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Seton Hall’s Derrick Gordon Says He Came Out Because a Lot of LGBT Kids Were Killing Themselves

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Senior Guard Prepares to Make History as First Openly Gay Player in March Madness 

Ahead of his history-making appearance in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament on Thursday night, Seton Hall University guard Derrick Gordon said he came out in 2014 because a lot of LGBT youth were killing themselves or quitting sports because they didn’t feel they fit in. 

“So, hopefully me coming out could help them out in many ways,” Gordon told reporters Wednesday in the locker room at the Pepsi Center in Denver, where the fifth-seeded Pirates will take on 12th-seeded Xavier the first round. “Looking at me playing at a top Division I school and being in the NCAA tournament, they could be like, ‘OK, if he can do it, I can do it.'”

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Gordon, who will be the first out player to appear in what is known as March Madness, has downplayed his sexual orientation this year, declining interviews with reporters who want to focus on it.

“It’s always going to be a story until somebody else does it. I’m the only one right now in college basketball. I really don’t mind,” Gordon said Wednesday, according to The Denver Post. “I just hope one day when somebody else comes out that it’s not as big of a deal as when I came out. It’s 2016, my teammates are the perfect example that it’s all about basketball with us.

“You would think since these guys are freshmen and sophomores that they really wouldn’t understand, but that’s not the case,” he added. “They accepted me for who I was, and it made things a lot easier.”

Westboro Baptist Church, the anti-LGBT hate group from Kansas, said it plans to protest the NCAA tournament in response to Gordon’s appearance. 

In an interview with TMZ, NBA hall-of-famer Charles Barkley ripped into WBC, saying Gordon should just ignore them because “there’s always gonna be haters.”  

“I hate them sumb—-es,” Barkley said. “It won’t affect the Tournament … but they’re awful people. They act like they’re religious, but they’re awful people. If we get lucky, hopefully somebody will beat the hell of them.”

Seton Hall has a legitimate chance to advance to the Final Four in Houston, where of course voters recently repealed an ordinance banning discrimination against LGBT people. But if the Pirates go deep into the tournament, and Gordon plays a big role, it would be a huge moment in LGBT sports history. 

Gordon is Seton Hall’s sixth man, meaning he’s typically the first substitute to enter the game. This year, he averaged 23.6 minutes and 7.9 points per game. But perhaps more importantly, as a 24-year-old graduate student and the only senior on the roster, Gordon is Seton Hall’s emotional leader. 

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“He’s so mature,” Pirates coach Kevin Willard told Fox Sports after Seton Hall defeated top-ranked Villanova in Saturday’s Big East Championship. “He’s been through a lot and he’s matured a lot. He’s really a calming presence for a group that is at times extremely emotional. He has been through it. This is his third NCAA tournament. It just kind of tells you what type of player and more importantly what type of person he is.”

Gordon is also the first player to appear in the tournament for three different programs, having started his career at Western Kentucky before transferring to UMass, then Seton Hall. But this marks the first time he’ll do it since coming out. 

Wade Davis, the gay former pro football player who serves as executive director of the You Can Play Foundation, told The Denver Post that Gordon’s story debunks myths about both athletes and African-Americans being more homophobic than the general population. 

“If you juxtapose Derrick’s story and Michael Sam’s story, you have one that’s a wonderful success of happiness and joy and you have another that you don’t really know what happened,” Davis said. “With Derrick’s story, you can watch him on Instagram and see him recording a video of him and his teammates dancing. They’re really experiencing love and joy in a way that most of us that play sports want to experience it, absent of our sexual orientation.” 

Seton Hall’s game against Gonzaga tips off at 9:57 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday. It will be broadcast on truTV, but you can watch all of the NCAA tournament games online here. 

 

Images via Derrick Gordon/Facebook

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Trump Organization Given ‘Corporate Death Penalty’ and Ordered Dissolved by Judge After ‘Persistent Fraud’: Legal Experts

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A New York judge has ordered Donald Trump’s business entities in the state of New York, including The Trump Organization, dissolved, and his business certificates canceled, according to legal experts, after ruling that the ex-president for years committed fraud and deceived banks and insurers by inflating the value of his assets.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron “has ordered cancellation of all [NYS] business [certificates] of ‘any entity controlled or beneficially owned by Donald J. Trump, Donald Trump, Jr, Eric Trump, Alan Weisselberg, & Jeffrey McConney. An independent receiver will manage the dissolutions,” writes former federal prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega.

The Messenger reports Judge Engoron’s “blockbuster ruling found that the former president and his business leaders failed to correct course after warned of a ‘propensity to engage in persistent fraud,'” and ordered “a quick timeline to dissolve the Trump Organization and other corporate entities.”

READ MORE: House GOP Shutdown Demands Include Gutting Billions From Dept. of Education, Costing Over 200,000 Teachers Their Jobs

MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin explains that the “New York trial court judge has found that Trump, his adult sons, and Allen Weisselberg engaged in a persistent, years-long fraud through ‘fantasy world’ valuations of core Trump assets, including his own residence and various golf courses and office buildings.”

“His decision not only eliminates the need for trial on that claim, but also orders fairly dramatic relief: the cancellation of New York business certificates for all of the entities named as defendants, ‘as well as any other entity controlled or beneficially owned by the individual defendants found liable,'” she adds.

“In addition to finding that Trump committed fraud, the judge canceled the certificates of various Trump businesses, appointed a former judge as an independent monitor of the Trump Organization, and will appoint receivers to manage the canceled LLCs,” writes former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti.

“This is a pretty big deal,” he adds.

Professor of law Ryan Goodman, the former Dept. of Defense Special Counsel says Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron ordered the “corporate death penalty” for the Trump organization. Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance also used the term “corporate death penalty.”

READ MORE: ‘Careening’ Toward ‘Risk of Political Violence’: Experts Sound Alarm After Trump Floats Executing His Former General

“The leading Republican candidate has been found liable for sexual assault and fraud, his companies found guilty of fraud, and he’s charged with 91 OTHER felony counts. That he is not dismissed politically out of hand says much more about us, than about him,” observes MSNBC’s Andrew Weissmann, the well-known former lead prosecutor in Robert S. Mueller’s Special Counsel’s Office and former FBI General Counsel.

Attorney, retired U.S. Air Force colonel, and former administrative law judge Moe Davis responding to the news, writes: “Trump is the eponymous fraudster. The name Trump is to fraud what Campell’s is to soup, Kleenex is to tissue, and ping is to pong.”

 

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Trump Committed Fraud and Deceived Banks While Growing His Real Estate Empire, Judge Says: Report

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Donald Trump committed fraud, deceived banks, and inflated the value of his real estate holdings a judge said Tuesday, granting New York Attorney General Letitia James partial summary judgment in her civil case against the ex-president.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron “has ruled that Donald Trump committed fraud for years while building the real estate empire that catapulted him to fame and the White House,” The Associated Press reports. Judge Engoron “found that the former president and his company deceived banks, insurers and others by massively overvaluing his assets and exaggerating his net worth on paperwork used in making deals and securing financing.”

“The decision, days before the start of a non-jury trial in Attorney General Letitia James’ lawsuit, is the strongest repudiation yet of Trump’s carefully coiffed image as a wealthy and shrewd real estate mogul turned political powerhouse,” The AP adds.

Attorney General James “is seeking $250 million in penalties and a ban on Trump doing business in New York, his home state. The trial could last into December, Engoron has said.”

READ MORE: McCarthy Now Blaming Likely Shutdown on Fentanyl, President Biden, and His Own House Republicans
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McCarthy Now Blaming Likely Shutdown on Fentanyl, President Biden, and His Own House Republicans

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Speaker Kevin McCarthy during a raucous gaggle with reporters Tuesday afternoon blamed the increasingly likely shutdown of the federal government on fentanyl, President Joe Biden, and his own House Republicans.

Political experts have said the Republican Speaker could avoid a government shutdown, which will happen at midnight on Friday if legislation is not passed, by making a deal with Democrats and a small number of House Republicans. Doing so would likely cost him his job.

Asked on Tuesday by CNN’s Manu Raju, “Are you ruling out a clean CR without any border security?” McCarthy immediately launched in to a diatribe.

“You know what’s so concerning here? What do you tell to the families that tomorrow morning are gonna wake up and their child’s dead? Because fentanyl came across?” he asked the CNN reporter (video below). “What do you tell to that border agent that you saw the other day? Now his network doesn’t believe it but he’s all in blood. Or the cartels, the billions of dollars that they’re making. Or to the young girls that get raped?”

READ MORE: House GOP Shutdown Demands Include Gutting Billions From Dept. of Education, Costing Over 200,000 Teachers Their Jobs

Another reporter, seemingly frustrated, interjected and asked, “But what do you tell the workers who are concerned they’re gonna get furloughed next week because there is no agreement in your chamber, sir?”

“Well, I know. It’s easy,” McCarthy claimed. “All the President has to do is say, ‘You know what, as one of my fundamental jobs as the President of the United States is to secure our border.'”

Another reporter, ignoring the Speaker’s apparent obfuscation, loudly asked, “Speaker McCarthy if we see the rule votes fail later today, is it possible to even move on to a CR [continuing resolution] for you?”

“Oh, yeah, I never give up,” McCarthy said smiling.

“I know that,” she replied, “but do you think you have the votes?”

Again, not delivering a straight answer, McCarthy smiled and replied, “Oh, I’ve got a lot of things I can try.”

READ MORE: ‘Height of Irresponsibility’: Top LGBTQ Civil Rights Group Slams House Republicans Over Shutdown and ‘Politics of Hate’

CNN’s Raju reported that McCarthy, when asked about the “math,” meaning if he has the votes to keep the government open, said: “What’s concerning to me is that there are people in the Republican Party who will take the position of President Biden against what the rest of Americans want.”

That could suggest some Republicans have indicated they would vote with Democrats on a bill to keep the government from shutting down.

Raju also reported he asked “Speaker McCarthy if he believes he could survive a vote to oust him from the speakership, as [Rep. Matt] Gaetz has threatened, and he said: ‘I don’t count that vote.'”

NPR’s Joel Rose has reported, “Close to 90% of … fentanyl is seized at ports of entry. Immigration authorities say it is smuggled mostly by U.S. citizens, as well as other travelers who are legally authorized to cross. Virtually none is seized from migrants who are seeking asylum.”

On Monday The Washington Post Editorial Board wrote: “The U.S. government will almost certainly shut down on Oct. 1, the work of ultraconservative holdouts who want to ‘burn the whole place down,’ as House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) put it. Yet, for now, Mr. McCarthy does not appear willing to take away the matches. He could sideline the objectors by calling House Democrats and agreeing to pass bipartisan legislation to fund the government.”

Watch McCarthy below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Careening’ Toward ‘Risk of Political Violence’: Experts Sound Alarm After Trump Floats Executing His Former General

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