Tag: politics

The race for the EU's top job was supposed to be clear cut. In the run-up to May's elections, European political parties nominated their candidate to be the next president of the European Commission. The idea behind the so-called Spitzenkandidaten process is that whoever got the biggest share of the vote would also get their hands on the EU's top job. It's part of a drive to promote democracy and was used to usher in Jean-Claude Juncker as European Commission president...

The 2019 Emmy nominations were announced yesterday and queer artists made a strong showing. Season One of Pose scored big in major categories, as did the lesbian thriller Killing Eve, Rupaul’s Drag Race, and Russian Doll, the surreal Netflix series co-created by out-lesbian Leslye Headland. Some of the LGBTQ artists who scored nominations include Billy Porter, Ellen Degeneres, Kate McKinnon, and Laverne Cox, just to name a few. All that is great! Unless you’re Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill. Merrill, who is currently running a 2020...

International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Christine Lagarde offered her resignation on Tuesday, ahead of her possible confirmation as the next President of the European Central Bank (ECB), sparking a race to appoint her successor. In her resignation letter, Lagarde, 63, said she had "agonised" over whether to accept the European Council's nomination to replace Mario Draghi at the ECB but that she had "eventually decided to accept." The former French cabinet minister, whose second term at the head of the IMF...

Chris Godfrey / Screenshot via NBCWhoTV13 The former workers compensation commissioner has won $1.5 million after he was discriminated at the workplace. Chris Godfrey won the discrimination lawsuit against the state of Iowa and former Governor Terry Branstad, who’s now the U.S. ambassador to China, though not without its headaches. The lawsuit was first filed in 2012 after Godfrey says Branstad reduced his pay for being openly gay. In 2011, Branstad re-took office after losing it to Chet Culver. He then asked...

Members of the European Parliament on Tuesday ratified Germany's Ursula von der Leyen as the new President of the European Commission — making her the first woman to fill the EU's top job. It is not the first time she has made history: in 2013, she became Germany's first female defence minister, a position she has held ever since. The Brussels-born 60-year-old has been a close ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel for several years and it was once thought she...

Remember Dale Peck’s horrid recent New Republic article about Pete Buttigieg’s sex life? The one that got was almost immediately taken offline, got the magazine dropped from a climate change summit and allegedly got its gay author death threats? Yeah, according to another gay writer we’re all reading it wrong and it’s not actually homophobic, it’s just an example of gay “reading” (calling out someone’s flaws in a catty way). In a recently published article piece by longtime gay journalist...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Civil rights groups who successfully blocked the Trump administration from adding a citizenship question to the 2020 U.S. census are seeking sanctions against government officials, saying they brazenly hid the truth about the inquiry’s origins during trial. In court papers filed on Tuesday, the American Civil Liberties Union asked New York federal Judge Jesse Furman to grant new discovery into the alleged misconduct, as well as monetary sanctions for the government’s “concerted campaign of delay...

Last week, Israel’s recently appointed Education Minister, Rafi Peretz, was engulfed in a political storm due to comments he made surrounding gay ‘conversion’ therapy. On Israel’s Channel 12 TV, Peretz said: “I think that it is possible to convert . I can tell you that I have deep familiarity on the issue of education, and I have also done this.” He then later defended his comments, saying: “During my years as an educator, I met with students who felt terrible distress...

European Commission president-elect Ursula von der Leyen said she was “very relieved” after securing Europe’s top job by the tightest of margins — but denied her slender victory would lead to more political turmoil. MEPs endorsed her by only 9 votes above the minimum on Tuesday after a controversial and much-criticised nomination process. But the first woman to hold Europe’s top job told Euronews' Darren McCaffrey that she was simply pleased to win after having only two weeks to convince MEPs...

Ursula von der Leyen has been making a final pitch to MEPs to convince them to approve her as next European Commission president in a vote later on Tuesday. You can watch analysis of her speech by Euronews' political editor Darren McCaffrey in the video player, above. In her speech she promoted multilateralism, fair trade, and rules-based order, saying it was the "European way". Von der Leyen also spoke about what she called Europe's duty to save lives in the Mediterranean,...

Members of the European Parliament on Tuesday ratified Germany's Ursula von der Leyen as the new President of the European Commission — making her the first woman to fill the EU's top job. It is not the first time she has made history: in 2013, she became Germany's first female defence minister, a position she has held ever since. The Brussels-born 60-year-old has been a close ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel for several years and it was once thought she...

Though he seems to be in denial about it, Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rosselló’s days in office seem to be numbered. Rosselló has been facing criticism for some time now regarding his mishandling of Hurricane Maria funds in 2017. The situation became exacerbated over the weekend when a local media outlet published almost 900 pages from a leaked private group chat between him and 11 of his cronies revealing homophobic, misogynistic, and other vile remarks. Among the homophobic writings are jokes about...

French environment minister François de Rugy on Tuesday announced his resignation following a scandal over alleged lavish dinners funded by the taxpayer and renovations to his ministry residence. He made the announcement on his official Facebook page. Investigative website Médiapart claimed he hosted lavish social dinners, which included lobster and fine wines, paid for by the taxpayer, when he was parliament speaker, as well as carrying out pricey renovations on his official residence. At the time, the former minister published a written...

Gay billionaire and Trump devotee Peter Thiel met up with FOX News’s resident homophobe Tucker Carlson last night to discuss one of the 58,740 things he believes himself to be an expert on: politics. During the sit down, 51-year-old Thiel, who offered a full-throated endorsement of Donald Trump in 2016, labeled Elizabeth Warren is the most “dangerous” of the 2020 Democratic candidates. “I’m most scared by Elizabeth Warren,” said the venture capitalist. “I think she’s the one who’s actually talking about the...