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#TrumpShutdown Continues As “Great Dealmaker” Goes AWOL

With 60 votes necessary to pass a Continuing Resolution bill which would keep the federal government open and operating, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s bill fell way short last night with only 50 ‘yes’ votes while 49 senators voted ‘no.’

Sen. John McCain wasn’t present due to his ongoing cancer battle.

The legislation, on top of keeping the government open for four more weeks while a budget would, in theory, be hammered out also included a 6-year extension in the Childrens Health Insurance Program which Republicans allowed to expire months ago.

Clearly, McConnell has held this in his backpocket to use as leverage to get the budget he wants.

But Senate Democrats held to their guns saying not only should CHIP be addressed (and it should) but also the issue of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program or ‘Dreamers’ needs to be resolved now.

Several months ago, Donald Trump decided to end the program at random. Without DACA in force, 800,000 young people who were brought to the U.S. as children and live here without a criminal record could be deported.

So, here we are today as Senate and House leaders try to figure out how to solve this impasse.

Donald Trump, who apparently agreed to a deal that would address all of these issues last week, now says he is not willing to negotiate anything that deals with DACA for now. Many Washington insiders are blaming white nationalist and Trump adviser Stephen Miller who opposes any kind of immigration reform.

And so, we wait.

This is the first time a furlough of federal employees has occurred under single-party control of Congress and the White House. That would be the Republicans.

According to a recent poll, 48% of voters would hold Trump and the Republicans responsible for the government shutdown, only 28% would blame Democrats.

Where is the “Great Dealmaker?” Where is the “Great Negotiator” who says he knows how to bring people together to get a deal done?

Oh, that reminds me: today is the first anniversary of Donald Trump’s inauguration as president.

It only took a year for him to shut down the government.

Another record broken… #MAGA

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90-Year-Old Lesbian Finally Receives Honorable Discharge From Air Force 62 Years Later

Image via Helen Grace James

In 1952, Helen Grace James joined the Air Force as a radio operator to serve the country she loves.

But while stationed at Roslyn Air Force Base in New York, she came under suspicion of being lesbian. She soon realized she was being followed by the Office of Special Investigations.

And on a cold winter night in 1955, her 3 years of impeccable service came to an end. She was arrested, interrogated and forced to sign a document under threat of being outed to her family.

She was discharged from the Air Force as “undesirable.” That left her unemployed and unable to even utilize the G.I. bill for education.

She couldn’t even apply for insurance through USAA.

She was a victim of what could to be known as “the Lavender Scare.”

But this week, 90-year-old Helen received extra-special good news.

From NBC News today:

A FedEx delivery arrived at Helen Grace James’ door on Wednesday. It was a message from the U.S. Air Force. She called two of her closest friends to come be with her before she opened it, and they arrived 20 minutes later.

Once she opened it, she received the good news: The military had upgraded her discharge status to “honorable.” James had been waiting for this for more than six decades.

“I’m still trying to process it,” she told NBC News. “It was both joy and shock. It was really true. It was really going to be an ‘honorable discharge.'”

For James, now 90, it has been a long journey to this moment of vindication. “It’s hard to take in,” she said. “I’m wondering if I’m in a dream or a wish.”

The change in status was prompted by a lawsuit filed by James earlier this month.

She won’t receive the official paperwork for a few weeks, but she tells NBC News she can wait a little bit longer.

“The Air Force recognizes me as a full person in the military,” she said, having done “my job helping to take care of the country I love.”

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Wedding Bells: First Same-Sex Active Duty Couple Weds At West Point

Capt. Daniel Hall (L) and Capt. Vincent Franchino (R)
Image via Facebook

Great news to end the work week!

Last Saturday, West Point’s Cadet Chapel hosted it’s first same-sex wedding between active-duty service members.

Captain Daniel Hall and Captain Vincent Franchino, both Apache helicopter pilots, were wed in Cadet Chapel in a ceremony officiated by a Unitarian Universalist minister.

From NewNowNext:

The two met at the academy in 2009, when Hall was a senior and Franchino was a freshman, and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was still a year away from being repealed.

“We’ve experienced everything from people feeling awkward around us to being called faggots while holding hands and walking down the street, stuff like that,” Franchino told The New York Times. “But despite what we’ve been through, nothing was worse than having served during the ‘ Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ years.”

Through those years he and Hall had to keep their sexuality—and their relationship—secret.

“We couldn’t tell the truth for fear of what would happen to us,” Franchino says. “So we put it in our minds that we were never going to say we were gay. We were never going to get made fun of, and we were certainly never going to get kicked out of the Army.”

“It’s really frustrating when two people have feelings for each other but are not allowed to act on them,” he tells the Times. “We were serving under a policy that was telling all of us—perfectly capable soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines—to lie about ourselves.”

And then came the end of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ in 2011 and a gateway to “happily ever after.”

Thirty-four military officers attended the couple’s wedding and honored them by raising their sabers in a military arch for the couple.

It’s important to note that this wasn’t the first same-sex wedding at West Point. That distinction goes to Sue Fulton and Penny Gnesin in 2012.

In 2013, Larry and Daniel Lennox-Choate became the first male same-sex couple to wed at the military academy.

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Trump Breaks Modern Record For White House Staff Departures

Maybe they’re just not into him?

Donald Trump breaks yet another record, although this isn’t really one to be proud of in my estimation.

Donald Trump has seen more turnover in White House staff during his first year in office than any president in modern history.

According to The Washington Post’s Monkey Cage, here’s the percentage of folks leaving their White House positions within year one:

Ronald Reagan: 17%

George H.W. Bush: 7%

Bill Clinton: 11%

George W. Bush: 6%

Barack Obama: 9%

Donald Trump: 34%

Check the video below for a list of White House staff who’ve taken leave before the end of Year One of the Trump Presidency.

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Poll: Republicans Could Bear The Brunt Of Government Shutdown Blame

Only hours before a possible shutdown of the federal government, a new poll shows the Republicans would bear the brunt of responsibility for the ensuing debacle.

According to the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll:

• 48% of those surveyed would place the blame on Donald Trump and the Republicans

• 28% would hold Democrats responsible

• 18% say both parties would share the blame

• Among the very important political Independents, 46% would blame Republicans compared to 25% who would say Dems would be responsible.

This would be the first time in modern history that the government would shut down while under control of one political party.

I thought Donald Trump’s big skill was “bringing people together” to get a deal…?

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Supreme Court To Hear Arguments Over Trump Travel Ban

The Trump administration is heading to a showdown at the U.S. Supreme Court over Donald Trump’s third attempt to limit travel from certain countries based on national security concerns.

SCOTUS announced today the high court will hear oral arguments in the spring with a decision due by June.

From The New York Times:

The case concerns Mr. Trump’s third and most considered bid to make good on a campaign promise to secure the nation’s borders. But challengers to the latest ban, issued as a presidential proclamation in September, said it was tainted by religious animus and not adequately justified by national security concerns.

The decision to hear the case, Trump v. Hawaii, No. 17-965, came almost a year after the first travel ban, issued a week after Mr. Trump took office, caused chaos at the nation’s airports and was promptly blocked by courts around the nation. A second version of the ban, issued in March, fared little better, though the Supreme Court allowed part of it go into effect in June when it agreed to hear the Trump administration’s appeals in two cases.

The ban restricts travel from eight nations, six of them predominantly Muslim. For now, most citizens of Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Chad and North Korea will be barred from entering the United States, along with some groups of people from Venezuela.

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News Round-Up: January 19, 2018

(image via Instagram)

Some news items you might have missed:

• Can we start the weekend admiring Nick Jonas (above) admiring his NY Yankees hat in the background? #TheresAHat?

• Indonesia’s IT Ministry is asking Google to block  LGBT-related networking apps.

• Check out the newly-announced list of nominees for the 2018 GLAAD Media Awards here.

• House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi will be a guest judge on an upcoming episode of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” #YouBettaWerk

• And speaking of, on the latest episode of Oprah’s SuperSoul Conversations podcast, RuPaul shares what he’s learned from drag: “What it teaches people is that all things are temporary. Everything’s temporary: just clothes, some paint, powder – this body, even, is temporary.”

• The FBI is looking into whether a top Russian banker funneled money through the National Rifle Association to help elect Donald Trump. It’s illegal to use foreign funds to influence federal elections, and the NRA spent $30 million on Trump’s behalf in 2016.

• Warning: NSFW – Fischerspooner shares their new single and music video, “TopBrazil,” from their upcoming album, Sir, produced by Michael Stipe due out February 16.

In the video, shadow and light create a collage of naked male bodies becoming one, all the while blurring the lines of masculinity and femininity.

Spooner explains, “The video celebrates a pop aesthetic typically reserved for the female archetype and liberates the male form to be sexual, expressive and fearless.”

I think it’s a very cool video, but again – Adult Content.

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Trump: Federal Shutdown “Would Be A Tremendously Negative Mark On The President Of The U.S.”

With a federal shutdown looming as Republicans and Democrats dig in their heels regarding funding the government, check out this nugget from 2011 where Donald Trump told The Today Show that a shutdown “would be a tremendously negative mark on the president of the United States.”

There’s always a quote, there’s always a tweet…

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Olympian Johnny Weir Explains Why He Never Came Out As A Competitor

(Johnny Weir via Instagram)

With attention on out Winter Olympic athletes Adam Rippon and Gus Kenworthy heading to the South Korea games, two-time Olympic figure skater Johnny Weir got himself into some hot water after tweeting:

“Happy that there are representatives of the LGBTQ community competing at the Olympic Games. Notably, @guskenworthy, @Adaripp & several more. I never ‘came out’ in sport because being gay was something born in me & had nothing to do with my skating. I never came out as white…”

There was such an outpouring of digust as Weir seemed to compare sexuality with race that he eventually deleted the tweet saying, “Sometimes there just aren’t enough characters to finish a thought.”

And with that, he shared this thread of tweets to clarify his position:

I am so thrilled that there are out representatives of the LGBTQ community competing at the Olympic Games. Notably, @guskenworthy ⛷ & @Adaripp ⛸ among others. It is very brave for all of us to live our truths whether on the global stage or in our own homes.

Because of the attention on those athletes, many of you have written or tweeted because I am not referred to as “out” at either of my Olympics and in the traditional sense I wasn’t.

I wear my sexuality the same as I wear my sex or my skin color. It is something that simply is and something I was born into. I never “came out” in sport because I didn’t imagine it as a great secret & it had nothing to do with my skating or my dreams.

I was extremely lucky to grow up in a family/community of acceptance and perhaps that’s why I don’t see my sexuality as something that needs addressing. I am forever indebted however, to the warriors who came before me that allow me to lead the life I do so openly.

Many of you got upset last night when I tried to finish that thought in one tweet so I thought it needed clarification. I’ve got a busy day ahead so excuse me while I lotion…

Now, with his swan-like costume and red glove (named “Camille”) at the 2006 Torino Olympic games, I doubt anyone was wondering about Weir’s sexuality.

That said, Weir has shared in the past that he’s not a “rainbow flag waver” when it comes to LGBT activism.

In any case, I am a fan of athletes who do stand up and come out so young folks have heroes to look up to.

So, kudos to Rippon and Kenworthy for living their authentic selves as they head to the 2018 Winter Olympics.

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Music Review: Shoshana Bean “Remember The Day” From Upcoming Album, Spectrum

Stop, drop and scroll down to hear “Remember The Day,” the first single from uber-pop/R&B diva Shoshana Bean’s upcoming album, Spectrum, due out February 9.

Bean’s three independent solo releases have all topped the iTunes R&B and Blues charts in the US and UK in peak positions including #1. Her 2014 release, Shadows to Light, earned her a Hot Shot debut at #10 on the Billboard Blues charts.

Her body of work is as wide-ranging as her voice. She made her Broadway debut in the original cast of Hairspray on the Great White Way; starred as the first replacement for “Elphaba” in the Broadway mega-hit Wicked. In regional theater, she’s won awards and nominations for starring performances in Funny Girl and the pre-Broadway production of Beaches.

She’s performed sold-out concerts around the world, worked on countless voiceover projects for film and TV, and performed with Ariana Grande, David Foster, Postmodern Jukebox, Brian McKnight, and Michael Jackson.

On her fourth studio album, Spectrum, Bean is living large with her fresh collection of standards and newly-penned songs recorded in the classic tradition of big band.

Drawing inspiration from Aretha Franklin, Barbra Streisand, and Frank Sinatra, Spectrum swings and sways the Shoshana way.

Eighteen – count’em eighteen! – big band musicians kill it on ten tracks arranged by Grammy Award-nominated Alan Ferber.

And then there are the vocals. Lord have mercy.

Bean has long been known for her incredible power and visceral, emotional range. And it’s all on display here.

Every track on Spectrum is a gold, and Bean’s song selection is genius in giving you a little piece of everything in her arsenal of vocal weaponry.

You can trust and believe Aretha would be proud to put her name on Bean’s soulful cover of “With A Little Help From My Friends.”

Totally flipping the script, her Streisand-inspired “If Ever I Would Leave You” is a master class in artful musicianship and restrained passion. Ferber’s subtle, moody arrangement percolates to the perfect boiling point for an evocative emotional meltdown that will leave you breathless.

A soulful “I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You;” a swing-a-ding-dinging “I Wanna Be Around;” and an emotionally raw, closing-time take on “How Deep Is The Ocean” all contribute to sonic bliss.

Listen to her Bond-worthy, backbeat-driven “Remember The Day” below. You’re gonna be glad you did.

You can also check out this live music video performance of “Never Loved A Man” below. #Dang