Year: 2007

Celebrate Bush’s Birthday in Your Own Special Way

Trish

We at Pensito Review would be remiss if we let the whole day go by without wishing the Current Occupant, our very own Preznit Bush, a happy birthday!

The asshole of the world turns 61 today, while more than 3,500 American service members and likely hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians will never have another birthday again.

We’d get him a gift, but we could never top the one bestowed on him by a passing bird during a recent rose garden press conference.

Leave a comment and let us know what gift you’d like to give Dumya today to show him how much you hope he enjoys his special day.

Fort Lauderdale Mayor Proposes Spending Millions to Eliminate Gay Sex at the Beach

Buck Banks

Watch out, George Michael: Jim Naugle, the mayor of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., has proposed buying $250,000 high-tech toilets to prevent “illegal sex” acts from being performed in public restrooms at the city’s beaches. Apparently the doors of the toilets open after a set time period, thereby making the robotic contraption — which also plays music and automatically cleans the seat — a sub-optimal venue for illicit sex.

Naugle sure doesn’t put a polite spin on it:

I don’t use the word ‘gay.’ I use the word ‘homosexual.’ Most of them aren’t gay. They’re unhappy.
— Mayor Jim Naugle

“We’re trying to provide a family environment where people can take their children who need to use the bathroom,” he said, “without having to worry about a couple of men in there engaged in a sex act.”

Though police say sex in restrooms is no longer a hot crime, the mayor thinks it is. He talked about the illicit sex recently in public meetings, in an interview and in e-mails to residents.

Naugle, not a stranger to public controversy, particularly on the issue of gays, said public restrooms are pickup places for “homosexuals. … They’re engaging in sex, anonymous sex, illegal sex.”

The proposed location for the city’s experimental automated toilet is the parking lot at Sebastian Street, at what many locals call the “gay beach.” Naugle told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel that the intelligent commode’s security features are vital at this location, which he called “the rainbow parking lot.”

“The homosexual newspaper said it’s the ‘gay parking lot.’ That’s not me saying that,” Naugle said in the interview, “that’s what they said. I don’t use the word ‘gay.’ I use the word ‘homosexual.’ Most of them aren’t gay. They’re unhappy.”

Naugle, a what else — conservative Christian — has made a name for himself in South Florida for his no-holds-barred, no-brain-engaged comments.

For instance, he refused to sign a mayors’ pact on greenhouse gas reductions, claiming it was put forward by environmentalist “whackos” who hate America. He also made the insightful if illogical comment that home prices in South Florida would be lower if middle class people would stop sitting on the couch drinking beer and get to work. When a religious festival came to town, Naugle said those who opposed the city supporting a Christian event could just “go to Iraq.”

Of course, the local gay community weighed in on Naugle’s comments. Well, “weighed in” is, I suppose, a relative term:

“Excuse me?” said Marc Hansen, a leader among local gay residents. “Thank God this is his last term.”

Snappy comeback, Marc!

Tune in Live Earth 7/7/07

Trish

Take a break from whatever you’re doing tomorrow and check out Live Earth, the international music event to combat global warming.

Live Earth is a 24-hour, 7-continent concert series taking place on 7/7/07 that will bring together more than 100 music artists and 2 billion people to trigger a global movement to solve the climate crisis.

Live Earth will reach this worldwide audience through an unprecedented global media architecture covering all media platforms – TV, radio, Internet and wireless channels…

Live Earth was founded by Kevin Wall, the Worldwide Executive Producer of Live 8, an event that brought together one of the largest audiences in history to combat poverty. Wall formed a partnership with Al Gore and the Alliance for Climate Protection to ensure that Live Earth inspires behavioral changes long after 7/7/07.

Live Earth will stage official concerts at Giants Stadium in New York; Wembley Stadium in London; Aussie Stadium in Sydney; Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro; the Coca-Cola Dome in Johannesburg; Makuhari Messe in Tokyo; the Oriental Pearl Tower in Shanghai; and HSH Nordbank Arena in Hamburg.

Live Earth concerts will be broadcast to a live worldwide audience by MSN at www.LiveEarth.MSN.com.

The newest artist to be added to the list of performers is Yusuf, formerly known as Cat Stevens.

Victor Rita Case Makes Libby’s Commutation Look Suspicious

Jon Ponder

It’s hard to imagine a more apt and revealing counterpoint to Scooter Libby’s criminal case than the case of Victor Rita, a North Carolina vet who was accused by the feds of lying under oath, twice, about buying an illegal machine gun.

Both Rita and Libby were convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice in federal cases. Both were sentenced to around 30 months in jail. Both sentences were appealed, and Bush officials at the highest levels were involved in the appeals as they played themselves out this year.

In their appeals, both Rita and Libby sought leniency based on their records of public service and current circumstances. Victor Rita served in the Marine Corps for 25 years, including tours of duty in Vietnam and Gulf War I. He is now advanced in age and in failing health. As a result of his crimes, he has been wiped out financially.

Pres. George Bush described Scooter Libby’s career in public service as “exceptional,” but a review of Libby’s bio reveals him to be a neocon bureaucrat who held a series of political positions in Republican administrations before moving up to the Cheney-Bush White House — where he was either a witness or a participant in skullduggery and shenanigans the half of which we don’t yet know. Otherwise, Libby is in his late 50s, appears to be in excellent health, and was able to pay his $250,000 fine out of his checking account, probably with the help of a defense fund set up by powerful Republicans friends like Fred Thompson and Mary Matalan.

Earlier this year the appeals by Rita and Libby both took dramatic turns, at which point the similarities between the two cases came to an abrupt end.

Rita’s moment came when his appeal was heard before the Supreme Court. Contrary to earlier accounts, the hearing was not in 2006. It was five months ago, on Feb. 20, 2007. And the Bush administration’s participation was not merely as a “friend of the court,” as it has been described. The government was a party, the respondent, in the appeal.

At the Supreme Court, Bush’s solicitor general, Paul Clement, argued for upholding Rita’s sentence, describing it as reasonable — a position very much in line with the administration’s tough stance on sentencing.

On June 21, the court issued its ruling, siding with the administration. Rita’s appeal was denied.

Less than two weeks later, on July 3, Pres. Bush commuted Libby’s 30-month sentence, calling it, without a trace of irony, “excessive.”

What Rita so aptly reveals is that the president’s stated reasons for commuting Libby’s sentence — the harshness of the sentence and Libby’s exceptional public service — were bogus. We can only speculate about his real motives, and it is too soon to know whether the commutation will turn out to be a political blunder of the first order or a criminal act, or both or neither.

But there appears to be blood in the water. The Bushies are out in force trying to change the storyline by slamming the Wilsons and desperately downplaying the seriousness of Libby’s crimes. (On Hardball yesterday, David Rivkin, trotted out the thoroughly debunked claim that Valerie Wilson was not covert.) They are desperate to deflect attention from the particulars of Libby’s crimes — that he was convicted of lying to a federal grand jury and the FBI and obstructing an investigation into a conspiracy at the top of the administration to out a CIA specialist in weapons of mass destruction.

This obfuscation may work as well this time as it has from the beginning. On the other hand, while average Americans found the CIA leak scandal to be boring or confusing or too inside-the-Beltway, they totally get a powerful man buying off a witness who knows where all his bodies are buried.

Hate Crime Victim Ryan Skipper’s Rep, Tom Feeney: No Need for Hate Crime Bill

Trish
Let the party begin! Rep. Tom Feeney rings the bell opening the American Stock Exchange.

This just in from Vicki Nantz, an independent film maker planning a documentary on Ryan Skipper, whose March murder in Central Florida is being investigated as a hate crime.

I recently wrote U.S. House Representative, Tom Feeney, Republican of Central Florida, and asked him why he does not support federal hate crime legislation that includes the gay and lesbian community. Why are acts of brutality, physical assaults and murder, which are meant to intimidate and terrorize the LGBT community, not included in our current, or likely-to-be-passed federal hate crime laws – the legislation that President Bush has promised to veto. I received written correspondence yesterday from Feeney that included the following:

…”I do not support specialized punishment for particular mentalities. This idea singles out groups for special treatment…When someone is murdered because the killer does not like the color of their skin, that killer deserves harsh punishment; but the killer deserves it because the victim is a human, not because of the killer’s hateful thoughts…Justice ultimately ought to be based on the fundamental worth of a human being and not the thoughts of the specific criminal…I hope in the near future crime legislation can be voted on that protects all equally and punishes the offender for the crime committed and not the thoughts in his mind.”

And yet Feeney and the other overwhelmingly Republican, antigay hypocrites like him have voted in support of federal legislation that does punish people for the thoughts in their minds. The following is part of the U.S. Code, federal law currently being followed in this country:

TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 113B

CHAPTER 113B—TERRORISM

(1) the term “international terrorism” means activities that—

(A) involve violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State, or that would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or of any State;

(B) appear to be intended—

(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;

(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or

(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and…

(5) the term “domestic terrorism” means activities that—

(A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State;

(B) appear to be intended—

(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;

(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or

(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping…

Clearly, hypocritical Representative Feeney, President Bush and the American religious extremists who decry inclusive hate crime legislation as being “thought crime” legislation reveal much behind their own selective, hate-filled thoughts. It is that same base thinking that led to the murders of Matthew Shephard and Ryan Skipper, and the dozens more LGBT murders and innumerable of acts of brutal violence that most people have never bothered to know about.

Use your voice. Use your votes.

Thanks Vicki. We agree with everything you said and find it particularly upsetting that Ryan’s own representatives, and those of his family and friends, can’t see the need for hate crime legislation.

But Tom Feeney’s words mean nothing. Feeney was among a group of fellow members of Congress investigated by the FBI because they were known by jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff to be for sale.

Feeney, former speaker of the Florida House, is one of three men who were U.S. House members when they accompanied Abramoff to Scotland on trips that included rounds of golf at the legendary Royal & Ancient Golf Club at St. Andrews.

The others: former Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, who is serving prison time for corruption related to his Abramoff relationship, and former House Republican leader Tom DeLay, who was indicted in an unrelated Texas fundraising case and is under investigation in the Abramoff case.

The Anti-Hillary: GOP’s Kay Bailey Hutchison for VP

Trish
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison

No one is suggesting any variation in the all-male, all-white GOP presidential pool, but a new idea has sprung up to reassure Repubs they have a chance in 2008. It’s simple. Just trot out Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (Tex-R) for vice president!

Republicans must win Texas if they have the slightest hope of keeping the White House.

Next, consider current polls. They suggest that New York Sen. Hillary Clinton may well be the Democratic nominee for president…

Presenting a softer side to the GOP ticket might be the remaining chance the party has to harvest a significant number of women voters, particularly against Clinton.

Hutchison’s “softer side” includes support for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge after receiving more contributions from big oil and gas than anyone in Congress, overturning a ban on handguns in the nation’s capital, and receiving a rating of zero from the League of Women Voters for her environmental record.

On the other hand, she is a leading critic of immigration reform, and wanted to go Bush one better with her “No Amnesty Amendment.” Although defeated, it would have forced those trying to become citizens to leave the country for at least two years before applying. This last move has red meat Republicans sniffing a winner. All I smell is the same old Texas cow pies.

Bush Filed a Motion Last Year to Uphold the 33-Month Sentence of Victor Rita, a 24-Year Marine Corps Vet Convicted on Same Crimes as Libby

Jon Ponder

Last month, the Supreme Court agreed with the Bush Justice Dept., ruling against Rita’s appeal for a reduced sentence based his exemplary military service.

Sen. Joe Biden:

Tony Snow said that President Bush decided to commute Scooter Libby’s two and a half year-prison sentence for perjury and obstruction of justice, because it was “excessive.”

Yet last year the Bush Administration filed a “friend-of-the-court brief” with the Supreme Court, in an attempt to uphold a lower court’s ruling that a 33-month prison sentence for Victor Rita, who was convicted of the same exact charges, perjury and obstruction of justice, was “reasonable.”

Pres. Bush cited Libby’s “years of exceptional public service” in commuting his prison sentence. But Libby is the classic Bushie chickenhawk — a neocon bureaucrat with no service record whose fingerprints are all over the worst military planning in American history.

Conversely, Victor Rita is the real deal:

Victor Rita is a very sympathetic defendant: he served 24 years in the Marine Corps, had tours of duty in Vietnam and the first Gulf war, and has received over 35 military metals and awards. Also, he is an elderly gentleman who suffers serious health problems.

The Supreme Court ruled on the case last month:

The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that criminal sentences within guidelines set by a federal commission are generally entitled to be upheld on appeal, a decision that limits legal options for defendants who feel that they have been punished too harshly.

By a vote of 8 to 1, the court held that, even though it recently ruled that the sentencing ranges set by the U.S. Sentencing Commission are no longer mandatory, judges who follow them may be presumed to have acted reasonably…

The case that the court decided yesterday, Rita v. United States, No. 06-5754, was meant to help define “advisory.”

Victor Rita, convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice, asked for a lighter sentence based in part on his past military service. But the judge gave him 33 months, as suggested by the guidelines. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, based in Richmond, upheld the sentence, saying that penalties within the guidelines are “presumptively reasonable.”

It is customary in the pardoning process for the president to contact the Justice Dept. for input. But the White House is adamant that Bush did not speak to anyone at Justice about the Libby pardon. If he had run it past them, it’s possible he could have avoided what appears to be a spectacular blunder.

Bush Turns Americans Against Flying the Flag

Trish

There’s a way to see how America feels about itself without opinion polls: Count how many flags fly on the 4th of July.

“When people are feeling better about the country they buy more flags. It was like this during the Nixon years.”

After decades in the flag business, Randolph Smith, president of Chicago-based Advertising Flag Co. Inc., said he has seen interest in the flag ebb and flow, according to the general sentiment people have about the country’s direction.

Immediately following the 9-11 attacks, for example, U.S. flag sales accounted for 25 percent of his business. Today, it’s about 16 to 18 percent and has been declining since 2003, he said.

“When people are feeling better about the country they buy more flags,” Smith said. “It was like this during the Nixon years. It wasn’t our bread and butter then either.”

Kimberly Sklarz, corporate secretary for Bartlett, Ill.-based FlagsUSA, said the run-up to the July 4 holiday, normally a busy time, has been particularly slow this year. The company’s U.S. flag sales were down 49 percent in June over the same period last year.

“It is a very sad time right now. We are just kind of baffled by how things are going and all because of the war,” Sklarz said. “We expected it to make some kind of effect on the company, but it is getting pretty bad.”

A quick check of my own home shows…no flag. On the 4th of July, 2002, one was out there. But too many speeches by Bush and Rumsfeld and Cheney about the United States and Iraq and democracy and terror and liberty and secret prisons and going it alone and the way forward and surges and sacrifice that costs them nothing but costs others everything and support for people who betray America have left me feeling like most former flag-fliers: over it.

Mitt’s Heartfelt Convictions Do Another Flip-Flop; Now He Supports Pardons

Trish

If, like most Democrats, you weren’t born with the defective gene that causes the brain to short-circuit and allows the mouth to lie and spew hypocrisy even while the vocal tones and facial expression exhibit assertions of extreme sanctimony, you might not appreciate Mitt Romney’s interpretation of the Bush/Libby commutation.

Presidential candidate Mitt Romney…yesterday called President Bush’s commutation of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s prison sentence “reasonable.”

Romney often proudly points out that he was the first governor in modern Massachusetts history to deny every request for a pardon or commutation during his four years in office.

Defending Bush, Romney, a Republican, said at a campaign stop that “the president looked very carefully at the setting” before deciding to commute the 2 1/2-year sentence given the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney in the CIA leak case…

As governor, Romney twice rejected a pardon for Anthony Circosta, who at 13 was convicted of assault for shooting a boy in the arm with a BB gun — a shot that didn’t break the skin. Circosta worked his way through college, joined the Army National Guard, and led a platoon of 20 soldiers in Iraq’s deadly Sunni triangle.

In 2005, as he was serving in Iraq, he sought a pardon so he could to fulfill his dream of becoming a police officer.

In his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, Romney often proudly points out that he was the first governor in modern Massachusetts history to deny every request for a pardon or commutation during his four years in office.