LGBTQ news and entertainment
The Labor Department released its monthly hiring and unemployment figures for February on Friday morning showing only 20,000 jobs were added to the U.S. economy last month.
Analysts had expected a gain of about 175,000.
It was the 101st straight month of job gains, but the weakest report since September 2017.
The unemployment rate adjusted downward to 3.8 percent from 4 percent in January.
The labor force participation rate held at 63.2 percent in February and has changed little over the year.
Some news items you might have missed:
• Is it weird that I think InstaHunk Ignacio Pérez Rey (above) rocks these board shorts even better than a Speedo?
• A federal judge in Maryland has lifted his order against President Trump’s transgender military ban, bringing the administration one step closer toward enforcing the hideous policy.
• Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi on passage of the Equality Act, which will be introduced in the House next week: “I’m very pleased because we have a great deal of outside support for it, which I hope will help us pass it in the Senate. We most certainly will pass it overwhelmingly in the House.”
• A recently-released biography of Fred Rogers, of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood fame, says that the children’s television icon was bisexual?
• The U.S. Senate voted this week to confirm 36-year-old Allison Jones Rushing to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, handing the 36-year-old judge a lifetime seat on one of the nation’s top courts. Not only is she now the youngest and least experienced member of the judiciary, she spent a decade working with one of the most virulently anti-gay groups in America.
• Homocon and provocateur Milo Yiannopolous has been banned from entering Australia. #Good
• Bi actress/singer/model Paris Jackson says she doesn’t believe the claims in the HBO documentary Leaving Neverland that her father, Michael Jackson, was a child sex abuser.
• And I close with this fabulously ‘groovy’ clip from the Carol Burnett Show in 1967 with the incomparable, 4-time Tony Award winner, Gwen Verdon.
And that awesome dancer who starts out with the silver horn is my dear friend, Lee Roy Reams 🙂
|
| Paul Manafort |
Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, has been sentenced to 47 months in prison for five counts of tax fraud, two counts of bank fraud and one count of failure to disclose a foreign bank account.
Federal guidelines called for 19-24 years.
Judge TS Ellis said he believes he gave Paul Manafort “a just sentence for that conduct.”
The judge also ordered Manafort to pay at least $6 million in restitution and a $50,000 criminal fee.
Additionally, Judge Ellis gave Manafort for nine months served already. So his sentence will begin at a little more than 3 years.
It’s important to note that Manafort will receive a second sentence next week from a different federal judge for the two crimes he pleaded guilty to last year.
Judge Amy Berman Jackson of United States District Court for the District of Columbia will sentence him for the two conspiracy charges, which each carry a maximum penalty of five years. The sentences can run consecutively or concurrently. We’ll see what Judge Jackson decides.
People are stunned at the excessively short sentence.
“We all remember what we learn about our legal system in America. It does not operate with equal force for everyone. And Paul Manafort got the special, clubby, Washington, elite, friendly treatment for an ind. with stacks and stacks of crimes.” @arimelber on Manafort’s sentencing pic.twitter.com/qyBpj3MJ0C— Hardball (@hardball) March 8, 2019
A travesty. The guidelines called for 19-24 years. He gets less than 4. Judge Berman should impose a consecutive sentence in the DC case and the government should appeal this sentence, which must be authorized by the AG or SG. https://t.co/caS3xoGuqA— Michael R. Bromwich (@mrbromwich) March 8, 2019
"To be a rich, white man in America, you get a different kind of justice." @LawProfButler on Paul Manafort's 47 month sentence. #Hardball pic.twitter.com/56CVD1sTiq— Hardball (@hardball) March 8, 2019
Paul Manafort, who received 47 months in prison, is one of 7 people convicted to date in the special counsel probe. https://t.co/evJKktLqmR— NBC News (@NBCNews) March 8, 2019
Manafort was sentenced to less than a woman who voted while on probation without knowing she wasn’t allowed to. She was sentenced to 5 years. https://t.co/oDyhH8K0bJ— Scott Hechinger (@ScottHech) March 8, 2019
I would expect on Manafort, after this 47 month sentence in VA, that the special counsel will seek, and Judge Amy Berman Jackson will impose, a few years’ consecutive time in the DC case.— Preet Bharara (@PreetBharara) March 8, 2019
I guess we can conclude from this that if Manafort *had* expressed regret and *hadn’t* lied to every party in the case he’d have gotten a cake and cab fare— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) March 8, 2019
UPDATE – The bill that would have banned ‘conversion therapy’ in Utah has stalled and died for this legislative session.
Republicans had tried to insert an amendment that would allow professional therapists to ‘talk’ about changing a teen’s sexuality, but not promising to ‘reverse’ it.
Utah lawmakers have gutted legislation that would have banned so-called ‘conversion therapy’ in the state.
With recent changes, the new bill allows therapists to continue using the same techniques, just not with a promise of a certain outcome.
The new version also doesn’t ban therapy intended to change transgender youth.
Troy Williams, executive director of Equality Utah, left the morning hearing fuming about the committee’s decision. The majority of the committee, he said, sided with “quack therapists” and “snake oil salesmen” by approving a version of the bill that would be easily sidestepped by practitioners of conversion therapy.
The substitute bill by Lisonbee, R-Clearfield, focuses on prohibiting practices that cause pain or physical distress to a minor patient. It also would ban claims that a therapy could fully and permanently reverse a child’s sexual orientation and assertions that such a change is necessary.
All of the nation’s leading mental health and medical associations, including the American Psychological Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, have rejected conversion therapy as dangerous and ineffective, and 15 states have banned certain counselors from trying to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of minors. The practice has been linked to suicide and depression, and supporters of Hall’s legislation have framed it as a potentially life-saving legal change.
The sponsor of the bill, Rep. Craig Hall, told the committee, “This bill, substitute 4, just to make it clear, will not prevent conversion therapy.”
Federal courts have upheld bans on ‘conversion therapy,’ and the U.S. Supreme Court has refused, thus far, to hear appeals on the subject.
According to the Associated Press, the Pentagon is planning on diverting $1 billion from military pay and pension funds to help pay for Donald Trump’s beloved wall at the Southern border.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told The Associated Press, “It’s coming out of military pay and pensions. $1 billion. That’s the plan.”
Durbin said the funds are available because Army recruitment is down and a voluntary early military retirement program is being underutilized.
The development comes as Pentagon officials are seeking to minimize the amount of wall money that would come from military construction projects that are so cherished by lawmakers.
Can you imagine if Democrats proposed taking money from military service members pay and pensions???
|
| Michael Cohen |
Michael Cohen, former attorney and ‘fixer’ for Donald Trump, has a filed a lawsuit against his former boss asking for nearly $1.9 million in unpaid legal fees.
Cohen says his contract with the Trump Organization obligated the company to cover his legal expenses.
According to reports, the Trump Organization stopped paying Cohen’s legal bills in June 2018 after he began to cooperate with the Mueller investigation.
Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer and self-described fixer, sued the Trump Organization on Thursday, saying the company stopped paying his legal fees in June 2018 and breached a contract to repay him for litigation expenses. https://t.co/BAdxCqQ9Kt via @bpolitics— Tim O’Brien (@TimOBrien) March 7, 2019
Cohen has pleaded guilty to nine felonies stemming from a federal probe into campaign violations and other crimes. He has been sentenced to three years in prison.
He’s scheduled to report for incarceration on May 6.
|
| Former Nevada lawmaker Kelvin Atkinson |
Nevada’s Democratic Senate Majority Leader Kelvin Atkinson resigned from his legislative seat on Tuesday in an emotional speech telling his colleagues he would plead guilty to charges of using campaign funds for personal use, according to The Nevada Independent.
It was recently discovered that Atkinson had misappropriated hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign funds for personal use.
Misuse of campaign funds is a state and federal crime which carries a possible prison sentence of 20 years.
“I am embarrassed, I am ashamed and I am truly, truly sorry,” Atkinson said a tear-filled speech from the floor of the Senate. “I pray for your forgiveness.”
“I hope to have the opportunity to prove someday that this is not who I am, just something I did wrong,” said the 49-year-old former lawmaker.
“I have no one to blame but myself,” he added. “I just pray that someday I will have the opportunity to contribute to my community once again in a meaningful way.”
Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak publicly denounced Atkinson’s deeds in a statement Tuesday morning.
“I am extremely disappointed in the news that Kelvin Atkinson misappropriated campaign funds for his personal use,” the governor said. “This admitted violation of the law goes against the integrity every elected officer in the state of Nevada should uphold.”
“Saddened and disappointed” were the words used by the executive director of the Nevada Senate Democratic Caucus, Cheryl Bruce.
Atkinsons’s deputy, state Sen. Nicole Cannizzaro, is reported to replaced him. She will be Nevada’s first female Senate Majority Leader.
First elected to the Nevada state Assembly in 2002, Atkinson joined the Senate in 2012. He was the Silver state’s first openly gay Senate leader, and only the third African American to hold the position.
Atkinson famously came out during a 2013 debate in the Senate regarding repealing Nevada’s ban on same-sex marriage.
The following year, he and his husband were among the first same-sex couples to be married in Nevada.
As a proud gay Democratic Nevadan, living in Las Vegas for 15 years, I’m disgusted that Atkinson would be so unethical.
There are no excuses for such a blatant disregard for the law and personal integrity.
I am appreciative that Atkinson seems to be taking full responsibility for his actions, but it’s reprehensible that he so flagrantly broke the law.
Everyone has to follow the law, but being a minority and gay means having to work twice as hard to succeed. Any and all episodes like this only set us further back.
|
| Georgia |
The Georgia Assembly has filed landmark legislation, the Youth Mental Health Protection Act (HB 580), to protect LGBTQ youth from the dangerous and discredited practice of conversion therapy, which falsely claims to be able to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
Currently, 15 states and the District of Columbia have passed legislation to protect LGBTQ from so-called ‘ex-gay’ therapy.
“All children in Georgia should receive care that first, does no harm. Conversion therapy has no scientific basis and contradicts the medical community’s understanding of sexual orientation and gender identity,” said bill sponsor, Rep. Matthew Wilson. “I am proud to sponsor this bill that helps ensure the safety of Georgia’s LGBTQ youth by outlawing this incredibly dangerous practice.”
Organizations like The Trevor Project are actively lobbying in every state to put an end to conversion therapy. Their 50 Bills 50 States campaign is the largest in the world working to protect LGBTQ youth from the discredited practice which can amplify stigma and shame.
A study at San Francisco State University showed LGBTQ youth who were rejected by their families due to their identities were 5.9 times more likely to report high levels of depression, 3.4 times more likely to use illegal drugs, and 8.4 times more likely to have attempted suicide when compared to youth from accepting and affirming families and caregivers.
Conversion therapy is widely denounced by prominent professional medical associations including the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
(via press release)
|
| Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cakeshop |
Anti-LGBTQ baker Jack Phillips has agreed to call it a draw with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission.
Phillips was brought up on charges by the commission for declining to make a pink and blue cake in 2017 celebrating a transgender woman’s transition.
Autumn Scardina, a Denver attorney, asked Phillips to make a blue and pink cake celebrating both her birthday and the anniversary of her transition.
The commission found, with probable cause, that Phillips had discriminated against Scardina due to her gender identity, a violation of the state’s public accommodation laws.
Phillips filed a counter-lawsuit against the commission alleging persecution for his Christian faith.
On Tuesday, Phillips’ attorneys and Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser mutually agreed to drop both legal actions.
Weiser told the local CBS news affiliate that both sides “agreed it was not in anyone’s best interest to move forward with these cases.”
Regarding whether religious beliefs can trump public accommodation laws intended to protect LGBTs from discrimination in his state, Weiser said, “The larger constitutional issues might well be decided down the road, but these cases will not be the vehicle for resolving them.”
“Equal justice for all will continue to be a core value that we will uphold as we enforce our state’s and nation’s civil rights laws,” he added.
But attorneys for the anti-LGBTQ legal organization Alliance Defending Freedom, which represented Phillips, claimed there was “overwhelming evidence” of hostility towards Phillips by the state.
The Denver Post reports Phillips issued a statement saying, “Today is a win for freedom.”
“I have and will always serve everyone who comes into my shop,” added Phillips. “I simply can’t celebrate events or express messages that conflict with my religious beliefs.”
Phillips famously waged a six-year battle with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission after turning away a gay couple seeking a cake to celebrate their marriage in 2012.
The fight went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court where Phillips won in a narrow ruling saying the commission showed anti-religious bias in determining its sanctions on Phillips.
The issue of religious freedoms over LGBT civil rights was not resolved in that case.
The Denver Post notes that the agreement between Phillips and the CCRC does not preclude Scardina from moving ahead with any legal action of her own.
|
| Jair Bolsonaro (image via Flickr/Agência Brasil Fotografias – CC License) |
The virulently anti-gay president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, tweeted this short video yesterday.
The text apparently reads, “I feel uncomfortable showing it, but we have to expose the truth for the population to know and always make its priorities. This is what many street parties in Brazil’s Carnival have become. Comment and draw your conclusions.”
Não me sinto confortável em mostrar, mas temos que expor a verdade para a população ter conhecimento e sempre tomar suas prioridades. É isto que tem virado muitos blocos de rua no carnaval brasileiro. Comentem e tirem suas conslusões: pic.twitter.com/u0qbPu9sie— Jair M. Bolsonaro (@jairbolsonaro) March 5, 2019
Conservatives in Brazil apparently despise the Carnival celebrations viewing them as ‘heathen.’
From The Washington Post:
The tweets underscored one of the tactics that helped get Bolsonaro elected: stoking cultural wars.
As a congressman for 28 years, Bolsonaro frequently made disparaging comments about gays, women, indigenous groups and blacks.
While such comments always draw sharp criticism, they also garner Bolsonaro attention and feed the leader’s narrative as being somebody unencumbered by questions of political correctness.
Brazil’s Carnival is famed for an anything-goes atmosphere, and Sao Paulo alone had more than 500 street parties, called “blocos,” during Carnival. Many such parties nationwide involve heavy drinking, dancing and people in scant clothing.
On Wednesday Bolsonaro posted another tweet that seemed to taunt his critics: “What is a golden shower?” he wrote.