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Kathy Griffin Is Worried About Her Now Out BFF Anderson Cooper

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Kathy Griffin is, at least publicly, Anderson Cooper‘s best friend. They share New Year’s Eve together every year — along with untold millions of people around the world, broadcasting on CNN from Times Square  — and they’ve shared his not-well-kept secret that he revealed yesterday: Anderson Cooper is gay. But Griffin today tells The Daily Beast that she had a tough time getting more questions than BFF Cooper did about his sexuality — and swore she never would have outed him. Now, the D-List star says, she’s worried about Anderson Cooper.

The reality is that despite the very real, the very necessary, and the very life-changing progress we have made in this country in treating people across the sexual orientation spectrum with dignity and respect, America—the world—is not fully represented by Chelsea in New York City. It’s not fully represented by DuPont Circle in Washington, D.C.; the Castro; or West Hollywood. Hell, it’s not even Ft. Lauderdale and its Wilton Manors or Denver’s Capital Hill neighborhood. America is, in large part, small towns like Oxnard, Calif. It’s Sevierville, Tenn. It’s Laramie, Wyo. And it’s Wichita, Kan., where I was eating recently at a local diner and a patron asked me, “Kathy, how do you deal with so many goddamned fags?”

Many of my young gays don’t know about Uganda’s “Kill the Gays” initiative, which was developed with the help of some extremist American evangelicals. Many don’t know about Stonewall or, more recently, the importance ofLawrence v. Texas. They don’t know about Cuba’s jailing of HIV patients or even that Iran has sentenced gay teenagers to death by hanging. They don’t know that in large portions of Baghdad, honest LGBT folks are hunted and summarily executed by roving bands of so-called morality police, who kill with impunity both the “out” and those simply perceived to be gay. What many young people do know is what they read in short bursts on celebrity Twitter posts or on TMZ. And what they read and see is how freeing being honest can be. What they don’t see is that it remains, in many places, very dangerous to do just that. And that dichotomy is deeply troubling to me.

But Griffin is a strong believer in Anderson Cooper, whom, she quotes as saying, “I want to report the news. I don’t want to be the news.”

Here’s the thing: I love my friend Anderson and remain immensely proud of him. And I’m honored, truly, that he considers me a friend. But I just want him to be careful. Of course he wouldn’t be doing his job if he really were being careful. And he wouldn’t be who he is.

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‘Ignorant’ Noem’s ‘Incoherent’ Habeas Corpus Claim Blasted

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May 20, 2025

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U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem is facing sharp backlash after falsely defining the core constitutional principle of habeas corpus during sworn testimony before Congress—and defiantly, yet inaccurately, insisting that presidents have unilateral authority to suspend it.

Asked what habeas corpus is, Noem, a former governor and U.S. Congresswoman, delivered this incorrect response: “Habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the President has to be able to remove people from this country.”

“That’s incorrect,” U.S. Senator Maggie Hasan (D-NH) interjected, before serving up the correct response and a bit of a legal lesson—and a warning.

READ MORE: Vulgar Trump Boast Claims Credit for Olympics—and Blames ‘Rigged’ Race for Comeback

“Habeas corpus is the legal principle that requires that the government provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people. If not for that protection, the government could simply arrest people, including American citizens, and hold them indefinitely for no reason. Habeas corpus is the foundational right that separates free societies like America from police states like North Korea.”

“As a senator from the ‘Live Free Or Die’ state, this matters a lot to me and my constituents, and to all Americans,” Hassan explained. “So Secretary Noem, do you support the core protection that habeas corpus provides, that the government must provide a public reason in order to detain and imprison someone?”

“Yeah, I support habeas corpus,” Noem replied, before again promoting a false narrative.

“I also recognize that the President of the United States has the authority under the Constitution to decide if it should be suspended or not,” she insisted.

“It has never been done without approval of Congress,” Senator Hassan responded. “Even Abraham Lincoln got retroactive approval from Congress.”

White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller recently suggested the administration was looking into suspending habeas corpus.

READ MORE: Leavitt’s Deficit Denial and the First Ever Trillion-Dollar Defense Budget Built on It

Critics blasted Secretary Noem.

“The Secretary of DHS does not know (1) what the writ of habeas corpus is or (2) which branch of gov’t has the constitutional power to suspend the great writ. Given her expected role in detaining millions of people, that’s not great,” warned civil rights attorney Patrick Jaicomo.

“This is extraordinary,” exclaimed immigration attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick. “The Secretary of Homeland Security doesn’t know what the right of habeas corpus is (the ancient right to go to court to challenge government detention) and offers an incoherent definition which suggests she thinks it’s a presidential power to deport people?”

“Kristi Noem says that habeas corpus is the president’s right to remove people from this country. Really great that someone this ignorant of people’s constitutional rights is in charge of removing people from this country,” lamented The Atlantic’s James Surowiecki, author of “The Wisdom of Crowds.”

“Noem just turned a centuries-old safeguard against tyranny into a talking point for authoritarianism,” wrote investment banker Evaristus Odinikaeze. “Founding Fathers just face-palmed in unison.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

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Vulgar Trump Boast Claims Credit for Olympics—and Blames ‘Rigged’ Race for Comeback

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May 20, 2025

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President Donald Trump’s remarks at the Kennedy Center board dinner Monday night included a vulgar expression, a conspiracy theory about the 2020 election, pointed criticism, unfounded self-congratulatory claims, and a suggestion of political retribution.

“What a group of good friends,” Trump told the Kennedy Center’s leadership at the White House event, The Daily Beast reported. “We’re gonna bring this place back. It’s not so good. I thought it was gonna be beautiful.”

Trump also “accused Kennedy Center’s previous leadership of wasting millions of dollars on ‘rampant political propaganda, DEI, and inappropriate shows.'”

“Who thinks of these ideas?” he asked. “We’re bringing our country back so fast.”

READ MORE: Leavitt’s Deficit Denial and the First Ever Trillion-Dollar Defense Budget Built on It

In remarks promoted by the White House Director of Communications, Steven Cheung (video below), an unleashed Trump did not hold back.

The President told the captive audience, “we got the Olympics, and then we got through Johnny, the boss, we got — he’s a friend of mine — we got the World Cup. I got ’em both. And I said, ‘Man, I won’t be president. I won’t be — I got the Olympics and the World Cup, and I won’t be president. And they’re gonna forget that I got them. Nobody’s gonna mention it, because, you know, a little bit, that’s the way life is.'”

Trump’s lament continued: “And then they rig the election.”

“And then I said, ‘You know what I’ll do? I’ll run again, and I’ll shove it up their a–,'” Trump said, to applause. “And that’s what I did, and all of a sudden, I then realized, I said, ‘You know what? I got the Olympics, I got the World Cup, and I got the 250th [anniversary].”

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“So if they would have left us alone and wouldn’t have cheated on the election and wouldn’t have rigged it, I would have been retired right now. I would have been happily doing something else, and instead they have me for four more years. Can you believe it?”

HuffPost noted that Trump “appointed himself chair of the Kennedy Center earlier this year amid a pro-MAGA purge of the historically bipartisan organization.”

The video, posted to Cheung’s official account on X, has been viewed over 300,000 times in just 12 hours.

Watch below or at this link.

READ MORE: White House Scrambles to Clean Up Trump’s Walmart ‘Rage Tweeting’ Amid Upcoming ‘Standoff’

 

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Leavitt’s Deficit Denial and the First Ever Trillion-Dollar Defense Budget Built on It

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18 hours ago

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May 19, 2025

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Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is bragging that President Donald Trump has submitted the largest budget ever for the Pentagon: one trillion dollars, about $150 billion more than President Joe Biden’s final budget request. Critics are blasting the White House for insisting that the Republicans’ new budget—which guts Medicaid, reduces taxes (primarily for the wealthy), and eliminates the Department of Education, does not increase the deficit.

“He’s gonna be the first president to introduce a trillion-dollar budget,” Secretary Hegseth told Fox News’ Will Cain on Monday (video below). “That’s not just spending more. It’s also being serious about an audit. It’s also finding cuts where we pull out the Biden garbage and put in President Trump’s priorities. So we’re going to invest a generational investment in those capabilities.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked on Monday if President Trump is “okay with this bill adding to the deficit?”

READ MORE: No Trump, No FEMA? Tornado Ravaged City’s Mayor Pleads for Federal Assistance

“This bill does not add to the deficit,” Leavitt insisted, before claiming that it “will save $1.6 trillion.”

Economist Justin Wolfers appeared to disagree, posting a chart that shows that the GOP/Trump budget legislation increases the deficit by more than one-third.

The Hill reported that the “tax portion of Republicans’ wide-ranging bill full of President Trump’s domestic priorities would cost $3.7 trillion over the next decade, the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) found.”

“Tables from the JCT, which is the official revenue scoring body of Congress, show that extensions of the 2017 tax cuts and other measures will add about $5.6 trillion to the deficit, while cuts to renewable energy incentives and amped international tax enforcement will reduce the deficit by about $1.9 trillion.”

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U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX) commented, “It doesn’t ‘save’ a $1 trillion, it slashes it from programs like Medicaid and SNAP, kicking millions of Americans off their healthcare and nutrition programs You also forgot to mention the other $3-4 trillion being spent on tax cuts for the wealthy that’ll explode our deficit.”

The Wall Street Journal delivered more math, saying that the GOP “plan won’t reduce federal budget deficits and would make America’s fiscal hole deeper.”

“The current proposal would increase projected budget deficits by nearly $3 trillion through 2034, locking in tax cuts and spending increases that outweigh reductions in spending on Medicaid and nutrition assistance. While Republicans, who have vowed to reduce red ink, say higher economic growth will fill the gap, budget analysts across the political spectrum have panned the Republican plan, warning that it worsens the U.S. fiscal picture.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

RELATED: ‘Bonanza for Billionaires’: Johnson Celebrates ‘Victory’ of Medicaid-Gutting Tax Cuts Bill

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