(Via Stephen Amell’s Instagram) Some news items you might have missed: • KIT212: Kenneth wonders as to how much ‘seasonal sentiment’ is really attached to some InstaHunky posts like the above pic from Arrow star Stephen Amell? • Boy Culture: Matt Rettenmund’s list of his ‘Top 50 Sitcoms’ is pure gold – I especially agree with his Top 10. • The Tonight Show: Jimmy Fallon and Andrew Rannells recap the year 2020 through Broadway songs like “Defying Gravity” from Wicked, “Memory” from Cats, and “My Shot” from Hamilton.
• Orlando Sentinel: Florida man coughed, sneezed, spit throughout a Best Buy after refusing mask. He told the police he’s “been going through a lot this year and got carried away.” • World Of Wonder: Porn performer Reno Gold donated a week’s worth of his online earnings – over $27,000 – to the Elton John AIDS Foundation, which is awesome. p.s. if you do the math, Reno makes over $1 million a year, so, wow… • Instagram: A 21-year-old fashion/lifestyle photographer in Mexico City shared the emotional moment he told his mother he was marrying his boyfriend and his religious mother denounced him for being gay. The video quickly went viral. “The day I die you are gonna be the one who kills me because I’m always thinking about all the stuff you’ve done wrong,” she told him. “You do wrong. You sin. Think really hard about what you’re doing. Think about it and don’t sin for Satan.”
First, there was the wave of coronavirus infections among White House staffers and aides. Then, Donald Trump tweeted that his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has been diagnosed as COVID-19 positive. Today, we hear another Team Trump lawyer, Jenna Ellis, has also tested positive for the virus. From Axios:
President Trump’s lawyer Jenna Ellis has informed associates she tested positive for the coronavirus, multiple sources tell Axios, stirring West Wing fears after she attended a senior staff Christmas party on Friday.
Driving the news: There are concerns about the potential for another White House superspreader event, though it was unclear whether Ellis posed a risk when she attended. Ellis declined to confirm the diagnosis to Axios.
Ellis showed up to the White House senior staff party in the East Wing on Friday as the guest of Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro and was not seen wearing a mask, according to sources who attended the indoor event.
So many folks in Trump’s camp getting diagnosed – it’s almost as though they are doing something wrong…?
Breaking Axios: Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis has informed associates she has coronavirus, multiple sources tell Axios. https://t.co/2J5R1tdNGp
Trump administration officials passed when Pfizer offered in late summer to sell the U.S. government additional doses of its Covid-19 vaccine, according to people familiar with the matter.
Now Pfizer may not be able to provide more of its vaccine to the United States until next June because of its commitments to other countries, they said.
As the administration scrambles to try to purchase more doses of the vaccine, President Trump plans on Tuesday to sign an executive order “to ensure that United States government prioritizes getting the vaccine to American citizens before sending it to other nations,” according to a draft statement and a White House official, though it was not immediately clear what force the president’s executive order would carry.
As I understand it, Pfizer has a contract with the U.S. to deliver 100 million doses. Any more would be a new order. And, as Pfizer wasn’t part of Operation Warp Speed and received no federal funds for research and development, the company isn’t beholden to the U.S. In related news, the CEOs of vaccine makers Pfizer and Moderna have declined an invitation to attend a “vaccine summit” (read that as “photo opp – victory lap”) at the White House tomorrow.
BREAKING—Trump WH was offered to order more than 100 mil Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine doses (for 50 mil people), but WH **declined to order more**. EU 🇪🇺 ordered 200 mil instead. Now back orders means 🇺🇸 can’t order any more Pfizer #COVID19 vaccine until June!! https://t.co/UvlPUNo0Fq
Bad enough they allowed the virus to spread out of control. Now we learn that when Pfizer offered in late summer to sell U.S. more doses of its vaccine, Trumpers said no. Now Pfizer may not be able provide more until next June because of its commitments to other countries. Argh!
Rudy Giuliani at Trump press conference (screen capture) Donald Trump announced today via Twitter that his lawyer, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, has tested positive for COVID-19. From the New York Times:
Mr. Giuliani was at Georgetown University Medical Center, according to a person who was aware of his condition but not authorized to speak publicly. Mr. Giuliani, at age 76, is in the high-risk category for the virus.
Mr. Giuliani has repeatedly been exposed to the virus through contact with infected people, including during Mr. Trump’s preparation for his first debate against President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. in September, just before the president tested positive, as well as when he appeared with his son, Andrew, at a news conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters about two weeks ago.
Andrew Giuliani, who works as an aide in the White House, said on Nov. 20 that he had tested positive, days after Donald Trump Jr. did.
.@RudyGiuliani, by far the greatest mayor in the history of NYC, and who has been working tirelessly exposing the most corrupt election (by far!) in the history of the USA, has tested positive for the China Virus. Get better soon Rudy, we will carry on!!!
Some news items you might have missed: • Edge Media: A new report published by the Washington Post suggests that President-elect Joe Biden may have won the 2020 election because of higher LGBTQ voter turnout. • Pew Research: A new poll shows 60% of American adults say they will get vaccinated for the coronavirus, up from 51% in September. • CNBC: Sidney Powell, who has already been booted from the Trump legal team, asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit to order Georgia officials to “preserve all data on the Dominion System” and allow “Republican Electors to audit” that system in 10 counties. Finding it has no jurisdiction to hear the appeal, the 11th Circuit Court sent the Kraken lawsuit back to its cage in the District Court.
Breaking: A federal appellate court has rejected Sidney Powell and Lin Wood’s appeal in the so-called Kraken case filed in Georgia. https://t.co/atqc5WIrNJ
• Nevada Independent: A Carson City District Court judge rejected a legal request to award the state’s six electoral votes to Donald Trump. Judge James Russell ruled that he found the evidence offered by the Trump campaign to have “little to no value,” and failed to provide under any standard of proof that the campaign’s long list of alleged fraud and vote irregularities could be backed up under any evidentiary standard. • Detroit Free Press: Team Trump also lost in Michigan today as well. The court chastised the campaign for dragging its feet on the appeal, said the certification of Michigan’s election results by the Board of State Canvassers in the interim had made the lawsuit moot, and said that if the Trump campaign wanted to challenge the results it could have requested a recount, but it did not. • WXKY Radio: New York Young Republicans hoped to keep the New Jersey location of their annual fundraiser a secret but were outed by folks tweeting from the party. Jersey City chief prosecutor Jake Hudnut responded to a tweet by an attendee taunting New York Gov. Cuomo to “come and get me” by tweeting “Gov. Cuomo may not be able to ‘come and get’ you, but I can.”
Bremen Menelli (via Instagram) Some news items you might have missed: • InstaHunks: Bremen Menelli (above) proves that being fully clothed can be sexy, too. Follow him on Instagram here. • OUT: Noted lesbian-centric website AfterEllen, which has become a bastion for TERFs (trans-exclusionary radical feminists), has disappeared from the interwebs. • White House: In the final World AIDS Day proclamation of his presidency, Donald Trump made no mention of the disease’s impact on LGBTQ people who make up 69% of all HIV cases in the U.S. • Washington Blade: White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany falsely said Wednesday that Donald Trump was the first to adorn the White House with a red ribbon commemorating World AIDS Day, dodging a question from the Washington Blade on why he omitted any reference to LGBTQ people from his proclamation. Both former President Obama and former President George W. Bush hung red ribbons on the White House during their administrations to mark World AIDS Day.
Huh. @PressSec said the “president honored World Aids Day yesterday in a way no president has before with the red ribbon there [on the WH].” And yet….that’s clearly been done before. Here’s 2012. pic.twitter.com/LvN90u3F6D
• Washington Post: 69-year-old Craig Buescher was in good health and believed the virus wouldn’t be that bad if he came down with it. While he doesn’t know how he ultimately contracted the virus, it was, in fact, quite bad. Nine days in the hospital, as he struggled to breathe, convinced him that not only did he need to be more careful to avoid the virus, but also that he should persuade others to do the same. • Politico: Donald Trump’s own Attorney General, William Barr, has publicly affirmed that there was no evidence of large-scale fraud during this year’s election. “To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election,” Barr said, according to the AP. • New York Times: Donald Trump has discussed with advisers whether to grant pre-emptive pardons to his children, to his son-in-law, and to his personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, and talked with Mr. Giuliani about pardoning him as recently as last week. • Instinct Magazine: After fifteen years and over one hundred Real Housewives, the city that started it all has given the franchise their first out lesbian Housewife. Real Housewives of Orange County Braunwyn Windham-Burke has come out as a lesbian, proclaiming proudly “it feels so good to be living my truth.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci told reporters on Tuesday that ‘herd immunity’ to the coronavirus could be attained in the U.S. by the end of summer 2021 if a large majority of Americans are vaccinated. From The Hill:
In a Tuesday news conference with Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D), Fauci predicted that high-risk groups of Americans, as well as health care workers and some others, could begin to be vaccinated beginning this month, with inoculations continuing through March.
The National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases director predicted that “the general population” will begin being vaccinated in April.
He later added that if the U.S. has a “good uptake” for the vaccine, the country could have the “overwhelming majority of people” vaccinated by the end of the second quarter in the U.S.
(image via Instagram) Some news items you might have missed: • New York Post: Proving that love is blind, and sometimes kooky, a bodybuilder from Kazakhstan (above) has tied the knot with his dearly beloved — a sex doll he dated for eight months before proposing a year ago. • Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin’s elections board confirmed Joe Biden’s victory in the state Monday verifying Biden’s win of about 20,700 votes a day after the completion of a partial recount that found dozens of more votes for Biden. • Media Matters: Conservative pundit Ben Shapiro complained on his daily webcast today that Hulu made the holiday romantic comedy, Happiest Season, featuring a lesbian couple. “Conservatives are going to have to get into the business of actually making entertainment because the left has decided that all entertainment is now to be ‘woke.’ All of it. Right?” No, Ben, there are dozens of holiday rom-coms made every year – only 4 this year are LGBTQ-themed. And that’s, like, a new record.
• Washington Post: Anthony S. Fauci and other experts urged Americans to take aggressive action as the December holidays loom to mitigate the surge overwhelming hospitals across the country. As the number of coronavirus-related deaths per day rose to its highest point since April, Fauci and others highlighted the importance of complying with mask mandates and physical distancing. • CNN: Dr. Scott Atlas, who doubted face masks, pushed ‘herd immunity’, and had no background in infectious diseases, has resigned from Donald Trump’s coronavirus task force. • NBC Out: Orange Is the New Black star and LGBTQ advocate Laverne Cox took to Instagram on Saturday to share that she and her friend were the victims of a transphobic attack that has left her “in shock.”
(stock image of a nurse working in a hospital) An oncology nurse who works at a hospital in Salem, Oregon, took to TikTok recently to brag about how she doesn’t follow coronavirus guidelines outside of work. The clip used audio of screaming in a scene from ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas.’ “When my co-workers find out I still travel, don’t wear a mask when I’m out and let my kids have play dates,” the nurse wrote in the video’s caption. The clip has since been deleted, but others have shared a ‘duet’ version of the video posted by a TikTok user who captioned their own video, “To each their own, but why would you brag about it to others?” That post has garnered over 287K responses as of this writing. The Washington Post reports the oncology nurse has been placed on administrative leave in light of her video.
In a statement, the hospital said the nurse, who has not been publicly identified by her employer, “displayed cavalier disregard for the seriousness of this pandemic and her indifference towards physical distancing and masking out of work.”
“We also want to assure you that this one careless statement does not reflect the position of Salem Health or the hardworking and dedicated caregivers who work here,” said the hospital, adding that an investigation is underway.
