News
Gay candidate launches bid for Texas congressional seat
Duncan challenges Republican who told constituent to ‘shut up’ at town hall
John W. Duncan has launched a bid for a Texas congressional seat. (Photo courtesy John W. Duncan Campaign)
A gay HIV/AIDS activist has launched a bid for a Texas congressional seat currently held by a 16-term Republican member of Congress who recently gained notoriety for instructing a constituent to “shut up” during a town hall meeting.
Currently the compliance officer at Prism Health North Texas, the largest non-profit HIV/AIDS service organization in the area, Duncan declared in a statement Monday his intention to seek the Democratic nomination to run for the seat representing Texas’ 6th congressional district.
“I’m excited to begin the campaign and meet the voters of the 6th Congressional District,” Duncan said. “I am committed to representing the people of Texas with a vision of progress. I will utilize my constituents’ experiences, hopes, and concerns to be a compassionate leader who seeks change and expects results.”
Duncan bills himself on his campaign website as an advocate “for the rights of the most vulnerable.” The candidate says he has been a vocal supporter of marriage equality and reproductive rights as well as of efforts to “eliminate the racial and economic injustices so rampant in our world.” Duncan identifies “as a lifelong Christian,” which he says “has influenced the way I understand immigration reform and refugees.”
“In addition to representing the people, I commit to protecting health care and making it more affordable, improving our public schools and enacting comprehensive immigration reform that includes a path to legal status,” Duncan said in a statement.
Duncan faces significant odds in defeating Rep. Joe Barton (R), a 32-year incumbent who currently holds the seat in the safe Republican district. Last year, Barton won the race with 58.3 percent of the vote compared to the 39 percent won by Democrat Ruby Fay Woolridge.
Weeks ago as the town halls of Republican members of Congress were filled with opponents of Obamacare repeal, Barton became irate with constituents who pressed him to support legislation to combat violence against women, telling one questioner, “You, sir, shut up.”
Duncan’s campaign is set to kick off formally on April 11 at J Gilligan’s Bar & Grill in Arlington, Texas. It remains to be seen if other candidates will enter the race. In the previous cycle, the candidate filing deadline was Dec. 14 and the primary was March 1, but nothing has been set for the current cycle.
According to his campaign website, Duncan lives in Arlington, Texas with his husband, Tim, who’s a Christian minister, and their two rescue dogs, Dolce and Makea.
Here is the link to the Duncan for Congress campaign website.
Iran
Grenell: ‘Real hope’ for gay rights in Iran as result of nationwide protests
Former ambassador to Germany claimed he has sneaked ‘gays and lesbians out of’ country
Richard Grenell, the presidential envoy for special missions of the United States, said on X on Tuesday that he has helped “sneak gays and lesbians out of Iran” and is seeing a change in attitudes in the country.
The post, which now has more than 25,000 likes since its uploading, claims that attitudes toward gays and lesbians are shifting amid massive economic protests across the country.
“For the first time EVER, someone has said ‘I want to wait just a bit,” the former U.S. ambassador to Germany wrote. “There is real hope coming from the inside. I don’t think you can stop this now.”
Grenell has been a longtime supporter of the president.
“Richard Grenell is a fabulous person, A STAR,” Trump posted on Truth Social days before his official appointment to the ambassador role. “He will be someplace, high up! DJT”
Iran, which is experiencing demonstrations across all 31 provinces of the country — including in Tehran, the capital — started as a result of a financial crisis causing the collapse of its national currency. Time magazine credits this uprising after the U.N. re-imposed sanctions in September over the country’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.
As basic necessities like bread, rice, meat, and medical supplies become increasingly unaffordable to the majority of the more than 90 million people living there, citizens took to the streets to push back against Iran’s theocratic regime.
Grenell, who was made president and executive director of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts last year by Trump, believes that people in the majority Shiite Muslim country are also beginning to protest human rights abuses.
Iran is among only a handful of countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain punishable by death, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Virginia
Mark Levine loses race to succeed Adam Ebbin in ‘firehouse’ Democratic primary
State Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker won with 70.6 percent of vote
Gay former Virginia House of Delegates member Mark Levine (D-Alexandria) lost his race to become the Democratic nominee to replace gay state Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria) in a Jan. 13 “firehouse” Democratic primary.
Levine finished in second place in the hastily called primary, receiving 807 votes or 17.4 percent. The winner in the four-candidate race, state Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker, who was endorsed by both Ebbin and Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger received 3,281 votes or 70.6 percent.
Ebbin, whose 39th Senate District includes Alexandria and parts of Arlington and Fairfax Counties, announced on Jan. 7 that he was resigning effective Feb. 18, to take a job in the Spanberger administration as senior advisor at the Virginia Cannabis Control Authority.
Results of the Jan. 13 primary, which was called by Democratic Party leaders in Alexandria, Arlington, and Fairfax, show that candidates Charles Sumpter, a World Wildlife Fund director, finished in third place with 321 voters or 6.9 percent; and Amy Jackson, the former Alexandria vice mayor, finished in fourth place with 238 votes or 5.1 percent.
Bennett-Parker, who LGBTQ community advocates consider a committed LGBTQ ally, will now compete as the Democratic nominee in a Feb. 10 special election in which registered voters in the 39th District of all political parties and independents will select Ebbin’s replacement in the state senate.
The Alexandria publication ALX Now reports that local realtor Julie Robben Linebery has been selected by the Alexandria Republican City Committee to be the GOP candidate to compete in the Jan. 10 special election. According to ALX Now, Lineberry was the only application to run in a now cancelled special party caucus type event initially called to select the GOP nominees.
It couldn’t immediately be determined if an independent or other party candidate planned to run in the special election.
Bennett-Parker is considered the strong favorite to win the Feb. 10 special election in the heavily Democratic 39th District, where Democrat Ebbin has served as senator since 2012.
Congress
Van Hollen speaks at ‘ICE Out for Good’ protest in D.C.
ICE agent killed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis on Jan. 7
U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) is among those who spoke at an “ICE Out for Good” protest that took place outside U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s headquarters in D.C. on Tuesday.
The protest took place six days after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old woman in Minneapolis.
Good left behind her wife and three children.
(Video by Michael K. Lavers)
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Van Hollen speaks at ‘ICE Out for Good’ protest in D.C.
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