LGBTQ news and entertainment
Comedy writer Paul Rudnick tweets about White House adviser Kellyanne Conway, “Kellyanne told Fox News, ‘I’m not a woman who feels sorry for herself”, while feeling sorry for herself. She added, “I’m also in the Cats movie as Grizabella’s friend who, after she dies, steals her collar and sucks up to Judi Dench. My cat name is Kibbleskeeve.'”
Brett Miles & Alex Abramov
• KIT212: Kenneth’s weekly gay rag roundup finds the gays gearing up for Halloween • Variety: Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci will play a gay couple on a road trip in Supernova, a romantic, modern love story that “follows two people who are bound together by their love for each other but being pushed apart by the situation they find themselves in.” • New Music: 3-time Grammy Award-winning vocal group Pentatonix drops this lovely cover of the Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows” from their new Best of Pentatonix Christmas album. While a Beach Boys song may not immediately ring Christmas bells in your head, ever since the tune was used in the closing credits of the uber-romantic Love Actually (2003), folks consider it a holiday-appropriate tune. I find the new version refreshing & sweet. Hit play below.
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| Kellyanne Conway |
Ok, this was odd…
While taking questions from reporters on the White House driveway, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway flipped out a bit over questions regarding Donald Trump’s attacks on four congresswomen of color by asking a reporter about his ethnicity.
Andrew Feinberg, a White House reporter for Breakfast Media, asked Conway, “If the president was not telling these four congresswomen to return to their supposed countries of origin, to which countries was he referring?”
Conway responded asking, “What’s your ethnicity?”
“Why is that relevant?” replied Feinberg.
“Because I’m asking a question,” said Conway. “My ancestors are from Ireland and Italy.”
She then snapped, “A lot of us are sick and tired of this country – of America – coming last, to people who swore an oath of office.”
None of that relates to anything Feinberg was asking. Watch below.
Here’s video, courtesy of @cspan pic.twitter.com/PNqIznSDcO— Andrew Feinberg (@AndrewFeinberg) July 16, 2019
Conway then took to Twitter to say her question was meant “with no disrespect.”
This was meant with no disrespect.We are all from somewhere else “originally”. I asked the question to answer the question and volunteered my own ethnicity: Italian and Irish.
Like many, I am proud of my ethnicity, love the USA & grateful to God to be an American 🇺🇸 https://t.co/OvBALIO6WP
— Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) July 16, 2019
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| Kellyanne Conway |
The office that oversees ethics for the White House has recommended that White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway be removed from federal service after repeated violations of the Hatch Act, which “prohibits government employees from making political statements while acting in an official capacity,” according to CBS News.
The Office of the Special Counsel — the ethics office for the White House, which is unrelated to former special counsel Robert Mueller — sent a report to the president Thursday finding that Conway had violated the act “on numerous occasions” by criticizing Democratic presidential candidates in TV interviews and on social media.
While the president and vice president are exempt from the Hatch Act, that privilege does not extend to federal employees.
“Ms. Conway’s violations, if left unpunished, would send a message to all federal employees that they need not abide by the Hatch Act’s restrictions. Her actions thus erode the principal foundation of our democratic system — the rule of law,” the OSC said in the letter to Mr. Trump, calling Conway a “repeat offender.”
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Conway has laughed at the violations in the past.
“If you’re trying to silence me through the Hatch Act, it’s not going to work,” she told reporters in May. “Let me know when the jail sentence starts.”
This legal conclusion comes as no surprise. The surprise — shock, actually — would come if Trump were to act on this recommendation and fire Ms. Conway. He obviously won’t. https://t.co/RtlyOzby8F— Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) June 13, 2019
The presumptive penalty for violation of the Hatch Act is dismissal. When I was a federal employee, I received extensive training on this point.Why should Kellyanne Conway be treated differently from any other federal employee? She has violated the Hatch Act multiple times. https://t.co/IotIDH4pLQ
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) June 13, 2019
Elijah Cummings on Kellyanne Conway: “Complying with the law is not optional. President Trump should terminate Ms. Conway’s employment immediately in light of these dozens of violations of federal law.“— Manu Raju (@mkraju) June 13, 2019
Then there was the time that Counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway, speaking to ABC News’ George Stephanopolous, attacked former FBI Director James Comey by admitting, “This guy swung an election. He thought the wrong person would win.”
She admits that Comey handed the presidency to Trump. Watch below.
Counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway slams former FBI Dir. James Comey: “This guy swung an election,” she told @ABC‘s @GStephanopoulos. “He thought the wrong person would win.” https://t.co/Myz7ZNighv pic.twitter.com/BXR0fj4Mfe— ABC News (@ABC) April 16, 2018
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Donald Trump trotted out White House adviser Kellyanne Conway to defend this week’s debacle surrounding the resignation of White House staff secretary Rob Porter.
In the aftermath of Porter’s departure, questions linger about Chief of Staff John Kelly’s handling of the incident.
Conway made the round of the Sunday morning talk shows on ABC, CNN and Fox News.
Senior White House aides insisted Sunday that President Trump remains confident in Chief of Staff John F. Kelly amid staff turmoil and said the president is not looking to replace the retired four-star general hired six months ago with a mandate to corral chaos.
“I spoke with the president last night about this very issue, and he wanted me to reemphasize to everyone, including this morning, that he has full confidence in his current chief of staff, Gen. John Kelly, and that he is not actively looking for replacements,” White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said in an interview on ABC’s “This Week.”
She added that Trump also remains confident in communications director Hope Hicks, a long-serving aide under scrutiny for her role in the White House response to spousal abuse allegations against former staff secretary Rob Porter, with whom she had a romantic relationship.
Porter resigned or was fired Wednesday, a day after Kelly had defended him as “a man of honor” in a statement in which Hicks apparently had a hand.
White House Counselor to the President @KellyannePolls tells @GStephanopoulos she spoke with Pres. Trump last night and “he has full confidence in his current chief of staff, General John Kelly…he also has full confidence in Hope Hicks, his communications director.” #ThisWeek pic.twitter.com/hMsIHWgFUf— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) February 11, 2018
Conway got rather defensive when asked whether Donald Trump’s own accusers have had their “due process:”
Responding to @SenGillibrand’s tweet that Congress should hold hearings with women who have accused Pres. Trump of sexual assault, @KellyannePolls tells @GStephanopoulos “Those accusers have had their day…I don’t need a lecture from Kirsten Gillibrand or anybody else.” #ThisWeek pic.twitter.com/iefif4Nh4q— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) February 11, 2018
During a news conference at the White House yesterday, Donald Trump was asked by Fox News‘ John Roberts as to whether he will agree to a sit down interview with Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is currently investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
This was Trump’s answer:
“Well, again John, there has been no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russians or Trump and Russians. No collusion. When I watch you interviewing all the people leaving their committees, I mean, the Democrats are all running for office, trying to say this that — but bottom line, they all say there’s no collusion. And there is no collusion.
“And when you talk about interviews, Hillary Clinton had an interview, where she wasn’t sworn in, she wasn’t given the oath, they didn’t take notes, they didn’t record and it was done on the 4th of July weekend. That’s perhaps ridiculous and a lot of people looked upon that as being a very serious breach and it really was.
“But again I’ll speak to attorneys — I can only say this, there was absolutely no collusion. Everybody knows it. Every committee — I’ve been in office now for 11 months. For 11 months, they’ve had this phony cloud over this administration, over our government. And it has hurt our government. It does hurt our government. It’s a Democrat hoax that was brought up as an excuse for losing an election that frankly the Democrats should have won because they have such a tremendous advantage in the electoral college.
“So it was brought up for that reason. But it has been determined that there is no collusion and by virtually everybody. So we’ll see what happens. We’ll see what happens. I mean certainly we’ll see what happens — when they have no collusion and nobody’s found any collusion at any level it seems unlikely that you’d even have an interview.”
Now, aside from the 8 times that Trump made a point to say there was no collusion, what was odd in his response was dragging Hillary Clinton’s name out of nowhere.
By the way, he says Hillary wasn’t “sworn in” during her interview in July 2016 with the FBI as if that gave her some escape or “out” in terms of telling the truth. The fact of the matter is, whether you are under oath or not, it’s legal jeopardy to lie to the FBI.
Anyway…
Later, Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway strangely asserted to CNN’s Chris Cuomo that “nobody” in the White House “talks about Hillary Clinton.”
Wait. Wha… Umm.
Watch the video below.
Kellyanne Conway claimed “nobody here talks about Hillary Clinton” despite the fact that President Trump mentioned her at least 3 times earlier today #CuomoPrimeTime https://t.co/sGNQfZyNRt— Christopher C. Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) January 11, 2018
This is gold: CNN put together video of Kellyanne Conway claiming last night that "nobody" in the White House "talks about Hillary Clinton," followed by a dozen or so recent clips of Trump going out of his way to talk about Hillary Clinton pic.twitter.com/s3p9COza9n— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 11, 2018
3pm: President Trump repeatedly brings up Hillary Clinton at a joint presser.9pm: Kellyanne Conway says “we don’t care about her. Nobody here talks about her. Hey Chris, nobody here talks about Hillary Clinton.”
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) January 11, 2018
Kellyanne Conway told CNN’s @ChrisCuomo: “We don’t care about her. Nobody here talks about Hillary Clinton.”… in case you were curious, Trump has tweeted Hillary Clinton’s name at least 89 times since election day. Here are some of those tweets.👇 pic.twitter.com/0lhtoe4thR
— Caroline O. (@RVAwonk) January 11, 2018
Stop. Booking. Kellyanne. Conway. Please. I. Beg. pic.twitter.com/URAP0jv3UK— Carlos Maza (@gaywonk) January 11, 2018
Remember when MSNBC Morning Joe hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough were BFFs with the Trumpster and company?
Not so much these days.
This morning the newly engaged duo informed their viewers that White House counselor Kellyanne Conway actually hated having to defend Donald Trump during the 2016 election.
Here’s Brzezinski’s take on how Conway’s appearances would go once the cameras and microphones were off:
“This is a woman, by the way, who came on our show during the campaign and would shill for Trump in extensive fashion. And then she would get off the air, the camera would be turned off, the microphone would be taken off, and she would say ‘Bleeech, I need to take a shower’ because she disliked her candidate so much.”
Hit animated series Family Guy trolls White House counselor Kellyanne Conway and her patriotic outfit from Trump’s inauguration in campaigning for Emmy Award votes.
Via Entertainment Weekly:
In a new for-your-consideration mailer that was sent to Emmy voters this week, Peter Griffin is doing his best impression of White House counselor and Anderson Cooper eyeroll recipient Kellyanne Conway, dressed in the $3600 red, white, and blue Gucci coat that she wore to President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
Kellyanne Conway gets more air-time today with CNN’s Chris Cuomo in a 19 minute segment wherein she turns in her own “Jan Brady” performance arguing that “you always want to talk about Russia, Russia, Russia!”
Knowing that Trump watches cable news voraciously, and he must love seeing someone defend him so strenuously.
Watch the performance art by Conway below.