Remains of the Day (08/26)

Once again, police are able to take these white gunmen into custody alive and well — yet a black man who fell asleep in his car at a Wendy’s drive-through had to be executed on the spot

Facebook chose not to act on militia complaints before Kenosha shooting

Is Reilly sweet on Alex? :-)

Jerry Falwell Jr. arrived in Speedo to watch wife, pool boy have sex, accuser claims

Tiffany’s RNC speech felt like an sad audition for favorite daughter

Be afraid -- be very afraid

I linked to this earlier, but wanted to share Adam Sank's spot-on take on the topic. I've actually known several average gay men who were constantly despondent that A&F models wouldn't sleep with them and I was like, "That's not how this works ... for any of us."

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi was totally not bribed by Donald  (ICYMI)

CDC was pressured 'from the top down' to change coronavirus testing guidance, official says

Remember: Just 69 days until we vote.

Page 1 Roundup (11/30)

The Daily News: Trump Organization reportedly wanted to give Vladimir Putin the $50 million penthouse of Trump Tower Moscow

How much the borscht just thickened: The Trump-Russia connections are getting impossible to explain away

Face transplant patient reveals his new look

Arizona man accidentally shoots himself in groin at Walmart after gun slipped out of his waistband, but sadly lives

Towleroad: British MP reveals he is HIV-positive in moving speech ahead of World AIDS Day

Three now under arrest for robbery, assault, kidnapping of gay man they promised sexual encounter

The Randy Report: Photographer charged with drugging male models to fulfill "straight guy" fetish

Out: Rita Moreno returns to "West Side Story" to star in Spielberg's remake

The New York Times: Racial fairness in gun rights stirs a debate

 What's stronger than a blue wave? Gerrymandered districts

Buzzfeed: Ivanka Trump was in contact with a Russian weightlifter who offered a Trump-Putin meeting -- and I'd overlook collusion to spend time with THIS ONE!

Page Six: Tiffany Trump is quietly dating a wealthy scion from Nigeria, one of the nations her father slammed as a “s - - thole country.”

The Washington Post: Investigators have evidence that Donald Trump was in close contact with his lieutenants as they reached out to Moscow and WikiLeaks -- and that they attempted to conceal their activities

"We will be in Moscow": The story of Trump's 30-year quest to do business in Russia

USA Today: James Comey challenges GOP congressional subpoena as 'partisan harassment'

The State: Volunteer at South Carolinna megachurch sexually assaulted at least 14 preschool boys, lawsuit says

Time: Parents who lost children in school shootings find comfort in a group no one wants to join

The Wall Street Journal: This season's guilty pleasure -- binge-watching Hallmark Christmas movies

Tweet Nothings

From HERE.

Shooter identified in Santa Fe High School rampage that killed 10

An all-too-predictable post, written by a friend of mine.

!

Remains of the Day (03/22)

Banana Republic: Kevin Love smolders in a new ad campaign

Towleroad: Charlotte (N.C.) councilmember asks what to do with revealing Grindr photos of hypocritical candidate

Back2Stonewall: A timeline of the American gay-rights movement

The Daily News: Coachella co-owner with anti-LGBTQ history donates $1 million to Elton John AIDS Foundation

New York Post: Expelled grad student accused of raping men on campuses

Dlisted: Chris Evans and his hot beard has broken up with his funny beard

Into: My boyfriend discovered I'm trans, and now he's not my boyfriend

Business Insider: Dow drops more than 700 points in wake of Crazy Donald's $60 billion tariffs on China

Sun: Students out math teacher as hunky Colt model Aaron Cage

SF Examiner: San Francisco International Airport set to name terminal in honor of Harvey Milk

Gay Star News: Kenya rules forced anal exams are unlawful

OMG Blog: An American telenovela star isn't shy about his chalupa

Facebook: This illustrates how average people do not understand racism: they think if you don't use the "n-word" then you're not racist, when it's really something much deeper (and insidious) like this

WSJ: Why the demand for American sperm is skyrocketing in Brazil

Daily Intelligencer: Trump’s lawyer for Russia inquiry quits as advice is ignored

Queerty: GOP congressman fires aide after sexual encounter with teenage boy

The Randy Report: Facebook bizarrely ends ad targeting by sexual orientation

Boy Culture: Muscle man in Speedo with hairy chairy chest and tats -- what else do you need to know?

Sun-Sentinel: Parkland students featured on cover of TIME magazine

PinkNews: It doesn't matter how "cool" the pope is, the Catholic church is still horrible

The Daily News: Female victim in Maryland school shooting "recently ended" relationship with gunman

Greg in Hollywood: When Kathy Griffin talked about Barbra Streisand on "The Rosie O'Donnell Show"

Matthew's Island of Misfit Toys: Way to pack a pair of Calvin trunks

Page Six: Alan Cumming's club under investigation for live music

Hot Cat of the Day: Miracle cat impaled on two metal fence posts returns home

Page 1 Roundup (03/15)

The Daily News: Man kills his 1-year-old daughter, stepdad and half-brother in Brooklyn home before shooting himself

About 100,000 students in New York City joined their peers around the country Wednesday in walking out of class to demand lawmakers make changes on school safety and gun control

Murderer Dylann Roof’s sister arrested after hate-filled Snapchat post about students protesting gun violence

Confidential: Original Village People cop takes old job back as former members fight for use of band name

The Arizona Republic: You might be shocked by just how little a schoolteacher in a wealthy suburb of Phoenix makes

New York Post: Killer who gunned down NYPD cops in 1971 to walk free

 Man who says he helped dispose of Natalee Holloway stabbed to death, after trying to abduct a young woman outside her home

Now Crazy Donald wants to appoint a 'Fox & Friends' host to head the Department of Veterans Affairs

The New York Times: Theresa May expels Russian diplomats -- but now comes the hard part

"Love, Simon": Not sure why people are surprised it took so long for a romantic comedy about a gay teenager -- coming out can still get you ostracized, beaten up or worse in many communities

Mother Jones: Roger Stone keeps changing his story about WikiLeaks

Towleroad: Voters in Fort Lauderdale elect city’s first openly gay mayor, Dean Trantalis

HuffPost: First openly bisexual Governor Kate Brown sounds off on equality under Crazy Donald

The Washington Post: Crazy Donald boasts about making up shit as he goes along while meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, all of which was false

Senate passes rollback of banking rules enacted after financial crisis

The Wall Street Journal: One woman rolls her eyes and captivates a nation

Page 1 Round (02/23)

The Daily News: Trump’s plan for teachers to pack guns is crazy, will only cause more violence, educators say

Uber and Lyft driver missing more than a week in Los Angeles found in nearby hospital

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis will reportedly support transgender troops, refuting Crazy Donald's call for a ban

Missouri governor indicted for invasion of privacy after allegedly blackmailing mistress; no surprise he became a Republican right when the affair came to light

New York Post: Ban assault rifles, writes Ralph Peters

 

Husband arrested in murder of mom who led secret life as porn star

The New York Times: Wait, I thought arming people was the solution to everything

‘Teachers are educators, not security guards’: Educators respond to Crazy Donald's proposal

U.S. curling team, once called ‘rejects,’ beats Canada to advance to final

The Associated Press: U.S. women figure skaters record worst showing since World War II; Russians take gold and silver

Winq: Gay man ‘raped and covered in human faeces’ in violent homophobic attack in South Africa

The Washington Post: Organizers plan for 500,000 attendees at ‘March For Our Lives’ gun-control march in Washington

Putin ally said to be in touch with Kremlin, Assad before his mercenaries attacked U.S. troops

The Wall Street Journal: Olympic curling doesn’t only stump viewers -- it confuses scientists, too

Tucker Carlson Is Shooting Blanks

Let me take this one, Tuck. The bodies of 17 children are filled with holes from a gun. pic.twitter.com/4cnH6M2xR7

— Sean Illing (@seanilling) February 20, 2018

Gays Against Guns to Rally Tonight in Response to Florida School Massacre

 Hundreds to rally tonight at 6:30 p.m. in Manhattan to demand congressional action on guns after Florida massacre:

Join Gays against Guns for our rally in front of Laguardia High School and then march to the David Koch Theater at Lincoln Center in response to the Parkland Florida school shooting. We want to meet at a school because we need to highlight the fact that this was the EIGHTEENTH school shooting THIS YEAR.

 Details HERE.

Redefining Domestic Terrorism

Some of you may have wondered what my screed about the term "terrorist" was all about yesterday. I guess it's a few things: As a copy editor and writer, I think it's important that words are used properly. And as a liberal, I pride myself on our party's intellectual consistency and ability to think critically. 

So when I see people bending themselves into pretzels to redefine a word to suit their agenda, it upsets me, because that's straight out of the GOP playbook. What's different, of course, is that liberals are doing it to counteract Republicans' twisted belief that all terrorism is committed by Muslims, or people of color in general -- so they want to make it clear that terrorism can be committed by all walks of life. This is true. But two wrongs don't make a right. Still, motivation does count for something -- not just when defining terrorism! -- so Rosanne Cash's piece in The New York Times ("Country Musicians, Stand Up to the N.R.A.") definitely softened me on the subject.

In it she writes:

For the past few decades, the National Rifle Association has increasingly nurtured an alliance with country music artists and their fans. You can see it in “N.R.A. Country,” which promotes the artists who support the philosophical, if not economic, thrall of the N.R.A., with the pernicious tag line “Celebrate the Lifestyle.” 

That wholesome public relations veneer masks something deeply sinister and profoundly destructive. There is no other way to say this: The N.R.A. funds domestic terrorism. 

A shadow government exists in the world of gun sales, and the people who write gun regulations are the very people who profit from gun sales. The N.R.A. would like to keep it that way.

Powerful stuff. And I see why branding our mass shooters as "domestic terrorists" might feel like it raises the stakes from what has become a routine occurrence in American: mass shootings.

But as I said the other day. Dylann Roof was a domestic terrorist, because he set out to intimidate African Americans as part of a racist political agenda when he shot up a church in Charleston, S.C . So far, we know nothing about the Vegas shooter's motive, so my argument is that he's not technically a terrorist (yet), despite inflicting enormous terror on people.

But if this were really just about semantics, I wouldn't be that invested in it. But my concern is more political than anything. If the voting public thinks Democrats' answer to fighting ISIS and al-Qaida is to say, "But we have white people who kill way more people," how is this a solution to the very real problem is Islamic terrorism? (We know what the motivation is for a small percentage of Muslims -- they want to form a caliphate and will do anything along the way to let it be known.)

We don't know what motivates our mass murderers. But we DO KNOW what our unique problem is in the U.S.: too much access to GUNS -- and too many GUNS that fire too many bullets within seconds.

I just don't see the value in trying to lump this problem together with people who kill in the name of racism, religion or political motivation, other than to try to gloss over what Muslims terrorists have done and continue to do. (We know YOU KNOW all Muslims are not terrorists -- you don't need to pat yourself on the back every day on Facebook by blurting out "What about Timothy McVeigh?" every time ISIS strikes and people express concern.) And more than not seeing any value in it, I fear we will continue to alienate under-informed voters in middle America who have had the bejesus scared out of them -- even though we all know their chances of being killed by their own gun is 75 million times higher -- and want to know that their leaders hear them and are looking to protect them, not just reminding them that white people are just as bad or worse.

Page 1 Roundup (10/04)

The Daily News: Yeah, why is this legal? 

The New York Post: Inside the sniper's lair

Man found dead in cupboard after solo sex game goes wrong / Read HERE.

The New York Times: In most advanced countries, gun homicides are as rare as deaths from falling tree limbs or plane crashes

The Wall Street Journal: In Texas, You Don’t Wear a Corsage to Homecoming. It Wears You

And ...

The Onion: ‘No Way to Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens