Politics, pop culture and entertainment news of interest to the LGBTQ community
A new report released by the Senate Judiciary Committee provides new details regarding Donald Trump’s push to have Justice Department officials overturn the 2020 election. Continue reading “Report Details Trump’s Push To Have DOJ Overturn Election”
Donald Trump is still attempting to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election. In a letter to Georgia’s top election official, Trump is asking – yet again – that the results be decertified and “the true winner” be announced. Continue reading “Trump Demands (Again) That Georgia ‘Decertify’ 2020 Election Results”
Some news items you might have missed:
• HuffPost: Apparently there are ads on porn sites suggesting men pour apple cider vinegar on their junk to increase size??? Do. Not. Do. This. Continue reading “News Round-Up: August 12, 2021”
Take a listen to this audio recording of Donald Trump rambling in an interview with reporters Carol Leonnig and Phil Rucker – the two authors of the new book, I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump’s Catastrophic Final Year.
Anderson Cooper played a full uninterrupted five minutes of the recording on his CNN show. At one point, Leonig asked ‘the former guy’ what it was he expected when he urged his followers to march up to the U.S. Capitol building on January 6 which became an unruly, violent riot.
From Alternet:
“We want to understand what did you want when you said ‘go up there’?” Leonnig says in the recording, referring to Trump saying that he was going to march with the crowd to the Capitol.
“I would have said that you will show — not to go in, although they were ushered in by the police. I mean, in all fairness, the Capitol Police were ushering people in. The Capitol Police were very friendly, hugging and kissing — you don’t see that, but there’s plenty of tape on that too, the Capitol Police, that’s the way it is. I wanted — personally, what I wanted is what they wanted. They showed up. Just to show support. Because I happen to believe the election was rigged. At a level like nothing has ever been rigged before. There’s tremendous proof. There’s tremendous proof. Statistically, it wasn’t even possible that he won. I mean, things such as in Ohio, Iowa, there’s never been a loss.”
“Did you need better lawyers because they took it to court—?” asked Rucker.
“I needed better judges. The Supreme Court was afraid to take it, don’t forget,” said Trump.
Read more at Alternet.
According to an excerpt from the new book by Michael Wolff, “Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency,” Donald Trump was reportedly exploring ways to postpone the 2020 election last summer.
From Yahoo News:
“People can’t get to the polls. It’s a national emergency. Right?” Trump was quoted as saying. Mark Meadows, then the White House chief of staff, stepped up to say that that was not a constitutional possibility, Wolff wrote.
But Trump seemed unconvinced. “I’m sure there might be a way, but … well …” he said, according to Wolff.
Trump again raised the idea a few days later at a debate-preparation session in Bedminster, New Jersey, with Chris Christie, according to Wolff.
“I’m thinking about calling it off,” Trump told Christie, the book says.
According to Wolff, Christie then told him, “You can’t do that, man,” adding: “You do know, you can’t declare martial law. You do know that, right?”
A spokesperson for Trump denied the stories via Twitter.
Trump was reportedly considering using the #COVID19 pandemic as an excuse to postpone the 2020 presidential election — once again showing how far in advance he was planning to disrupt the election to maintain his grip on power.
https://t.co/d6HPcMTsKU— Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D (@RVAwonk) July 7, 2021
The New York Times reports Donald Trump reached out to the top Republican in Phoenix twice via phone as his aides were attempting to overturn Arizona’s 2020 results, according to the official, who said he let the calls go to voice mail.
Clint Hickman, then the chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, said in an interview on Friday that he let the calls — made in late December and early January — go to voice mail and did not return them. “I told people, ‘Please don’t have the president call me,’” he said.
At the time, Mr. Hickman was being pressed by the state Republican Party chairwoman and Mr. Trump’s lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani to investigate claims of fraud in the county’s election, which Mr. Biden had won by about 45,000 votes.
The Arizona Republic obtained the records of the phone calls from Mr. Trump and Mr. Giuliani after a Freedom of Information Act request.
There were no significant irregularities in Maricopa’s vote tallies, according to election officials there who have repeatedly refuted Trump’s claims.
From The Hill:
A report from the GOP-controlled Michigan state Senate released Wednesday found no evidence of fraud in the 2020 election.
The report from the state Senate Oversight Committee affirmed that there was no evidence of fraud in the election.
“The Committee can confidently assert that it has been thorough in examination of numerous allegations of unlawful actions, improper procedures, fraud, vote theft, or any other description which would cause citizens to doubt the integrity of Michigan’s 2020 election results,” the committee wrote.
President Joe Biden beat Donald Trump by a margin of 154,188 votes (50.62%-47.84%).
Georgia’s Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, issued a statement today regarding former legal adviser to Donald Trump Sidney Powell who repeatedly claimed there was election fraud in the Peach State.
Among other things, Powell alleged without evidence that Dominion Voting Systems was part of a massive international communist plot to rig the election. Powell never presented any evidence to back up her claims.
In January, Dominion filed a $1.3 billion lawsuit against Powell over her conspiracy theories.
But this week, Powell’s legal team filed a statement in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia asking for the case to be dismissed saying “no reasonable person would conclude that [her] statements were truly statements of fact.”
The statement from Raffensperger, titled ‘The Kraken Cracks Under Pressure,’ states, “In the face of legal action, Sidney Powell admitted that her effort to make millions lying to the American people had no facts to begin with.”
In the court filing, Powell and her lawyers point to Dominion’s criticism that Powell’s claims were “wild accusations,” “outlandish claims,” “inherently improbable,” or “impossible” as evidence that “reasonable people would not accept such statements as fact but view them only as claims.”
Powell and her legal team now say that her claims about voter fraud, stolen elections, or switched votes were merely “her opinions and legal theories.”
It’s worth noting that Powell’s claims in the weeks following the 2020 election helped fuel belief that the election was ‘stolen’ which led to the violent insurrection of the U.S. Capitol building on January 6. Seven people died as a result of that event as well has dozens seriously injured.
Over 4,000 lawyers have signed an open letter calling for disciplinary action to be taken against Powell for her outrageous behavior following the 2020 election.
I'd like Sidney Powell to tell this to every single one of the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol on January 6th with intent to hang the Vice President and murder the Speaker of the House.
I'd like her to tell this to the families of the murdered Capitol Police officers. https://t.co/8AIOUvKh42
— Kurt Bardella (@kurtbardella) March 22, 2021
The Kraken was a crock. https://t.co/IBC6Ov4Udw
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) March 23, 2021
Trump supporters: Wait, it's all just shadows on the walls?
Sidney Powell: Always was.
— The Other Thoughts (@otherthoughts_0) March 22, 2021
Ugh. But the damage is already done. She led millions of people down a rabbit hole where it’s going to take several years to get our loved ones back to reality. She should NOT have a license to practice law.
— Brett Goodrich (@BEGoods_) March 23, 2021
Some news items you might have missed:
• TIME Magazine: Elliot Page tells TIME he knew he was a boy at 9-years-old and it took the pandemic for him to transition. The X-Men actor came out in December becoming one of the most high-profile trans people in America.
• NowThis News: A father with a transgender daughter shared his experience raising her in a powerful testimony against an anti-trans bill in Missouri. ‘As a parent, the one thing we cannot do — the one thing — is silence our child’s spirit.’
• NPR: Deb Haaland, a member of New Mexico’s Laguna Pueblo, has become the first Native American Cabinet secretary in U.S. history. The Senate voted 51-40 Monday to confirm the Democratic congresswoman to lead the Interior Department, an agency that will play a crucial role in the Biden administration’s efforts to combat climate change and conserve nature.
• Instinct Magazine: The new music video from Imagine Dragons – “Follow You” – is a veritable smorgasbord of shirtless hunks (presented in fantasy-mode) led by front man (and LGBTQ ally) Dan Reynolds.
• USA Today: U.S. intelligence officials say Russia and Iran attempted to influence and sway the 2020 elections by spreading “false or inflated claims about alleged compromises of voting systems to undermine public confidence in election processes and results.” Russia specifically focused on “denigrating” Joe Biden’s candidacy.
• HuffPost: After QAnon Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) called Guam, a U.S. territory a foreign nation in a recent speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Guam Del. Michael F.Q. San Nicolas paid a visit to Greene’s office accompanied by a group of National Guard members from Guam who delivered a gift basket of cookies. Guam has been a U.S. territory since 1899, and its residents have been American citizens since 1950. Greene later claimed she was being ‘harassed’ by the National Guard.
After QAnon terrorist Marjorie Greene stupidly called Guam a foreign land, Guam Rep. Michael F. Q. San Nicolas and members of the Guam National Guard paid the office she’s in a visit. Guam has been a US territory since 1898, its residents are US citizens.pic.twitter.com/Xj0BRES8HH
— Ricky Davila (@TheRickyDavila) March 16, 2021
A prosecutor in Georgia has taken steps to launch an investigation into Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the state’s presidential election results.
Election officials in the state have been asked to preserve documents (including phone call transcripts) related to “an investigation into attempts to influence the administration of the 2020 Georgia General Election.”
From the New York Times:
For two months after Joseph R. Biden Jr. was declared the winner, Mr. Trump relentlessly attacked election officials in Georgia, including Mr. Raffensperger and Mr. Kemp, claiming they were not doing enough to uncover instances of voting fraud that might change the outcome.
In addition to the phone call to Mr. Raffensperger, he also called Mr. Kemp in early December and pressured him to call a special legislative session to overturn his election loss. Later that month, Mr. Trump called a state investigator and pressed the official to “find the fraud,” according to those with knowledge of the call.
The inquiry makes Georgia the second state after New York where Mr. Trump faces a criminal investigation. And it comes in a jurisdiction where potential jurors are unlikely to be hospitable to the former president; Fulton County encompasses most of Atlanta and overwhelmingly supported President Biden in the November election.
This new investigation is in addition to a criminal fraud inquiry into Trump’s finances by the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., and a civil fraud inquiry by the New York attorney general.
The beginning of many more trials for Trump.
In wake of Trump calls to state officials, Georgia prosecutors open criminal investigation into efforts to subvert election results https://t.co/Wa8XwntpM4
— Michelangelo Signorile (@MSignorile) February 10, 2021