From the Raleigh News & Observer: Itzhak Perlman is the latest artist to cancel a North Carolina performance over the state’s controversial House Bill 2. One of the world’s greatest concert violinists, the 70-year-old Perlman was scheduled to play Raleigh’s Meymandi Concert Hall Wednesday night with the NC Symphony. But he called off the show on Tuesday, releasing the statement …

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto today unleashed a flurry of tweets that recognize today’s International Day Against Homophobia & Transphobia and call for immediate marriage equality nationwide. Same-sex marriage is recognized in all 31 Mexican states, but currently only eight states have enacted laws that allow gay couples to marry locally without going to court. From the Associated Press: Speaking …

Bernie Sanders has responded to the DNC’s demand seen in the post below this one. His full statement, as you’ll see, does not contain the requested denouncement: It is imperative that the Democratic leadership, both nationally and in the states, understand that the political world is changing and that millions of Americans are outraged at establishment politics and establishment economics. …

Politico reports: Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said the committee is calling on the campaigns of both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders to denounce the behavior of Sanders supporters at the Nevada Democratic state convention over the weekend. “We are deeply concerned about the troubling details laid out in the letter from the Nevada Democratic Party,” Wasserman Schultz …

Via Mediaite: In an interview with Breitbart News Daily on Sirius XM Radio, Trump ally Roger Stone suggested that a Trump administration ought to shut CNN down because they peddle propaganda and censor reporting that does not suit their narrative. The remarks came in the context of a discussion where Stone described stories that he said CNN had muzzled, in …

Entertainment Weekly recaps: “It’s not easy having a good time.” These are some of the first words we hear from Laverne Cox as Dr. Frank-N-Furter in the trailer for Fox’s remake of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Indeed, judging by Janet (Victoria Justice)’s timid giggle and the short clip we hear of “The Time Warp,” the cast has been hard …

The CBC reports: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced in Montreal federal legislation about to be tabled*, which will guarantee legal and human rights protection to transgender people across Canada. “We have worked too hard for us to stop here,” Trudeau said. “Too hard to stop with the progress we have made because I sincerely believe that in Canada we can …

Via press release: Following the introduction of over two dozen bills to curb LGBT rights at the state and federal level, and in observation of International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHOT), the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus released a video campaign, led by Co-Chair Representative Sean Patrick Maloney (NY-18), to show support for the LGBT community. Featuring over 25 members …

Brian Tashman reports at Right Wing Watch: InfoWars broadcaster and Donald Trump ally Alex Jones is back to claiming that First Lady Michelle Obama is secretly a transgender woman, but this time he’s adding a new twist to his conspiracy theory: that Obama had comedienne Joan Rivers killed after she joked about the first lady being trans. Jones told his …

Via USA Today: Barbra Streisand is going on tour this summer. The singer, 74, will perform in nine cities in August and after the tour, she will release a new album: Encore: Movie Partners Sing Broadway. No release date was identified. Her summer concerts will include songs from each decade of her hit-making career as well as numbers from the …

Liberty Counsel will be thrilled: Public officials who are Catholic should not be obliged to celebrate gay marriages or civil unions, Pope Francis said Tuesday, his first public remarks on the issue since same-sex partnerships were legalised in Italy last week. “Once a law is approved, the state should be respectful of consciences. Conscientious objection must be possible on all …

President Obama today issued a statement marking the International Day Against Homophobia & Transphobia, which was launched in 2004 on the anniversary of the World Health Organization’s 1990 declassification of homosexuality as a mental illness. Obama’s message declares that “LGBT rights are human rights” and that the United States honors the work of activists and will continue to “support their …

Hate group leader Tony Perkins says that Obama’s transgender rights directives remind him of the Sodom & Gomorrah story about Lot’s daughters. Brian Tashman reports at Right Wing Watch: “We’re talking about our children,” he said. “We’re talking about the next generation. We’re talking about our children emotionally being scarred.” Perkins then compared the situation to the biblical story of …

The Washington Post reports: Donald Trump vowed Monday that if elected president he would rescind the Obama administration’s new directives aimed at protecting transgender people against discrimination in schools and health-care coverage. But even as Trump accused the administration of federal overreach and argued that such matters should be addressed by the states, the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee also sounded …

From the Tampa Bay Times: A super PAC supporting Hillary Clinton is going on air in Florida and other battleground states with ads that seek to define Donald Trump as hostile to women. It is the first salvo in what will be a negative, expensive general election. Priorities USA said the ads are part of a three-week $6 million statewide …

From wingnut Brent Bozell’s CNSNews.com: “A human civilization’s best chance at survival is to anchor itself in the God of creation,” Phil Robertson says during the trailer for the new film “Torchbearer.” A film that focuses on how the Western world is breaking its relationship with God, “Torchbearer” is set to get a screening for distributers at the Cannes Film …

The Koch Brothers want to make sure the GOP retains the Senate majority. Via Politico: Key groups in the Koch brothers’ political network on Monday began reserving $30 million in advertising buys in key Senate races in August and September, a network official tells POLITICO. The television and digital ad buys, from Freedom Partners Action Fund and other groups, are …

Elton John has penned a lengthy piece for The Hill in which he denounces the “ignorance” of North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory. An excerpt: What’s worse than the discriminatory bill itself, and the millions in taxpayer dollars McCrory is wasting to defend it, is that the governor signed it after admitting he had never met a transgender person. Although McCrory …

Former Breitbart editor Ben Shapiro yesterday declared that their already-infamous “renegade Jew” headline is just one more example of what the site has become since his resignation. He writes: I’ve made my thoughts on Breitbart clear before. But since my departure, they’ve become something far worse than Trump’s Pravda – they’ve become a cite that openly panders to alt-right anti-Semitism …

Newsweek recaps: Dallas, 24 and The X-Files are just some of the classic shows that have been revived in recent years. And while we all eagerly await Twin Peaks, next up is a reunion—ignoring that pseudo-reunion on The CW’s Legends of Tomorrow—for everyone’s favorite jailbird brothers, Michael Scofield and Lincoln Burrows on Prison Break. Seven years after the original series …