Category: News

Posted on

News Round-Up: October 22, 2019

Jon Howes of the Chippendales celebrates a birthday! ( via Instagram)
Some news items you might have missed: • InstaHunks: Happy birthday wishes to Jon Howes of the world-famous Chippendales here in Las Vegas. Jon graciously took part in my little anniversary event last week, and he clearly improved the scenery 🙂 • Outsports: After a relatively short but impactful career on the U.S. independent scene openly-gay wrestler Jake Atlas has inked a deal to join the WWE in 2020. Atlas spun his 2017 Southern California Rookie of the Year award into multiple championships and stellar performances for high profile indie promotions like Pro Wrestling Guerilla and Defy Wrestling. • ClickOrlando: After receiving an anonymous phone call, the assistant principal of a Florida school fired Monica Toro Lisciandro, a theater arts teacher, for having a girl-friend and attending a Pride festival. And this is totally legal because Florida does not protect LGBTQ people from discrimination in the workplace. #WeveGotWorkToDo • Advocate: Entertainer Marie Osmond shared on The Talk that she once questioned her heterosexuality after surviving sexual abuse. Talking on recent comments by Miley Cyrus, who said she “thought I had to be gay” in a world of “evil” men, Osmond said at the age of 8 or 9 she thought he might have been gay “because I had been sexually abused to the point that men made me sick. I didn’t trust them. I didn’t like them.”

• New York Times: An anonymous Trump administration official who published a September 2018 essay in the Times regarding the active resistance to Donald Trump’s agenda and behavior from within his own administration, will publish a book next month titled, A Warning. • PEOPLE: The stars of The Facts of Life are coming back together, just in time for Christmas! Lisa Whelchel, Kim Fields, Mindy Cohn, and Nancy McKeon will reunite in the Christmas movie You Light Up My Christmas, premiering Dec.1 on Lifetime. The TV film, inspired by true events, tells “the story of Emma (Fields), who returns to her hometown to find that the lights in the once festive town have gone dim — prompting her to reconnect with a former flame (Adrian Holmes) and reignite the town with holiday cheer.” • Star-Telegram: A gay Trump supporter, Pete Gomez (from my own hometown) says, “I just want everyone to know in the LGBT community that Trump is for us, the Second Amendment is for us. We literally are going to make America more greater than it’s ever been, and keep it that way.” #MoreGreater

Posted on

Acting Ukraine Ambassador: Trump Pressured Ukraine Into Investigating Biden In Exchange For Aid

President Zelensky of Ukraine and Donald Trump (image: public domain)
Acting U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, William B. Taylor Jr., told impeachment investigators behind closed doors on Tuesday that Donald Trump withheld vital military aid for Ukraine and refused a White House meeting with Ukraine’s leader until he agreed to make a public pronouncement pledging to investigate Mr. Trump’s political opponents. From the New York Times:

In testimony that Democrats in attendance called the most damaging account yet for the president, Mr. Taylor provided an “excruciatingly detailed” opening statement that described in blunt and unsparing terms the quid-pro-quo pressure campaign that Mr. Trump and his allies have long denied.

When he objected to that effort, Mr. Taylor said in his opening statement obtained by The New York Times, Gordon D. Sondland, the United States ambassador to the European Union and a Trump campaign donor, sought to explain Mr. Trump’s actions by noting that he was a businessman.

Mr. Taylor recounted Mr. Sondland saying that “when a businessman is about to sign a check to someone who owes him something, he said, the businessman asks that person to pay up before signing the check.”

Taylor testified today that Trump had made his position clear: Ukrainian President Zelensky would not be invited to the White House or secure much-needed security aid unless the Ukrainian leader made a public announcement that his country would launch the investigations sought by Trump. Before Trump supporters begin their expected attacks, it’s worth noting that Taylor is a West Point graduate who served in Vietnam with the 101st Airborne.

Posted on

Trump Equates Constitutional Process With ‘Lynching’

Donald Trump
Donald Trump took to Twitter today to rant (again) about the ongoing impeachment inquiry. In this edition of Trump Twitter Tantrum, the Donald equates the current Constitutional process of impeachment with “lynching.”

Trump’s buddy, Sen. Lindsey Graham, jumped on the “lynch” wagon as well calling the impeachment inquiry a “lynching in every sense.”

Others had different thoughts on the use of the word “lynching.”

Posted on

Trump Rages At Republicans Not Defending Him Enough

Donald Trump threw another bitter tantrum Monday saying that Republicans in Congress were not united enough in defending him against his “vicious” political enemies. From the New York Times:

Mr. Trump lashed out at Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, the only member of his party who has signaled he may be open to impeaching Mr. Trump, arguing that the senator’s defection showed weakness in the party.

Launching into a series of attacks on Democrats, Mr. Trump said approvingly that they were “vicious and they stick together. They don’t have Mitt Romney in their midst — they don’t have people like that.”

“They stick together,” Mr. Trump added, during a lengthy question-and-answer session with reporters at a cabinet meeting. “You never see them break off.”

It was the second time in as many days that Mr. Trump — coming to terms with the fact that he will most likely be impeached by the Democratic-led House within weeks and face a Senate trial immediately after — has complained about a lack of support from Republicans as he faces the greatest threat yet to his presidency.

On Sunday night, Trump tweeted, “When do the Do Nothing Democrats pay a price for what they are doing to our Country, & when do the Republicans finally fight back?”

Posted on

News Round-Up: October 21, 2019

Some news items you might have missed: • InstaHunk: Fitness trainer Ramses Principe (above) heading into the week like a boss. Make sure to follow him on Instagram here for more Monday motivation. • Irish Times: A man in Dublin, Ireland, thought he was meeting a Grindr date but was instead ambushed by a group of teenage boys with weapons. The victim, who needed medical treatment after the attack, says at least four teens armed with hammers came after him shouting anti-gay slurs including ‘faggot.’ • ABC News: Former Defense Secretary James Mattis trolled Donald Trump over the weekend at an event after Trump declared Mattis to be “the world’s most over-rated general.” Mattis clapped back saying, among other things, “I earned my spurs on the battlefield … Donald Trump earned his spurs in a letter from a doctor.” The ‘spurs’ comment was a reference to Trump’s many deferments from the Vietnam war.

• NY Times: Northern Ireland will soon have marriage equality to celebrate due to an amendment to a routine bill on governance that Parliament passed in July after the region’s governing assembly collapsed nearly three years ago. The amendment goes into effect tonight at midnight. Beginning January 13, 2020, same-sex couples will be able to give 28 days’ notice before marrying. • The Independent: In Elton John’s first memoir, Me, the popstar has some choice words about now-deceased Michael Jackson: “Every time I saw him in his later years I came away thinking the poor guy had totally lost his marbles. I don’t mean that in the light-hearted way. He was genuinely mentally ill, a disturbing person to be around. It was incredibly sad, but he was someone you couldn’t help: he was just gone, off in a world of his own, surrounded by people who only told him what he wanted to hear.” • Politico: Donald Trump reportedly stunned military leaders by demanding his ‘Victory Day’ parade at his very first Pentagon meeting. • Instinct Magazine: I am not mad at the hot daddy ASL interpreter who turned it out at Todrick Hall’s Haus Party World Tour this past weekend. #GetItDaddy

Posted on

Hillary Trolls Trump With Parody JFK Letter To Khrushchev

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton trolled Donald Trump today tweeting a parody letter of Trump’s now-infamous letter to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Clinton’s tweet featured a fake letter from President Kennedy to former Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev that appeared previously on ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ The parody missive reads, “Don’t be a dick, ok? Get your missiles out of Cuba. Everybody will say ‘Yay! Khrushchev! You’re the best!’ But if you don’t everybody will be like ‘what an asshole’ and call your garbage country ‘The Soviet Bunion.’ You’re really busting my nuts here. Give you a jingle later. Hugs, John Fitzgerald Kennedy.” #FTW

Posted on

Trump Reverses On Awarding Himself G7 Summit Contract

After much pushback from Republicans and Democrats, Donald Trump announced he will not award himself the contract to host the next G7 summit at his Florida golf resort. Trump attempted to say the decision wouldn’t enrich him because he offered to host the event ‘at cost.’ Of course, even if that were to be true (who would ever know?) the amount of world-wide press/publicity his property would get would be worth millions at a minimum. Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney told Fox News’ Chris Wallace Team Trump was “surprised at the pushback” they received over the idea. As CBS News’ David Begnaud notes “it’s surprising that they were surprised.” In that Trump owns the Doral, he was going to make money off of one of the biggest annual political summits in the world.

So, Trump decided NOT to commit a felony and now he’s mad about it???

(image via Flickr/WhiteHouse – public domain)

Posted on

Mulvaney Denies Saying What He Said But Chris Wallace Has The Receipts

Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney told the press Donald Trump used military aid to Ukraine as leverage to get the Ukrainian government to investigate Trump’s political opponents. When asked if the aid was conditioned on investigating Democratic National Committee server, Mulvaney said, “We do it all the time.” He denied it to Chris Wallace, but Wallace brought the receipts. #oops “You were asked specifically by Jonathan Karl was investigating Democrats one of the conditions for holding up the aid, was part of the quid pro quo, and you said ‘it happens all the time,’” Wallace said. Mulvaney claims since he himself never uttered the words ‘quid pro quo’ it can’t be pinned on him.

Posted on

Irony Is Dead: White House Honors ‘National Character Counts Week’

Irony is truly dead. This is a real thing – this is actually on the WhiteHouse.gov website. That would be the same White House where the current occupant of the Oval Office is none other than Donald  “Grab ’em by the pussy” Trump. It’s really hard to believe that we aren’t being punked or something…