One wonders who authorized the investigation, but that will have to wait until January 22, 2009.
Category: Sex
Oh Crap! I Agree With The Corner on National Review Online
Specifically, I agree with David Freddoso when he says that a call to return Spitzer donations is patently absurd.
His money is neither the product of illegality, nor is is an attempt to buy access for an illegal or unsavory cause.
His quote at the end is prize:
If their PR pain threshold is low enough, then I suppose the candidates will return the money or give it to charity (perhaps to battered women’s shelters or something). But I’d actually admire any one of them who has the courage to keep the money and say:
“Well, at least this $2,300 won’t be spent on a whore!”
Then again, that may not be entirely accurate. It is being spent on candidates for Congress…
Amusing.
Thoughts on Spitzer
First, the definitive post on this matter is from Some Guy with a Website. I won’t quote it here, it’s about 4 paras long, but if you removed the F-bombs and the word “stupid”, it would be one sentence.
According to TPM, it appears that Spitzer was not caught as the result of an investigation of the Emperor’s club escort service, but that the Emperor’s club was caught as a result of an investigation of Spitzer.
It appears that Spitzer had a large number of cash withdrawals from his bank account that were not much less than the $10,000 level which would require notification under the law, and so the bank reported possible “structuring”, of the use of smaller transactions to obscure a larger one.
This is a red flag for things like bribery, so the US Attorney’s public integrity division looked into it, and in following the case, determined that there was no bribery, but that he was paying prostitutes.
I do believe that Spitzer will resign, but not until he has cut a deal, which makes sense. If he were to resign now, he would see a no holds barred felony prosecution by the corrupt politicized Bush DoJ with the goal of putting him in jail for decades.
His resignation would be ceding a major bargaining chip to the prosecution. As a former NY State AG, he knows this.
As to the possible prosecution under the Mann Act, it isn’t going to happen when the principals were both consenting, though it may be used as a lever by the prosecution.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot??? Elliot Spitzer Linked to Prostitution Ring?
OK, this is not the sort of thing that I was expecting from Elliot Spitzer. He has, “been caught on a federal wiretap arranging to meet with a high-priced prostitute at a Washington hotel last month.”
I’ve noticed that he has some problems with overreach and arrogance, but this is a shock to me.
I’m not sure where it goes from here, though I am sure that any sympathy one feels should be reserved for his wife, Silda and his three children.
Yes, any Republicans reading this, Schadenfreude is normal, and probably justified at this point, though obviously I’m not feeling this at this point.
And yes, the phrase, “Shanda before the Goyim” does dome to mind here.
Schadenfreude: Now I Have to Clean My Screen
Posted without comment:
Attention, Parents: Larry Craig is Seeking Interns – The Sleuth
(go to the link and read the reader comments though)
In 2000, McCain Aides Felt Compelled to to Build Human Shield Around His Penis
The New York Times has just broken a story on a possible inappropriate relationship between John McCain and a young attractive lobbyist, Vicki Iseman*.
Early in Senator John McCain’s first run for the White House eight years ago, waves of anxiety swept through his small circle of advisers.
A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, visiting his offices and accompanying him on a client’s corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructing staff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity.
When news organizations reported that Mr. McCain had written letters to government regulators on behalf of the lobbyist’s client, the former campaign associates said, some aides feared for a time that attention would fall on her involvement.
There is no specific allegation of any sort of physical or romantic relationship, but his aides were concerned enough about this that someone had a serious talk to him, and they prevented further contact between McCain and Iseman, forming a sort of a human shield.
Let’s be clear, it’s entirely possible that they never did anything physical. What’s more it could be possible that they never expressed to each other, or to anyone else any romantic feelings.
To put it in a military perspective, fraternization between an Officer and an Enlisted man does not have to involve romance. A BFF (Best Friends Forever) relationship is inappropriate within a chain of command.
That being said, given his involvement with con artist Charles Keating and his role as one of the Keating 5, where he was “just doing favors for a friend”, it is remarkably intemperate. It was insanely reckless.
John McCain has has a reputation for outbursts and instability, and it calls his judgment into question.
To quote a friend of his:
“He is essentially an honorable person,” said William P. Cheshire, a friend of Mr. McCain who as editorial page editor of The Arizona Republic defended him during the Keating Five scandal. “But he can be imprudent.”
This at best brings his judgment, his common sense, and his commitment to really changing things in Washington into question.
The issue is not whether he had sex with that woman. It is why he forged such a close relationship with a lobbyist, and did favors for her after having experienced what he himself calls his catharsis in the Keating matter.
To put it bluntly at best is he reckless, and is he nuts.
*Well, young to me. She’s 40 and I’m 45.
Senate Ethics Panel Admonishes Larry Craig
If someone could set the letter of admonishment to music, preferably something with a nice foot-tapping beat, I’d love to hear it.
Wanker of The Day: Northwestern U’s Coordinator of Violence Prevention and Sexual Health Education
Here is the cartoon:
It’s pretty straightforward. It’s a call for promiscuity, something I whole heartedly approve of, unless it’s MY daughter.
Unfortunately, you have Northwestern’s Coordinator of Violence Prevention and Sexual Health Education not getting the fact that sex and rape are different things, and so she conflates them.
Cartoon sexist, offensive
In The Daily on Friday, Jan. 25, a Drawing Board illustration was published depicting an angry stick figure and the message “I like my women like I like my cell phone minutes: Unlimited on nights and weekends.” Directly opposite this image were two Daily articles about the highly publicized sexual assault of an NU student that occurred near campus in May of 2007.
These two items juxtaposed in our student newspaper speak volumes about the culture here at NU. Whether or not the cartoon was created in an attempt to parody the attitude expressed in the quote, the illustration calls into question a set of beliefs about women and sex that research has shown to contribute to the alarmingly regular occurrence of sexual assault on college campuses.
Sexual assaults happen because the sexual aggressor believes that he is entitled to a woman’s body and pursues sexual activity without care or concern about the wishes of the victim. Attitudes like the one expressed in the cartoon reflect and contribute to a cultural climate where women’s value is based on their ability to sexually gratify men. When women are devalued in this manner and sexual relationships between men and women are viewed as adversarial, sexual violence against women is the natural extreme on a continuum of sexually aggressive and exploitative behaviors. In such a climate, the belief that women should be “unlimited” (and the assumption that they are) takes away an individual’s ability to give consent to sexual activity.
Most men who commit rape do not define their behavior as assault and are therefore able to justify their actions to themselves and others. Perpetrators of sexual assault are products of a culture that encourages them to view women as sexual objects and to believe that they are entitled to unlimited sexual access to women.
The belief that the majority of sexual assaults are committed by strangers in dark alleys is a misconception. Perpetrators of sexual assault are not mentally ill or psychotic, as the myths suggest, but rather they are “normal” men on your campus who hold beliefs about women and sex identical to those expressed in the Daily cartoon.
While the cartoon was most likely created in good humor, it is critical to make the connection between this humor and the set of beliefs that perpetuates and justifies sexual assault. We can all play a role in changing the culture at NU by thinking critically about the messages we receive and striving to challenge those that support and condone sexual violence.
– Kathryn Guilfoyle
Coordinator of Violence Prevention and Sexual Health Education
NU Health Education Department
The problem here is a simple one, and it not that the cartoon is crass, and perhaps a bit tasteless.
There is no call for violence. There is no implication of violence. There is a call for promiscuity.
There is a problem however, and that is when a “Coordinator of Violence Prevention” because of a need to justify the existence of such a position.
She is paid to be humorless and easily offended….Come to think of it, perhaps she needs a raise.
In conflating the desire with promiscuity with violence, Ms. Guilfoyle diminishes real, and ongoing threats of sexual violence.
She makes rape becomes about how humorless people find any reference to sex a call for rape, rather than being about the real, and more common than we would like to think, of sexual violence in our society.
What’s with George W. Bush and Bald Guys????
President Bush, shown greeting Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.) just before his State of the Union address, made eliminating lawmakers’ pet projects, or earmarks, the center of the domestic agenda he laid out in the speech. The executive order cracking down on earmarks, however, would not go into force until fiscal 2009. (By Rich Lipski — The Washington Post)
Does this explain Jeff Gannon?
Seriously. One of the questions of the Jeff Gannon/Jim Guckert “man whore in the White House” thing is who was he doing.
Bush seems to have a thing for bald guys…Like Mr. Guckert.
The scuttlebutt (pun not intended) was that it was Rove, but maybe it was someone in a higher position.
And now I need this:
It’s not a revulsion about gay sex. It’s revulsion about Bush sex.
Taking Tips in Africa
Well, after many years, two studies have shown that circumcision reduces AIDS transmission by about 60%. There has been anecdotal data for years.
This answers a question I’ve always had, why is the US AIDS rate relatively low when the US public health infrastructure sucks, and you have Talibaptists everywhere campaigning against condoms?
The answer is dumb luck. Through historical accident, the US probably has the highest circumcision rate this side of Israel (Moslems do it too).
Unfortunately, studying wasn’t enough. It wasn’t until last March, when the National Institutes of Health stopped the African circumcision trials—it was no longer ethical to continue them, because circumcision was clearly beneficial—that the World Health Organization and other agencies did an about-face.
And In the “Real America”
Daniel Dean Thompson, a man at the heart of the effort to strip out profanity from PG-143 and R rated DVDs, has been arrested for paying 14-year-olds for sexual favors.
Once again confirming that the blue nose brigades are driven by their own personal demons more than anything else.
In God We Tryst
Hmmm…..An 80 year old megachurch leader has been charged with perjury as a result of a sex scandal.
80 years old? I had no idea that the psalms were so “uplifting”.
An 80-year-old leader of a suburban megachurch who is at the center of a sex scandal has been charged with lying under oath for saying he had sex outside marriage with only one other woman, court documents show.
A warrant for the arrest of Archbishop Earl Paulk, co-founder of Cathedral of the Holy Spirit at Chapel Hill Harvester Church, was issued Monday, according to court documents. …
Former church employee Mona Brewer is suing Paulk, his brother and the church on allegations that Paulk manipulated her into an affair from 1989 to 2003 by telling her it was her only path to salvation. In a 2006 deposition stemming from the lawsuit, the archbishop said under oath that the only woman he had ever had sex with outside of his marriage was Brewer.
But the results of a court-ordered paternity test revealed in October that Paulk is the biological father of his brother’s son, D.E. Paulk, who is now head pastor at the church. As part of Brewer’s lawsuit, eight women have given sworn depositions that they were coerced into sexual relationships with Earl Paulk.
I get the sense that super-sizing your church has much the same effect on one’s spiritual fitness as super-sizing one’s fast food does on one’s physical fitness.
Senate Aide Arrested for Soliciting Sex From a Minor
Let’s be clear…Unlike Craig or Vitter, this is a real crime with real victims, and Cantwell has fired him.
It’s good that he is off the streets.
Schadenfreude: Mo Larry Craig Edition
More gay men describe sexual encounters with U.S. Sen. Craig.
Four men have been willing to go on the record.
I’m sure that Larry Craig does not believe that he is gay….In fact, if you hooked him up to a polygraph, it would probably show truth, but he is gay, and he has sex with other men.
I cannot understand how someone can do this. It is a denial of ones core self.
The closet is an awful place.
Giuliani Used City Money for Visits to Then Mistress, Judith Nathan
What’s more, he also cooked the books to conceal this:
The documents, obtained by Politico under New York’s Freedom of Information Law, show that the mayoral costs had nothing to do with the functions of the little-known city offices that defrayed his tabs, including agencies responsible for regulating loft apartments, aiding the disabled and providing lawyers for indigent defendants.
But wait, there’s more, he also provided a police driver and city car for his chippie.
In a world of real journalism, this would be the lead story for the next week…In Rupert Murdoch’s America??? Page 12.
Georgia’s Sex Offender Housing Laws Overturned
This law basically amounted to exile from the state, as it prohibited “registered sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of schools, churches and other areas where children congregate”, and the Georgia supreme court has ruled it unconstitutional.
There were a number of problems with the law:
- It applied to all sex offenders, so people who were no threat to children, like indecent exposure, public sex or lewdness (like Larry Craig), etc. were covered.
- It covered 150,000 school bus stops in the state, making it’s coverage too broad.
- As the court noted, offenders obeying the law, “face the possibility of being repeatedly uprooted and forced to abandon homes.”
Honestly, it’s not like pedophiles can’t drive. I understand that the case that brought this on was a sex offender that was living near a day care center and re-offended, but this should be handled through the corrections process, such as longer sentences, and probation conditions.
Schadenfreude, It’s All David Vitter, All the Time
The rumors were something involving him in diapers.
Vote Democratic….Our perverts are far less disturbing.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot???
Some knuckle dragging Neanderthal prosecutor inColumbia County, Wisconson has seen fit to have a Woman prosecuted for talking about sex with her children in a frank and open manner.
Un-dirtyword-believable. It appears that the mother described her own sexual history, which might make the kids uncomfortable, but is well within the bounds of parental prerogative.
Rudy Licked Pornography…Won’t That Make the Pages Stick Together
Quote of the day: Touting his accomplishments as mayor Tuesday while on the campaign trail in New Hampshire, Giuliani crowed, ‘I took a city that was known for pornography and licked it to a large extent, so I have my own set of qualifications.’
Rudolph Guiliani: Smut licker.
No Health Insurance? Ten Years in Jail For You!
This woman is going to jail for 10 Years.
Her name is Tiffany Sutton, and she is just 24 years old, basically a kid, and a troubled one at that, and she is going to jail because she ran out of mental health coverage.
The newspaper misses the point and goes with the sensational headline, Woman sentenced in blood-drinking sex case. (Yes, I know that it is a great hed, but still)
Here are the details you really need to know:
Houck [Suttons’s attorney] submitted a memo to the court stating that Sutton suffered physical and sexual abuse from ages 3 to 13, and she has had mental health problems since she was 14.
Sutton improved with mental health counseling and medication up until her insurance ended six months before her February arrests, Houck wrote.
According to prison health records, Sutton thought she was a vampire for the first several weeks she was in jail, Houck wrote.
No health insurance coverage for her meds, so she self medicates, and she and while drunk and stoned, convinces her 46-year old consort to let her tie him up, and then cuts him and tries to drink his blood.
Does it sound like she was in her right mind????
The judge, one David Udall*, decides that the solution is to sentence her to TEN YEARS IN PRISON.
This woman needs help, and she will not get it under the tender confinement of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
*Anyone know if he is related to the late Congressman Morris or his son Congressman Mark Udall?