Advocate NL 7/29/26

Hello folks, Audience Editor Edgar Ramirez here, back in your inbox on this Wednesday.

At today’s Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing, which "doubled as a character assassination of Dr. Anthony Fauci," John Casey writes in an opinion piece for The Advocate, Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio, dripping with contempt, said to Dr. Fauci, “Who the f**k- do you think you are?"

"I have a question for Moreno, and for the committee’s chairman, Rand Paul," Casey writes: "Who the f*** do you think you are?"

Dr. Fauci rightly took the Fifth because, "going up against a bunch of know-it-all morons, he had nothing to gain by trying to defend himself," Casey writes.

"The hearing wasn't oversight. It was a sham. It was a public execution, years in the making, staged by a spoiled, pretentious, narrow-minded jerk of a chairman who has said outright that he wants to see Fauci 'behind bars.'"

Don't miss the full defense from Casey here, or this other opinion piece from Alexander Cheves, who was in Berlin during the terror attack.

Going back briefly to "years in the making": former Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears seems to want to undue the progress the LGBTQ+ community has been making in the state. Christopher Wiggins reported in June about Virginians for Marriage Equality, where supporters began organizing for a statewide referendum that will appear on the November 3 ballot.

Earle-Sears, who apparently has a lot of free time and isn't shy about being back in the spotlight despite getting trounced in Virginia's gubernatorial race, has launched what she calls the “Life and Marriage Tour” in response. Because of course.

Stay safe folks, we'll be back tomorrow!

Opinion: Dr. Anthony Fauci deserved gratitude, not Rand Paul’s Republican show trial

Alex WROBLEWSKI / AFP via Getty Images

After Gov. Abigail Spanberger trounced her in Virginia, Winsome Earle-Sears targets marriage equality

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Opinion: I survived the Berlin Pride terror attack. Don’t let the right weaponize our grief

Massimo Di Nonno/Getty Images

Anti-trans rally flops as Seattle Storm player wears ‘trans rights are human rights’ shirt

Instagram/Them

Ohio’s Democratic candidate for governor loses top LGBTQ+ grade over anti-trans remarks

The Buckeye Flame

Opinion: The closet was once the law. Without an LGBTQ+ Bill of Rights, it could be again

D. Giraldez Alonso/Getty Images

Layoff threat ignites labor fight at major transgender rights group

Shutterstock

10 straight actors who slayed the Broadway stage

Siegfried Anthony/Variety via Getty Images; lev radin/Shutterstock