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News Round-Up: July 1, 2016

Abby Lee Miller of Dance Moms

• Dance Moms Abby Lee Miller faces up to 2.5 years in prison for smuggling $120K into U.S.

• Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood may not appeal a federal judge’s ruling which squashed the state’s anti-LGBT law HB1523.

• Skittles UK drops it’s rainbow for Pride in London to let the gays bask in the rainbow glow.

• Dolly Parton thinks Hillary Clinton would be a great president.

• Gawker posits whether Donald Trump might be tweaking diet pills to get him through the presidential campaign.

• Moodys Analytics, which has correctly predicted presidential races since 1980, predicts Hillary Clinton to win White House in electoral landslide.

• When former half-term governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, runs out of real words she just makes up new ones like “splodey.” Crowd doesn’t seem to notice.

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LGBT Pride Celebrations Aboard The USS Ronald Reagan

With all the Pride pics we’ve seen over the past few weeks, here’s a couple that are really quite remarkable and wonderful.

From the Navy Office of Community Outreach, I received these pics from Pride celebrations held onboard the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier, which has a crew of nearly 6,000.

Top: PHILIPPINE SEA (June 25, 2016) Lt. Jon Fujiwara, from Westminster, Colorado, speaks to Sailors about being proud of who they are as individuals during a pride month observance event in the aft mess decks aboard the Navy’s only forward-deployed aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76). “It’s awesome to see everyone come out and support the community, and it was an awesome event,” said Fujiwara. The USS Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group is on patrol in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of responsibility supporting security and stability in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Jamaal Liddell/Released)

Bottom: PHILIPPINE SEA (June 25, 2016) Yeoman 2nd Class (SW/AW) Elexis Rogers, from Jacksonville, Florida, sings the National Anthem during a pride month observance ceremony organized by the Gay, Lesbian and Supporting Sailors (G.L.A.S.S.) association on the aft mess decks aboard the Navy’s only forward-deployed aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76). The G.L.A.S.S. association organizes events for the ship including fundraisers, community relations projects and morale building events. The USS Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group is on patrol in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of responsibility supporting security and stability in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Jamaal Liddell/Released)

Both were accompanied by the following:

On our planet, more than 70 percent of which is covered by water, being there means having the ability to act from the sea. The Navy is uniquely positioned to be there; the world’s oceans give the Navy the power to protect America’s interests anywhere, and at any time. Your Navy protects and defends America on the world’s oceans. Navy ships, submarines, aircraft and, most importantly, tens of thousands of America’s finest young men and women are deployed around the world doing just that. They are there now. They will be there when we are sleeping tonight. They will be there every Saturday, Sunday and holiday this year. They are there around the clock, far from our shores, defending America at all times.

Thank you very much for your support of the men and women in U.S. Navy, deployed around the clock and ready to protect and defend America on the world’s oceans.

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Williams Institute: 1.4 Million In U.S. Identify As Transgender

According to the Williams Institute, approximately 0.6% of adults in the United States, or 1.4 million individuals, identify as transgender.

The figure comes from crunching the numbers available from the 2014 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS).

The research goes even deeper, looking at state-level estimates of the number and percentage of adults who identify as transgender for all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

The state by state results rank the lowest to highest percentage of trans citizens, from 0.3% in North Dakota to 0.8% in Hawaii.

Not surprisingly, younger adults are more likely to identify as transgender than older adults.

Those who identify as transgender broken down along age differences:

• 0.7% of adults ages 18 to 24
• 0.6% of adults ages 25 to 64
• 0.5% of adults ages 65 and older identify as transgender.

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Hillary Clinton To Meet With FBI Over Email Server Investigation On Saturday

According to the New York Daily News, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will meet with FBI investigators looking into the use of her private email server tomorrow.

The meeting will take place in Washington, D.C., and is probably one of the last interviews to occur before the FBI wraps up the investigation and makes it’s recommendations on whether Clinton mishandled any classified information via email.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch told reporters today that she will follow the recommendations of the investigators and prosecutors.

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Loretta Lynch: I Will Accept Clinton Email Investigators Recommendations

Earlier this week, Attorney General Loretta Lynch found herself on the receiving end of a visit by former President Bill Clinton when their two planes happen to be parked at the same airport in Phoenix.

According to reports, the chat was about friends and grand kids, with no talk of any official business.

The impromptu face to face immediately drew raised eyebrows from the political spectrum since there is an ongoing investigation into Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, and Lynch will weigh in heavily on the decision – depending on the investigators final report – on whether any charges might be brought in the aftermath of the investigation.

Today, Lynch assured reporters that she will accept the recommendations of the investigators, no matter the results of the findings.

Via Washington Post:

“I will be informed of those findings, as opposed to never reading them or never seeing them, but I will be accepting their recommendations and their plan for going forward,” Lynch said while speaking at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado.

The move, first reported by the New York Times, came amid an uproar over Lynch’s meeting this week with former U.S. President Bill Clinton while his wife, the presumptive Democratic nominee for the White House, was under federal investigation.

Lynch said she understands how her meeting with Bill Clinton “casts a shadow” over the perception of the Justice Department’s probe into Hillary Clinton’s email use.
Related Coverage

The private meeting took place on Lynch’s plane after she landed in Phoenix on Monday night and Bill Clinton was leaving the airport after a rally for his wife earlier that day.

Lynch, appointed by Democratic U.S. President Barack Obama, told reporters earlier this week that she did not discuss the email investigation or other pending matters before the Justice Department with Bill Clinton, calling their meeting “primarily social.”

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Hillary Clinton Campaign Raises Almost $70 Million In June

The first month of the general election has come and gone, and it was a very good month for the Hillary Clinton campaign.

On top of rising numbers in the polls across the board, her campaign is reporting almost $70 million was raised for Hillary for America, the DNC and state parties.

The average donation was $48, which means a LOT of folks donated to the former Secretary of State’s campaign.  The bulk of the money raised – $40.5 million – will go directly to Hillary’s campaign, while $28 million will be spread among the Democratic National Committee and state parties.

The huge haul means Hillary begins July with $44 million on hand.

“Our first month of general election fundraising proved to be the best of the campaign,” campaign manager Robby Mook said in a statement. “Thanks to the continued support of nearly 1.6 million people, we have been able to help Democrats build out an organizing infrastructure across the country that will mobilize millions of voters and help elect progressive candidates up and down the ballot.”

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MIssissippi: Federal Judge Strikes Down Anti-LGBT Legislation HB1523

Judge Carlton Reeves

From the Human Rights Campaign:

Last night, minutes before it was set to go into effect, U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves blocked the implementation of Mississippi’s discriminatory and harmful H.B. 1523, calling it “a vehicle for state sanctioned discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.”

The bill would stop state and local government agencies from taking action against state employees, individuals, organizations and private associations that deny service based on “religious beliefs.”

In other words, all bigots would have to say is “I’m a Christian – I don’t have to serve gays,” and they get a free card to legally discriminate.

The case was successfully argued by Roberta Kaplan, the civil rights lawyer who argued in front of the Supreme Court of the United States in the landmark case United States v. Windsor.

This ruling effectively blocks the implementation of the unconstitutional law, as LGBT advocates push for full repeal.

From Mississippi Today:

In a blistering opinion that reached into Mississippi’s segregationist past, U.S. District Court Judge Carlton Reeves said House Bill 1523, signed by Gov. Phil Bryant in April, was another unfortunate example of Mississippi trying to write discrimination into its laws.

“Religious freedom was one of the building blocks of this great nation, and after the nation was torn apart, the guarantee of equal protection under law was used to stitch it back together. But HB 1523 does not honor that tradition of religion freedom, nor does it respect the equal dignity of all of Mississippi’s citizens,” Reeves wrote in his opinion.