Category: News

Posted on

Impeachment Witness Lt. Colonel Vindman Escorted From White House

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman

NBC News is reporting Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the top Ukraine expert on the National Security Council who testified during the House impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump, was escorted from the White House Friday afternoon.

“LTC Vindman was asked to leave for telling the truth,” his attorney David Pressman said in a statement. “The truth has cost LTC Alexander Vindman his job, his career, and his privacy.”

Pressman added that, “the most powerful man in the world – buoyed by the silent, the pliable, and the complicit” had “decided to exact revenge” on Vindman.

Vindman had, as part of his duties, listened in on the July 25 call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiy, which was at the heart of the impeachment inquiry.

The Washington Post first reported on efforts by the White House to push out Vindman, citing two people familiar with the move, as part of a broader targeting by Trump of perceived enemies in the wake of his acquittal in the Senate after a two-week trial. The Post reported that Vindman would be reassigned to a job at the Defense Department.

Other than to embarrass him, there was no reason to “escort” a decorated Army officer honored with a Purple Heart medal after being injured in Iraq in 2004. In his opening statement during his appearance before Congress, Vindman included an emotional message to his father. “You made the right decision 40 years ago to leave the Soviet Union and come here to the United States of America in search of a better life for our family,” said Vindman. “Do not worry, I will be fine for telling the truth.”

Posted on

Drunk Student Arrested After Homophobic, Racist Classroom Rant

Dayton Kingery on left (image via screen capture)
When a student at Chapman College in California went on a drunken homophobic, racist rant in an economics class Tuesday morning his fellow students took it upon themselves to eject him from the space. Dayton Kingery, 21, was captured on video that was shared on Twitter announcing he’d been “drinking Bacardi all day” before declaring “I f*cking hate n*ggers.” In the video clip, another student can be heard to say “You should probably chill, buddy.” After repeating the statement a few more times, he shifted his focus to queer people telling the class “I f*cking hate f*ggots, too – how about that?” At that point, the students in the room were done. One classmate informed Kingery, “All right, you’ve got to get out of here, bro.”

In a second clip also posted to Twitter, Kingery is seen arguing with someone in the room, saying, “You don’t know who I am, guy. I’m not kidding … I’ll bury you. I’m worth, like, $50 million.” He then turned to another student in the classroom, poked him and said, “This f*ggot right here.” That student, having had enough of the intoxicated tirade, can be seen standing up to Kingery telling him, “Don’t touch me, don’t touch me.” At that point, he’s ejected from the classroom but is handed the wrong backpack. Kingery throws that backpack down the hall and then proceeds to stomp on it yelling, “I hope your laptop was in there, you f*cking f*ggot.”

When campus security was called to the scene, the 21-year-old ended up in a violent scuffle with the officer. When officers from the Orange Police Department attempted to arrest him, he resisted resulting in the cops placing him in a hobble restraint in order to remove him from campus. Kingery was arrested and charged with suspicion of making criminal threats, felony vandalism (for destroying the laptop in the backpack), and elder abuse for injuring the campus security guard who was over 65-years-old.
Dayton Kingery (mug shot via Orange Police)
The university issued a statement on Thursday that Kingery was no longer a student at the school. The statement posted to Twitter from Chapman President Daniele Struppa read, in part, “Racist and homophobic conduct will not be tolerated on this campus, and we took decisive and swift action.” “A situation such as this is difficult, it affected many and we want to provide the needed support as we all move through this difficult time.”

Struppa also expressed her “deepest apologies to the Black and LGBTQIA communities who were specifically targeted” during the drunken rant. Here’s the report by CBS Los Angeles:

Posted on

News Round-Up: February 6, 2020

Shania Twain and her boys (photo: Denise Truscello)
Some news items you might have missed: • Las Vegas: Shania Twain (above), the top-selling female country artist of all time, has announced additional dates for her Las Vegas residency show, “Let’s Go!” at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino. Bonus – there are shirtless boys in the production as well 🙂 • Advocate: Pose star Billy Porter has clapped back at the homophobes who launched a petition against Sesame Street after it was announced the openly gay actor will be appearing on the long-running children’s show.  “If you don’t like it, don’t watch it,” Porter said, according to Page Six. “Like, what about me singing with a penguin has anything to do with what I’m doing in my bedroom?” • Newsweek: New poll results from Morning Consult released Monday showed all five of the leading contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination (Biden, Sanders, Buttigieg, Bloomberg, Warren) defeating President Donald Trump in hypothetical match-ups. • SNL: Don’t forget it’s RuPaul Week on Saturday Night Live! Check out the teaser video for Ru’s hosting gig this Saturday.

• Charisma News: Virulently anti-LGBTQ activist Franklin Graham is taking legal action against the 7 venues in the UK that canceled his booked appearances after public outcry over his hate speech. • Politico: Andrew Yang’s campaign fired dozens of staffers this week after an abysmal finish in the Iowa caucuses, according to four former staffers who were let go. Yang finished sixth in Iowa, receiving just 1 percent of delegates, according to the most recent count. • Houston Chronicle: The Log Cabin Republicans, a conservative LGBT group, will not have a booth at the Texas GOP Convention yet again. At a recent meeting, the State Republican Executive Committee moved to deny the group the booth. The group has applied for a spot at the event for at least 20 years without success. • World Of Wonder: In his upcoming book Name Drop, Ross Mathews shares a ‘Mean Girls’ moment from 2007 when The View host Barbara Walters gestured to Mathews backstage at the gabfest and barked, “Who is he and why is he here?” • The Informant: Jan Peter Meister, a 52-year-old registered sex offender, was arrested after telling federal authorities he drunkenly left a threatening voicemail at Congressman Adam Schiff’s Washington, D.C. office after watching Fox News and googling the congressman’s phone number: “I’m gonna fucking blow your brains out you fucking piece of shit.” Doesn’t he sound nice?

Posted on

Kevin Hart Finally Gets It: “Oh Sh*t – I Did F*ck Up”

Kevin Hart (screen capture)
You may recall the kerfuffle that occurred when, shortly following the announcement he would host the 2019 Oscars, Kevin Hart experienced enormous backlash after decade-old anti-gay tweets surfaced. Eventually, Hart stepped down from the hosting gig. In his recent Netflix docuseries, Don’t F**k This Up, Hart shared with the TV audience, “I’m a firm believer in laying in the bed that you made. If there’s something that you did, then you did it. You know, there’s no wiggle room around it. You can address it, and then you can move on.” Which brings us to a new interview with Men’s Health Magazine wherein Hart admits he didn’t handle the scandal well.

“With the whole Oscars thing, there was a big gap between what I thought the problem was versus what the problem really was,” he says. He got angry, reacting as though the only problem was that people were calling him homophobic, which he feels certain he’s not.

“I got ten years where I made sure not to joke or play in the way that I did back then because it was a problem,” he says. “I don’t care if you’re gay or not gay. I’m a people person. I’m going to love you regardless.”

But now he sees a layer that he overlooked at the time—that he missed a chance to condemn violence in every shape and form to anyone for being who they are. “It wasn’t until close friends like Wanda Sykes, Lee Daniels, and Ellen [DeGeneres] talked to me and explained what they didn’t hear me say that I understood.

Then I was like, ‘Oh, shit — I did fuck up.’ ”

Posted on

Trump Attacks Political Foes At National Prayer Breakfast

Donald Trump used this morning’s bipartisan National Prayer Breakfast to attack “dishonest and corrupt” individuals who opposed him in his impeachment trial singling out Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) who voted against Trump, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. NBC News reports:

Entering the stage, Trump lifted up a copies of USA Today and The Washington Post with headlines reading “ACQUITTED” and “Trump Acquitted” splashed across the front pages, displaying them to the crowd.

“I don’t like people who use their faith as justification for doing what they know is wrong. Nor do I like people who say, ‘I pray for you,’ when they know that that’s not so. So many people have been hurt and we can’t let that go on. And I’ll be discussing that a little bit later at the White House.”

Posted on

News Round-Up: February 5, 2020

(image via Instagram)
Some news items you might have missed: • InstaHunks: It is #BeefDip Bear week in Puerto Vallarta (above) and our favorite PV spot, Mantamar Beach Club, is where the action’s at. • Advocate: Chicago man arrested for robbing Grindr dates armed with a taser. • Epoch Times: Cute deaf dog adopts cute deaf guy #DogsRule

• The Wrap: The ratings for Donald Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night were not boffo, down 26% from his first two SOTU addresses. • Instinct Magazine: The man behind the March on Washington, who helped organized multiple bus boycotts, and served as a mentor/advisor to Martin Luther King, Jr. has been posthumously pardoned of his anti-gay arrest charge. • ABC News: Iowa caucus update – with 86% of precincts reporting, former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg had 27% of the vote and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders had 25%. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren had 18%, former Vice President Joe Biden had 16% and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar had 12% of the vote.

(graphic via ABC News)

Posted on

Senate Votes To Acquit Donald Trump, Romney Only GOP Guilty Vote

The U.S. Senate voted to acquit Donald Trump today on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) was the only Republican to cross party lines and vote to remove Trump from office. Two notable red-state Democratic Senators – Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona cast ‘guilty’ votes. This becomes the first bipartisan vote to remove a sitting president via impeachment. From the New York Times:

The tally for conviction fell far below the 67-vote threshold necessary for removal and neither article of impeachment garnered even a simple majority.

The first article, abuse of power, was rejected 48 to 52, and the second, obstruction of Congress, was defeated 47 to 53. Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, was the only member to break with his party, voting to remove Mr. Trump from office.

The votes, ending the third presidential impeachment trial in American history, were a resounding victory for Mr. Trump after five months of blaring scandal over Ukraine that embroiled Washington and threatened his presidency. But both sides agreed that the final judgment on Mr. Trump will be rendered by voters when they cast ballots in just nine months.

Posted on

House Committee ‘Likely’ To Subpoena John Bolton

Former National Security Adviser John Bolton (image via White House - public domain)

Former National Security Adviser John Bolton speaking to the press in May 2019 (image via White House – public domain)
Even as the Senate prepares to close up shop on the Donald Trump impeachment trial today, House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday that it is “likely” House Democrats will subpoena former national security adviser John Bolton regarding Trump’s hold on military aid to Ukraine. From Axios:

The state of play: Trump is set to be acquitted on articles of impeachment centered on the Ukraine saga, and Republican senators voted last week against calling new witnesses, including Bolton, in the impeachment trial.

Bolton alleges in the manuscript of his forthcoming book that Trump explicitly tied the Ukraine aid to political investigations of his opponents, including former Vice President Joe Biden and his family, and asked in early May to ensure that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would meet with Rudy Giuliani.

What they’re saying: Nadler said he was not worried about the potential political backlash from continuing the investigations, saying, “I think when you have a lawless president, you have to bring that to the fore and you have to spotlight that.”

Posted on

Final Iowa Poll Cancelled After Polling Mistake

L-R Sen. Bernie Sanders, Mayor Pete Buttigieg
Bernie Sanders supporters, of course, believe it’s a conspiracy against a Bernie. From USA Today: A highly anticipated release of the Iowa Poll, one of the most respected political surveys in the nation, was canceled Saturday night  ahead of the Iowa caucuses after Pete Buttigieg’s campaign complained that his name had been omitted by a poll interviewer. “The Iowa Poll was founded in 1943,” Carol Hunter, executive editor of the Register, said in an interview Saturday. “It’s built its reputation over many decades for accuracy, and we feel the utmost responsibility to uphold that reputation.” CNN did an internal investigation and found that an operator had enlarged the font on their computer screen, cutting off Buttigieg’s name, which had been at the bottom.