Tag Archives: Democrat

KENTUCKY: Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear VETOES KY's "Don't Say Gay" Bill

KENTUCKY: Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear VETOES KY’s “Don’t Say Gay” Bill

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Kentucky’s Democratic governor Andy Beshear, issued an election-year veto Friday of a Republican bill aimed at not allowing schools to discuss sexual orientation or gender identity with students of any age and regulating the lives of transgender young people, including banning access to gender-affirming health care and restricting the bathrooms they can use.

Kentucky’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill is arguably the worst in the nation.

Beshear said in his veto message that the bill would “Tears away the freedom from parents to make important and difficult medical decisions for their kids,” and turn educators and administrators into “investigators that must listen in on student conversations and then knock on doors to confront and question parents and families about how students behave and/or refer to themselves or others.”

The governor added, “My faith teaches me that all children are children of God and Senate Bill 150 will endanger the children of Kentucky.”

The bill easily passed the GOP-led legislature with veto-proof margins, and lawmakers will reconvene next week for the final two days of this year’s session, when they could vote to override the veto.

Stay tuned.

Cory Booker Announces 2020 Presidential Bid

Cory Booker Announces 2020 Presidential Bid

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CBS News

New Jersey Senator Cory Booker is joining the 2020 Democratic presidential contest, announcing his campaign on Friday with a tweet and an emailed video to supporters.

“We are better when we help each other,” he said. “I believe that we can build a country where no one is forgotten, no one is left behind; where parents can put food on the table; where there are good paying jobs with good benefits in every neighborhood; where our criminal justice system keeps us safe, instead of shuffling more children into cages and coffins; where we see the faces of our leaders on television and feel pride, not shame.”

Booker is the second African American candidate to join the fray, following California Sen. Kamala Harris’ entry last week, on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Booker’s announcement also carries symbolism, coming on the first day of Black History Month. Booker, who speaks fluent Spanish, plans to call into radio stations with black and Latino audiences Friday morning to discuss his campaign.

Booker who has mixed reviews mostly because of his ties to Big Pharma in December of 2018 amidst much speculation came out as “straight”.

Democrat Krysten Sinema Widens Lead Over Republican Challenger

RECOUNT 2018 – ARIZONA: Democrat Krysten Sinema Widens Lead Over Republican Challenger

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Via The Hill:

Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D) widened her lead over Rep. Martha McSally (R) in the heated Arizona Senate race after a new round of ballots were tallied in the Democrat’s favor late Friday. 

Sinema more than doubled her lead over McSally with Friday evening’s latest tranche of results. The Democrat now leads her GOP challenger by 20,203 votes.

Earlier Friday, Sinema led McSally by just 9,163 votes out of nearly 2 million cast — a 0.48 percentage point lead. She now leads her opponent by just over 1 percentage point.

The vast majority of the votes tallied Friday came from Maricopa County, the state’s largest county, where there were an estimated 345,000 uncounted votes prior to Friday’s evenings results.

Friday’s new count came the same day a settlement was reached in a Phoenix courtroom that permits rural voters to have extra time to fix issues with their ballots.

Republicans alleged that some county recorders weren’t using a uniform procedure to make changes to mail-in ballots, specifically claiming that Maricopa and Pima counties improperly gave up to five days after Tuesday’s election to make those changes.

Counties will now have a deadline of Nov. 14 to make those fixes to problematic mail-in ballots.

If this move will have any real impact is yet to be seen.

Hillary Clinton Declares: “I am done with being a candidate.” (Video)

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Former secretary of state and failed United States Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said Sunday that she will not pursue the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. “I am done with being a candidate,” Clinton said on CBS’s “Sunday Morning.”

Clinton — who on Tuesday will release “What Happened,” her memoir of the 2016 campaign — does plan to stay involved in national politics, just not as an “active politician” who may launch a campaign. “But I am not done with politics because I literally believe that our country’s future is at stake,” she said in an interview with Jane Pauley.

Clinton also was critical of President Trump’s preparedness for the White House. “We have a reality show that leads to the election of a president. He ends up in the Oval Office. He says, ‘Boy, it’s so much harder than I thought it would be. This is really tough. I had no idea,’” Clinton said. “Well, yeah, because it’s not a show. It’s real. It’s reality, for sure.” – The Washington Post

Clinton has recently come under fire from supporters over her new book and  her take on :exactly how things went so wrong that she lost a contest that should have been unlosable and goes after Bernie Sanders, Kremlin-backed actors and, in her own words, “my own shortcomings and the mistakes we made.”

Jared Huffman is a Democratic congressman from North Carolina. He described Clinton’s book as hobbling the party by relitigating the election without taking any actual responsibility for the party’s loss.

“Maybe at the worst possible time, as we are fighting some of the most high-stakes policy and institutional battles we may ever see, at a time when we’re trying to bring the party together so we can all move the party forward — stronger, stronger together,” Huffman told Politico. “She’s got every right to tell her story. Who am I to say she shouldn’t, or how she should tell it? But it is difficult for some of us, even like myself who’ve supported her, to play out all these media cycles about the blame game, and the excuses.”

He also suggested that a lot of Democrats are feeling the same lack of enthusiasm over the book.

“There is a collective groan,” Huffman added, “whenever there’s another news cycle about this.”

 

Dallas Gay Activist and Leather Bar Owner Running for Governor in Texas

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A longtime gay activist and  owner of a popular gay leather bar in Dallas has entered Texas’s governor’s race  as a Democratic candidate.

Jeffrey Payne, who won the title of International Mr Leather in 2009, hopes to challenge the state’s current Republican governor, Greg Abbott, who announced his bid for reelection last week. 

In a statement, Mr Payne said Texans are tired of the Governor wasting time on “trivial legislation”.

“Texas needs a Governor who believes in Real Texas Values, like integrity, honesty, freedom and independence,” Mr Payne said. “We need to stop wasting our time and money on trivial legislation and start investing in finding ways to help Texans, their families, and their businesses prosper.” 

Payne said he does not think Texas voters will focus on his same-sex marriage – or,  his connections to the  gay leather community and intends to use $2.5 million dollars of his own money to his campaign,

The last time Texas elected a Democrat Governor was in 1991 

 

Gay Presidential Hopeful Pete Buttigieg Calls Out Mike Pence on ‘Colbert’: Being Gay Is Not a ‘Choice’ - VIDEO

Openly Gay Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg Joins Race for Democratic National Committee Chair

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Openly Gay Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg Joins Race for Democratic National Committee Chair

Pete Buttigieg, the out and proud gay mayor of South Bend, Indiana, announced he is running for chairman of the Democratic National Committee in a video released Thursday.

The Hill reports:

Buttigieg, 34, was considering entering the race last month and said he received phone calls from DNC members both in his home state and nationally. The New York Times first reported the news of him entering the race.

Buttigieg, who is openly gay, is a Harvard graduate and a lieutenant in the Navy Reserve. He made an unsuccessful run for Indiana state treasurer in 2010.

He joins a growing field for DNC chair, which also includes South Carolina Democratic Party chairman Jaime Harrison, New Hampshire Democratic Party Raymond Buckley and Idaho Democratic Party executive director Sally Boynton Brown.

Harvard University-educated, a Rhodes Scholar and a U.S. Navy Reserve officer, Buttigieg became the youngest mayor of a U.S. city with more than 100,000 residents when he took office at age 30 in 2012.

Last year, he publicly announced he was gay in a newspaper op-ed following the firestorm over Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act and in advance of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling recognizing same-sex marriages.

#PeteforDNC

LHOTP’s Mellisa Gilbert (Halfpint) To Challange Raging Teabagger For Michigan’s 8th Congressional Seat

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Melissa Gilbert for Congress

After only living in Michigan for 2 short years Melissa Gilbert. The actress who played Laura Ingalls-Wilder on the beloved television series Little House on the Prairie has thrown her political pigtails into the ring and will battle against 8th District Congressman Mike Bishop was was recently added to the National Republican Congressional Committee’s “Patriot Program”

“Here in Michigan, I know people are doing their best to make a good life for themselves and their families. When it comes down to it, I think that’s what we all really want” Gilbert said in her announcement release. “I’m running for Congress to make life a little easier for all the families who feel they have fallen through the cracks in today’s economy. I believe building a new economy is a team effort, and we need to bring fresh voices to the table to get the job done.”

Gilbert is very well-known and liked as a local celebrity in Livingston County where she lives, particularly in the Howell/Brighton area, is the youngest actor to be given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and was also the president of the Screen Actors Guild.

You can learn more about Melissa Gilbert’s campaign at her website GilbertForMichigan.com, follow her on Twitter HERE, and put a like on her Facebook page HERE.

Tale that Nellie Olsen!

Source: ElectaBlog

 

Maine Congressman Mike Michaud Comes OUT: Yes, I am gay. ‘But why should it matter?’

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Mike Michaud is gay

Six-term congressman and former paper mill worker Maine Democratic Rep. Mike Michaud has come out of the closet in an op-ed provided to The Associated Press, the Portland Press Herald and the Bangor Daily News.

Michaud who is hoping to unseat Maine Gov. Paul LePage next year announced that he’s gay in response to what he called a ‘‘whisper campaign,  insinuations and push-polls’’ attempted to get voters to question whether he’s gay.’ by political opponents hoping to weaken his gubernatorial bid.

Bangor Daily News:

 I wasn’t surprised to learn about the whisper campaigns, insinuations and push-polls some of the people opposed to my candidacy have been using to raise questions about my personal life. They want people to question whether I am gay.

Allow me to save them the trouble with a simple, honest answer: “Yes, I am. But why should it matter?”

That may seem like a big announcement to some people. For me, it’s just a part of who I am, as much as being a third-generation millworker or a lifelong Mainer. One thing I do know is that it has nothing to do with my ability to lead the state of Maine.

Growing up in a large Franco-American Catholic family, it’s never been in my nature to talk about myself. I write this now merely to let my opponents and the outside interests who fund them know that I am not ashamed of who I am. And if seeing someone from my background, in my position, openly acknowledge the fact that he’s gay makes it a little bit easier for future generations to live their lives openly and without fear, all the better.“

Michaud didn’t identify who he thinks was behind the alleged whisper campaign against him. His campaign has not previously raised the issue.

Spineless KY State Attorney General Jack Conway Files Defense Of States Gay Marriage Ban

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Jack Conway

Jack Conway, the Kentucky Democrat and State Attorney General who lost the 2010 Senate race to Rand Paul and ran on a platform that support the repeal of DADT, but also cowardly stated  opposition to same-sex marriage because he did not want to lose any votes over it the bigot bourbon belt has filed his defense against a marriage equality lawsuit brought by a local gay couple.

In an 18-page filing in federal court in Louisville, Assistant Attorney General Clay Barkley asked U.S. District Judge John G. Heyburn II to dismiss a lawsuit brought by Gregory Bourke and Michael De Leon. Barkley wrote that the men lack standing to challenge the law. Bourke and De Leon, who were married in Canada nine years ago, sued in July to force the state to recognize valid unions from other states and countries. The men are seeking an injunction to stop state and local officials from enforcing the ban written into the Kentucky constitution in 2004. Much of the state’s filing is boilerplate legal language. But, Barkley said same-sex couples seeking to marry “are just as willing as opposite-sex couples to assume the obligations of marriage” and, if allowed to marry, would “benefit equally from the legal protections and social recognition afforded to married couples.

Not a very compelling or interesting defense is it?

“Handsome Jack” as Conway is known in Kentucky could have simply refused to defend the state law like many other State Attorney Generals have but didn’t

Conway is know in private circles to support same sex marriage despite his public show. Is he only defending the discriminatory law so he can lose it?  Or is he still a coward and trying not to upset other politicos in the very Republican Kentucky?

You can contact Jack Conway at the Kentucky State House (502) 696-5300

Florida’s Charlie Crist Comes Out Of The Closet…… As A Democrat!

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Last night Florida’s former Governor Charlie Crist came out of the closet as Florida as he officially registered as a Democrat.   And according to Crist, it’s the GOP party’s fault he left it in the first place.

“What changed is the leadership of the Republican Party,” Crist said. “As I said at the convention, I didn’t leave the Republican Party, it left me. Whether the issue was immigration, or education, or you name it — the environment. I feel at home now.”

Crist also added “I’ve had friends for years tell me, ‘You know Charlie, you’re a Democrat and you don’t know it,”

No word about whether the friends who told him he was a “homosexual” have made any impact and that there’s any evidence of that bearded glass closet busting open soon.