President Donald Trump has doubled down on his executive order banning travel to the US from six majority-Muslim countries. “People, the lawyers and the courts can call it whatever they want, but I am calling it what we need and what it is, a TRAVEL BAN!” Trump said in the first of a series of tweets Monday morning.
The White House initially tried to reframe Trump’s use of “travel ban” when the executive order was first announced in January. The White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, said in January that the policy was not a ban but rather “extreme vetting.” But Spicer referred to it as a travel ban as recently as May. –Business Insider
Henry Amador-Batten said he and his 5-year-old son, Ben, were greeted at Raleigh–Durham International Airport on Friday by a group of police officers, The Durham Herald-Sun reported. He soon learned that a flight attendant had seen him cuddling with his son on their flight from Newark, New Jersey, and felt that his hand rested too close to the boy’s genitals.
Amador-Batten, who was returning home from a family visit in Puerto Rico, said he was caught completely off guard by the accusation, but cooperated with police. He said he explained to the officers that Ben was afraid of flying, and he’d simply placed his hand on his son’s lap to comfort him as he fell asleep.
In a Facebook post on DADsquared, Henry’s spouse Joel said: ‘Tonight my husband was detained after disembarking a United flight to RDU because a member of the flight crew made an accusation that my husband’s hand/arm laying across my sleeping son’s lap was too close to the “child’s genitals”.’
To make matters worse, Joel had just spent two weeks in Puerto Rico ‘dealing with his father’s quick decline and subsequent death’.
Joel continued: ‘This is not how anyone deserves to be treated. This is not something that should have happened in front of my son.
‘This is not something that anyone should have to worry about happening to them on a flight just because someone might not like the looks of them.”
‘My husband and I are parents. We are foster parents. We are in the process of adopting our second son.’
Issuing an apology after the complaint, a United Airlines spokesman wrote: ‘Our customers should always be treated with the utmost respect.
‘We have followed up with the customer directly and we apologized for the situation.’
Henry Amador-Batten confirmed that a United Airlines representative called him and asked to keep it ‘low key’ as they have a ‘lot of bad press recently’.
Their lawyer, Kenneth Padowitz, told the Herald-Sun: ‘Based on the horrible situation that they placed him in front of their son and other people on the plane, we are going to vigorously pursue to be compensated by the airline for this horrible embarrassing treatment.’
In the end, Amador-Batten was not charged with a crime and released. However, both he and Ben remain traumatized by the experience. “That flight attendant’s false accusation did not save a child, it put an entire family in danger,” he said. “We’re [made to] understand that families like ours, created out of choice and love, are fragile by nature. … We are not as protected nor solidified, and we need to be.”
Jason Kander, the nephew of composer John Kander who wrote the music for such legendary Broadway musicals as Chicago and Cabaret came across a tweet buy the despicable White Supremacist leader Richard B. Spencer praising the Nazi anthem “Tomorrow Belongs to Me.” written by his uncle for the Bier Garden scene in Cabaret.
Jason Kander saw the tweet and took the “alt-right” leader down in 144 characters.
At the end of October, Donald Trump spoke in Gettysburg, Pa., and released a plan for his first 100 days in office.
The plan (below) outlines three main areas of focus: cleaning up Washington, including by imposing term limits on Congress; protecting American workers; and restoring rule of law. He also laid out his plan for working with Congress to introduce 10 pieces of legislation that would repeal Obamacare, fund the construction of a wall at the Southern border (with a provision that Mexico would reimburse the U.S.), encourage infrastructure investment, rebuild military bases, promote school choice and more.
What follows is my 100-day action plan to Make America Great Again. It is a contract between myself and the American voter — and begins with restoring honesty, accountability and change to Washington
Therefore, on the first day of my term of office, my administration will immediately pursue the following six measures to clean up the corruption and special interest collusion in Washington, DC:
* FIRST, propose a Constitutional Amendment to impose term limits on all members of Congress;
* SECOND, a hiring freeze on all federal employees to reduce federal workforce through attrition (exempting military, public safety, and public health);
* THIRD, a requirement that for every new federal regulation, two existing regulations must be eliminated;
* FOURTH, a 5 year-ban on White House and Congressional officials becoming lobbyists after they leave government service;
* FIFTH, a lifetime ban on White House officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government;
* SIXTH, a complete ban on foreign lobbyists raising money for American elections.
On the same day, I will begin taking the following 7 actions to protect American workers:
* FIRST, I will announce my intention to renegotiate NAFTA or withdraw from the deal under Article 2205
* SECOND, I will announce our withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership
* THIRD, I will direct my Secretary of the Treasury to label China a currency manipulator
* FOURTH, I will direct the Secretary of Commerce and U.S. Trade Representative to identify all foreign trading abuses that unfairly impact American workers and direct them to use every tool under American and international law to end those abuses immediately
* FIFTH, I will lift the restrictions on the production of $50 trillion dollars’ worth of job-producing American energy reserves, including shale, oil, natural gas and clean coal.
* SIXTH, lift the Obama-Clinton roadblocks and allow vital energy infrastructure projects, like the Keystone Pipeline, to move forward
* SEVENTH, cancel billions in payments to U.N. climate change programs and use the money to fix America’s water and environmental infrastructure
Additionally, on the first day, I will take the following five actions to restore security and the constitutional rule of law:
* FIRST, cancel every unconstitutional executive action, memorandum and order issued by President Obama
* SECOND, begin the process of selecting a replacement for Justice Scalia from one of the 20 judges on my list, who will uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States
* THIRD, cancel all federal funding to Sanctuary Cities
* FOURTH, begin removing the more than 2 million criminal illegal immigrants from the country and cancel visas to foreign countries that won’t take them back
* FIFTH, suspend immigration from terror-prone regions where vetting cannot safely occur. All vetting of people coming into our country will be considered extreme vetting.
Next, I will work with Congress to introduce the following broader legislative measures and fight for their passage within the first 100 days of my Administration:
Middle Class Tax Relief And Simplification Act. An economic plan designed to grow the economy 4% per year and create at least 25 million new jobs through massive tax reduction and simplification, in combination with trade reform, regulatory relief, and lifting the restrictions on American energy. The largest tax reductions are for the middle class. A middle-class family with 2 children will get a 35% tax cut. The current number of brackets will be reduced from 7 to 3, and tax forms will likewise be greatly simplified. The business rate will be lowered from 35 to 15 percent, and the trillions of dollars of American corporate money overseas can now be brought back at a 10 percent rate.
End The Offshoring Act. Establishes tariffs to discourage companies from laying off their workers in order to relocate in other countries and ship their products back to the U.S. tax-free.
American Energy & Infrastructure Act. Leverages public-private partnerships, and private investments through tax incentives, to spur $1 trillion in infrastructure investment over 10 years. It is revenue neutral.
School Choice And Education Opportunity Act. Redirects education dollars to give parents the right to send their kid to the public, private, charter, magnet, religious or home school of their choice. Ends common core, brings education supervision to local communities. It expands vocational and technical education, and make 2 and 4-year college more affordable.
Repeal and Replace Obamacare Act. Fully repeals Obamacare and replaces it with Health Savings Accounts, the ability to purchase health insurance across state lines, and lets states manage Medicaid funds. Reforms will also include cutting the red tape at the FDA: there are over 4,000 drugs awaiting approval, and we especially want to speed the approval of life-saving medications.
Affordable Childcare and Eldercare Act. Allows Americans to deduct childcare and elder care from their taxes, incentivizes employers to provide on-side childcare services, and creates tax-free Dependent Care Savings Accounts for both young and elderly dependents, with matching contributions for low-income families.
End Illegal Immigration Act Fully-funds the construction of a wall on our southern border with the full understanding that the country Mexico will be reimbursing the United States for the full cost of such wall; establishes a 2-year mandatory minimum federal prison sentence for illegally re-entering the U.S. after a previous deportation, and a 5-year mandatory minimum for illegally re-entering for those with felony convictions, multiple misdemeanor convictions or two or more prior deportations; also reforms visa rules to enhance penalties for overstaying and to ensure open jobs are offered to American workers first.
Restoring Community Safety Act. Reduces surging crime, drugs and violence by creating a Task Force On Violent Crime and increasing funding for programs that train and assist local police; increases resources for federal law enforcement agencies and federal prosecutors to dismantle criminal gangs and put violent offenders behind bars.
Restoring National Security Act. Rebuilds our military by eliminating the defense sequester and expanding military investment; provides Veterans with the ability to receive public VA treatment or attend the private doctor of their choice; protects our vital infrastructure from cyber-attack; establishes new screening procedures for immigration to ensure those who are admitted to our country support our people and our values
Clean up Corruption in Washington Act. Enacts new ethics reforms to Drain the Swamp and reduce the corrupting influence of special interests on our politics.
On November 8th, Americans will be voting for this 100-day plan to restore prosperity to our economy, security to our communities, and honesty to our government.
This is my pledge to you.
And if we follow these steps, we will once more have a government of, by and for the people.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell shot down or expressed little enthusiasm in some of his plans. On Trump’s proposal to impose term limits on Congress, McConnell said, “It will not be on the agenda in the Senate. I would say we have term limits now — they’re called elections.”
McConnell also threw some cold water on Trump’s infrastructure plans, calling it not a top priority.
McConnell did say repealing Obamacare is a “pretty high item on our agenda” along with comprehensive tax reform and achieving border security “in whatever way is the most effective.” But he also declined to discuss the Senate’s immigration agenda further.
We won, brothers. All of our work. It has paid off. Our Glorious Leader has ascended to God Emperor. Make no mistake about it: we did this. If it were not for us, it wouldn’t have been possible.
We flooded the tubes, we created the energy, we made this happen. We were with him every step of the way. And the great news is, we’re going to be given credit for it. The media is finished. They are going to lash out. They will implode completely. History has been made.
Today, the world ended. A new world has been born. Anything is possible now. The future is wide open. Trump is a step toward our goal, not our actual goal, but he is a gigantic step.
All my friends in Europe are texting me “NOW WE’RE GOING TO GET TO KICK OUT THESE MONKEYS!!!!” Seriously, all caps texts, just like that.
We will now move into the next phase of our Great Work. Tomorrow, we troll. We have won so much. And it has led to the ultimate win. The battle is far from over. Much, much, much work to be done.
But the White race is back in the game. And if we’re playing, no one can beat us. The winning is not going to stop. Thank you all. I love you all. I am humbled to have had the honor of narrating this epic story for all of you amazing people. We won, brothers. Hail victory. – Andrew Anglin, editor of The Daily Stormer – Andrew Anglin, editor of The Daily Stormer
It really does feel like Gaius-frakking-Baltar just won the election, doesn’t it?
Good luck getting your diabetic test strips and Hoverrounds paid for out of pocket now, morans
Just when you think you have your winner for Special Snowflake of the Week Award some crazier Social Justice Warrior or in this case website comes forth to snatch the award away away at the very last minute.
In this case AutoStraddle.com “an dependently owned online magazine and social network for lesbian, bisexual, and queer women (cis and trans) as well as non-binary people” pulled ahead of the Ryan Lochte and his “White Male Privilege” meme to grab the award away for their apology for a review of Seth Rogen’s Sausage Party is truly a piece of Social Justice masochism at its finest with some racism and man-hating thrown in as a bonus.
Heather Hogan, one of the editors of AutoStraddle published a SJW heartfelt and overly long apology called “We Messed Up” for posting a review of Rogen’s Sausage Party after receiving “feedback ” from Trans Editor Mey Rude, and the members of the QTPOC Speakeasy and their Facebook commentators because among other things Salma Hayek’s portrayal of the animated lesbian taco was racist and that it reinforced harmful stereotypes of “predatory lesbians.”
Gee I wonder if Selma Hayek who is actually IS Mexican-American felt the same way?
We heard from readers who were upset that we labeled the taco a lesbian when it seems more likely that she was bisexual. We heard from readers who questioned the consent of the sexual encounter between the taco and the hot dog bun. We heard from readers who found the taco to be a damaging portrayal of a predatory queer woman.
Remember we are talking about an animated character in an R-Rated Seth Rogen movie?
But then it gets even worse.
There are several reasons I should have listened to the alarm bells of unease I felt about the Sausage Party review. First and most damning: we allowed a non-Latina writer to cover a story about a caricature of a Latina, and while the review didn’t specifically mention the film’s stereotyping, by praising the film as a positive portrayal of a queer Latina, we allowed a white writer to, in effect, condone that stereotyping.
WTF? So a non-white writer can never cover ANYTHING even remotely QPOC related? Does that mean they will never let a QPOC writer cover lets say a Shakespearean play other than Othello for their website? So basically while AS was going on an insane SJW rant against racism they are in an fact being racist themselves.
Auto-straddle actually confirms this later in the article.
For the most recent season of Orange Is the New Black, we passed around a sign-up sheet and offered our staff writers and editors the chance to review individual episodes of the show, and we reached out to a handful of freelancers whose work we love and whose voices we want to amplify to ask them to join us in writing reviews. My main priorities in our OITNB coverage were: 1) Making sure the majority of our reviews were written by women of color. And 2) Making sure any writer who shared an identity with an episode’s feature character had first dibs on writing about that episode. I told all of our writers they needed to be willing to trade or give up their review slots, if necessary, to achieve this goal. [snip]
We were three episodes into our review schedule when we found out about OITNB’s season-ending death. At that time, I pulled reviews from two of our white writers and sought Black writers to cover the important episodes. Riese mandated that we read the widely circulated article “Orange Is the New Black is Trauma Porn for White People.”
Later in the article Hogan, in the interest of “transparency” posted a transcript of a discussion had in it’s senior editors channel in Slack.
heather: i hope it’s not transmisogynistic. i went through ten pages of google results and tumblr and didn’t see anything about transphobia or transmisogyny Yvonne: true like if i think about it, of course i hate that they resorted to a stereotype, like making salma hayek use her accent for the voice of a taco but like this is seth rogan so my feelings are like :face_with_rolling_eyes: heather: yeah, that makes sense! Yvonne: do you think think the last paragraph is like an exaggeration? or does this fall into the thing of someone has an opinion different from yours type of deal? Heather: i think the second thing. i mean, i don’t think it’s going to actually encourage queer rep in movies aimed at younger people; i don’t think that’s a thing that will happen at all. but i do think she’s right that having an animated lesbian character to sympathize with in a summer blockbuster aimed at the people who will pay money to see this is a big deal. Yvonne: ok! heather: also i wonder if the taco is bisexual i can’t believe i am having this much of a crisis about this! Yvonne: i get it though! because sausage party is crass heather: yes Yvonne: like people in our community can critique the hell out of it and pick it apart heather: yes Yvonne: because it’s meant for stupid fucking men.
Whoa!. “Because it was made for stupid fucking men” I thought the era of man hating lesbians was over in the 1980’s. Obviously I was wrong. And obviously AutoStraddle doesn’t understand that this type of talk and behavior misandry is just as bad and harmful as misogyny.
Now I am sure AutoStraddle and its followers will dismiss me and call me out as privileged gay white cis male that has no right to comment or write this story.
But at least I am a privileged gay white cis male that has as fucking sense of humor and doesn’t fight imaginary battles with windmills when we have REAL problems to worry about. Like lets see? Oh I don’t know. Perhaps maybe REAL non-animated LGBT people both “white” and “QPOC” that need housing and employment protections?
And also in the interest of “transparency” I reached out to AutoStraddle Trans Editor Mey Rude to attempt to discuss thier apology and racism and misandy that it included on Twitter. Ms. Rude refused to directly answer and questions and BLOCKED me.
So much for a meaningful dialogue.
Congratulations to AutoStraddle this week’s Back2Stonewall Special Snowflake Award Winner of the Week who prove that man hating lesbians are still alive and un-well but also that they themselves are as racist and have no sense of humor.
It’s a fucking animated taco in a Seth Rogan movie. What did you expect?
On a special edition of the popular Channel 4 show First Dates, celebrities will attempt to find their perfect match on blind dates, and hot and humpy openly gay British Rugby star Keegan Hirst is burning up the line-up.
“At first I couldn’t even say ‘I’m gay’ in my head, let alone out loud,” he said at the time.
“Now I feel like I’m letting out a long breath that I’ve held in for a long time.”
Hirst In an interview with the Sunday Mirror in August 2015 came out as gay. He is currently divorced from his wife and has two children.
The 6 foot 3′, Batley Bulldogs captain will be going on a date with personal trainer Paddy White – a self-confessed “ex-party boy” who admits to taking at least 50 selfies a day and tweeting during sex.
“I was eager to make a good impression on Keegan and tried to impress him with my honesty and my humor, maybe I went just a little too far,” White said of the experience.
Well for those of you in the UK Celebrity First Dates airs on Channel 4 at 9pm.
Over 20 people are dead and 42 people have been transported for medical treatment at Pulse nightclub, in Orlando, Florida.
The shooting began around 2 a.m., and an officer responded, Mina said. The officer engaged in a shoot out outside the club. The gunman then ran into the club.
“That turned into a hostage situation. Police and relatives were getting calls from people inside the club.
The killer was well prepared carrying automatic weapons. Police Chief John Mina also said the shooter had some sort of “suspicious device.”
The suspect exchanged gunfire with an officer working at the club around 2 a.m., then went back inside and took hostages
“That turned into a hostage situation,” Mina said. Authorities were getting calls from people inside the club but away from the gunman, the chief said.
“Everyone get out of Pulse and keep running,” the nightclub posted on its Facebook page shortly after the violence began
Around 5 a.m., authorities sent in a SWAT team to rescue the hostages, and the suspect then died in a gunfight with those officers. Mina said police have not determined an exact number of casualties, but that “approximately 20” people were dead inside the club.
“It’s just shocking,” said Christopher Hansen who was inside Pulse. He heard gunshots, “just one after another after another.”
FBI spokesman Danny Banks said during a news conference that the mass shooting is being investigated as an act of terrorism. He says authorities are looking into whether this was an act of domestic or international terror, and if the shooter was a lone wolf.
Orlando police warned residents to stay away from the area, and urged people not to call their offices. They declined to provide the number of casualties, saying details will be available later. Bomb sniffing dogs are on the scene.
Back2Stonewall’s hearts and prayers go out to the victims, friends, and families of this terrible incident.
We will keep you updated as more details come available.
UPDATE #1: 9:00 a.m.
At a press conference on Sunday at 7 a.m., an FBI official was asked if the shooter, who was shot and killed by police, had ties to Jihadist terror groups. “At this time we’re looking at all angles right now.” the official said. “We do have suggestions that that individual may have leanings towards that, that particular ideology. But right now we can’t say definitively so we’re still running everything around”
Update #2: 11.30 a.m.
According to new information released the numbers now stand at 50 people killed and over 53 wounded inside Pulse, a gay nightclub, Orlando making it the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.
The shooter has been identified as Omar Saddiqui Mateen, 29, of Fort Pierce, about 120 miles southeast of Orlando.
“Americans deserve a full Supreme Court bench, and President Obama’s nominee deserves a hearing. There is no doubt that Merrick Garland is a highly qualified candidate, and the Senate has a Constitutional responsibility to give him swift and fair consideration,” said HRC President Chad Griffin. “The Supreme Court has a sacred responsibility to uphold the rights of all citizens, and we must hold accountable any politicians who tamper with our nation’s highest court for their own gain.”
Judge Garland has served on the federal bench and in public service for almost 25 years. He was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1997, and currently serves as the Chief Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. After graduating from Harvard University and Harvard Law School, Judge Garland served as a judicial clerk for Judge Henry Friendly on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, and for U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Brennan. HRC will continue examining the record of Judge Garland on issues affecting the LGBT community. Moreover, we look forward to the Senate’s thorough examination of his judicial philosophy and record.
The decisions made by the Supreme Court establish important legal precedents that impact the daily lives of all Americans, including those who are LGBT. This year alone, the Court is expected to rule on many critical issues–including affirmative action, immigration, religious refusals and abortion rights–and the American people deserve a fully-functioning Court with nine justices seated and considering cases before it.
Garland joined a decision that upheld a Federal Communications Commission action against the operator of a low-power radio broadcaster serving the gay community. And he joined then D.C. Circuit Judge John Roberts Jr. in a decision rejecting police liability for misconduct by officers who sprayed a chemical deterrent on members of a pro-gay protest group during President George W. Bush’s first inaugural parade.
In regards to other social issue, SCOTUS Blog writer Tom Goldstein describes Garland as more conservative on the rights of criminal defendants but more left-leaning on things like freedom of speech and environmental issues.
Perhaps someone should pass this information on to HRC.
