Trump pleads not guilty to 34 felony counts

Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree.

The arraignment took place in a lower Manhattan courtroom five days after a grand jury indicted Trump on the charges that stem from hush money payments he made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election.

Trump surrendered to authorities shortly after 1 p.m. ET. U.S. Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and George Santos (R-N.Y.) joined the former president’s supporters who rallied in his defense outside the courtroom earlier on Tuesday.

“The People of the State of New York allege that Donald J. Trump repeatedly and fraudulently falsi- fied New York business records to conceal crimes that hid damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election,” said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in a statement. “Manhattan is home to the country’s most significant business market. We cannot allow New York businesses to manipulate their records to cover up criminal conduct. As the Statement of Facts describes, the trail of money and lies exposes a pattern that, the People allege, violates one of New York’s basic and fundamental business laws. As this office has done time and time again, we today uphold our solemn responsibility to ensure that everyone stands equal before the law.”

MICHAEL K. LAVERS

Md. man charged with making threats against HRC

A Maryland man has been charged with making threats against the Human Rights Campaign.

The Justice Department in a press release notes Adam Michael Nettina, 34, of West Friendship, Md., on March 28 left a threatening voicemail that referred to the massacre at the Covenant School in Nashville that took place the day before.

The press release notes the shooter who killed six people inside the school “was publicly identified as be- ing transgender.” The Justice Department alleges that Nettina in his message made numerous threats.

“You guys going to shoot up our schools now? Is that how it’s going to be? You just gonna to kill little kids. You’re just going to slaughter fucking little kids,” said Nettina, according to the indictment. “Let me tell you something, we’re waiting, we’re waiting. And if you want a war, we’ll have a war. And we’ll fucking slaughter you back. We’ll cut your throats. We’ll put a bullet in your head. We’re not going to give a fuck. You started this bullshit. You’re going to kill us? We’re going to kill you ten times more in full.”

Nettina appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Matthew J. Maddox in U.S. District Court in Baltimore on Monday. He faces up to five years in prison if convicted on the charge of interstate communications with a treat to injure.

“The LGBTQ+ community is under attack in statehouses across the country and on social media platforms,” an

HRC spokesperson told the Washington Blade on Tuesday in a statement. “This violent, hateful rhetoric leads to stigma, and stigma leads to physical violence. As we see radical politicians sow hate and fear with anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric, we have seen the physical threats to our community multiply — from armed men at Pride parades, to threats of violence against local drag shows at libraries, to bomb threats at children’s hospitals, to the continued rise in fatal violence against members of our community, especially Black transgender women.

“Late last month, HRC received two threatening voicemails,” added the spokesperson. “These threats were referred to law enforcement, who have since confirmed that they have made an arrest. We are grateful to law enforcement for acting so quickly to keep our community safe, and we condemn any and all violent words or deeds. We will continue our work to call out those who spread violence, fear, and disinformation.”

MICHAEL K. LAVERS

Santos bill would ban aid to countries that criminalize LGBTQ people

Republican New York Congressman George Santos has introduced a bill that would ban U.S. foreign aid to countries that criminalize LGBTQ people and women.

“Discrimination against both women and the LGBTQ community is unacceptable,” said Santos in a March 24 press release that announced the introduction of Equality and Fiscal Accountability Protection Act of 2023. “My bill will send a clear message that the United States will not offer federal aid to countries found to be violating the rights of individuals based on sexual orientation. We as a nation have a responsibility to stand up for the human rights of all people, regardless of race, religion, or sexual orientation.”

The press release notes the bill would require the State Department “to assess a country’s human rights record before providing federal aid.”

“Countries found to be violating these rights would be ineligible to receive aid until they take steps to address the issues,” reads the press release. “If passed, the bill would make a significant step forward in the fight for LGBTQ and women’s rights and would send a strong message to countries that discrimination or criminalization will not be tolerated.” partment released its annual human rights report that, among other things, details the prevalence of so-called conversion therapy and the treatment of intersex people around the world. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield on the same day hosted a meeting at the United Nations that focused on the integration of LGBTQ and intersex rights into the U.N. Security Council’s work.

The Biden-Harris administration in 2021 released a memorandum that committed the U.S. to promoting LGBTQ and intersex rights abroad. U.S. Reps. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) and Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) and U.S. Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) last week introduced a bill that would require the country to promote LGBTQ and intersex rights abroad through its public policy.

Congress’ website currently notes “text has not been received for H.R. (House Resolution) 1736.”

Santos introduced the bill two days after the State De-

The House Ethics Committee last month opened an investigation into Santos, who is openly gay, over allegations of financial and sexual misconduct. The embattled New York Republican has admitted to lying about his professional and educational background.

MICHAEL K. LAVERS

23-02-17

Peter Rosenstein

is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist. He writes regularly for the Blade.

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Shop online today at www.SkivviesDallas.net announcement of his indictment by the New York grand jury being only the beginning.

Donald Trump will have the distinction of going down in history as the first former president to be indicted. As I write this, the actual charges have not been disclosed, but it is rumored there will be more than two dozen counts.

In recent history, Richard Nixon resigned before charges were brought against him, and then Gerald Ford pardoned him. Bill Clinton testified for four hours in front of a grand jury and Kenneth Starr’s report led to his impeachment. But he was never charged or indicted. He did cut a deal on his last day in office agreeing to a fine and having his law license in Arkansas suspended for five years, in return for not seeing any charges or indictment after he left office in the Monica Lewinsky case.

The Trump case is on a level of its own because Trump’s crimes are on a level not seen before. For 50 years he has been a criminal and skirted the law, like a mafia don, from the time he and his father signed a consent decree based on their racist practices in renting apartments, up through his acts as president and beyond. Those include trying to coerce officials in Georgia to steal the election, and instigating and planning the Jan. 6 riots. After leaving office he apparently intentionally took top-secret documents to Mar-a-Lago and refused to return them even when requested and subpoenaed by the National Archives and the Justice Department. Those acts are currently being investigated by grand juries at the state and federal level.

We know Trump is a racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, misogynistic, pig. Unfortunately, those things on their own aren’t criminal. It is only when acted upon they can be. Over the years Trump has acted on many of them and until now gotten away with it. With the March 30 indictment by a grand jury in New York, and his upcoming rape trial, he is finally beginning to be called to account for his criminal actions.

What is clear is Trump wants to be president again to avoid prosecution. He announced his reelection plans hoping as a candidate, he would be safe from prosecution. Yet each day his lawyers are losing case after case trying to keep those close to him from having to testify to various grand juries, figures like Mike Pence and Mark Meadows who know enough to bring him down.

I am convinced Donald Trump never wanted to be president. He ran to increase the value of his brand. But clearly, once he was the candidate, paying off Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, seemed imperative to him. What he fears most is being branded a loser. He also understood, as president he could not be held accountable for his crimes. During his term, while many of his crimes were coming back to haunt him, he couldn’t be touched. He was being sued for rape by E. Jean Carroll and he and his company were being investigated for all kinds of financial crimes. Then he lost his reelection campaign and realized he could face reality and was willing to try to hang on to the presidency at all costs, even if it meant taking down the country. All to avoid responsibility for his crimes. Then he compounded his crimes exponentially, trying to stay in power.

Clearly Trump felt announcing a new campaign would protect him. He announced his candidacy for reelection thinking that would allow him to continue to avoid prosecution. He makes the claim, and has Trumpers in Congress and around the country parrot it for him, “since he is a candidate, the law can’t go after him.” Thankfully he is wrong. Judges are telling all those around him they can no longer hide and forcing them to testify to various grand juries looking to indict him. Those indictments will, I hope, follow the one in New York.

Donald Trump sounds more and more like a charlatan. He is selling snake oil and he is the snake. He is a congenital liar. I first met Donald Trump back in my New York political years. He was a suave young man taken with himself. His mentors were his father, and one of the biggest closeted gays in New York, Roy Cohn, a total sleaze. Donald learned well at his knee. He learned to lie about everything. He lied about never taking money from the government after getting a 40-year tax abatement, from the city, the first ever granted to a commercial property, for the Grand Hyatt. It was a great hotel. I often stayed there and even brought back the first guy I ever picked up at a bar to my room (I’m still friends with him nearly 40 years later).

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The former Republican Party, now the Party of Trump, is coming to his defense. We have heard the Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy attack the legal system in support of Trump. Raw Story reported, “McCarthy in a statement he posted on Twitter alleged that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg “has irreparably damaged our country in an attempt to interfere in our presidential election.” McCarthy promised to hold Bragg “and his unprecedented abuse of power to account.” the washington blade) and to hold brown naff pitts omnimedia llc (dba the washington blade) harmless from any and all liability, loss, damages, claims, or causes action, including reasonable legal fees and expenses that may be incurred by brown naff pitts omnimedia arising out of or related to advertiser’s breach of any of the foregoing representations and warranties.

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We hear one after another Republican office holder do the same, all clearly fearful of the 30% of the Republican Party who follow Trump blindly, like a cult leader. Those Trumpers put party office holders’ elections in jeopardy. We have seen what Trump can do to those who stand up to him. Of the 10 who voted to impeach him, only two remain in the House.

Let’s hope Donald Trump will look back on Thursday, March 30, 2023, as the first day he found out what his future will look like. Maybe free government housing, this time in a jail cell. The

Trump deserves everything the law can throw at him. His legacy is allowing homophobes, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and others of that ilk to spout their hate in the public square. His followers are legalizing hate against the LGBTQ community, with a particular focus on the transgender community, and women, in state legislatures across the nation. His right-wing justices, including his appointees to the Supreme Court, are taking away the rights of women to control their own healthcare and body. His political party, the Party of Trump, is systematically destroying our democracy, betraying what our country has always stood for.

The question remains, once he is indicted by more than one grand jury, will the remnants of the old Republican Party stick with him? We will find out how many Republicans still have a sense of decency or have they all succumbed to Trump? Some may want to take courage by looking at my friend Marvin Roffman to see it is possible to win against Trump. But only if you are willing to stand up to the despot.

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Many of us have lived the contradiction. We have had friends and/or family members loving and supporting us to our faces, but facing a ballot box, vote for someone eager to do us harm. Do they really love us?

We are collectively experiencing such a situation as a community, a back-stabbing characteristic of when Julius Caesar uttered “E Tu Brutus,” as his best friend’s knife came hurling towards him.

This time the victim is not some classical politician however, it is a group of our most vulnerable — our LGBTQ kids who are getting the steely betrayal.

American conservatism has been incredibly callous towards children in general. When three Christian kids were gunned down recently, leading conservatives publicly shrugged their shoulders and said the silent part out loud, “We are not going to help you.” They have made it clear that in a choice between guns and children, guns win.

It is in this crucible of priorities that current conservative strategists live, and within their strategies, a distracting scapegoat has needed to be found and opportunistically vilified.

For this brand of American conservatives, that group of scapegoats is transgender kids. Certainly the conservatives are after people of color, women, immigrants, the LGBTQ community as a whole, but are deadlocked most severely on the transgender teen, and if that teen is athletic – they receive the pinnacle of ire.

Conventional thought would assume that the targeted teen transgender athletes might find their greatest safe harbor and advocacy in a publication called Outsports.

Outsports is the premier LGBTQ news website that deals with issues and personalities in amateur and professional sports. With articles boasting titles such as “Sports need to discuss cisgender discomfort over transgender athletes winning,” a teen feeling bullied and beaten by the reigning Republicans in transphobic state houses might feel at home.

Don’t get comfortable.

Cyd Zeigler, co-founder and editor of Outsports has announced, “I just registered as a Republican for the first time in 20 years.” (“He’s ALWAYS been ‘a Republican’ philosophically,” one source who works closely with him reports.)

Zeigler’s excuse for aligning with a party that has made transphobia a platform, is the indictment of Donald Trump. He fumes the Republican talking point that the Democrats are “seeking to use the government to attack political foes.” This motivation alone calls into question Zeigler’s competency in leading a transgender affirming publication. The discussions around trans rights are to educate with facts to offset Republicans’ vapid transphobic talking points. That he embraces such thin politically manipulative talking points around a judicial case, of which no one has yet seen the specifics and cannot sincerely evaluate, let alone judge, makes him a slave to politics and a betrayer of principle.

To add further insult to injury to the trans community, and to be, as athletic rights expert Dr. Veronica Ivy calls him, “a danger to trans people,” Zeigler has aligned himself with probably the most transphobic wing of Republicans he can. “Thank you @GovRonDesantis,” he tweets.

Thanking Ron DeSantis, the governor who spent the first day of Pride month in 2021 signing one of the first anti-trans athlete bills into law. Jaw drop. Thanking Ron DeSantis, not only an American conservative adhering to the plan to scapegoat LGBTQ kids and erase them, but who is arguably the architect of that plan.

It might be one thing if Zeigler had aligned himself with a Republican governor who vetoed a transphobic bill like Utah’s Republican Gov. Spencer Cox, but no, Zeigler opted to go full traitor.

Being asked to trust a media player who in secret does not have your best interests at heart, is possibly becoming “normal.” We in the LGBTQ community have an editor power-player embracing the political mastermind of transphobic and LGBT erasure politics, and the conservatives? Well, they have Tucker Carlson who secretly “hates Trump passionately.”

While Trump-ian Richard Grenell and Zeigler’s sister “Jess Z” applaud him, “So proud of my brother!” car dealer Jess exclaims, we have to send deep condolences to his staff, none of whom deserve this disrespect.

As for the LGBTQ community, and our teens in particular, John Casey of the Advocate asks, “Does Zeigler honestly have your best interests at heart? Does he truly represent what it means to be queer? Would you feel safe going to Zeigler?”

Our teens need, nay, they crave a hero who unflinchingly has their backs. Zeigler likes to cite his “many many years of advocating for trans people,” as his defense.

Yeah, well, that was then. This is now.

You, Mr. Zeigler, are no hero. You are a Tucker.

How to minimize risks when your rental property is vacant Damage can result from water leaks or pipe bursts, break-ins, or pests

By SCOTT BLOOM

When rental properties do not have renters living in them for periods of time, landlords face additional risks they may not be thinking about. Damage can result from water leaks or pipe bursts, break-ins, or pests. And they might not be covered by traditional landlord insurance policies. When left unattended for weeks or even months, such issues can create much larger expenses, not to mention headaches.

Here are a few steps you can take to protect your property and your financial interests:

Properly insure the rental.

Most property owners do not inform their insurance company when a rental is projected to be vacant for more than 30 days. Some insurance firms require the insurance policy to be updated to a “builder’s risk” or similar policy for that time period rather than retaining the landlord or homeowners policy, which assumes someone is living in the property. Any mishaps or damage could be exacerbated if no one goes to the property on a daily basis to catch it. Be sure to ask your agent what may be required under the terms of your insurance policy. Secure the property.

Obviously, it’s important to make sure all doors and windows are secured and locked upon leaving the property. There are other steps you can take that can help prevent people from gaining access to the inside, consider installing the following: Security bars on windows, or Security gates on the doors.

Does the neighborhood suffer from break-ins or squatting?

Be sure to check our MPD websites for the latest on what’s going on in your part of town. If you are expecting the home to be vacant for an extended period of time and are concerned about a break-in, consider boarding up windows and doors as an extra precaution.

Install a security system.

An alarm system, especially one that is remotely monitored by a security company, can provide added reassurance when the property is empty. Another smart option would be to install exterior perimeter cameras to alert the user to tripped alarms and to video record issues at the property or to identify intruders. That evidence can be provided to the police should anything arise.

Keep the property well maintained.

An unkempt property can signal to burglars that no one is around and make the property an easier target. Don’t broadcast that the house is vacant. Keep the yard and weeds trimmed, trash picked up, the mail and newspapers from accumulating. Rethink placing a real estate sign on the property while the rental is vacant if you are concerned it might attract people trying to get inside.

Use timers for lights.

Placing a few lamps on timers can give the illusion that someone is at home and deter burglars. The same can be useful outside. If you can, consider setting exterior lights on timers for the appearance that someone is on site.

Stop mail and newspaper deliveries.

Piling up mail and newspapers signals to burglars that the property is unoccupied. Arrange to have mail and newspapers and restaurant flyers collected by a trusted friend or neighbor.

Check the property regularly.

As best you can, periodically visit the property and check for any signs of damage, tampering, or theft. Another tip to consider is to install an iron cage over the outside AC or heat pump compressor. During the years after the housing crisis in

SCOTT

2008-2009 and with the ascent of the price of copper, stealing these from vacant homes became more common.

A variety of companies in the area can help. There are air conditioner alarms made specifically to prevent AC compressor thefts. The alarm will go off when an air conditioner is disconnected, and the sound alone may be enough to send a thief running.

Consider temporary tenants.

If the property is empty for an extended period, you might consider renting it out on a short-term basis, or to a trusted individual such as a friend. This can provide extra income and added security for the property.

Working with an experienced and licensed property management company can help you avoid the problems that can affect your property when no one is occupying it. Property managers can conduct regular property inspections to identify and address any potential security or maintenance issues. They also serve as a point of contact for neighbors who can provide additional oversight and keep local eyes on the property for you.

By working with a qualified property manager, you can protect your rental properties even when you are not present to take immediate action. And doing so, helps you ensure the unit remains in good condition and ready for new tenants.

Scott is an active member in multiple professional organizations including the National Association of Residential Property Managers (NARPM)