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Trump On GOP Losing The House In Mid-Terms: “That’s Not Going To Happen”

The New York Times reports that Donald Trump is in denial about the GOP’s prospects in the mid-term elections this fall.

President Trump is privately rejecting the growing consensus among Republican leaders that they may lose the House and possibly the Senate in November, leaving party officials and the president’s advisers nervous that he does not grasp the gravity of the threat they face in the midterm elections.

Congressional and party leaders and even some Trump aides are concerned that the president’s boundless self-assurance about politics will cause him to ignore or undermine their midterm strategy. In battleground states like Arizona, Florida and Nevada, Mr. Trump’s proclivity to be a loose cannon could endanger the Republican incumbents and challengers who are already facing ferocious Democratic headwinds.

When told by several prominent Republicans at a dinner that the House is practically already lost, Trump repeatedly told the politicians “That’s not going to happen.”

As the Times points out, practically every modern president has lost seats in his first midterm election.

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Trump Mocks Paralympians At White House Reception

During a ceremony meant to honor U.S. Olympic and Paralympic athletes on Friday, Trump awkwardly told the press that he found the Paralympics “a little tough to watch” but he watched “as much as I could.”

The Paralympics organization took the high road reminding the president that billions of people, including myself, enjoy watching the games.

“Record numbers around the world are not finding @Paralympics tough to watch. Billions of viewers now take in the Paralympics in hundreds of countries around the world. We hope the US President continues to watch and be inspired by the Paralympics,” the organizers tweeted.

If you follow me on Twitter, you know I’m a big supporter and fan of the Paralympic Games.

I’m horrified that Trump could sink this low.

It seems I’m not alone.

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MSNBC’s Joy Reid Issues Apology Over “Hurtful” Old LGBT Blog Posts From Late 2000s


 MSNBC’s Joy Reid took time this morning on her show to address the ongoing debacle of whether she did or did not write homophobic/transphobic comments on her now-defunct blog during the mid-to-late 2000s.

The old posts were brought to light in December and at the time, Reid apologized for the content.

But then new posts were found by a social media adversary, and Reid told the press she didn’t remember writing these new findings.

She hired a cybersecurity expert to explore if a hacker had modified and added content. But the expert hasn’t been able to prove that theory.

So today Reid offered a flat-out unqualified apology.

“I’ve not been exempt from being dumb or cruel or hurtful to the very people I want to advocate for. I own that. I get it. And for that I am truly, truly sorry.”

“I genuinely do not believe I wrote those hateful things … But I can definitely understand, based on things I have tweeted and have written in the past, why some people don’t believe me.”

Reid brings up the fact that the country is in a different place than it was ten or twelve years ago. And it’s true.

People and attitudes do change. I’ve seen that from my perch here at The Randy Report.

In owning the transphobic and homophobic comments – comments I’ve heard many in the gay lesbian community make as well – she seems to come with a true apology.

I believe her, I accept her apology.

She is not our enemy. We have much bigger issues to address today.

Thank you, Joy Reid. Apology accepted.

Forward.

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San Diego’s First LGBT-Affirming Senior Housing Community Opens

From San Diego’s KPBS:

The North Park Senior Apartments were created in partnership with the San Diego LGBT Community Center. Inside, they have an office to help connect residents with nearby resources.

“You’re always represented by the center as well as our apartment complex,” said Paul Stewart who lives in one of the new units. “To make sure that both sides of whatever is happening or needs to be addressed is heard.”

Developers said this is the first affordable senior housing community designed to support LGBT seniors.

The complex has 75 total units. Rents range from $740 for a studio to $1,150 for a two-bedroom apartment. Stewart moved to the complex from another apartment in North Park.

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California: Homophobic Attack At Siena Restaurant In Newport Beach

The man above is wanted by police for possible battery charges

Another homophobic attack, this time in Newport Beach, California, where three men say they were assaulted and ejected from an Italian restaurant while being called gay slurs.

From The Orange County Register:

In their lawsuit filed in Orange County Superior Court this week, Angel Bonilla, Colton Moyer and Clement Serafin say they were visiting Balboa Island on April 13 when they decided to stop by Siena Restaurant inside the Balboa Inn for dinner.

The trio was immediately met with hostility from a woman working behind the bar, who “demanded that (the men) show their respective identification cards because she wanted to create a ruse for refusing to serve them when her real motive was to not serve gay men,” according to the suit.

The men said they were not under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

After viewing Serafin’s identification card, the bartender proclaimed that it was fake and then handed it to a person sitting at the bar, apparently a patron, who examined it and “commented loudly that it was ‘definitely a fake,’” the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit says Serafin’s identification card is not fake and that he is in his mid-30s.

“This was done with the specific intent to cause humiliation and mental suffering … because they are gay and because Bonilla is Hispanic,” the suit says.

Some of the incident was caught on cellphone video below.

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Bill Cosby’s “Barbecue Sauce”

In light of yesterday’s 3 guilty verdicts in the Bill Cosby sexual assault case, you could say this clip from the 1980s Cosby Show didn’t age well.

Back then, Cosby called it “barbecue sauce…”

(h/t Boy Culture)

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Several Prominent Winter Olympians Won’t Be At White House Reception Today

Gus Kenworthy & Adam Rippon at Opening Ceremonies of 2018 Winter Olympics

The White House will host members of the 2018 U.S. Winter Olympic and Paralympic teams this morning but several of the bigger names from this years’ Games won’t be in attendance.

From USA Today:

Lindsey Vonn won’t be there. Neither will opening ceremony flag bearer Erin Hamlin, or Adam Rippon, or almost all of his figure skating colleagues, or Chloe Kim, or Gus Kenworthy, or Jessie Diggins, or David Wise.

Some, like Vonn, Rippon and Kenworthy in particular, have made it clear they are skipping the U.S. Olympic Committee’s White House visit because they do not want to stand with the controversial Trump, who, among other things, bragged about sexually assaulting women in a video released during the 2016 presidential campaign, mocked a disabled person during the campaign and called some white supremacists “very fine people” after the deadly Charlottesville rally.

Others have just said they are going to be, um, busy.

Rippon has a full schedule with Dancing with the Stars rehearsals even as he’s touring with “Stars On Ice.”

But it was a foregone conclusion neither he nor Kenworthy would be attending today.

Rippon told USA Today:

“I have been invited to so many incredible things, to the Human Rights Campaign dinner, the GLAAD Media Awards. I was so honored and so excited to go to those, more so than I would be to go to the White House. I feel like it was more important for me to go to those events because it’s a cause that I really believe in, it’s a message that I believe in. It’s important for me to align myself with those people who have the same ideals that I have.”

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ABBA Reunites For First New Music Since 1982

Abba

So, this is pretty much what gay Christmas looks like!

Celebrate as the news arrives that 80s superband Abba has reunited and recorded new music – their first since breaking up in 1982.

But wait – there’s more!

From The Guardian:

The Swedish four-piece, who had nine No 1 hits in the UK between 1974 and 1980, and who have sold hundreds of millions of records worldwide, announced on Instagram that they had recorded two new songs for a project in which avatars of the band will perform.

The band said in a statement: “The decision to go ahead with the exciting Abba avatar tour project had an unexpected consequence. We all felt that, after some 35 years, it could be fun to join forces again and go into the recording studio. So we did. And it was like time had stood still and we had only been away on a short holiday. An extremely joyful experience!”

One of the two new songs that resulted, called I Still Have Faith in You, will feature in a TV special to air in December.

The statement concluded: “We may have come of age, but the song is new. And it feels good.”

A post shared by @ abbaofficial on Apr 27, 2018 at 4:11am PDT

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Russian Lawyer Who Met With Trump Jr. Admits She’s Kremlin Informant

Donald Trump Jr.

The allegations for a year and a half have been that someone from the Trump campaign met or coordinated with Russian actors connected with the Kremlin.

Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, who met with Donald Trump Jr. at Trump Tower offering dirt on Hillary Clinton during the campaign, now admits she is a top Kremlin informant.

There’s your “there.”

From The New York Times:

The Russian lawyer who met with Trump campaign officials in Trump Tower in June 2016 on the premise that she would deliver damaging information about Hillary Clinton has long insisted she is a private attorney, not a Kremlin operative trying to meddle in the presidential election.

But newly released emails show that in at least one instance two years earlier, the lawyer, Natalia V. Veselnitskaya, worked hand in glove with Russia’s chief legal office to thwart a Justice Department civil fraud case against a well-connected Russian firm.

Ms. Veselnitskaya also appears to have recanted her earlier denials of Russian government ties. During an interview to be broadcast Friday by NBC News, she acknowledged that she was not merely a private lawyer but a source of information for a top Kremlin official, Yuri Y. Chaika, the prosecutor general. “I am a lawyer, and I am an informant,” she said. “Since 2013, I have been actively communicating with the office of the Russian prosecutor general.”