Category: News

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News Round-Up: September 15, 2020

L-R Blake Lee, Ben Lewis (via Instagram)
Some news items you might have missed: • TVLine: Blake Lee (Parks and Recreation, Mixology) and Ben Lewis (Arrow, Shadowhunters) – a married couple in real life (above) – have been announced to star in Lifetime’s first-ever holiday movie with an LGBTQ storyline, The Christmas Setup. Fran Drescher, of The Nanny fame, will play Lewis’s mother in the TV flick. • Boy Culture: Madonna’s biopic has been fast-tracked by Universal, and today we learn not only is the Queen of Pop co-writing the script with Diablo Cody, but Madge will direct the film of her life as well. • LGBTQ Nation: A city councilwoman in Minot, North Dakota, came out & delivered an epic smackdown to man complaining about a Pride flag. “So Mr. Walker, if you’re not aware, and I think a lot of people in this room are not aware and have come here just because this is a gay issue, I am proudly the first openly elected lesbian in North Dakota. So that is why I am not paying any heed to your crap.” • Pew Research: A new 13-nation Pew Research Center survey indicates America’s reputation has declined among many key allies and partners since Donald Trump took office. In several countries, the share of the public with a favorable view of the U.S. is as low as it has been at any point since the Center began polling on this topic nearly two decades ago. • Edge Media: An Italian man has been accused of killing his 18-year-old sister in a rage because she was dating a transgender man. The suspect told authorities that he “wanted to teach her a lesson.” • CNBC: More on the death of civility – CNBC host Jim Cramer called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “Crazy Nancy” to her face during an interview on Tuesday morning — a derogatory term usually used by Donald Trump. The Mad Money host was asking Pelosi about stalled negotiations on a 4th coronavirus stimulus package when the nickname popped out. “What deal can we have, Crazy Nancy — I’m sorry, that was the president,” Cramer said, realizing the moment didn’t play as well as he’d planned in his head. “I have such reverence for the office, I would never use that term.” Pelosi (D-Calif.) stayed calm telling Cramer: “But you just did. But you just did.”

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Louisville Officials Agree To $12 Million Settlement With Family Of Breonna Taylor

Deceased emergency room tech Breonna Taylor (AFP/Getty Images/Fair Use)
City officials in Louisville, Kentucky, have agreed to a $12 million settlement with the family of Breonna Taylor,  a young Black woman who was killed by white police officers during a botched drug raid. The officers were barged through the front door of Taylor’s apartment while executing a ‘no-knock’ warrant in the middle of the night as Taylor and her boyfriend were in bed.  No drugs were found on the premises. The city has also announced plans to From the New York Times:

The settlement of a wrongful-death lawsuit brought by relatives of Ms. Taylor, a young Black woman killed by white officers in a botched drug raid six months ago, is expected to be announced Tuesday by the family’s legal team and city officials, according to those briefed on the agreement.

Besides the multimillion-dollar settlement, among the highest to be awarded in a police killing in recent years, the city has also agreed to institute a number of changes in policing. They will impose more scrutiny on officers during the execution of search warrants, like the one that precipitated the death of Ms. Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency room technician, and make mandatory safeguards that were common practice in the department but were not followed the night of the March 13 raid.

Ms. Taylor died after her boyfriend said he mistook police officers for an intruder, as they rammed in the door of her apartment after midnight to execute a search warrant. He fired his handgun, striking one of the officers, setting off a response in which a torrent of bullets sliced through Ms. Taylor’s apartment and two adjoining ones, leaving her bleeding in her hallway.

There was no effort to render her aid, as the officers outside scrambled to get an ambulance for the wounded officer.

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News Round-Up: September 14, 2020

Professional English Rugby player Levi Davis (image via Instagram)
Some news items you might have missed: • Gay Star News: Professional English Rugby player Levi Davis (above) has come out as bisexual – a first for a professional player with his career still ahead of him. The 22-year-old is also famous for his other love – music. Last year he formed a band to take part in the Celebrity X Factor competition and got through to the semi-finals. • Attitude Magazine: “I realized that being gay and growing up around people and in a culture where that wasn’t celebrated – where it was reviled, in many ways – had an impact on me. Happy as I am, I’m still working out the fear I grew up with: that by revealing who I really am, I will somehow lose the love of the people who are important to me.” – Jim Parsons in a new interview with the UK publication. • Lambda Legal: A federal district judge ruled in favor of a woman who was denied Social Security survivor benefits after her partner of more than two decades had passed away. Helen Thornton and Marge Brown lived as a couple for 27 years, purchasing a home together, and raising a child. Brown passed away in 2006 of cancer years before marriage equality came to Washington state. The Social Security Administration (SSA) refused to give Thornton survivor benefits after Brown passed away.
Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman
• The Atlantic: “They may or may not have dirt on him (Trump), but they don’t have to use it. They have more effective and less risky ways to employ him. He has aspirations to be the kind of leader that Putin is, and so he admires him. He likes authoritarian strongmen who act with impunity, without checks and balances. So he’ll try to please Putin. In the Army we call this ‘free chicken,’ something you don’t have to work for — it just comes to you. This is what the Russians have in Trump: free chicken.” – former National Security Council official Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman. • Axios: In a new clip from an interview with Bob Woodward, Donald Trump said that his relationships with world leaders are better “the tougher and meaner they are,” naming Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as an example. • CBSN: Meeting with officials in California to discuss the wildfires that are devastating the state on Monday, Donald Trump pushed back when Wade Crowfoot, secretary of California’s Natural Resources Agency, told him the science regarding climate change needed to be looked at. “It’ll start getting cooler. You just watch,” said Trump. “I wish science agreed with you,” Crowfoot replied. “I don’t think science knows actually,” Trump remarked with a smirk.

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CEO Caught On Video Beating His 4-Month-Old Puppy

Jeffrey Previte (images via Daily Mail/screen capture)
Earlier this week, The Daily Mail published disturbing footage of Santa Monica CEO Jeffrey Previte violently abusing his puppy. In the short clip captured by security cameras, Previte can be seen thrashing and choking his 4-month-old dog Bici outside his apartment in the Seychelle Condominiums building in Santa Monica, California. After the video went viral, Previte reportedly emailed friends and colleagues saying, “I want everyone to know that I truly regret my actions on August 22, 2020. Words can’t fully describe how sorry I am for what happened.” “I lost my temper and took unreasonable and unjustifiable action in attempting to discipline my dog Bici,” continued the 46-year-old executive. “As I have said, words are not enough here, Bici is no longer living with me and is with another loving family. I have also stepped away from my job and am enrolling in anger management training.” Initially, Previte declared there was nothing illegal about his actions. But the Santa Monica Police Department issued a statement which included, “Based on the information received, Santa Monica Animal Control Officers turned their reports over to the Santa Monica Police Department Detectives who will present the case to the District Attorney’s Office for consideration of violation 597(a) of the California Penal Code, Malicious Mischief Against an Animal / Animal Cruelty.” His brother Nolan Previte, who works as co-CEO of EBI Consulting with his sibling, defended his brother’s actions in an email to employees saying Jeffrey is “kindhearted” and “deeply cares” for the puppy. He explained the vicious treatment as “zealous discipline of the dog for peeing on the rug.” Santa Monica police confirmed they were aware of the sickening video and are currently investigating it as a possible incident of animal abuse. The video clip is below. Warning: Very disturbing content.

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Jake Tapper Ends Scrappy Interview With Peter Navarro Over Trump’s COVID Lies

L-R CNN anchor Jake Tapper, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro
There’s a strategy in public relations. During a scandal or debacle, send out a representative to do an interview with a news outlet. When asked a question about the scandal, begin spewing the talking points you’ve been told to repeat. When asked to get back to the question at hand, repeat the talking points to continue killing time out of the 7 or so minutes of the segment. When the host tries to get back to the question at hand AGAIN, become irate and say, “You’re not letting me answer the question” when you KNOW you’re just running out the clock AND you’re just repeating the scripted talking points without addressing the actual issue. This is what happens in the clip below between CNN anchor Jake Tapper and White House trade adviser Peter Navarro. Now, you might wonder why a trade adviser is speaking to the news about the coronavirus pandemic. It has nothing to do with his background, he’s just the kind of pugnacious scrapper that Donald Trump likes to see defend him. That’s why he’s doing the interview. In this appearance, Navarro has an audience of one. His boss. When Tapper asked Navarro to explain why Trump privately acknowledged the coronavirus was deadlier than the flu but said otherwise publicly, Navarro repeatedly goes down a rabbit hole with his talking points. At one point, as Navarro throws out the false statement that Trump was “called a xenophobe and a racist by Joe Biden” (he wasn’t) and later apologized for it (he didn’t), Tapper corrects him. Navarro says, “We’ll do the fact-checker on that.” “I just did,” responds Tapper. In the end, Tapper ends the segment and reminded viewers of the facts: “I would just like to remind the American people that the United States has less than 5 percent of the world’s population, and the United States has more than 20 percent of the world’s coronavirus deaths. That is a fact. It does not matter how many times he insults CNN.”

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UK Prime Minister Proposes Testing Every Brit Every Week For COVID-19

New York state is about to drop its face mask mandate as COVID-19 cases continue to drop in the Empire State.

The Washington Post is reporting UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is proposing testing every citizen of his country every week for coronavirus in lieu of any health precautions like face masks or social distancing.

No masks. No distancing. The ability to go to work or school, the theater or a soccer match, as if living in a virus-free world.

That’s the vision British Prime Minister Boris Johnson pitched this past week, as he unveiled “Operation Moonshot” — a plan to test 10 million Brits every single day, or everyone in the country every week, at a cost of $130 billion.

The prospect of a return to normal has wide appeal, especially at a moment Britain is about to implement a new round of social distancing measures, prompted by rising coronavirus infections.

But many public health experts are dubious. Some say the plan is not a moonshot, but a Jules Verne fantasy.

Such massive population-wide testing for disease would be unprecedented. Though some countries have deployed mass screening during this pandemic, “Operation Moonshot” would go where no public health campaign has gone before — and yet Britain doesn’t have the best track record on coronavirus testing.

For such a plan to work, the government would need inexpensive, quick-result tests readily available on a massive scale. But such tests aren’t available or approved at this time.

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News Round-Up: September 11, 2020

Daniel Montoya (via Instagram)
Some news items you might have missed: • InstaHunks: I am not mad at fitness guy Daniel Montoya (above) on a beach, just saying… #TGIF Follow him on Instagram here. • Attitude Magazine: Bright Light Bright Light, aka Rod Thomas, may be musically inspired by the LGBTQ+ community – but he hasn’t always felt like he fit in. In a new interview, the singer opens up about being left in the dark while trying to find his place in the LGBTQ+ world. • KIT212: Check out Kenneth’s round-up of LGBTQ publications like GLOSS Magazine featuring an interview with Emmy/Grammy/Tony winner Billy Porter (below). • Media Matters: Facebook is profiting from harmful anti-transgender political ads despite its hate speech policies. • Washington Post: Blood plasma looked like a promising COVID-19 treatment. Then Donald Trump got involved spawning confusion about the treatment and creating a political backlash that specialists say has stifled an expected spike in demand. • CBS News: An officer with the Oxford Police Department arrived to break up a house party over the weekend that violated capacity rules, which currently allow gatherings of no more than 10 people. But after scanning the ID of one of the students who lives in the house, he saw a note on his computer that the student tested positive for COVID-19 just one week prior. “How many other people have COVID?” the officer asked. “They all do,” the student replied.

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The Trumps, 9/11 And The Pledge Of Allegiance

Umm… On one of the most solemn occasions in the history of the United States, the First Lady can’t say the Pledge of Allegiance? I usually leave political spouses out of things, but this is really quite odd. p.s. it looks like the Donald forgot half of the Pledge including the “under God” part, which is ironic since he accused Democrats of leaving that out of the pledge during their convention last month.

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Remembering 9/11

Bette Midler sings in tribute to those lost in 9/11

Bette Midler sings in tribute to those lost in 9/11
Bette Midler sings in tribute to those lost in 9/11
In that music is always my “go-to” for emotional release, this clip of Bette Midler singing ‘Wind Beneath My Wings’ at a memorial at Yankee Stadium shortly after the horrific bombings on 9/11 encapsulates so much of what we felt then and still feel today. Her “thank you” at the 4:30 mark says so much on behalf of so many. As only Bette could deliver…

My fellow LGBTQ blogger, Joe Jervis, shares his personal account of what it was like to be in New York City on that day. Well worth the reading – here. And from the Twitterverse today – two statesmen who reflected on how the world saw today, and one who made it about himself.

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News Round-Up: September 10, 2020

Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov (screen capture via HBO Sports)
Some news items you might have missed: • The Daily Beast: A Russian social media dissident was captured in Chechnya and forced to sit on a glass bottle as an act of apology to Putin’s favorite enforcer, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov (above). • OUT: Jussie Smollett in a recent Instagram Live chat, “From the very, very beginning, it was set up to seem like I was lying about something or everything.” The gay Empire actor was referencing his January 2019 claim that two men attacked him near his Chicago apartment while spewing racist and homophobic slurs, physically assaulting him, and hanging a noose around his neck. The police alleged it was a false report. • Edge Media: Actor Anthony Rapp (Star Trek: Discovery, Rent) and an anonymous accuser have filed a civil lawsuit in New York State court Manhattan against Academy Award winner Kevin Spacey for alleged sexual assaults in the 1980s.
Oscar winner Kevin Spacey (screen capture via YouTube)
• NY Daily News: The Trump administration has secretly siphoned nearly $4 million away from a program that tracks and treats FDNY firefighters and medics suffering from 9/11 related illnesses. The Treasury Department mysteriously started withholding parts of payments — nearly four years ago — meant to cover medical services for to firefighters, emergency medical technicians and paramedics treated by the FDNY World Trade Center Health Program. • The Advocate: Donald Trump has unveiled a new shortlist of potential U.S. Supreme Court nominees, and it includes such anti-LGBTQ+ types as Sens. Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, and Josh Hawley as well as the lawyer who defended the Defense of Marriage Act. • Washington Blade: The venerable LGBTQ news outlet has officially endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden for president. “There’s no reason for any informed American voter to grant Trump another four years. There’s even less reason for LGBTQ voters to support him, no matter what the hypocrites at Log Cabin tell you.” • Election 2020: A new campaign ad from Joe Biden hits Donald Trump over the revelations Trump knew the severity of the coronavirus for months while telling the American people “it’s like the flu.”