gay campaign] ideas are introduced but the Church is not visible.”
– Leaked LDS memo

The call for an inquiry was made to the California Fair Political Practices Commission by Californians Against Hate in an amendment to a complaint filed by the Los Angeles-based gay-marriage advocacy group in November. In the original filing, Californians Against Hate alleged that the Mormon Church had failed to fully disclose its contributions to Prop 8. Two months after the filing, the church reported previously undisclosed services donated to the Prop 8 campaign valued at around $190,000. The fact the church filed the disclosure in a classic late Friday news dump on Super Bowl weekend added to its critics’ suspicions that it was being evasive.

A few days after the disclosure, the church issued a non-denial in which it acknowledged reporting the donations but noted that its $189,903.58 contribution to protectmarriage.com was “less than one half of one percent of the total funds (approximately $40 million) raised for the ‘Yes on 8’ campaign.” (About half the $40 million was donated by Mormons at the behest of the church leadership.)

On the heels of this apparent double-dealing comes the newly leaked documents that describe how the church secretly set up a front group similar to the National Organization for Marriage in Hawaii in the mid-1990s:

[…]

Which Polls to Ignore From Now On

Trish

We all lived on polls before the presidential election, and some of us live on them the rest of the time too. But how accurate were the endless projections we hung on?

A Fordham University professor, Costas Panagopoulos, Ph.D., took a poll of the pollsters and ranked them by accuracy. Pew Research and Rasmussen, the right-leaning group, tied for number one, producing polls “perfectly in agreement with the actual election result.” Rasmussen uses a daily poll which it rolls into a three-day average. While more precise in the long run, this method also offered a partial time delay after pivotal events like the presidential and vice presidential debates.

George Washington University, Diageo/Hotline, and the American Research Group all overestimated McCain’s support, placing them in fourth place and tied for fifth, respectively.

The surprising last place finishers were such esteemed news organizations as Reuters/C-Span/Zogby, CBS/Time, and Newsweek. Incredibly, FOX was right in the middle. The full list:

  • 1. Rasmussen (11/1-3)
  • 1. Pew (10/29-11/1)
  • 2. YouGov/Polimetrix (10/18-11/1)
  • 3. Harris Interactive (10/20-27)
  • 4. GWU (Lake/Tarrance) (11/2-3)
  • 5. Diageo/Hotline (10/31-11/2)
  • 5. ARG (10/25-27)
  • 6. CNN (10/30-11/1)
  • 6. Ipsos/McClatchy (10/30-11/1)
  • 7. DailyKos.com (D)/Research 2000 (11/1-3)
  • 8. AP/Yahoo/KN (10/17-27)
  • 9. Democracy Corps (D) (10/30-11/2)
  • 10. FOX (11/1-2)
  • 11. Economist/YouGov (10/25-27)
  • 12. IBD/TIPP (11/1-3)
  • 13. NBC/WSJ (11/1-2)
  • 14. ABC/Post (10/30-11/2)
  • 15. Marist College (11/3)
  • 16. CBS (10/31-11/2)
  • 17. Gallup (10/31-11/2)
  • 18. Reuters/ C-SPAN/ Zogby (10/31-11/3)
  • 19. CBS/Times (10/25-29)
  • 20. Newsweek (10/22-23)

Obama: Cheney Cabal Believes U.S. Legal System ‘Not Up to the Task’ of Dealing with Terrorism

Jon Ponder

From Pres. Obama’s interview on “60 Minutes” last Sunday:

“The whole premise of Guantanamo promoted by Vice President Cheney was that somehow the American system of justice was not up to the task of dealing with these terrorists.”
– Pres. Obama

STEVE KROFT: A week ago Vice President Cheney said essentially that your willingness to shut down Guantanamo and to change the way prisoners are treated and interrogator — interrogated — was making America weaker and more vulnerable to another attack. And that — the interrogation techniques that were used at Guantanamo were essential in preventing another attack against the United States.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: I fundamentally disagree with Dick Cheney. Not surprisingly. You know, I think that Vice President Cheney has been at the head of a movement whose notion is somehow that we can’t reconcile our core values, our Constitution, our belief that we don’t torture, with our national security interests. I think he’s drawing the wrong lesson from history.

The facts don’t bear him out. I think he is — that attitude, that philosophy has done incredible damage — to our image and position in the world. I mean, the fact of the matter is after all these years how many convictions actually came out of Guantanamo? How many — how many terrorists have actually been brought to justice under the philosophy that is being promoted by Vice President Cheney? It hasn’t made us safer. What it has been is a great advertisement for anti-American sentiment. Which means that there is constant effective recruitment of Arab fighters and Muslim fighters against U.S. interests all around the world.

STEVE KROFT:

Some of it being organized by a few people who were released from Guantanamo.

PRESIDENT OBAMA:

Well there is no doubt that we have not done a particularly effective job in sorting through who are truly dangerous individuals that we’ve got to make sure are not a threat to us, who are folks that we just swept up. The whole premise of Guantanamo promoted by Vice President Cheney was that somehow the American system of justice was not up to the task of dealing with these terrorists.

I fundamentally disagree with that. Now, do these folks deserve Miranda rights? Do they deserve to be treated like a shoplifter down the block? Of course not.

STEVE KROFT:

What do you do with those people?

PRESIDENT OBAMA:

Well, I think we’re going to have to figure out a mechanism to make sure that they not released and do us harm. But– do so in a way that is consistent with both our traditions, sense of due process, international law. But this is — this is the legacy that’s been left behind. And, you know, I’m surprised that the Vice President is eager to defend a legacy that was unsustainable let’s assume that we didn’t change these practices. How — how long are we going to go? Are we going to just keep on going until, you know, the entire Muslim world and Arab world despises us? Do we think that’s really going to make us safer? I — I don’t know a lot of thoughtful thinkers, liberal or conservative, who think that that was the right approach.