I Didn't Say It ...

Pete Buttigieg, reacting to the partial results of the delayed Iowa caucus vote:

“It validates the idea that we can expand a coalition not only unified around who it is we’re against but around what it is that we’re for. And it validates for a kid somewhere in a community …. wondering … if he belongs, or she belongs, or they belong, in their own family, that if you believe in yourself and your country, there’s a lot backing up that belief.”

He may not win the nomination, but he made history.

And he made a community proud.

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Lamar Alexander, GOP Coward, saying believes _____ withheld military aid to Ukraine to “encourage” its government to investigate the Bidens:

“If you have eight witnesses who say someone left the scene of an accident, why do you need nine? I mean, the question for me was: Do I need more evidence to conclude that the president did what he did? And I concluded no.”

So, he did what he did, and you think that’s okay for a president to do. And you think this acquittal, which you will vote for, will embolden him to be just as corrupt?

Seriously. Fuck off. No, seriously fuck off.

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Rashida Tlaib, Democratic congresswoman, apologizing for leading a chorus of boos for Hillary Clinton at a Bernie Sanders event:

“I am so incredibly in love with the movement that our campaign of #NotMeUs has created. This makes me protective over it and frustrated by attempts to dismiss the strength and diversity of our movement. However, I know what is at stake if we don’t unify over one candidate to beat Trump and I intend to do everything possible to ensure that Trump does not win in 2020. In this instance, I allowed my disappointment with Secretary Clinton’s latest comments about Senator Sanders and his supporters get the best of me. You all, my sisters-in-service on stage, and our movement deserve better. I will continue to strive to come from a place of love and not react in the same way of those who are against what we are building in this country. This is about building a just and equitable future for my two boys, children across the country, and future generations.”

Nice that you apologized, though you never should have done it in the first place because you are standing on the shoulders of Hillary Clinton and every woman who came before you.

Show some respect.

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Martin O'Malley, former candidate for president and governor of Maryland, on Bernie:

“Bernie’s still being given a bit of a free pass by the national media. I do not believe that he would be a strong candidate for our party in the fall. And, except for three months out of every four years, he’s not even of our party.”

Bernie is not a Democrat, until election time.

Bernie has not passed, written, proposed, any notable legislation in his entire career.

That said, if Bernie’s the nominee, he gets my vote.

PS O’Malley is dreamy AF.

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Joni Ernst, Iowa Republican Senator, has already vowed to impeach Joe Biden if he’s elected president, after saying that using impeachment as a weapon is wrong:

“I think this door of impeachable whatever has been opened. Joe Biden should be very careful what he’s asking for because, you know, we can have a situation where if it should ever be President Biden, that immediately, people, right the day after he would be elected would be saying, ‘Well, we’re going to impeach him.’”

Take a seat, Joni, because if the Blue Wave strikes again, your party will be irrelevant.

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Frank Bruni, NYT columnist, Pete Buttigieg’s so-called ‘gay reckoning’:

“He has weathered complaints, even derision, from L.G.B.T.Q. progressives, many of whom say he’s not gay enough, his manner and mannerisms too strait-laced, his policy preoccupations too moderate, his success infuriatingly reflective of how readily and well he assimilates into heterosexual America.”

I don’t know where to start … not gay enough? Not fucking gay enough? What does that even mean, because it seems to imply that all gay people should act exactly the same, and we don’t and we never have.

Strait-laved? Why, because he appears to be a nice man? Oh, that’s awful!

He’s too moderate? That’s not a bad thing; think about that pendulum swinging all the way back from the far right of hatred where it sits now, to the far left of utter liberalism. It’s not gonna happen.

I don’t see him assimilating into hetero-culture. I mean, how many heteros are kissing their husbands on the campaign trail? How many heteros are telling their long coming out story?

Knock this stuff off; it serves no one, least of all the LGBTQ+ community.

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I Didn't Say It ...

Billy Porter, making history at the Emmys this week as the first out gay black man to win an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama for Pose, saying:

“The category is love y’all, love! I am so overwhelmed and I am so overjoyed that I have lived long enough to see this day. James Baldwin said ‘it took many years of vomiting up all the filth that I had been taught about myself and halfway believed, before I could walk around this earth like I had the right to be here.’ I have the right, you have the right, we all have the right. We as artists are the people that get to change the molecular structure of the hearts and minds of the people who live on this planet. Please don’t ever stop doing that, please don’t ever stop telling the truth.”

Word, Billy, word. And keep telling it.

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_____, tossing a Sarah Palin-esque word salad about the White House “transcript” on how he used his office to persuade a foreign leader to investigate a political opponent:

“Just so you understand; it’s the single greatest witch hunt in American history, probably in history, but in American history. It’s a disgraceful thing. The letter was a great letter — meaning the letter revealing the call. That was done at the insistence of myself and other people that read it. It was a friendly letter. There was no pressure. The way you had built up that call, it was going to be the call from hell — it turned out to be a nothing call. Other than a lot of people said ‘I never knew you could be so nice.'”

God, we should impeach him for being a nonsensical tool who can’t string a single coherent sentence together.

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Patricia Arquette, winning and Emmy for her performance in The Act, on her trans sister Alexis, who died in September 2016 of complications related to AIDS, speaking out against transgender persecution:

“In my heart I’m so sad. I lost my sister Alexis. Trans people are still being persecuted. …. I’m in mourning every day of my life Alexis and I will be the rest of my life for you, until we change the world until trans people are not persecuted. Give them jobs. They’re human beings, let’s give them jobs. Let’s get rid of this bias we have everywhere.”

Brava, Patricia, and we’ll remember your sister, too.

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Corey Lewandowski, _____ Flying Monkey, on appearing before congress and acting like a lying jackass:

“I’m very, very seriously thinking about running for the United States Senate. After this week, no American citizen should have to go through what I had to go through, should never have to be disparaged or attacked the way that I was by these committee members because they didn’t like my politics. When you attack a _____ supporter, it’s okay. There are two different sets of rules. And the American people are tired of it. And I believe the people of New Hampshire, they want a fighter in the United States Senate. And I’d say this week was a clarification of that’s who I am.”

You say fighter while I say whiny little bitch who got butt-hurt before Congress.

Take a seat, traitor.

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Frank Bruni, New York Times writer, on Lewandowski’s “performance”:

“Did that look of unalloyed contempt come naturally to Corey Lewandowski, or did he rehearse it? I picture him in front of a mirror as his “testimony” before the House Judiciary Committee approached, fine-tuning his sneer, perfecting his glare, testing different tilts of his head to see which conveyed maximal disgust with his inquisitors. He was hellbent on acing this performance. And ace it he did, if the goal was to distill the _____ ethos into a few ugly hours. A flamboyant defiance of authority? Check. An extravagant disdain for precedent and procedure? Check. Cockiness, a persecution complex and a proudly situational relationship with the truth? Check, check, check. Bashing the media and even taking a whack at Hillary Clinton, he was Donald _____ in absentia, Donald _____ in excelsis, showing his former boss and future patron how scornfully _____like he could be.”

Practice in front of the mirror!

Funny, cuz it’s probably true.

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Michelle Williams, who won the Emmy for Best Lead Actress in a Limited Series for Fosse/Vernon, on race discrimination and equal pay for women in Hollywood:

“I see this as an acknowledgment of what is possible when a woman is trusted to discern her own needs, feels safe enough to voice them, and respected enough that they’ll be heard. When I asked for more dance classes, I heard, ‘Yes.’ More voice lessons? ‘Yes.’ A different wig, a pair of fake teeth not made out of rubber? ‘Yes.’ And all of these things, they require effort and they cost more money, but my bosses never presumed to know better than I did about what I needed in order to do my job and honor Gwen Verdon. And so I want to say thank you so much to FX and to Fox 21 Studios for supporting me completely and for paying me equally because they understood that when you put value into a person, it empowers that person to get in touch with their own inherent value and then where do they put that value? They put it into their work. And so the next time a woman — and especially a woman of color, because she stands to make 52 cents on the dollar compared to her white male counterpart — tells you what she needs in order to do her job, listen to her, believe her. Because one day, she might stand in front of you and say thank you for allowing her to succeed because of her workplace environment and not in spite of it."

If you recall, Michelle Williams was in the film All the Money in the World, and when the director reshot some scenes in the movie to replace Kevin Spacy with Christopher Plummer, Williams was paid scale—about $1,000—while Mark Wahlberg was paid millions.

And had she been a woman of color, it might have been even less.

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Megan Fox, actress, on her six-year-old son, Noah’s fashion sense:

“Sometimes, he’ll dress himself and he likes to wear dresses, sometimes… And I send him to a really liberal, like, hippy school, but even there–here in California–he still has little boys going: ‘Boys don’t wear dresses’ or ‘Boys don’t wear pink.’ So we’re going through that now, where I’m trying to teach him to be confident no matter what anyone else says. He had stopped wearing dresses for a while–he just wore one two days ago to school, and he came home and I was like: ‘How was it? Did any of the friends at school have anything to say?’ And he was like: ‘Well, all the boys laughed when I came in… but I don’t care, I love dresses too much.’“

Good on him, and good on Mom.

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Billy Porter, again, this time on rumors that he threw shade at RuPaul after RuPaul’s Drag Race won its Emmy:

“Let me make this clear right now in this room to everybody. Right now. There was never a side-eye coming from me. There’s never anything negative coming from me. You’re never going to get from it. Okay. It’s all love, all love, it’s all positivity. Don’t come to me with that.”

Billy doesn’t do fools.

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I Didn't Say It ...

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, on Ivanka’s role as Daddy’s Pet Girl:

“It may be shocking to some, but being someone’s daughter actually isn’t a career qualification. It hurts our diplomatic standing when the President phones it in & the world moves on. The US needs our President working the G20. Bringing a qualified diplomat couldn’t hurt either.”

Maybe next time keep the White House Spokesmodel, AKA Daughter Wife, at home and bring actual qualified people.

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Van Hansis, former As The World Turns star, on his career, and being part of the first gay male kiss on an American soap opera:

 “When you’re an actor, to get a recurring role a soap opera—that was kind of my first on-camera professional job—I was not in any place to turn anything down. Luke was such a rich character and such a wonderful experience I ended up having for five years. It was a blessing. Back when I started with Luke, and it being my first thing, a lot of people who were telling me, ‘Don’t come out publicly’ … back then, it was a different world, sort of. It was not like it is today, especially for an actor. If you come out gay, you’re only going to play gay for the rest of your life. [However] in retrospective, I wish I had come out earlier publicly, but I was out in my private life. Even to this day I keep my private life pretty private. I do social media, but I don’t do it a lot. I really try to choose what I put out there about my life because even though I have a public career, I am a private person. I want to stay that way.”

I think he paved the way for a lot of young men, and women, to come out, after seeing themselves on television for the first time. And while ‘ Luke’ came out in 2007, Hansis waited until 2014 to officially come out to his fans during an interview about “EastSiders.”

Still, it’s not when you come out, it’s that you come out.

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Judd Deere, White House Deputy Press Secretary, is gay and defending his boss:

“The left really wants to continue to push what I consider to be a disgusting message that LGBT Americans are threatened under this administration. It’s just a smear campaign. They’re going to say that I’m helping the enemy. That’s because I don’t agree with them 100% on all issues — they think that I’m in the wrong because I’m a Republican who also happens to be gay. They can get mad at me. I don’t go into a dark depression because somebody hates the person I work for, or wants to get upset at me because they think I’m crazy for working here, because it just doesn’t matter to me.”

Hey Judd, you traitorous ass-kissing, goose-stepping asshat.

He’s trying to ban trans Americans from military service; he’s denying trans Americans access to homeless shelters; he’s trying to make it legal for hospitals, doctors, nurses, and just about anyone, to deny service to LGBTQ Americans because God Hates Fags.

So, you go ahead and sell what’s left of your rotted black soul, but don’t come crying to any of us when you’re being forced back into the closet.

And, if I didn’t make it clear … Fuck.Off.

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Frank Bruni, speaking truth to power, and perhaps to Judd Deere, about _____ and the LGBTQ community:

“His treatment of gay people perfectly reveals the flabbiness of his convictions and his willingness to stand at odds with a majority of Americans if it pleases the smaller number who adore him. He’ll suffer our anger for their ardor. Decency and principle don’t enter into it.”

Which is one reason, of thousands, why I can’t understand an LGBTQ American supporting him. He doesn’t care about you.

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Alphonso David, the first civil rights lawyer and first person of color to serve as President of the Human Rights Campaign, [HRC]:

“I believe that together, we can harness the strength that’s inherent in our differences, to stand together in the face of fear and division. And that’s exactly what the Human Rights Campaign was built for. If we want to win full equality, that’s going to require us to come together, to dig deep, to be resilient, to embrace our differences, to tenaciously defend the most vulnerable among us, to fight with every ounce of determination we have. I promise you this, I will fight for each and every one of us. All I ask is that you join me, that you join the Human Rights Campaign in our fight for true equality. In unity, we will fight back and we will win.”

He sounds ready to fight for us, and we all know that the fight is far from over.

Welcome, Alphonso, and let’s get busy.

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I Didn't Say It ...

Lady Gaga, on _____’s plans to legally erase Trans Americans:

“The government may be living in an alternate universe, but we as a society & culture know who we are and know our truth and must stick together and raise our voices so we can educate them about gender identities … While today you might feel unheard or unseen, know that this is not the reality of humanity. This is another display of leadership being driven by ignorance.”

And, We The People have the power to change that, and turn this country away from fear and hate, away from ignoring the minorities among us, and working for a better country for us all.

Cast.A.Goddamned.Vote.

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Seth Meyers, on _____’s attempts to paint Democrats as an angry mob:

“First of all, when _____ finds a rhyme like ‘mobs and jobs,’ that’s his Gettysburg Address. Second, you’re accusing Democrats of asking like a mob? Because I can only remember one mob in recent history, and I’m positive they weren’t Democrats. Democrats only use tiki torches to keep mosquitos away from their vegan barbecues. You guys are the ones who run the government like a protection racket. Republicans all look like they should be cracking their knuckles in a butcher shop telling the owner, ‘Nice place you got here, would be a shame if something happened to it.' _____ also told his supporters to knock the crap out of reporters and promised to pay their legal fees if they did. He’s an actual crime boss. Look at him. He sweats like he’s being dangled off the side of a roof by Batman.”

It’s fear. He’s running on fear.

I liked the guy who ran on hope a lot better.

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Don Lemon, on _____ telling a crowd at his Houston rally—that was supposed to be held for Ted Cruz—that he’s a “nationalist”:

“Wow. We’re gonna talk about that word tonight. It is a favorite of the alt-right and is loaded with nativist and racial undertones. And globalist. Well, globalist has been used as a slur of sorts, sometimes even against those in the administration, often with anti-semitic overtones. Which just happened to make the president come right out and embrace nationalism. Openly. And claim that mantle. What has happened here?”

What has happened, is that now _____ is openly embracing the rhetoric of Hitler, while trying to say he is not.

That is another of his lies.

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Frank Bruni, NYT columnist, on the same topic:

“Well the question is, is that a dog whistle? He’s a sloppy speaker. So when he says ‘nationalist,’ is he thinking of all those connotations ... or is he speaking sloppily? He’s saying things that aren’t true as well. He’s saying ‘globalist’ means you care more about the globe than the country. No, President _____. Globalist means you understand that our fate is entwined with the fates of other countries and that in fact a rising tide lifts all boats. That’s what globalist means to someone who’s being serious about it. He’s trying do the ‘America first’ thing and he’s trying to lend a new vocabulary to it. Now he’s brought in nationalist. And maybe it’s a dog whistle to races and such. Maybe he’s just speaking sloppily.”

Sloppy? He’s a liar and a traitor and a racist, homophobic, misogynistic pig.

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Andrew Gillum, on Ron DeSantis, his rival to be Florida’s next governor, and his ties to the gun lobby and his opposition to gun control:

“The congressman was against the piece of legislation because he is wholly owned by the NRA. He’s not gonna stand up to the National Rifle Association. That's why they’re running all these ads against me because they want the man that they bought.”

And if you aren’t scared about the gun lobby owning a politician, then you shouldn’t be worried about any lobby having a candidate in their pocket.

Gillum will stand up against the NRA.

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Dua Lipa, singer, on her LGBTQ activism, after Chinese fans were dragged from her concert in Shanghai for waving rainbow flags: 

“I believe in equality and everyone having the same opportunities and there being a lot more acceptance in the world. You know, being from London, sometimes you live in your little bubble where there’s so much diversity and so much acceptance and you don’t really realize that it’s not like that in every other part in the world, so you feel like because you’re given this platform, you have a duty to really speak up and speak out about the things that are important. I will stand by you all for your love and beliefs and I am proud and grateful that you felt safe enough to show your pride at my show. What you did takes a lot of bravery. I always want my music to bring strength, hope and unity. I was horrified by what happened and I send love to all my fans involved.”

Lipa says she will perform again in Shanghai “when the time is right and hopefully see a room full of rainbows.”

In 2018 they are dragging gay people away for being gay. Let that sink in.

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Kelly Clarkson, The Voice judge, upon learning that singing duo Adam and Jerome, AKA OneUp, are a real-life couple who fell in love after forming their duo.

 “In a time in this country when it is so divisive, this is such a beautiful thing. It is proof that in this country, love is limitless. It’s the most beautiful thing that has happened to me this season.”

Word.

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Lindsey Graham, on feeling used by the Saudi prince:

“I never felt more used in my life. I introduced him when he was in Washington. I find it impossible to believe that the crown prince was not involved, so go after him and his inner circle. Save the alliance. I don’t mind military sales but I cannot do business with the current leadership. MBS — he’s done to me.”

Probably not the first man to use Miss Lindsey.

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Masha Gessen, openly gay Russian-American journalist, author, activist and outspoken critic of Putin and _____, on the erasure of Trans Americans:

“You know, this is not just about transgender people, although it’s big enough about transgender people. But what Trump is doing essentially, he is redefining peoplehood. He’s redefining the nation. And in that sense, what he is doing with immigration, and what he is doing with reversing the gains on LGBT rights, but specifically transgender rights, is redefining humanhood. Who gets to be fully human. Who gets to have the full rights of citizenship — not transgender people, not immigrants, not many others.”

Just think of that Niemöller poem, and who they came for first, and how, when they finally come for you, they will be no one left to speak up.

Speak.Up.

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Joe Biden, former Vice President, on _____ embracing a strategy of fear ahead of the midterm elections:

“No president has ever led by fear. Not Lincoln. Not Roosevelt. Not Kennedy. Not Reagan. This president is more like George Wallace than George Washington! Democrats have to choose hope over fear, unity over division. We have to choose our allies over our enemies. We have to choose truth over lies.”

Run, Joe, run.

And people of America? Cast a goddamned vote to show _____ and the GOP that we will not sit while they destroy this country to line their own pockets with coins.

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I Didn't Say It ....

Frank Bruni, on fear-mongering in the defeat of HERO:

“I USED to be a child molester. Not in actuality. In the popular imagination. In public debate. That’s how gay men were once portrayed — not just as sexual deviants but as sexual prowlers, sexual predators, their eyes lecherously trained on the young, the vulnerable, the recruitable. Hatemongers spread this slander to argue that we mustn’t be teachers, shouldn’t be coaches, couldn’t be trusted. Their words were so common and feebly challenged in the 1960s and 1970s, when I grew up, that even in the 1980s, when I was in my 20s, I sometimes kept an extra few feet between me and boys. I refrained from the typical sort of ebullience and friendliness that an adult summons when introduced to an acquaintance’s kid for the first time. I didn’t want to arouse suspicion. I flashed back on that when residents of Houston voted last week against an anti-discrimination law that did all sorts of unimpeachable things because it supposedly did one thing that scared the bejesus out of them: enabled men in dresses to sneak into women’s restrooms. And we’ll someday cringe about this, just as most Americans now cringe about the verbal garbage that was thrown at gay people, the lies that were told, the lies that were believed.” 

It’s fear, and when the conservative Christian republicans can use fear to allow people to discriminate against others, then what have we done?

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Tom Hanks, accepting the Outfest 2015 Trailblazer Award:

“It turns out, we all know someone that is gay or lesbian or transgender and there is an excellent chance that we love them exactly as they are. It turns out, the pandemic that was — and still is — AIDS made for a horrifying passing, and the loss of so many has made the world a lesser place, and care for those still in need of care remains a burden we must share. And, it turns out, that the United States of America was not broken by the homophobia of that time nor by the attendant prejudice, ignorance and intolerance. We the people have continued on in the formation of a more perfect union. Yes, there are those who wish to codify inequality and continue to promote fear and outrage rather than recognize the strengths evident in our diversity. But the truth will have its day, that our nation is wiser and stronger because we are more open and increasingly honest about what love really is — 'a force as constant as the speed of light and surely as good as the warmth of our own sun.'”

Again, the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, of fear, is for good men to do nothing. So, speak up against the fear, stand up against the fear, and vote the fear-mongers out of office.

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Hal Sparks, actor and comic, from Queer As Folk, on if the gay sex scenes uncomfortable because he’s a straight man:

“The reality is no, it had no bearing on my discomfort or comfort in doing the scene at all. The sexual aspect, who the partner was in these particular scenes, had no bearing on my comfort level…The discomfort that I felt [on Queer As Folk] ever was mainly physical to the environment … I felt so proud that we were actually shooting something worth doing, that it just never came up.”

I wonder how many people questioned Neil Patrick Harris if his portrayal of womanizer Barney on How I Met Your Mother was difficult because he’s straight, or are these just idiotic homophobic questions.

Hal Sparks was playing the role of a gay man, a sexually active gay man, and as an actor he played the part.

It’s acting.

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Adele, on why she no longer posts her own tweets:

“I’m not a drinker any more, but when Twitter first came out I was drunk tweeting and nearly put my foot in it quite a few times. So my management decided that you have to go through two people and then it has to be signed off by someone. But they’re all my tweets. No one writes my tweets. They just post them for me. So yeah, that’s very, very true.”

I think there are a lot of folks on Twitter who could use a chain of command before a Tweet goes out, drunk or not.

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Michele Bachmann, on converting the Jews because the Baby Jeebus is coming:

“This week really was about biblical prophecy in many ways. And we’re seeing as events are speeding up, events are speeding up so quickly right now, and we see how relevant the Bible is, and we’re reading our newspaper, at the same time we’re learning about these biblical events, and it’s literally day by day by day, we’re seeing the fulfillment of scripture right in front of our eyes, even while we’re on the ground. We recognize the shortness of the hour. And that’s why we as a remnant want to be faithful in these days and do what it is that the Holy Spirit is speaking to each one of us, to be faithful in the Kingdom and to help bring in as many as we can — even among the Jews — share Jesus Christ with everyone that we possibly can because, again, He’s coming soon.”

She tosses a word salad better than anyone I know, because when you take this whole rambling mess apart, she says nothing,  and reveals nothing, other than that she’s a loon.

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