NBA Lifts Ban on North Carolina

With HB 2 “repealed,” Charlotte will get a chance to host the All-Star Game in 2019.

www.advocate.com/politics/2017/4/10/nba-lifts-ban-north-carolina

Homophobic, Family Values Alabama Governor Robert Bentley to Resign Over Extramarital Affair Cover-Up

Alabama Governor Robert Bentley is expected to resign today in order to avoid impeachment over his affair with aide Rebekah Mason and his attempts to cover it up.

The AP reports:

The mild-mannered 74-year-old Republican and one-time Baptist deacon was at peace with the decision and planned to announce it during a Cabinet meeting Monday afternoon, according to the person, who was not authorized to release the information and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity.

The sex-tinged scandal gathered force over the past few days and legislators turned up the pressure by opening impeachment hearings Monday. Bentley had steadfastly refused to resign, even though it appeared he had practically no support in the GOP-controlled Legislature.

Rachel Maddow pointed out his sick hypocrisy last year:

This isn’t just a personal story. Governor Bentley ran for this office that he holds on the grounds that he was a family values candidate—a God fearing family man—whose campaign ads featured him talking about the Bible while posing with his wife and all of his grandkids. he ran as a man who so believes in the sanctity of traditional marriage that he would fight same-sex marriage with every fiber of his being. His administration filed a Supreme Court brief that said marriages between same-sex couples should not even be thought of as marriages, they should be seen as social experiments.

Nobody’s love life is a political matter. Unless you as a politician make your love life and your personal life a political matter. And Robert Bentley, the Governor of Alabama, has done that. He has been a crusading family values politician who has campaigned on the superior morality of his own marriage, his own family and his own family values, and how he’s going to save Alabama from other people’s terrible, immoral family choices because his values and his family are superior.

Talking Points Memo reports that Bentley’s wife watched his affair unspool on the iPad he had gifted to her, which was still connected to his iCloud account:

Unbeknownst to the governor and Mason, the frequent romantic texts they exchanged were all visible to Dianne Bentley. The governor’s state-issued cell phone’s cloud was linked to his state-issued iPad, which he had gifted to his then-wife, allowing her to watch the rumored affair unfold in real time.

“I’m so in love with you,” Bentley wrote to Mason in one text, along with two heart-eye emojis. “We are pitiful.”

“Poor Robert. Poor Rebekah,” he added.

“Yes… Bless our hearts… And other parts,” Mason wrote back.

“Magnetic,” Bentley replied.

The device oversight was only one of Bentley’s errors.

In spring 2014, he mistakenly sent a text to his wife reading, “I love you Rebekah,” along with an emoji of a red rose.

The post Homophobic, Family Values Alabama Governor Robert Bentley to Resign Over Extramarital Affair Cover-Up appeared first on Towleroad.

Homophobic, Family Values Alabama Governor Robert Bentley Resigns Over Extramarital Affair Cover-Up

Report: Chechyna Is Torturing Gay Men in Concentration Camps

New details have emerged about a horrific “purge” in the Russian region, the likes of which haven’t been seen since the Holocaust.

www.advocate.com/world/2017/4/10/report-chechyna-torturing-gay-men-concentration-camps

Jared Kushner’s baby brother Josh is totally cute and totally liberal
The 31-year-old lifelong Democrat voted against Trump and considers his political aspirations nothing more than an ego-trip.

www.queerty.com/jared-kushners-baby-brother-josh-totally-cute-totally-liberal-20170410?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+queerty2+%28Queerty%29

Handsome man strips while waterskiing; video instantly goes viral
Wonderful things they can do nowadays.

www.queerty.com/handsome-man-strips-waterskiing-video-instantly-goes-viral-20170410?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+queerty2+%28Queerty%29

Neil Gorsuch, Koch Brothers, Pompeii, Tyson Beckford, Dreaming, Carly Rae Jepsen, Julian Assange: HOT LINKS

SWORN IN. Neil Gorsuch sworn in as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.

MAR-A-LAGO MEETING. Trump and the Koch brothers: “Three people familiar with the interaction said it occurred when Trump stopped by as the billionaire brothers were eating dinner with conservative media entrepreneur Chris Ruddy, a friend of the president who is a member of Mar-a-Lago and is known to hold court with his guests at the membership-only club. The sources describe the chat as agreeable, but did not disclose the subject of the conversation.”

SUPERMAN. Henry Cavill in Christopher Reeve’s Superman suit.

MIDTERMS. Democrats eyeing House seats: “Republicans controls both the House and Senate, but the unified GOP Congress might not last past the midterms. House Republicans are seeing signs that Democrats could take a significant number of House seats in the 2018 elections. President Trump’s approval ratings currently sit in the low 40s — a historic low for this point in a presidency. The GOP Congress, meanwhile, has achieved no major legislative goals in Trump’s first 70 days in office.”

BROOKLYN. Man fatally stabbed by boyfriend after apparent domestic incident.

POMPEII. Embracing figures could have been gay lovers.

MALE MODEL MONDAY. Joseph Bruzas. More here.

DREAMING. Scientists announce breakthrough: “Scientists have unpicked the regions of the brain involved in dreaming, in a study with significant implications for our understanding of the purpose of dreams and of consciousness itself. What’s more, changes in brain activity have been found to offer clues as to what the dream is about.”

LUNCH. Decomposing bat found inside Walmart salad.

GEORGIA. Young gay Democrat runs for office: “Andrew Niquette, a 19-year-old Albany resident, is running for the Georgia General Assembly next year, hoping to an unseat a longtime incumbent. But he’s set his eyes on higher office and is building his political resume, including a trip to the Democratic National Convention last year and working with the campaigns of Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton”

ST. LOUIS. Tabbi Katt crowned Miss Gay Missouri American 2017.

TYSON BECKFORD. His Chippendales debut.

RETURNING. Chelsea’s Back.

NEW TUNE OF THE DAY. Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Cut to the Feeling”.

TRAILER OF THE DAY. Risk. “Filmed over six years including through the 2016 presidential election and up to the present moment, RISK takes viewers closer than they have ever been before to Julian Assange and those who surround him.”

MONDAY MUSCLE. Levi Darby.

The post Neil Gorsuch, Koch Brothers, Pompeii, Tyson Beckford, Dreaming, Carly Rae Jepsen, Julian Assange: HOT LINKS appeared first on Towleroad.

Neil Gorsuch, Koch Brothers, Pompeii, Tyson Beckford, Dreaming, Carly Rae Jepsen, Julian Assange: HOT LINKS

Ringleaders of elaborate 24-hour gay sex slave ring get 30 years in the slammer
Victims were forced to perform sex acts between 18 to 24 hours a day, either with each other, with clients, or on webcams.

www.queerty.com/ringleaders-elaborate-24-hour-gay-sex-slave-ring-get-30-years-slammer-20170410?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+queerty2+%28Queerty%29

Man Bloodied and Dragged Off Overbooked United Flight After Being Randomly Selected: WATCH

Passengers on an overbooked United Airlines flight from Chicago to Louisville were treated to a horror show on Sunday night when the airline announced that four passengers would be randomly selected to get off the plane.

One passenger refused, a man who claimed to be a doctor with patients to treat in the morning, and so the airline sent three men in to physically remove him.

The horror was captured by passengers on video, the Courier-Journal reports:

The 31-second clip shows three men wearing radio equipment and security jackets speaking with a man seated on the plane. After a few seconds, one of the men grabs the passenger, who screams, and drags him by his arms toward the front of the plane. The video ends before anything else is shown.

A United spokesperson confirmed in an email Sunday night that a passenger had been taken off a flight in Chicago.

The man can be seen bleeding from the lip, and several passengers point it out in the video.

Here’s the video:

Another angle:

@United overbook #flight3411 and decided to force random passengers off the plane. Here’s how they did it: pic.twitter.com/QfefM8X2cW

— Jayse D. Anspach (@JayseDavid) April 10, 2017

One passenger gave her story to the Courier-Journal:

One couple was selected first and left the airplane, she said, before the man in the video was confronted.

Bridges said the man became “very upset” and said that he was a doctor who needed to see patients at a hospital in the morning. The manager told him that security would be called if he did not leave willingly, Bridges said, and the man said he was calling his lawyer. One security official came and spoke with him, and then another security officer came when he still refused. Then, she said, a third security official came on the plane and threw the passenger against the armrest before dragging him out of the plane.

The man was able to get back on the plane after initially being taken off – his face was bloody and he seemed disoriented, Bridges said, and he ran to the back of the plane. Passengers asked to get off the plane as a medical crew came on to deal with the passenger, she said, and passengers were then told to go back to the gate so that officials could “tidy up” the plane before taking off.

Here’s a video of the man running back on to the plane, which took off two hours late:

@united @CNN @FoxNews @WHAS11 Man forcibly removed from plane somehow gets back on still bloody from being removed pic.twitter.com/njS3nC0pDl

— Tyler Bridges (@Tyler_Bridges) April 10, 2017

The post Man Bloodied and Dragged Off Overbooked United Flight After Being Randomly Selected: WATCH appeared first on Towleroad.

Bloody Man Violently Dragged Off Overbooked United Flight as Passengers Shriek in Horror: WATCH