Category: Uncategorized

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Homeless Gay Valedictorian Gets Full Scholarship To Georgetown University

Seth Owen

What wonderful news.

Via The Hill:

Seth Owen, a high school valedictorian from Florida whose parents ostracized him because of his sexuality, has reportedly been offered a full-ride scholarship to attend Georgetown University in the fall. Owen, who graduated from First Coast High School in Jacksonville with a 4.16 GPA, captured headlines late last month after one of his teachers set up a fundraising page to raise money for his first year’s tuition at Georgetown.

“While the campaign has been ongoing, the professionals at the Office of Student Financial Services have continued to work with me to make my dream a reality,” Owen said on Friday in a statement sent to NBC News. “Due to their efforts and attention, they were able to adjust my aid package even further, my expected contribution is now $0. With these new adjustments, I will be able to attend Georgetown University this fall.”

Seth says he’s going to set up a scholarship fund for LGBTQ students “who find themselves in the circumstance I was in earlier this year.”

At this writing, the GoFundMe campaign is over $139,000.

Just spectacular news.

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Trump Confirms Russian/Trump Tower Meeting Was Collusion

Donald Trump confirmed via Twitter that the now-infamous Trump Tower meeting between Don Jr and a Russian government attorney was about getting dirt on political opponent Hillary Clinton
Donald Trump

You may remember that when the story broke about Don Trump Jr. meeting with a Russian government attorney at Trump Tower during the 2016 elections, Donald Trump described the meeting as a short introductory meeting discussing a program about the adoption of Russian children that was popular with American families years ago but had been stopped by the Russian government.

Trump Jr. said the meeting was not campaign-related in any way.

And then his emails were made public and the world found out he’d lied.

Sunday morning, the president confirmed (seemingly by accident) that Junior’s meeting was, in fact, a confab about getting dirt from Russian agents about Hillary Clinton, which, by the way, is illegal.

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Trailer: ‘Where The Bears Are’ Season 7

Come September 10 we get the first episode of the final season of the popular, award-winning web series, Where The Bears Are.

Described as a cross between Murder She Wrote and The Golden Girls, these bears always seem to find themselves in the middle of a ridiculous murder mystery.

I’ll miss the series having covered it for years now. But the bears promise this last mystery will be the best yet.

Check out the trailer below.

And you can check out my recent interview with the oh-so-hunky Ian Parks from Where the Bears Are below:

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Cruising In Italy

The first day at the pool – ‘gay soup’

Sorry for the light posting lately, dear readers. I’m currently in Italy on the Atlantis gay cruise from Rome, Italy, to Barcelona, Spain, as an early celebration for hubby Michael’s 50th birthday.

We’re aboard the Celebrity Constellation and having an awesome time. Rich Campbell and his crew do such an awesome job of making these cruises so fun and inviting for the LGBT community.

Today, we woke up in Naples, Italy, and took part in an excursion to the island of Capri (the land of my husband, Michael Caprio’s people) and Positano. In between landings, the boat we were on stopped for about half hour periods for the 12 of us on the trip to swim in the gorgeous blue ocean here.

I’ll be sharing a bit more as the cruise progresses, but if you’ve never done an Atlantis Cruise, I highly recommend it.

And no, there was no paid sponsorship for the this post 🙂

The view from our cabin this morning as we docked in Naples, Italy

Just a bit of early morning encouragement

Michael swimming during a break in the day (I don’t do ‘ocean’)

Inside the world-famous Blue Grotto near Capri, Italy

Michael being a bit nervous in the beautiful church in Positano, Italy

Positano, Italy, was beautiful
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Sequel To Indie Gay Flick “Trick” In The Works

(image via kenneth-in-the-212)

Kenneth-in-the-212 reports that a sequel to the oh-so-NYC-centric gay romance Trick has a sequel in the works just in time for its 20th anniversary.

I remember seeing the original Trick starring Christian Campbell and J.P. Pitoc in 1999 as two gay men who meet one night in Chelsea and set off in search of a place to get intimate.

The indie flick also featured memorable performances by Tori Spelling, Steve Hayes and Miss Coco Peru.

I’d love to see this happen 🙂

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News Round-Up: August 3, 2018

Dan Welden

Some news items you might have missed:

• InstaHunk Dan Welden (above) is giving you some #FlexFriday

• Launched in response to the recent ruling on the Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission case, Yelp has added a new ‘Open to All’ category/filter which aims to help protect consumers from discrimination.

• Apple, led by openly-gay CEO Tim Cook, has become the first private-sector company to be valued at over $1 trillion. Don’t tell me the gays can’t compete…

• After rescuing the adorable Beemo in South Korea, hottie Gus Kenworthy adopted another rescue from SK:

The day Matt and I visited the horrifying dog meat farm in South Korea we witnessed a mother dog giving birth to a litter of pups. The people at @hsiglobal told us that had they not been there filming my visit nobody would’ve seen the pups immediately and they likely would’ve died in the brutal cold. Luckily though I saw them and they were rushed inside and saved. A few weeks later when all 90 of the dogs on that farm (including Beemo) were flown to North America that mother and her newborn litter were the only ones that stayed behind because the pups were too young to travel. After Beemo passed away I was feeling completely empty and I reached back out to the Humane Society International to find out what happened to that litter. I found out that they were still in Korea and I began getting photo and video updates on them as I waited for another farm closure and an opportunity for them to be brought to the States. That finally happened and four days ago I picked this little girl up in DC. She’s a 5-month-old Jindo/ Lab mix and we named her Birdie (because birds were one of Beemo’s favorite things in the world). Nothing in the world could ever replace Beemo or the love that we felt and still feel for her but Birdie has already stolen a new place in our hearts and we’re excited to be dog dads again. A HUGE thank you goes out to @hsiglobal for bringing our new baby home and for all they do for animals in need around the world (follow them and support their cause). Also an immense amount of gratitude goes to @awlaarlington for taking care of Birdie in DC until I could fly there to pick her up! I am going to continue Beemo’s Instagram with pupdates on Birdie. I was nervous that would seem disrespectful to Beemo’s memory but I actually LOVE the idea that both of my beautiful little girls will share the page. Also, a huge part of the reason I started Beemo’s page in the first place was to continue promoting animal rescue and raise awareness for the dog meat trade and since the page already has a following I thought it’d be more impactful to keep it going rather than start all over again. Follow along! @b_pups #DogsAreFriendsNotFood #AdoptDontShop 👨‍👨‍👧🐥🐶🐾❤️ 🇺🇸
A post shared by gus kenworthy (@guskenworthy) on Aug 2, 2018 at 7:33pm PDT

• Despite assurances from the intelligence community that Russia is continuing to meddle in our elections, U.S. Senators on Wednesday rejected a Democratic proposal by a vote of 50-47 to provide funds to states with more election security funding ahead of the 2018 midterm elections. Sixty votes were needed to include the proposal in the appropriations legislation under Senate rules.

• Former Marine and Army National Guardsmen Brandon Ketchum, 33, committed suicide after being denied admittance to a VA facility in Iowa City, despite telling doctors that he was having “serious mental issues.” Ketchum had been struggling with PTSD and substance abuse after returning home from his three tours overseas.

• And let’s close out this round-up with shining a light on this hideous woman who attempted to call ICE and have a mother deported for breast feeding. I love the woman recording telling the bigot to “Go back to Europe. That’s where you’re from.” #TrumpNation

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Trans People Say They Experience Discrimination At LoveLoud Music Event

Bobbee Trans Mooremon (image via Facebook)

It seems that, although the LoveLoud LGBTQ benefit concert in Utah raised $1 million for LGBTQ youth charities, some transgender people found the experience not quite as welcoming as they’d been promised.

Bobbee Trans Mooremon, a board member at Queer Meals in Provo, spoke out about discriminatory treatment at the event including having difficulty finding gender-neutral bathrooms.

Via FOX13:

The confrontation was at Rice Eccles Stadium in an area reserved for charities and supporters affiliated with LoveLoud.

Bobbee says the man was not threatening but it still created an unsafe situation. “There’s always a fear no matter what bathroom I go in I’m going to get yelled at or beat up. Which one do I want?” said Bobbee.

After conferring with other members of Queer Meals, the organization decided to pack up and leave early. So did Provo Pride.”

LoveLoud issued this statement on Facebook:

“We were saddened to hear that a few of our LGBTQ+ community members faced discrimination at last night’s festival. We have a zero-tolerance policy toward any behavior that makes anyone feel unsafe or unwelcome.

“As an organization dedicated to creating safe and affirming events for our LGBTQ+ friends and families, our staff, volunteers, and charity partners were asked to participate in an LGBTQ+ cultural competency training.

“We are committed to learning from our mistakes and will continuously work to improve the lives of LGBTQ+ people in our community and beyond.

“If you would like to share your experience so that we know where we excelled and where we have room to grow, please send feedback to info@loveloudfest.com. We love you. We stand with you.”

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Trump Lies Again About Keeping The Queen Of England Waiting

Donald Trump lies about being late to meet the Queen of England

 At last night’s rally for Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, the Trumpster claimed that the ‘fake news’ erroneously reported he had been 12 minutes late for his meeting with Queen Elizabeth, despite the fact that news cameras captured the monarch waiting for the president to arrive.

“I landed and I’m on the ground and I’m waiting with the king’s and the queen’s guards. I’m waiting. I was about 15 minutes early and I’m waiting with my wife and that’s fine. Hey, it’s the queen, right? We can wait. But I’m a little early.

“So I then go up and meet the queen and she is fantastic. We then go up and we have tea. And I didn’t know this it was supposed to last for 15 minutes but it lasted for like an hour because we got along. We got along!

“So here’s the story by the fake news. ‘The president was 15 minutes late for the Queen!’ Wrong.”

Here’s what the world saw:

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Omarosa: Trump’s “Mental Decline Could Not Be Denied”

Omarosa Manigault-Newman (image via screen grab)

In her new tell-all memoir, The Apprentice reality celeb Omarosa Manigault-Newman appears to insinuate that Donald Trump’s mental capacity is in rapid decline.

From The Daily Mail:

In an exclusive excerpt obtained by DailyMail.com, Omarosa, 44, who first met Trump when she appeared on The Apprentice and later became an assistant to the president, tells of the dread she felt while watching Trump’s interview with Lester Holt last May.

‘While watching the interview I realized that something real and serious was going on in Donald’s brain. His mental decline could not be denied,’ she writes in Unhinged: An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House.

‘Many didn’t notice it as keenly as I did because I knew him way back when. They thought Trump was being Trump, off the cuff.

‘But I knew something wasn’t right.’

‘For the Lester Holt interview, I watched it on a small TV in the upper press room (the lower press room was built on top of the old swimming pool and turned into the briefing room) by the press secretary’s office,’ she writes.

‘Throughout this erratic and contradictory interview, I kept thinking, ‘Oh no! Oh no! This is bad!

‘Donald rambled. He spoke gibberish. He contradicted himself from one sentence to the next.

‘Hope [Hicks, then communications director] had gone over the briefing with him a dozen times hitting the key point that he had fired Comey based on the recommendation by the DOJ which the vice president and other surrogates had been reinforcing for days.’

But when questioned by Holt, the president contradicted previous reports about how the senior law-enforcement officer was dispatched from his office.

Trump also said that he had been planning to fire Comey, apparently contradicting initial reports from the White House that it was a recommendation from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein that spurred Comey’s ouster.

It’s important to note that Omarosa was dramatically fired from her position as Director of African-American Outreach and escorted off the White House premises on December 13, 2017 following reports of an altercation with Chief of Staff John Kelly.

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Houston Man Attacked/Beaten Walking Home From Bar

Christopher Bradford

A gay man was violently beaten by a group of attackers as he walked home from a bar in the Montrose area of Houston.

Seconds before the brutal beating, Christopher Bradford says he remembers hearing footsteps running behind him.

From ABC13:

“Someone grabbed me from behind (and) threw me to the ground,” Bradford said. “I was getting punched, kicked, and then, belt buckles we’re flying at me.”

Bradford said the attacker used the buckle end of a belt to hit him while he was down.

“Got me across the side of my head and I got four metal staples. They hit me with a rock in the forehead,” he said.

Bradford said many people were around, but no one helped. He was on the phone with a friend when the beating started and that friend drove up, scaring the attackers off.

“There was blood everywhere. It was in my eyes. I couldn’t see,” he said.

He believed the attackers targeted him because he’s gay.

“I kept asking why. I was like, ‘What did I do? Why are you hitting me?'”

Caleb Tout (mugshot)

The suspect, Caleb Tout, 19, was later arrested. He reportedly told officers he was drinking and beat Bradford because he was looking for someone else who allegedly exposed themselves to Tout’s girlfriend.

“You really don’t know the intention behind it. One of them was laughing. They were getting amusement out of this,” Bradford said.

Bradford says coming out of this incident, he’s learned a lesson he’ll never forget.

“I will never walk home alone. That’s never going to happen again,” he said.