We are living through the most momentous time in U.S. political history since late July 1974 when the Republican party leadership gathered together to force President Richard Nixon to resign the presidency as impeachment and criminal indictments related to Watergate loomed.
For weeks Democrats had been pushing President Biden to drop out of the presidential race after his terrible debate performance as if he, too, were a criminal, instead of the same guy who won more votes than any other candidate in the history of the U.S. as well as the most successful president in decades. Oh, and who was running against an actual convicted criminal.
Now Biden has withdrawn in a shocking decision and endorsed California's own Kamala Harris, Biden's history-making VP. Biden said in an email, "For my part: my very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President. And it's been the best decision I've made."
He added, "Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year. Democrats, it's time to come together and beat Trump."
Harris, who accepted the endorsement with characteristic grace and political acumen and savvy, said she will work to win the nomination. Harris now must face yet another test from America's not-so-veiled racism and misogyny that women of color face to win the Democratic nomination next month in Chicago when she should rightly just be the nominee and be hitting the ground running, since she was on the ticket primary voters chose.
Harris has a long history of being a stalwart LGBTQ ally since decades before it was popular, like during the historic Prop 8 debates. She was marrying gay and lesbian couples and standing behind their rights to marriage equality as San Francisco District Attorney well before it was the law. As a senator, Harris pressured then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh on whether Obergefell was landmark settled law "like Brown v. Topeka" and he refused to answer. (www.hrc.org)
Harris also grilled Trump Attorney General Bill Barr on the Mueller Report in another epic takedown. Harris had previously almost brought Trump Attorney General Jeff Sessions to tears, with Sessions saying she "made him nervous."
Harris has acquitted herself as an ally in the Senate and in the vice presidency and she offers the best chance of securing the White House for the Democrats. It's been a strange power play watching Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff and Zoe Lofgren take the stances they have in recent weeks and it's unclear how their legacies will fare for doing so in the manner in which they have.
We love Pelosi, but this has not been her finest hour. It was the former Speaker who led the charge with the opening salvo post-debate that, "we need to know if this was an episode or a condition" which every media org ran with. Constant leaks from her office further inflamed the press.
One thing must not be forgotten in the midst of this maelstrom the Democrats made for themselves: Donald Trump and JD Vance are dangerous men. Vance has the weight of gay tech quisling Peter Thiel behind him and a deep inroad into Silicon Valley, a powerful lobby and funding source to help bolster Project 2025.
The RNC was one of the most alarming displays of demagoguery in many years as we wrote here: www.epgn.com)
There were brutal displays of anti-LGBTQ fervor. And there's no question that despite his intellectual background and acumen, Vance holds the same bigoted perspective on queer and trans people as the least educated among the MAGAs. (We wrote about Vance here: www.epgn.com)
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. held a news conference in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, after Biden dropped out of the race Sunday. In it, he made a case for his own candidacy and slammed Harris's. Kennedy has previously said that Biden was more dangerous for America than Trump.
Among the names being suggested for a possible Kamala Harris running mate is Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg. On "Real Time" with Bill Maher Friday night, Secretary Pete was asked about Thiel and Vance gave a thoughtful, complex explanation of the sort we have come to love and expect from him.
Buttigieg talked about how he and Vance were from the same generation, and from the Midwest and Ivy League. And then he eviscerated Vance point-by-point with a stunning thrust at the end of his parry. No spoilers; you want to see this.
Bonjour, Paris
Sha'Carri Richardson is the world's fastest woman. She's also a lesbian. If that thought makes you as giddy as it does us, imagine her winning gold for Team USA at the Paris Olympics which begin Friday, July 26 and runs through August 11. The opening ceremony will take place on July 26 to mark the start of the Summer Games in Paris along the Seine River and should be breathtaking.
The Summer Olympics will see over 10,500 athletes compete from 206 countries, with an equal number of male and female participants as well as some nonbinary contestants, according to the International Olympic Committee. These athletes will compete in 45 different sports, with 41 considered traditional Olympic events.
The Paris games will introduce breaking, also known as breakdancing, as a new sport, and also bring back skateboarding, sport climbing and surfing for their second Olympic run.
There are a record number of LGBTQ athletes participating this year. In addition to Richardson, at least 144 out LGBTQ athletes will be competing in the Summer Games, with a record number of out male Olympians participating. More than 120 of those are women.
Lesbians and other queer women represent at least half of two teams: the U.S. women's basketball team, where six of the 12 players are out, and the Australian women's soccer team, where at least nine of the 18 players are out.
Among out women basketball stars are former Olympians and WNBA All-Stars: Diana Taurisi, Brittney Griner, Breanna Stewart, Alyssa Thomas, Jewell Lloyd and Chelsea Gray.
Among the prominent out Olympians are British diver Tom Daley, Brazilian gymnast Arthur Nory and trans nonbinary athletes Quinn (Canada soccer ) and Nikki Hiltz (USA track and field).
Publicly out women Olympians outnumber men by about an 8-1 margin, roughly the same ratio as at the 2021 Tokyo Games. The 18 out male Olympians top the 16 from Tokyo. Nico Young, a 10,000-meter runner, is the first out men's U.S. track and field athlete and Timo Cavelius is the first out gay male judo athlete. Equestrian accounts for almost half of all the out men in the Summer Games.
One of the first-time out Olympians is U.S. women's rugby player Stephanie Rovetti, a one-time star on BYU's basketball team who forged a second athletic career in rugby. Raised as a Mormon, Rovetti told OutSports her orientation often "felt at odds with her religion," so "being out in Paris is very meaningful."
"Going to the Olympics as an out athlete means a lot to me," Rovetti said. "You go and represent all communities you are a part of and that representation on the world stage matters. Coming from a religious background, I hope to be a representation of courage to be your true authentic self."
Robert Dover was a Team USA equestrian athlete for six consecutive Olympics from 1984 to 2004 and one of the first out gay Olympians. He told OutSports, "Having been out and proud in every Games since 1988 in Seoul, Korea, I can tell you that the impact you are making on young, gay athletes to find the same courage you have shown by publicly being your authentic selves is immeasurable."
There are only three out athletes from Asia on the OutSports list: two boxers from the Philippines and one from Thailand and only four athletes from Africa—three South Africans, and one from the Refugee Team, boxer Cindy Ngamba, born in Cameroon and now living in the U.K. There is only one athlete from any Muslim-dominated country, a Turkish volleyball player, and not one from Russia, which has seen notable repression of LGBTQ people under Putin.
Here's the full list of athletes competing for Team USA: www.sportsdata.usatoday.com
Here's the full Olympics schedule: www.olympics.com
No longer hidden
It's not ironic that in this moment iconic Black director Ava DuVernay is talking about the most powerful element in American society—caste—in her new special, "Our America: Hidden Stories with Ava DuVernay."
The special dives deep into the themes of DuVernay's critically acclaimed film, "Origin," based on investigative journalist Isabelle Wilkerson's book "Caste." It explores the interconnected issues of caste, racism, sexism and more. "All of the 'isms' sit on top of caste," she says.
DuVernay teamed up with journalists across the country to "take a deeper dive into this complex phenomenon of caste and how it affects everything —our families, our personal lives— and how learning can change the lives of many communities for the better."
DuVernay explains that "when you ban stories, you may be falling into caste. What we think of as racism is the caste system."
Her hope with the special is to "get [people] comfortable with the uncomfortable. That is the takeaway: are we being human? To understand the present, we have to uncover the hidden stories of the past."
As always, DuVernay is provocative and forward-thinking and demands the same of her audience; available now on Hulu.
So, for the wild ride we are now on, you know you really must stay tuned.
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