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New Music For Puerto Rico: Lin-Manuel Miranda “Almost Like Praying”


 Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda has written an all-star charity recording, “Almost Like Praying,” to benefit those suffering in Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.

(Get it? “Maria,” from West Side Story, Hurricane Maria… Clever one, that Miranda).

Via press release:

Atlantic Records has announced this week’s release of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “Almost Like Praying” (Feat. Marc Anthony, Ruben Blades, Camila Cabello, Pedro Capo, Dessa, Gloria Estefan, Fat Joe, Luis Fonsi, Juan Luis Guerra, Alex Lacamoire, John Leguizamo, Jennifer Lopez, Rita Moreno, Ednita Nazario, Joell Ortiz, Anthony Ramos, Gina Rodriguez, Gilberto Santa Rosa, PJ Sin Suela, Tommy Torres, and Ana Villafañe).”

The extraordinary all-star single will be available at all digital music retailers and streaming services beginning today, October 6th.

With music and lyrics by the Pulitzer Prize, Tony, GRAMMY, Emmy Award-winning creator of HAMILTON Lin-Manuel Miranda, and produced by Jeffrey “Trooko” Penalva, “Almost Like Praying” was written and recorded last weekend at studios in New York City, Los Angeles, Miami, The Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. Miranda traveled to each location to work closely with the contributing performers. Penned by Miranda only last week, the original song borrows its title and instantly indelible hook from Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim’s classic, “Maria,” from the original Broadway musical, WEST SIDE STORY.

The exuberance throughout the song and video is palpable. True American spirit on display.

Watch below and then head over to iTunes to contribute by purchasing the track.

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Special Counsel Investigators Have Met With Russian Dossier Author Christopher Steele

Former MI-6 officer Christopher Steele, who has rebuffed meeting with the Senate Intelligence Committee looking into Russian interference in the 2016 election, apparently met with investigators working with Special Counsel Robert Mueller this past summer.

From CNN:

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators met this past summer with the former British spy whose dossier on alleged Russian efforts to aid the Trump campaign spawned months of investigations that have hobbled the Trump administration, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Information from Christopher Steele, a former MI-6 officer, could help investigators determine whether contacts between people associated with the Trump campaign and suspected Russian operatives broke any laws.

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Anti-Abortion Congressman Tim Murphy Resigns After Urging Mistress To Abort During Pregnancy Scare

Virulently anti-abortion, anti-LGBT and hypocritical pro-family values Congressman Tim Murphy of Pennsylvania has resigned after text messages revealed he had an extramarital affair.

Further, when his mistress believed she was pregnant with his child, he apparently urged her to seek an abortion.

Text messages revealed earlier this week showed the woman with whom Murphy is having an extra-marital affair told Murphy, “you have zero issue posting your pro-life stance all over the place when you had no issue asking me to abort our unborn child just last week when we thought that was one of the options,” according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Responding to the message, Rep. Murphy said: “I get what you say about my March for life messages. I’ve never written them. Staff does them. I read them and winced. I told staff don’t write any more. I will.”

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan issued a statement today which read, in part, “This afternoon I received a letter of resignation from Congressman Tim Murphy, effective October 21. It was Dr. Murphy’s decision to move on to the next chapter of his life, and I support it.”

Murphy will leave office on October 21.

The governor of Pennsylvania cannot appoint a replacement, and so a special election will have to be called.

While possible, it’s highly unlikely a Democrat would win the seat since the district is considered solidly red.

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Trump Is “Most Followed” Current World Leader On Twitter, Still Way Behind Obama

I’m sure Donald Trump will revel in the fact that his Twitter account has been deemed the most followed of any current world leader.

Politico has the details:

The @realDonaldTrump personal account crossed 39.7 million followers to overtake the nine different language accounts that the pope uses, making the president the most-followed world leader, according to measurements kept by public relations firm Burson-Marsteller.

Pope Francis, with 39.5 million followers at the time that Burson-Marsteller crunched the numbers, fell to second behind Trump when adding up the papal accounts that send the same messages in Spanish, English, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, Franch, Latin, German and Arabic.

Next on the world stage for Twitter followers was India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with 34.9 million followers for his official @narendramodi account, plus an additional 21.3 million followers who track the @PMOIndia prime minister’s office account.

Trump also commanded the fifth- and sixth-largest audiences among world leaders on Twitter — with 20.5 million and 15.6 million followers — on the @potus and @WhiteHouse accounts he inherited in January.

Altogether, Trump’s three accounts total 75.8 million followers – which is still way behind that of his predecessor, Barack Obama.

Obama’s @BarackObama Twitter account boasts over 95 million followers.

Talk about #TwitterBurn

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Attorney General Sessions Reverses Course On Policy Protecting Transgender Folks In Workplace

Attorney General Jeff Sessions

Deeply disappointing but not a surprise by any means, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced today that his Department of Justice has reversed course on the Obama era position that federal law bans sex discrimination in the workplace.

Going forward the DOJ’s position is that Title VII does not offer any protections for transgender individuals in the workplace.

From Reuters:

The memo sent to U.S. Attorneys’ offices on Wednesday by Attorney General Jeff Sessions says Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 only prohibits discrimination on the basis of a worker’s biological sex, and not their gender identity.

Sessions rescinded a Justice Department memo from 2014 that said Title VII does protect transgender people, a position also taken by several federal appeals courts in recent years.

It was the Trump administration’s latest move to roll back Obama administration policies on LGBT issues. In August, President Donald Trump signed a memo directing the U.S. military not to accept transgender men and women as recruits, reversing a policy that allowed transgender people to serve openly.

And last month, the Justice Department appeared before a federal appeals court in Manhattan to argue that Title VII does not provide protections to gay and lesbian workers.

Yet another hostile move against the LGBTQ community from Donald “Better for the Gays” Trump.

Here’s just a few of the LGBTQ advocacy groups responding to the memo.

Stacey Long Simmons, Director of Advocacy and Action, National LGBTQ Task Force:

“This memo contradicts what is already established legal precedent. Courts across the country have agreed that sex protections include gender identity. The plain truth is that Attorney General Sessions is running the Justice Department with a clear anti-transgender bias, not current law.

“This is only the latest example of the administration’s broad reaching anti-LGBTQ policy changes. There is a pungent stench coming from the Trump/Pence Administration and its actors.”

Kellan Baker, Board of Directors, Equality Federation

“Sessions’ shameful memo is yet another purely political attack on some of the most vulnerable members of our community: transgender people like me.

“The vast majority of Americans and the courts agree that transgender people should have a fair opportunity to provide for ourselves and our families, free from discrimination on the basis of who we are.

“Even as this administration continues its attacks on LGBTQ communities and on our friends and allies, we will continue our fight to live and work safely and with dignity in the communities we call home.”

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Trump Covers Newsweek: “Does God Believe In Trump?”

Very interesting cover story in this week’s Newsweek exploring just how and when Donald Trump, who wasn’t very known for his “deeply held religious beliefs,” came to be so warmly embraced by white evangelicals.

From spotlighting Trump’s relationship with televangelist Paula White, to a 2011 meeting with religious leaders exploring a possible run for president, to the actual birth of the “Moral Majority” movement, the author connects the dots between white evangelicals and their king, Donald Trump.

An excerpt:

It’s now obvious that Trump got an extraordinary return on investment when he cozied up to evangelicals in 2011, but what did they see in him? His biography until quite late in life would seem to be antithetical to everything they believe. (Robert) Jones, of the Public Religion Research Institute, thinks the answer lies in the 2015 Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay marriage. “Local Democrats and progressives wildly underestimated the nuclear event that the same-sex marriage decision was for conservative white Christians,” he says. “It was so at the heart of their political engagement. They had pushed all their resources into the fight, and they lost decisively in courts and in public opinion.”

Among the many miracles Trump performed during his campaign was exploiting white conservative Christian fear. White Christians really are losing demographic ground, if not power. America won’t be theirs for much longer because they are a shrinking portion of the electorate. But, as Trump showed to astonishing effect, they still turn out to vote at higher rates than other, larger demographic groups. And that gives their views greater weight. In 2008, white evangelicals were 21 percent of the population but made up 26 percent of the vote, Jones says. In 2016, white evangelicals had slipped to 17 percent of the total population, but they still constituted 26 percent of voters. Jones calls the 2016 election their “time machine,” Christian fundamentalists’ chance to resurrect the public opinion of 2008, when just 40 percent of Americans supported gay marriage, not the 60 percent who do now.

America’s white Protestant fundamentalist Christians are dwindling like the dinosaurs God put on Earth alongside humans 6,000 years ago before he mysteriously decided to take them away. (And who cut them out of Genesis?) “Our best estimate is that 2024 will be the first election where we have an electorate that is less than majority white and Christian,” Jones says.

I highly recommend reading the full piece over at Newsweek.

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Tove Lo Gets Down With A Muppet In New Music Video “Disco Tits”

I love that the press release for Tove Lo’s newest music video, “Disco Tits,” begins with the words “pop provocateur” because it’s just about as accurate a description as you can get. This is a wild and wooly affair.

“Wooly” in part because her co-star for the road-tripping vid is a Muppet who gets down, gets high and more. You may not want to watch with folks you don’t know too well.

Directed by long-time collaborator Tim Erem and shot on location in the California desert, the video is a tongue-in-cheek take on a day-in-the-life-of the notorious Swedish pop star.

“Disco Tits” is the first single from the upcoming album, Blue Lips, due later this year via Island Records.

According to Tove Lo, “Disco Tits is about losing yourself with your new found love. Naive, excited, no consequences. The happiness in the haze I’m feelin right now.”

Listen to “Disco Tits” below. Warning – NSFW.

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Miley Cyrus & Female Writing Staff Of The Tonight Show Pen “Thank You” Notes To Hillary Clinton

Mikey Cyrus writes a “thank you” note to Hillary Clinton

On last night’s The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, the women of the writers staff penned “thank you” notes to Hillary Clinton for inspiring them over the years. Lots of humor, but also some very touching moments.

And then Miley Cyrus came out to share her own emotional “thank you.”

The postscript to the segment was Hillary’s thoughtful and forward leaning response.

Watch below.

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Las Vegas Celebrates National Coming Out Weekend

From Come Out Vegas:

Gay Vegas and the First Friday Foundation are extremely saddened by the recent events and our hearts and thoughts go out to the victims and loved ones of this senseless violence in our community.

Each year in October, for First Friday’s anniversary event, we celebrate the theme of ‘One World Through Art’ to promote the idea of peace, love, and unity. Creativity is the common thread that defines us as human, and art brings us together in ways nothing else can. It is by coming together and gathering in large groups that our message of love and our power to affect change are amplified.

Gay Vegas & Come Out Vegas partner with First Friday to create an LGBTQ inclusive and empowering environment to honor the principles behind National Coming Out Day and Nevada’s anniversary of marriage equality.

The resounding message we’re hearing from our community of creators and caring human beings is that we will not live in fear. We can’t let the actions of one, or a few, overpower the desire and need for the many to come together. This Friday, October 6th, will be the 15th anniversary of First Fridays and the will hold the regularly scheduled LGBTQ highlighted event as planned.

On Saturday, October 7th Gay Vegas will be holding their Rainbow Festival in The Loop area as part of Come Out Vegas. We’re working with law enforcement and local authorities to increase security measures and help ensure public safety, we will take all the precautions we can, and we are asking the community to help look out for and care for each other.