Category: News

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News Round-Up: October 22, 2020

Me, Olivia Newton-John, Michael and Lindsay Wagner (2012)
Some news items you might have missed: • Throwback Thursday: I was reminded of this moment in 2012 (above) when Olivia Newton-John played a concert in Palm Springs and the one and only Lindsay Wagner showed up! Michael and I squealed like the Bionic Woman fans we are 🙂 • NBC News: Seventy percent of Americans support same-sex marriage, according to the 11th annual American Values Survey, the highest percentage recorded by a major national poll. The results, released Monday, found just 28 percent of respondents oppose the right of gay couples to wed. • Edge Media: TikTok announced in a statement that the social media platform will ban anti-LGBTQ content, including that which promotes conversion therapy. Users appear to trust TikTok, as it has become a space for survivors — and younger LGBTQ people who fear being subjected to conversion therapy — to find and connect with one another. • Kenneth in the 212: I’m a day late, but Kenneth’s ‘Wrestle Wednesday’ entry this week is definitely worth clicking over to 🙂 • VICE News: Almost 21,000 Election Day polling places have been eliminated heading into the 2020 U.S. election, a drastic dip in voting locations driven by a heavy shift to mail voting, coronavirus-related consolidations, cost-cutting measures, and voter suppression. • Coronavirus: Spain became the first Western European country to exceed 1 million COVID-19 infections on Wednesday, doubling its tally in just six weeks despite a series of increasingly stringent measures to control the second wave of the virus. • Fox News: Donald Trump holds a narrow advantage in Ohio, while voters in the three battleground states that put him over the top in 2016 prefer Joe Biden, according to Fox News polls of likely voters. Biden leads by 12 points in Michigan (52-40 percent), 5 points in Pennsylvania (50-45 percent), and 5 points in Wisconsin (49-44 percent). Trump carried each of these states by less than a percentage point in 2016.

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‘Happy Days’ Stars Reunite For Democrats And Scott Baio’s Not Happy

The cast of ‘Happy Days’
Deadline reports much of the cast of the 1970s ABC sitcom Happy Days will come together for a cast reunion that will benefit the Wisconsin Democratic Party. Fans of the show will recall the series was set in Milwaukee in the 1950s. Scheduled to take part are stars Henry Winkler, Ron Howard, Don Most, Anson Williams, Marion Ross and more on Sunday, October 25. It’s only going to be live-streamed once at 6pm CT on Sunday, October 25th. Fans and interested viewers must donate at least $1 to access the virtual fundraiser. Click here for more info. “We’re thrilled a show made famous in Milwaukee is coming back home to help make Donald Trump a one-term President,” said Ben Wikler, Chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. “We know all roads to the White House go through the Badger State, and with the cast of Happy Days helping us raise money to take back the White House, we believe even more we can deliver a victory on November 3rd.”
Scott Baio on Fox Business (screen capture)
That said, Scott Baio, a proud Trump supporter who played ‘Chachi’ on the show, is not thrilled and not taking part. More about bitter Baio from Yahoo News:

Baio told anchor Maria Bartiromo a show like Happy Days with “traditional American values” shouldn’t be used to promote people like Biden and Kamala Harris. He also took aim at John Stamos, who offered to play Baio’s character “Chachi,” labeling the actor an “elite Marxist.”

“I think Stamos always wanted to be Chachi instead of paying second fiddle to a three-year-old,” Baio said, referencing Stamos’s hit show Full House which starred child actors Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen.

“I have been, you know, [whacked from pillar to post] for the past four years and by people who were supposed to be all-inclusive and understanding and loving,” Baio said. “And they’re all basically… they’re fascists and you’re not allowed to think outside of what they think, and I find it disgusting.”

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News Round-Up: October 20, 2020

Matt Morton (screen capture)
Some news items you might have missed: • Edge Media: Thirst-trapping, self-described ‘typical alpha male footballer’ Matt Morton (above) comes out at 30-years-old. • NBC News: The Texas Board of Social Work Examiners voted unanimously to remove anti-LGBTQ discrimination protections from a section of its code of conduct last week following a recommendation from Gov. Greg Abbott. Abbott’s office said the change was suggested because the board’s nondiscrimination clause went beyond the state’s policy on social work. • Boy Culture: Donald Trump and Mike Pence were set to be interviewed by 60 Minutes, with Trump and Pence appearing together for a walk-around at the White House. But Trump apparently bailed 45 minutes into his interview with Lesley Stahl, then took to Twitter to shame her for not wearing a mask. Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris are also set to appear in the episode, and their segments apparently went off without problems.

• US Elections Project: Of the states that provide party-registration information (which includes battleground states Florida, Nevada and Pennsylvania), about 53% of early votes have been cast by registered Democrats compared with 25% by registered Republicans. • Politico: The Fox News crowd may be salivating over the recent stories about Hunter Biden, son of former Vice President Joe Biden, but over 50 former senior Intelligence officials say the reports have “all the classic earmarks of Russian disinformation.” • CNN: A poll worker in Shelby County, Tennessee, was fired last week for asking voters to turn their Black Lives Matter t-shirts inside out before letting them vote, violating his training as a nonpartisan election worker. The state bans voters and poll workers from wearing clothing that endorses a political candidate, but Black Lives Matter is neither a candidate nor a political party. • Law and Crime: Miami police officer Daniel Ubeda was photographed Tuesday morning at a Florida polling location wearing a “Trump 2020: No More Bullshit” face mask, a move the department said is an “unacceptable” and a violation of MPD policy. Florida election law Chapter 102.101 states that “No sheriff, deputy sheriff, police officer, or other officer of the law shall be allowed within the polling place without permission from the clerk or a majority of the inspectors, except to cast his or her ballot.”

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Breonna Taylor Grand Jury Member: We Weren’t Given Opportunity To Consider Homicide Charges

Deceased ER tech Breonna Taylor (AFP/Getty Images/Fair Use)
A ruling from a Kentucky judge has allowed an anonymous grand juror in the Breonna Taylor case to come forward and speak publicly about court proceedings. The juror shares the grand jury was never given an option to even consider homicide charges regarding the police officers who shot Taylor bed in the middle of the night. From ABC News:

“Being one of the jurors on the Breonna Taylor case was a learning experience. The three weeks of service leading up to that presentation showed how the grand jury normally operates. The Breonna Taylor case was quite different.

“After hearing the Attorney General Daniel Cameron’s press conference, and with my duty as a grand juror being over, my duty as a citizen compelled action,” the statement said. “The grand jury did not have homicide offenses explained to them. The grand jury never heard anything about those laws. Self defense or justification was never explained either.”

They said “questions were asked about additional charges,” but the grand jury was told there would be none because the prosecutors didn’t feel they could make them stick.

“The grand jury was not given the opportunity to deliberate on those charges and deliberated only on what was presented to them. I cannot speak for other jurors but I can help the truth be told.”

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News Round-Up: October 19, 2020

Cameron Hawthorn (photo: Matthew Holler)
Some news items you might have missed: • Podcast: Just a reminder to please take a listen to my chat with the oh-so-talented country artist Cameron Hawthorn (above). I’ve been a fan for a long time, so I’m happy to share he’s just as charming as I expected. • Instinct Magazine: With hate crimes on the rise in Italy, LGBTQ folks are marching in the streets. • Netflix: Check out the trailer for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom directed by George C. Wolfe starring a cast headed up by Viola Davis and the late Chadwick Boseman. Coming to Netflix on December 18. “Tensions rise between Ma Rainey (Viola Davis), her ambitious horn player (Chadwick Boseman), and the white management determined to control the legendary ‘Mother of the Blues.’”

• Axios: The Supreme Court denied a request from Pennsylvania’s Republican Party to shorten the deadlines for mail-in ballots in the state. Thanks to the court’s 4-4 deadlock, ballots can be counted for several days after Election Day. • Jewish News: Ahead of the Nov. 3 presidential election, some 75 percent of U.S. Jews would vote for Democratic nominee Joe Biden, while 22 percent would vote to re-elect U.S. President Donald Trump, according to a poll released on Monday by the American Jewish Committee. In 2016, 71 percent of American Jews voted for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, while 24 percent voted for Trump. • Politico: In an episode that has since become legendary within the CIA, Donald Trump was reportedly in the middle of a highly classified briefing on Afghanistan at his New Jersey golf club when he suddenly craved a malted milkshake. “Does anyone want a malt? We have the best malts, you have to try them,” Trump insisted, as he beckoned a waiter into the room where code-word classified intelligence was being discussed. • Fox News: Donald Trump called CNN “dumb bastards” during a campaign stop today for continuing to cover a worldwide pandemic that’s killed over 220,000 Americans and continues to surge across the country.

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Dumbassery Of The Day

Jeffrey Toobin (screen capture)
I can’t imagine a single scenario that someone as smart as Jeffrey Toobin would find himself performing such dumbassery. And yet… From the New York Post:

Writer Jeffrey Toobin has been suspended by The New Yorker — because he exposed himself on a Zoom call between magazine colleagues and WNYC workers, a report said Monday.

Toobin told Vice in a statement: “I made an embarrassingly stupid mistake, believing I was off-camera.

“I believed I was not visible on Zoom. I thought no one on the Zoom call could see me. I thought I had muted the Zoom video.

“I apologize to my wife, family, friends and co-workers.”

A spokeswoman for the magazine said, “Jeffrey Toobin has been suspended while we investigate the matter.”

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Twitter: Gay Pride Parade Or Shirtless Police Cadets Graduating From Academy?

(screen capture)
Video footage of shirtless Egyptian police cadets graduating from the Police Academy in New Cairo raised more than eyebrows on Twitter. George Takei highlighted the video clip on Twitter writing, “For a terrifyingly homophobic and dangerously anti-LGBT government in Egypt, this screams pretty gay.” In the video, the shirtless buff graduates are shown riding on military vehicles appearing to be flexing for their lives. The Daily Star reports over 1,500 cadets took part in the event. Several of the comments on Twitter compared the event to a Pride parade.

Another clip showed the graduates performing a series of stunts including jumping through rings of fire, breaking cement blocks on each other’s chests with sledgehammers, and climbing up the side of a building. At one point, the graduates even dive through the air over a set of sharp spikes.

While the spectacle was visually impressive, the sad irony in all this, as Takei points out, is Egypt continues to be a virulently homophobic country. The Human Rights Watch reported this past spring that Egypt rejected recommendations by several members of the United Nations Human Rights Council to end arrests and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Egypt responded by denying the existence of sexual orientation and gender identity saying the country “does not recognize the terms mentioned” in the recommendation. But an LGBTQ rights organization in Cairo reported 92 arrests in 2019 for so-called ‘same-sex conduct.’ Included in the report were incidents of “entrapment through dating apps, random arrests off the street and hotel/house arrests.” Rights Africa notes that 69 percent of the cases were street arrests “with no legal basis for the arrest other than the individual discretion of the police officers.” As there is no explicit law banning same-sex conduct, the majority of LGBTQ prosecutions are based on “debauchery” laws insinuating prostitution. While under arrest, gay men and transgender women have been subjected to torture, assaults, and degrading forced anal examinations. (source: Daily Star)

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News Round-Up: October 17, 2020

Bette Davis in ‘All About Eve’
Some news items you might have missed: • Washington Blade: Paying homage to the iconic film All About Eve on its 70th anniversary. • Out Movies: Coming to Amazon Prime this Thanksgiving – “In 1973, teenaged Beth Bledsoe (Sophia Lillis) leaves her rural Southern hometown to study at New York University where her beloved Uncle Frank (Paul Bettany) is a revered literature professor. She soon discovers that Frank is gay, and living with his longtime partner Walid “Wally” Nadeem (Peter Macdissi) — an arrangement that he has kept secret for years. After the sudden death of Frank’s father — Beth’s grandfather — Frank is forced to reluctantly return home for the funeral with Beth in tow, and to finally face a long-buried trauma that he has spent his entire adult life running away from.”

• Roll Call: Former Rep. Duncan Hunter, who was convicted of misusing campaign funds, will serve his 11-month federal prison sentence at Federal Correctional Institute La Tuna in Anthony, Texas. • Kenneth in the 212: Catch up on the latest in LGBTQ publications including the photography of Jim Jordan on the cover of Numero Homme: • Instinct Magazine: Celebrating LGBTQ owned businesses – Rich Ferreira and Gabe Zichermann who created the delicious Two Spoons Creamery. • Election 2020: Sometimes political donations can be an interesting measure of voter enthusiasm. Check out some 3rd quarter fundraising reports from some contentious Senate races. In every case, the higher number belongs to the Democratic challenger. #ThingsThatMakeYouGoHmm

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Chris Christie On Cavalier Coronavirus Attitude: “I Was Wrong”

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who participated in Donald Trump’s preparation before the first presidential debate (after which it was discovered Trump was coronavirus+), shares with USA Today the remorse he feels for not wearing a face mask amid the COVID-19 pandemic after he was diagnosed with the virus and had to be hospitalized for a week. From USA Today:

Former Gov. Chris Christie said Thursday he was “wrong” not to wear a mask in the days before testing positive for COVID-19, but that he felt at that time that he was in a “safe zone” because of frequent testing.

Having spent a week being treated for the disease caused by the coronavirus – in an intensive care unit – Christie said he had a chance for greater reflection about his actions and the virus.

“It is something to take very seriously. The ramifications are wildly random and potentially deadly,” Christie said in a statement, first reported by the New York Times. “No one should be happy to get the virus and no one should be cavalier about being infected or infecting others.” 

“I was wrong,” Christie said.

Christie shares that he was given access to “extraordinary treatments,” including the anti-viral Remdesivir and a cocktail by the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly. He concluded those factors, which are not available to you nor I, “contributed to my good health today.”

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News Round-Up: October 13, 2020

Keegan Hirst (image via Twitter)
Some news items you might have missed: • OUT: Some residents of Heber, Utah, complained about rainbow banners being flown from lampposts on Main Street during Pride Month saying Pride and LGBTQ+ rights were political and did not represent the values or beliefs of the community. So the city passed a new ordinance raising the costs and generally making it more difficult to continue the practice. • AP: South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem on Tuesday blamed South Dakota’s recent surge in coronavirus cases on an increase in testing, even as the state saw a new high in the number of people hospitalized by the virus. • New Music: In her new single, “Head and Heart On Fire,” Swedish singer/songwriter LÉON perfectly summarizes the instantaneous feeling one has the moment they meet someone and are immediately taken aback by their presence; aware of how strongly they set everything inside of you ablaze. The pop/folk track is both intimate and universal in expressing that moment:  “You set my head and heart on fire, wish I could go back to that night, you’ll be forever on my mind.”

• Washington Blade: Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett continued to have no comment Wednesday on whether she’d overturn LGBTQ rights decisions, including the milestone Lawrence v. Texas ruling decriminalizing same-sex relations or the Obergefell ruling in favor of same-sex marriage. • New York Times: Amy Cooper, the white woman who called the police on a Black bird-watcher in Central Park, made a second, previously unreported call to 911 in which she falsely claimed that the man tried to assault her. When the police arrived, Cooper admitted that her reports were untrue. She’s reportedly negotiating a plea deal with prosecutors that would allow her to avoid jail. • BBC: Keegan Hirst (top photo), who became the UK’s first openly gay professional rugby player when he came out in 2015, has announced his retirement from professional rugby. “Be brave, be bold. Embrace change and f*cking go for it.”