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Matthew Shepard: 13 Years Ago Tonight, Was Attacked, Left For Dead

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Matthew Shepard was brutally, savagely, and fatally attacked 13 years ago tonight, possibly exactly thirteen years ago at the very moment you are reading this now. It took a battle of eleven years to get what became the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act to pass and get signed into law. Thirteen years ago, Matthew Shepard, a gay, 21 year-​old college student who stood 5′ 4″ tall, and weighed just one hundred pounds, was lured out of a bar by two men claiming to be gay. He was robbed, pistol whipped, brutally beaten and tortured, and tied to a fence like a scarecrow and left for dead until someone came by and found him in a coma eighteen hours later. (At first they thought he was a scarecrow.) Matthew died six days after his inhuman hate crime assault. His two assailants did this to Shepard because he was gay. They are now in jail. These are facts. They have been proven many times over.

Via Wikipedia:

“Shepard suffered a fracture from the back of his head to the front of his right ear. He had severe brain stem damage, which affected his body’s ability to regulate heart rate, body temperature and other vital signs. There were also about a dozen small lacerations around his head, face and neck. His injuries were deemed too severe for doctors to operate. Shepard never regained consciousness and remained on full life support. As he lay in intensive care, candlelight vigils were held by the people of Laramie.”

John Aravosis at AMERICAblog reminded me of this, as he writes tonight,

He wasn’t found for nearly a day, still barely alive in the 30 degree weather, the only part of his face not covered by blood was where the tears had streamed down. The attack on Matthew, and his subsequent death a few days later, was a galvanizing moment for the gay community. It was one of only a handful of moments I can think of, in the twenty years that I’ve been out, that something changed in all of us, nationwide, at a much larger, meta level.

Within a day of hearing of the story I set up a Web site to help coordinate news about his attack.  It was called Matthew Shepard Online Resources.  The site, and its accompanying bulletin board, quickly became the main organizing point for our community and our allies, and for a good year it advocated for amending the US’ already existing hate crimes law to include gender, disability and sexual orientation.  The Republicans blocked legislation, and it wouldn’t become law for another eleven years.

The Republicans did block legislation, and in typical GOP style, lied about the facts.

On April 30, 2009, I wrote,

“The hate crimes bill that’s called the Matthew Shepard Bill is named after a very unfortunate incident that happened where a young man was killed, but we know that that young man was killed in the commitment of a robbery. It wasn’t because he was gay. This – the bill was named for him, hate crimes bill was named for him, but it’s really a hoax that that continues to be used as an excuse for passing these bills.”

So said Rep. Virginia Foxx (R –NC) yesterday in a full session of the U.S. House of Representatives, in her bid to defeat the “Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009”, H.R. 1913, better known as the Matthew Shepard Act. There was one special guest in the House too: Judy Shepard, Matthew’s mother.

…

For Virginia Foxx to lie to the world, and to Matthew’s mother, is not only unacceptable, it is unforgivable. And it is time for Virginia Foxx to resign.

At the time, Keith Olbermann called Rep. Foxx’s statement “The most despicable thing said on the floor of the House in decades.” He goes on to say, “She is at best callous, insensitive, criminally misinformed, at worst, she is a bald-​faced liar… She is not worthy to represent this country… she is our shame.”

A few days after Foxx’s lies on the floor of the House of representatives, The New York Times wrote, “Luckily, Ms. Foxx is part of a dwindling — if still too vocal — minority. A Hart Research poll released in February 2007 found that 73 percent of those surveyed support hate-​crimes legislation that protects gays.”

In the weeks that passed, we started a group called FireFoxx, which still exists, although we’ve moved on to covering other anti-gay haters. On May 27, 2009, I penned this letter demanding Foxx resign. She never responded.

Rep. Virginia Foxx also never fully apologized for her out-right blatant and hate-filled lies. Nor has she resigned. In their “wisdom,” the people of North Carolina have seen fit to re-elect Rep. Foxx, who since has delivered even more hate and more lies to the American people.

Despite her lies, and those of other Republicans, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act passed and was signed into law five months later, almost to the day.

Sadly, Shepard endured unimaginable torture. Sadly, Matthew Shepard died, on a cross, literally, but not metaphorically. Shepard did not die for our sins, he died by the sin of others: the sin of anti-gay hate, the sin of lack of compassion, the sin of lack of empathy, and the sin of ignorance.

Rest in peace, Matthew Shepard.

 

 

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News

Trump Sues Murdoch Over WSJ’s Epstein Birthday Letter Story

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July 18, 2025

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President Donald Trump is reportedly suing Rupert Murdoch and Dow Jones, the parent company of The Wall Street Journal, over the publication of a story alleging he sent a “bawdy” birthday letter in 2003 to Jeffrey Epstein, the now-notorious convicted sex offender who died in 2019.

“Court records show that Trump filed a lawsuit alleging libel against Murdoch, the Journal’s publisher, Dow Jones, and the reporters who wrote the article in federal court for the Southern District of Florida,” CNBC reported late Friday afternoon.

Trump vehemently denied the Journal’s report and publicly threatened to sue after it was published. The Journal had reported in its story that Trump had warned he would take legal action if the story ran.

“The Wall Street Journal printed a FAKE letter, supposedly to Epstein,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform Thursday night. “These are not my words, not the way I talk. Also, I don’t draw pictures. I told Rupert Murdoch it was a Scam, that he shouldn’t print this Fake Story. But he did, and now I’m going to sue his a– off, and that of his third rate newspaper. Thank you for your attention to this matter! DJT”

READ MORE: FBI Told to Flag Mentions of Trump in Epstein Files, Dem Says in Scathing Letter to Bondi

Image via Reuters

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FBI Told to Flag Mentions of Trump in Epstein Files, Dem Says in Scathing Letter to Bondi

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1 day ago

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July 18, 2025

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One thousand employees of the Federal Bureau of Investigation sifting through thousands of pages of the Epstein files were instructed to flag any mentions of President Donald Trump, according to Democratic U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, the Ranking Member of the Judiciary Committee.

“According to information my office received,” Senator Durbin wrote in a letter (below) to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi on Friday, “you…pressured the FBI to put approximately 1,000 personnel…on 24-hour shifts to review approximately 100,000 Epstein-related records in order to produce more documents that could then be released on an arbitrarily short deadline.”

“My office was told that these personnel were instructed to ‘flag’ any records in which President Trump was mentioned,” Durbin charged.

The files are from the criminal investigation into the notorious Jeffrey Epstein, who was convicted of child sex offenses.

RELATED: ‘He’s So Frustrated’: Johnson Defends Trump Over Explosive Epstein Birthday Letter

In his letter, Senator Durbin also posed a series of more than a dozen questions to Bondi. Among them:

“Have you personally reviewed all files in DOJ’s possession related to Jeffrey Epstein?”

“The records DOJ released on February 27 did not include a client list. Why did you
publicly claim on February 21 that the client list was ‘sitting on my desk right now to review’?”

“Why were personnel told to flag records in which President Trump was mentioned?”

“Please list all political appointees and senior DOJ officials involved in the decision to flag records in which President Trump was mentioned.”

“What happened to the records mentioning President Trump once they were flagged?”

CNBC reported that “Durbin asked the Justice Department and FBI to explain what his office called ‘apparent discrepancies’ regarding handling of the Epstein files and findings from a Justice Department memo.”

In his four-page letter, Durbin also wrote, “in 2002, Mr. Trump said of Mr. Epstein, ‘I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy, He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.’ Just yesterday, it was reported that the Department previously reviewed a ‘leather-bound album’ comprised of dozens of letters from Mr. Epstein’s friends in celebration of his 50th birthday in 2003.”

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“The letters were collected by Mr. Epstein’s partner Ghislaine Maxwell and included one from President Trump that allegedly ‘contains several lines of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman, which appears to be hand-drawn with a heavy marker … and the future president’s signature is a squiggly ‘Donald’ below her waist.'”

“Despite tens of thousands of personnel hours reviewing and re-reviewing these Epstein- related records over the course of two weeks in March, it took DOJ more than three additional months to officially find there is ‘no incriminating ‘client list,’ and the memorandum with this finding includes no mention of the whistleblower or additional documents, the existence of which you publicly claimed on February 27.”

Read a copy of Senator Durbin’s letter below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Trust in Trump’: White House Touts ‘Incredible’ Economy as Inflation Jumps

Image via Reuters

 

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‘Would the President Say This?’: Rubio Demands Diplomats Echo Trump

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2 days ago

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July 18, 2025

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U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, after cutting 1,300 employees last week, is now ordering diplomats to not comment on foreign elections and internal affairs—limiting official communications to congratulating the declared winner.

“Rubio has instructed U.S. diplomats not to comment on the legitimacy or fairness of foreign elections, breaking with decades of American diplomatic practice,” The Daily Beast reports. In a memo, the Secretary stated that U.S. missions will no longer issue election-related statements unless there is a “clear and compelling” foreign policy reason for doing so.

“Diplomatic personnel writing official messages are instead instructed to ask themselves: ‘Would the President say this?'”

The memo, seen by Reuters, says the messages “should be brief, focused on congratulating the winning candidate and, when appropriate, noting shared foreign policy interests.”

READ MORE: ‘He’s So Frustrated’: Johnson Defends Trump Over Explosive Epstein Birthday Letter

The memo makes clear, based on President Trump’s remarks, that the U.S. will “pursue partnerships with countries wherever our strategic interests align,” regardless of democratic values.

U.S. promotion of human rights, democracy, and press freedoms has traditionally been a “core foreign policy objective,” Reuters reported.

“Under Trump, the administration has increasingly moved away from the promotion of democracy and human rights, largely seeing it as interference in another country’s affairs.”

The Washington Post adds that for “decades, the United States has offered judgments on whether elections were conducted in a free or fair matter [sic], a judgment that can have significant impact in countries.”

“Scholars have accused the United States of democratic backsliding since Trump, who refused to accept the results of the 2020 presidential election, returned to office this year.

President Trump and Vice President JD Vance have defended right-wing and far-right political groups, including Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which reportedly has ties to right-wing extremists.

Secretary Rubio in May ignited a “spat” with Germany’s foreign ministry when it “hit back…after he criticized the decision to classify the Alternative for Germany party as a ‘right-wing extremist’ organization,” the Associated Press reported at the time.

READ MORE: ‘War Is Peace’: White House’s Navarro Mocked Over Claim Tariffs Are ‘Tax Cuts’

Image via Reuters

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