Sen. Elizabeth Warren reversed her position on rejecting super PAC support as she seeks a comeback in the Democratic presidential primary. Warren, who has previously said that she would disavow the support of a super PAC that sought to aid her bid for the presidency, told reporters that she had changed her mind after failing to get her rivals to join her in repudiating the outside spending groups.
The reversal is a dramatic change of heart for the Massachusetts progressive. Warren boasted during the Democratic debate earlier this month that only she and Sen. Amy Klobuchar lacked super PAC backers. “So look, the first day I got in this race over a year ago, I said I hope every presidential candidate who comes in will agree – no super PACs for any of us. I renewed that call dozens of times,” Warren said. “And I couldn’t get a single Democrat to go along with it.”
Hosted by transgender actress Angelica Ross (Pose) were each asked to say what they would do on LGBT issues during their first 100 days as president, and then answer two to three additional questions from a representative of one of the event’s sponsors: Gazette columnist Lyz Lenz, One Iowa policy director Keenan Crow, and The Advocate’s editor-in-chief Zach Stafford who at sometimes struggled reading their own questions and at others lacked the professional presence to keep the dialogue moving smoothly with the candidates.
As expected trans and social justice issues were front and center. Elizabeth Warren ignored the directive to say what she would do in her first 100 days as president. Instead she read the names of 18 transgender women of color who have been victims of hate crimes in 2019.
Interestingly during the 2 hour event only one question was raised about the pending Equality Act and that was to long shot candidate Joe Sestak. The Equality Act would amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include LGBT Americans and assure them the same federal civil rights protections as all other Americans.
As of this date no LGBT political questions have been asked at any of the major nationally televised debates. Many blame these separate focused LGBT forums as the reason why.
Senator Bernie Sanders, former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, and businessman Andrew Yang did not attend the event.
*NOTE: Pete Buttigieg’s segment starts at the 1:26:00 mark if you can’t make it through the first hour and a half.
Democratic Presidential nominee candidate Pete Buttigieg abruptly pulled himself from the campaign trail on Friday for a second time this week to deal with the aftermath of a South Bend police officer who fatally shot a black man last weekend. Protesters from Black Lives Matters and some South Bend citizens shouted down Buttigieg and and South Bend Police Chief Scott Ruszkowski at a an impromptu meeting to discuss the matter..
The loosely organized protest became chaotic at times, with Black Lives Matter protesters speaking over Buttigieg and South Bend Police Chief Scott Ruszkowski. The mayor went on to solicit community input in a town hall meeting slated for Sunday afternoon.
“We’re not going to make promises we can’t keep. We’re not. But I will do everything I can if we work together to make improvements,” Buttigieg said. “We gotta fix this in our lifetime. If we don’t, America will fail in our lifetime.”
“And so as long as I am mayor, I will listen,” he pledged. “And so long as I live, I will work on this. Because this is my community too. And shame on all of us if we don’t make it better.”
Gay Democratic presidential hopeful “Mayor” Pete Buttigieg on Friday night accused President Trump of “paying lip service” to LGBT rights after Trump said he was “absolutely fine” with Buttigieg’s marriage while supporting the extremist “Christian” right who condemn it while speaking in Iowa.
“Even though they’re paying lip service to the idea of — like the president was asked about my marriage, so he could have the opportunity to say he’s fine with it.”
Referencing a report this week that says adopted children of LGBT families may now be considered born “out of wedlock” and not guaranteed U.S. citizenship even if their parents are married U.S. citizens.
We find out this week that they changed the State Department guidance — I don’t know if you saw this. So if you are, for example, in an international adoption scenario, and you’re a same-sex couple, as far as the United States government is concerned, you have a child born out of wedlock. Think about what that means. It means you are not a citizen of the same country as your own child at the time that they are born. And that’s discrimination.”
Despite what anyone says it has been obvious from the start that Donald Trump has launched a war against the LGBT Americans..
Later in the evening, an 11-year-old girl identified only as Rebecca wanted to know: Did the Democratic presidential candidate have any advice about bullying?
“Part of the advice I’d give is to be willing to talk about it. So I think you’re leading the way on that,” Buttigieg said as he looked toward Rebecca’s direction.
“Everybody who’s different can be bullied, and the secret is everybody’s different in some way,” he said, later adding: “You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
“The person who’s bullying you probably has something a little broken in them,” he added. “… They want to kind of control a situation because something else in their life isn’t going well, and they don’t feel they have control in a bigger way.”
Someone in the audience yelled: “Sounds familiar!”
Buttigieg responded: “I think it really matters that we have a president who doesn’t show that kind of behavior. It’s one of the reasons I’m running for president.”
While I rarely post anything re;lating to HRC, Last night gay Presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg spoke at the Human Rights Campaign annual gay-la in Las Vegas, warning Democrats and special social interest groups to stay away from “identity politics” in the 2020 election.
Buttigieg said that the country is “being buffeted by tectonic change” and said the focus needs to be on “winning an era… we are preparing our country for a better life.”
Buttigieg talked about “identity politics,” saying that it was used “usually to wave away our attention from some of the things that make our lived experiences different, and the political implications of those differences.” Adding that the Trump administration has “mastered the practice of the most divisive form of such politics, peak White identity politics, designed to drive apart people with common interests.”
Said Buttigieg:
I may be part of the LGBTQ community. But being a gay man doesn’t even tell me what it’s like to be a trans woman of color in that same community, let alone an undocumented mother of four or a disabled veteran or a displaced autoworker. But being gay just like every other fact about me means that I have a story and if I look to that story I can find the building blocks not only for empathy but for the impetus to action. Because the more you know about exclusion, the more you know about belonging, and we have a crisis of belonging in this country.
The wall I worry about most isn’t the president’s fantasy wall on the Mexican border that’s never gonna built anyway. What I worry about are the very real walls being put up between us as we get divided and carved up. … And what every gay person has in common with every excluded person of any kind is knowing what it’s like to see a wall between you and the rest of the world and wonder what it’s like on the other side. … Yes, I am gay. And I am the son of an immigrant and an Army brat. And I am a husband. And I am a musician. And I am an Episcopalian, and I am a Democrat.”
Openly gay democrat and 2020 Presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg had a message for the very anti-gay Vice-President Mike Pence on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert Thursday night.
Stephen Colbert asked Buttigieg what it was like to work with Pence while he was Governor and Pete Buttigieg was the Mayor of South Bend, Indiana
Buttigieg replied, “He’s nice. If he were here, you would think he is a nice guy to your face, but he’s also just fanatical.”
“He really believes, I mean he’s written that cigarettes don’t kill and he seems to think that the universe was created a few thousand years ago and that people like me get up in the morning and decide to be gay,” Buttigieg said.
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.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren jumped into the 2020 presidential campaign Monday, offering a message of economic populism as she became the best-known Democratic candidate yet to enter what is expected to be a crowded race.
Warren’s announcement that she was establishing an exploratory committee — the legal precursor to a run — came as other candidates, including several of her fellow senators, made final preparations for their own announcements, some of which are expected in days.
“America’s middle class is under attack,” the Massachusetts Democrat said in a four-minute, 30-second video emailed to supporters Monday. “How did we get here? Billionaires and big corporations decided they wanted more of the pie. And they enlisted politicians to cut them a bigger slice.”
![WATCH: The Cringe-worthy GLAAD Iowa Democratic Presidential Candidates Forum [Video]](https://i0.wp.com/www.back2stonewall.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/LGBT-Presidental-Forum-Iowa.png?resize=604%2C270&ssl=1)
