Politics, pop culture and entertainment news of interest to the LGBTQ community
As the premiere date for the 19th season of The Ellen DeGeneres Show approaches, Australia’s Nine Network has announced it will not be carrying the final season of the gabfest. Continue reading “Australia’s Nine Network Drops Final Season Of ELLEN”
Here’s some news you probably thought you’d never read.
TLC is reviving it’s once hit show “19 Kids & Counting” in spite of the Duggar family’s wide-spread scandals last year which included hiring prostitutes, infidelity and child molestation.
Via the Christian Post:
The stars of the series recently suffered through some scandals when it was revealed that Joshua Duggar took part in AshleyMadison.com, a website that serves as an online dating site for married men. With the family known as devout Christians, the news of Joshua’s infidelity led to the show’s cancellation.
According to Variety, the executive vice president of TLC, Nancy Daniels, recently shared some details about how the series coped with the scandals. She stated, “Every decision we’ve made has been done very thoughtfully and very carefully about what is in the best interests of the people involved and the network. Our first priority is making sure that there’s a health and well-being of our families first and foremost. We feature stories of different families with real people and real things happen.”
Fans are still interested in learning more about the rest of the family and how the scandal had affected them. With that, TLC released several episodes of “Jill & Jessa: Counting On,” which showed the sisters coping with the scandal’s aftermath.
After seeing the success of the short series, it was announced that TLC will be bringing back “19 Kids & Counting” to the small screen.
Throughout the show, the family was presented as the pristine, perfect “Christian” family. The picture was complete with episodes of campaigning against LGBT rights and what eventually was revealed to be hypocritical behavior.
End of the year means all those “Top 10” lists. I love “Top 10” Lists.
CNN shares this look back at the scandals and controversies of 2015.
Included on the list this year are “most hated man in America,” Martin Shkeli (who jacked the price of an HIV drug by 5000%) and Josh “Sanctity of Marriage” Duggar.
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| Josh Duggar |
LGBT activist and sex columnist Dan Savage says that newly outed porn addict Josh Duggar is definitely a legitimate target for outing considering the harm he’s caused through his anti-gay campaigns.
Outing someone for their private sexual conduct—even if everyone agrees that it’s wrong—is a brutal tactic that should be reserved for brutes. Who’s a legitimate target for outing? I’ll let Barney Frank explain: “There’s a right to privacy,” Frank said on Real Time. “But the right to privacy should not be a right to hypocrisy. People who want to demonize other people shouldn’t then be able to go home and close the door, and do it themselves.”
To which I would add: People who accuse others of trying to destroy their marriages, fundamentalists who who quite literally demonize other people, and who then go back to their apartments in Washington, DC, and cheat on their spouses are political hypocrites and legitimate targets for outing. People like this guy…
Savage also joined Chris Hayes last night to discuss the recent Duggar developments.
With interesting timing, Monica Lewinsky has resurfaced to write a piece for Vanity Fair for the first time about her 1998 scandal as a White House intern:
“It’s time to burn the beret and bury the blue dress.” She also says: “I, myself, deeply regret what happened between me and President Clinton. Let me say it again: I. Myself. Deeply. Regret. What. Happened.”
After 10 years of virtual silence (“So silent, in fact,” she writes, “that the buzz in some circles has been that the Clintons must have paid me off; why else would I have refrained from speaking out? I can assure you that nothing could be further from the truth”), Lewinsky, 40, says it is time to stop “tiptoeing around my past—and other people’s futures. I am determined to have a different ending to my story. I’ve decided, finally, to stick my head above the parapet so that I can take back my narrative and give a purpose to my past. (What this will cost me, I will soon find out.)”
Lewinsky also says she was moved to break her silence by the suicide of Rutgers freshman Tyler Clementi:
When Tyler Clementi, the 18-year-old Rutgers freshman who was secretly streamed via Webcam kissing another man, committed suicide in September 2010, Lewinsky writes, she was brought to tears, but her mother was especially distraught: “She was reliving 1998, when she wouldn’t let me out of her sight. She was replaying those weeks when she stayed by my bed, night after night, because I, too, was suicidal. The shame, the scorn, and the fear that had been thrown at her daughter left her afraid that I would take my own life—a fear that I would be literally humiliated to death.” Lewinsky clarifies that she has never actually attempted suicide, but had strong suicidal temptations several times during the investigations and during one or two periods after.
Lewinsky writes that following Clementi’s tragedy “my own suffering took on a different meaning. Perhaps by sharing my story, I reasoned, I might be able to help others in their darkest moments of humiliation. The question became: How do I find and give a purpose to my past?”
The full version of Lewinsky’s article will be available May 8th online at VanityFair.com.
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| New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie |
Not sure, but the other shoe may be dropping on New Jersey Gov. Christie regarding the George Washington Bridge lane-closing scandal. His high school friend and former top aide says the governor knew about the closings, and can prove it.
From the New York Times:
In a letter released by his lawyer, the official, David Wildstein, a high school friend of Mr. Christie’s who was appointed with the governor’s blessing at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which controls the bridge, described the order to close the lanes as “the Christie administration’s order” and said “evidence exists as well tying Mr. Christie to having knowledge of the lane closures, during the period when the lanes were closed, contrary to what the governor stated publicly in a two-hour press conference” three weeks ago.
“Mr. Wildstein contests the accuracy of various statements that the governor made about him and he can prove the inaccuracy of some,” the letter added.
When news of the bridge closing scandal hit, Mr. Wildstein, the director of interstate capital projects at the Port Authority, resigned.
Pundits have been awaiting the news of “who” from the governor’s former team might be the first to save their own skin…
Read more here.
Breaking News: Christie Fires a Top Aide for Lying About Bridge Scandal
http://t.co/eqDfdEsmLj— The New York Times (@nytimes) January 9, 2014
Via the New York Times:
Saying that he was “embarrassed and humiliated” by revelations that a top aide and other close associates ordered lane closings on the George Washington Bridge to exact revenge on a political foe, Gov. Chris Christie fired that aide, Bridget Anne Kelly, a deputy chief of staff, whom he called “stupid” and “deceitful.”
The revelations became public on Wednesday, when a series of emails and texts showed that members of his administration and others were deeply involved, contradicting the governor’s own earlier public statements on the matter.
“I am heartbroken that someone I permitted to be in that circle of trust for the past five years betrayed that trust,” he said, speaking at a news conference at the State House where he took questions for over an hour.
The United States attorney for New Jersey, Paul J. Fishman, opened an inquiry after the matter was referred to the office by the inspector general for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which controls the bridge.
More at the New York Times
Newly released emails suggest that politics — from the highest levels of Gov. Chris Christie’s administration — may have played a role in last fall’s closure of local access lanes to the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee, N.J.
The lane closures led to a massive, multi-day traffic jam in the town of Fort Lee, N.J. — a traffic jam Democrats have argued was intended as a form of retaliation against Fort Lee’s Democratic mayor.
Christie had in recent weeks dismissed the suggestion that the lane
closures were a scandal using terms like “absolutely, unequivocally.”
Democrats had suggested the closures were political retribution for Ft. Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich, a Democrat who did not endorse the governor’s re-election campaign last year.
“Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee,” Christie Deputy Chief of Staff Bridget Anne Kelly wrote to Christie Port Authority aide David Wildstein on Aug. 13, weeks before the lane closures that ensnared traffic on the first day of school in New Jersey last fall.
Wildstein replies, “Got it.”
In addition, an unidentified person sent this text message about delayed school buses to Wildstein on Sept. 10, the second day of the lane closures:
Person: “Is it wrong that I am smiling?”
Wildstein: “No.”
Person: “I feel badly about the kids. I guess.”
Wildstein: “They are the children of Buono voters.”
Buono is the Democrat whom Christie defeated in last year’s gubernatorial race.
On Wednesday, Gov. Christie promised that “people will be held responsible for their actions.”
From his statement today:
“What I’ve seen today for the first time is unacceptable,” Christie said. “I am outraged and deeply saddened to learn that not only was I misled by a member of my staff, but this completely inappropriate and unsanctioned conduct was made without my knowledge.”
(source)
“Has this president broken the law, lied under oath, or authorized war crimes?
“Has he traded arms for hostages with Iran?
“Has he knowingly sent his cabinet out to tell lies about his sex life?
“Has he sat by idly as an American city was destroyed by a hurricane? Has he started a war with no planning for an occupation?
“Has he started a war based on a lie, and destroyed the US’ credibility and moral standing while he was at it, leaving nothing but a smoldering and now rekindled civil sectarian war?
“So far as I can tell, this president has done nothing illegal, unethical or even wrong.” – Andrew Sullivan, in response to conservative claims that “We are in the midst of the worst Washington scandal since Watergate.”
(h/t JMG)
After video hit the internet showing Michelle Obama apparently rolling her eyes at a comment made by Speaker of the House John Boehner, Inside Edition thinks they have it figured out.
President Obama gave up cigarettes three years ago. Boehner is a known chain smoker.
Our lip reader, Wenig, caught Boehner saying, “Somebody won’t let you do it”, referring to Michelle, which prompted the first lady’s big eye roll.