This proves you can make jokes about Gay’s and stay in Hollywood.
Comedian and A-list actor Kevin Hart announced early Friday morning that he “made the choice to step down” from hosting the 91st Academy Awards amid a backlash over the resurfacing of previous gay jokes and tweets.
“I have made the choice to step down from hosting this year’s Oscar’s….this is because I do not want to be a distraction on a night that should be celebrated by so many amazing talented artists,” Kevin Hart tweeted. “I sincerely apologize to the LGBTQ community for my insensitive words from my past.”
I have made the choice to step down from hosting this year’s Oscar’s….this is because I do not want to be a distraction on a night that should be celebrated by so many amazing talented artists. I sincerely apologize to the LGBTQ community for my insensitive words from my past.
“I’m sorry that I hurt people.. I am evolving and want to continue to do so. My goal is to bring people together not tear us apart. Much love & appreciation to the Academy,” the Night School star added. “I hope we can meet again.”
I’m sorry that I hurt people.. I am evolving and want to continue to do so. My goal is to bring people together not tear us apart.Much love & appreciation to the Academy.I hope we can meet again.
Hart’s response to criticism over earlier tweets deemed homophobic by some on Thursday further inflamed a backlash to the comedian two days after he was named host of the upcoming Academy Awards.
On Thursday, Hart wrote on Instagram that critics should “stop being negative” after years-old tweets surfaced in which he used gay slurs. In an accompanying video, a shirtless Hart lounging in bed warily said he wasn’t going to “let the craziness frustrate me.”
“I’m almost 40 years old. If you don’t believe that people change, grow, evolve? I don’t know what to tell you,” said Hart, who added, in all-caps: “I love everybody.”
Hart has since deleted some of the anti-gay tweets, mostly dated from 2009-2011. But they had already been screen-captured and been shared online. In 2011, he wrote in a since-deleted tweet: “Yo if my son comes home & try’s 2 play with my daughters doll house I’m going 2 break it over his head & say n my voice ’stop that’s gay.”
Hart’s attitudes about homosexuality were also a well-known part of his stand-up act. In the 2010 special Seriously Funny, he said “one of my biggest fears is my son growing up and being gay.”
“Keep in mind, I’m not homophobic, I have nothing against gay people, do what you want to do, but me, being a heterosexual male, if I can prevent my son from being gay, I will,” Hart said.
GLAAD, the advocacy group for LGBTQ rights, said Thursday that it has reached out to Oscars broadcaster ABC, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts, and Sciences and Hart’s management to “discuss Kevin’s anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and record.”
Comedian and actor Billy Eichner was among those on social media who were disappointed with Hart’s response.
“This is not good. A simple, authentic apology showing any bit of understanding or remorse would have been so simple,” Eichner said. “Like I tweeted a few weeks ago, Hollywood still has a real problem with gay men. On the surface it may not look like it. Underneath, it’s far more complicated.”
This is not good. A simple, authentic apology showing any bit of understanding or remorse would have been so simple. Like I tweeted a few weeks ago, Hollywood still has a real problem with gay men. On the surface it may not look like it. Underneath, it’s far more complicated.
The film academy on Tuesday announced Hart as host to its February ceremony. Representatives for the academy and for ABC didn’t respond to messages Thursday.
He is right the Bob Mueller investigation is nothing but a destruction project to destroy Donald Trump. There is no such thing as justice in America for the rich and powerful.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich laid into special counsel Robert Mueller on Fox News’ “Hannity” on Wednesday night, labeling the Russia probe a “Trump destruction project.”
Gingrich’s observation came in response to the sentencing recommendation Mueller made earlier this week regarding President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.
“Mueller is not involved in a investigation,” Gingrich charged. “Mueller has a Trump destruction project. He brought on a team, all of them dedicated to destroying Trump. They have done everything they could to destroy Trump.”
Gingrich explained, “You basically threaten somebody and say, ‘I’m going to bankrupt you. I’m going to put your son in jail. I’m going to charge you with so many different crimes, you’ll never get out from under it. Now would you like to talk?’”
ABC News reported Flynn put his home in Alexandria, Virginia up for sale last spring to pay his mounting legal bills.
Additionally, a month before entering into a plea agreement with Mueller in December 2017, the retired general reportedly expressed concern about his son being prosecuted for failing to register in relation to consulting work the two did for foreign entities, according to Forbes.
“It has nothing to do with the truth. It has nothing to do with justice,” Gingrich alleged.
He predicted, “Historians one day will comment that this was one of the most extraordinary efforts to undo the will of the American people by an established bureaucracy, and its establishment friends, that we’ve seen in all of American history.”
Hannity then raised the issue of new reporting by The Hill’s John Solomon indicating that former FBI Director James Comey was in email exchanges with other top DOJ officials and FBI investigators, which provides “the most damning evidence to date of potential abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.”
“The email exchanges show the FBI was aware — before it secured the now-infamous warrant (to spy on Trump campaign advisor Carter Page) — that there were intelligence community concerns about the reliability of the main evidence used to support it: the Christopher Steele dossier,” wrote Solomon.
Gingrich responded, “You had the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation actively trying to destroy a presidential candidate.”
He argued that Comey and others who were involved in the efforts to undermine Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, “operated on a premise … Hillary was going to win. So they never thought this would come to light. They thought they were helping the winner.”
Gingrich believes Mueller has taken up the banner and reiterated that the special counsel’s team is “actively trying to destroy the President of the United States.”
“And I know it’s frustrating but the fact is, this is a clear cut drama. They hate him, they want to destroy him, it has nothing to do with the truth and nothing to do with the law.”
Twitter is allowing dozens of pedophiles to use the social network and promote their pro-pedophile messages, focusing its time instead on banning conservatives and cracking down on “hate speech.”
In a series of posts, Saturday, one anonymous Twitter account documented the dozens of pedophiles openly using the social network. Breitbart Tech confirmed the listed accounts on Twitter.
Over 50 accounts which openly described themselves either as pedophiles or MAPs, an acronym for Minor-Attracted Persons, were listed — some of which have been active on Twitter since 2012.
One account, named Virtuous Pedophiles, described itself as an account for “pedophiles against adult-child sex,” while another user described himself as a “50ish year old anti-contact paedophile.”
This is the sick metrosexual CEO of twitter.
“howdy, i’m davey,” declared one user in his bio. “i’m attracted to boys 4+.”
“I’m out to around 15 ppl and all of them love me and no-one was aggressive or disrespectful,” claimed another self-proclaimed “anti-contact pedophile,” who used an image of a young boy as his profile picture. “My friends are even better friends now.”
A more recently-created account, which has made over 1,000 posts since its creation in October, posted, “MAPs have every right to talk (including, yes, on public blogs) about their fantasies, sexual and romantic, as long as sexually explicit material is hidden from children. It’s not bad or disrespectful to talk about people you think are cute.”
“I agree we have the right to do it. Whether we should or not is another matter,” replied an account claiming to be Todd Nickerson, the infamous “virtuous pedophile” who previously wrote several articles for Salon, including, “I’m a pedophile, but not a monster,” and “I’m a pedophile, you’re the monsters: My week inside the vile right-wing hate machine.”
Salon later deleted Nickerson’s articles, blaming them on “old management.”
Other accounts discovered included a user who has been on the platform for six years, and described himself as “sexually and emotionally attracted to children,” and a user which spoke about being attracted to her cousin.
“So recently I saw one of my cousins who has been in my AoA [Age of Attraction], but hasn’t really been my type,” the user expressed. “Turns out she just needed to change a little bit, because she was certainly my type when I saw her.”
Twitter’s pedophile problem has previously been reported on by news outlets, including the Daily Mail, the Sun, and Vice News, however many of the previously reported accounts remain on the social network, with Twitter deciding to take no action unless the accounts explicitly engage in “child sexual exploitation.”
In 2017, British MPs from both the Labour Party and the Conservative Party called on Twitter to take action against pedophiles on its social network — a call Twitter has decided to ignore, focusing instead on the blacklisting of conservatives and libertarians.
Pollak: Michael Flynn Sentencing Document Shows Collusion — Between Media, Deep State, and Obama Admin
Drain the swamp, Trump. The clock is ticking
Special Counsel Robert Mueller filed a sentencing memorandum Tuesday with the federal court in Washington, D.C. that recommends General Michael Flynn receive no jail time after pleading guilty to the crime of lying to the FBI, citing “substantial” assistance to the government in its investigations.
The mainstream media interpreted that remark as evidence that Flynn gave Mueller key information against President Donald Trump and Russian “collusion.”
More likely, however, Mueller’s request reflects the fact that Flynn did not actually commit the crime to which he pleaded guilty. No less than then-FBI director James Comey told Congress last March that Flynn had not, in fact, lied to the FBI.
If Flynn had demanded a trial on the merits, he could have subpoenaed Comey in his defense. The Special Counsel likely pressured Flynn to cooperate using other accusations — against him, or perhaps his family.
It is not clear exactly what information Flynn provided Mueller. The only other crime referenced in the sentencing document is Flynn’s failure to register as a foreign agent for Turkey.
Again, though, that is rather flimsy. It is rare that anyone in Washington is prosecuted under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), and rarer still that anyone is pursued under the Logan Act, which was the reason Flynn was under surveillance in the first place.
In fact, the most explosive piece of information in the sentencing document is not about collusion with Russians, but about the collusion between the media, the intelligence services, and the outgoing members of the Obama administration.
The document begins its recitation of Flynn’s offenses by citing information that had appeared in the Washington Post from a leaked, classified surveillance transcript in which Flynn’s name had been “unmasked”:
Days prior to the FBI’s interview of the defendant, the Washington Post had published a story alleging that he had spoken with Russia’s ambassador to the United States on December 29, 2016, the day the United States announced sanctions and other measures against Russia in response to that government’s actions intended to interfere with the 2016 election (collectively, “sanctions”). See David Ignatius, Why did Obama Dawdle on Russia’s hacking?, WASH. POST (Jan. 12, 2017).
That information, the document suggests, led the FBI to interview Flynn on Jan. 24, 2017 — the conversation in which he did not (according to Comey) lie to them, but which landed him in trouble.
The government had the surveillance transcripts, and it knew what Flynn had told the Russian ambassador. But the Post‘s intervention was crucial in setting the trap in which to ensnare Flynn and turn him into a government witness.
Mueller’s sentencing document does not mention the fact that the information published in the Post was illegally leaked to the press by the intelligence services. And the reason that happened was that the outgoing Obama administration changed the rules on the sharing of classified surveillance among government agencies, weakening privacy protections, probably intending that such information be more difficult to keep secret, and easier to leak.
Moreover, someone in the Obama administration — we do not yet know who, though it had to be someone senior — “unmasked” Flynn’s name to make sure he was exposed.
So while we do not yet know Mueller’s next moves, what the Flynn sentencing document reinforces is the that the Russia collusion investigation was tainted from the start by a crime committed against Flynn himself — with the collusion of the media, the deep state, and Obama’s loyalists.
Mueller’s Flynn Memo Disappoints Resisters: No Jail Time or Hints of Collusion
Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s memo on former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn left members of the so-called “resistance” disappointed that the retired three star Army general would likely not face any jail time, and no collusion was detailed.
Leading up to its release, resisters were giddy over the idea the man who led a “Lock her up!” chant on the campaign trail would find himself behind bars. Mueller’s memo instead praised him for his substantial cooperation and “exemplary” service in uniform, leaving some angry.
Many Democrats took to Twitter to convey their unfulfilled vengeance towards Flynn, who was once appointed by former President Barack Obama to lead the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Ultimately, the resistance — who had built Flynn up to be a pivotal figure in the Russian collusion scheme and the Deep State’s first scalp of the Trump administration — was left with yet another Trump adviser whose crimes were not related to collusion, but to lying to investigators.
It is also not clear whether Flynn truly lied to investigators – the crime he pleaded guilty to. Both former FBI Director James Comey and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe told House Intelligence Committee investigators that they believed Flynn had not lied to the FBI when he was interviewed by two agents on January 24, 2017, according to the committee’s final report.
Flynn also had an incentive to plead guilty to lying: Mueller had also reportedly threatened to prosecute his son, Michael Flynn Jr., and Flynn’s siblings talked openly about how fighting the allegations against him were leading him to financial ruin.
Flynn’s brother, Joe Flynn, sent out a series of tweets on Tuesday after Mueller’s memo was released that suggested Flynn did not do anything wrong:
Some resisters tried to argue that Flynn’s individual lobbying work for Turkey during the time he was a campaign adviser was bad enough.
“The Flynn memo makes clear that the Trump campaign had a National Security Adviser who WAS ON THE PAYROLL OF A FOREIGN GOVERNMENT. At the same time Trump was pursuing a financial deal in Russia without disclosing it. How many countries were pulling strings behind the scenes?!?” tweeted former FBI special agent Asha Rappanga on Tuesday.
And some resisters are still holding out faith that Flynn knows something damaging to Trump. They note that the memo shows that Flynn has cooperated with three investigations: the special counsel investigation, an ongoing criminal investigation, and another ongoing investigation that is likely counterintelligence, not criminal.
The ongoing investigations are not yet known, since portions of the memo discussing them were redacted. Resisters are pointing to those portions as evidence that something big is in the works.
However, legal experts and some journalists say no one knows exactly what those investigations could be, but they are likely not related to collusion. Yahoo chief investigative correspondent Michael Isikoff told CNN’s Chris Cuomo Tuesday:
There are three investigations referenced for which Flynn has provided cooperation. One is completely redacted. We don’t know what it is. … The second is the special counsel investigation into collusion, links between the Trump campaign and the Russians — that is not redacted. And then there’s a third one, again, totally redacted.
So, the way I read this, the ongoing investigations which are not itemized here, are what Flynn is providing continuing assistance to, but it’s not the Russian coordination investigation, because that is spelled out and not redacted.
Jim Schultz, former White House lawyer and special assistant to President Trump, also told Cuomo Wednesday that Flynn not being charged with conspiracy “is telling.”
“If there was a there there, as it related to him, and others, it would have been likely he would have been charged with conspiracy as well, thereby implicating others as part of that conspiracy. You didn’t see that here, and I think that’s fairly significant,” he said.
House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-NC) said the fact there is no collusion suggested good news for Trump, since Flynn served on the campaign and the transition — the period that Mueller is investigating for collusion.
“Let’s look at what’s not in [the report],” Meadows said Tuesday evening on Fox News Channel’s Hannity. “There is no suggestion that Michael Flynn had anything to do with collusion. He was with the transition team. He was part of the campaign. And yet there is no mention of collusion,” he said.
“I think it’s good news for President Trump tonight, that this is what it’s come down to. Even though they said he substantially cooperated, I think he substantially cooperated to say that there was no collusion, and we can look at it with that in mind,” he added.
Legal experts also point out that if Mueller wants to make a conspiracy charge against Trump, he would likely make a deal with his associates to get them to plead guilty to being part of the conspiracy, to establish that it exists.
Yet, so far, Flynn, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, and former advisers George Papadopoulos and Paul Manafort were all charged with lying to investigators and financial-related crimes — which would harm their credibility and any claims that a conspiracy existed.
Andrew McCarthy, former federal prosecutor and senior fellow at the National Review Institute, wrote last week that Mueller’s goal is not to build a criminal case, but a report that will suggest — but not prove — collusion.
“No prosecutor builds a case the way Mueller is going about it,” McCarthy wrote. “What prosecutor says, ‘Here’s our witness line-up: Michael Flynn, George Papadopoulos, Alex van der Zwaan, Rick Gates, Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen. And what is it that they have in common, ladies and gentlemen of the jury? Bingo! They’re all convicted liars’?”
“The report will detail disturbing — and thus politically damaging — connections between Trump associates and Kremlin cronies. But there will be no collusion crime, and thus no charges and no need for witnesses,” he wrote.
“The false-statements pleas create the illusion of a collusion crime, and thus appear to vindicate Mueller’s sprawling investigation,” he added.
Also notably missing from the memo is any mention of illegality in how the FBI came to investigate Flynn in the first place.
Someone privy to classified information had first illegally leaked the contents of Flynn’s call with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak on December 26, 2016, to the Washington Post‘s David Ignatius, which he wrote about on January 12, 2017, suggesting a potential violation of an arcane law known as the Logan Act, which prohibits private citizens from engaging in foreign diplomacy.
FBI investigators — who were already secretly investigating the Trump campaign — then used the article as a justification to interview Flynn on January 24, 2017. When public statements made by Vice President Mike Pence purportedly did not match with what Flynn had either told investigators or said to Kisylak, Flynn was fired for lying to Pence, and later, charged by Mueller for lying to investigators.
Prosecutors would later claim that Trump’s alleged comment to Comey that he hoped he would letting the investigation into Flynn “go” would be the basis for Mueller’s investigation into whether the president tried to obstruct the investigation into Flynn.
On Wednesday, Ignatius, the journalist who publicized the illegal leak that gave the FBI justification to investigate Flynn, wrote a column that seemed to oddly distance himself from the role he played in Flynn’s investigation.
Ignatius wrote about his own column:
A buried paragraph in an op-ed column started Flynn’s cascade of problems: He lied about his contacts with Kislyak in an FBI interview on Jan. 24, 2017, and was fired as national security adviser, charged with lying by Mueller and pleaded guilty. The odd part was that the seeming trigger for these big consequences was the relatively small matter of the Logan Act, an 18th-century heirloom that has never been enforced with criminal prosecution in modern times. I guess it’s one more example of the abiding lesson of political scandals that it’s not the initial activity that gets people in real trouble, but the attempt to cover it up.
While Ignatius wrote that it was “odd” that the Logan Act was the “seeming trigger” for the investigation of Flynn, he himself had questioned whether Flynn had violated the law in his original January 12, 2017, column:
The Logan Act (though never enforced) bars U.S. citizens from correspondence intending to influence a foreign government about “disputes” with the United States. Was its spirit violated? The Trump campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
A Republican congressional staffer scoffed at his seeming confusion.
“Ignatius feigns bewilderment at how the ‘relatively small matter’ of the archaic Logan Act resulted in Flynn’s prosecution. That’s the point — Flynn’s enemies in the deep state and the media initiated the whole attack on him by portraying his innocuous call with Kislyak as an abominable violation of the Logan Act,” the staffer said.
“It’s a ridiculous accusation, but the media hyped it shamelessly. It’s hard to believe Ignatius doesn’t understand that, since he and his leakers were the ones who started the attack,” the staffer said.
An irate deli customer is wanted for his violent tantrum in which he attacked a worker when he was told his wait time for a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich would take at least five minutes, police said.
The customer at the Hi Mango Flushing Avenue Deli in Bushwick demanded his order of a bacon, egg and cheese on a toasted cinnamon raisin bagel “right NOW” at around 4:30 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 25, according to cellphone video provided by deli workers.
When the worker, Sanjay Patel, told the customer that he had several orders ahead of him and that it would take around 5 to 10 minutes, the customer became angry.
“Make my cinnamon raisin toasted bagel with bacon, egg and cheese RIGHT NOW,” the customer shouted, banging on the deli display case. “Right f—king now! Make my s–t right now!”
He then started throwing merchandise at the worker, hitting him in the head and torso and causing bruising and swelling, according to police.
Patel told News 4 New York on Wednesday, “He just kept throwing stuff at my head,” including a bag of bread, a computer tablet, a metal stand lying on the counter and a hand basket.
EMS transported the worker to Wyckoff Hospital, where he was treated for injuries.
But it’s what Patel heard the man say that still gives him nightmares.
“When I sleep, nighttime, I still dream it, because he told me, too, ‘I’m going to shoot you,'” said Patel. “He told me he gonna shoot me.”
Patel said the man hopped into a waiting car with two other men after Patel called police. He was treated for bruises at the hospital, but said he’s still scared to come to work, not knowing if the customer will come back.
