Category: Uncategorized

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President Trump Praises Australia’s Single-Payer Healthcare System

Last night, during a press conference with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, President Trump praised Australia’s healthcare system saying, “I shouldn’t say this to our great gentleman and my friend from Australia because you have better health care than we do.”

Perhaps it was a slip of the tongue since Australia has a nationalized, single-payer system that covers all of it’s citizens.

Senator Bernie Sanders, speaking with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, immediately agreed with the president.

Watch below.

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Teaser Art For Upcoming 9th Season Reboot Of WILL & GRACE Released

Teaser art for 9th season reboot of Will & Grace

NBC drops the teaser art for the upcoming 12 episode reboot of the hit sitcom, Will & Grace.

The new ninth season of Will & Grace — with all four original stars Eric McCormack, Debra Messing, Megan Mullally and Sean Hayes returning – will pick up the characters’ stories ten years after the show’s last episode in 2006.

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Unemployment Drops To 4.4%

Please note the curve downward throughout almost all of President Obama’s 8 years in office.

Throughout the campaign, Donald Trump called this metric of measuring unemployment “fake.”

Now that he’s president he calls them “real,” taking credit for the good news.

Via CNN:

The unemployment rate dropped to 4.4%, its lowest level since May 2007.

America added a solid 211,000 jobs in April, far surpassing the disappointing 79,000 jobs gained in March, according to Labor Department figures released Friday.

“It’s a very strong report,” says Michael Arone, chief investment strategist at State Street Global Advisors. “We’re nearing full employment in the US economy.”

The low unemployment rate captures how far the US economy has come since the Great Recession ended in 2009, when unemployment hit 10%.

Many economists say the US is now at or near “full employment,” meaning the unemployment rate won’t go down significantly more. It’s a state, where employers have to pay up to hire, because it becomes hard to find workers. That’s why wage growth is expected to pick up.

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Hillary Clinton To Launch New Political Group “Onward Together”

After six months of walks in the woods, taking time out of the national spotlight, it looks like Hillary Clinton is gearing up again to be an influence on the American political landscape.

Via Politico:

The former secretary of state is building a new political group to fund organizations working on the resistance to President Donald Trump’s agenda, spending recent weeks in Washington, New York City, and Chappaqua, N.Y. meeting with donors and potential groups to invest in, and recruiting individuals for the group’s board of directors, multiple people close to the two-time White House hopeful and people familiar with the group’s planning told POLITICO.

She is looking to launch the group, expected to be called Onward Together — a nod to her campaign slogan, Stronger Together — as soon as next week, they say. Clinton’s spokesman declined to comment for this story.

Meanwhile, Judith McHale, who served as an undersecretary of state under Clinton, has been working with her to find groups to fund, as has former Democratic National Committee chairman, presidential candidate, and Vermont Gov. Howard Dean.

She has been in conversation with a wide range of political allies to discuss her next steps for months, but along with her upcoming book, the group — whose existence was first reported by Axios — is the most concrete step. The new organization is not expected to have a large staff, but will instead focus on sending money to other organizations at a time that Democratic donors are largely unsure about how they should be spending their cash.

The effort is starting to come together as its leader is increasingly stepping back into the public spotlight — and while her party is still searching for its path ahead. After going quiet for a stretch after the campaign, Clinton has started publicly supporting groups aligned with her main goals, and is now not hesitating to jab at Trump when asked about him.

On Tuesday, for example, she appeared at a Women For Women International event in New York, forcefully repeating to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour her belief that Russian interference and FBI Director James Comey’s intervention were the proximate reasons for her loss in 2016.

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News Round-Up: May 4, 2017

Some news items you may have missed:

• If I can’t start my day looking LIKE Alex Abramov, at least I can start my day looking AT Alex Abramov.

• Pulse Nightclub, the site of the largest mass murder of LGBTQ people in the history of the United States, will become a permanent national memorial.

• Two 16 year old high school students pretended to be a 35 year old man on a dating app to get a North Carolina teacher to send a naked pic to them, and then they sent the pic to classmates.

• After Wyoming Senator Mike Enzi said that those who dress outside of traditional gender norms are asking for violence, citizens of the Equality State began protesting his comments by wearing tutus and tweeting the hashtag #LiveandLetTutu.

• The Tony Award nominations are out, and lots of folks are thrilled to be on the list. There were, however, some rather egregious oversights. Check out who got overlooked here.

• Team Trump is furious that CNN refused to air his new campaign ad, which included a graphic calling CNN “fake news.” Check out CNN’s response below:

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Trailer: Season 2 Of “Sense8” On Netflix

I know what I’m doing this weekend 🙂

Here’s the official synopsis:

Netflix’s hit series, Sense8, is centered around eight characters, from different parts of the world, who experience a violent vision, and soon find themselves mentally connected by the experience. They become connected, able to see and talk to each other as though they were in the same place, with access to each other’s deepest secrets. Not only must the eight adapt to this new ability and to each other, they must figure out why their lives are now in jeopardy.

In Season 2, dark forces continue to track the cluster of eight connected characters. The sensates will learn more about BPO, the secret organization searching for their cluster and others like them, and will work to protect themselves from this organization that is out to hunt and kill them.

Netflix releases the full season 2 tomorrow.

As I’ve written about Sense8 before, I think it’s terrific – smart, thoughtful, complex and often quite sexy. The also show features gay and transgender storylines without pandering to those audiences.

Sexy Miguel Ángel Silvestre kisses Sense8 bf Alfonso Herrera

Miguel Ángel Silvestre – Lito Rodriguez

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House Barely Passes Trumpcare Bill 217-213

Barely squeaking over the 216 threshold, House Republicans were finally able to pass their “repeal and replace” legislation to end Obamacare by a vote of 217-213.

Much wrangling was done in the last few hours to get the final votes, but the legislation now moves to the Senate where substantial changes to the bill are expected.

Along the way, there was no CBO score nor were there any public hearings on the bill.

The new legislation allows individual states to opt out of protection for pre-existing conditions, although $8 billion is included in the bill to help pay for “high risk” pools to help those folks find coverage.

According to several media sources, Democrats could be heard singing on the House floor “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye” to Republicans as the measure was passed. In recent polls, the new legislation has been found to be very unpopular.

Apparently, many Republican House members hadn’t read the bill as of this morning.

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President Trump Signs Executive Order Easing Restrictions On Religious Institutions

This morning, President Trump signed an executive order easing the restrictions on politicking by tax exempt religious institutions.

The executive order was written to undermine the Johnson Amendment, the 1954 law that prohibits 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations, such as churches — from making political endorsements. Trump promised on the campaign trail to “destroy” the Johnson Amendment.

Signing an executive order gives guidance to federal agencies but does not rescind the law. That would take an act of Congress.

It was widely expected that today’s EO would follow the blueprint of an anti-LGBT “religious liberty” executive order. leaked to The Nation last month. The actual text of today’s EO has not been released, but on a conference call last night, reporters were told the EO would not pertain to LGBT issues.

The document below was handed out to reporters last night as bullet points regarding today’s executive order.

I’ll be curious to read the outrage from far-right conservatives who may feel they didn’t get the “religious liberty”/license to discriminate EO they might have expected.

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Check Out “The Equality March For Unity & Pride” Website

The Equality March for Unity & Pride is set to take place June 11 in more than 36 cities in the US and around the world.

The website for the event went live last night listing locations and information how to participate.

The “Equality March for Unity & Pride” is a grassroots movement which will mobilize the diverse LGBTQ+ communities to peacefully and clearly address concerns about the current political landscapes and how it is contributing to the persecution and discrimination of LGBTQ+ individuals.

Progress has been made over the past decade in the ongoing fight for LGBTQ+ inclusion, access, and justice, but there’s still so much more to be done – especially since the progress we’ve achieved is currently being threatened by increased hostile rhetoric, discriminatory policies, and violence perpetrated against the most vulnerable in our communities.

We will use the Equality March, and sister events across the country, to give voice to our concerns, and to support, uplift, and bring attention to those in our communities who are targeted due to immigration status, ethnicity, religion, skin color, gender, and disability. We affirm and celebrate that we are a mix of diverse communities. Lack of unity has caused many of our needs to be neglected or ignored. But now, for 2017 and beyond, we are working to learn from our prior mistakes and come together through common belief in inalienable human rights and dignity for all.