As more and more Democrats feel the need to push for impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has shown restraint regarding rushing into things.
On one hand, the more info we get about 10+ episodes of obstruction detailed in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report, the more it makes sense that Trump did indeed attempt to obstruct the investigation and he should be held accountable.
But the danger lies in the fact that Trump would not be found guilty by a Republican-led Senate. And a ‘not guilty’ verdict in the Senate would embolden his supporters.
During an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live last night, Pelosi explained her thinking as well as what she believes Trump wants to see happen.
“I think the president wants us to impeach him,” Pelosi told Kimmel. “He knows it’s not a good idea to be impeached, but the silver lining for him is then, he believes, that he would be exonerated by the United States Senate.
“And,” she added, “there is a school of thought that says, ‘If the Senate acquits you, why bring charges against him in the private sector when he’s no longer president?’ So when we go through with our case, it’s got to be ironclad. Ironclad.”
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte (screen capture via newscast)
Rodrigo Duterte, the controversial president of the Philippines, joked during a trip to Japan that he had once been gay but ‘cured’ himself upon meeting his ex-wife.
Duterte was in Tokyo for bilateral meetings with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and during a public appearance he mocked a political opponent, Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, for moving like a gay person.
Rappler, a Filipino newspaper, reports that Duterte was asked about Trillanes sexuality and he replied, “Ask any gay man and see that moving, they say that’s gay.”
“Good thing Trillanes and I are similar, but I cured myself,” he added. “When I began a relationship with Zimmerman, I said, this is it. I became a man again.”
Elizabeth Zimmerman was married to the Filipino leader for 25 years before filing for an annulment in 1998. She told the courts at the time that Duterte was a “womanizer.”
Admitting he once believed he was gay is an odd confession coming from Duterte who has had wildly inconsistent positions when it comes to the LGBTQ community.
Before being elected president in 2016, he expressed support for same-sex marriage.
During an appearance on the Vice Ganda talk show in 2015, he said, “Same-sex marriage is good. Everyone deserves to be happy.”
He once asked the head of the country’s Commission on Human Rights if he was a gay pedophile because he was concerned about young boys being killed in the war on drugs.
More recently, before the recent elections in the Philippines, the 74-year-old president called out former Solicitor General Florin Hilbay who was running to be a Senator.
During a campaign rally, Duterte told the crowd, “Hilbay’s girlfriend is Agot Isidro. Her boyfriend is gay.”
He continued mocking Hilbay saying that as Solicitor General he had “filled his office with homosexuals.”
In 2017, the Filipino president mocked the idea of transgender people in the U.S. saying during a speech, “There is no gender because you can be a he or she.”
“That’s their culture,” he added according to the BBC. “It does not apply to us.”
Duterte is most well known for not only encouraging but overseeing the killing of thousands in his brutally violent war on drugs.
According to USA Today, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un ordered his special nuclear envoy to the United States executed in March after the failed summit between his country and the U.S.
North Korean newspaper Chosen Ilbo reported the news on Friday.
Kim Hyok Chol was executed by firing squad in March along with four other foreign ministry officials, the paper reported, citing an unidentified North Korean source.
North Korea neither confirmed nor denied the report. South Korea’s government was not able to confirm the claim. Previous media reports about the fate of North Korean officials who have fallen afoul of Pyongyang’s leader have proven to be false.
Chosun Ilbo reported Kim Hyok Chol and the other senior officials were shot after being accused of spying for the United States.
The paper reported Kim Jong Un ordered the purge amid mounting dissatisfaction with the summit in Hanoi – the second time Kim and Trump met for face-to-face talks. In Vietnam, they failed to reach a deal because of conflicts over the White House’s call for complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and North Korean demands for sanctions relief.
Chol led working-level negotiations for the March nuclear summit.
Donald Trump has repeatedly acknowledged his respect and admiration for the North Korean leader.
Kim Jong Un has executed five top officials for their roles in the Kim-Trump summit negotiations.
But here is Trump professing his love for the Dictator: “We went back and forth, then we fell in love. He wrote me beautiful letters. And they are great letters. We fell in love.” pic.twitter.com/D6IVgBm1pZ
The man @realDonaldTrump said he fell in love with has reportedly executed his negotiating team. It's about time Trump realized this isn't a reality show. https://t.co/Re8yqLL5tz— Seth Moulton (@sethmoulton) May 31, 2019
My buddy over at theOUTfront.com, Lawrence Pfeil, Jr., shares his review of the new Elton John ‘musical fantasy biopic,’ Rocketman, which opens in theaters nationwide today.
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Elton John entering rehab as a winged demon is more than intentional, so are the heart shaped glasses through which his life has been spent looking to “be loved, properly.” If those images aren’t symbolic enough, the next one raises goosebumps and that’s only the first two minutes of the enthusiastically anticipated, Reginald Dwight, musical biopic, ROCKETMAN.
With a flamboyant and heightened sense of reality equal to Elton John himself, it’s difficult to imagine his life being told any other way than a movie musical. What’s difficult to achieve is repurposing his songs in a successful way that tell the story, not merely are the story. In Rocketman, both genre and material are stunningly reimagined into the life of a man adored by millions the world over, but never so alone.
It is rapturous and heartbreaking.
As the iconic Captain Fantastic, Taron Egerton delivers a sparkling and faceted performance to rival Sir Elton’s diamond stud earring. Every note sung, is Egerton possessing a vocal quality most like the mega-star mid-career. While embodying every chameleon change demanded by Elton John’s fans, he never loses Reggie’s human need for love. When success transforms the musician into a monster, Egerton finds the pain feeding it and the pathos giving it breath.
Traced the trajectory of Rocketman is a singular partnership in the music industry between the musician and equally brilliant lyricist, Bernie Taupin, played with unconditional compassion by Jaime Bell. Millions of record sales and countless awards and accolades aside, the flamboyant extrovert composer and notoriously private lyricist’s greatest claim to fame is never having had a fight, ever.
John and Taupin have an innate chemistry and understanding of one another, personally and professionally, which Egerton and Bell instinctively capture on screen. When their first hit “Your Song” comes to life, it’s like witnessing the wonder of creative genius in person. And those moments of revelation keep coming throughout the film.
Directed by Dexter Fletcher, whose prior film credits are surprisingly short (but include finishing Bohemian Rhapsody), Rocketman is stunning visual poetry start to finish. With brilliant attention to detail ala Baz Luhrmann, Fletcher makes Elton John’s most personal, private, and iconic moments vibrant and visceral. Musical production numbers leap off the screen to grab the audience and pull them into the rawest, heart wrenching moments of Reggie’s life.
Every choice made in telling this story was a risk, any one of which could have easily caused Rocketman to be a catastrophic disaster upon liftoff. But fortune favors the bold, and if Elton John is anything, it’s bold.
Most people tell their story from the top, so it takes a kind of courage, acceptance, and self-deprecation to tell Rocketman from the rock bottom of rehab. But, as anyone who’s been their knows, hitting rock bottom is necessary to relaunch. A constellation of superb performances, super nova production numbers, and unexpected moments like meteors out the darkness of space make Rocketman stellar.
ROCKETMAN
Starring Taron Egerton, Jamie Bell, Richard Madden, and Bryce Dallas Howard
121 minutes
Directed by Dexter Fletcher
Screenplay by Lee Hall
New Republic Pictures and Paramount Pictures
Lawrence Pfeil, Jr., is a freelance writer/playwright and has reviewed film and theatre, both on and off Broadway, for media outlets including the New York Blade and Edge Publications.
The Nevada Independentreports that Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak has vetoed a bill that would have pledged the Silver State’s six electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote for president.
AB186 proved a divisive one in the Legislature that elicited some of the closest votes in the session. Proponents argued that it would ensure every vote counted equally, while opponents said they feared it would diminish the relevance of Nevada and other small states.
If approved, the bill would have tied Nevada to a compact of states agreeing to pledge their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, but would only take effect until enough states had joined the compact to eclipse the 270 electoral vote threshold.
So far, 15 states with a total of 189 electoral votes have joined the compact, with Colorado, Delaware and New Mexico approving laws to join the initiative.
While I’m a proud Nevadan, I’m disappointed in Sisolak’s veto.
• When the hot tub gets ‘that much hotter’ thanks to InstaHunk Guoyang510 (above).
• Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, key figures in the gay rights movement, will be honored with a permanent monument in Greenwich Village near the Stonewall Inn.
• A 38-year-old gay man wrote to Slate’s “Dear Prudence” advice column asking whether he’s morally obliged to tell a female co-worker that he found her 18-year-old son appearing on an adult cam site.
• For the first time in decades, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform has scheduled a hearing to discuss legislation to make Washington, D.C. the 51st state. Republicans have routinely opposed statehood due to the vast majority of registered Democrats that reside there.
• A new animated children’s series from Hulu, The Bravest Knight, features two gay dads, (voiced by TR Knight and Wilson Cruz) Sir Cedric and Prince Andrew, who share the adventures of Cedric’s journey to knighthood with their daughter and aspiring knight, Nia.
RuPaul, Christine Baranski, Wanda Sykes, Donna Murphy and A.J. McLean (of the Backstreet Boys) also appear in the series which debuts June 21.
Donald Trump’s tiny thumbs tweeted, and then deleted, this message today:
“Russia, Russia, Russia! That’s all you heard at the beginning of this Witch Hunt Hoax…And now Russia has disappeared because I had nothing to do with Russia helping me to get elected. It was a crime that didn’t exist. So now the Dems and their partner, the Fake News Media,…”
I have loved FX’s mini-series Fosse/Verdon. Sorry to see we reached the finale this Tuesday.
One of the highlights of the series, which chronicles the lives, love and collaborations of director/choreographer Bob Fosse and 4-time Tony Award winner Gwen Verdon, has been the attention to detail in regard to the famous ‘Fosse style’ of dance presented throughout the series.
FX put together this behind-the-scenes look at how the choreography achieved such authenticity, in great part to members of the Verdon Fosse Legacy Project.
The project is made of of dancers who worked closely with Fosse on his Broadway productions and so have first hand knowledge of what the true, original intent of iconic steps and dance numbers was.
In the video below, Dana Moore, Lloyd Culbreath, and Valarie Pettiford talk about their work and experiences with the master himself.
I’ve worked with Dana, Lloyd and Valarie, and they definitely are the keepers of the flame.
When I went into the Broadway production of Chicago the Musical, it truly was like learning a new language. Dancing ‘Fosse style’ means mastering a vocabulary all unto itself.
Over the years, I’ve staged four productions of Chicago using the same approach that Ann Reinking did of creating my own version but utilizing the vocabulary, and there’s no cheating on that.
Trust and believe, Fosse dancers spot bad ‘imitation Fosse’ from a mile away.
Check out the video below, and bravo to the folks who gave us this terrific series.
Georgia’s new abortion ban could cost the state dearly as Bob Iger, Disney’s chief executive, told Reuters that continuing to film in the Peach State would be “very difficult” were the law to go into effect.
“I rather doubt we will,” Iger said during an interview at Disneyland. “I think many people who work for us will not want to work there, and we will have to heed their wishes in that regard. Right now we are watching it very carefully.”
Should the law takes effect, “I don’t see how it’s practical for us to continue to shoot there,” he added.
Reuters notes that, thanks to a lucrative tax credit offered by the state, the film and television industry has created 92,000 jobs in Georgia, and at least 455 productions were shot there in 2018.
And these aren’t just small indie projects.
Disney’s billion-dollar blockbusters Black Panther and Avengers: Endgame were filmed in Georgia.
Netflix has also announced they are re-thinking their production schedule in Georgia.
Stevens is probably most famous today for his songs he contributed to last year’s queer coming-of-age movie, Call Me By Your Name. The track “Mystery of Love” garnered an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song and a Grammy Award nod as well.
The 43-year-old artist says “Love Yourself,” a euphoric synth-pop bop, is based on a musical sketch he wrote 20 years ago. Stevens plans on including the 1996 demo on the vinyl release as well as a short reprise.
“With My Whole Heart” is an entirely new song that came from a personal challenge: “to write an upbeat and sincere love song without conflict, anxiety, or self-deprecation.” Definitely more bouncy, the track is a retro, lo-fi affair with lots of layered vocals leading to a vibe-y, chill guitar solo.
In addition to buying music you enjoy, purchasing the tracks will also aid two organizations that help LGBTQ homeless youth. A portion of the proceeds will go to both the Ali Forney Center in New York City and the Ruth Ellis Center in Detroit, Michigan.
