By Daniel Villareal @ lbgtqnation.com, July 21

Oliver Stone — the director best known for JFK, Natural Born Killers and the George W. Bush biopic W — recently met with Russian President Vladimir Putin and said of Russia’s anti-gay propaganda law, “It seems like maybe that’s a sensible law.”

In an interview transcript released by the Kremlin on Friday, Stone and Putin had the following exchange: [....]

Unionized campaign organizers working for Sen. Bernie Sanders’s presidential effort are battling with its management, arguing that the compensation and treatment they are receiving does not meet the standards Sanders espouses in his rhetoric, according to internal communications.

Campaign field hires have demanded an annual salary they say would be equivalent to a $15-an-hour wage, which Sanders for years has said should be the federal minimum

You'd think Cohen would've spilled guts on this, but who knows anymore...

Democrats want more information about the Trump administration’s attempts to include a citizenship question on the 2020 census.

By Ella Nilsen @ Vox.com, July 17, 6:31 pm

The US House has voted to hold Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in criminal contempt for not complying with the House Oversight Committee’s subpoena request for information on why they added a US citizenship question to the 2020 census. The final vote was 230-198, with only former Republican Rep. Justin Amash joining Democrats (four Democrats also voted no).

The vote is part of an ongoing effort by House Democrats to get more information about the Trump administration’s attempts to include a citizenship question on the census. Wednesday’s vote marks the first time the full House has passed a criminal contempt resolution for members of the Trump administration.

Even though the House just passed a criminal referral asking the US Justice Department to prosecute Barr and Ross, it’s crucial to remember Congress is essentially just making another a request here, albeit a more strongly worded one. It’s up to the executive branch to comply [....]

Why don’t people like the mayor of America’s largest city? There’s no single explanation.

Policy-wise, a lot of de Blasio’s record is strong, and he’s essentially delivered on what he set out to do when campaigning for mayor: He delivered universal pre-K and expanded paid sick leave, reduced stop-and-frisk policing, and oversaw the city’s $15 minimum wage hike. New York’s economy is strong and crime rates are low, though homelessness remains a problem. De Blasio has steadily progressed up New York City’s political ranks over 30 years and was reelected mayor in 2017 with 67 percent of the vote. As FiveThirtyEight’s Chadwick Matlin notes, de Blasio “was progressive before it was cool.”

Rather, de Blasio’s issue largely seems to be one of style. De Blasio can come off as sanctimonious, arrogant, stubborn, and preachy about the gravity and scope of what he’s doing. He can be perceived as caring more about big-picture symbolism than the day-to-day grind of city policy, and he’s not particularly charismatic. To make matters worse, he has a fractious relationship with the New York press — which tends to drip out into national media, since so many media companies are based in New York — and neither he nor they seem particularly inclined to try to fix it. And to some extent, New Yorkers are always going to hate the mayor they have, whoever it is.

“The issue is people don’t like him, and he doesn’t care,” said Rebecca Katz, a former longtime de Blasio adviser and founder of consulting firm New Deal Strategies. She added, “In terms of New York City being a beacon of progressive leadership, he’s made some really strong strides, but his personality has left some to be desired.”