Day: June 20, 2006

Florida’s Next Republican Governor Could Be Either Pot Smoking Adulterer or Allegedly Closeted, Self-Hating Gay Guy

Trish

Florida headlines are fairly drooling over revelations that Republican candidate for governor Tom Gallagher is a jerk.

Miami Herald: Gallagher’s Family Values Take Hit With Revelations

Sarasota Herald Tribune: Divorce Records Dogging Hopeful

Bradenton Herald: Gallagher Apologizes for Affair, Marijuana Use

Palm Beach Post: Gallagher Apologizes for Misdeeds

Sun-Sentinel: Gubernatorial Candidate Gallagher Used Marijuana, Cheated on First Wife

Tampa Tribune: Gallagher Admits Fault For Failed Marriage

Any outrage is a bit misplaced. In February, when charges of insider trading while on the taxpayer dole arose, hardly a gasp was heard from Pensacola to the Keys. Lakeland Ledger:

…an allegedly intoxicated Gallagher returned to their home and tore a screen off the house, the court documents say. The next day, he returned and took the dog. Ann Louise Gallagher asked a judge for a restraining order

Tax records show Gallagher made at least 70 separate online orders to buy or sell AES Corp. stock in 2003, and 60 of those came within weeks or days of five significant federal announcements about the [government] pipeline between the Bahamas and Broward County.

…Gallagher joined Gov. Jeb Bush and other Cabinet members when they voted in 2004 to support an easement for the AES project as well as a competing company’s pipeline proposal…He didn’t declare his ownership before voting but it was included on his annual public disclosure forms.

The deals were made on his state-issued computer during office hours while Gallagher was carrying out his duties as Florida’s Chief Financial Officer. And they weren’t the first.

Gallagher’s online trading and other investments first were reported by the St. Petersburg Times…The paper noted the tax records also showed Gallagher had invested in insurance companies while he was Florida’s insurance commissioner and in an airline that had a contract with the state.

But infidelity and drug use are…so much more interesting. In this case, anyway. […]

21st Century Pentagon Still Uses Long Discredited 19th Century ‘Disorder’ Classification of Homosexuality

Jon Ponder

In his groundbreaking work on psychoanalysis, published in 1896, Sigmund Freud famously classified homosexuality as sexual disorder. Fifty years later, a shift in thinking about homosexuality occurred among two groups: psychotherapists and gay people themselves. In the field of psychology, both practicioners and researchers began to question homosexuality’s inclusion among disorders like neurosis and schizophrenia, while at the same time — perhaps as a result — the gay rights movement was founded. (Forget Stonewall, the movement began with the formation of the Mattachine Society in Los Angeles by Harry Hay and others, on November 11, 1950.)

By 1973, the mental health community had reached a consensus. That year, the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of personality disorders.

So it is shocking, and yet not surprising, to learn today that the Pentagon is still using Freud’s long-descredited diagnosis:

A Pentagon document classifies homosexuality as a mental disorder, decades after mental health experts abandoned that position.

The document outlines retirement or other discharge policies for service members with physical disabilities, and in a section on defects lists homosexuality alongside mental retardation and personality disorders.

Talk about internalized homophobia! This is purely willful ignorance, also known as bigotry, plain and simple.

No wonder Iraq is a quagmire.

Dr. Ho Rubs FDA Wrong Way

Buck Banks

No mo’ Ho: The Food and Drug Administration has moved to seize two so-called medical devices from the market because the agency said the Dr. Ho’s Double Massage and Dr. Ho’s Muscle Massage don’t actually treat diabetic neuropathy, fibromyalgia, arthritis or migraine headaches, as advertised.

I found a funny review of Dr. Ho’s infomercial where he demonstrates his products primarily on scantily clad women:

“Not to be used by pregnant women, people with pacemakers, or epileptics” warns the gentle disclaimer that appears midway through the Dr. Ho Muscle Massager infomercial. After watching the device in action, viewers will suspect that for epileptics, Dr. Ho is not really dangerous — it’s merely redundant.

If you’re going to attach electrodes to body parts the person needs to expose that body part and hence not wear much — like a bathing suit

Of course, Dr. Ho has his defender, who took exception to the reviewer’s characterization of Dr. Ho as hokey:

So if you want a laugh ok, but at least stop telling people that it doesn’t work — it certainly does — also of course if you’re going to attach electrodes to body parts the person needs to expose that body part and hence not wear much — like a bathing suit — they choose to use the hip muscle because it’s a large muscle and you can see it react! You can’t tell what someone else feels — but you can SEE a reaction in a muscle and see that something is obviously going on! Do research and find out what you’re talking about before you spread claims!

But maybe the FDA has the goods on Dr. Ho after all:

Since these devices have not been approved by FDA, the safety parameters associated with their use and the efficacy of the devices for use to treat diseases have not been determined. These devices are misbranded because their labeling lacks adequate directions for intended use, they are not labeled prescription use only, and they are not being used by consumers by order of a licensed practitioner. They are further misbranded because they were manufactured at an unregistered facility.

So Cindy, me and the FDA urge you to Just Say No to Ho before it’s too late.

Is Tom DeLay a Texan or a Virginian?

Buck Banks

State of mind: It matters to Democrat Nick Lampson, who wants to fill the congressional seat vacated when Tom “The Hammer” DeLay resigned this month. Problem is, the D-Guy won the Republican nomination in the March primary and so his name is still offically on the ballot — according to Texas Dems. Whoa, say Texas Repugs, that boy’s done gone and registered hisself to vote and went and voted in the primary by absentee ballot in Alexandria, Va., thereby making him a Virginian. According to Congressional Quarterly:

Imagine that — the words “DeLay” and “fraud” appearing together in the same sentence!

“We don’t think Mr. DeLay can be conclusively established by public records to be a resident of Virginia,” says Chad W. Dunn, the Texas Democrats’ general counsel and a lawyer with Riddle & Brazil in Houston.

The Democrats won a temporary restraining order earlier this month preventing Texas GOP Chairwoman Tina J. Benkiser from convening a meeting of 22nd District precinct chairmen, who in turn will pick four people to decide on DeLay’s ballot replacement. In court papers, the Democrats maintained that DeLay essentially perpetrated a fraud by campaigning for renomination — because, they allege, he’d already decided to resign the seat this spring — in an effort to leave it to party elders, not the voters, to pick the best possible candidate to face Lampson.

Imagine that — the words “DeLay” and “fraud” appearing together in the same sentence! Even as he was leaving Congress, the worm was manipulating the political process as a final gimme for the home team.

According to the ten-gallon Democrats, DeLay is still taking a homestead tax exemption on his house outside of Houston and is still on Texas voter rolls, both of which are kind of illegal, him being a Virginian and all. Topping that, though, is the fact that for two months after he allegedly obtained his Virginia driver’s license and voter registration, DeLay was still voting as a congressional representative of his district in Texas.

Man, that guy makes me glad I’m not a Texan or a Virginian. So it’s not such great shakes being a Floridian, but at least we don’t have Tom DeLay bringing a new, higher level of professional corruption into Sunshine State politics.

Don’t Miss “The Dark Side” Tonight

Trish

Everybody watch The Dark Side on PBS tonight so you can tell me how it was.

On September 11, 2001, deep inside a White House bunker, Vice President Dick Cheney was ordering U.S. fighter planes to shoot down any commercial airliner still in the air above America…

I have to work but you probably don’t, and the critics who got to preview the Frontline special, like the Seattle Times, make it sound pretty must-see.

Comedians have made countless Darth Vader jokes about Cheney, but the film’s title is no joke about The Force. It’s from Cheney’s own words about America’s response to terrorists: “We have to work the dark side, if you will. We’ve got to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world. A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies.”

But apparently he didn’t use the actual intelligence from the agencies.

The CIA and its then-director, George Tenet, knew immediately that al-Qaida in Afghanistan was responsible for the 9/11 attacks and said so. But author James Bamford says that while the Pentagon was still smoking, Rumsfeld said, “We’ve got to see, somehow, how we can bring Saddam Hussein into this.”

“The Dark Side” claims that 9/11 provided Cheney and Rumsfeld with a pretext for achieving their longstanding ambition to go after the Iraqi dictator and to boost executive power that they’d seen diminish ever since their days as allies in Nixon’s administration. As consummate political infighters, they resented and continually undermined Tenet — a sports-loving man’s man who had become pally with George W. Bush…

Damn. I might have to buy the DVD.

West Hollywood Legalizes Pot – Sort of

Jon Ponder
The real motive behind the council’s move may be fiscal: There is a move afoot to put a smiliar referendum on an upcoming city ballot. By passing the law unilaterally, the city would save the $80,000 cost of a special election.

As if proof were needed that West Hollywood, my hometown for the past eight years, is a liberal bastion within the liberal enclave of Los Angeles, our City Council approved a measure yesterday that would decriminalize the recreational use of marijuana.

While both San Francisco and Oakland have similar ordinances, West Hollywood is the first southern California city to enact such a law. Even so, the measure is basically toothless. West Hollywood does not have its own police department but rather contracts the law-enforcement services of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Laws passed by the city (with 1.9 square miles and a population of 35,000) do not supersede policies of the county, with its 500 square mile territory and 10 million-plus population.

On the other hand, the deputies who patrol the streets have long had an unspoken policy of looking the other way when they see people smoking pot on the street. As home to both the Sunset Strip, a playground young hets, and the gay nightlife along Santa Monica Blvd., it would scare off business and become costly to local coffers to prosecute minor offenses.

Which brings us to the bottom line. The real motive behind the council’s move may be fiscal. There is a move afoot to put a smiliar referendum on an upcoming city ballot. By passing the law unilaterally, the city would save the $80,000 cost of a special election.

God, I love this town.

CA Gov: Schwarzenegger to Address Gay GOP Group – And Then Veto Gay History Bill

Jon Ponder

Is there any sadder group in America today than gay Republicans? Here in California the queer GOP group, the Log Cabin Club, will put its members’ pathetic self-loathing on display on June 29 when it hosts an address by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is running for reelection in November.

The governor vetoed a bill last year that would have legalized gay marriage — and soon after his address to the gay Republicans will reportedly veto a bill that would promote the teaching of gay history in schools.

The address by Schwarzenegger is a craven attempt by his campaign to court the vote of the state’s burgeoning “independent” voters, many of whom are fiscally conservative but socially liberal, by symbolizing his alleged tolerance on sexual identity issues. It also represents a hard shift to the left by the governor after years of catering to California’s anemic conservative base.

But why would the members of the Log Cabin Club allow themselves to be subjected to such feckless pandering? Listen to the defensive tone in Log Cabin President Patrick Guerrero’s explanation of the invitation to the governor:

“There is a better than 50-50 chance this man will be the governor of California for the next four years, and for the gay community to label somebody based on one veto is shortsighted,” Guerrero said. “We thought allowing him to address these issues in a friendly setting as well as giving him a chance to get another look at who gay and lesbian families are was important both for him and for us.”

Right. That’s all he needs — just one more look at gay and lesbian families.

What could the real reason for this devotion be? Are the gay Gops simply shallow? After all, even though Schwarzenegger has had tens of thousands of dollars of work done on his face and (probably) elsewhere, wears makeup by the trowel-full and has fake-looking dyed hair, he is a movie star. Or maybe it’s a fetish — for daddies, bullies or both.