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STANDING ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF HISTORY: ‘Like, Is America Ready For The Big Gay Super Bowl?’

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STANDING ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF HISTORY examines ideas, events, places and people standing on the wrong as well as the right side of history.

I come from a family of sports fans. My dad, and mom and sister, our uncles and our aunts, most everyone but me, loved football. When they weren’t freezing in the stands, they were huddled around the TV watching “the  game.” Holidays were marked with a succession of games blaring at full volume. My mother could name every quarterback in the NFL and most of the coaches; when she died at 87 we had to cancel her subscription to Sports Illustrated. From her hospital bed, two days before her death, she reminded us to collect the $387 that Glenn — her bookie — still owed her. Glenn paid up and even sent flowers to the funeral home. At the funeral I spotted him in the back row.

I learned late in life to like the game; to appreciate the elegance of a well thrown pass; the athleticism of a spectacular catch and the thrill of watching someone kick a 63 yard field goal. Twenty-two hot men in spandex, huddling, hugging and patting each other on the butt only added to the allure. My new husband, my companion of 35 years, and I even went to a Sports Bar in Puerto Vallarta while on our honeymoon to root for the Seahawks who narrowly lost their exciting playoff game. And we’ll be watching Super Bowl XLVII with the other 100 million fans.

So Thursday on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, when I heard The Edge of Sports’ Dave Zirin say, “From the political perspective, this is like the LGBT super bowl in some respects. Like, is America ready for the big gay super bowl?” I almost dropped the cup of coffee I was holding and gave him my full attention.

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Zirin went on to contrast Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo, a supporter of gay rights, and San Francisco 49ers cornerback Chris Culliver, whose homophobic comments resulted in the 49ers’ management hurriedly issuing a formal statement rejecting his remarks and an unconvincing apology from Culliver  which had obviously been crafted by a 49ers’ public relations person. The 49ers, Zirin reminded viewers, was the first NFL team to produce a video for the It Gets Better campaign, an anti-bullying project aimed mostly at LGBTQ youth.

Adding fuel to this public relations fire in San Francisco, at the same time a proposal to rename San Francisco International Airport in honor of gay rights activist Harvey Milk was being discussed, two of Culliver’s team mates, Ahmad Brooks and Isaac Sopoaga, denied having participated in the video in which they can clearly be viewed, and when confronted with the evidence exacerbated the kerfuffle by saying if they had known the video was aimed at LGBTQ youth, they wouldn’t have participated. Dan Savage has since yanked the video from the It Gets Better website.

The week got curiouser and curiouser for the 49ers when it was revealed that former teammate, 30-year-old Kwame Harris, may face criminal charges after allegedly assaulting his ex-boyfriend last year. Outed by the news of his arrest, Harris took time out from his own problems to opine, “It’s surprising that in 2013 Chris Culliver would use his 15 minutes to spread vitriol and hate. I recognize that these are comments that he may come to regret and that he may come to see that gay people are not so different than straight people.”

Not everyone on the team shares Colliver’s, Brooks’, and Sopoaga’s attitude. Harris, who played for the 49ers from 2003 to 2007, had never revealed he was gay in public nor to his fellow players. Upon learning his former friend is gay, tight end Delanie Walker, who played alongside Harris for two seasons, said he didn’t see his former teammate any differently. “It probably wouldn’t affect me, but other guys might feel different,” Walker told USA Today. “If that’s what he’s into, that’s what he’s into. I can’t judge a person for how he feels. Things happen. He was a great player. And long snapper Brian Jennings observed, “We’re all there for the common purpose of winning football games. I don’t know if it mattered or if anyone was aware of his sexual orientation.”

In Baltimore, the Ravens’ Ayanbajedo sees the upcoming game as a platform to talk about marriage equality and anti-bullying. “It’s a message of positivity. It’s a message of equality. And it’s a chance to get it out. It’s not going to affect the way I play football, but it’s going to affect a lot of people’s lives off the field.”

His teammate, outside linebacker Terrell Suggs, when asked if he would have a problem with a gay teammate answered, “Absolutely not.” Suggs observed that the rest of the team would also welcome a gay teammate. “We wouldn’t have a problem with it,” he said. “We don’t care. Our biggest thing in the locker room is to just have fun and stay loose. We don’t really care too much about that. We’re a football team. I said it yesterday; everybody deserves a certain amount of privacy. Who cares? Whatever a person’s choice is, it’s their choice. On this team, with so many different personalities, we just accept people for who they are and we don’t really care too much about a player’s sexuality,” added Suggs. “To each their own. You know who you are, and we accept you for it.”

The next day, I watched MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts interview Wade Davis, a former NFL cornerback who came out as gay last year after playing with the Tennessee Titans, and later with the Seattle Seahawks and the Washington Redskins, from 2000-2004. On the show which aired February 1, the former NFL player said, “We need more straight allies [in sports] to speak up for the LGBT community.” His interview included reflections on why homophobia is so rampant in the sports world.  “I think that the real issue is the idea that a gay man can play sports is an attack to a straight guy’s masculinity.”

When asked about Chris Culliver’s remarks,  Davis, who has said, “at least three NFL players are ‘semi-openly’ gay,” which means they’re only open to their teammates, responded, “I was very hurt by it,  I thought, wow, this is going to help us have this conversation during the biggest game of the year, but then I also thought that, wow, there’s a lot of players who are closeted in the NFL that are going to go deeper into the closet  because of these comments.”

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And just this very Super Bowl morning, MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry asked, “Is this going to be the gayest ever Super Bowl in history?”

Lest fans think that the NFL was embracing Ayanbajedo’s “positivity” and his teammates’ welcoming acceptance, on Friday the league-sanctioned Fourteenth Annual Super Bowl Gospel Celebration featured a lineup of homophobic religious singers and preachers who have said things so extreme they make Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum appear reasonable by comparison.

Why does any of this matter? Dave Zirin’s article in The Nation, “Is It Getting Better? Homophobia Rocks Super Bowl,” explains:

Well, it matters for a multitude of reasons. First, whether we like it or not, athletes are role models. Complaining about this fact of American life is like complaining that the sky is blue or John Boehner is orange. Therefore it makes a difference if they are modeling inclusion and respect for our LGBT friends and family. As Hudson Taylor, founder of the organization Athlete Ally said in a statement, “Chris Culliver’s comments are disrespectful, discriminatory and dangerous, particularly for the young people who look up to him.” It also matters because as long as there has been football, from its inception when Teddy Roosevelt would lash out at “sissies” who refused to play, it has been one of the ways manhood has been defined in the United States. Being a “real man” means playing through pain, harming others and limping away when the game is done. To be gay means, as Culliver said in a modern incarnation of Teddy Roosevelt, you are bringing “that sweet stuff in the locker room.” When NFL players like Ayanbadejo, Chris Kluwe, and Scott Fujita speak out for gay rights, they are also implicitly speaking out against these rigid, crushing, social constructions that are long overdue to be thrown in the dustbin of history.

Of course I have no idea what the outcome of the game will be. As I write this, odds-makers in Las Vegas are calling the 49ers the favorite by 3½ points. (They also give a 36% chance Beyonce’s hair will be straight, not curly – $100 wins $150.) If they were still alive, Glenn would be telling my mother, “Sylvia, the Ravens are the underdogs.” But I don’t see it that way. Regardless of the final score, the Ravens are clearly the winners. And Brendon Ayanbadejo and Terrell Suggs are standing on the right side of history.

Image, top, by Joe Brokken

 

Stuart Wilber believes that living life openly as a Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer or Allied person is the most powerful kind of activism. Shortly after meeting his partner in Chicago in 1977, he opened a gallery named In a Plain Brown Wrapper, where he exhibited cutting edge work by leading artists; art that dealt with sexuality and gender identification. In the late 1980’s when they moved to San Clemente, CA in Orange County, life as an openly gay couple became a political act. They moved to Seattle 16 years ago and married in Canada a few weeks after British Columbia legalized same-​sex marriage. When Marriage Equality became the law in Washington State, they married on the first possible day permitted which was the first day of their 36th year together. Although legally married in some states and some countries, they are still treated as second class citizens by the federal government. Equality continues to elude him. (Photo by Mathew Ryan Williams)

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OPINION

Chief Justice ‘Shaken’ by Public Reaction to Him Handing Trump Near-Total Immunity

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October 8, 2024

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Last year, when Donald Trump’s attorneys declared he had “total immunity” from prosecution, many in the legal community scoffed. No president in all of American history had ever proclaimed they could not be convicted for serious violations of law—most infamously, President Richard Nixon had to have been keenly aware he might be criminally prosecuted.

Just eleven days after Nixon resigned the presidency in 1974, TIME reported, “Nixon’s new status as a private citizen puts him in grave peril.”

In fact, TIME continued, “the Watergate grand jury had vigorously wanted to indict Nixon while he was President.”

The American public is aware presidents can be prosecuted for certain crimes, and there is a foundational expectation of that possibility. In February of 2021, after the Democratic House impeached Donald Trump, Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell declared the ex-president should face criminal prosecution rather than impeachment.

“Donald Trump’s legal troubles are far from over, despite his acquittal in the U.S. Senate impeachment trial that ended on Saturday,” Reuters reported on February 16, 2021. “Minority Leader Mitch McConnell noted this just moments after voting to acquit Trump, saying the courts are the proper forum for holding the former president accountable for his role in the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters.”

READ MORE: ‘They Are Partners’: Experts Warn on Trump and Putin After Bombshell Woodward Revelations

We now know that after Special Counsel Jack Smith asked the U.S. Supreme Court to settle the claim of “presidential immunity” by Trump’s attorneys, it refused, waiting for a lower court to weigh in. Chief Justice John Roberts sent a “scathing critique of [that] lower-court decision and a startling preview of how the high court would later rule,” The New York Times reported last month.

“Behind the scenes, the chief justice molded three momentous Jan. 6 and election cases that helped determine the former president’s fate,” according to The Times’ reporting.

“’I think it likely that we will view the separation of powers analysis differently’ from the appeals court, he wrote,” The Times reported, offering this interpretation for the Chief Justice’s message: “In other words: grant Mr. Trump greater protection from prosecution.”

During oral arguments at the Supreme Court, Trump’s attorney, John Sauer, had literally argued a president could order a coup and be protected by immunity because it was an “official act” of the presidency.

Sauer also argued a president could order the assassination of a political rival and still have immunity from prosecution.

Chief Justice Roberts responded to the “momentous trio of Jan. 6-related cases…by deploying his authority to steer rulings that benefited Mr. Trump, according to a New York Times examination that uncovered extensive new information about the court’s decision making.”

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In short, the Chief Justice used his powers to intervene and craft an opinion that some experts have said creates new law—certainly nothing that is found in the U.S. Constitution.

“There’s no legal authority for it,” remarked CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen back in December.

Nor, as the “originalist” far-right justices on the bench have adopted, does Chief Justice Roberts’ ruling lie in the “history and tradition” of the United States.

And yet, despite decades of history starting with Richard Nixon, and despite the scathing dissenting opinion from Justice Sonia Sotomayor, CNN reports on Tuesday, Chief Justice Roberts “was shaken by the adverse public reaction to his decision affording Trump substantial immunity from criminal prosecution. His protestations that the case concerned the presidency, not Trump, held little currency.”

“The Roberts Court has been in sync with the GOP political agenda largely because of decisions the chief justice has authored: For Trump and other Republicans. Against voting rights and racial affirmative action. Against federal regulations over environmental, public health and consumer affairs,” CNN’s Chief Supreme Court Analyst Joan Biskupic reported. “Roberts, joined by his five fellow conservatives, found that the former president was entitled to presumptive, if not absolute, immunity for actions related to his official acts. Roberts’ view of official acts, as opposed to private ones, was vast.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissenting opinion on Trump’s immunity blasted Roberts and the far-right justices, famously declaring:

“Today’s decision to grant former Presidents criminal immunity reshapes the institution of the Presidency.  It makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government, that no man is above the law. Relying on little more than its own misguided wisdom about the need for ‘bold and unhesitating action’ by the President, the Court gives former President Trump all the immunity he asked for and more.”

She also wrote:

“The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military dissenting coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune. Let the President violate the law, let him exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, let him use his official power for evil ends. Because if he knew that he may one day face liability for breaking the law, he might not be as bold and fearless as we would like him to be. That is the majority’s message today.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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‘They Are Partners’: Experts Warn on Trump and Putin After Bombshell Woodward Revelations

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October 8, 2024

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Political experts and top journalists are delving into reports from Bob Woodward’s new book, and issuing warnings about Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin as Americans face a historic and pivotal election just four weeks from today.

CNN obtained a copy of Woodward’s latest, titled, “War.” In it, the Watergate journalist delivers stunning revelations.

Donald Trump, the ex-president and Republican Party’s presidential nominee, has continued his secret relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Christian nationalism-aligned autocrat and alleged war criminal. According to excerpts from Woodward’s book, Trump has spoken to Putin at least seven times since he left office in January of 2021.

Another bombshell: Trump sent Putin COVID tests at the height of the deadly pandemic while Americans were desperately seeking them. Putin warned the U.S. president to not tell anyone, “because people will get mad at you, not me.” More than 1.2 million Americans died from the deadly disease.

And still more: President Joe Biden knew months ahead of time that Putin would attack Ukraine, via a “treasure trove of intelligence,” including human intelligence from inside the Kremlin, and warned President Zelenskyy, who did not believe the Russian president would be so foolish. Later, as the illegal war was going badly, Biden administration officials warned Putin to not use nuclear weapons, which he had been considering. Reportedly, there was a 50-50 chance Putin would go nuclear.

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“’That fucking Putin,’ Biden said to advisers in the Oval Office not long after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to Woodward,” CNN reports. Biden added: “Putin is evil. We are dealing with the epitome of evil.”

Critics are expressing anger and astonishment amid the latest revelations.

David Rothkopf, the noted foreign policy, national security, and political affairs analyst and commentator shared his observations via social media: “So, let me get this straight, Donald Trump was sitting in Mar-a-Lago on a trove of stolen U.S. national secrets and while there, had Vladimir Putin on speed dial for regular private chats? After he tried to overthrow our government? And Putin is helping his campaign now? And there are people who would actually vote for this guy? It’s obvious he has no qualms about betraying the U.S. The question is why are those who support him willing to help him do so?”

The New Yorker’s Susan Glasser added, “This day is a reminder that Trump kept a trove of secret classified foreign intel at Mar-a-Lago. Will there ever be a trial???”

Matt McDermott, a Democratic strategist remarked: “Americans were dying by the tens of thousands and supply shortages were paralyzing our country’s pandemic response, and all Donald Trump cared about was helping Vladimir Putin. This is unconscionable.”

Dr. Norman Ornstein, the well-known political scientist and AEI emeritus scholar noted: “So Trump sent Covid tests to Putin when there was a shortage here. Meaning it is very likely that some people died as a consequence of his sucking up to his dictator buddy. Then add that he talked to Putin multiple times after leaving office. What top secrets did he share?”

Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell wrote: “Hard to believe this guy is still a coin flip away from a second term.”

Dan Barr, Chief Deputy Attorney General of Arizona responded to Rampell, writing: “Trump’s fan boy fascination with Vladimir Putin will someday be fertile ground for psychobiographers, but for now it is disqualifying for him to be President of the United States. Ronald Reagan would certainly think so, as do all his former aides who now support @KamalaHarris.”

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Some noted that as Trump secretly sent Putin COVID tests, “in at least three instances” he “played politics and deliberately delayed disaster relief as president” because he did not want to send it to Democratic areas of the country, according to PEOPLE.

Ian Sams, senior national spokesperson and senior adviser to the Kamala Harris presidential campaign, posted this to social media:

Alexander Vindman is the former Director for European Affairs for the U.S. National Security Council (NSC). His congressional testimony on the Trump-Ukraine alleged extortion scandal led to Trump’s first impeachment.

On Trump’s “7 meetings with Putin,” he warns: “It is reasonable there is a recording of these calls in an exquisite intel program. Trump would not be the target of the collection, but because Putin is a high-value target, Trump would be caught in the collection. The Russians definitely have a recording of every call.”

“Trump’s 7 calls with Putin also explain why Putin was emboldened to launch the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and sustain more than 2 years of war. Putin has made a huge investment in Trump and expects that investment to payoff,” Vindman adds. “It’s clear now more than ever that @realDonaldTrump was the decisive factor in convincing Putin to wage a wider war on Ukraine. Trump has taken the world to the brink of Armageddon. A second Trump term would have America—& with it the entire world—go over the precipice. Trump was, is, & will be a clear & present danger to the United States.”

Investigative journalist Dave Troy, who has written extensively about Vladimir Putin, in April at The Washington Spectator warned: “Trump’s Peace Plan? Nuclear Blackmail.”

On Tuesday he weighed in on the Woodward bombshells.

“The best way to understand Trump’s ongoing fealty to Putin is that they intend, together with Musk, Vance, Gabbard, Ramaswamy, Thiel, RFK, Orban, Kim Jong Un, and friends, to reorder the world using nuclear blackmail,” he wrote at the start of a lengthy thread on X. Troy concludes, “when you read that Trump sent Putin COVID tests in 2020, and has spoken with him seven times since being out of office, know why: they are partners.”

Watch MSNBC’s report below or at this link.

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‘Dangerous’: Musk Laughing at Idea of ‘Puppet’ Kamala Harris Being Killed Sparks Fury

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19 hours ago

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October 8, 2024

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The U.S. Secret Service reportedly intervened last month after tech billionaire Elon Musk, whose companies have received billions in taxpayer dollars through federal defense and intelligence contracts, subsidies, tax credits, and loans, posted a so-called “joke” on his social media platform X claiming no one is even attempting to assassinate President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris.

In a nearly two-hour interview with Tucker Carlson that posted Monday, Musk and the far right-wing host wisecracked about both his original post and his thoughts that led to the now-removed tweet.

After laughing about what will happen to Musk if Donald Trump loses his presidential bid, Musk suggested he will be imprisoned and wondered if he will see his children.

“I’ve been trashing Kampala nonstop,” Musk told Carlson, appearing to pronounce the Vice President’s name incorrectly. “Well, the Kamala puppet, I call her, you know, the machine that the Kampala puppet represents.”

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“Yeah, she’s irrelevant,” Carlson declared, waving his hand in the air dismissively.

“I made a joke, which I realized I deleted, which is like, ‘nobody’s even bothering to try to kill Kamala, because it’s pointless’,” Musk said, laughing with Carlson. “What do you achieve? Nothing. Just buy another puppet.”

“Nobody’s trying to kill Joe Biden,” Musk added. “It would be pointless.”

“Some people interpreted it as I was, as though I was calling for people to assassinate her,” Musk explained. “But I was like, but I was like, doesn’t it seem strange that no one’s even bothered to try?” he asked, laughing.

“Nobody tries to assassinate a puppet,” Musk concluded.

The Daily Beast reports Musk is a “longtime financier of Republican causes,” and “joined Trump last Saturday for his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania—the site of July’s assassination attempt. After jumping around on stage—a move that he was widely mocked for on his own site—the X CEO dished out some fear-mongering about how, if Trump doesn’t win, ‘this will be the last election.'”

Back in February The Wall Street Journal described Musk’s SpaceX as “a major national-security contractor” that “is deepening its ties with U.S. intelligence and military agencies.” The company has “a $1.8 billion classified contract with the U.S. government.”

“The Pentagon has more recently done business with SpaceX’s Starlink broadband service, including agreements to pay for Ukrainian internet links during Ukraine’s war with Russia,” The Journal also reported, noting Starlink has a $70 million U.S. military contract.

A short excerpt (bel0w) from the Musk-Carlson interview dropped Monday night, garnering 5 million views in about 13 hours. It prompted many to express outrage, anger over the violent rhetoric, and concern over a military government contractor joking about presidential assassinations. Some said they believed the FBI or Secret Service should get involved.

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Brad Moss, a well-known national security attorney, commented: “If one of my clients made this ‘joke’ their clearance would be suspended before the interview ended.”

National security expert Olivia Troye served as Vice President Mike Pence’s Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Advisor, and has had roles at roles at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, in the intelligence community (at the National Counterterrorism Center,
Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Department of Energy), and at the Department of Defense (DOD) according to her official biography.

“Joking about assassinating our elected leaders is not just tasteless—it’s dangerous,” she warned. “In today’s divided climate, we need responsible voices, not reckless rhetoric that normalizes violence. It’s un-American for Elon Musk & Tucker Carlson to make light of such serious threats. Our leaders—and all Americans—deserve better.”

Christopher Burgess, a writer, speaker and commentator on national security issues who served for over 30 years at the CIA, commented: “Reaction: DISGUSTING

Racist – Misogynist – Cultist

All on display in one 10-15 second sound bite – there is no place for this – anywhere let alone the United States of America”

“Nothing to see here,” remarked gun violence prevention advocate Shannon Watts. “Just a man with classified federal contracts worth billions fantasizing about the assassination of the President and Vice President.”

“Deport this clown,” urged Esquire columnist Charles P. Pierce.

Journalist Jon Ralston, CEO/Editor of The Nevada Independent remarked: “These people are grotesque, the vanguard of Team Trump, simpering fools joking about assassinations. Musk, once thought a visionary, is a pathetic troll on a site he has destroyed.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

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