President Obama’s Farewell Address from Chicago: Watch LIVE

President Obama’s Farewell Address from Chicago: Watch LIVE

President Barack Obama will be giving his farewell address tonight at 9 pm ET from the city of Chicago. Watch it LIVE above.

Writes Obama on Facebook:

For Michelle and me, Chicago is where it all started. It’s the city that showed us the power and fundamental goodness of the American people.

It’s that inherent strength that brought our country through our fair share of challenges these last eight years. Because of you, we’ve come through them stronger. Because of you, we’ve held to a belief that has guided us ever since our founding – our conviction that, together, we can change this country for the better.

It’s easy to lose sight of that in the blizzard of our minute-to-minute Washington news cycles. But America is a story told not minute to minute, but generation to generation – a story written by parents, and teachers, and veterans, and neighbors who’ve taken on the call of citizenship, working together, without fanfare, to form a more perfect union.

Over the course of my life, I’ve been reminded time and again that change can happen – that ordinary people can come together to achieve extraordinary things. And I’ve seen that truth up close over these last eight years.

We’ve made America a better, stronger place for the generations that will follow. We’ve run our leg in a long relay of progress, knowing that our work will always be unfinished. And we’ve reaffirmed the belief that we can make a difference with our own hands, in our own time. That’s the imperative of citizenship – the idea that, with hard work, and a generous heart toward our fellow Americans, people who love their country can change it.

So tonight, I’m returning to where it all began to offer my most grateful farewell to the American people. I hope you’ll join me – I want to thank you for everything you’ve done.

The post President Obama’s Farewell Address from Chicago: Watch LIVE appeared first on Towleroad.



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Russia Has ‘Compromising’ Personal and Financial Info on Trump, Says Dossier Circulated by Top Govt Officials

Russia Has ‘Compromising’ Personal and Financial Info on Trump, Says Dossier Circulated by Top Govt Officials

A dossier containing unverified but explosive personal and financial allegations about Donald Trump including claims that he hired prostitutes to urinate on each other in front of him at the Ritz Carlton and that he was fed information about Hillary Clinton by Russian operatives has been circulating among “high ranking intelligence, administration, congressional and law enforcement officials” for months, according to CNN.

Well, look at the bright side. Thanks to @buzzfeed at least we know what Trump means by wanting a “soft sensuality” for the inaugural. pic.twitter.com/EiviDWeOet

— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) January 10, 2017

The dossier was published by Buzzfeed News on Tuesday “so that Americans can make up their own minds about allegations about the president-elect that have circulated at the highest levels of the US government.”

You can also read it here.

I support sex workers but this is slave labor. #Lockhimup pic.twitter.com/xCkBmuK1wi

— Margaret Cho (@margaretcho) January 10, 2017

The Daily Beast:

A source said Trump employed a “number of prostitutes to perform a ‘golden showers’ [sic] (urination) show in front of him. The hotel was known to be under FSB control with microphones and concealed cameras in all the main rooms to record anything they wanted to.”

In addition, Russian operatives also allegedly fed “valuable intelligence” on Hillary Clinton for “several years.”

Russians also claimed to have offered lucrative real estate deals to Trump but that he declined them.

In July 2016, the report claims former Trump adviser Carter Page met with Igor Sechin, the head of state-owned oil giant Rosnef, and TK Divyken, an official from Kremlin Internal Affairs. During the meeting, according to sources, Divyken “discusses release of Russian dossier of ‘kompromat’” on Clinton, but “also hints at Kremlin posession of such material on Trump.”

CNN reports that a summary of the dossier was presented to President Obama, President-Elect Trump, and the “Gang of Eight” leaders of the House and Senate last week.

The Trump campaign has not responded to the report.

The post Russia Has ‘Compromising’ Personal and Financial Info on Trump, Says Dossier Circulated by Top Govt Officials appeared first on Towleroad.


Russia Has ‘Compromising’ Personal and Financial Info on Trump, Says Dossier Circulated by Top Govt Officials

Able to do no wrong, Billy Eichner partners with James Corden for ‘Curbside Conga Line’

Able to do no wrong, Billy Eichner partners with James Corden for ‘Curbside Conga Line’

It’s starting to feel like Billy Eichner is one of the very few things in life keeping us from plunging into complete and utter despair; a trend that continues with his latest Billy on the Street vignette.

Related: Billy Eichner just had an epic Twitter throwdown with Meghan McCain over Streep speech

Teaming up with James Corden, Eichner terrorizes unsuspecting New York bystanders — tickling, chastising, and congaing them into dazed, delirious submission, armed with only a Deadpool mask and a handful of maracas.

Watch:

www.queerty.com/able-no-wrong-billy-eichner-partners-james-corden-curbside-conga-line-20170110?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+queerty2+%28Queerty%29

Bologna Opens First Italian Center for LGBT Refugees, Following German Example

Bologna Opens First Italian Center for LGBT Refugees, Following German Example

podesta_bologna

The first Italian center specifically accommodating refugees of LGBT identity will be opened soon in Bologna, according to news agency Ansa. The move follows similar initiatives in Germany over the past year, where first Nuremberg and then Berlin provided facilities for LGBT refugees.

A joint project between the locally-based Trans-Identity Movement (Mit), the pro-refugee Camelot Cooperative, and the LGBTI Resource Center based in Turin, as well as the city administration of Bologna, the center received the go-ahead from the National Office Against Racial Discrimination (UNAR). It is expected to feature housing adjacent to existing resources for refugees, as well as LGBT-specific counseling and outreach services.

“The project strengthens the Bolognese reception system [for refugees],” say city councilors Luca Rizzo Nervo and Susanna Zaccaria, and will confirm “a positive habit of collaboration between the City and LGBTI associations” to strengthen “the system of rights and guarantees for persons.”

This innovation sheds a light on the need for such added contingencies for an already vulnerable class of people. Fleeing global hotspots due to conflict and persecution, including anti-LGBT persecution, LGBT refugees may find that their troubles remain even in their new host countries, as well as among their fellow refugees. The Berlin shelter was opened specifically as a response to these issues, as related by a local gay activist:

Stephen Jäkel . . . explained the risks queer refugees face in shelters. They are small worlds, where people are unoccupied most of the time, and rumors and gossip spread quickly. “There is violence if people come out or are recognized as LGBT. We have reports of people being spat on, called ugly words, or beaten,” he told me. One refugee was strangled, lost consciousness, and almost died. Jäkel’s organization has also heard of problems with homophobic security staff and interpreters who don’t care about the safety of LGBTQ refugees.

“Sometimes, interpreters don’t know the right words for LGBT, or they don’t like gay or trans people. They will say: ‘You don’t have to tell him you are gay. I won’t translate it. It’s not important,’ ” when evidently it is absolutely vital that queer refugees identify themselves to government authorities, Jäkel said. “We also had reports of interpreters quitting their jobs the moment they found out the person they’re translating for is gay.” Since they are privy to conversations that are supposed to be private, within the shelters, interpreters sometimes betray the confidence of LGBTQ asylum seekers.

When added to the fate of those such as a gay Syrian refugee who was viciously killed in Istanbul last year, it is clear that special protections for LGBT refugees are necessary and now, thanks to the German centers as well as the new one in Bologna, the trend towards providing them is encouraging.

The post Bologna Opens First Italian Center for LGBT Refugees, Following German Example appeared first on Towleroad.


Bologna Opens First Italian Center for LGBT Refugees, Following German Example

On November 2, 2016, Trigon, Penn State Univerosty-Behrend's LGBTQ student group, again held their annual Drag Show in the Reed Union Building. Thev event was very well attended and there was also an amateur drag competition.

On November 2, 2016, Trigon, Penn State Univerosty-Behrend's LGBTQ student group, again held their annual Drag Show in the Reed Union Building. Thev event was very well attended and there was also an amateur drag competition.

Michael Mahler posted a photo:

On November 2, 2016, Trigon, Penn State Univerosty-Behrend's LGBTQ student group, again held their annual Drag Show in the Reed Union Building. Thev event was very well attended and there was also an amateur drag competition.

On November 2, 2016, Trigon, Penn State Univerosty-Behrend’s LGBTQ student group, again held their annual Drag Show in the Reed Union Building. Thev event was very well attended and there was also an amateur drag competition.

On November 2, 2016, Trigon, Penn State Univerosty-Behrend's LGBTQ student group, again held their annual Drag Show in the Reed Union Building. Thev event was very well attended and there was also an amateur drag competition.

Model Austin Armacost comes out as asexual

Model Austin Armacost comes out as asexual

Model Austin Armacost, who is currently appearing on “Celebrity Big Brother” and split with husband Jake Lees last year, has revealed that he is asexual.

He told show business reporter Andy West that he is a “very asexual” person, reports The Sun.

“I am probably in all honesty the least sexual person you will ever meet,” he said. “As much as I love getting my kit off and showing my bum everywhere, I am like a nun in bed.”

Related: Austin Armacost displays finest assets in unclothed yoga pose

“I am not going to go out with someone and have sex with them,” he went on. “Even after a fourth or fifth date – that’s not what I want.”

Armacost is reportedly seeing someone else, and said that he signed up for dating/hookup app Grindr weeks after he and Lees broke up, saying, “I did it because I was bored.”

“I never met anyone at night. Well, I met a few. But they were dates,” he explained. “I don’t do that no strings attached thing, you know ‘come on over, dump your load and go’ kinda thing.”

A study conducted in 2004 by human sexuality researcher Anthony F. Bogaert revealed that approximately one percent of the world’s population is asexual.

www.queerty.com/model-austin-armacost-comes-asexual-20170110?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+queerty2+%28Queerty%29