America, I Live In New York City, I’m Gay, And I’m A “Real American” Too
This land was made for you and me.
I have spent the past few years writing extensively about the GOP, the religious Right, and the fight for civil rights for the lesbian and gay community. I’ve written about the machinations of radical politicians like Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich, radical hate groups like “Focus On The Family,” and of course, our President. Over the past two weeks, with the “outing” of former RNC Chair Ken Mehlman, some say there’s been a change in the air. (It seems there are a few Republicans who actually do not hate the LGBT community.) This renewed debate has given me even more insight into (and in some cases, contact with,) Republicans.
Republican politicians like Ken Blackwell, Republican hate-group chiefs like Maggie Gallagher, Republican columnists like Don Feder, and countless other right-wing pundits and policy-makers.
And, it seems, one woman, who read a piece I wrote about Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, titled, “Top Republican Wants Americans ‘Scared For Their Country’s Future’.†Via Facebook, she says,
“I am scared for my country David, perhaps in NYC you all enjoy the crazy things happening there. Here in the south, we don’t like the crazy things that are happening; like the Mosque and ‘cultural center’ near GZ. Americans need to be scared, our beloved country is going to the dogs under Obama!
“just read your article and heck yes, we are scared! Scared of Washington giving our country away, scared of behind closed door politics, scared of people who don’t love this country, and people who aren’t PROUD of America (Michelle Obama). I am scared this country continues to go in the wrong direction…away from our beliefs…away from our constitution, away from the laws that have served us well for OVER 200 yrs. Come to MS David, see how the real people live.”
Now, I don’t generally spend a lot of time on the casual Facebook musings of people I don’t know, but this one caught me not for it’s point of view or passion, but for its sincerity.
I truly believe this woman (I don’t think it’s fair to name her. If you need to know who she is contact me,) speaks for many Americans.
But so do I.
She says, “I am scared for my country David…” Of course she is. She is scared because people like Haley Barbour and John Boehner, all her local and national Republican politicians, and their master, Fox News, TOLD her to be scared!
She continues, “perhaps in NYC you all enjoy the crazy things happening there. Here in the south, we don’t like the crazy things that are happening; like the Mosque and ‘cultural center’ near GZ.” And then ends with, “Come to MS David, see how the real people live.”
There you have it. “The real people.” “Real Americans.” “Real Americans” think people in NYC aren’t “Real Americans.” Well, guess what? We are. New Yorkers are the backbone of this country. We move the wheels of the financial industry, the fashion industry, the art world, the entertainment world, museums, even, my Dear “Real Americans,” FOX “News,” which, if you hadn’t noticed, is based right here in little old Midtown Manhattan, right across the street from Radio City Music Hall.
That’s THE Radio City Music Hall, which hosts things like the Tony Awards, that you “Real Americans” love to watch. Oh, and speaking of the Tonys, New York City is home to Broadway, which tourists across the world use as a paragon of live theatre.We’re also home to the New York Yankees, the New York Mets, the New York Knicks, and the New York Rangers.
I, for one, am tired of “Real Americans” telling New York City’s citizens that we’re a great place to visit, but we’re not part of your “Real America.”
Recently, the surviving members of the iconic folk group “Peter, Paul and Mary” (a group, by the way, that was formed right here in New York City,) had to issue a “cease and desist” letter to the National Organization for Marriage, who had been using their song, “This Land Is Your Land,” at their hate rallies. The song, written in 1940 by Woody Guthrie (who grew his career in, yes, New York City,) is perhaps the most-recognized American folk song. No doubt, every “Real American” knows it goes like this:
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.
As I went walking that ribbon of highway
I saw above me that endless skyway
I saw below me that golden valley
This land was made for you and me.
I roamed and I rambled and I followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
While all around me a voice was sounding
This land was made for you and me.
When the sun came shining, and I was strolling
And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling
A voice was chanting, As the fog was lifting,
This land was made for you and me.
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.
Dear “Real Americans,” did you happen to catch that?
“This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island.”
That’s Manhattan, the center of New York City.
Now, getting back to our Facebook reader, who says, “Here in the south, we don’t like the crazy things that are happening; like the Mosque and ‘cultural center’ near GZ. Americans need to be scared, our beloved country is going to the dogs under Obama!”
Really?
Well, Dear “Real Americans,” here in New York City, we don’t like that many of you are applying your hate and bigotry to our issues. New York City is the melting pot of the melting pot that used to be America. Yet, the American melting pot has cooled and separated, and the Republican party is to blame. The 90% white, mostly-highly-religious Republican Party that hates New York City and hates the LGBT community, is no more the face of “the American People” than a dandelion is the face on a grassy knoll.
This land was made for you and me. Not made for you or me. Not made to be intolerant, hateful, war-mongering, fear-mongering, divisive, selfish, or theocratic.
And yet, and contrary to our Facebook reader who claims Michelle Obama is not “PROUD of America,” (I believe the First Lady IS proud of America, by the way,) I am proud of America. I love my country, despite the fact that almost every day its people give me more and more reason to not be. Despite the fact that I’m still a second-class citizen, denied the very rights our worst pop-icons, for example, Bristol Palin, are delivered at birth and flaunt and toy with to the endless delight of the main stream media gossip machines. Despite the fact that there are, yes, 1138 federal rights that a great many, especially those in the Republican Party, want me to continue to be denied.
Yes, America, this land IS your land, and mine. But until we learn to use it and its resources, including its people, wisely, and to respect and honor our differences, it will go down — in flames. The choice, I’m afraid, is yours, AND mine, as well.
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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
