After Months Of Being Coy, GOP Governor Tells Anti-Gay Group He Opposes Gay Marriage
My opinion about same-sex marriage “really doesn’t matter” embattled Wisconsin Republican governor Scott Walker told reporters back in June. But now, weeks before the election, apparently it does.
Perhaps you were thinking Gov. Scott Walker, who will turn 47 just two days before next month’s election, was a possible “yes” on same-sex marriage? Sorry to disappoint, but the Republican, non-denominational, evangelical Christian governor of Wisconsin is not about to be painted as sympathetic to LGBT people.
Back in June, and several times after, Governor Walker told reporters his position on same-sex marriage “really doesn’t matter.” It sounded like he was trying to offer his LGBT constituents a modicum of support.Â
Throughout the summer, some tried to get Walker, who is running for re-election, to take a stand in support of marriage equality, but the Governor wouldn’t say one way or another how he felt.
But apparently, without a word, last month the Governor sought the endorsement of one of Wisconsin’s most anti-gay organizations. And he got it today.
“Time and again over the last four years, Scott Walker has shown that he understands that Wisconsin’s best resource is her married dad-and-mom families,” Julaine Appling Wisconsin Family Action director and president, said in the announcement. “When these families are strong and independent, Wisconsin is strong.”
The AP reports that “Walker says in the Sept. 5 letter to Wisconsin Family Action that he passed anti-abortion measures and he supports marriage between one man and one woman.”
Appling is a veteran in the anti-gay culture wars.
Back in 2011, The New Civil Rights Movement reported that Appling “famously called for nine-month jail sentences and fines of $10,000 for anyone married in another state who attempted to live in Wisconsin.”
“I think we have been extremely tolerant to let them live wherever they choose,” said Appling, whom the Wisconsin Gazette describes as, “a never-married woman who lives with her lifelong companion, Diane Westphall, in a home they own jointly in Watertown,” adding, “The two also work side by side at WFA.”
The Gazette reports that it was Appling’s group that was responsible for many of the phony ballots, working in conjunction with Americans for Prosperity, (AFP), a right-wing group funded by the infamous Koch Brothers. The ballots even had her WFA return address.
And, did I mention there was an admission? “We’re part of a coalition, and we’re doing this,†Ms. Appling announced proudly, and she stuck to that line right up until the time she was warned the ballots constituted mail fraud. At that point Appling suddenly denied any knowledge of the campaign and claimed AFP had used her group’s return address without permission.
What made me take particular notice of Julaine Appling this week was to whom she sent her phony absentee ballots. Understanding her peculiar paranoia, I suppose it will not come as a surprise to you that the target of Appling’s voter suppression scheme was the Wisconsin Gay Community.
Earlier this year, Appling lost her Wisconsin Supreme Court bid to kick same-sex couples off the state’s domestic registry.
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Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr
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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
