I Didn't Say It ...

James Corden, host of The Late Late Show with James Corden, on Bill Maher’s suggestion last that fat-shaming “needs to make a comeback”:

“[I] found it so surprising that he, or anybody, thinks that fat shaming needs to make a comeback because fat shaming never went anywhere. We are reminded of it all the time. There’s a common and insulting misconception that fat people are stupid and lazy. We’re not. We get it, we know. We know that being overweight isn’t good for us. I’ve struggled my entire life trying to manage my weight. We’re not all as lucky as Bill Maher. We don’t all have a sense of superiority that burns 35,000 calories a day. Let’s be honest, fat-shaming is just bullying. It’s bullying, and bullying only makes the problem worse.”

Good on Corden for taking on Smug Maher.

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Gareth Thomas, Welsh rugby star, has come out as HIV-positive after “evil” people threatened to go public with his condition without his consent:

“I want to share my secret with you. Why? Because it’s mine to tell you. Not the evils that make my life hell by threatening to tell you before I do. And because I believe in you and I trust you. I’m living with HIV. Now you have that information, that makes me extremely vulnerable, but it does not make me weak. Now even though I have been forced to tell you this, I choose to fight to educate and break the stigma around this subject. I’ve been living with this secret for years. I’ve felt shame and keeping such a big secret has taken its toll. I was in a dark place, feeling suicidal. I thought about driving off a cliff. To me, wanting to die was just a natural thought and felt like the easier way out, but you have to confront things. I was being blackmailed and in my mind,  I thought you only get blackmailed for something really bad, which compounded the feeling of shame. I went for a routine sexual health test at a private clinic in Cardiff. I didn’t feel ill and thought everything was going to be fine. When (the doctor) said those words… I immediately thought I was going to die. I felt like an express train was hitting me at 300mph. Then I was thinking ‘how long have I got left?’ I’m speaking out because I want to help others and make a difference. I hope me speaking out about my diagnosis will help a lot of people.”

In this day and age people are still trying to shame those with HIV.

Seriously, does anything ever change?

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Pete Buttigieg, Presidential candidate, on the most serious professional setback he ever faced:

“You know, as a military officer serving under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and as an elected official in the state of Indiana when Mike Pence was governor, at a certain point, when it came to professional setbacks, I had to wonder whether just acknowledging who I was, was going to be the ultimate career ending professional setback. I came back from the deployment and realized that you only get to live one life and I was not interested in not knowing what it was like to be in love any longer. So, I just came out.”

When you finally realize that, because you’re closeted, you cannot live a fully open life, cannot be open about who you love or how you feel, that’s when people come out.

Even today, younger queerlings, and some older ones, remain closeted out of fear, but the more of us that are ‘out’ there the stronger we all become.

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Rob James-Collier, Thomas Barrow, the valet in Downton Abby, on the film’s depiction of being gay in 1927:

“[Barrow’s storyline is] like a separate film so what a lovely thing, Thomas has got this little vignette off on the side. When all the pomp and circumstance with the royal visit is going on, you cut to Thomas’s story so I’m like ‘Thank you Julian (Fellowes, the writer) for trusting me that I can do this.’ You see Thomas discover a whole new world, and that is closer to who he is and there is a joy there, but then that joy may get taken away but it’s a very emotional, Thomas’s journey. It also hammers home what it was like to be a gay man in those times, it was horrific, and it’s brought back and it just shows how different it was. It must have been so hard for him and that is why the people warm to him and root for Thomas now, and they certainly will in the film if you watch it.”

Thankfully times have changed and, while this kind of vile anti-LGBTQ hatred still exists, it doesn’t happen as often as it did, and we cannot be jailed for being gay … in most places.

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Seth Dunlap, WWL Radio host, who was called a “fag” by his station’s Twitter account last week after he expressed disappointment with drew Brees’ involvement with the anti-LGBTQ group Focus on the Family., on that incident:

“While I have suffered greatly, this attack was not just about me. While I may have been the one directly and publicly shamed with the use of an unacceptable slur disseminated on social media, the target was really the entire LGBTQ+ community. That community, my community, is subjected to that sort of vile language and hate on a daily basis. Look inside the comments, replies, or DM’s to any openly LGBTQ+ person and you’ll easily find similar disgusting, foul attacks. This incident just peeled back the curtain a bit for people to see the ugliness that surrounds us. I truly believe this targeted attack was, in part, the result of deteriorating civil discourse in our country. Powerful men and women have decided to make hate, bigotry, and divisiveness platforms for their advancement in public life. It’s apparent that far too many people have forgotten the ugly lessons of the past, and this growing divide threatens to shatter the very foundations of an equal and welcoming society.”

Nice to know that the company that employs you calls you a ‘fag’ on social media because you, rightly, believe that Drew Brees did an ad for an anti-LGBTQ hate group.

WWL Radio has not commented since it said it was beginning an investigation into the matter.

Huh; go figure.

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I Didn't Say It ... The Las Vegas Shootings: A Country Singer, Six Talk Show Hosts and One Asshat Speak

Jason Aldean, performing onstage in Vegas when the shooting broke out, reflecting on the state of America:

“Over the last 24 hrs I have gone through lots of emotions. Fear, Anger, Heartache, Compassion and many others. I truly don’t understand why a person would want to take the life of another. Something has changed in this country and in this world lately that is scary to see. This world is becoming the kind of place i am afraid to raise my children in. At the end of the day we aren’t Democrats or Republicans, Whites or Blacks, Men or Women. We are all humans and we are all Americans and its time to start acting like it and stand together as ONE! That is the only way we will ever get this Country to be better than it has ever been, but we have a long way to go and we have to start now. My heart aches for the Victims and their families of this Senseless act. I am so sorry for the hurt and pain everyone is feeling right now and there are no words i can say to take that pain away. Just know you all are in my heart and my prayers as we all go through this together. Time to come together and stop the hate!”

Stop the hate.

And stop the lunatics in Congress, suckling at the teat of the NRA, by voting them out of office.

If you don’t do that then you don’t care about gun deaths in America.

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Jimmy Kimmel, on the shooting in Las Vegas—his hometown:

“Here we are again, in the aftermath of another terrible, inexplicably shocking and painful tragedy … And, of course, we pray for the victims, and for their families and friends and we wonder ‘why.’ And, as a result of that this morning, we have children are without parents and fathers are without sons, mothers without daughters. We lost two police officers, we lost a nurse from Tennessee, a special ed teacher from a local school here in Manhattan Beach. It’s the kind of thing that it makes you want to throw up or give up. It’s too much to process all these devastated families who now have to live with this pain forever because one person with a violent and insane voice in his head managed to stockpile a collection of high-powered rifles. And use them to shoot people ... Of course, there was something we can do about it. There are a lot of things we can do about it. But we don’t. Which is interesting, because when someone with a beard attacks us, we tap phones, we invoke travel bans, we build walls. We take every possible precaution to make sure it doesn’t happen again. But when an American buys a gun and kills other Americans, then there’s nothing we can do about that. Because the Second Amendment. Our forefathers wanted us to have AK47s, is the argument ... We’ll pray for Las Vegas, some of us will get motivated, some of us won’t get motivated, bills will be written, bills will be watered down, bills will fail, the NRA will smother it all with money, and, over time, we’ll get distracted and move on to the next thing. And then it’ll happen again, and again….Senator Majority leader Mitch McConnell and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, and a number of other lawmakers – who won’t do anything about this because the NRA has their balls in a money clip – also sent their thoughts and prayers today…So, with all due respect: Your thoughts and your prayers are insufficient…By the way, the House of Representatives will be voting on a piece of legislation this week. It’s a bill to legalize the sale of silencers. For guns. This is what they’re working on.”

Word. So, since Congress won’t do anything it’s up to We The People

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Stephen Colbert, not accepting gun violence as “new normal”:

“This afternoon the president called [the mass shooting] an act of pure evil. And I think he’s right … So what then are we willing to do to combat pure evil? … Now, President _____, you said you want to be a transformative president, who doesn’t care about the way things have always been done in Washington D.C….This is your chance to prove it. And I mean this sincerely. You do not owe the Republicans anything. You know the Republicans tried to stop you from being president. Well, screw ‘em!”

Look, _____ won’t do anything because gun-toting-Bible-thumping loons are his base.

Aagin, We The People have got to do this.

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Conan O’Brien, on yet another mass shooting in America:

“Now, today, when I came into work, my head writer was standing in my office with a sheaf of papers. And he said, ‘Here are the remarks you made after the Sandy Hook shootings and the Pulse nightclub attacks in Orlando. You might want to look at them to see what you might want to say tonight.’ And that, that struck me. How could there be a file of mass shooting remarks for a late night host? When did that become normal? When did this become a ritual? And what does it say about us that it has? “Now I am not the most political of our comics. I never have been. But I will repeat what I said not long ago after Orlando. I don’t think it should be so easy for one demented person to kill so many people so quickly. The sounds of those automatic weapons last night are grotesquely out of place in a civilized society. It makes no sense to me, as a reasonable human being and a father. And what’s more, we’re all tired of hearing reporters—let alone comics—discuss mass carnage in the most affluent and influential country in the history of the world. Something needs to change. It really does.”

People say comics shouldn’t discuss such things but that’s just sweeping all those dead bodies under a rug and then putting the couch over it.

That needs to stop.

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Seth Meyers, asking Congress to admit they’ll do nothing about the gun violence and be honest:

“It always seems like the worst displays of humanity in this country are immediately followed by the best. And then sadly that is followed by no action at all and then it repeats itself. Are there no steps we can take to prevent gun violence or is this just how it is and how it’s going to continue to be? Because when you say, which you always say, ‘Now it’s not the time to talk about it,’ what you really mean is ‘There is never a time to talk about it. And it would be such more honest if you would just admit is that your plan is to never talk about it and never take any action. Is that the best plan D.C. has to prevent gun violence? When there’s a shooting, we just pray for a miracle? Because maybe that is it. But if you’re not willing to do anything, just be honest and tell us, ‘This is how it is, this is how it will continue to be.’”

Thoughts and prayers have never stopped bullets from flying.

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James Corden, speaking as a newcomer to America:

“Last night was the biggest mass shooting in United States history. That’s a record that’s been set twice since the two-and-a-half years that I’ve been living in America ... Now I come from a place where we don’t have shootings at this frequency so it’s hard for me to fathom, but it should be hard for everyone to fathom. Gun violence should not be a staple of American life. Some say it’s too early to talk about gun control. For those victims last night, it’s far too late … Forgive me, as I’m just a foreigner here and some of you may feel I have no place to say this, but how does every other developed country do a better job of preventing these attacks? We can’t be surprised that gun crime will always occur when there is such wide availability of guns.”

You have a right to say what you want; we all do. But, for those of us who live here anbd vote we need to speak at the ballot box and vote the NRA-ass-kissers out of office.

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Trevor Noah, on “thoughts and prayers” and inaction:

“What’s been particularly heartbreaking is other than the lives lost, is how I feel like people are becoming more accustomed to this type of news, every single time. I almost know how it’s going to play out. We’re shocked. We’re sad. Thoughts and prayers. Then, almost on cue, people are going to come out saying, ‘Whenever you do, when speaking about the shootings, don’t talk about guns.’ This is not the time to be talking about guns? … And also, if you say after a mass shooting is never the time, then you’ll never have the conversation, because there’s a mass shooting in America almost every single day. So when is the time? “We seem to do everything to avoid talking about guns. I’ve never been to a country where people are as afraid to speak about guns. Every time there’s a shooting, you gotta look at something else. Is it Muslims? Is it their religion, is that what it is? Is it blacks? It’s the blacks. It’s the black-on-black crime. Is it mentally ill people? Is it white nationalists? Every time, it’s a different question. And now, after this incident in Las Vegas, we’re asking a new question: Is it hotels? So just to keep track of the arguments: mass shooting, mass shooting, mass shooting, mass shooting, mass shooting, mass shooting — we have to take care of this hotel check-in issue.”

I saw on Twitter the other day a Tweet about nuclear weapons; and how nukes don’t kill people, people kill people.

Now, doesn’t that sound as dumbas guns don’t kill people?

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Bill O’Reilly, former Fox News host and sexual harasser, on the shooting:

“The murderer had a number of deadly weapons in his room and you can count on the gun control debate to ramp up. But having covered scores of gun-related crimes over the years, I can tell you that government restrictions will not stop psychopaths from harming people. They will find a way. Public safety demands logical gun laws but the issue is so polarizing and emotional that little will be accomplished as there is no common ground. The NRA and its supporters want easy access to weapons, while the left wants them banned. This is the price of freedom. Violent nuts are allowed to roam free until they do damage, no matter how threatening they are. The Second Amendment is clear that Americans have a right to arm themselves for protection. Even the loons.”

Wait. So, because we have freedoms we should understand that one of our freedoms is the right to be shot dead in the street? Bill, you are the dumbest fuck of all dumb-fucks.

And the left doesn’t want guns banned; I haven’t heard one politician on the left demand a ban; we want sensible gun control while the NRA and the GOP want anyone and everyone to have access to as many guns as they want.

Siddown you fucking has-been, your opinions are useless and unwanted.

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