Month: November 2007

In a ruling pursuant to lawsuits from two public interest groups in Washington, U.S. District Court Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. issued a temporary restraining order against the Bush White House today, ordering it to preserve backups of millions of emails the administration claims to have deleted:

Order is intended to provide “consequences” if back-Ups have been destroyed

Defendants shall preserve media, no matter how described, presently in their possession or under their custody or control, that were created with the intention of preserving data in the event of its inadvertent destruction,” wrote Kennedy in a Nov. 12 opinion in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

The lawsuits were brought separately by the National Security Archive, which is affiliated with George Washington University, and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), and have since been combined. The groups sued the White House after it claimed in April that 5 million emails that were generated between March 2003 and October 2005 were “missing.” Topics of intra-office communication during that period would likely have included Hurricane Katrina and the 2004 presidential campaign.

In reality, email can require quite a bit of effort to destroy. Copies of individual emails — even emails that users believe they have deleted — are saved on the hard drives of the sender, the recipient and often on the various servers in the relay. On the other hand, in the ensuing seven months since it announced that the emails were missing, Bush operatives have had time to wipe clean hundreds of back-up drives and servers.

This fact was apparently contemplated in Judge Kennedy’s ruling, in which he agreed with the recommendation of U.S. Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola last month that a restraining order should be issued. “Without such an order,” Facciola wrote, “destruction of the backup media would be without consequence.”

Last week the New Hampshire Supreme Court handed down a ruling in a divorce case that precluded the petitioner from amending the original grounds for divorce — that old chestnut irreconcilable differences — to adultery based on the fact that his wife had carried on an affair with a woman. But since no penis insertions could be performed between the women, it wasn’t adulterous behavior:

Craig’s wife can divorce him for being a reprehensible liar and hypocrite, but not for cheating on her with cute boys in airport restrooms.

The plain and ordinary meaning of adultery is “voluntary sexual intercourse between a married man and someone other than his wife or between a married woman and someone other than her husband.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 30 (unabridged ed. 1961). Although the definition does not specifically state that the “someone” with whom one commits adultery must be of the opposite gender, it does require sexual intercourse.

The plain and ordinary meaning of sexual intercourse is “sexual connection esp. between humans: COITUS, COPULATION.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 2082. Coitus is defined to require “insertion of the penis in the vagina[],” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 441, which clearly can only take place between persons of the opposite gender.

The pesky petitioner even tried to turn the tables on the whole gay rights deal by arguing unequal treatment under the law, but the court was having none of that:

We reject the petitioner’s argument that an interpretation of adultery that excludes homosexual conduct subjects homosexuals and heterosexuals to unequal treatment, “contrary to New Hampshire’s public policy of equality and prohibition of discrimination based on sex and sexual orientation.” Homosexuals and heterosexuals engaging in the same acts are treated the same because our interpretation of the term “adultery” excludes all non-coital sex acts, whether between persons of the same or opposite gender. The only distinction is that persons of the same gender cannot, by definition, engage in the one act that constitutes adultery under the statute.

So what does this mean for wide-stance conservatives like Larry Craig? It means his wife can divorce him for being a reprehensible liar and hypocrite (probably under the catch-all “irreconcilable differences,” which could also mean that she is unable to reconcile his gayness with her heterosexuality), but not for cheating on her with cute boys in airport restrooms.

And that, it would seem, could present a significant hurdle to allowing gay marriage — if gays get married, they could not file for divorce on the grounds of adultery because gay sex is, by definition, not adulterous behavior. Unless, say, a gay guy left his gay spouse for a woman, or a lesbian left her spouse to take up with a man, but again, those scenarios could easily be filed under “irreconcilable differences.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

There’s buzz in the Capitol about the sudden and surprising progress this week in the movement to impeach Cheney and Bush. After months of delays, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) was finally able to send his impeachment bill against Cheney to the floor.

One theory has it that the Democratic leaders prefer keeping Bush and Cheney around as constant reminders of Republican incompetence, arrogance and sleaze.

Now the bill is before the Judiciary Committee, whose chairman, Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich) is known to be sympathetic to impeaching both Cheney and Pres. Bush — even while Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a San Francisco Democrat, remains adamantly opposed.

Here’s a recap of the parliamentary maneuvering that moved Kucinich’s bill off the House floor and into Judiciary:

[The] behind-the-scenes partisan maneuvering that preceded that vote was arcane indeed, with Kucinich first exercising a member’s privilege motion to present his stymied impeachment bill to the full House, only to have Speaker Nancy Pelosi arrange for a colleague (Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Maryland) offer a motion to table it. The Republicans, anxious to embarrass the Speaker, threw a wrench into that plan, though, by voting as a bloc to oppose tabling.

Since Kucinich already has 22 co-sponsors for his bill, it was clear that the tabling gambit would fail. As soon as that became apparent, rank-and-file Democrats, unwilling to be seen by their constituents as defending Cheney, rushed to change their votes to opposing the tabling motion. In the end, tabling failed by 242 to 170 with 77 Democrats supporting a pleasantly surprised Kucinich.

In order to avoid a floor debate on the merits of impeaching the eminently impeachable Vice President Cheney, Pelosi and her allies then moved to send Kucinich’s bill directly to the Judiciary Committee. They were joined by three Republicans, including maverick Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul (R-Texas).

It is mystifying that Pelosi insists on keeping impeachment off the table. She apparently believes it would be a distraction. Another theory has it that the Democratic leaders prefer keeping Bush and Cheney around as constant reminders of Republican incompetence, arrogance and sleaze.

Leaders of Iraqi LGBT report that fundamentalist Shia militias in Iraq are tracking down and killing gay people.

Apparently life for Iraqi gays was better under a brutal secular dictator than it is today with armed rightwing religious fanatics roaming the streets.

The group’s founder, Ali Hili, says two Iraqi LGBT members were killed inside a safe house they operated in Najaf earlier this year. A young boy the two women had rescued from the sex industry was also murdered.

Iraqi LGBT has been operating five safe houses for gay people but says it has closed three of them due to lack of funding. Now the lives of the people forced out of the shelters are in danger,say Ali Hili:

Over 30 gay residents who we cared for in these three safe houses now have to take their chances in a country where religious militia regularly seek out gays and execute them. We feel deserted by the international gay community. Few people seem to care about our fate,

One member of the group said,”Nowadays, we don’t dare be seen in the neighbourhoods where we used to live. It is too dangerous for anyone known to be gay or to have had a homosexual past.”

Interestingly, Ali Hili blames the U.S. and British invasion and occupation for setting loose the homophobic killing spree:

Their armies invaded and occupied our land, destroyed the infrastructure of government, and created the chaos and lawlessness that has allowed religious fundamentalism to flourish and to terrorise woman and gay people.

Violence against gays has intensified sharply since late 2005, when Iraq’s leading Shiite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, issued a fatwa, or religious decree, which declared that gays and lesbians should be ‘killed in the worst, most severe way possible’.

Since then, LGBT people have been specifically targeted by the Madhi Army, the militia of fundamentalist Shia cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, as well as by the Badr organisation and other Shia death squads. Badr is the military arm of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which is one of the leading political forces in Baghdad’s

Apparently life for Iraqi gays was better under a brutal secular dictator than it is today with armed rightwing religious fanatics roaming the streets.

For information on making a donation to keep the safe houses open, visit the Iraqi LGBT website.