Friends of Donald

For the third year running, Istanbul police tried to shut down the city's LGBT pride march, with officers firing rubber bullets into crowds, others using dogs chasing onlookers, and in some cases brutal violence directed at participants (details here).

The alleged reason for the ban was to "protect" marchers and spectators from far-right protesters. The latter showed up, not surprisingly, but police ignored them.

One police officer was photographed by the international media brutally kicking and punching LGBT participants. The officers firing rubber bullets and using dogs to chase people were also photographed.

Of course, the rationale for attempting to stop the event is ludicrous. They had to attack people in order to protect them?

The Istanbul mayor who banned the parade is from the same conservative political party and is a close ally of Turkish President Recep Erdogan, the increasingly autocratic and anti-democratic leader whom Donald Trump has lavishly praised without hesitation.

For reasons he has never explained, Trump always speaks glowingly about some of the world's most corrupt despots, many of whom are stridently anti-LGBT and openly call for LGBT discrimination, like the leader of Russia, Turkey, and the Philippines.

Yet Trump lovingly praises himself as the "friend of the gays." Fortunately, fewer and fewer people believe that fiction.