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News Round-Up: January 19, 2021

L-R Actor/model Nyle DiMarco and President-elect Joe Biden (image via Instagram)

Some news items you might have missed:

• Out: Model, actor, and activist Nyle DiMarco (above) has something in common with President-elect Joe Biden – they both have new gigs. The America’s Next Top Model champ is one of a group of stars to appear in V Magazine’s 2021 calendar.

• Mediaite: Turner Classic Movies has scheduled an “All Joe” Inauguration Day lineup of films to celebrate incoming President Joe Biden, while not-so-subtly trolling Trump. The lineup includes: Ode to Billy Joe (1976), Polo Joe (1936), The Fabulous Joe (1947), The Story of G.I. Joe (1945), Joe Smith, American (1942), A Guy Named Joe (1943), Pal Joey (1957) and Mighty Joe Young (1949).

• CBS News: Signaling a continued break with President Trump the day before he leaves office, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blamed Mr. Trump in part for the assault on the U.S. Capitol earlier this month, saying the pro-Trump mob that overran the building was “provoked by the president and other powerful people.”

• CNN: Donald Trump has reportedly been talked out of issuing presidential pardons for himself and his family as well as certain Republican lawmakers said to be nervous about their legal vulnerability for their part in the U.S. Capitol insurrection.

• The Hill: From Trump’s inauguration day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose from 19,827 to 30,930 on Tuesday, a 56 percent increase. That increase is below the 73.2 percent rise the Dow saw in Obama’s first term, or the 105.8 percent increase under Clinton’s first term. A similar trend was true for the S&P 500, which gained 67.8 percent under Trump. It gained 84.5 percent in Obama’s first term, and 79.2 percent in Clinton’s first term.

• LA Times: The 232-bed Vignes Street development has shattered the axiom that homeless housing takes years to build and is exorbitantly expensive. From start to finish in under five months and at a cost of about $200,000 per bed, it has shaved years and hundreds of thousands of dollars off a traditional homeless housing project.

• White House: Donald Trump issued a pre-recorded farewell address today. #ByeGurl

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News Round-Up: July 2, 2020

Some news items you might have missed:

• Instagram: If you don’t already, click over and follow @BigKidProblems (above) on the Gram of Insta….I like the way they think 🙂

• Christian Post: A professional photographer has filed a lawsuit against a new Virginia law that he says would force him to violate his sincerely held Christian beliefs by requiring him to provide his services to same-sex weddings.

• NBC News: The Trump administration is moving to repeal transgender protections in homeless shelters. If the proposal is implemented, transgender women could be placed in sex-segregated shelters for men.

• NY Times: U.S. payrolls grew by 4.8 million in June, according to the Labor Department. It was the second month of gains after a loss of more than 20 million in April when the pandemic put a large swath of economic activity on ice. The unemployment rate fell to 11.1 percent, down from a peak of 14.7 percent in April but still higher than in any previous period since World War II.

(image via NY Times)

• American Journal of Managed Care: A new study of nearly 78,000 HIV+ people diagnosed with coronavirus indicates that antiretroviral therapy (ART) medications may reduce a person’s risk of getting coronavirus and/or reduce the severity of the disease should they contract it.

• Hollywood Reporter: Hugh Downs, the congenial broadcaster whose thousands of hours on network television included two decades on the ABC’s  20/20 and 9 years as the host of NBC’s Today Show, has died. He was 99. Downs also hosted the game show Concentration for nearly a decade as well as five years as announcer and side-kick to Jack Paar on The Tonight Show.

• Reuters: Democrat Joe Biden edged out Republican Donald Trump in fundraising for a second straight month in June, according to reports from the rival U.S. presidential campaigns. Biden and allied Democratic groups raked in over $141 million during the month, while Donald Trump and closely tied groups hauled $131 million.

• Karen Chronicles: A Costco customer refused to wear a face mask while returning an item. So she staged a sit-in.

For perspective, the second video shows you how a Black man was treated when he refused to wear a face mask. Please note the difference in how the two were treated.

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Alaska: Organization Sues To Deny Shelter To Trans Women In Freezing Temperatues

Virulently anti-LGBTQ legal group, Alliance Defending Freedom, is representing a ‘Christian’ women’s shelter that is suing to deny transgender women shelter from the freezing winter cold.
(image via Depositphotos)

Virulently anti-LGBTQ legal group, Alliance Defending Freedom, is representing a ‘Christian’ women’s shelter that is suing to deny transgender women shelter from the freezing winter cold.

The conservative law firm, which represented Colorado baker Jack Phillips in his fight to deny services to gay people, has filed a lawsuit on behalf of the ironically named Downtown Hope Center against the city of Anchorage, Alaska, to deny services to transgender women.

The issue arises from an incident that occurred in January 2018, when a transgender woman was turned away from the shelter, according to local news station KTUU.

Downtown Hope Center says the woman, identified in court papers as “Jessie Doe,” was denied shelter because she was allegedly inebriated. The shelter claims she was put into a taxi and sent to a hospital for treatment for a cut on her forehead.

But the same woman showed up the next day and again was turned away.

The average temperature in Anchorage at night during January is 9 degrees.

In September 2015, the Anchorage Assembly passed AO-09, a city ordinance which bans discrimination based on sexual orientation and/or gender identity.

The ordinance added protections to Anchorage’s equal rights laws for gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual people in housing, employment and public accommodations and includes exemptions for religious groups and those with ministerial duties.

In a press release, ADF asserts the ordinance exempts homeless shelters like the Hope Center. ADF attorney Ryan Tucker told U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason that the homeless women in the shelter would “rather sleep in the woods” than spend a night in a shelter with a transgender woman.

In a further slap to trans women, the ADF also says that because many of the women at the shelter have been battered or sexually abused by men, they shouldn’t have to sleep in proximity to ‘men.’ ADF calls the idea of trans women sleeping in the shelter ‘dangerous.’

But the Southern Poverty Law Center disagrees.

“There is simply no evidence that transgender people are more of a threat to anyone whether that be in bathrooms, locker rooms or homeless shelters,” David Dinielli, Deputy Legal Director for the Southern Poverty Law Center, told KTUU. “In fact we know transgender people are among the most, if not the most likely to be targeted for abuse, sexual abuse and physical abuse.”

It’s worth noting that the Hope Center receives some of its operating funds from public tax payer monies via a grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The ADF, which has represented so-called ‘religious freedoms’ lawsuits in more than a dozen states, has been identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group which works to push trans people “back into the shadows.”