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Amid Sexual Misconduct Rumors, Rep. John Conyers To Step Down From Dem Leadership Role

Rep. John Conyers

From the New York Times:

Representative John Conyers Jr., the House’s longest-serving lawmaker, is stepping aside as the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee amid an investigation into allegations that he sexually harassed former aides.

“After careful consideration and in light of the attention drawn by recent allegations made against me,” Mr. Conyers said in a statement on Sunday, he is stepping aside on the Judiciary panel “during the investigation of these matters.”

The announcement came five days after the revelation that Mr. Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, had settled a complaint in 2015 by a former employee who had said she was fired because she rejected his sexual advances. The House Ethics Committee has opened an investigation into the matter.

“I deny these allegations, many of which were raised by documents reportedly paid for by a partisan alt-right blogger,” Mr. Conyers said in the statement. “I very much look forward to vindicating myself and my family before the House Committee on Ethics.”

Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press” this morning, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said Conyers deserved “due process” and advised she believed he would “do the right thing.”

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News Round-Up: November 25, 2017

Nyle DiMarco (via Instagram)

Some news items you may have missed:

• ICYMI, Dancing with the Stars/America’s Next Top Model champ Nyle DiMarco served up quite the Thanksgiving meal, but I’m not sure which meat Instagram fans were checking out…

• Four Democratic U.S. senators have introduced the LGBT Elder Americans Act, which seeks to expand services for LGBT seniors. The legislation would designate LGBT seniors as a vulnerable population as well as establish the National Resource on LGBT Aging.

• Authorities estimate that a record 10,000 shiny, happy LGBTs and allies marched in this year’s Hong Kong Pride parade.

• Transgender healthcare facts: 31% of transgender Americans lack access to regular healthcare. 22% of transgender American avoid doctors out of fear of discrimination.

• This Reddit user tells the world he hooked up with a “10,” and since he sees himself as a “6” he couldn’t handle it. I remember experiencing this myself once. Read his story here.

• A new docu-series coming to HBO, 15: A Quinceañera Story, follows five Latina girls from different backgrounds as they celebrate their 15th birthdays. The first segment chronicles the story of Zoey, a transgender girl, who lives in Los Angeles and dedicates her Quinceañera to her trans-godmothers, who never got to have one of their own.

Premieres December 19 on HBO. Watch the trailer below.

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Trump Tangles With Twitter Over TIME Magazine’s “Man Of The Year”

Fake TIME Magazine cover Trump hung in his golf clubs

Friday evening, Donald Trump stirred the Twitter pot by announcing “Time Magazine called to say that I was PROBABLY going to be named “Man (Person) of the Year,” like last year, but I would have to agree to an interview and a major photo shoot. I said probably is no good and took a pass. Thanks anyway!”

Of all things, TIME Magazine trolled back saying that’s not how it works:

Of course, if you really want to know why a TIME Magazine cover is important to Trump, perhaps this is a clue:

And then the Twitterverse simply had to join in:

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Holiday Instahunk Round-Up

Matthew Camp via Instagram

Some woofy eye-candy for your holiday weekend. The above pic is probably the most tame snap you’ll ever see of Matthew Camp.

And I had to include this post from Randy Report favorite Alex Abramov with his hunky other half:

Alex’s other half, Brett, had a different view of the situation:

A post shared by Steve Raider (@steve_raider) on Nov 19, 2017 at 2:30am PST
A post shared by Pietro Boselli (@pietroboselli) on Nov 24, 2017 at 3:16am PST
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Trump Tweets: I’ll Play Golf (Quickly) Before Getting To Work Today

Donald Trump

It looks like Donald Trump is getting a bit defensive about the inordinate amount of golf he plays.

In an early morning tweet today, the Donald wrote,”After Turkey call I will be heading over to Trump National Golf Club, Jupiter, to play golf (quickly) with Tiger Woods and Dustin Johnson. Then back to Mar-a-Lago for talks on bringing even more jobs and companies back to the USA!”

Today is the third day in row that Trump has spent on the golf course and his 101st at a Trump property since taking office.

You’ll note that Trump also gets a mention in for his golf club there.

As I’ve said many times before, I have no problem with a president playing golf.

But Trump was extremely critical of Barack Obama for playing golf during his administration. He also made a point to say there would “be no time for golf” during his time in the White House as he would be so busy fixing the country.

All of that makes him fair game to note his current golf activities.

Here’s just a handful of examples of Trump’s critical golf tweets:

Click image to enlarge
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Romanian Same-Sex Marriage Case Could Affect Several European Union Countries

Within the European Union, 13 countries currently recognize same-sex marriage, 9 additional nations offer civil unions or a similar legal status but 6 countries have no legal recognition of same-sex couples.

That could change soon as the European Union’s highest court is looking at a case brought by a Romanian man’s desire to live in his home country with his husband of 7 years.

One of the fundamental principles of the EU is to provide the citizens of the bloc’s member states and their family members the right to move and freely reside across the region, subject to certain conditions.

But when Adrian Coman and his American husband, Claibourn Robert Hamilton, sought to move to Coman’s home country of Romania, the authorities there refused to recognize their relationship in regards to legal residency for Hamilton.

Should the court rule in their favor, it could effectively force Romania and the other five non-marriage-equality nations residency and working rights as long as one member of the couple is a citizen of a European Union country.

In a country of 20 million Romanians, 3 million signed a 2016 petition calling for the constitutional definition of marriage to be defined as between “one man, one woman.” A referendum on the issue could be held as soon as next year.

So this decision by the high court will be especially timely.

Stay tuned.

(source)