Even though his party lost control of the House, President Donald Trump declared a “big victory” on Wednesday morning as he focused on Republicans picking up seats in the Senate.
The Associated Press projects the chamber will remain in Republican hands, with a Democratic takeover bid blocked after losses in Indiana and North Dakota. But Democrats, fueled by wins in key suburbs, will control the House come November.
28 out of the 31 candidates Donald Trump endorsed lost.
The Democrats gained more than the 23 seats they need to take over the 435-seat lower chamber.
They can now launch investigations into the Trump administration’s business affairs, from tax returns to potential conflicts of interest.
The Democrats could also more effectively block his legislative plans.
“This is obviously a very sick, deranged human, sick, deranged person to do this. It seems we have gotten to a point in life and society where everything has to be kind of politicized…Somebody has to point a political finger at absolutely everything. He did the most unthinkable thing imaginable. He went to a place of worship, shot it up. Again, there are 11 people who are dead now because of it. I think we should try to pull politics out of it. This person doesn’t represent the left. He doesn’t represent the right. The person was sick, deranged. Again, I truly, truly hope if found guilty, which he will be, that he gets the death penalty.” – Eric Trump on Fox News
After months of backlash and the threat of losing billions of dollars in entertainment industry revenue Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal declared today that he will veto his state’s anti-LGBT so-called “religious liberty” bill. Among his reasons are that Georgia does not protect its LGBT citizens from discrimination in the first place, so further legislation is not necessary.
Despite being absent for most of the anti-LGBT bill’s passage through the Georgia Senate and House and only addressing it twice, once in a photo-op delivering petitions to Georgia’s capitol and secondly by mentioning an entertainment boycott at an HRC Gala after many of the boycotts had already began. The Human Rights Campaign and Chad Hunter Griffin are once again trying to take all the credit for something they did not do..
The Human Rights Campaign Press Release.
Deal’s veto comes one week after HRC President Chad Griffin called on Hollywood to stop productions in Georgia if Deal refused to veto the legislation at HRC’s Los Angeles Gala. Soon after, many of the biggest entertainment companies in the world responded to the call — including 21st Century Fox, AMC Networks, CBS Corp., Comcast NBCUniversal, Lionsgate, Live Nation, MGM, Netflix, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Starz, The Walt Disney Co., Time Warner, The Weinstein Company and Viacom. And more than thirty leading actors, directors, producers, musicians, and agents signed HRC’s letter demanding that he veto the proposal.
“Our message to Governor Nathan Deal was loud and clear: this deplorable legislation was bad for his constituents, bad for business, and bad for Georgia’s future,” said HRC President Chad Griffin. “Today, Governor Deal heard the voices of Georgians, civil rights organizations, as well as the many leaders in the entertainment industry and private sector who condemned this attack on the fundamental rights of LGBT people, and he has set an example for other elected officials to follow. Discrimination and intolerance have no place in the United States of America, and we hope North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory and the North Carolina General Assembly are paying close attention to what has transpired in Georgia. They must undo their disgraceful attack on LGBT people in the state’s upcoming legislative session.”
Crickets from HRC (of course) about all the hard-working LGBT activist, individuals and media on the ground who did the real work. But that’s how that corrupt good for nothing gay org spins.
“Even before the Olympics began, HRC has been holding corporate America’s feet to the fire on their support for Putin’s Olympics. We’ve tracked the coverage that NBC—the network group broadcasting the Olympics—has dedicated to LGBT issues during the Olympic Games. We’ve vigorously called on Olympic sponsors to speak up and condemn Russia’s anti-LGBT laws, and we’ve celebrated those, like AT&T, which have lifted their voices. – From an email blast and money beg sent out by the Human Rights Campaign today.
Of course HRC is not mentioning that they haven’t severed ties with either Coke or Visa who are BOTH corporate sponsors of the Sochi Olympics games and on two separate occasions they were caught serving Coke products at HRC events.
Hollow words and if anyone in the LGBT community believes them. Then they have empty heads.
In an interview with John Daniszewski, the Associated Press’s Senior Managing Editor for International News Russian President Vladimir Putin attempted to do damage control over the worldwide backlash against Russia’s draconian anti-gay “propaganda” laws by stating that that they would be used to punish athletes who display rainbow flags during the Winter Olympics in Sochi, and also insisting that gays are not discriminated against in his country.
During the interview Putin said of the LGBT community in Russia: “I assure you that I work with these people, I sometimes award them with state prizes or decorations for their achievements in various fields,” adding that if there were a problem that he would be happy to meet with members of the gay and lesbian community if they asked to see him. but they haven’t. “”We have absolutely normal relations, and I don’t see anything out of the ordinary here.”
Putin also added that LGBT Olympic athletes from around the world be safe not be punished. But he clearly has no intention of allowing a gay pride parade during the Olympics. But covers the fact that he will would not let a Sochi Pride happen during the Olympics not because it is gay but because of possible terrorist attacks. Sochi sits just west of Russia’s North Caucasus, where an Islamic insurgency is simmering.
“Terrorists are always a threat to someone,” he said. “If we’ll be scared of them, it means they have won. But that doesn’t mean we can have a devil-may-care attitude toward this threat. We must do everything to stop these threats and not give the terrorists a single chance to demonstrate their brutality and hatred of mankind.”
Stolichnaya Vodka – SPI Group has tried everything that it can to stop a boycott of its vodka due to the human rights violations that are happening in Russia and the countries persecution of it’s LGBT citizens.
On July 25th, SPI Group released an open letter to the LGBT community that declared it “firmly opposes such attitude and actions” committed by the Russian government and continues to be a “fervent supporter and friend” of the community, pointing to past endorsements of Pride events and LGBT organizations. SPI was also quick to point out that Stolichnaya is not bottled in Russia but in the neighboring Latvia, conveniently leaving out that Stoli is indeed made with Russian bought ingredients.
Now suddenly, and very quietly an addition of a paragraph to the “Employee welfare” portion of the company’s About page. has been amended to read:
“SPI Group is an equal opportunity employer. SPI Group does not and will not discriminate in employment or personnel practices on the basis of race, sex, age, sexual orientation, handicap, religion, national origin.”
Prior to this week sexual orientation was not included on the About page.
While it is commendable for SPI/Stoli to add sexual orientation to its page. It would have been more so it it was always included and also the paragraph fails to mention protections for transgender employees.
SPI/Stoli has been spinning this situation hard to stop the backlash against their vodka and have even resorted to playing the “victim”. But the bottom line is despite all that SPI/Stoli still buys its ingredients from Russia thus adding to its economy and thereby supporting its Government.
Pope Francis on Monday in a shocking turnaround from past papal leaders denied the existence of a “gay lobby” at the Vatican Francis saying that he had investigated the reports and found them groundless. He added that while such a lobby would be an issue, but that he would not judge gay priests for their sexual orientation. “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?”
From The Associated Press,
Pope Francis reached out to gays on Monday, saying he wouldn’t judge priests for their sexual orientation in a remarkably open and wide-ranging news conference as he returned from his first foreign trip. “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?” Francis asked. While stressing Catholic social teaching that calls for homosexuals to be treated with dignity and not marginalized, Francis said it was something else entirely to conspire to use private information for blackmail or to exert pressure. Francis was responding to reports that a trusted aide was involved in an alleged gay tryst a decade ago. He said he investigated the allegations according to canon law and found nothing to back them up. But he took journalists to task for reporting on the matter, saying the allegations concerned matters of sin, not crimes like sexually abusing children.
Now before people start jumping up and down celebrating Pope Francis’ statement let me add this. In context and with backstory much of the Popes statement had to do not only with reports of a “gay lobby” inside the Vatican but also in connection to the Pope’s hiring of Monsignor Battista Ricca, who has been charged with cleaning out the stables at the scandal-struck Vatican bank. Ricca has been connected to major “gay scandals” within the Vatican including recently being caught stuck in an elevator with a “rentboy” and in 2001 when taking a diplomatic posting in Uruguay Monsignor Ricca brought and lived openly with his lover, Patrick Haari, a Swiss army captain,, much to the outrage of church figures and locals in the conservative South American nation.
All of this was unbeknownst to Pope Francis when he put Ricca in charge of the Vatican bank.
So at least for now the sincerity of the Popes statement should not be taken at (gay) face value.
“No part of the story concerns Mr Card’s theories about society in terms of gay issues or homosexual issues. I think he has a right to his opinions and has also made it clear that it was a battle that he fought and lost and would like to get on with the rest of life.” –Harrison Ford, promoting Ender’s Game and spouting the studio spin line at San Diego’s Comic-Con.
I am ashamed of Harrison Ford. He knows the boycott has nothing to do with whether this particular story has anything to do with Card’s views on homosexuality and that it has to do with Lion’s Gate supporting monetarily a virulent homophobe who wants to see me and my friends killed or put into concentration camps. ”
Cards statements were not “opinions” Mr. Ford — any more than Hitler had an “opinion” about the Jews. Mr. Card would like gays not to exist, and if they do to be criminalized and persecuted and money from Lionsgate buying the story and the percentage of the box office that comes from his producer credit has and will continue to help him continue.
I can guarantee you Harrison, if Card had said all those things about blacks and funded and worked white supremacy groups, this movie would have never been made and your multi-million dollar paycheck would not existed.
So in reply to your statement let me say a hearty FUCK YOU to you Han Solo. If Chewbacca was here he’d smack you silly.
To show the sheer and utter desperation that the National Organization of Marriage is going through as they begin to realize that they will lose the same-sex marriage battle. NOM is spinning recent Harris Interactive poll of 1,190 LGBT voters, which found that 12 percent oppose same-sex marriage. And that 67 percent of gays and lesbians have not gotten civilly married and do not intend to in the near future.
The Harris Poll and NOM would get the same answers if they asked straight people about heterosexual marriage heterosexuals. NOT all straight people believe in the institution of marriage and not all are ready to get married.
But other than NOM’s BULLSHIT the Poll is quite interesting in own right and you should check it out.
A whopping 12%, or as Republicans would claim, a majority.
While the Family Reserach Council and other anti-gay right wing extremist groups are still shamelessly expoiting the tragic shooting that took place at the office building where the Family Research Council has its offices for its own good. FRC President Tony Perkins is now crowing over the fact that two columnists have come to its defense against the “hate group” label.
Nutjob Dana Milbank — who essentially argued that promoting hate against LGBT people simply isn’t as bad as promoting hate against people of color — and James Kirchick, who Perkins describes as a “leading voice on gay politics.” who no one has ever heard of.
Kirchick in an op-ed he wrote for the New York Daily News gave a pass to people who oppose marriage equality just because they are concerned about the “familial breakdown”:
As for gay marriage opponents, many of them object in name only; that is, they have no problem extending all of the same legal benefits to gay couples but are made uncomfortable by calling same-sex partnerships “marriage.” Such a position, no matter how intellectually confused, is not on the same level as calling blacks and Hispanics members of “mud races” who should be shipped back to the lands of their ancestors.
To be sure, there are many people whose opposition to gay rights is motivated by hate. They are less animated by the specter of familial breakdown than they are by the perceived degeneration of the culture at the hands of “godless sodomites.”
Kirchick, a legend in his own mind and “leading voice on gay politics” only on his own Wikipedia page ignores or is just too ill-informed to report the facts that the FRC and other organizations have regularly call for the deportation and imprisonment of homosexuals, comparing us to people who engage in pedophilia and bestiality and have dedicate millions of dollars to advocating against the very lives of LGBT people and not just against same-sex marriage.
So this is the best that Tony Perkins can do. The racist Dana Millbank and a megalomanic idiot named James Kirchick.
These are Tony Perkins “leading voice on gay politics.”
