L-R Donald Trump, Carl Bernstein Legendary Washington, D.C. journalist Carl Bernstein has publicly named 21 Republican Senators who he says have expressed their ‘extreme contempt for [Donald] Trump and his fitness to be POTUS.’ Bernstein, who was one of the two reporters who broke the Nixon Watergate scandal, declares in his tweets he’s ‘not violating any pledge of journalistic confidentially’ in sharing the names.
I’m not violating any pledge of journalistic confidentially in reporting this: 21 Republican Sens–in convos w/ colleagues, staff members, lobbyists, W. House aides–have repeatedly expressed extreme contempt for Trump & his fitness to be POTUS. (1/3)
With few exceptions, their craven public silence has helped enable Trump’s most grievous conduct—including undermining and discrediting the US the electoral system. More from my appearance earlier on @cnn: https://t.co/c1jZXMR0Pv (3/3)
The New York Daily News reports a Trump supporter, Raymond Deskins, 61, who got in the face of a protester and ‘forcefully exhaled’ without a face mask has been arrested and charged with misdemeanor assault after a private citizen obtained a warrant through a county magistrate. The incident occurred near the entrance to Trump National Golf Club in Virginia on Saturday. As the alleged assault wasn’t witnessed by law enforcement, the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office told the victim they’d have to apply for a warrant through a county magistrate. And they did. Why do Trumpers have to act like this? It’s just childish.
Trump supporter forcefully exhaling without a mask on a protester outside the Trump National Golf Club, Nov. 21, 2020 pic.twitter.com/Bq2mMH1At0
Chris Hemsworth (via Instagram) Some news items you might have missed: • InstaHunks: Avengers/Thor star Chris Hemsworth (above) helped himself to an ‘extra large donut’ prompting his Marvel co-star Chris Pratt to implore him to “stop working out” because Pratt’s trainer said, “Since we’re gonna be in the same movie and everything, he doesn’t want me to stand next to you if you look like that…” LOL • Gay Star News: The Czech Republic’s new coronavirus rules allow ‘traditional’ weddings with up to 15 guests. However registered partnerships – which have been legal for same-sex couples since 2006 – can only go ahead if they are ‘urgent.’ • NY Times: Donald Trump’s campaign on Sunday disavowed Sidney Powell, one of his lawyers, after she made wild accusations of Republican governors being involved in a payoff scheme to manipulate voting machines. In an interview with NewsMax, she said, “Georgia’s probably going to be the first state I’m going to blow up.” • CNN: A Nevada district judge on Friday denied a request brought by a conservative activist to halt the certification next week of the state’s election results that show President-elect Joe Biden leading in Nevada by more than 33,000 votes. The case was filed by conservative activist Sharron Angle and her organization, the Election Integrity Project, against Nevada’s Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske — the only Republican statewide officeholder. • Fox5Vegas: Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak implemented a “statewide pause” in order to help mitigation efforts against the spread of COVID-19, a move that will not shutdown the economy, but will tighten mask requirements and reduce capacity limits. New regulations include required masks for Nevadans “at all times” (indoor and outdoor) and 25% capacity for public gatherings. • NY Post: Actor Ricky Schroder helped get Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse out of jail on a $2 million bond Friday in exchange for securing the rights to a movie about the teen shooter. Rittenhouse is charged with shooting and killing Anthony Huber, 26, and Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and wounding a third man while with a militia group during protests of the police shooting of Jacob Blake.
BREAKING: I just spoke to the publicist for #RickySchroder who told me that the Actor/Director did assist in fundraising to help free Kyle Rittenhouse contingent on rights to his story (aka documentary)
Joel Burns today and in 2010 as he gave his ‘It Gets Better’ speech (screen captures) Taking part in the ’10 Years Better’ series from the It Gets Better Project, former Fort Worth City Councilman Joel Burns revisits the viral video of his city council meeting speech in October 2010 where he shared aspects of his young gay life and spoke out about LGBTQ bullying. The new series features celebrities and everyday people who recorded It Gets Better videos early on, rewatching and reacting to their video. Host Emile Ennis Jr. speaks with guests about their life since — how it’s gotten better/evolved, and their message today for LGBTQ+ youth. After video footage of his 2010 city council speech went viral, Burns found himself in the national spotlight regarding LGBTQ bullying and teen suicide. Burns says he’s “still wowed that these few minutes have had this lasting impact some ten years later.” As someone who grew up in Fort Worth, watching the speech – by the first man who had run for office as an openly gay man – had a powerful and very personal impact on me.
The morning of the city council meeting Burns read of 19-year-old Zach Harrington taking his own life in nearby Norman, Oklahoma, due to homophobic bullying. Burns used his announcement time during that meeting to share some of his own coming out story (including being bullied in high school) and then segued to the growing epidemic of suicides by young LGBTQ people. The 4-term city councilman’s prepared remarks originally included his own history with having had suicidal thoughts, but as he shares with Ennis Jr. in the video below, he stopped himself. “I realized, oh my god, my parents are probably watching this right now and I never told them I thought about committing suicide.” While Burns was still in that council meeting, news outlets began reporting on his story. Former Fort Worth city councilman Joel Burns (screen capture) In the following days, he remembers thinking maybe 300 people might see the video. Then, the numbers climbed to 3,000, then 30,000, then 300,000 and eventually garnered over 3.1 million views on YouTube. Burns says he received over 20,000 emails regarding the speech and countless letters. One letter was addressed simply to ‘Joel Burns, Fort Worth. Inside was a note on a torn piece of paper. “This is what remains of the letter I wrote for my roommate to find with my body,” remembers Burns. “I happened upon your speech and I decided to burn the rest of it.” “It’s a reminder that there’s a lot of pain experienced by people all over the world. And they need reminders like the It Gets Better Project gives them that things will, indeed, get a lot better.” The It Gets Better Project began as a viral social media movement in 2010 and has grown to an organization with global affiliates across 17 countries and 4 continents.
Former NJ Gov. Chris Christie (screen capture) Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie told ABC News’s George Stephanopolous today that after dozens of failed legal challenges in court, Donald Trump should stop trying to delay the obvious results of the 2020 presidential election. “I have been a supporter of the president. I voted for him twice, but elections have consequences and we cannot continue to act as if something happened here that didn’t happen.” The former Trump ally added that the president’s legal team has become a ‘national embarrassment.’ “Quite frankly, the conduct of the President’s legal team has been a national embarrassment,” said Christie on ABC. “They allege fraud outside the courtroom, but when they go inside the courtroom, they don’t plead fraud and they don’t argue fraud.”
“Yes,” Chris Christie tells @GStephanopoulos when asked if it’s time for President Trump to stop challenging the 2020 election results, adding that the president’s legal team has been a “national embarrassment.” https://t.co/9HKDetYpa5pic.twitter.com/zuGivUyqYo
In this episode of The Randy Report podcast, I chat with award-winning author and artist Mike Curato, who recently released his debut YA graphic novel, FLAMER, a coming-of-age story that confronts ideas of homophobia, bullying, body image and coming to terms with identity in every sense of the word. Curato’s YA graphic novel follows 14-year-old Aiden Navarro who navigates friendships, deals with bullies, and spends time with Elias (a boy he can’t stop thinking about), as he finds himself on a path of self-discovery and acceptance. Unfolding over the course of the last week of Boy Scout camp in 1995, Aiden’s story is heavily inspired by Mike’s own experience as a Boy Scout (and eventual Eagle Scout) and his coming out as a teenager. Author & Illustrator Mike CuratoThe Hollywood Reporter called FLAMER “the kind of book that might change its reader’s lives.” I grew up as an avid fan of comic books, and I can see why graphic novels have become the grown-up version of that visual medium. I really enjoyed not only Mike’s prose but his illustrations which are clever and powerfully evocative in their own right as a part of the storytelling. If you haven’t checked out graphic novels lately – this is the one! FLAMER is available on Amazon here, and at Bookshop.org here.
Donald Trump (via Axios – screen capture) A federal judge has thrown out the Trump campaign’s lawsuit in Pennsylvania hoping to stop the certification of ballots there likening Team Trump’s arguments to Frankenstein’s monster, saying it appeared “haphazardly stitched together.” From the New York Times:
A federal judge in Pennsylvania dismissed on Saturday night a lawsuit by the Trump campaign that had claimed there were widespread improprieties with mail-in ballots in the state, ending the last major effort to delay the certification of Pennsylvania’s vote results, which is scheduled to take place Monday.
In a scathing order, Judge Matthew W. Brann wrote that Mr. Trump’s campaign, which had asked him to effectively disenfranchise nearly seven million voters, should have come to court “armed with compelling legal arguments and factual proof of rampant corruption” in its efforts to essentially nullify the results of Pennsylvania’s election.
But instead, Judge Brann complained, the Trump campaign provided only “strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations” that were “unsupported by evidence.”
BREAKING: Federal judge dismisses Trump campaign's last lawsuit seeking to delay certification of Pennsylvania's election results. pic.twitter.com/oYi0wLHQUe
"This Court has been presented with … speculative accusation … unsupported by evidence. In the United States of America, this cannot justify the disenfranchisement of a single voter, let alone all the voters of its sixth most populated state."
"Plaintiffs’ only remaining claim alleges a violation of equal protection. This claim, like Frankenstein’s Monster, has been haphazardly stitched together from two distinct theories in an attempt to avoid controlling precedent."
The United States recorded more than 192,805 new cases of the coronavirus on Friday. More than 82,000 people were hospitalized, according to the COVID Tracking Project, topping Thursday’s record. From the New York Times:
As the nation reconsiders the usual winter holiday travel and cozy indoor gatherings, new cases are being reported at an unrelenting clip. The seven-day average has exceeded 100,000 cases a day every day for the last two weeks, according to a New York Times database.
Deaths are higher than normal in all 50 states.
The latest virus surge began accelerating across much of the country in mid-October. It took just over two weeks for the nation to go from eight million cases to nine million on Oct. 30; going from nine to 10 million took only 10 days. From 10 million to 11 million took just under seven days.
MSNBC’s Brian Williams (screen capture) MSNBC’s Brian Williams threw down some masterful deadpan shade last night at the end of his 11th Hour program after former newsman Geraldo Rivera suggested on Fox News that the upcoming coronavirus vaccines should be named after Donald Trump. Giving props to Trump as the ‘prime architect of Operation WarpSpeed,’ Rivera seems to think Trump the humanitarian scientist created the vaccine all by his little self. “You know, for my money, Geraldo raises a good point there,” begins Williams. “You know it’s possible we just don’t give the president enough credit for his FDR-like devotion to tackling this virus. His laser-like focus, his daily devotion, the sympathy he’s forever expressing to the families of the quarter-million dead.” Williams says all of this and more during a montage of Trump out on a golf course. Hit the play button.
Brian Williams throws deadpan shade: “What Trump Steaks did for the hungry, what Trump Water did for the thirsty in our nation, what Trump University did to lift up the uneducated in our country. Along comes Trump Vaccine. The possibilities are endless.” pic.twitter.com/nWkuAMjLUJ
Jim Newman (via Instagram) Some news items you might have missed: • InstaHunks: Let’s hear it for Broadway’s Jim Newman (above) who definitely knows how to find his light. Follow him on Instagram here. • CNN: Donald Trump told an ally that he knows he lost, but that he is delaying the transition process and is aggressively trying to sow doubt about the election results in order to get back at Democrats for questioning the legitimacy of his own election in 2016, especially with the Russia investigation. • HBO Max: The original series EQUAL pays tribute to the epic origin stories of the LGBTQ+ movement. The four-part docu-series captures the true backstories of the leaders and unsung heroes, pre-Stonewall, who changed the course of American history through their tireless activism. Each hour-long episode in the series plays like a thriller, bringing to life the high stakes and hard deadlines of historical events that have not yet been given their due. In honor of Transgender Day of Awareness, I want to highlight Episode 2 which focuses on the courageous pioneers of the trans movement. Check out the trailer for the series below.
• Out: Two Trump-appointed judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit today overturned a lower court ruling and struck down local ordinances prohibiting licensed therapists from practicing the debunked “conversion therapy” on minors. • Bloomberg: Donald Trump’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., tested positive for coronavirus earlier this week and is isolating. Junior recently downplayed the extent of the coronavirus outbreak that deaths are “almost nothing.” I guess this makes Junior “almost nothing.” • AP: Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger certified results reported by the state’s 159 counties that show Biden won the state by a margin of 12,670 votes.
Georgia’s top elections official has certified results showing Democrat Joe Biden won the presidential race in the state. https://t.co/hZ0eR6A7rx
