NEWS: Mark Regnerus Is ‘Sad,’ Dan Savage Is Laughing, Joan Walsh Sees A ‘Clusterfuck’
➤Mark Regnerus (image, right,) author of the flawed anti-gay parenting “study,” is “sad” that his own university has opened an inquiry into his infamous “study,” thanks to New Civil Rights Movement writer Scott Rose, says The Daily Texan, the newspaper of the University of Texas, Austin.
Scott Rose, a New York City-based investigative journalist and blogger for the pro-gay rights website The New Civil Rights Movement, prompted a UT inquiry in an open letter to the University published online June 24. In his letter, Rose said Regnerus’ study violates UT’s academic dishonesty policy, because he accepted money from politically active groups and purposefully used flawed data collection methods in his study.
Rose also stated Regnerus acted “in bad faith†as a member of the scientific community and questioned whether or not Regnerus engaged in “improper relationships†with the groups funding the study.
➤ Almost 30,000 people have signed a Change.org petition to impeach Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
➤ Dan Savage has written a few words on the news that anti-gay Christian rocker and youth minister Bradlee Dean has to pay Rachel Maddow‘s legal fees after he tried to sue her for defamation.
➤ “Texas was recently ranked worst in the country for health care delivery by the federal Agency for Health Care Research and Quality, scoring “weak†or “very weak†in nine of 12 categories,” yet “Gov. Rick Perry (R) announced that Texas won’t create a state insurance exchange nor accept expanded Medicaid funds outlined in the Affordable Care Act.”
➤ Former SNL star and current Tea party wing nut Victoria Jackson said “It’s the end of the world” upon learning that the Pentagon hosts a pro-gay event for Pride month.
➤ “Yesterday at the National Council of La Raza (NCLR)’s annual conference, twenty-one leading national Hispanic/Latino organizations announced their endorsement of a first-of-its kind, comprehensive public-education campaign called ‘Familia es Familia,‘ which aims to strengthen Latino voices to build support within the Latino community for acceptance of their LGBT family members,” writes GLAAD’s Brian Pacheco.
➤ Governor Rick Scott’s administration has hidden the fact that Florida has been experiencing the worst tuberculosis outbreak in two decades, which has specially harmed black men, as it rushed to close the leading hospital in the state that treats tuberculosis six months early.
➤ “Many retailers are turning their attention to gays and lesbians, a group that wields substantial buying power but isn’t fully integrated into mainstream advertising,” Karen Talley at the Wall Street Journal writes, although adding this unsubstantiated claim: “Similar to other moves to attract different minority groups, the push comes with risks, as it could threaten the retailers’ relationships with some of their longtime shoppers.”
➤ “The Episcopal Church has provisionally approved a union rite for same-sex couples and a nondiscrimination policy that covers transgender people,” writes The Advocate, adding, “At the denomination’s General Convention, being held in Indianapolis, the Prayer Book, Liturgy, and Church Music Committee today passed a resolution authorizing provisional use of the rite for blessing same-sex relationships beginning December 2.”
➤ “In a clusterfuck of conspicuous consumption, Bentleys, BMWs, Range Rovers, Porsches, a Rolls Royce and a Ferrari, idled in a line 30 cars long. ‘Is there a V.I.P. entrance?’ one woman shouted to the ‘help,’ according to the New York Times. ‘We are V.I.P.’,” writes Joan Wlash at Salon, about Mitt Romney’s Koch Brothers’ fundraiser, stating, “Barack Obama couldn’t have picked a better day to announce his plan to extend tax cuts for Americans who make less than $250,000, but let them rise for the wealthy.”
➤ “Sin, celibacy, and fake marriages do not constitute progress from ex-gay therapy. The difference between ‘don’t be gay’ and ‘don’t act gay’ is merely semantic, negligible in practice and unsupported by any scientific research,” writes Zack Ford at Think Progress. “Exodus-affiliated groups are still working to instill internalized anti-gay stigma while erasing the existence of any kind of sexual orientation diversity. Their desire to not do harm is admirable — and with this change, they may in fact do less harm — but that doesn’t change the fact that anything short of sexual orientation affirmation is still harmful.”
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U.S. Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ) is accusing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents of pepper-spraying her in her face while she was at a local Tucson, Arizona restaurant.
Rep. Grijalva in a video on social media said she saw about 40 mostly-masked ICE agents at a restaurant she frequents weekly.
The agents were “in several vehicles that the community had stopped right here, right in the middle of the street, because they were afraid that they were taking people without due process, without any kind of notice.”
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She said that the community was “protecting their people” when she was “sprayed in the face by a very aggressive agent,” and “pushed around by others when I literally was not being aggressive.”
“I was asking for clarification, which is my right as a member of Congress,” she continued. “So, once I introduced myself, once I did, I assumed that it would be a little calmer, but there was literally only one person that was trying to speak to me in any kind of civil tone, and everyone else was being rude and disrespectful, and I just can only imagine if they’re going to treat me like that, how they’re treating everybody else.”
Congresswoman Grijalva said she saw “people directly sprayed,” including “members of our press” and staff members.
She blasted President Donald Trump, saying that he “has no regard for any due process, the rule of law, the Constitution — they’re literally disappearing people from the streets.”
Critics slammed the agents’ action.
READ MORE: Trump: Democrats Are Plotting ‘Total Obliteration’ of Supreme Court
U.S. Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) wrote that Rep. Grijalva “was doing her job, standing up for her community.”
“Pepper-spraying a sitting member of Congress is disgraceful, unacceptable, and absolutely not what we voted for. Period,” he added.
“This is unacceptable and outrageous,” observed Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes. “Enforcing the rule [of] law does not mean pepper spraying a member of Congress for simply asking questions. Effective law enforcement requires restraint and accountability, not unchecked aggression.”
The Bulwark’s Sam Stein noted, “quite the beginning for Grijalva, who wasn’t seated for weeks, [cast] the decisive vote to get the Epstein files, and now has apparently been pepper sprayed in the face by immigration agents.”
Also calling the action “outrageous,” U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) wrote: “We are Members of Congress with oversight authority of ICE. Rep Grijalva was completely within her rights to stand up for her constituents. ICE is completely lawless.”
“First they tackle a sitting Senator,” noted U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY). “Now they’re pepper spraying a Representative. It’s clear ICE is spinning out of control. We will hold the agency accountable.”
ICE just conducted a raid by Taco Giro in Tucson – a small mom-and-pop restaurant that has served our community for years.
When I presented myself as a Member of Congress asking for more information, I was pushed-aside and pepper sprayed. pic.twitter.com/gPx0p3IXP2
— Rep. Adelita Grijalva (@Rep_Grijalva) December 5, 2025
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Image via Reuters
A well-known conservative commentator has a warning for the Republican Party: take action now or face a repeat of the 2018 midterms when the GOP lost 41 House seats in a landslide. And this time, he says, the Senate could go to the Democrats as well.
Award-winning writer and journalist Bernard Goldberg reminded readers at The Hill that in 2018, during President Donald Trump’s first term, “Republicans got walloped … and a good chunk of that had President Trump’s name written all over it.”
Trump’s “approval ratings were in the low 40s, and independents — the folks who usually decide elections — had seen enough. They broke hard for the Democrats,” Goldberg noted. “Now here we are, staring down 2026, and you can almost hear history clearing its throat, getting ready to repeat itself.”
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Goldberg noted that Trump’s approval rating is currently the lowest it’s been this term.
“Among Republicans, his support dropped from 91 percent right after the 2024 election to 84 percent last month. Among independents, it cratered — from 42 percent to just 25 percent.”
“If the trend continues,” he warned, “Republicans could be headed for another blue wave — and this time, it could wash away not just the House majority, but control of the Senate too.”
Why?
“It’s the economy — still,” he wrote.
“Trump is out there saying the economy is humming. Biden said the same thing before him. But voters didn’t buy it then, and they’re not buying it now. Why? Because it’s not GDP numbers that matter. It’s affordability,” Goldberg noted.
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That’s a word that President Trump continues to call a “con job,” while his own administration tries to claim he is focused on.
He pointed to a Karl Rove Wall Street Journal column and wrote: “The Republicans may have ‘avoided disaster’ in Tennessee, but the result should be a wake-up call for Republicans. He’s right.”
Goldberg asked: “will anyone in the Republican Party actually pick up the phone?”
“Because if Republicans don’t wake up — and fast — they’re going to find out the hard way what happens when you keep rerunning the same movie and expecting a different ending. To lose in 2026, all they have to do is nothing. And right now, that’s pretty much what they’re doing.”
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President Donald Trump is claiming that the top priority of Democrats is the “total obliteration” of the U.S. Supreme Court. His remarks came just hours after SCOTUS gave Republicans a 6-3 win along partisan lines, in the form of approving Texas’s redrawn mid-decade congressional maps that could help add five GOP-held seats to the U.S. House of Representatives. A lower court had ruled the redrawn Texas maps were likely racially biased.
Although there are different ways to measure, one study by Court Accountability this fall found that the Supreme Court has ruled in Trump’s favor 90% of the time.
“Most of these wins for the president came from the court’s ‘shadow docket’ slate of opinions — where the court has typically, in the past, only ruled on administrative measures,” according to Truthout. “However, in recent years, the Supreme Court has been making announcements on cases, issuing injunctions or allowances of actions to remain in place, that have the same effect, essentially, as a final decision.”
READ MORE: White House Touts Trump’s ‘Track Record’ on Affordability
On Friday, the president declared that the “Democrats number one policy push is the complete and total OBLITERATION of our great United States Supreme Court.”
“They will do this on their very first day in office, through the simple Termination of the Filibuster, SHOULD THEY WIN THE UPCOMING ELECTIONS,” he wrote.
Trump has strongly advocated for Republicans to eliminate the Senate filibuster.
“The Radical Left Democrats are looking at 21 Justices, with immediate ascension,” he wrote, claiming that Democrats would more than double the current size of the court.
“This would be terrible for our Country. Fear not, however, Republicans will not let it, or any of their other catastrophic policies, happen. Our Country is now in very good hands. MAGA!!!”
Some court reform advocates have suggested the Supreme Court be expanded to 13 justices, one for each of the thirteen U.S. Courts of Appeals.
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Image via Reuters
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