Category: News

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Stock Market Rout Continues Over Coronavirus Fears

Stock markets around the world dropped for the sixth day in a row due to escalating fears that the coronavirus outbreak will affect economies across the globe. From the New York Times:

The S&P 500 fell 4.4 percent on Thursday, the worst single-day market slide for the market since August 2011. The index is on pace for its worst weekly performance since the 2008 financial crisis. Stocks in Europe and Asia were also hard hit on Thursday.

The sell-off came after public health officials in the United States and Germany said new patients in each country had no known connection to others with the illness, a development that could complicate efforts to track the virus. Cases of the virus have appeared in at least 47 countries.

The speed of the market slump has been stunning, with the S&P 500 falling more than 10 percent from its Feb. 19 high, a drop that Wall Street labels a correction to suggest the decline is more significant than a few days of downbeat trading.

The CDC has confirmed the first U.S. coronavirus case of ‘unknown origin.’ Donald Trump continues to deny the severity of the coronavirus threat.

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After Bungled HIV Outbreak, Pence Is The Guy To Head Up Coronavirus Efforts?

L-R Vice President Mike Pence and President Donald Trump (public domain)
Donald Trump’s announcement that Vice President Pence would head up U.S. efforts against the spread of the coronavirus caused many to raise eyebrows given Pence’s woeful handling of one of the biggest HIV outbreaks in Indiana’s history. From the Washington Post:

“He’s got a certain talent for this,” Trump said at a White House briefing about the virus, which has infected nearly five dozen people in the United States so far.

The announcement has cast light on Pence’s record as a lawmaker and his handling of a major public health crisis during his time as governor of Indiana. The worst HIV outbreak in the state’s history happened on his watch in 2015, which critics blamed on Pence’s belated response and his opposition to authorizing a needle-exchange program.

In 2011, as a member of Congress, he voted to cut funding for Planned Parenthood. Two years later, a Planned Parenthood clinic that had been the only HIV-testing center in Scott County, Ind., closed after public health spending cuts, HuffPost reported.

Two months passed from the start of the outbreak in 2015 before Pence declared a public state of emergency.

Pence’s solution for the HIV outbreak was to turn to prayer. It wasn’t until after 75 more people were diagnosed as HIV+ that Pence finally allowed a 30-day needle exchange program to be implemented. Pence also opposed condom distribution to combat HIV. That led, in part, to his overseeing the defunding of Planned Parenthood in Indiana. As a result, the Planned Parenthood clinic in Scott County, which housed the county’s only HIV testing center, closed in 2013. But this is the guy to spearhead the federal government’s response to a worldwide virus…? Sen. Bernie Sanders weighed in on the choice of Pence via Twitter:

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Podcast: Billy Porter On Sesame Street, National Guard LGBTQ Inclusion, Homophobes In Croatia

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: • National Guard units are taking positive steps to promote LGBTQ inclusion • A crowd in Croatia cheered at the burning of an effigy depicting a same-sex couple with a child • Texas teacher wins $100K settlement for LGBTQ discrimination • Atlanta man convicted of rape after pretending to be gay in order to befriend lesbian • The ‘Love, Simon’ TV sequel will premiere in time for Pride Month on Hulu • One Million Moms is really, really mad Billy Porter is heading to Sesame Street All that and more in this episode of The Randy Report

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News Round-Up: February 25, 2020

Karl Thorssen (via Twitter)
Some news items you might have missed: • Twitter: After the hashtag #BisexualMenExist began to trend on Twitter, Karl Thorssen joined the party tweeting the pic above with the caption, “Joyfully reminding y’all that and sometimes take selfies in trucks.” #woof • The Advocate: An Atlanta man who pretended to be gay in order to befriend a lesbian has been convicted of raping her in 2015. • HRC: Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who is technically still running for the Democratic nomination for president, refused to answer questions regarding LGBTQ issues for the Human Rights Campaign. • Politico: Two Florida Democrats have filed a lawsuit asking that Sen. Bernie Sanders be disqualified from the Democratic primary because he’s a declared independent. The two military veterans argue that because Florida has a closed primary only declared Democrats should be on the ballot. • Reuters: The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to uphold a lower court’s dismissal of a lawsuit against a Border Patrol agent for fatally shooting a 15-year-old Mexican boy on Mexican soil from across the border in Texas. The family sued in federal court accusing the agent of violating the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment ban on unjustified deadly force and the Fifth Amendment right to due process. The court dismissed the case saying people who are not in the United States at the time of a cross-border incident to file civil rights lawsuits in federal court. • New Music: Hailing from rural isolation on a sheep farm in the Scottish Highlands, ONR (pronounced “honor”) drops his new track “Sober” (feat. Carina Jade). The track draws musical inspiration from both indie rock and 80s synth-pop while the video is an intoxicating wash of pink, black and blue light. “Sober” is his debut release on Warner Records and the first off his forthcoming Must Stop EP, out May 15.

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News Round-Up: February 24, 2020

(image via Instagram)
Some news items you might have missed: • InstaHunks: I hate to say it, I’m guilty of this as well, but Bremen Menelli (above) is right: there are no excuses to get some kind of workout in  – even if it’s just a few sets of bicep curls. Get up and do something folks. • Deadline: The TV series inspired by the praised 2018 movie Love, Simon is moving from Disney+ to the Disney-controlled Hulu streaming service. The half-hour comedy, which will be re-titled Love, Victor after its protagonist, will debut in time for Pride month. • Reuters: Stock market experts pointed to the growing coronavirus outbreak threat as well as the surging Bernie Sanders campaign for the S&P 500 managed healthcare index of health insurance stocks (SPLRCHMO) tumbling over 7% early Monday afternoon. • LA Times: Harvey Weinstein was found guilty of rape and a felony sex crime Monday. Weinstein was acquitted on the two most serious charges of predatory sexual assault, which each carried a potential life sentence. Sentencing for the 69-year-old is set for March 11. • Axios: The Trump White House and its allies, over the past 18 months, has assembled detailed lists of government officials perceived to be disloyal to oust. The plan would be to dismiss those officials and replace them with Trump loyalists. • NBC News/Marist Poll: A new poll in South Carolina shows Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) trailing former Vice President Joe Biden by only four points. That said, Biden continues to lead the pack of Democratic contenders among African American voters by double-digits with only five days before the South Carolina primary.

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Jussie Smollett Pleads Not Guilty To New Charges Of Filing False Police Report

Former ‘Empire’ star Jussie Smollett (center)
Former Empire star Jussie Smollett pleaded not guilty Monday to a fresh round of charges accusing the actor of staging a homophobic and racist attack last year. From CBS Chicago:

A new indictment filed earlier this month charged Smollett with six counts of disorderly conduct, accusing him of filing false police reports that he was attacked on the way home from Subway in the middle of the night in Streeterville in January 2019.

Cook County prosecutors dropped the original case against Smollett, dismissing 16 counts of disorderly conduct against him last March, without requiring he admit any wrongdoing, in a controversial move just weeks after he’d pleaded not guilty.

A special prosecutor later was assigned to look into the entire case, after a judge found “unprecedented irregularities” in how Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx handled the case, specifically by handing it over to her second-in-command after announcing she had recused herself.

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Anderson Cooper Calls BS On Blagojevich’s ‘Political Prisoner’ Claim

This is seriously must-see TV. CNN’s Anderson Cooper spars with former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who calls himself a “political prisoner” days after being pardoned by President Trump. Normally, I try and condense the news here on The Randy Report, so I don’t post 11-minute videos very often. But this is quite something. Blagojevich’s sentence was commuted earlier this week by Trump after the Democrat (and former “Celebrity Apprentice” contestant) had served eight years of a 14-year sentence for pay-for-play crimes. You may recall the former governor was caught on tape admitting he planned to ‘sell’ President-elect Barack Obama’s U.S. Senate seat to the highest bidder. At one point in last night’s interview, Blagojevich states he wants to work on reforming the criminal justice system. Cooper found that to be laughable. “It’s a little ironic, and frankly a little sad and pathetic and hypocritical, you talking about getting a commutation of a sentence, which is within the president’s right, but you ignored a whole hell of a lot of other people who were hoping you might give them clemency when you actually mattered,” said Cooper. At the end of the fiery interview, here’s Cooper’s summation:

“Look, I have no problem with you getting out. The president can commute whoever he wants. I just think you’re besmirching prosecutors who actually are no longer in government.

“But prosecutors are important in our system and you are going after the very basis of our justice system. Part of the thing is you got out – you do have an obligation to at least admit what you did wrong and you refuse to do that and you’re creating a whole new alternate universe of facts. “And that may be big in politics today, but it’s still frankly just bullshit.”

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Ireland’s Openly Gay Prime Minister Offers His Resignation

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar (image via Instagram)
Leo Varadkar, Ireland’s openly gay prime minister, has offered his resignation after his political party, Fine Gael, failed to win a majority in the parliamentary elections held on February 8. From The Advocate:

Parliament then voted Thursday on the prime minister, with a candidate needing 80 votes to win. Varadkar received just 36, with the support of all members of his party plus one other. Micheál Martin, from the Fianna Fáil party, received 41 votes, and Mary Lou McDonald, of Sinn Fein, won the most, 45.

The other parties refuse to form a coalition government with Sinn Fein, which was once the political affiliate of the Irish Republican Army, so Martin may end up leading a coalition with Fine Gael.

When he became prime minister in 2017, he became one of the highest-ranking openly gay elected officials in the world. Varadkar visited the U.S. several times in his capacity as Ireland’s Prime Minister including attending a luncheon with virulently anti-LGBTQ Vice President Mike Pence in 2018.

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Woman Threatens To Blackmail Gay Men, Dead The Next Day

(screen capture via WISH TV)
Now, this is a wild and wooly tale. After walking in on two men apparently having sex, a woman in Indianapolis attempted to blackmail them for $5,000. They didn’t pay, and a short time later she was shot and died in a car crash. Jane Waughfield told her story via Facebook Live video on Monday after she had gone to the home of one of the men. In the video, she said that she had ‘business’ with him. She also mentioned that she had hooked up with him a few years ago. Ranting on the men using vulgar homophobic slurs, she admitted she threatened to reveal the men saying she would stay quiet IF they gave her $5,000 via CashApp. “They tried to kill me. They chased me out of the house,” she said during the video. “If I die, let them people know they killed me.”

And then…wait for it…she was involved in a car crash with another vehicle on Tuesday morning. The driver of the other car involved in the crash found her unresponsive in her car AND she had a gunshot wound. Witnesses told the local CBS news affiliate they saw Waughfield’s yellow Camaro traveling at a high rate of speed before the car crash. Police refuse to comment as to whether social media played a role in the incident.

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Trump Ally Roger Stone Sentenced To 40 Months Prison Term

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson on Thursday sentenced Donald Trump’s longtime friend, Roger Stone, to a 40-month prison term for obstructing a congressional investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

From the Washington Post:

In a lengthy speech before imposing the penalty, Jackson seemed to take aim at Trump, saying that Stone “was not prosecuted for standing up for the president; he was prosecuted for covering up for the president.” She also appeared to call out Attorney General William P. Barr, whose intervention to reduce career prosecutors’ sentencing recommendation she called “unprecedented.” But she said the politics surrounding the case had not influenced her final decision.

Jackson made clear she thought Stone’s crimes were serious. She called his testimony “plainly false” and “a flat-out lie” and said his misdirection “shut out important avenues” for Congress to investigate. The judge said Stone knew “it could reflect badly on the president if someone learned” about his efforts to obtain damaging information from the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks about Clinton, who was then running against Trump for president.

Prosecutors said the longtime GOP operative lied during testimony to the House Intelligence Committee in September 2017 to conceal his central role in the Trump campaign’s efforts to learn about computer files hacked by Russia and made public by WikiLeaks. Stone also threatened a witness who was an associate of his in an attempt to prevent the man from cooperating with lawmakers.

In addition to the prison time, Judge Jackson ordered Stone to pay a $20,000 fine, do community service and submit to substance abuse testing.

Stone was convicted on all seven counts of lying to Congress and tampering with a witness by a jury last November. He is the sixth Trump associate convicted of crimes discovered by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation.

I continue to believe Trump will pardon Stone sometime in the near future.