Category: News

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Podcast: LGBTQ Activist Phyllis Lyon, Grindr Used To Set Up False Arrests, Homophobic Florida Police Chief

The Randy Report podcast

The Randy Report podcast delivers the week's top stories in a quick, convenient podcast - 'the 60 Minutes of gay news - only shorter' In this week’s podcast: • A Florida police chief is on administrative leave after telling his officers a sheriff’s deputy died from coronavirus because he was gay • Georgia police use Grindr to setup allegedly false drug arrests • Michigan teen’s mother files lawsuit after her son suffered a concussion from anti-gay bullying at school • Ireland’s openly gay Prime Minister is returning to medicine to help in the COVID-19 crisis • Trailblazing lesbian activist Phyllis Lyon died this past week at the age of 95 • And leftover fabric from the AIDS quilt is being used to save lives during the COVID-19 threat All that and more in this episode of The Randy Report.

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News Round-Up: April 14, 2020

Former Rep. Aaron Schock (3rd from right – screen capture)
Some news items you might have missed: • Instagram: The rules are clearly different for folks like former Rep. Aaron Schock (above) who doesn’t seem to be keeping any ‘social distance’ down in Cabo. • OUT: Talk show host Ellen DeGeneres is making headlines again as thousands of petitioners are asking that she be replaced on her show by Ellen Page in a campaign that seems partially comedic and partially serious. • Twitter: A group of housemates in the UK decided to recreate their favorite nightclub G-A-Y, since they couldn’t visit it in person. Check out the results complete with promo street team, doorman/bouncer, bartender, a couple making out, disco lighting, and Rihanna’s gay anthem, “We Found Love.”

• 48 Hills: San Francisco Pride announced today that it is canceling (not postponing) this year’s June Parade and Celebration—the largest in the Western United States—as COVID continues to take its toll. • Wonkette: Someone should tell Fox News‘ Tucker Carlson that breast cancer and opioid addiction aren’t contagious like COVID-19. • Out Music: LGBTQ singer and TV personality, Trent Crews, drops his new single, “Papi,” which also features transgender rapper, ballroom scene personality and actress Precious (“Viceland’). The new track – a bouncy, urban pop bop – is an undeniably groovy listen. Crews is perhaps best known for his previous role in season 8 of VH1’s Love & Hip Hop: New York. Let me know what you think in the comments 🙂

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News Round-Up: April 13, 2020

InstaHunk Green.Joel
Some news items you might have missed: • InstaHunks: Hunky Green.Joel (above) makes it black and white – he wants you to “Rise up and attack the day with enthusiasm!!”  • Boy Culture: Matt Rettenmund pays tribute to Madonna on the 30th anniversary of the Blond Ambition Tour with lots of rare video clips from the record-setting production. • The Gaily Grind: Ireland’s prime minister, openly gay Leo Varadkar, will be returning to medical practice to work as a doctor as the country battles the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. The prime minister left the medical profession in 2013 after working as a doctor for seven years. By 2017, he’d become the country’s youngest-ever prime minister. • Out Music: California native St. Panther recently released her debut single, “Infrastructure,” in advance of her upcoming album later this summer. The out hip-hop artist brings a 90s sensibility to a very ‘now’ soul sound. Drop the beat below.

• LA Times: Event production companies, that usually build tents, staging and facilities for tens of thousands of revelers at music, sports and dining events have seen hundreds of such events canceled. But they are now busy using their resources to help build temporary hospital stations to help accommodate the COVID-19 pandemic. • NY Times: A member of the crew of the coronavirus-infected USS Theodore Roosevelt died Monday of complications related to the disease, 11 days after the aircraft carrier’s captain was fired for pressing his concern that the Navy had done too little to safeguard his crew. Of the 4,860 crew members aboard the Roosevelt, 585 have tested positive for COVID-19. • NY Post: Bishop Gerald O. Glenn, the Pastor of New Deliverance Evangelistic Church in Richmond who proudly defied coronavirus safety guidelines in order to hold church services, died from COVID-19 complications on Saturday. He told the congregation he’d keep preaching “unless I’m in jail or the hospital” because “people are healed” in his church. • Broadway Cares: The stream of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS’ benefit concert celebrating Disney on Broadway’s 25th anniversary will be rescheduled for Friday, April 17, 2020, at 7 PM ET after the American Federation of Musicians dropped its opposition to the stream. The online playback will raise money for Broadway Cares’ COVID-19 Emergency Assistance Fund, which is helping everyone in the theater and performing arts community impacted by the pandemic.

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White House Press Briefing Turns Into #TrumpMeltdown

Please note the chyron by CNN (screen capture)
Donald Trump held another of his propaganda rallies White House press briefings on the coronavirus threat today, and it didn’t go well. At one point, he claimed he has “total authority” as president to do what he wants like re-open all the businesses in the country when he wants to. Mind you, it’s the governors of each state that has made the decisions to announce stay-at-home orders, but now the Donald says he can do what he wants when he wants because “the Constitution says so.”

Then, he got into another heated exchange when he was asked what it was he was doing during the month of February regarding the COVID-19 threat (answer: basically not much). Paula Reid of CBS News does not back down here.

“OMG Trump” and #TrumpMeltdown are now trending on Twitter. I’ll also mention it became apparent during today’s press briefing that the writer of CNN’s chyron has zero fucks left to give.

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Trump’s Favorite Poll Shows His Approval Rating At 6-Month Low

Trump walks past reporters with no comment

Trump walks past reporters with no comment
Donald Trump (image via public domain/White House)
The latest results from Donald Trump’s favorite polling outlet, Rasmussen Reports, shows the Donald’s approval rating declining to a six month low of 43 percent. The survey, released Friday, found that 56 percent of voters disapprove of Trump’s job performance. In the past, Trump has cheered Rasmussen as “one of the most accurate” polling companies in the game. Those numbers mirror what’s happening at the Real Clear Politics average of polls where Trump scored his best-ever approval high of 47.3 percent on March 31 only to tumble to 44.9 percent in the days afterward. Rasmussen’s results have been an up/down adventure as Trump’s approval tends to rise in the middle of weeks only to decline again as new reports of record unemployment claims bring the new reality into focus again and again.

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Fauci On Trump Delaying COVID-19 Guidelines: “It Is What It Is”

Dr. Anthony Fauci on CNN’s State of the Union
If you want answers about the ongoing coronavirus threat, Dr. Anthony Fauci is the guy for straight info. During an interview today on State of the Union, Fauci told CNN’s Jake Tapper he hopes November’s elections will be able to happen in a fairly “normal” way, but wouldn’t commit to a guarantee because so many variables are in play – including a possible second wave of infections later this year. Fauci also said “no one is going to deny” that more lives could have been saved during the coronavirus crisis if the Trump administration had begun social distancing guidelines in mid-February. On Saturday, the New York Times reported that high ranking public health experts in the Trump administration, including Fauci, issued guidance on February 21 that the U.S. would need to move toward “aggressive social distancing even if it would disrupt the economy and millions of American lives.” Fauci told Tapper today, “We look at it from a pure health standpoint. We make a recommendation. Often the recommendation is taken. Sometimes it’s not. But it is what it is. We are where we are right now.” It is what it is…

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Even Amid Coronavirus Epidemic, Pro-LGBTQ Legislation Progresses Across The U.S.

Even as the coronavirus pandemic is disrupting lives around the world, pro-LGBTQ legislation is progressing in legislative chambers across the U.S. Virginia’s Gov. Ralph Northam signed the Virginia Values Act into law on Saturday. The legislation, which adds sexual orientation and gender identity to the commonwealth’s existing nondiscrimination laws, makes Virginia the first in the South to pass such protections. The General Assembly approved the bill earlier this year after gaining control of the chamber in November. Although the legislation had passed in the state Senate several times in the past, Republicans had successfully blocked the measure in the Assembly for years. When Virginia Values Act goes into effect on July 1, Virginia will join 20 other states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico in explicitly banning discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation in public employment, housing, and credit.

In Florida, the City Commission of Tallahassee unanimously passed an ordinance protecting LGBTQ youth and vulnerable adults from so-called ‘conversion therapy’ this week. The Trevor Project’s 2019 National Survey on LGBTQ Mental Health showed  LGBTQ youth who had undergone the harmful practice were twice as likely to attempt suicide than those who had not. Forty-two percent of LGBTQ young people who had been subjected to the conversion therapy reported a suicide attempt in the previous 12 months. The reported suicide attempts in the previous year jumped to 57 percent among transgender and non-binary youth forced to undergo ex-gay therapy.
States banning conversion therapy (via Movement Advancement Project)
Currently, 20 states and the District of Columbia have banned the practice as well as at least sixty cities and counties in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Washington, and Wisconsin. Sam Brinton, Head of Advocacy and Government Affairs for The Trevor Project, issued a statement applauding the Tallahassee City Commission for taking action to protect young LGBTQs from the harmful pseudo-science.  “This conduct has been discredited by prominent medical associations and proven to be dangerous,” wrote Brinton. “According to The Trevor Project’s 2019 national survey, LGBTQ youth who had undergone conversion therapy were more than twice as likely to attempt suicide as those who did not. This new ordinance will send a message to the LGBTQ youth of Tallahassee that they should be proud of who they are, and hopefully, it will inspire other localities in Florida to take similar action as well.” Scott McCoy, a spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center, also cheered the ban, writing: “We applaud the Tallahassee city commissioners for unanimously enacting an ordinance to ban conversion therapy for minors, but also going even further to ensure the protection of vulnerable adults. This bogus practice is premised on the lie that LGBTQ+ individuals have a ‘condition’ that needs to be cured by changing an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity. “Taking a stand against conversion therapy is an extremely important step in the right direction to support the well-being of Tallahassee’s LGBTQ+ residents. But the commission has also sent an important message to LGBTQ+ youth: you are perfect the way you are and do not need to be fixed. “We urge the rest of Florida to follow the example set by Tallahassee, and pledge to protect our youth from this heinous practice.” (source: Washington Blade) 

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Fact-Check: Trump Says U.S. Has ‘Best’ COVID-19 Testing System (Nope)

L-R CNN’s Jim Acosta, Donald Trump
From NowThis News:

During a White House press briefing, Donald Trump said the U.S. doesn’t need nationwide testing before sending people back to work. Watch CNN’s Jim Acosta challenge President Trump on his COVID-19 testing claim.

The U.S. does not have the ‘best’ testing system. As of April 1, dozens of countries have far higher testing rates including Germany, Italy, Norway, S. Korea, Canada, Australia, & Estonia.

The White House had promised to conduct 27 million tests by the end of March. As of April 9, Trump himself told the press only 2 million tests had been administered. Based on those 2 million tests, the U.S. is testing approximately 6 people per thousand. Countries like South Korea and Germany are triple that rate. In the same exchange between Acosta and Trump, the Donald told the CNN journalist, “You shouldn’t be asking that kind of a question … it is very insulting to a lot of great people.” Journalists ask questions. It’s literally their job. People who are on point don’t get defensive when asked questions. They have answers.

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News Round-Up: April 11, 2020

Darren Young (image via Instagram)
Some news items you might have missed: • InstaHunks: WWE superstar Darren Young (above) is styling in his new Pride face mask. “Powered by Pride and not built to be defeated by #Covid19 #quarantinelife“ • Pink News: An anti-gay right-wing American pastor defied social distancing orders amid the coronavirus pandemic to host a live reenactment of Christ’s crucifixion starring his teenage son and daughter as Jesus and Mary. • KIT212: Kenneth rounds up the what’s what in local gay rags across the U.S. and the world like this week’s issue of Adelante Magazine featuring Carlos Arcos on the cover:
Carlos Arcos covers Adelante Magazine (photo: Paul Culver)
• CNN: Ammon Bundy, the rancher who led an armed occupation of a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon, said he plans on holding a huge Easter gathering despite stay-at-home orders implemented during the coronavirus pandemic. Bundy told CNN he wants to gather hundreds of people in Idaho saying he believes it’s his constitutional right to assemble, even as state and local officials urge people to socially distance to avoid spreading the virus further. • The Advocate: The marvelous Catherine O’Hara chats about the lessons her beloved  Schitt’s Creek character, Moira Rose, learned after losing her fortune and how the series is more timely than ever. In the series finale earlier this week, Moira officiated her son David’s wedding to his fiancé, Patrick, clad in ecclesiastical pope garb as tears of joy ran down her face sending the moment deliciously over the top.
Catherine O’Hara as ‘Moira Rose’ in the finale of Schitt’s Creek
• Project Q Atlanta: The Dawson County Sheriff’s Office arrested nine men during a three-day sting using Grindr, charging them with a host of misdemeanors and felonies after aggressively pursuing at least one of the men on the hookup app. At least one of the men arrested is openly gay and is accused of offering drugs for sex to an undercover officer on Grindr. But screenshots of their conversation don’t support the allegations included in the man’s arrest warrant. • Cirque du Soleil: The over-the-top world-wide phenomenon that is Cirque due Soleil is offering a series of spectacular specials for you while we’re all #TogetherAtHome. This week’s one-hour special highlights performances from the Cirque productions of Alegria, KOOZA and KÀ! If you’ve never seen Cirque, I encourage you to sit back, hit the play button and make sure you watch in full-screen mode. Simply awe-inspiring.