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Las Vegas: Father Shoots & Kills 14-Year-Old Son For Being Gay

Giovanni Melton

Wendell Melton of Las Vegas Nevada was arrested for the shooting murder of his 14-year-old son Giovanni Melton after they had an argument about Giovanni’s sexual orientation.

According to NBC 3 News Wendell, 53, shot and killed the teenager after the dispute last Thursday.

Giovanni’s former foster mother, Sonja Jones, said the father once caught Giovanni with his boyfriend and became enraged.

“He hated the fact that his son was gay,” Jones added. “I’m sure that inside of his mind, he would rather have a dead son than a gay son.”

“Giovanni was abused physically and mentally and spiritually for many, many years,” she added.

“I hope they throw the book at him. I hope he never sees the light of day,” said Jones. “I hope every day when he looks in the mirror, he sees his son’s face.”

According to court records, Giovanni’s mother had abandoned her children after a long custody battle.

Giovanni lived with his older brother alone in a condo complex.

Wendell had served in the military and recently worked for United Airlines. He had already faced allegations of abusing his sons and faced charges involving illegal firearms.

He has been charged with murder, child abuse, and prohibited person possessing a firearm.

Jones has launched a GoFundMe campaign to help Giovanni’s older brother pay for funeral expenses.

Wendell Melton
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Harry Styles: Black, White, Gay, Straight, Transgender – I Love Every Single One Of You

(Harry Styles – photo: Kate Elizabeth via Flickr)

Former One Direction singer Harry Styles, now touring in support of his debut solo album which hit #1 in the US and UK, gave an impassioned speech on behalf of LGBT folks this weekend in Stockholm, Sweden.

“If you are black, if you are white, if you are gay, if you are straight, if you are transgender – whoever you are, whoever you want to be, I support you and I love every single one of you.”

During an interview on French television earlier this year, Harry was asked about LGBT+ equality being political, and his answer was totally on point.

“That doesn’t feel like politics to me,” he said. “Stuff like equality feels much more fundamental. I feel like everyone is equal. That doesn’t feel like politics to me.”

Watch Harry’s pro-LGBT speech below:

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Texas Church Shooter May Have Been Motivated By “Domestic Situation”

With 26 dead and 20 more wounded after the deadly shooting massacre at a small church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, investigators believe the attack was possibly motivated by an ongoing “domestic situation” for the shooter.

Via Washington Post:

While authorities have not publicly identified a motive for the attack, they emphasized Monday that the shooting did not appear to be fueled by racial or religious issues. They said the gunman’s mother-in-law had attended the church but was not there Sunday, and that the shooter had sent “threatening texts” as part of the family dispute.

“This was not racially motivated, it wasn’t over religious beliefs,” Freeman Martin of the Texas Department of Public Safety said at a news briefing. “There was a domestic situation going on within the family and the in-laws.”

Investigators have scoured the gunman’s background since he opened fire Sunday morning on the pews of the First Baptist Church outside San Antonio, searching for a possible motive as the stories of those massacred began to emerge.

The shooter, identified as Devin Patrick Kelley, had served in the Air Force but was court-martialed in 2012 for assaulting his wife and child.

He was sentenced to a year in military prison and received a bad-conduct discharge.

President Trump called the shooter a “deranged individual” and called the shooting massacre a “mental health problem at the highest level.”

That would be an interesting choice of words considering in February Trump signed a bill into law that rolled back regulations that made it difficult for people with mental health issues to acquire guns.

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Bloomberg: Trump Jr. Hinted At Repealing Russian Sanctions “If We Come To Power”

Don Trump Jr. (L) Donald Trump (R)

Bloomberg reports that Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian government lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr. at Trump Tower last year, says Don Jr. indicated a Trump administration would be open to re-examining a law targeting Russia if they “came to power.”

Veselnitskaya said she went to the New York meeting to show Trump campaign officials that major Democratic donors had evaded U.S. taxes and to lobby against the so-called Magnitsky law that punishes Russian officials for the murder of a Russian tax accountant who accused the Kremlin of corruption.

“Looking ahead, if we come to power, we can return to this issue and think what to do about it,’’ Trump Jr. said of the 2012 law, she recalled. “I understand our side may have messed up, but it’ll take a long time to get to the bottom of it,” he added, according to her.

Veselnitskaya also said Trump Jr. requested financial documents showing that money that allegedly evaded U.S. taxes had gone to Clinton’s campaign. She didn’t have any and described the 20-minute meeting as a failure.

A lawyer for Trump Jr., Alan Futerfas, said the president’s son had no comment about the interview, the first time Veselnitskaya has offered details about what was discussed at Trump Tower in Manhattan. In the past, Trump Jr. has said that he had wasted his time seeing the lawyer because she provided no useful information.

You’ll recall Junior took the meeting having been told Veselnitskaya had dirt that would incriminate Clinton.

Trump Jr. agreed to the meeting saying, “If it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer.”

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News Round-Up: November 5, 2017

Some news items you may have missed:

• kenneth-in-the-212 keeps the spirit of Speedo season alive with the above post today

• Ed Flanagan, the first openly gay lawmaker elected to statewide office in the U.S., having served as Vermont auditor of accounts and state senator, has died at the age of 66.

• Earlier this week in Las Vegas, Wendell Melton shot and killed his 14-year-old son, Giovanni, because he was gay. The young man’s former foster mother said the father “would rather have a dead son than a gay son.” #WeGotWorkToDo

14-year-old Giovanni Melton



• In their new book, The Last Republicans, both Presidents Bush – George H.W. and George W. – show they are no fans of Donald Trump. George H.W. admits he voted for Hillary and calls Trump “a blowhard.” And W doesn’t think Trump “understands” the office of the president.

• According to a new survey over two-thirds of people living with HIV in the UK don’t feel comfortable revealing their status to potential partners.

• Yeah, there’s a lot in the news that’s negative or depressing. But we don’t learn to do better if we don’t know what the problems are. AND – it’s important to stop and pay attention to good works being done every day by good folks.

Watch this and I dare you to not think to yourself, “What could I do?”

And then, I want you to do it.

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At Least 25 Killed By Lone Gunman In Small Town Texas Church

At least 25 people have been killed by a lone gunman in a small Texas church in Sutherland Springs.

From NBC News:

“Approximately 25 people” were deceased, including the shooter, following the shooting at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Wilson County Sheriff Joe Tackett said Sunday afternoon. There was no information regarding the motivation behind the shooting, he added.

A single shooter walked into the church and opened fire, Wilson County Commissioner Albert Gamez Jr. told NBC News earlier Sunday.

But the shooter was now “deceased,” Gamez said, adding that it was not clear if the gunman shot himself or was taken down by authorities.

Developing story…

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Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross Holds Significant Business Ties To Russia

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross

Ruh-roh…

According to the New York Times, yet another high ranking person in the Donald Trump orbit, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, has large financial ties to Russia, including members of Vladimir Putin’s own family.

After becoming commerce secretary, Wilbur L. Ross Jr. retained investments in a shipping firm he once controlled that has significant business ties to a Russian oligarch subject to American sanctions and President Vladimir V. Putin’s son-in-law, according to newly disclosed documents.

The shipper, Navigator Holdings, earns millions of dollars a year transporting gas for one of its top clients, a giant Russian energy company called Sibur, whose owners include the oligarch and Mr. Putin’s family member. Despite selling off numerous other holdings to join the Trump administration and spearhead its “America first” trade policy, Mr. Ross kept an investment in Navigator, which increased its business dealings with Sibur even as the West sought to punish Russia’s energy sector over Mr. Putin’s incursions into Ukraine.

Partnerships used by Mr. Ross, whose private equity firm has long been the biggest shareholder in Navigator, have a 31 percent stake in the company. Though his personal share of that stake was reduced as he took office in February, he retained an investment in the partnerships valued between $2 million and $10 million, and stood to earn a higher share of profits as general partner, according to his government ethics disclosure and securities filings.

Mr. Ross’s stake in Navigator has been held by a chain of companies in the Cayman Islands, one of several tax havens where much of his wealth, estimated at more than $2 billion, has been tied to similar investment vehicles.

The information came from a cache of leaked files from Appleby, one of the world’s largest offshore law firms.

Considering Trump said no one in his campaign or administration had any connections to Russia, there sure are a LOT of people with connections to Russia…

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Poll: Trump Drops To Historic Low 37% Approval Rating As 65% Say He’s Accomplished “Little Or Nothing”

A new ABC News/Washington Post poll shows Donald Trump, one year after his surprise election, has the lowest approval rating of any president at the nine-month mark going back over seventy years to 1946.

A new ABC News/Washington Post poll shows Donald Trump, one year after his surprise election, has the lowest approval rating of any president at the nine-month mark going back over seventy years to 1946.

Only 37% of those surveyed approve of the job Trump is doing versus 59% who disapprove. That’s a negative 22 point deficit.

The only other president to have a negative deficit in modern times at this point in their presidency was Gerald Ford, who had pardoned President Richard Nixon.

More from ABC News:

• Fifty-five percent say he’s not delivering on his major campaign promises, up sharply from 41 percent in April, at his 100-day mark.

• Views of Trump as a “strong leader” have plummeted by 13 percentage points, from 53 percent at 100 days to 40 percent today — lower than the worst rating on this question for either of his two predecessors throughout their two terms in office.

• As the president travels in Asia, a remarkable 67 percent of Americans don’t trust him to act responsibly in handling the situation involving North Korea — up 5 points from September. Also relevant to his travels, a majority, 53 percent, now says America’s leadership in the world has gotten weaker under Trump.

• Two-thirds (65 percent) also now say he’s accomplished anywhere from “not much” to “little or nothing” as president — up from 56 percent who said so after his first 100 days, and sharply contradicting the president’s own claims to be highly productive.

• Again two-thirds (66 percent) say Trump lacks the personality and temperament it takes to serve effectively as president, and essentially as many (65 percent) say he’s not honest and trustworthy.

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Federal Investigators Have The Evidence Needed To Charge Former Trump Adviser Michael Flynn

Michael T. Flynn

NBC News is reporting today that special counsel Robert Mueller has all the evidence he needs to bring charges against from National Security Adviser Michael T. Flynn and his son.

Michael T. Flynn, who was fired after just 24 days on the job, was one of the first Trump associates to come under scrutiny in the federal probe now led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into possible collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign.

Mueller is applying renewed pressure on Flynn following his indictment of Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, three sources familiar with the investigation told NBC News.

The investigators are speaking to multiple witnesses in coming days to gain more information surrounding Flynn’s lobbying work, including whether he laundered money or lied to federal agents about his overseas contacts, according to three sources familiar with the investigation.

Mueller’s team is also examining whether Flynn attempted to orchestrate the removal of a chief rival of Turkish President Recep Erdogan from the U.S. to Turkey in exchange for millions of dollars, two officials said.

Flynn’s son, Michael G. Flynn, who worked closely with his father, accompanied him during the campaign and briefly worked on the presidential transition, could be indicted separately or at the same time as his father, according to three sources familiar with the investigation.

If the elder Flynn is willing to cooperate with investigators in order to help his son, two of the sources said, it could also change his own fate, potentially limiting any legal consequences.

Watch more from NBC News below:

Should this all actually happen, it would pretty much be the definition of irony, no?