Politics
Trans NH rep-elect withdraws
Stacie Laughton served four months in jail in 2008 for a credit card fraud conviction

A New Hampshire Democrat who in November became the first openly transgender person elected to a state legislature in the country announced on Wednesday she has ended her campaign to run for the state House of Representatives.
āDue to circumstances out of my control, I have decided to withdraw (from) the race for state representative,ā Stacie Laughton wrote on her Facebook page.
Laughton, who would have represented portions of Nashua in the New Hampshire House after voters elected her on Nov. 6, announced in late November she would resign amid reports she pleaded guilty in July 2008 to conspiracy to commit fraudulent use of a credit card and identity fraud and falsifying physical evidence related to a police investigation into the allegations while living in Laconia. She served slightly more than four months in the Belknap County jail before her Nov. 2008 release.
New Hampshire law states a convicted felon cannot seek or hold public office āfrom the time of his sentence until his final discharge.ā Laughtonās probation ended in Nov. 2010, but questions arose as to whether she was qualified to serve in the state House because she received two concurrent suspended 10 year sentences for good behavior in connection with the two other charges.
Laughton told the Union Leader on Nov. 28, the day after she said she would resign, that she had planned to take office this month. She filed paperwork on Friday to run for the seat to which she had initially been elected, but Laughton told the Washington Blade that Secretary of State Bill Gardner told her earlier on Wednesday he received a letter from state Attorney General Michael Delaney that concluded her sentences āhave not been fully discharged under the law.ā
Delaney recommended his office should forward Laughtonās case to the state Ballot Law Commission to make a final determination over her eligibility to run for political office.
āThis is the same question we faced a few weeks ago after I won the election,ā she noted. āItās starting to wear on me and Iām not wanting to have to go through the whole Ballot Law Commission thing. And I just decided itās time to put an end to all of this and just resign and try again in a few years.ā
Gay New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Ray Buckley, who initially applauded Laughtonās Nov. 6 election, responded to her decision to end her campaign in a brief statement to the Blade.
āStacie has made the right decision to focus her energies on resolving her outstanding personal issues,ā he said.
Laughton stressed she plans to take āa good several years offā before she considers another run for political office.
āIām going to stay involved in my community and the other work that I do,ā she said.
Laughton added she feels her criminal record has received too much attention.
āI understand those things will always be attached to my name and to my record, but human beings have the ability to change and thatās what Iāve done,ā she said. āIāve moved forward from my past. Iāve tried to live my life with honesty and respect. Too much emphasis has been placed on my past and what life was like for me in Laconia. I really wish people would just look at me for who I am today and judge that.ā
Congress
Five HIV/AIDS activists arrested during USAID hearing
Protesters demanded full restoration of PEPFAR funding

Capitol Police on Thursday arrested five HIV/AIDS activists who disrupted a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing that focused on the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The activists ā including Health GAP Executive Director Asia Russell, Housing Works CEO Charles King, and ACT UP NY co-founder Eric Sawyer ā started chanting “PEPFAR (the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) saves lives. Restore AIDS funding now” shortly after Max Primorac, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, began to testify. They also held posters that read “Trump kills people with AIDS worldwide.”
The Trump-Vance administration last month froze nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending for at least 90 days. Secretary of State Marco Rubio later issued a waiver that allows PEPFAR and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue to operate during the freeze.
The Washington Blade last week reportedĀ PEPFAR-funded programs in Kenya and other African countries have been forced to suspend services and even shut down because of a lack of U.S. funding. The Trump-Vance administration’s efforts to dismantle USAID, along with the suspension of nearly all U.S. foreign aid, has been “a catastrophe” for the global LGBTQ rights movement.
“I guess these guys don’t watch the news. They didn’t realize that PEPFAR was one of the many programs that did prove to be lifesaving, so the funding was restored,” said U.S. Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, after Capitol Police removed the activists from the room. “Somebody better give ’em a link to … I don’t know, maybe Fox News or something like that.”
Protesters interrupt a House hearing on USAID spending, demanding that funding be restored to PEPFAR, but "the funding was restored" says Rep. Brian Mast. pic.twitter.com/9bQduNEwnQ
— Fox News (@FoxNews) February 13, 2025
Russell and King are two of the dozens of HIV/AIDS activists who protested outside the State Department on Feb. 6 and demanded U.S. officials fully restore PEPFAR funding.
Politics
Trump picks Richard Grenell as interim Kennedy Center executive director
President proclaimed “no more drag shows” at D.C. institution

President Donald Trump on Monday picked Richard Grenell to serve as interim executive director of the Kennedy Center, just days after appointing himself chair the national cultural center and removing several members of the institution’s board of trustees.
Grenell is an openly gay diplomat and fierce ally to the president who served in high profile roles, including as acting director of national intelligence, during his first administration.
“Ric shares my vision for a GOLDEN AGE of American arts and culture, and will be overseeing the daily operations of the Center,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “NO MORE DRAG SHOWS, OR OTHER ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA ā ONLY THE BEST. RIC, WELCOME TO SHOW BUSINESS!”
In a previous post announcing his takeover of the center and purging of Democratic board members including appointees of former President Joe Biden , Trump wrote “Just last year, the Kennedy Center featured drag shows specifically targeting our youth ā THIS WILL STOP.”
Board members oversee the administration of federally appropriated funds for the āoperation, maintenance, and capital repair of the presidential memorial as well as its trust-funded artistic programming,ā per the 2025 fiscal year budget justification to Congress. Together with previous honorees, they are responsible for selecting new Kennedy Center Honors recipients each year.
The federal government provided about $45 million in funding to the center last year, roughly a fifth of its $268 million operating budget in 2024.
On Wednesday, Grenell said on X that he was briefed by the center’s CFO and learned there is “ZERO cash on hand. And ZERO in reserves. And the deferred maintenance is a crisis.”
I was briefed today by the CFO of the Kennedy Center on its financial situation.
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) February 13, 2025
She told me there is ZERO cash on hand. And ZERO in reserves. And the deferred maintenance is a crisis.
For the past months theyāve been digging into the DEBT RESERVES.
We must fix this greatā¦
Congress
House Dems urge OPM not to implement anti-trans executive order
Authors were Dem. U.S. Reps. Mark Takano (Calif.), Jamie Raskin (Md.), and Gerald Connolly (Va.)

Three House Democrats including Congressional Equality Caucus Chair Mark Takano (Calif.) issued a letter on Wednesday urging the Office of Personnel Management to not implement President Donald Trump’s anti-trans executive order, “Defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the federal government.”
Also signing the letter were U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (Md.), ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, and U.S. Rep. Gerald Connolly (Va.), ranking member of the House Oversight Committee.
The lawmakers wrote the order “unlawfully attacks the civil rights of transgender Americans” while the White House’s corresponding memo and guidance “implements unlawful discrimination by the federal government against transgender people in the civil service and the provision of federal services.”
Specifically, they call unconstitutional the directive for agencies to “end all programs, contracts, grants, positions, documents, directives, orders, regulations, materials, forms,
communications, statements, plans, and training that ‘inculcate’ or ‘promote’ ‘gender
ideology’āwhich the Executive Order defines broadly to encompass acknowledging the simple
existence of transgender people and gender identity.”
āWe are deeply alarmed by these and other actions the Trump Administration has taken in its first few weeks to eliminate all government support for the transgender community, including efforts designed to enforcing the rights and support the health of transgender individuals,” the congressmen wrote.
They added, “We are also appalled by the Administrationās attempts to weaponize federal agencies to target the transgender community for discrimination and exclusion. These actions contradict federal law, Supreme Court precedent, and most importantly the Constitutionās guarantee of equal protection under the law.ā
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