Month: July 2005

Bestiality A-OK in Florida

Trish

Florida, which has laws against gays adopting children, oral sex between adults of either gender, and erections that show through a man’s clothing, has no law whatsoever against people having sex with animals.

The recent arrest of a blind Tallahassee man accused of forcing sex on his guide dog highlights this egregious shortcoming.

Tallahassee Democrat:

…Alan Yoder, 29, originally was charged with felony animal cruelty, but court records show that charge was dropped last Friday and replaced with a misdemeanor – disorderly conduct.

Yoder now is charged with a “breach of the peace, by engaging in sexual activity with a guide dog,” according to a court document.

Wouldn’t you think, with all this attention to non-reproduction inspired sex, on people who have non-reproduction inspired sex, and on never, ever seeing evidence of one of the two components needed for reproduction inspired sex, that someone would have thought to outlaw frickin’ bestiality? Not in Florida.

The article doesn’t give the kind of details you’re looking for but it does tell how the asswipe got arrested.

…Yoder, who lives in a local apartment complex, last month asked a female acquaintance to join him in a sex act with the dog, a male yellow Labrador named “Lucky.”

She demurred, but later told a friend about it. That person called a social worker, who called police.

Investigators spoke to Yoder on June 16, who admitted performing certain sex acts with the dog, even going into detail with them, but denied doing others. He was arrested and booked June 22, charged with animal cruelty.

It’s not like this has never come up before. Florida’s had plenty of time to get its act together.

Last year, an Ocala man pleaded no contest to felony animal cruelty after being charged with having sex with his then-fiancee’s female Rottweiler, according to the Pet-Abuse.com Web site.

A judge withheld adjudication and ordered five years of probation and a psychological evaluation. He also prohibited the 27-year-old man from “owning pets of any kind while on probation and from having unsupervised contact with other people’s pets,” the site said.

I can’t begin to think what would make any man (in both cases) do this to any animal but how horrible is it in the Tallahassee case to do to a service dog — a dog that has been trained to do nothing but help, be loyal and trusted, and keep its lousy, rotten, disgusting owner out of harm’s way, even at its own peril?

In Florida, a 19-year-old who has sex with a 17-year-old has to wear a GPS unit for life, be pictured in the paper with every relocation, and not live within however many feet of a school, park, etc. But we do absolutely nothing to protect animals from deviants who are beyond the pale. I’m pissed.

Luskin Makes Some Calls, Or the Case of the Leaking Leaker’s Leaking Leaker

Jon Ponder

An unidentified source made calls to major news outlets last night attempting to spin the CIA agent leak scandal story to benefit Karl Rove. In course of the spin, however, the source may have inadvertently outed the fact that Rove spoke with rightwing pundit Robert Novak when Novak was writing his infamous column in which the name of secret CIA agent Valerie Plame was revealed.

Let’s see. A “lawyer involved in the case” who was “officially briefed” on Rove’s testimony. Why didn’t they just say, “and whose initials are “Robert Luskin.”

The Associated Press described the leaker they spoke with as “a person briefed on the testimony.”

The New York Times described the leaker as ” someone who has been officially briefed on the matter.” And said, “[the] person who provided the information about Mr. Rove’s conversation with Mr. Novak declined to be identified, citing requests by Mr. Fitzgerald that no one discuss the case. The person discussed the matter in the belief that Mr. Rove was truthful in saying that he had not disclosed Ms. Wilson’s identity.”

The Washington Post received a call, too, whom they described as “a lawyer involved in the case.”

Let’s see. A “lawyer involved in the case” who was “officially briefed” on Rove’s testimony. Why didn’t they just say, “and whose initials are “Robert Luskin.”

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Santorum’s Spokesman Says He Is Gay and Out at Work

Jon Ponder

Source Raw Story:

In a phone call recorded by PageOneQ and blogACTIVE.com, Robert Traynham, Director of Communications for United States Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) has said he is an out gay man who completely supports the Senator.

When asked how a gay man could speak for one of the nation’s most notorious homophobes, Traynham protested that [he] has “been with the Senator for eight years.” Traynham went on to say “Senator Santorum is a man of principle, he is a man who sticks up for what he believes in, I strongly do support Senator Santorum.”

When pressed on whether he supported the Senator’s stands on lesbian and gay issues, Mr. Traynham abruptly ended the phone call by saying “Senator Santorum is a family man. I have been with Senator Santorum for eight years and I am very proud to be with him.”

An attempt to follow-up with a question was met with Mr. Traynham hanging up the phone.

Pew: Even Muslims Fear Islamic Extremism

Buck Banks

According to a new survey from the Pew Global Attitudes Project, concerns about Islamic extremism, already widespread in the West before last week’s terrorist attacks in London, are shared to a perhaps surprising degree by the publics in several predominantly Muslim nations, notably Morocco, Pakistan, Turkey and Indonesia. Most Muslim publics also express less support for acts of terrorism allegedly committed in defense of Islam and less confidence in Osama bin Laden.

The survey, conducted in the spring among more than 17,000 people in 17 countries, found that Muslim and non-Muslim publics have very different attitudes toward the impact of Islam on their countries.

Publics in predominantly Muslim countries expressed concerns that Islamic extremism leads to violence, reduces personal freedoms, creates internal divisions and impedes economic growth. However, a majority are of the opinion that Islam is playing a more significant — and welcome — political role in their nations. Turkey is an exception; its public is divided over whether a larger political role for Islam is a good thing.

In non-Muslim countries, concern toward Islamic extremism is closely associated with worries that Muslims living in those countries resist adopting their nation’s customs and way of life. There also is a widespread perception — including among Americans — that resident Muslims have a strong and growing sense of Islamic identity, a development viewed particularly negatively in France, Germany and the Netherlands.
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Huggies and Wings Crook Gets Odd Sentence

Trish

The woman convicted of putting the Huggies and Wings on the Clinton administration’s tab was sentenced today, and it’s a bizarre sentence at that.

Ogilvy & Mather advertisng agency executive Shona Seifert was found guilty of overbilling the Clinton Administration’s White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) by shifting billing time from other accounts to the government. Handwritten notes to her assistant that said, “Put Huggies and Wings time on ONDCP” sealed the deal.

Ad Age Online:

A federal judge today sentenced Shona Seifert to 18 months in prison and ordered her to pay a $125,000 fine for her role in the Ogilvy & Mather scheme to overbill the goverment on its national anti-drug ad account. The judge also ordered her to develop a written code of conduct for the advertising industry.

Is it me, or is this kind of like asking Ken Lay to draft up a code of conduct for shareholder reporting?

The code of conduct is due to Judge Berman by Oct. 15, but it’s unclear what will he will do it.

Put it in the trash would be my advice.

Gonzales Could Save Us From Martinez, But Work Less Than Bush if Appointed to Supreme Court

Trish

Alberto Gonzales might be [more] useless if he’s appointed to the Supreme Court, according to the Washington Post.

White House officials weighing the nomination of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales to the Supreme Court are considering whether a federal ethics law would require him to sit out cases of critical importance to the Bush administration once he was on the court…[H]e would have to disqualify himself whenever issues he worked on in the Bush administration came before the court.

…Anytime a justice recuses, there is the possibility of a 4 to 4 tie, automatically affirming the lower court’s judgment.

…Much of the White House review focuses on anti-terrorism policy, of which Gonzales was an architect while serving as White House counsel. But social issues Gonzales has dealt with as attorney general, such as assisted suicide and abortion rights, are also at stake.

Hey, it’s not like he’s duck hunting with the Vice President while the veep’s case is coming before the Court or anything.

This should make Bush’s other favorite inside Latino look better. The horrifying idea that Florida Sen. Mel “Do Nothing and Blame It on Aides the Few Times You Do” Martinez be considered for the post came up shortly before O’Connor’s announcement.

June 29, 2005 St. Petersburg Times:

When leaders of the Senate began talking about nominees for a possible vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court, a familiar Florida name popped up: Mel Martinez.

The freshman senator was one of four people Democratic leader Harry Reid said he mentioned to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.

Martinez learned about Reid’s comments midafternoon when reporters began calling his staff for comment. The suggestion was laughed off…

Reid offered Frist four suggestions: Republican Sens. Mike DeWine of Ohio, Mike Crapo of Idaho and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. He called Martinez “a skilled trial lawyer.”

I’d be laughing too if it wasn’t so awful to contemplate. The only funny part is how hard Mel tries, in popular GOP fashion, to avoid that “trial lawyer” label. Aren’t they the root of all evil every time a Republican runs for office? Lord, save us from these morons.

Jeb Says Rove Couldn’t Have Done It

Trish

A report from a Florida news service today quotes Jeb’s take on the party line, including the requisite “if’s” and “who cares” and “what’s the big deals.”

Capitol News Service:

“If it’s illegal to out a covert operator, then Karl didn’t do it and he’s not a target of the investigation.”

How’s that for logic? If it’s illegal (a question only bandied about on FOX News), then Karl didn’t do it. If it’s not illegal, well now, it could be Karl after all. Wait, there’s more.

“But it’s really kind of a symptom of the putrid nature of Washington D.C. to pile it on without any facts. There’s a special prosecutor doing this investigation. Karl’s not a subject to that probe. I don’t think…I think it’s much to do [sic] about nothing, but we’ll see. Let the process work.”

Yeah, it’s just those D.C. types hitting a man when he’s down. And it’s not very important anyway.

It’s gratifying that so far, Bush and his Brain (does that make Cheney his Dick?) aren’t getting away with it this time. I mean these guys made a gay male prostitute in the White House briefing room disappear, so I figured they’d ooze their way of this one too. Heh.

Poll: Bush Gets No Terror Bounce, Honesty Rating Plummets

Jon Ponder

Finally, Americans may be waking up to the reality of the fact that our country is under the worst management of its history. The new NBC/Wall St. Journal poll shows that then number of Americans who believe that President Bush is “honest and straightforward” has dropped to 41 percent.

Poll: 49 percent disapprove of Bush’s job performance, which is a point lower from his job approval in May. This number is still incredibly high considering he is the worst president to hold office in U.S. history

The real number ought to be zero percent, of course, but it represents a nine point drop since January.

And get this: The survey, however, was taken just before the news came out that President Bush lied when he said he would fire anyone who leaked classified information. We now know Karl Rove leaked the information and we also know he hasn’t been fired.

Bush got no bounce from the terrorist attacks in London:

The survey… finds that respondents, by a 49 percent-to-46 percent margin, disapprove of Bush’s job performance. That’s a drop from the last NBC/Journal poll in May, when 47 percent approved and 47 percent disapproved. In addition, the only time when Bush’s job rating has been worse was in June 2004, when 45 percent approved of his performance.

Schwarzenegger Receives $8 Mil from Tabloid Publisher

Jon Ponder

Since the 1980’s, rumors have circulated in Hollywood about Arnold Schwarzenegger that would curl the blue hair of your average Republican true-believer. If any one of these rumors were to make headlines in the supermarket tabloids, the governor’s political career would be over within hours.

Based in Boca Raton, Florida, AMI owns Muscle & Fitness and Flex magazines, as well as – you guessed it – National Enquirer, the Globe and the Star tabloids.

During his campaign for governor in 2003, a lot of folks in this town were on the edge of their seats waiting for one of the tabloids to score big and drop the dime on Arnold. It never happened. In the last week or so before the election, the Los Angeles Times published an article detailing numerous complaints by women who claimed to have been fondled and groped by Schwarzenegger, mostly on the job at movie and television studios.

These incidents were fairly well known but they had nothing to do with the escapades that have had the town buzzing for so long about Arnold. Those incidents were all, um, consensual.

And then, on November 15, 2003, two days before he was sworn in as governor, Schwarzenegger signed a five-year “consulting” deal with American Media Inc.

Based in Boca Raton, Florida, AMI owns Muscle & Fitness and Flex magazines, as well as – you guessed it – National Enquirer, the Globe and the Star tabloids.

Now details of the governor’s consulting gig have come to light:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger accepted a consulting job paying an estimated $8 million over five years to “further the business objectives” of a national publisher of health and bodybuilding magazines.

The contract pays Schwarzenegger 1% of the magazines’ advertising revenue, much of which comes from makers of nutritional supplements. Last year, the governor vetoed legislation that would have imposed government regulations on the supplement industry.

What is that stank? It smells like “conflict of interest” and “corruption.” Indeed:

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Is Ari Fleischer Judith Miller’s Source?

Jon Ponder

With all the attention riveted on Karl Rove as a person of interest in the Plame leak investigation, we should remember that in Bob Novak’s 2003 story in which he revealed the identity of undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson, he said he had learned her identity after speaking with two “senior administration officials.”

We can assume that Rove was one of these officials. If we further assume that only two senior officials were leaking, it is likely that the second leaker is likely also the confidential source whose identity New York Times reporter Judith Miller went to prison to protect.

Miller talked with at least one senior administration official about Valerie Plame, in July 2003, around the same time that Rove was speaking with Matt Cooper at Time Magazine. But if Rove were Miller’s source, it is hard to imagine that he would let Cooper off the hook but not his pal Judy who was such a loyal Administration stenographer during the run-up to the war.

Who could the second source be? Here’s who:

People familiar with the inquiry say [special prosecutor Patrick] Fitzgerald also is reviewing testimony by former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, though it is not clear whether the prosecutor is focusing on him or seeking information about higher-ups. Fleischer last night refused to comment.

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