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Political Attack Ad Suggests Texas Candidate Is Gay and Voters Should Keep Him Out of Men’s Rooms

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Texas GOP Politics Grow Increasingly Ugly – Republican Denies Allegations That He’s ‘Well Known’ in Houston’s Gay Bars

Briscoe Cain (photo), a tea party candidate for the Texas Legislature who’s received endorsements from several anti-LGBT hate groups, is accused of being a closeted gay man in a campaign flier (below). The attack ad says it was paid for by his Republican opponent. 

Incumbent GOP state Rep. Wayne Smith, 72, denies he’s behind the flier targeting the 31-year-old Cain, Smith’s challenger in the May 24 Republican Primary runoff.

Cain, meanwhile, denies the allegations in the flier, which states that he’s “well known to those who frequent Montrose area night clubs and gay bars.” Montrose is Houston’s gay neighborhood, and the district covers the city’s eastern suburbs. 

“I’m disgusted by my opponent’s actions,” Cain told The Houston Chronicle, adding that photos of him in the flier are from when he was much younger, and may have been taken from a friend’s MySpace page. 

The photos show Cain, who’s now married to a woman, playing beer pong at an unspecified venue, licking the ear of a nude male statue, and lounging shirtless in snorkeling gear. There’s also a photo of two men kissing outside a park bathroom. 

“Houston voters want to keep men out of women’s locker rooms and restrooms,” the flier states. “District 128 votes should keep Briscoe Cain out of the men’s restrooms as well.” 

The flier says Smith “will author and pass legislation to keep men out of women’s locker rooms and restrooms all across Texas.” 

“On May 24th Say NO to indecency,” the flier states. “Say NO to Briscoe Cain.” 

Smith denied any knowledge of the flier, and Allen Blakemore, a spokesman for Smith’s campaign, suggested that Cain is actually the one circulating it.    

“In a last gasp attempt to breathe life into his latest attempt at political office, the Briscoe Cain campaign’s most recent publicity stunt now includes rumors of a malicious mailer,” Blakemore said, adding that Cain is “starved for support and the attention of the voters” and is reaching “to the media for a life preserver.”

Cain outpaced Smith in the March 1 GOP primary, 48 percent to 43 percent, but since neither received more than half of votes, they’ll meet again in Tuesday’s runoff. 

Right-wingers have accused Smith, an establishment Republican and top lieutenant for moderate GOP House Speaker Joe Straus, of not being sufficiently conservative. And Cain’s endorsement list reads like a who’s-who of anti-LGBT groups and activists, including the National Organization for Marriage, Texas Values, the Texas Eagle Forum and Conservative Republicans of Texas. 

On his campaign website, Cain calls for standing up to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of same-sex marriage, protecting so-called “religious freedom” and cutting off funding for cities with LGBT-inclusive nondiscrimination ordinances. In March, he posted this to Twitter:

Dr. Steve Hotze, the prominent anti-LGBT activist who heads Conservative Republicans of Texas, told the Chronicle that when he learned of the flier, he contacted Cain, who assured him the accusations are baseless. 

“I’ve known Briscoe for years and I take him for his word,” Hotze said. “It’s such a despicable piece, so sleazy … but it’s politics, for crying out loud. That’s how it works.” 

 

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‘Less Blame Game, More Solutions’: Duffy Urged to ‘Do Your Job and Stop Whining’

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U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy is under fire for deflecting blame over the escalating crisis at Newark Liberty International Airport—issues his department has yet to resolve. Critics point to his references to “cracks in the system” nationwide and a so-called “Brand New Air Traffic Control System Plan” that, so far, lacks meaningful public detail.

Politico described the Secretary’s lack of specifics by saying that the “Trump administration has closely held the exact contents of Duffy’s plan, but it’s likely to contain some combination of investments in new technologies, facilities upgrades and consolidation along with money for air traffic controller retention and hiring and overhauling the FAA’s infrastructure that allows facilities to communicate together.”

There is already “a multibillion-dollar FAA program called NextGen, which aims to transition the country away from passive radars to a satellite-based system for tracking planes, has been ongoing since 2003,” including during the Biden administration. And, as Politico also reported, the “agency is also in the early stages of a $2.4 billion, 15-year contract with Verizon, issued during the Biden administration, to replace the copper wires that have plagued Newark with modern fiber-optic cables across the country.”

READ MORE: GOP Plan Redefines Dependent Child as ‘Under 7’—But Adds Loophole for Married Couples

But according to Secretary Duffy, “Biden and Buttigieg ignored the warning signs at Newark. It was shameful.”

National security and civil liberties journalist Marcy Wheeler commented, “if this guy would just stop blaming the President whose efforts to fix FAA Republicans refused to fund and did something he might actually fix the problem. Stop whining, Crash @SecDuffy. Please do your job and stop whining.”

Duffy has repeatedly attacked his predecessor and the prior administration, attempting to blame the current crisis on them.

“So the blame belongs to the last administration?” asked former Marine F/A-18 pilot and Democratic former political candidate Amy McGrath. “You’ve got to be kidding me. The last administration passed major legislation for funding the fix [to transportation] infrastructure problems DESPITE Republicans (like Duffy) voting against it for years.”

“More lies from another failed reality show contestant,” charged U.S. Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY). “Also, pointing fingers instead of addressing our current air traffic issues? Passengers are delayed, airlines are struggling & ATC is understaffed. We need action, not excuses. Less blame game, more solutions.”

READ MORE: GOP ‘Voucher Scheme for the Wealthy’ Would Hand $5 Billion to Religious, Private Schools

CNN’s David Axelrod mocked Duffy, writing: “Nothing like taking responsibility.”

And Professor of Public Policy Robert Reich, the former Clinton Labor Secretary, added, “when Sean Duffy was a congressman, he and other Republicans voted against upgrading air traffic control systems. Now, he’s trying to blame those systems for Newark airport’s outages – while claiming DOGE’s cuts of critical support staff at the FAA had nothing to do with it. Hello?”

Secretary Duffy on Tuesday warned, “We’re starting to see cracks in the system.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Bystander’ Trump Keeps Saying ‘I Don’t Know’ — Critics Ask ‘Who’s in Charge?’

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GOP Plan Redefines Dependent Child as ‘Under 7’—But Adds Loophole for Married Couples

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House Republicans, intent on increasing work requirements for assistance programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and promoting marriage, have devised a new definition for “dependent child.” Currently, an adult has a dependent child if that child is under 18 years of age. Under the new proposed House definition for SNAP, once that child turns seven—usually someone in second grade—they could no longer be considered a dependent, with one exception.

The new House proposal also adds ten years to the time when the adult needs to continue working in order to receive SNAP benefits, from 54 to 64 years of age. However, it removes the work requirement if the adult with the dependent child is married and lives with someone who already complies with the new regulations. Unmarried couples with a child would not qualify for the exemption.

The new proposal would be part of Republicans’ legislation that would provide $4.5 trillion in tax cuts, largely benefiting the wealthy.

READ MORE: GOP ‘Voucher Scheme for the Wealthy’ Would Hand $5 Billion to Religious, Private Schools

The new bill refers to work requirements for “Able Bodied Adults Without Dependents,” or ABAWD. It reads:

“Specifically, this section would increase the age with which ABAWDs must continue working to qualify for SNAP to 64 (up from 54 currently); it changes the generic, functional definition of ‘dependent child’ for ABAWD purposes from under 18 years of age to under 7; and it carves out an exception to the work requirements for a person responsible for a child 7 years of age or older who is married and resides with an individual who complies with the SNAP work requirements.”

An April 30 report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reveals that the GOP’s proposal “could take food away from millions of people in low-income households who are struggling to find steady work or who face substantial barriers to employment, including families with children.”

That report also notes that “the people who would be newly at risk of losing food assistance under the Johnson proposal include…1.4 million older adults aged 55 through 64 without children in their homes,” “More than 3 million adults who live with school-aged children,” “Veterans, people experiencing homelessness, and young people who have aged out of foster care,” and, “About 1.6 million people living in areas without enough jobs.”

The move also comes as states lower or remove protections for child workers.

Last year, the Center for American Progress published a report titled, “Project 2025 Would Exploit Child Labor by Allowing Minors To Work in Dangerous Conditions With Fewer Protections.”

READ MORE: ‘Bystander’ Trump Keeps Saying ‘I Don’t Know’ — Critics Ask ‘Who’s in Charge?’

 

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GOP ‘Voucher Scheme for the Wealthy’ Would Hand $5 Billion to Religious, Private Schools

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Speaker Mike Johnson’s House Republicans want to insert a provision into their massive tax cuts bill that would create a system to hand private and religious schools $5 billion annually and wealthy donors yet another tax break.

Calling it an “unprecedented effort to use public money to pay for private education,” the Associated Press reports that it “would advance President Donald Trump’s agenda of establishing ‘universal school choice’ by providing families nationwide the option to give their children an education different from the one offered in their local public school.”

If enacted, the system would provide a vehicle for donors to donate cash or stocks, then receive full value via a tax credit —”100% of the contribution back in the form of a discount on their tax bills,” according to the AP. “It would allow stock holders to avoid paying taxes that would be levied if they donated or transferred the stock.”

READ MORE: ‘Bystander’ Trump Keeps Saying ‘I Don’t Know’ — Critics Ask ‘Who’s in Charge?’

Samantha Jacoby, Deputy Director of Federal Tax Policy with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities described it as “a new federal tax credit to subsidize private school vouchers — effectively the first nationwide voucher program.” She called it “a costly tax break for the wealthy [with] an egregious capital gains tax loophole.”

Jacoby added, “this is a much more generous tax break than the existing charitable deduction. The max benefit from the deduction is 37 cents per $ donated, but the voucher credit would make taxpayers fully whole; i.e., the federal government pays the full cost of the vouchers.”

Critics are blasting the proposal.

“Voters have never approved vouchers in any state,” noted public education advocate Mike DeGuire, Ph.D. “Now the Republican-led Congress wants to spend billions to gut public education with their voucher scheme for the wealthy.”

“Trump and his cronies want [to] kick 9 million vulnerable people off Medicaid to pay for (1) tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, and (2) $5 BILLION to send to religious schools that are unaccountable to taxpayers,” observed constitutional attorney Andrew L. Seidel, a vice president at Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

In 2019, then-Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos proposed a similar program, Education Freedom Scholarships, which was met with opposition by Democrats.

Then-U.S. Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-OH) called it “a shell game to fund private and religious schools and their providers using taxpayers as the middleman.”

READ MORE: ‘Barely Literate’: Education Secretary’s ‘Deranged’ Letter Gets Major Red Ink Corrections

 

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