Day: November 9, 2007

Florida Republican Legislator’s Gay Sex Solicitation Trial Fun While It Lasted

Trish

The fun’s over in Florida for now. We’ve been enjoying the coverage of the prostitution solicitation trial of State Rep. Bob Allen (R-Merritt Island), in which he was accused of offering to pay an undercover officer $20 to allow him to perform oral sex upon the officer’s male member.

Between blowing kisses to his wife and sporting the “I’m not a sex offender, I’m a racist” defense, the trial’s been a hoot. But now, alas, it’s over and the defendant was found…

Before you answer, let’s hear Allen’s side of things.

Between blowing kisses to his wife and sporting the “I’m not a sex offender, I’m a racist” defense, the trial’s been a hoot

State Rep. Bob Allen wasn’t searching for sex when he entered a park bathroom five times in about an hour, he just needed to relieve himself after drinking too much iced tea, his attorney told jurors…

“Unfortunately, nature does take its course,” said Greg Eisenmenger…

Tea, do you hear me? Not even beer, which you might believe someone would pee every 10 minutes. But I love the novel defense offered.

Eisenmenger disputed the officers’ version of events but said that even if jurors believe them, that doesn’t mean Allen committed the crime.

If it involves consenting adults, “there is nothing illegal about walking up to someone in a bathroom and picking them up,” he said.

Now see, that’s a funny thing. Because if the defendant had his way in the legislature, it would not only be a crime, but a righteous, serious one.

The lawmaker actually co-sponsored a bill months before his arrest that would have increased public sex charges from a misdemeanor to a felony. The proposed bill addressed “unnatural and lascivious acts or exposure or exhibition of sexual organs” within 1,000 feet of a park, school or child care facility.

So what was Allen up to? Glad you asked.

On the day he was arrested, Allen did chores at home, canceled plans to attend a luncheon and went to the park after dining at a nearby restaurant…

After that, the details are in dispute.

Kavanaugh, fit and young, said the seven-year state house veteran peeked into the handicapped stall when he entered for a paper towel, then went inside to join the officer.

He said Allen asked to go somewhere private, then testified telling the defendant: “I’m looking to get some money. Can you hook me up with $20?”

“Sure, I can do that. But this place is too public,” Allen allegedly said…

Allen stopped as he and Kavanaugh left the restroom and asked if he was a police officer, then motioned to follow, Whitaker, the prosecutor said…

“I don’t know what you’re into,” Allen said.

Kavanaugh asked if Allen wanted oral sex.

“I was thinking you would want one,” Allen said.

“But you’ll still give me the $20 for that, right?” Kavanaugh said.

“I would not argue with that,” Allen answered.

One of the highlights of the trial was the jury’s visit to the actual park restroom in question (road trip!). The other had to be Allen’s star-quality performance.

Allen, who has appeared confident throughout the trial, frequently smiled at jurors and courtroom spectators Wednesday and mouthed, “I love you” to his wife, Beth.

So what do you think? Guilty? Not guilty?

Oh hell yes. Guilty, guilty, guil-TEE.

The jury deliberated three hours and 20 minutes. After jurors filed out, Allen reached back into the gallery to touch his wife’s hand. She sat behind him Friday, as she had all week.

Schwarzenegger Says He Won’t Run for Boxer’s Senate Seat in 2010

Jon Ponder

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says he is ruling out running for the U.S. Senate against Barbara Boxer in 2010. The governor, who is term-limited out after his current term, was asked about his post-Sacramento plans after a Field poll showed him with a 1 percentage point lead over Boxer.

See, out here, we don’t worship our mayors and give them august titles like “America’s Mayor,” just because they do their frickin’ jobs during disasters (of which we have plenty).

I should give up making predictions about Schwarzenegger because I have been wrong so often.

Nah.

Despite the fact that I predicted he would quickly become bored with being governor and hurry back to the movie industry — and despite rumors around town that he was in talks with producers — he has stuck it out. (So far.) Still, I just don’t see Arnold in the stuffy, polite world of the Senate, so I, for one, will take him at his word.

Besides, Boxer may be down at the moment — mostly because of unhappiness about the Democrats’ failure to stop George Bush — but Schwarzenegger is aware, as is every California politician, that in the 2004 elections, Sen. Boxer received the third highest number of votes of any candidate in the country, next to Bush and Kerry, respectively.

Schwarzenegger also ruled out running for mayor of Los Angeles. That one is a no-brainer. See, out here, we don’t worship our mayors and give them august titles like “America’s Mayor,” just because they do their frickin’ jobs during disasters (of which we have plenty).

Unless he could become America’s Mayor, I doubt Arnold would be interested.

Fact: Liberals Just Not as Quotable as Mouth-Frothing Wingnuts

Buck Banks

On Fridays I receive a round-up of columns from Human Events, a right-wing tool that has been around since 1944. To give you some idea of how right it is, the site still uses a videotaped promo starring Ronald Reagan: “Greetings, conservatives! Human Events has been spreading the revolutionary news about our crusade for as long as I can remember.”

What piqued my curiosity today was a top 10 list of the most outrageous things liberals have said over the past 20 years compiled by something called Media Research Center. I figured there must be some juicy stuff there, considering all the outrageous things the wingnuts have said in just the last 20 hours.

But it wasn’t. Outrageous, that is. Indeed, what was interesting was the total lack of outrageousness. Here’s an example:

5. Three Cheers for Liberalism
“It is liberalism, whether people like it or not, which has animated all the years of my life. What on Earth did conservatism ever accomplish for our country?” — Charles Kuralt talking with Morley Safer on the CBS special, “One for the Road With Charles Kuralt,” May 4, 1994.

Outrageous? I don’t think so. How about this one:

8. Extolling Virtues of Fidel’s Prison
“For Castro, freedom starts with education. And if literacy alone were the yardstick, Cuba would rank as one of the freest nations on Earth. The literacy rate is 96 percent.” — Barbara Walters on ABC’s “20/20,” Oct. 11, 2002.

Oooh, that’s really out there, Barb. Luckily, the list only goes on for 10, which truly is fortunate, or my sense of outrage would have been completely anesthetized. But poking around on the site I did manage to find some outrageous stuff — all supposedly stories that Human Events “broke”:

  • Big corporations give more money to liberals. Surprised? Blue-chip companies now give far more money to the Left — although Democrats still cry “poor” and the media still call the GOP “the party of big business.”
  • 45 percent of British Muslims believe the U.S. and Israel planned the 9/11 attacks. This clearly does not square with the media view of Islam as a gentle, rational faith.
  • American companies recently did $1 billion worth of direct business with Cuba. This story gets no play because the press want you believe a “cruel U.S. business embargo” is the cause of Cuban poverty.
  • High energy prices are NOT all bad. For the first time in 15 years, the number of new U.S. oil wells drilled tops the 1,000 mark — and exploration is up 35 percent over last year.
  • Kyoto Treaty can’t alter climate — period. That’s what treaty backers admit. Nevertheless, the global press bends over backwards to cover this up.
  • The North Korean missile launch was helpful — for Red China. Chinese military leaders got a detailed look at U.S. missile defenses – sea, air and land-based detection systems and frequencies used.
  • Since 9/11, Islamic jihadists have perpetrated not 500, not 2,500, but more than 5,000 terror attacks. Liberals hush-up this number, claiming the truth would provoke “reprisals” by “violent” Americans against “peaceful” Muslims.

I think that several of those statements push the outrageous envelope. And that’s not surprising, given the columnists who write for Human Events:

HUMAN EVENTS gives voice to the great conservative thinkers of our era — Robert Novak, Michelle Malkin, L. Brent Bozell, Terence Jeffrey, Bruce Bartlett, Thomas Sowell, David Limbaugh, Oliver North, Pat Buchanan and many more.

There are a few utterers of outrageous speech in that batch. How about Novak’s outing of Valerie Plame, Malkin’s unfettered attacks on a 12-year-old boy, Buchanan’s — well, anything Buchanan says is pretty much outrageous.

But the “outrageous” statements from liberals really don’t fill the bill. I’ll admit this one comes close:

3. Typical Liberal Compassion
“I hope his wife feeds him lots of eggs and butter and he dies early like many black men do, of heart disease …. He is an absolutely reprehensible person.” — USA Today columnist and Pacifica Radio talk show host Julianne Malveaux on Justice Clarence Thomas, Nov. 4, 1994, on PBS’s “To the Contrary.”

But if we remember that Julianne Malveaux is black, there goes the outrageousness right out the window. And that’s as bad as it gets over the course of 20 years, if we are to believe Human Events that this is the best they could dredge up. Let’s face it — liberals just are not as quotable as bombastic, bloviating, frothing-at-the-mouth blowhards like Rush Limbaugh.

Oh well, I can live with that.

Kathleen Willey — Remember Her? — Now Says Hillary Hired a Hitman to Kill Her Cats

Jon Ponder

The Clinton Haters — They’re Baaaaackk!

Remember Kathleen Willey, the woman who claimed in a deposition and “60 Minutes” that Pres. Clinton fondled her in a private study near the Oval Office, but whose credibility was later shredded by a friend to whom she confessed that she was lying?

Willey has a new book out in which she claims that Hillary Clinton put out a hit on two of Willey’s cats:

“A man, he was pretending to be a jogger, he came up to me and just asked did I ever find my cat?” Willey told the New York Sun, who also picked up the cat story Wednesday. “He mentioned my cat by name and [said], ‘Yeah, that Bullseye was a really nice cat.'” Willey told the Sun the abducted cat was part of an intimidation plan organized by the Clintons after she was called to testify in Paula Jones’ sexual harassment suit against the president.

“But it didn’t stop there,” said Fox News host Brian Kilmeade. “Does the name Fluffy mean anything to you? A year later she bought a cat, named it Fluffy. That cat ended up dead as well underneath the porch. She thinks somehow, and she claims somehow, the person who did this is linked back to Hillary.”

It turns out Willey did not dream this up all by herself:

Willey appears to found her accusations on the word of conservative talk show host Melanie Morgan, who says she had a conversation in which a private investigator named Jack Palladino all but admitted to being the culprit in the cat business. “The only regret that I had about the whole thing was that Hillary did not pay me in a timely fashion,” the P.I. allegedly said, according to Morgan’s account.

Wait. It gets better. Pallidino has denied that he ever he was paid by the Clintons to kill Willey’s cats:

But the online newspaper WorldNetDaily, which is affiliated with the publisher of Willey’s book, reported on Wednesday that Palladino denied those charges outright and is even threatening a libel lawsuit. “It’s total fantasy,” Palladino said.”No, that’s too kind; it’s a lie.”

Willey also recently claimed that her home was burglarized two months ago and that the only thing taken was the manuscript for her anti-Clinton book and her purse. Her computer was not taken, however, although she says it was tampered with.

Because we know that the book was published we can assume she composed it on her computer — as opposed to on an IBM Selectric or using a quill pen and ink — so the digital copy of the book was safe.

The inference here seems to be that the burglars were hired by the Clintons, but based on their inept performance I’d say they sound more like dumbasses typical of GOP undercover operations.