News This Week: Your Rights Are Being Stolen. What Are You Going To Do?
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https://youtube.com/watch?v=EWCum9yQhTg%26hl%3Den%26fs%3D1 |
Only fifteen days into the new year, a year of promise that ushers in our first African American president, and yet, already our rights are being taken, no, stolen, away from us. But honestly, the fault is ours, for we haven’t done enough to stop the slow creep of hatred and bigotry that is the result of an organized effort by the Right to marginalize and permanently cement gays into second-class status once and for all.Â
Here’s an update:
✪ Indiana: “Opponents of same-sex marriage said today that they would try again to amend Indiana’s constitution to prohibit gay unions“. “The new proposed amendment states: “Only a marriage between one (1) man and one (1) woman shall be valid or recognized as marriage in Indiana. A legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized.â€
✪ Wyoming: “Some Wyoming lawmakers are pushing to amend the state constitution to specify that Wyoming won’t recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.“Â
What’s even more troubling is that all these states already had laws on the books discriminating against homosexuals or against gay marriage. The Indiana and Wyoming proposals are designed to strengthen the existing laws. How many nails in the coffin are needed?
✪ Michigan: “Six weeks after passing a gay rights law, the Kalamazoo City Commission has voted to rescind it.”
✪ New Jersey’s Governor has made it clear that he backs gay marriage, but, as The New York Times reports Governor Corzine saying, “While this administration is focused squarely on the economic crisis for the foreseeable future, it’s clear that this issue of civil rights must be addressed sooner rather than later.†But concludes,
“Opponents of gay marriage have pledged to make it an issue in the 2009 election. Len Deo, president of the New Jersey Family Policy Council, said his organization believed that some New Jerseyans might support same-sex marriage but that a majority do not want to see marriage redefined in the process. … “There could be a backlash,†said Harold Hodes, a Democratic strategist. “There are other issues that are more pressing at this time.â€
✪ File this one under, “Yup, we weren’t wrong”: Queerty says of The American News Project’s report,
“Video and audio of Mormon leaders discussing a ‘war plan’ to pass Prop 8 with specific references to costly video ads, mailers and websites the Church created has surfaced, lending new credence to the argument that LDS leaders illegally dipped into their own finances to fund the effort to outlaw gay marriage in California.”
✪ Fox News (unsurprisingly, but bottom-of-the-barrel-scrapingly) ran “Gay America Prepares To Party at Obama Inauguration”, complete with amazingly bigoted statements from extremists. Just so you don’t have to give them traffic, here are a few quotes:
“Jennifer Giroux, founder and president of Women Influencing the Nation, a group that focuses on restoring traditional family values, said, “I think (the) inauguration should be kept away from that. Christians may love the individual, but they are offended by the gay lifestyle. It’s unhealthy — spiritually, emotionally and physically.”
“It’s not a day where a group that feels like it has some payback coming should be putting its decadent lifestyle on display.â€
“Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality, an organization that describes itself as “devoted exclusively to exposing and countering the homosexual activist agenda,” is worried less about what happens in public and more about what may go on behind closed doors.
“I think most Americans would be put off if they knew what went on at these parties,” LaBarbera said. “Every special interest group has a ball of some sort, but this is not just any special interest group. More than half the country considers their behavior immoral.â€
“But there is some lingering resentment toward the gay community for its reaction to the passing of Proposition 8 in California, when demonstrators protested outside some houses of worship. “We would never choose the route of bigotry or hatred,” Mahoney said, “as the gay community did when they lost Prop 8, by defacing and vandalizing churches and places of worship, and attacked people of faith because they did not share their beliefs.
“For all their cries of inclusion and openness, there are few groups out there more intolerant and hateful than the gay community.”
And the “article” closes with this tidbit:
“James T. Harris, a Christian conservative radio host who famously told John McCain to “go after†Barack Obama at a rally in Wisconsin, said he thinks the inauguration will provide a chance for conservatives to showcase their tolerance.
“The gayer inauguration, the better,” Harris said. “I hope that all of San Francisco turns out, and turns the inauguration into a gay pride festival. Then liberals can see how open and tolerant conservatives are.
“Let America see liberalism in all of its self-absorbed lunacy. Then maybe America will only have to tolerate four years of the madness.â€
Thoughts? Are you going to take action? Can I help?
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
