Star Wars, Róisín Murphy, Bill Barr, Michael Bloomberg, Pete Buttigieg, Papa John’s, Mark McGrath, Lucille Ball: HOT LINKS
FAILURE TO COMPLY. House Oversight and Reform Committee sues Bill Barr and Wilbur Ross: “Since the Supreme Court ruled against them—and the House of Representatives held them in contempt for blocking the Committee’s investigation—Attorney General Barr and Commerce Secretary Ross have doubled down on their open defiance of the rule of law and refused to produce even a single additional document in response to our Committee’s bipartisan subpoenas,” committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) said in a statement. “President Trump and his aides are not above the law,” Maloney added. “They cannot be allowed to disregard and degrade the authority of Congress to fulfill our core Constitutional legislative and oversight responsibilities.”
MICHAEL BLOOMBERG. All about the money: “The most consistent theme of the day from Michael Bloomberg’s first in-person appearance as a presidential candidate was not the size of the crowd but the size of how much he’s spent on building political good will.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders: “What [Michael Bloomberg] believes, and this is the arrogance of billionaires, hey I can run for President because I’m worth $55 billion.” pic.twitter.com/V8MJ4KoySx
MICHAEL HARRIOT. Pete Buttigieg is a lying MF. This piece has been trending on Twitter most of the day on Tuesday. ‘The topic was trending due to an opinion piece titled “Pete Buttigieg Is A Lying MF” written by The Root senior writer Michael Harriot. In it, Harriot addressed a resurfaced video of Buttigieg from 2011, in which the presidential candidate said many minority children from low-income neighborhoods don’t know people who demonstrate the value of education, implying that seeing more role models would help them to succeed. At the time, Buttigieg was was running for mayor of South Bend, Ind.’
KEVIN MCCARTHY. House Minority Leader’s new ad defending Trump contains Russian stock footage. “The clip showing a farmer walking through a cornfield was found on the website Pond5 and is credited to a user from Russia. Andrew Kaczynski, a reporter from CNN, first connected the footage to Russia sources. Kaczynski pointed out that another clip of a farmer within the ad was uploaded from a user in Israel.”
What if I told you… ⇒ He won the election. ⇒ He spoke for millions who didn’t have a voice. ⇒ Despite their obstruction, he is still getting things done for the American people. pic.twitter.com/ZuVq1Jl9RG
NEW JERSEY. State moves to ban “gay panic” defense: “The bill, which is now sponsored by Assemblyman John McKeon (D-Essex), has not yet had a committee hearing in the Senate, where it also must pass to reach Gov. Phil Murphy’s desk.”
TRANSFORMATION OF THE DAY. Debra Messing as Lucille Ball.
PREVIEW CLIP OF THE DAY. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
We currently lack the information — and will — to make a dent in violence perpetrated against minorities, writes Trevon Mayers of New York’s LGBT Community Center.
Granddaughter of homophobe Fred Phelps details horrors of abusive upbringing
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Megan Phelps Roper, the granddaughter of Fred Phelps, has opened up about her upbringing in a bombshell new interview.
Fred Phelps, of course, was the notorious homophobic preacher at the Westboro Baptist Church. Throughout the 1980s, ’90s and into the 2000s, Phelps became a fixture of protest, blaming the ills of the world on homosexuality. He and his followers often showed up at the funerals of AIDS patients, or, in the case of Matthew Shepard, that of a hate crime victim, to shame the dead, claiming they were in Hell.
For Megan, attending these kinds of protests with her granddad became a part of everyday life. “We thought it was our duty to go and warn people of the consequences of their sins, and I understood that to be the definition of loving our neighbor,” she tells KMBC News. “We would always say the sign doesn’t say anything about our personal hatred – it’s talking about the hatred of God.”
As one of 11 children and with an enormous extended family–Fred Phelps sired 13 kids of his own–Megan had a twisted upbringing. She began attending Phelps’ protests at age 5 and struggled with the family’s rigid, even violent, religiosity. “It was abusive – there’s no question in my mind it was. Gramp’s policy was to beat first, ask questions later.”
As she matured, and with the advent of social media, Megan began to question the beliefs of her family. “The way that it came into my mind was, ‘Oh my God, what if we’re just people, what if this isn’t the place led by God himself?’ And that realization was staggering and completely destabilizing.” She eventually left the church with her sister in 2012 to begin a new life. Fred Phelps died in 2014, and Megan still has limited contact with her family.
Perhaps Phelps Roper’s most startling revelation shows the full effect of her grandfather’s bigotry and abuse. “I don’t really believe in God anymore,” she confesses. “I don’t like to say I’m not a believer, because I’m a believer in a lot of things, primarily hope, and grace and the power of human connection. But God? No.”