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Op-Ed: We Are Not Okay

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While the LGBT community is strong, we are not okay, but when you come for one minority, you come for us all.

My fiancé and I live in St. Petersburg, Florida, where it’s not uncommon to take an “Orlando weekend.” We’re about an hour and a half away from Pulse.

Last November, we took one of those weekends. We went to Pulse with many of our friends and celebrated a friend’s birthday. We all laughed there. Took pictures there. Sang there. Hugged there. Danced there. Felt safe there. (Why wouldn’t we?)

Last Saturday night, 320 other people did the same. They all laughed there. Took pictures there. Sang there. Hugged there. Danced there. Felt safe there.

53 of them were injured there. 49 more of them died there.

But you know that. You know that the LGBT community is now at the epicenter of the country’s deadliest mass shooting, and the worst domestic terror attack since 9/11. Still, let that sink in, because not everyone has. Please, read it again:

The LGBT community, targeted because of who they love, how they love, or whose love they support, is now at the epicenter of the country’s deadliest mass shooting, and the worst terror attack since 9/11.

Sons, daughters, brothers, sisters. Cousins. Best friends. Music lovers, pet owners, activists. Gone.

But the LGBT community is strong. We’re strong because we’ve always had to be. When our only way to find acceptance was at a seedy bar, and when even our right to do that was threatened, the patrons of Stonewall showed us what strength was in 1969. We carry that with us, all of us, inherently, because we’ve never had any other choice.

In 2016, we now have generations of us who have fought for our equality. We carry their strength within us, if only in the fact that perhaps for one moment, we didn’t second-guess ourselves before showing even the most minuscule display of public affection toward someone we love.

So perhaps now we’re stronger than ever. The outpouring of love and support after the massacre at Pulse, and the solidarity that so many communities have shown ours, is a stark difference from the political climate of 1969. Our rights have flourished.

The day following the massacre, I lasted half a day at work. I felt so disconnected from so many of those around me: those that acknowledged this as a sad story, sure, or perhaps that it was shocking that it was so close. (“Only over in Orlando!”)

I couldn’t fathom it. I couldn’t think about anything else. The country’s deadliest mass shooting, and the worst domestic terror attack since 9/11, was not just another sad story. It was the only story.

And that’s why, if you’re reading this—as a member of the LGBT community or not, please know that while we are strong:

We are not okay.

We are not okay when you criminalize the Muslim community because of the actions of one evil man. We have been the Muslim community: hated, feared, misunderstood. Questioned, berated, threatened, afraid to show our faces. Why would we condone treating an entire community as poorly as ours has been treated in the past, and in many scenarios, still is? When you come for one minority, you come for us all.

We are not okay when gay and bisexual men who have not been celibate for one year are unable to donate the much-needed blood to save the lives of our LGBT brothers and sisters. We do not forget that it took 30 years to even amend the Reagan-era rule which initially forbade us from giving blood at all.

We are not okay when a reality television star running for president panders to us in the wake of such an extensive loss of our lives to lie to the American people. To say that “the LBGT community is just, what’s happened to them it’s just so sad, and to be thinking about where their policies are currently with this administration is just a disgrace to that community, I will tell you right now.”

We are not okay when that Republican presumptive nominee determines for us what is a disgrace to our community. We have that covered, and I’ll give you a hint: it’s orange. He opposes same-sex marriage and supports the First Amendment Defense Act, allowing for the right to discriminate against us. He calls LGBT “LBGT” because he doesn’t know it’s LGBT. It certainly isn’t his administration’s era which repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” or supports the civil rights of transgender students. (Oh, and there’s the bit about this administration’s fight to allow us to marry.)

We are not okay with the elected officials who pretend they haven’t cultivated an environment in which murderers could view us as second-class citizens, as they “defended the Constitution” hearing by hearing. By hearing.

We are not okay with the elected officials who ignore that it was our community who was targeted in this massacre. We know that we were targeted, and we will not allow you to erase our brothers and sisters in death the way that you erased them during their lives, vote by vote. By vote.

And finally, we are not okay that a man who had previously been questioned by the FBI could so readily, so easily, so legally, buy the AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle that he used to rob us of 49 lives. The same weapon which has no waiting period to obtain, in a state where no license is required to buy or carry it. In a country which the same weapon was used to murder 26 people and wound two more in Sandy Hook. To murder 12 and wound 70 in Aurora, Colorado. To murder 10 and wound 9 in Roseburg, Oregon. To murder 14 and wound 22 in San Bernardino.

Was Orlando different because my fiancé personally knew a victim? Was it different because nearly everyone from my immediate community on Facebook had to wonder if one of their friends were dead? Was it that Pulse was an hour and a half away? Sort of.

Every mass shooting has disgusted me. It’s filled me with rage, and with hurt, and made me question the greatness of this country as lawmakers do nothing. As more innocent people die. This didn’t disgust me more. It disgusted me differently. More intimately.

More intimately because if that shooter had opted to go to Pulse last November, instead of last weekend, most of of my immediate friends would be dead. Our Pomeranian and our Jack Russell would wonder why we still weren’t home. My family in Ohio wouldn’t be coming to my wedding at the end of this year, they’d have been coming to my funeral long before it could’ve ever taken place.

And I am urging you, all of you – if we truly are all Orlando – to make sure that the next mass shooting, and there will be another, isn’t the community you call home. That it doesn’t speak to you intimately.

Speak out. Be heard. Be seen.

Vote.

Silence is acceptance, and we owe it to those in Orlando, in Sandy Hook, in Aurora, in Roseburg, in San Bernardino, to become the voices that they lost.

 

Image by Maia Weinstock via Flickr and a CC license

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OPINION

‘Have to Get Back to Law and Order’: Trump Declares at NYPD Officer’s Wake

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Donald Trump attended the wake of the slain New York City police officer who was shot and killed while conducting a traffic stop this week. The four-times indicted ex-president demanded America “get back to law and order,” barely days after a New York judge imposed a gag order in the case where the presumptive Republican presidential nominee faces 34 felony counts for “falsifying New York business records in order to conceal damaging information and unlawful activity from American voters before and after the 2016 election,” according to the New York District Attorney.

That damaging information included hush money payments to several women including an adult film actress.

“We have to stop it,” Trump said Thursday, speaking before the cameras about crime as he stood under an umbrella in front of police officers. “We have to stop, we have to get back to law and order. We have to do a lot of things differently because this is not working. This is happening too often.”

“Police are the greatest people we have. There’s nothing and there’s nobody like them. And this should never happen,” Trump said as he lamented how repeat offenders “don’t learn because they don’t respect.”

READ MORE: Trump Campaign Says It Will Deploy ‘Soldiers’ to Polling Places

“We’ve got to toughen it up. We’ve got to strengthen it up. It should never be allowed things like they shouldn’t take place and to take place so often,” said Trump, who is out on bail and currently faces 88 felony charges after three were dropped.

The Trump campaign announced that the ex-president had been invited to attend the wake.

“President Trump is moved by the invitation to join NYPD Officer Jonathan Diller’s family and colleagues as they deal with his senseless and tragic death,” Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said, according to The Daily Beast.

The Associated Press added that “Trump has deplored crime in heavily Democratic cities, called for shoplifters to be shot immediately and wants to immunize police officers from lawsuits for potential misconduct. But he’s also demonized local prosecutors, the FBI and the Department of Justice over the criminal prosecutions he faces and the investigation while he was president into his first campaign’s interactions with Russia.”

“He has also embraced those imprisoned for their roles on the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, when a mob of his angry supporters overran police lines and Capitol and local police officers were attacked and beaten.”

Earlier on Thursday NBC News reported on Trump’s mischaracterizations of crime.

“Surging crime levels, out-of-control Democratic cities and ‘migrant crime,'” the network noted. “Former President Donald Trump regularly cites all three at his campaign rallies, in news releases and on Truth Social, often saying President Joe Biden and Democrats are to blame.”

READ MORE: ‘Hunger Games at NBC News’: New McDaniel Revelations Have ‘Enraged’ Staffers, Report Says

“But the crime picture Trump paints contrasts sharply with years of police and government data at both the local and national levels,” NBC added. “FBI statistics released this year suggested a steep drop in crime across the country last year. It’s a similar story across major cities, with violent crime down year over year in Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C.”

Watch Trump’s remarks below or at this link.

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OPINION

‘Hunger Games at NBC News’: New McDaniel Revelations Have ‘Enraged’ Staffers, Report Says

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The backlash from NBC News’ hiring of Ronna McDaniel is not over. New reporting from Puck, CNN, and The Washington Post reveals the considerable efforts from top NBC and MSNBC brass to recruit, hire, and support the former RNC chair who promoted false election claims, was allegedly involved in helping Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, and refused to say Joe Biden had been elected fairly.

Staffers at NBC News and MSNBC were outraged at McDaniel’s hiring, but new details about behind-the-scenes efforts reportedly have increased that outrage.

Some critics are either calling for resignations of NBC News and MSNBC  leadership, or questioning how long they can ride out the mess.

“What is Brian Roberts going to do?” CNN‘s Oliver Darcy asks. “The Comcast boss is watching an unceasing five-alarm fire rage at 30 Rock, scarring the reputation of NBC News and threatening to consume multiple parts of the Cesar Conde-run NBC Universal News Group.”

“Conde has lost control of his organization, prompting industry insiders to wonder how he continues to remain in his role as chairman of the NBC News Group. In the words of one veteran media executive I spoke to Wednesday, ‘It’s inconceivable that he should,'” Darcy writes, saying Conde’s actions and those of his top executives have “hosed gasoline” on the scandal.

READ MORE: Lawmaker Slammed for Claiming College Basketball Players Were Actually ‘Illegal Invaders’

That scandal involves these revelations from Puck’s Dylan Byers, who reports, “bringing McDaniel to 30 Rock had been part of a nearly two-month-long effort that was spearheaded by Budoff Brown and her boss, NBC News President Rebecca Blumenstein, with buy-in from Conde and his deputies at both NBC News and MSNBC.”

“Rashida Jones,” he adds, “the president of MSNBC, was very interested in having McDaniel appear as a contributor on her network, as well.”

But this bombshell has drawn a good deal of attention. Noting how Chuck Todd led off the very public pushback against the hiring of McDaniel, Byers reports, “On Sunday, Budoff Brown reached out to McDaniel’s aide and former chief of staff at the R.N.C., Richard Walters, to see if there were any friends or colleagues who could speak up on her behalf.”

“The two sides also discussed having these folks call attention to what they saw as a double standard—after all, this was the same network that was turning Psaki, a former Biden White House Press Secretary, into a Maddow-adjacent prime time star. Walters later assured Budoff Brown that they’d been able to advance conservative pushback on social media against Todd, specifically, and that this might give NBC News some cover, for which Budoff Brown thanked him.”

CNN, pointing to those details, adds, “staffers inside NBC News are enraged at the fact an executive would have engaged in such behavior.”

Former Chicago Tribune editor Mark Jacobs, who now writes about politics and the media, called for the firing of Jones, Blumenstein, and Budoff Brown.

Other critics are expressing concerns on multiple fronts.

READ MORE: Ronna McDaniel Is Just a ‘Normal’ Person Who ‘Never Denied the Election’ Says Hugh Hewitt

“It’s like the hunger games at @NBCNews. Every day new, horrible stories of journalism & corporate malpractice. Every single one of these managers must go,” observed Jennifer Schulze, a media critic who was a Chicago Sun-Times executive producer, WGN news director, and adjunct college professor of journalism.

She also highlights a Washington Post report that ropes NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt into the mess.

“Every @NBCNews exec who thought hiring a reputed liar & phony elector co-[conspirator] needs to resign or be fired,” Schulze says.

“The @NBCNews managers who recruited & signed an election denier should be out the door, too,” she adds. “Not only was it downright offensive to hire Ronna, it was journalism AND corporate malpractice.”

Pointing to his newsletter, former Obama senior advisor Dan Pfeiffer writes, “NBC’s ill-fated decision to hire Ronna McDaniel is a story of a media outlet unwilling to accept the ways Trump changed politics, but it’s also one of the best arguments for Dems need to build our media ecosystem ASAP.”

READ MORE: Comer Refuses to Investigate Trump Family Member Over ‘Influence Peddling’ Allegation

He calls McDaniel’s hiring “evidence” the media has “yet to accept the reality that this is not a normal election between a Republican and a Democrat.” And adds, “An [industry] that prizes objectivity above all else, is incapable of accurately covering an election where one candidate is a normal politician and the other is an insurrectionist. Many in the media would rather stumble into autocracy than take a side.”

Veteran journalist and Sirius XM host Michelangelo Signorile observes, “We couldn’t have asked for a better situation to shine a bright light on the corruption of the corporate media—and its impulse to legitimize MAGA extremism and lawbreakers for profit—than NBC’s hiring former RNC chair, election denier, and Trump enabler Ronna McDaniel.”

And he warns, “The forces that made the coup-plotting former RNC chair a paid contributor are still shaping news and information about this pivotal election.”

 

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News

Lawmaker Slammed for Claiming College Basketball Players Were Actually ‘Illegal Invaders’

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Michigan MAGA Republican state Rep. Matt Maddock is under fire after claiming three buses were “loaded up with illegal invaders.” The buses, according to multiple reports, were actually loaded with the Gonzaga University basketball team arriving for March Madness.

“Happening right now. Three busses just loaded up with illegal invaders at Detroit Metro. Anyone have any idea where they’re headed with their police escort?” Rep. Maddock wrote on social media Wednesday evening, tagging far-right former U.S. Congressman Pete Hoekstra, who served as U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands under Donald Trump and is now the state’s Republican Party chair.

Informed of his error on social media, Rep. Maddock doubled down, and attacked.

READ MORE: Ronna McDaniel Is Just a ‘Normal’ Person Who ‘Never Denied the Election’ Says Hugh Hewitt

“Probably teams for the NCAA Mens Sweet 16 playing at LCA on Friday and Sunday,” a user on X wrote.

“Sure kommie. Good talking point,” Maddock quickly shot back.

ABC affiliate WXYZ executive producer Maxwell White, responding to the Maddock’s original post wrote: “Just to be clear, this was the Gonzaga basketball team. Photos show Gonzaga getting on an Allegiant plane to Detroit for the Sweet 16, and Flight Radar shows a plane from GEG to DTW landed at 7:25 p.m., around the time this photo was posted.”

“This is a wild tweet,” White added, before adding more evidence.

Hoekstra, who was accused of using racism and xenophobia to win his campaign for a U.S. Senate seat (he lost), did not respond directly to Maddock but did repost the apparently false claim.

Michigan State Senate Democratic Majority Whip Mallory McMorrow denounced Maddock’s claim as “dangerous.”

Maddock’s remark also made the national stage when U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell responded.

READ MORE: Trump Campaign Says It Will Deploy ‘Soldiers’ to Polling Places

“Hey Einstein,” the California Democrat wrote, “your state is hosting the Sweet 16. Could it be a team bus? If it is, will you resign for your spectacular stupidity?”

In 2021 The Washington Post reported, “Michigan state Rep. Matt Maddock and his wife, Michigan Republican Party co-chair Meshawn Maddock, have repeatedly been called out by fact-checking journalists for promoting baseless claims of widespread voter fraud and falsely suggesting that covid-19 is comparable to the flu.”

See the social media posts above 0r at this link.

 

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