Twitter is not having Trump’s lie about his State of the Union address
This is one lie Donald cannot get away with.

www.queerty.com/twitter-not-trumps-lie-state-union-address-20180201?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+queerty2+%28Queerty%29

Judith Light Was the Best Part of Last Night’s ‘American Crime Story’ [RECAP]

Last night’s episode of The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story tackled one of the most mysterious elements of the Andrew Cunanan killing spree: the gruesome murder of Lee Miglin.

As part of the saga tracing Cunanan’s exploits leading up to Versace’s killing, it makes sense to chronicle Miglin’s murder. However, so little has been confirmed about the nature of Andrew and Lee’s relationship prior to the tragedy, the show leans heavily on artistic license. That’s fine, in terms of dramatic storytelling.

Where this episode suffers is in the writing. Ho boy, were Ryan Murphy and co’s most ham-fisted impulses fully indulged. (At one point, someone actually ate a fistful of ham, and it was the most apt metaphor in all of tonight’s episode.) It was all tell and no show. So much telling. And telling in ways no one would ever actually speak.

“You’re so dominant out there, but so submissive in here,” Andrew tells one of his victims before dropping the only thing more heavy than the hand behind that metaphor — a bag of cement. This is the same team that in American Horror Story: Asylum had one character put lipstick on a Virgin Mary statue while screaming “Whore!”

Subtlety isn’t always their strong suit.

Luckily, the hour of television was significantly buoyed by another knockout performance from Darren Criss and a special guest appearance from the incomparable Judith Light. Thank goodness Ryan Murphy attracts such top-tier talent, because in lesser hands things could get schlocky real quick.

Knowing that we’re taking the details of this story with an extremely large grain of salt, let’s dive into what went down in our recap below.

 

Spring 1997

Lee Miglin and his wife Marilyn are attending a fancy fundraising function. Marilyn introduces Lee to the stage by describing him as emblematic of the American Dream. He got his start selling pancake batter out of a beat-up car, and now he’s responsible for building some of the most famous buildings in Chicago. He was also instrumental in launching Marilyn’s perfume and cosmetics Home Shopping empire.

Back home, Marilyn dramatically removes her makeup — she’s taking off her brave face, get it, GET IT?

Meanwhile, Lee gets a call from Andrew telling him that he’s going to be in town for a few days. As luck would have it, Marilyn has to travel for business. That’s convenient! Lee joins Marilyn in bed and rests his hand atop Marilyn’s. She squeezes his. There’s clearly love here, but distance too.

With Marilyn out of the house, Lee preps for Andrew’s visit (including a stop at his in-home altar because HE IS CONFLICTED, IF THAT WASN’T CLEAR ALREADY). Andrew parks nearby. He comes into the house, and it seems as if this is a rendezvous they’ve played out many times before.

Lee’s excited to show Andrew plans for a new building he’s working on that’ll be the tallest in the world. He wants to call it the Sky Needle, but Andrew, suddenly very cranky, points out that he might as well call it the Miglin Tower, because it’s clearly all about him.

It’s a tense moment between them, until Andrew plants a hard, passionate kiss on Lee. He asks about that old Pretty Woman rule: Do the other escorts kiss him on th mouth like that? Of course, they don’t. “I’m not like most escorts. I’m not like most anybody,” Cunanan says out loud to Lee like people do.

The quick turn from cutting Lee’s aspirations down to the passionate kiss is to help gain back Lee’s trust. Andrew leads him to the garage, stuffs a glove in his mouth and then proceeds to do that weird tape mask thing that is extremely creepy and for sure going to keep a generation of gay men from hooking up with anybody that keeps a roll of tape in plain sight.

With Lee’s eyes and mouth covered and legs tied, Andrew tells Lee his entire evil plot, Bond-villain style. He already killed two people close to him. Now, he’s going to kill Lee, dress him in women’s underwear and leave gay porn all around him so everyone knows he was gay. “What terrifies you more, death or being disgraced?” (How about option C: Recapping overwrought dialogue?)

Andrew tortures Lee, including dropping huge, heavy bags of cement on his septuagenarian chest. (“Concrete can build, but concrete can kill” — oof!) He stabs him and slits his throat. Then he burns the plans for the Sky Needle at Lee’s altar.

Marilyn arrives home from her business trip and can immediately tell something is amiss. She stands on the front stoop until two neighbors stop by to help her investigate. They notice some things off (including ice cream melting on the counter and a knife stuck inside a ham on Lee’s desk) and call the police.

The cops find the grisly scene in the garage. Andrew is long gone in Lee’s Lexus, but Marilyn refuses to entertain the idea that Lee and Andrew had any kind of pre-existing relationship (a fact the Miglin family maintains to this day). Instead, she tells the police this was an opportunity killing. Lee was old, alone and hard of hearing. It wouldn’t take much to surprise and overcome him. She’s a powerful woman with a lot of political influence. The implication is that she pushed this narrative on the authorities (and it may have hampered the investigation that could have prevented Versace’s murder).

She also rattles off a list of items Andrew took: suits, cash, those gold coins we saw Andrew pawning in previous episodes. Through it all she maintains a calm, collected demeanor. It’s not until she’s alone with someone she trusts later that she allows the grief to fully wash over her.

Light is a powerhouse, carrying the majority of the hour on her shoulders, but here she too suffers from some incredibly heavy-handed writing: “How can someone who cares so much about appearance appear not to care?” She’s holding it together for her family, including her son, an aspiring actor set to appear in the upcoming film, Air Force One. (There’s another theory that Andrew actually had a relationship with Lee’s son, not Lee. The Miglins also deny this.)

Despite all the pressure to keep the story contained, news leaks that the cops have been tracing Lee’s car phone in the stolen Lexus. Andrew hears this on the radio and immediately looks for a way to ditch his ride. He follows a solo trucker, eventually robbing him. He forces the man at gunpoint into a basement. The man pleads to see his wife and child again, but Andrew kills him anyway.

We may never know what really transpired between Andrew and Lee. Maybe Lee’s killing, like the pickup truck owner, was random. However, the narrative American Crime Story is painting is how the closet not only led to getting Lee killed, but the shame around being outed as a gay man at the time was enough to impede an investigation that could have stopped a serial killer. Whether or not this particular element of the story they’re telling is factual, there is certainly some truth to that.

What did you think of last night’s episode?

The post Judith Light Was the Best Part of Last Night’s ‘American Crime Story’ [RECAP] appeared first on Towleroad.

Judith Light Was the Best Part of Last Night’s ‘American Crime Story’ [RECAP]

Brexit Briefing: Steve Baker Rises
The Brexit story which should have dominated this week was the European Union publishing its guidelines for negotiations around the post-March 2019 transition period. Instead, thanks to a top scoop by BuzzFeed News (all credit to them), it was about the economic impact of Brexit on the UK.

The document, titled ‘EU Exit Analysis – Cross Whitehall Briefing” and dated January 2018, analysed three potential outcomes of the Brexit negotiations: joining the European Economic Area; a comprehensive free trade deal; and ‘no deal’. Each analysis predicted stunted growth compared to the UK staying in the EU.

As soon as it was published a round of smearing, dismissing and ignoring began by Brexiteers.

The highlight was Steve Baker, minister in the Department for Exiting the EU which produced the document, telling MPs to pay no heed to the draft, incomplete analysis because forecasts are “always wrong.”

He then proceeded to claim that the forecasts predicted growth anyway.

A few minutes after saying forecasts are always wrong.

This shall hence forth be known as The Baker Doctrine.

One of the key questions about the whole debacle was who ordered civil servants to carry out a piece of work analysing Brexit outcomes which aren’t Government policy.

Downing Street wouldn’t 100% confirm it was a Minister who ordered the work, saying instead that civil servants were “empowered” to carry out such analysis.

The Brexiteer sense that the supposedly politically-neutral civil service has been compromised was articulated by Jacob Rees-Mogg in the Commons on Thursday, when he asked Baker if he had heard the rumour “that officials in the Treasury have deliberately developed a model to show that all options other than staying in the customs union are bad, and that officials intend to use the model to influence policy?”

Baker confirmed he had heard the rumour, but while he considered it “implausible”, he did not outright reject it.

Back to the document itself, and despite Theresa May telling reporters that making the draft report public would be wrong, she didn’t order her MPs to vote down a Labour motion to have it handed over to MPs.

Talk about being in Government but not in power.

For one Tory minister, it was all too much. Justice Minister Phillip Lee took to Twitter to argue it was time for the Government’s Brexit plan to be led by “evidence, not dogma”. Airing that view in public earned him a dressing by the Chief Whip, although Lee has not deleted the tweets.

In contrast, when Jacob Rees-Mogg and other hardline-Brexit Tories were invited in by Chief Whip Julian Smith on Tuesday to discuss their criticisms of the Government’s apparently softening position on the implementation phase, they were given home-made Victoria Sponge.

That really is having your cake and eating it too.

2) In A Shock To No One, The EU Wants Something Different To The UK From The Implementation Period

Over in Brussels, and on Monday EU negotiators agreed the bloc’s demands for the post-Brexit transition period.

Two differences from the UK’s position leapt out of the document immediately.

One is that the EU wants the UK to abide by all new laws passed by Brussels during the transition period, even though Britain will have no say in those directives. David Davis made it clear in a speech on Friday he wanted there to be a way of “resolving concerns” over laws which affect the UK during the two-year period – although many will want Britain to ignore them completely.

The other difference is the EU wants everything agreed in the first phase of talks to be “translated faithfully in legal terms as quickly as possible.” This demand would lock down the financial agreement, citizens’ rights and Irish border issue before the final trade deal is known, and goes against the long-running Brussels edict of nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.

Putting the phase one agreement in a legally binding form would further rile up Tory backbenchers who worry the EU is calling all the shots in this negotiation, meaning this could prove another sticking point for the talks.

3) Freedom Of Movement, But Not As We Know It

One area that has particularly wound up the right of the Tories is that freedom of movement will continue during the two-year implementation period.

During a visit to China, Theresa May tried – yet again – to appease that wing of her party, saying new EU migrants coming to the UK after March 2019 should not expect to be granted full citizens’ rights.

The Prime Minister said those who arrived after Brexit would have to be treated differently from their predecessors “because they will be coming to a UK that they know will be outside the EU”.

May has already stressed that three million European nationals currently living in the country will be guaranteed voting and residency rights once Britain formally quits the 28-nation bloc.

But critics – including former Labour minister Lord Adonis – dubbed the move a “big step back for civilised European conduct”, asking what the government will do if the EU starts “mistreating” British citizens. 

Some campaigners have claimed that up to two million migrants could head to the UK during the two-year transition period before the country formally severs its existing ties with the EU.

EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier last week sparked Tory claims that he wanted to unpick parts of a deal agreed with May late last year.

Instead of ending EU citizens’ rights to vote or reside in Britain after the spring of next year, Brussels now says it wants full protections to be extended to the end of 2020, its own deadline for the end of the transition period.

Asked if the EU had “torn up” the deal on citizens’ rights she thought she had agreed in December, May replied: “No.”

“It was right that we have made an agreement that ensured they [new EU migrants] could continue their life in the way they had wanted to,” she told reporters.

People will be free to work and live in the UK during the two-year transition period after 2019, but they will be required to join a registration scheme.

However, the PM felt the “principle” of differential treatment between those who arrived before and after Brexit was worth maintaining.

4) Who Says The Germans Don’t Have A Sense Of Humour?

The laughter is falling flat in the UK though, with ants-in-yer-pants syndrome spreading through the Government. One Minister told me this week May really needs to make a decision on what Brexit deal she actually wants – and soon. “It’s not going to get easier with time,” they said.

Don’t Get Angry, Get Blogging…

At HuffPost we love a good blog, and here are the finest Brexit-penned entries from this week. Have a read, and if any of them provoke an urge in you to speak your brain, send a blog to [email protected] and you could find yourself in this very newsletter.

Maike Bohn and Axel Antoni on how Theresa May is “adding to the woes” of EU citizens in the UK

Anand Menon and Alan Wager on how, 18 months on, the referendum is still increasingly dividing the nation

Keith Taylor MEP on why the idea of a green Brexit is a ’comic book fantasy;

George Kassimeris on the ‘political elegance’ of Emmanuel Macron

Here at HuffPost UK we are striving to make sure we report on the issues you care about – and Brexit is no different. That’s why we’ve created a special Facebook group for you to take part in. We’ll use the group to get discussions going, answer your questions and make sure you’re getting the best Brexit news from HuffPost UK and beyond. Membership is limited to 500 people, and you’ll need to answer a few simple questions when you sign up. Join the group by clicking here.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/brexit-briefing-steve-baker_uk_5a734e30e4b06ee97af086a1

Recapping HRC’s Fight to Protect Dreamers

The fight to protect Dreamers continues to intensify as the Trump administration moves further away from a bipartisan approach.

Confused by the latest developments? Let’s recap.

Dreamers are young immigrants who are unauthorized and were brought to the U.S. as children. Dreamers often do not know a home outside of the U.S. Polls show that a huge majority supports the government taking action to help Dreamers by halting all deportation proceedings and providing them with a pathway to citizenship. Dreamers came here through no fault of their own and often do not even speak the language of the country from which their families brought them.  It is estimated there are between 1.7 million and 3.6 million Dreamers currently in the U.S. and that as many as 75,000 of these immigrants could be LGBTQ.

In 2012, after years of congressional inaction, the Obama Administration took action by creating the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which allowed certain qualified Dreamers to obtain temporary legal status in the U.S. and remain here to continue their studies, work and stay with their communities. HRC supported President Obama’s action on Dreamers and has also endorsed the bipartisan DREAM Act (H.R.3440/S.1615), that would explicitly authorize Dreamers to remain in the U.S. and stop their deportation. HRC has also signed on to numerous letters in support of Dreamers and made the DREAM Act  part of the organization’s lobby day on Capitol Hill this past fall.

However, despite widespread support for the Dreamers, the Trump Administration announced on Sept. 5, 2017, that it would instead end the DACA program within six months and begin to take action to put Dreamers into deportation proceedings. Many in Congress on both sides of the aisle opposed this move and sought to either pass a “clean” Dream Act that would grant legal authorization to the Dreamers or include such legislation in a Congressional spending bill. Lawmakers have attempted to come up with numerous bipartisan solutions, some of which President Trump has appeared to support, only to withdraw his support soon after. (It was during one of those meetings with Congress that Trump made his infamous comment denigrating Haitians and Africans.)

With the DACA deadline looming in late January, the White House released a document detailing their demands. In exchange for White House support for providing legal status to Dreamers:

• Congress would need to set aside $25 billion for a “border wall system” and other border security “enhancements”;
• The U.S. must severely curtail family reunification, which allows family members of U.S. citizens to join them in the U.S., thereby allowing families to stay together;
• The U.S. must end the Diversity Visa Program, which makes 50,000 immigrant visas available each year for immigrants from countries that had low numbers of immigrants to the U.S. in the previous five years; and
• The U.S. must also take a number of other steps, such as reforming immigration courts, hiring more staff and preventing synthetic drugs from entering the U.S.

This latest White House proposal lays out its wish list for immigration reform, one that would sharply curtain legal immigration while dramatically increasing spending to prevent illegal immigration. Until the White House proposal, bipartisan House and Senate discussions were focused on a “small deal” that would address the plight of Dreamers in exchange for additional border security. The White House proposal goes well beyond the scope of the many discussions that have been happening over the past few months.

Over the past year, the Human Rights Campaign has long opposed many of the White House proposals and has instead supported a “clean” Dream Act. However, in the context of earlier bipartisan legislation for Comprehensive and Inclusive Immigration Reform (CIIR), in 2013, HRC made CIIR an organizational priority, laying out a number of principles that should be included in an LGBTQ-inclusive CIIR effort, such as:

• Creating a pathway to citizenship for all undocumented immigrants in the U.S., as many as 250,000 of whom could be LGBTQ;
• Protecting the health and safety of LGBTQ immigrants by promoting alternatives to detention for vulnerable individuals, such as transgender immigrants, and by requiring detention facilities to provide medical care that addresses the needs of LGBTQ detainees;
• Improving the U.S. asylum system and eliminating the arbitrary one-year filing deadline that makes it far more difficult for persecuted LGBTQ people from abroad to claim asylum in the U.S.; and
• Keeping LGBTQ families together by reducing the backlog in family reunification visas.

Over the next few weeks, Congress will continue discussions over the fate of Dreamers. HRC continues to call for the passage of legislation to address Dreamers and allow them to stay in the U.S. legally. A short term solution for Dreamers is still achievable this year. Should the White House want a comprehensive agreement, those negotiations are worthwhile but clearly could not be completed in the near term.

It’s time to help Dreamers now.

www.hrc.org/blog/recapping-hrcs-fight-to-protect-dreamers?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

New York Times includes supportive mom of a queer son in animated video series

www.glaad.org/blog/new-york-times-includes-supportive-mom-queer-son-animated-video-series

‘Character’ Is Stuffed With Contemporary Gay Erotic Art

www.advocate.com/photography/2018/2/01/character-stuffed-contemporary-gay-erotic-art

Trump Set to Release Sham Nunes Memo in Effort to Discredit Russia Investigation

Donald Trump is expected to approve the release of the sham Devin Nunes memo on Thursday morning following some redactions requested by the FBI, the Washington Post reports:

The redactions were the result of a review of the memo’s classified contents by White House and intelligence community officials, including Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats. The memo, which has created a political firestorm, suggests that the early origins of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election were tainted by political bias.

Trump has been telling friends he believes the memo will discredit the Russia investigation, CNN reports:

In recent phone calls, Trump has told friends he believes the memo would expose bias within the agency’s top ranks and make it easier for him to argue the Russia investigations are prejudiced against him, according to two sources.

As the debate rages about whether the GOP memo is inaccurate and misleading — and whether it’s appropriate to reveal such classified intelligence at all — Trump appears to be more preoccupied with the political calculus. He views the memo as proof the intelligence community was unfairly targeting him and fodder for his ultimate goal of bringing an end to the Russia investigation that he has dubbed a “witch hunt,” sources said.

And Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) compared House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA), who prepared the hyper-partisan memo, to Joseph McCarthy in an interview on CNN: “The release of this memo is really reminiscent of the darkest days of the McCarthy era, with characterization assassinations.It endangers methods and sources of the intelligence community, and it reflects an effort to distract from the Mueller investigation.”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal slams the potential release of the Nunes memo: “The release of this memo is really reminiscent of the darkest days of the McCarthy era” t.co/iA9FW3QDb9 t.co/0xqsENsKAf

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) February 1, 2018

The memo, which allegedly claims that the FBI and DOJ abused their power with regard to Trump campaign surveillance was altered by Nunes before he sent it to the White House, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) said late on Wednesday.

Schiff said the document already had “profound distortions and inaccuracies” before the changes were made, and called Nunes’ actions “deeply troubling” because the White House is now reviewing a document that was not shared with nor voted on by the entire House Intelligence Committee.

Schiff called on Republicans to withdraw the document it sent to the White House and called for a new vote on the memo and on another memo, written up by the Democrats on the committee. Majority Republicans have denied Democrats the opportunity to release a memo in response to the Nunes memo.

Tweeted Schiff: “Discovered late tonight that Chairman Nunes made material changes to the memo he sent to White House – changes not approved by the Committee. White House therefore reviewing a document the Committee has not approved for release.”

BREAKING: Discovered late tonight that Chairman Nunes made material changes to the memo he sent to White House – changes not approved by the Committee. White House therefore reviewing a document the Committee has not approved for release. pic.twitter.com/llhQK9L7l6

— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) February 1, 2018

NBC News adds:

Jack Langer, a spokesman for Nunes, confirmed that the memo had been edited, but he told NBC News that the changes included “grammatical fixes and two edits requested by the FBI and by the Minority themselves,” referring to committee Democrats.

“The vote to release the memo was absolutely procedurally sound, and in accordance with House and Committee rules,” Langer said. “To suggest otherwise is a bizarre distraction from the abuses detailed in the memo, which the public will hopefully soon be able to read for themselves.”

But a senior Democratic source on the Intelligence Committee disputed that account, telling NBC News that the changes weren’t “cosmetic.”

“Instead, they try to water down some of the majority’s assertions,” the source said.

In a rare public statement yesterday, the FBI disavowed the memo.

Said the FBI in its statement: “With regard to the House Intelligence Committee’s memorandum, the FBI was provided a limited opportunity to review this memo the day before the committee voted to release it. As expressed during our initial review, we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.”

FBI Director Christopher Wray has reportedly urged the White House not to release the memo. At his State of the Union address last night, Donald Trump was overheard telling a Republican lawmaker that he’s “100 percent” going to release the memo.

The post Trump Set to Release Sham Nunes Memo in Effort to Discredit Russia Investigation appeared first on Towleroad.

Trump Set to Release Sham Nunes Memo in Effort to Discredit Russia Investigation