'New York county agrees to 'landmark' transgender jail reforms' & other Fri midday news briefs

New York county agrees to 'landmark' transgender jail reforms - Damn right.

Lawmakers dress in rainbow colors in silent protest at Polish president’s inauguration - Good for them. Brave folks.

LGBTQ+ People Flee Poland as Homophobic President Is Sworn In - Speaking of Poland . . . sigh . . .

Love, Loss And Drag: How COVID-19 Has Radically Changed These 3 Queens’ Lives - Fascinating personal views.

Mike Pence upset that Justice John Roberts isn't trying to be a completely biased right-wing judge

VP and hypocrite Mike Pence

What can you do when you and your party devote a considerable amount of time, effort, and money to put people the Supreme Court who will rule the way you want just to have your plans go up in smoke because one of your designated picks refuses to play ball?

If you're VP Mike Pence, you have a biased interview with a religious right hack to complain about it.

From Politico:

Vice President Mike Pence described Chief Justice John Roberts as a “disappointment” to conservative voters, explicitly seeking to cast the Supreme Court as a campaign issue ahead of the November election. 

“Look, we have great respect for the institution of the Supreme Court of the United States,” Pence told the Christian Broadcasting Network’s David Brody on Wednesday. “But Chief Justice John Roberts has been a disappointment to conservatives — whether it be the Obamacare decision, or whether it be a spate of recent decisions all the way through Calvary Chapel.” 

The vice president’s criticism of the chief justice’s jurisprudence comes after Roberts sided with the high court’s Democratic appointees on several occasions in recent months, dealing the Trump administration defeats on issues including LGBT workplace discrimination, immigration and abortion. 

According to USA Today:

 The vice president pointed to Roberts' 2012 vote upholding the Affordable Care Act and "a spate of recent decisions," including the Calvary Chapel case last month, a 5-4 ruling that went against a church seeking exemptions from Nevada's coronavirus restrictions. 

Those other decisions, by way of CNN, included:

.  . . the Supreme Court's decision in June to strike down a controversial Louisiana abortion law that critics said would have closed nearly every clinic in the state. Roberts delivered a fifth vote to the liberals -- the first time the chief justice had voted against an abortion restriction.

. . . Roberts also sided with an opinion that extended anti-discrimination protections to LGBTQ workers and upheld the program allowing undocumented immigrants who came into the US as children to remain.

This post is not to crown Roberts a bastion of liberalism on the bench. He has made some rulings which I don't agree with, such as a dismal ruling on the Voting Rights Act.

 The point is it should bother more people that Pence expected a SCOTUS judge to be biased and is loudly expressing his disappointment that said judge isn't biased. Aren't justices supposed to be impartial?   Even before Trump came on the scene, Pence has more than once demonstrated himself to be an overzealous religious hypocrite.

I guess now that Trump is in office, he's trying to go all extra.

'LGBTQ candidates win primaries in several states' & other Thur midday news briefs

Out Candidates Advance in Washington, Kansas, and Michigan Primaries - Ah yes, this is nice right here.

Former D.C. politico wins primary in bid to be Michigan’s first out gay congressman - More on one. This would be very nice.

Black LGBTQ Americans Face Disproportionate Economic Hit From COVID-19, Study Finds - Yep. We got PROBLEMS.

The Supreme Court ruled on a landmark LGBTQ rights case. The DOJ has yet to enforce it. - GET the show on the road, people.

Fired Trump appointee's claim of anti-Christian persecution blows up in a cloud of humiliating smoke

Former Trump appointee Merritt Corrigan is having a bad week.

How many of you saw the conclusion of this story coming miles away?

Merritt Corrigan is a former Trump appointee who was fired this week from the U.S. Agency for International Development after it was discovered that she tweeted a bunch of inappropriate comments about LGBTQ people, women, refugees. At the time of her dismissal, Corrigan claimed that she was being persecuted because of her Christianity. She also said she would be holding a press conference on Thursday to expose "anti-Christian" bigotry.

As of now, that press conference is not going to happen. According to Raw Story:

Merritt Corrigan, the former deputy White House liaison to United States Agency for International Development who was fired this week for posting inflammatory anti-LGBT tweets, now says she was the victim of a scam by notoriously inept right-wing operative Jacob Wohl. 

 The Daily Beast’s Will Sommer reports that Corrigan is now claiming that Wohl and his associate Jack Burkman seized control of her phone and sent out tweets that attacked USAID for promoting LGBT rights abroad and that leveled baseless allegations of soliciting prostitutes against Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), who is the chairman of the House Foreign Relations Affairs Committee.

Sommer's article said:

Corrigan, who is/was apparently dating Wohl, announced that she’d be appearing Thursday in front of Wohl associate Jack Burkman’s Northern Virginia house—a site that has previously hosted farcical attempts to smear Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Kamala Harris (D-CA) with lurid sexual allegations. There, she would further denounce USAID, accuse a Politico reporter who covered her resignation of stalking her, and demand that Engel debate her and Burkman. In a press release announcing the press conference, Burkman and Wohl claimed that Wohl, who is currently facing two felony charges related to security sales in California, had “been working behind the scenes with Corrigan for months.”

Sommer said that on Tuesday afternoon, Corrigan deleted tweets whining about anti-Christian discrimination, while Wohl and Burkman claimed she was talked into backtracking.

'Trans people are terrified about Trump Administration's New Housing Rule' & other Tue midday news briefs

Trans People Are Terrified About the Trump Administration’s New Housing Rule - More disasters from Trump.

Democratic Platform Promises Bold Action for Racial, LGBTQ+ Equality - NOW get them elected.

'Proud parents' Dwyane Wade, Gabrielle Union praise daughter Zaya at GLAAD Awards - Good for them!

Activists Got A Chicago Children’s Hospital To End Intersex Surgeries. For Them, It's Just The Beginning. - A victory in the right direction.

Trump reveals his inability to handle the COVID-19 pandemic during 'trainwreck disaster' interview

This frazzled look by Trump was a common occurrence during a recent interview with Axios's Jonathan Swan. The interview has rightfully been called a major disaster for Trump.

The scuttlebutt right now is a disastrous interview that Trump had with Axios's Jonathan Swan which was released on Monday. I don't know who told Trump it would be a good idea, but whoever it was is obviously attempting to bring down his presidency from the inside.

As if Trump needed help with that.

The fall out has been extensive and pretty much negative, with Trump getting blasted for his poor showing and interviewer Swan getting praised for his unrelenting style and questioning. The interview was so bad that Fox News is ignoring it, while the rest of the right-wing propaganda media - which generally praises everything Trump does - is struggling to defend him.

The best way I can describe the interview is a smorgasbord of tasty soundbites for anti-Trump political ads. It's almost difficult to say where Trump stumbled the most, from the claim that he did more for African-Americans than anyone else to his griping that recently deceased civil rights legend John Lewis didn't attend his inauguration.

But without question, the following comment he made when it comes to his poor handling of  the coronavirus pandemic will probably be the thing which will haunt him. And as you can see below, the Biden campaign got the same impression as I did:

Thousands of Americans are dying every week. The President's response?

"It is what it is." pic.twitter.com/GT59hr14kb

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) August 4, 2020

That's a huge schadenfreude enabler for those who remember how Trump and his allies exploited Hillary Clinton's  "deplorables" comment from the 2016 election.

Even though I still say that it's too early to count Trump out, I will also say that his re-election campaign is starting to resemble a slow moving three-hour long 1970s disaster movie with so many cast members,  that you just know there will be a new calamity almost every minute and a body count to rival that of Cecil B. DeMille's.

'Murder of trans people in U.S. could hit record high in 2020' & other Tue midday news briefs

Murders Of Transgender People In U.S. Could Hit Record High In 2020 - This is depressing. Be careful, brothers and sisters.

'LGBTrump' activist arrested twice for defacing Black Lives Matter mural - Give me a break, you moron.

Polish 'LGBT-Free' Cities See Funding Cut by European Union - Ha ha. No money for you.

Martina Navratilova Supports Idaho's Ban on Trans Female Athletes - An absolutely STUPID move on her part. Lesbians teaming up with hate groups and bigoted legislation because they fear trans rights are merely digging two graves. If her new "allies" put trans rights in one grave, just who does Martina think will be going in the next?