Saturday, May 27, 2017

15 Ways You Can Stay Safe On Grindr And Other Dating Apps

From: Pink News
10
Know Your Limits

Don’t keep on drinking just for the sake of your company. Especially if you’re not sure about the person, it’s best to stay on the cautious side. If the person you’ve met up with has bad intentions, they may well try plying you with drink as a means to getting them.
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Another video of Trump being a total asshole, shoving a Prime Minister out of his way for photo op

From: Queerty
 There is nothing Donald Trump won’t do to be the center of attention… including shoving another world leader out of the way so that he can occupy the prime real estate of a photograph.

And at the brand-new NATO headquarters in Brussels Thursday, he did just that.

Cameras caught Trump literally shoving Prime Minister Dusko Markovic of Montenegro out of his way, then cockily adjusting his suit as he planted himself in the front of the group for a photo opp:












Here it is again in slow motion:

It was Trump’s first NATO summit, where he met with 27 other members of the military alliance.

Yes, NATO is the same alliance he spent all of 2016 badmouthing. And no, the other members did not forget what he said about them while he was on the campaign trail.

According to the Washington Post, the European leaders “gazed unsmilingly” at Trump while he gave a speech. Afterwards, he “was left largely on his own after the speech as leaders mingled and laughed with each other, leaving the U.S. president to stand silently on a stage.”

Let’s take a look at how Twitter has been responding to the shove…









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14 Young Artists Who Are Changing The Way We Think Of Gender

From: Queerty
Eleanor “Elly” Jackson

Outstandingly coiffed artist Eleanor “Elly” Jackson is best known as the lead singer of La Roux (the electro band behind the still-ubiquitous 2012 hit “Bulletproof”).

The pop star doesn’t adhere to any sort of strict gender identity, saying in 2010:

“I don’t have a sexuality. I don’t feel like I’m female or male. I don’t belong to the gay or straight society, if there is such a thing.

I feel like I’m capable of falling in love with other people.
I’m not saying I’m bisexual, I’m just sexual!”

In a 2014 Guardian profile, she elaborated further on her stance:


“If I say, ‘I’m straight,’ nobody will come around to my house and take a picture of my boyfriend. If I say, ‘I’m gay,’ then somebody will come around and try to take a picture of my girlfriend.
It’s all very well people telling me to be open about it, but it will impact my life.
Why should I have to bear the brunt of what would happen? All I know is that if it’s not something I have any interest or desire to talk about, then that needs to be my only reason.”
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365 Groovy Books Worth Reading

From: Deep Dish
69
Moose Murdered, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Broadway Bomb 
by 
Arthur Bicknell
2013

The real story behind Mr. Bicknell's infamous Broadway flop, Moose Murders, which opened and closed on February 22, 1983. The production starred Holland Taylor, who replaced Eve Arden during previews.
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World OutGames Canceled Hours Before Opening Ceremony

The last-minute decision will cost Miami Beach hundreds of thousands of dollars
From:  NewNowNext
 Organizers for the 2017 World OutGames in Miami have canceled almost every scheduled sporting event, just hours before the games were set to begin.

The 10-day event, which brings LGBT athletes from all over the world together, was axed due to financial issues, according to a Facebook post from the OutGames board of directors.

“It is with deep regret that due to financial burdens, World OutGames must cancel its sports programming and Opening and Closing Ceremony with the exception of soccer, aquatics and country western dance,” reads a statement. “The Human Rights Conference and cultural programs will continue as planned. We thank everyone who has supported the effort and apologize to those who will be impacted by this difficult decision.”


The last-minute announcement means many athletes had either already arrived in Miami or were in transit when the announcement was made. Australian tennis player Rowen D’Souza told the Miami Herald that he’d spent $3,000 to travel from Australia to Miami. The OutGames organizers, he says, were not easy to deal with the entire time.

“The communication has been poor from the start. I suspect they knew there were problems but did nothing.”

This year is the first the event was hosted in the United States, with local agencies having spent hundreds of thousands to sponsor the games. Members of Miami Beach City Hall expressed concerns earlier this year about financing, but OutGames officials declared that fundraising was going well and guaranteed that they would not cancel the games.

In the past, the OutGames has drawn 16,000 athletes from more than 120 countries, partaking in some 35 events, from basketball and bodybuilding to same-sex ballroom dancing and synchronized swimming. But it has always suffered from competition from the Gay Games, another LGBT-focused sporting series. In 2006, the closing ceremony of the Chicago Gay Games was only seven days before the opening ceremony of World OutGames in Montreal.
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24 Obscure Kinks and Fetishes of Gay Men

From: The Advocate
 12
Arousal From Seeing People Who Are Very Cold Or Being Very Cold

Psychrophiliacs really enjoy winter. Or snowboarding. Or just standing outside in freezing temperatures. They eroticize seeing people freezing or touching very cold objects.

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Jared Kushner is a subject of the FBI investigation, as confirmed by everyone in creation

From: Daily Kos
Kushner: "isn’t particularly bright or hard-working,
 doesn’t actually know anything, has bought his way into everything ever"
As NBC News has confirmed … that is, CNN has confirmed … and the Washington Post, and the BBC, and Reuters,  and USA Today, and le Monde, and the Sheboygan Press confirm, Jared Kushner is now a focus of the Trump–Russia investigation.

Jared Kushner, the Trump's son-in-law and one of his senior advisers, has come under FBI scrutiny in the Russia investigation, multiple U.S. officials told NBC News.
Investigators believe Kushner has significant information relevant to their inquiry, officials said. 
And every single one of those sources is careful to throw out this helpful tidbit.

That does not mean they suspect him of a crime or intend to charge him.
Here’s something that’s even more true that those articles don’t get around to saying:

Being the focus of an FBI investigation is not a good thing. It rarely ends with someone being awarded puppies and ice cream. And there’s every chance that Jared Kushner will eventually be charged with a crime.

So every time an article reminds you that Kushner hasn’t been charged, simply mentally append the word “yet.”

Because Kushner isn’t just a guy who hangs around and may have stumbled across a clue unawares. Kusher is a guy who met with a sanctioned Russian bank. Who met with Sergei Kislyak and later exchanged notes with him. And who failed to disclose multiple meetings with Russian officials when applying for security clearance. And that’s all in the past year after the Russian hacking scandal became public and after anyone with two functioning brain cells would know that the FBI was watching his every move.

At the moment, Kushner isn’t considered an actual target of the investigation—unlike Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who most definitely is. And also unlike Trump’s former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, who seems to have carefully studied security regulations only so he could be sure of breaking them all.

Instead, Kushner is a “subject of interest” because his activities—all that meeting with Russians, talking with Russians, and also being a close associate of that that known Russian money-laundering schemer, Donald Trump—put him close to the bullseye when it comes to Trump–Russia targets.

Of course, compared with Trump, Kushner seems like a quieter more reserved brand of slum lord. What do people close to Kushner have to say about him? People like Harleen Kalon, who was hired to do a digital overhaul of the Kushner-owned Observer. 

Just before the election, Kahlon described her former boss on Facebook thusly: “We’re talking about a guy who isn’t particularly bright or hard-working, doesn’t actually know anything, has bought his way into everything ever (with money he got from his criminal father), who is deeply insecure and obsessed with fame (you don’t buy the NYO, marry Ivanka Trump, or constantly talk about the phone calls you get from celebrities if it’s in your nature to ‘shun the spotlight’), and who is basically a shithead.”
Jared Kushner: Basically a shithead. But of course, there are other views.

“I think he is someone who saw all this shit with his father go down, and it turned him into a person who was determined to operate in much the same way but just be quieter about it,” said Brian Thomas Gallagher, who worked as a deputy editor at the paper during the Kushner era. “The idea that he thought the thing to do was to buy himself a position in the New York cultural elite is probably true in its way, but I don’t think he ever saw that way. He saw how poorly his dad was treated in the papers, and the Observer was his tool or a house organ for his real estate company.”
Jared Kushner: Basically a shithead who uses his own newspaper to spread propaganda.

And also definitely the subject of an FBI investigation.

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Russia is Investigating Chechnya’s Anti-Gay Purge

From: Towleroad
Today marks the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan when, across the world, Muslims will begin their fast, unable to eat or drink until sundown. But for Chechnya’s Muslim leader Ramzan Kadyrov it was also supposed to mark an end: in late April, Kadyrov promised to eliminate all gay people from Chechnya before the start of Ramadan.

It was a barbaric promise but it is one that Kadyrov had strived to fulfill. In late February, police began rounding up Chechens they believed to be gay and held them unlawfully in several detention centers in the Russian region. There, they were beaten, electrocuted and deprived of food and water. The Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta reports that 26 people have died as a result of the purge.

The crackdown continued until at least early April when, according to a new report from Human Rights Watch, in the first three weeks of the month the Russian LGBT Network received calls from 75 people who had been affected.

Fifty-two of these people said they had been detained and tortured. They, and other detainees, said police forced them to give information about other gay men before returning them to their families. The officers advised some of the families to kill these men in so-called honor killings.

For all of Kadyrov’s bluster, he has refused to acknowledge the bloody crackdown and human rights abuses that he has overseen. In a meeting with the Russian President Vladimir Putin on April 19, Kadyrov out rightly denied implementing an anti-gay purge. Claiming that reports of the arrests were false, he dismissed “provocative articles about the Chechen Republic, the supposed events… the supposed detentions.”

At the time, Putin didn’t ask any further questions and, given his track record on homosexuality, many LGBT advocates interpreted his silence as tacit support of Kadyrov. In 2013, Putin passed a law banning the promotion of  "nontraditional sexual relationships” in Russia. Human Rights Watch said of the law: “[It] effectively legalized discrimination against LGBT people and cast them as second-class citizens.”

But since April Putin seems to have changed his mind. On May 26, the Guardian, citing Novaya Gazeta, reported that Kremlin officials are believed to be actively investigating claims of the purge, likely motivated by the international outcry to the crackdown. Condemnation of Chechnya has not been limited to activists. On May 2, in her first visit to Russia in two years, German Chancellor Angela Merkel called on Putin to investigate the reports from the region.

The Human Rights Watch report offers damning evidence that Kadyrov would have been well aware of what was happening to Chechens suspected of being gay. According to the report, his second-in-command, Speaker of the Chechen Parliament Magomed Daudov, was responsible for “securing and giving approval from the Chechen leadership.” Detainees, the report says, “also spotted Daudov at detention sites, watching the police administer beatings.”

Despite Russia’s investigation, there is no certainty that Putin will discipline Kadyrov over his treatment of gay people. Though Russian officials have in the past expressed frustration with the unpredictable Chechen leader, he and Putin remain close. It is likely that Chechen authorities will do their best to try and persuade Russia to drop the investigation or at least not examine things too closely.

In this, Chechen lawmakers might be aided by their victims. Many men caught up in the purge don’t want to speak openly about what happened to them, lest they face further violence. Those who have been released are instead focused on getting out of Chechnya. The Russian LGBT Network has said it has helped 40 people leave the region, with some receiving visas to live abroad. Lithuania has said it resettled two men, while the Canadian organization Rainbow Railroad said it arranged foreign visas for seven men, though it didn’t say which country or countries these were for.

Despite the horrors of what they endured, these men are the lucky ones. An unknown number of Chechens are still in detention camps, with officials telling their families to cover up their disappearances. On May 21, Novaya Gazeta reported (in Russian) that when Russian investigators turned up at a site detainees had said was a concentration camp, they found it destroyed. When they attempted to find the relocated prisoners at a second site, Chechen officials barred them from entering.
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13 Times Katharine Hepburn Was Queer Perfection

From: NewNowNext
13
Hepburn and Tracy

Yes, even one of Hollywood’s most cited romances had a queer tinge. To hear Larry Kramer tell it, the two icons were the ultimate Hollywood beards.

“Hepburn and Spencer Tracy were both gay,” he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2015. “They were publicly paired together by the studio. Everyone in Hollywood knows this is true.”
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Gregg Allman, Southern Rock Pioneer, Dies at 69

From: Variety
Gregg Allman, whose hard-jamming, bluesy sextet the Allman Brothers Band was the pioneering unit in the Southern rock explosion of the ‘70s, died Saturday due to complications from liver cancer, his longtime manager, Michael Lehman, confirmed to Variety. He was 69.

As recently as April 24, reports surfaced claiming Allman was in hospice, although Lehman denied those reports, which Allman then substantiated in a Facebook post. However, he had suffered a number of ailments in recent years — including an irregular heartbeat, a respiratory infection, a hernia and a liver transplant — and cancelled many scheduled tour dates in recent months for health reasons. Lehman said that Allman’s liver cancer recurred around five years ago, but the singer chose to keep the news private.

Allman completed a solo album, “Southern Blood,” that is set for release late this year. Lehman said they received some final mixes for the album on Friday, and Allman listened to them the night before his death. He added that Allman passed away with his family nearby, and was “at peace.”

For his work with the Allman Brothers, the legendary band he co-founded with his late brother Duane, and as a solo artist, Allman is one of the leading lights of Southern Rock. While the group’s greatest work was done before and shortly after Duane’s death in 1971, they stayed together, off and on, over 45 years and remain a singular influence on Southern rock and jam-band musicians. They were a top-drawing touring outfit until October 2014, when the group finally closed the book on their career with a series of dates at their longtime favorite venue, New York’s Beacon Theatre.

Allman’s solo career always played second to that of the band, but he enjoyed solo success with 1973’s “Laid Back” and 1987’s “I’m No Angel,” both of which were certified gold. In 2011 he released an unexpectedly strong album entitled “Low Country Blues” that was produced by T Bone Burnett (Alison Krauss/Robert Plant, Los Lobos, Elvis Costello, “O Brother Where Art Thou?”), who, along with instrumentalists like pianist Dr. John and guitarist Doyle Bramhall II, brought Allman back to his gutsy roots with stellar results.

With his older sibling, guitarist Duane Allman, the singer-keyboardist-guitarist-songwriter led one of the most popular concert attractions of the rock ballroom era; the group’s 1971 set “At Fillmore East,” recorded at Bill Graham’s New York hall, was a commercial breakthrough that showed off the band’s prodigious song craft and instrumental strengths.

After Duane Allman’s death in a motorcycle accident weeks after the live album’s release, his younger brother led the band through four more stormy decades of playing and recording. The Allman Brothers Band’s latter-day history proved tumultuous, with other fatalities, disbanding, regrouping and very public battles with drugs and alcohol on the part of its surviving namesake.


Though Gregg Allman’s highly publicized addictions, his tabloid-ready marriage to pop vocalist Cher, and his equally public disputes with co-founding guitarist Dickey Betts came under harsh and sometimes mocking scrutiny over the years, Allman prevailed as the linchpin of an act that maintained popularity over four decades and opened the commercial door for such other Southern acts as Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Marshall Tucker Band.

As a member of the Allman Brothers Band, Allman was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 and was honored with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012.

He was born Gregory LeNoir Allman on Dec. 8, 1947, in Nashville; brother Duane was born 13 months earlier in the same hospital. In 1949, his father was shot to death by a man he offered a ride to in a bar. As their mother was studying accounting to support the family, the brothers were sent to a Tennessee military school at an early age.

The Allmans became attracted to music after seeing a 1960 concert by R&B singer Jackie Wilson in Daytona Beach, FL, where the family had moved the year before. Using money from a paper route (augmented by his mother), Gregg bought a guitar, and taught Duane his first chords. Both played guitar in the bands they founded after returning to the military academy in their teens.

Their pro bands the Escorts and the Allman Joys, which favored R&B, blues and rock covers, found work on the Florida club circuit in the mid-‘60s; Gregg began playing keyboards in the latter unit. The Allman Joys were playing without success in St. Louis when Bill McEuen, manager of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, met them and offered to set them up in Los Angeles.

Renamed Hour Glass, the L.A.-based group cut two unsuccessful pop-oriented albums for Liberty Records in 1967-68. Duane chafed at the direction being forced on the combo and fled for Alabama, where he became a prominent session guitarist at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, AL. Gregg remained in L.A. to fulfill obligations to Liberty, but was summoned to Jacksonville, FL, in 1969 by his brother, who envisioned a new blues-based band with two guitarist and two drummers, featuring members of another local combo, the 31st of February.

Calling themselves the Allman Brothers Band, the new unit – the Allmans, guitarist Betts, bassist Berry Oakley and drummers Butch Trucks and Jai Johanny “Jaimoe” Johanson – was signed by Otis Redding’s former manager Phil Walden for management and as an act on his Macon, GA-based label Capricorn Records. The group moved to Macon, which became its base for the duration.

Neither of the ABB’s first two albums was an enormous success: Its self-titled bow peaked at No. 188 in 1969, while sophomore set “Idlewild South” topped out at No. 38 in 1970. But they established Gregg Allman as a vocal, instrumental and songwriting power: His compositions included such future staples of the band’s live set as “Not My Cross to Bear,” “Dreams,” “Whipping Post” and “Midnight Rider.”

Though problems with hard drug abuse were already surfacing in the band, the Allmans became a huge concert attraction in the South; the enthusiastic sponsorship of promoter Graham led to high-profile gigs at New York’s Filllmore East (where the band attained a rabid following) and San Francisco’s Fillmore.

The Allmans made their commercial mark with “At Fillmore East”: The expansive, Tom Dowd-produced two-record set, recorded during two nights at the venue, shot to No.13 ultimately sold more than 1 million copies and became one of the defining concert recordings of its day. However, Duane Allman’s tragic death at 24 on a Macon street on Oct. 29, 1971, cast a shadow over its success.

The band completed a follow-up two-LP set, “Eat a Peach,” as a quintet, with live numbers featuring Duane filling out the contents. The 1972 package rose to No. 4 nationally and went platinum, but disaster again struck: In a mishap eerily similar to Duane Allman’s fatal crash, hard-drinking bassist Oakley died after driving his bike into the side of a truck that November.

Shaken by the deaths of his brother and Oakley and increasingly incapacitated by heroin, cocaine and alcohol, Gregg Allman ceded much of the band’s songwriting and front man duties to Betts; as he noted in “My Cross to Bear,” his 2012 memoir, “Up until then, we’d never really had a front man; Dickey took it upon himself to create that role.”

The ABB released its only No. 1 album, “Brothers and Sisters,” in 1973; the record was powered to the top by the Betts-penned No. 2 single “Ramblin’ Man,” the group’s only top-10 45.

Allman retreated from the group to cut his solo debut “Laid Back” in 1973; rising to No. 13, it would be his most popular work away from the band for nearly 40 years, and it spawned his only top-20 solo single, a down-tempo remake of “Midnight Rider.”

On the heels of the lugubrious but popular “Win, Lose or Draw” (No. 5, 1975), the group set out on its biggest, and costliest, tour to date. The ABB flew to its dates on a lavishly appointed private jet previously used by the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin; in his book, Allman recalls, “The first time we walked onto the plane, ‘Welcome Allman Brothers’ was spelled out in cocaine on the bar.”

The ABB returned from the 41-date tour with a mere $100,000 in hand, owing to over-the-top spending. This financial catastrophe was compounded by the indictment of the group’s security man (and Allman’s drug bag man) Scooter Herring on cocaine distribution charges; Allman testified against Herring before a grand jury and at his trial, which netted a 75-year prison sentence.

Addicted to heroin and embroiled in inter-band conflict with Betts, Allman began spending more time in Los Angeles with Cher, whom he had wed in June 1975. The incongruous couple was followed avidly by gossip columnists. In the wake of an unsuccessful 1977 solo album, “Playin’ Up a Storm” (No. 42), Allman and Cher released their only duo album, “Two the Hard Way”; embarrassingly credited to “Allman and Woman,” the set failed to chart, and its accompanying tour witnessed scuffles between hostile camps of fans in the audiences. Allman and Cher divorced in 1978.

Membership in the ABB rotated repeatedly for the remainder of the group’s career, which saw ever-diminishing contributions from writer Allman. He authored just one song for the group’s final Capricorn album, “Enlightened Rogues” (No. 27, 1979); the financially unstable imprint crashed within a year of its release. Allman was also a minor contributor to a pair of slick, poorly received albums for Arista Records in 1980-81.

During the band’s protracted hiatus of the ‘80s, Allman issued a pair of solo sets; the more popular of the two, 1987’s “I’m No Angel” (No. 30, 1987), spawned the titular radio hit.

Encouraged by airplay on the burgeoning “classic rock” radio format, the ABB reconvened for a 1989 tour. In 1990, the group recorded “Seven Turns” (No. 53) with “Fillmore East” producer Tom Dowd; the group also began multi-night residencies at New York’s Beacon Theatre, which became an annual tradition. They issued four commercially unrewarding albums – two studio sets and two concert releases – between 1991 and 1995.

Following a drunken appearance at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in New York in January 1995, onetime junkie Allman, after 11 stints in rehab, finally stopped drinking on his own, under the 24-hour watch of two nurses.

Following the exit of longtime guitarist Warren Haynes and bassist Allen Woody and the recruitment of Butch Trucks’ young nephew Derek Trucks on guitar, the ABB cut the live “Peakin’ at the Beacon” in 2000. Tension within the band had reached the breaking point, and, following a severely worded fax to Betts from the other members and subsequent legal arbitration, the Allman Brothers Band’s other founding guitarist made his exit.

The front line of Allman, Haynes and Derek Trucks and the group’s founding drummers were heard on the Allman Brothers Band’s studio collection “Hittin’ the Note” (No. 37, 2003) and the live “One Way Out” (No. 190, 2004). After 45 years in business, the band was formally dissolved after an October 2014 show at the Beacon.

Allman’s old habits caught up with him in the ‘00s. Diagnosed with hepatitis C – a disease common to intravenous drug users – in 2007, he learned that he was suffering from liver cancer in 2008. He underwent successful liver transplant surgery at the Mayo Clinic in 2010.

Before his surgery, Allman entered the studio to record his first solo album in 13 years. “Low Country Blues,” a striking and powerful recital of old blues songs, augmented by one Allman-Haynes original and produced by T Bone Burnett (Alison Krauss/Robert Plant, Los Lobos, Elvis Costello, “O Brother Where Art Thou?”), garnered the best reviews of his career, collected a Grammy Award nomination and became his highest-charting solo release, reaching No. 5 in early 2011.

However, health problems and catastrophe continued to dog him. He cut short a 2011 European tour because of respiratory issues, which ultimately mandated lung surgery. He faced a drug relapse spurred by painkillers, and did a stint in rehab. In 2014, a film based on his 2012 memoir, “Midnight Rider,” ceased production after a camera assistant on director Randall Miller’s feature was killed by a freight train on the first day of shooting.

Allman’s last concert took place on October 29, 2016 in Atlanta, a headlining set at his own Laid Back Festival.

Married and divorced six times, Allman is survived by three sons and two daughters, all by different mothers. Four of the children are professional musicians.

Allman will be buried at Rose Hill Cemetery in Macon, Georgia, next to Duane and former Allmans bassist Berry Oakley (who died a year after Duane), Lehman said. Their mother’s ashes, currently in Gregg’s home, will be buried there as well.

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Walt Jourdan Photographed by David Martin

From: Male Models Vintage Beefcake

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Jared Kushner Proposed ‘Secret Communications Channel’ with Russian Leaders

From: Towleroad
Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner spoke to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak about setting up a “secret communications channel” between the transition team and Russia, according to the Washington Post, who received its reporting from U.S. intelligence officials.

The proposal was made in early December at Trump Tower. Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was present and Kislyak was reportedly shocked at the suggestion because of its inherent security risks, the paper added.

The WaPo reports:


Current and former U.S. intelligence officials said that although Russian diplomats have secure means of communicating with Moscow, Kushner’s apparent request for access to such channels was extraordinary.
“How would he trust that the Russians wouldn’t leak it on their side?” said one former senior intelligence official. The FBI would know that a Trump transition official was going in and out of the embassy, which would cause “a great deal” of concern, he added. The entire idea, he said, “seems extremely naive or absolutely crazy.”
The discussion of a secret channel adds to a broader pattern of efforts by Trump’s closest advisers to obscure their contacts with Russian counterparts. Trump’s first national security adviser, Flynn, was forced to resign after a series of false statements about his conversations with Kislyak. Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from matters related to the Russia investigation after it was revealed that he had failed to disclose his own meetings with Kislyak when asked during congressional testimony about any contact with Russians.



The Washington Post report comes as the White House has reportedly planned to set up a “war room” to combat questions about the Russia probe upon Trump’s return from overseas:

Upon Trump’s return, the administration will add experienced political professionals, including Trump’s former campaign manager, and possibly more lawyers to handle the Russia probe, which has gained new urgency since the Justice Department appointed a special counsel to head the investigation, the sources said.

Beyond pushing back at suggestions that Moscow is unduly influencing Trump’s administration, the messaging effort will also focus on advancing Trump’s stalled policy agenda and likely involve more trips out of Washington that will feature the kind of raucous rallies that were the hallmark of Trump’s campaign.

Trump’s aides are now facing a “perilous stage” in the investigation according to Politico as the scent of impeachment wafts through Washington.
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Celebrating 10 Years of Porn.. and Data!

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Essence Masculine Ad #4, 2013 V E N F I E L D 8


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Ariana Grande to Hold Benefit Concert for Manchester Bombing Victims and Families

From: Towleroad
 Ariana Grande announced yesterday that she’ll be returning to the city of Manchester to hold a benefit concert to raise money for the victims and families of the terrorist bombing which took 22 lives and injured more than 50 others.

Grande made the announcement in a post on Instagram. She did not specify dates but said “I will have details to share with you as soon as everything is confirmed.”:




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MEET THE SQUIRT.ORG MODELS FROM #IML

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34 Mouthwatering Photos From Broadway Bares

From: NewNowNext
Broadway Bares 26: On Demand

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‘Distressed and disgusted’: LGBT athletes pissed after OutGames canceled with no notice

‘I’m suing you, World OutGames,’ a bodybuilder said
From: OutSports
The Out Games athlete pickup area was a mess on Friday,
the day the event was supposed to start.
It was bad enough that the organizers of the World OutGames in Miami canceled the event citing financial difficulties, leaving hundreds of athletes in the lurch. What was most galling, athletes say, was that the event was canceled the day of the opening ceremonies when most athletes had already arrived.

Late Friday, Miami Beach Police and the Miami-Dade County State Attorney's Office opened a fraud investigation, Miami New Times reported. Along with official inquiries, other athletes are threatening to take legal action.

“I’m suing you, World OutGames,” Spanish bodybuilder Diego Lopez said in a YouTube video. “Are they going to return my registration fee, my flight fee, my hotel fees, my training fees, my coach fees, my food fees?”



Lopez had not yet left his home, which is more than many athletes could say. Many had arrived and planned stays as long as a week, incurring air, hotel and food costs. Athletes who had traveled from Mexico were furious since for many of them, getting a visa was a hassle.

“So far, [soccer] is supposed to remain unchanged,” said Nicolas Pineda, administrator of the Mexican soccer team Zorros. “However, we have athletes that would compete in athletics and whose sports tests have been canceled, we are all very distressed and disgusted with this decision of the organizers and of course.

“Even if our competition will be realized, we want to show our solidarity with the athletes and complete teams that come from all over the world from as far afield as Belgium, Australia, Spain, etc. We have spent more than $15,000 in total to take 17 players to the event, including airfare, lodging, visas and passports, including visas that were denied to some of our athletes."

Zorros had used crowdsourcing to raise money for their trip, which showed how much this event meant to them and how financially difficult it was to pull off.

While soccer, which is being run as the international LGBT soccer tournament by the International Gay and Lesbian Football Assn., was still on, there were questions about whether the event would need to be scaled back. One organizer said that IGLFA was counting on the OutGames for logistical support, such as referee fees and transportation.

Swimming and water polo, being run by the International Gay and Lesbian Aquatics, was still a go, but even there issues arose.

Swimmer Corey Welch, who sounded the alarm over the OutGames lack of transparency and preparedness months ago, said even the aquatics events were affected.

“We were relying on them for a lot,” he emailed Outsports. “They were supposed to supply all the volunteers (mainly timers), they were supposed to buy lane lines (they borrowed some from a local university, but are the wrong size so we are scrambling to find replacements), one of their staff members are holding our water polo balls ransom because they were never paid, so we will have to play with old warm practice balls.

“They were supposed to have tents for shade at the pools, but don't so we are all pulling together to try to find all these things with start time of the meet in less than an hour. We have a lot of issues, but are going to do our best to put together the best competition we can under the circumstances.”

Basketball is one sport that will go on, though in a modified form, thanks to organizers for the National Gay Basketball Assn.

“The NGBA was able to ensure players traveling to the Out Games were able to play this weekend,” member Mark Chambers said. “It will only be a two-day event, but the players from Sydney, Mexico, Atlanta and SoCal will be able to play. Jason Jaramillo was able to secure a gym for the games and NGBA is providing financial assistance for the tournament.”

One athlete detailed what he saw late this afternoon in Miami, in an email to Outsports:

“We went to the Lowes hotel, the sight of the human rights conference, which was empty. We were told two days ago that athletes had to pick up their credentials on Thursday or Friday now and could do so until 5:30 at the Lowes hotel.
“When we got to the hotel there was a sign saying athlete items were over at the OutGames Headquarters. There was a small room with a handful of volunteers giving out credentials and t-shirts and a gift bag. They have a big colorful brochure and in it they list all the athletes for all events. The half/full marathon only had 45 athletes listed, the 5K/10K had 55 athletes listed.
“While we were picking up our stuff we mentioned we were with the half marathon. One of the organizers said they were going to still try to pull off the half/full marathon on Sunday and that their board was meeting tonight to try and make it happen. I told them they were out of their minds; we were leaving early because of the fiasco, and no one trusts a single thing they say now.
“I said don't get anyone's hopes up or tell anyone you will still try to have it — and that they better focus instead on giving refunds to people. He had said if there was money to refund, and I said no, you will be refunding athletes, and in fact we're filling with our credit card companies for refunds for fraud and breach of contract. He had a worried look on his face. I also said don't be surprised when you are sued.
“We met athletes from Team Germany when we were leaving. Some were crying and they were just too upset. I can tell you they said for most of them this is their first time in the United States and they had been planning on these games for years. They are completely upset with all the money, time and training spent to get here to have the games canceled. Part of their group arrived today and the rest are still on the way here.”
The OutGames Facebook page had more than 200 comments, all expressing disgust and shock at the cancellation. One athlete commented, “I spent $6,000 coming from Australia. I have planned this trip for 2 years wtf.”

“On behalf of the Miami Beach LGBTQ rank and file community, not any club, or organization, I have to say that I am truly ashamed of this, and quite honestly how "SKETCHY" this is,” read another comment. “For those who have traveled from afar I can only hope you find ways to enjoy our city, and hope the experience does not ruin your opinion of Miami Beach.”

Some in the Miami LGBT community tried to make amends. The Hotel Gaythering, a gay hotel in Miami Beach, was offering “registered folks comp drinks, sauna access & shuttles to Haulover Nude Beach everyday through June 4,” one athlete tweeted to Outsports.

The most troubling aspect in this fiasco is that the issues did not suddenly crop up. Miami New Times has an excellent analysis of the warnings that were there, while noting that Miami Beach taxpayers are out at least $200,000. An audit will be conducted by the city.

My main question: No one cancels an event literally opening day without there being serious problems. Why not cancel it a week earlier, when at least people could have had hotel fees refunded and not already gotten on a plane?

This is the end of the OutGames as an event, but not the end of troubles for the organizers who screwed up royally and gave the LGBT sports community a huge black eye.
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