Posted by David Warner on Jul. 2, 2009, at 5:26 pm
In a case that suggests the potentially dangerous consequences of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, a gay sailor was found murdered on his base, Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, California, early Tuesday morning. He had recently complained to family members that he was being harassed.
The sailor, August Provost, kept his private life quiet for the most part, but trusted that his friends knew, according to an interview with his partner in the San Diego Union-Tribune. His family had encouraged him to report the harassment to a supervisor. It’s not clear whether he did, or whether he even could have; admitting that he’d been harassed could have led to admission that he was gay, which is grounds for dismissal from the Navy. In an online article for San Diego’s Gay and Lesbian Times, the chair of the San Diego Human Relations Commission, openly gay City Commissioner Nicole Murray-Ramirez (pictured right), refers to sources on the base that say the harassment was in fact gay-related and that Provost had been facing a possible discharge based on his sexual orientation.
Murray-Ramirez says there was a long delay between the murder and public release of information, noting that U.S. Congressman Bob Filner was on the base Tuesday and was not informed of the murder. The Human Relations Commission is calling for an investigation into whether this was a hate crime. Meanwhile, a “person of interest” is being held in custody. Read the full text of the Union-Tribune story after the break. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by David Warner on Jul. 2, 2009, at 3:54 pm
Florida, of course!
But not Disney World — he’s been living in Fantasyland for too long already. No, the Palm Beach Post reports that he will be joining his wife tomorrow, no doubt with tail between legs, at her family’s place in a gated community called Loblolly Bay in Hobe Sound.
And you were dreading your family’s July 4th get-together. Who needs fireworks?
You may not have even known it was happening, but “Rapprochement With Cuba: Good For Tampa Bay, Good For Florida, Good For America,” a conference sponsored by the Alliance for Responsible Cuba Policy Foundation and held Saturday at the Italian Club in Ybor City, was, by its very existence, a milestone in repairing the tattered relationship between Tampa and Cuba.
About 150 guests, panelists, professors and local politicians filled the grand, neo-classical Italian Club, once the social, cultural and political epicenter of Tampa’s Italian community. Whether the speeches, panel discussions, and networking sessions will really accomplish much toward ending the 50-year-old U.S. embargo, no one is really sure. However, to get a sense of where the Cuba barometer is pointing, you could start with the venue itself.
In 1955, a young, verbose Fidel Castro arrived in Ybor City. This was no accident, no anomaly. In fact, it made perfect sense. Castro, in a bid to gain popular support for his uprising against CIA-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista, he followed — literally — in the footsteps of an earlier young, charismatic Cuban revolutionary, Jose Marti. Read the rest of this entry »
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the declared winner of the Iranian election last week, has told Obama to stop interfering with Iran’s affairs. According to Ahmadinejad:
We don’t expect much from British government and other European governments whose records and background are known for everybody and have no dignity but I wonder why Mr. Obama who has come with the slogan of change has fallen into the trap and taken the same route that Bush took and experienced its consequences.
After the jump is a video of Ahmadinejad asking Obama to stop “interfering” and express “regret.”
Posted by Dan Sullivan on Jun. 25, 2009, at 11:00 am
The most dangerous predator on the Appalachian Trail: The Argentinian cougar
By Dan Sullivan PoHo contributor
I love a good political scandal. There’s just something about the revelation that those we elect to office are regular human beings - susceptible to all the same temptations and lapses in judgment as the rest of us.
It’s not so much fun to read about Republicans breaking their word and compromising their good morals. Especially rising stars such as South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford.
Hooray for Florida’s very own Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen! On Wednesday, along with a bipartisan coalition of 100 House members led by Rep. Barney Frank, she introduced a revised (read: trans inclusive) version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). When passed, ENDA will extend existing Federal protections against employment discrimination to also protect gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.
A version of ENDA that did not include protections for transgender people passed the house in 2007 but died in the Senate. In a recent interview with the Washington Blade, Frank was cautiously hopeful about the bill’s prospects in 2009: “Things have gotten better. The transgender community is lobbying hard. I just need to remind people that when we have trouble doing something in New York, Maryland and Massachusetts, it doesn’t get easier when you have South Carolina, Utah and Nebraska.”
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jun. 24, 2009, at 2:13 pm
Love this story. Just love this story.
Soon-to-be-former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford first came up missing, then his staff explained that he was hiking alone on the Appalachian Trail, then earlier today came word she was cruising off the coast of Argentina. Now, the truth.
Yes, it’s another woman.
From CNN:
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford admitted Wednesday, amid speculation over his whereabouts for the last several days, that he has been engaged in an extramarital affair with an Argentinian woman.
“I’ve been unfaithful to my wife,” Sanford told a news conference in Columbia, the state capital. “I developed a relationship with what started as a dear, dear friend from Argentina.”
His voice choking at times, Sanford apologized to his wife and four sons, his staff and supporters, and said he would resign immediately as head of the Republican Governors Association. The affair was discovered five months ago, Sanford said.
Watch the video of his admission from a live news conference after the jump:
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jun. 24, 2009, at 9:14 am
For decades, Tampa has faced a conundrum; every day tens of milions of gallons of treated wastewater is dumped into Tampa Bay, wasted in a word. In St. Petersburg, treated wastewater is used for residential lawn watering, thanks to the foresightful construction of special water lines in neighborhoods. But Tampa’s attempts to re-use its wastewater hasn’t met with the same success.
So now the Tampa City Council wants to skip the whole lawn watering step and move right to drinking the highly treated sewer water. It voted yesterday to ask voters in a 2010 referendum if they want to build a system to deliver the potty product back to their drinking faucets.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jun. 18, 2009, at 11:03 am
aac_tampa_sulhurspringsholiday.jpg
Sulphur Springs Christmas Holiday
Tampa is competing in the National Civic League ’s 2009 All-America City Awards conference today, and judging of the various communities’ projects has already started. Tampa’s presentation featured a booming entrance, with the Middleton High School drum line, and civic activists and city employees side-by-side talking about their three projects.Tampa will find out tomorrow night at about 7 p.m. if it gets the title and the bragging rights that goes with it.
Here are the details, as summarized in the AAC conference program:
Tampa, Florida
Economic Development in East Tampa As one of the older developed areas of the city, East Tampa declined during the 1960’s and 70’s period of Urban Development. In 2003, Tampa Mayor Iorio announced that one of her strategic initiatives would be the transformation of East Tampa to a community with flourishing recreational, social and culture activities. The City of Tampa staff focused on the assets of East Tampa with the idea of creating a model to use in other challenged areas of Tampa, reaching out to the residents and challenging them to create a vision for their neighborhood. The residents collaborated with the government, schools, universities, churches, sports organizations, businesses, and non-profit organizations. Responding to resident participation, the City of Tampa launched an aggressive campaign called Operation Commitment. The goals included rooting out crime, prostitution, drugs and code violations. At the same time, the City of Tampa created the East Tampa Development Division to focus exclusively on the economic and civic revitalization of the area. In doing so, it took the important step of designating East Tampa as a Community Redevelopment Area (CRA) eligible for Tax Increment Financing (TIF). To date, over $21 million dollars has been generated providing the necessary financial resources to upgrade aging infrastructure, resurface streets, add sidewalks and make corridor beautifications.
[Shown in the photo gallery above are the new Fair Oaks Park renovations and the Cyrus Green Pool]
Experts and analysts were prepared for a close election between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and challenger Mir-Hossein Mousavi. That didn’t happen; Ahmadinejad won by a landslide, 2 to 1.
Civil unrest has ensued. On Saturday, disappointed and suspicious demonstrators took to the streets. Those protests, supporters of Mousavi, were countered the next day with pro-Ahmadinejad rallies. Divide is growing and Khamenei is now calling for an investigation hoping to quell the unrest.
You can’t mix oil and water, and you sure can’t mix politics and religion. It’s not because one is more noble than the other. It’s because their goals are at odds with each other.
Confronted with a news story involving lesbian penguins at a German zoo, you would think that evil geniuses Bill O’Reilly and Dennis Miller could muster at least one decent lesbian joke.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jun. 4, 2009, at 1:30 pm
The Atlantic has a great column by Conor Clarke that should be required reading for every numnut who is going around spouting off that President Barack Obama has turned this nation into a socialist satellite. Yes, we can argue the wisdom of the GM bailout/semi-nationalization (and it appears, at least at this point, to be a bad deal for us taxpayers) but we are farrrrr from a socialist nation as a result, as Clark points out in his column and in this amazing graphic:
Do me and The Atlantic a favor and read the entire column and pass it along via e-mail to your goofy friends/relatives who bombard you with BS email about how we are becoming socialists.
In a recent blog posting, Nadine Smith, Equality Florida’s executive director, issued a formidable challenge to GLBT people everywhere: If you want equality, sacrifice for it. With the bus boycotts and lunch counter sit-ins of the black civil rights movement as her inspiration, Smith asks “What can we (GLBT people) do that demonstrates not only the rhetoric of equality but the personal sacrifice that will awaken the conscience of a nation?”
Smith answers this question with a simple suggestion:
Posted by Wayne Garcia on Jun. 3, 2009, at 10:28 am
2008’s winner for Best Politician, Sen. Charlie Justice
Times flies when you’re struggling to make ends meet, but it is rapidly approaching that time in each summer when a Tampa Bayite’s thoughts turn to … Best of the Bay!!
This year, as we expand and make voting for the best goods, services, places, people, restaurants, bars, strip clubs, etc. more fun and interactive, we’re going to start by asking you: What categories in People, Places and Politics (the equivalent of our News & Politics section, my personal bailiwick as your Political Whore) would you like to see in the balloting?
Here are a few of the classics and new CL staff ideas we hope to feature this year (after the jump):
By Mitch Perry PoHo contributor
Mitch Perry is the anchor of the WMNF Evening News on 88.5 FM community radio
Last week, Lakeland State Senator Paula Dockery said she was seriously contemplating
a run for the Republican nomination for governor in 2010.
Apparently, she didn’t get the edict that party Chairman Jim Greer issued recently that all good Republicans should get behind Attorney General Bill McCollum’s candidacy.
But as far as Republican consultant (and soon to be PoHo contributor) Chris Ingram is concerned, Dockery’s possible entrance into the race is a good thing.
By Kelly Cornelius PoHo contributor and R-LAND activist
Ever hear the saying don’t look a gift horse in the mouth? That is probably because horse’s teeth can tell you how old they are.
Being a horse person I am a strong believer in vetting before buying a horse which is also called a pre-purchase exam. Along with checking for any glaring unsoundness or other health issues it is a good way to see if your potential steed will hold up for the job you will be asking him or her to do. As you might expect, if you want a horse for light trail riding the pre-purchase bar might not be as high as, say, an Olympic jumper or even something in between.
Most vets will admit that while almost no horse “passes the vet;” there are just shades of failing. It still makes good sense to have a thorough exam performed. The only time it doesn’t make sense to vett a horse is if all you want the horse for is a lawn ornament. If you want a performance horse, however, you should know what you are buying and whether there is a reasonable assumption that your new steed can perform its job. So, before you take the plunge and buy old Dobbin, have him vet’ed.
I feel the same way about Supreme Court Justice nominees by the way. I think we can safely say they are well beyond trail horses and into the category of Olympic jumpers so the bar needs to be set very high. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Wayne Garcia on May. 28, 2009, at 10:44 am
“Answer me this question, because I am very much interested in trying to replace Obama. Okay?”
That is how U.S. Sen. Roland Burris opens the door to the idea of being appointed by Gov. Rod Blagojevich to the Senate seat left open by the election of Barack Obama. This comes during a taped conversation with Robert Blagojevich, the former gov’s brother and fundraising muscle. Robert Blagojevich, as you may recall from our coverage, is a University of Tampa graduate, and gave the commencement address there a few years back.
But then Burris goes on to say that since it is known that he wanted the appointment, that he couldn’t be raising money for Blago without it being seen as an attempt to buy the seat. Burris said, “Rob, I’m in a dilemma right now trying to help the governor. I’m now trying to figure out what the hell the best thing to do. I know I could give him a check, myself.”
Which he never did.
So, should Roland Burris be removed from the Senate on the basis of this conversation?
Posted by David Warner on May. 27, 2009, at 5:01 pm
A small but vocal group of protestors, both gay and straight, stood at the busy corner of 66th St. and 49th Ave. N. in Pinellas Tuesday night, armed with handmade signs and the passionate conviction that the California Supreme Court decision upholding the Proposition 8 ban on gay marriage was a slap in the face to gays and lesbians everywhere. With storm clouds gathering above, they stood their ground and talked to CL.
Beth Fountain, a writer and former lawyer, questioned the dense language of the decision, in which the court essentially contradicted its position from a year before.
Like Fountain, musician Lisa Noe of the band Karmic Tattoo wondered why gay marriage could be “OK one minute, then it’s not OK the next.” And Rick Boylan, president of the Pinellas chapter of Stonewall Democrats and the secretary of the state Democratic party, pointed out that, even with the setback in California, the state is still years ahead of Florida in its recognition of gay rights: “We’re still dealing with issues that are left over from Anita Bryant days.”
Posted by Wayne Garcia on May. 27, 2009, at 9:54 am
For those tracking the grandaddy of bad growth management bills in this year’s Legislature, Mary Ellen Klas (@meklas) of the Miami Herald just tweeted:
Crist hints at a veto of HB 1171 the so-called State Farm bill, deregulating well-capitalized insurers, but sign growth management Sb 360.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on May. 27, 2009, at 9:40 am
Here’s an interesting idea from New American Media’s Roberto Lovato, writing in HuffPo about the Supreme Court confirmation process for Sonia Sotomayor:
Rather than allow herself to be put at the center of another racism and sexism-laden political circus around the qualifications of a candidate who brings more real-life prosecutorial and actual judicial experience than any other Supreme Court nominee in the last 100 years, Sotomayor should consider another strategy. She — and we — should instead view those hearings as nothing less than a trial to determine whether the GOP is ready to make restitution for its role in a number of judicial and political wrongdoings perpetrated in the Bush era. Those wrongdoings include unleashing unprecedented and dangerous political attacks on Latinos, and breaching the political and electoral contract the “new GOP” said it wanted with Latinos, one of the country’s most important voting blocs.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on May. 27, 2009, at 6:25 am
The first shot in the confirmation battle over Sonia Sotomayor is out there, a video appearance by the judge at Duke University in which, ABC News reported, she said that the district appeals court is where “policy is made.”
If that is true, that would make her an “activist” judge, a label that is radioactive and would create a real problem for Barack Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court.
So what did she say, exactly? And what did she mean?
The left-leaning Media Matters defends her and says her words were taken out of context, that ABC (and others) erred in their characterizations. That spin is being echoed by Democrats on this morning’s news shows. It goes like this:
In fact, Sotomayor was responding to a student who asked the panel to contrast the experiences of a district court clerkship and a circuit court clerkship. Sotomayor’s remarks from the Duke panel discussion … :
SOTOMAYOR: The saw is that if you’re going into academia, you’re going to teach, or as Judge Lucero just said, public interest law, all of the legal defense funds out there, they’re looking for people with court of appeals experience, because it is — court of appeals is where policy is made. And I know — and I know this is on tape and I should never say that because we don’t make law, I know. OK, I know. I’m not promoting it, and I’m not advocating it, I’m — you know. OK. Having said that, the court of appeals is where, before the Supreme Court makes the final decision, the law is percolating — its interpretation, its application. And Judge Lucero is right. I often explain to people, when you’re on the district court, you’re looking to do justice in the individual case. So you are looking much more to the facts of the case than you are to the application of the law because the application of the law is non-precedential, so the facts control. On the court of appeals, you are looking to how the law is developing, so that it will then be applied to a broad class of cases. And so you’re always thinking about the ramifications of this ruling on the next step in the development of the law. You can make a choice and say, “I don’t care about the next step,” and sometimes we do. Or sometimes we say, “We’ll worry about that when we get to it” — look at what the Supreme Court just did. But the point is that that’s the differences — the practical differences in the two experiences are the district court is controlled chaos and not so controlled most of the time.
Watch the video clip after the jump, and you make the call:
Actually, I could’ve titled this post “Are Republicans afraid of homosexuals?” But I’m going to pick on the conservatives for now. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by David Warner on May. 26, 2009, at 1:17 pm
Ellen and Portia can stay married, says the court. The rest of you gays? Maybe not.
Today’s decision by the California Supreme Court upholds Proposition 8, the ballot measure that amended the state constitution to limit marriage to heterosexual couples. But the court let stand the marriages that took place between May 4, 2008, when the same judicial body said it could see no constitutional excuse for banning gay marriage, and Nov. 4, 2008, when 52 percent of voters replied, “OK, we’ll give you a constitutional reason, you activist judges you!”
By Kelly Cornelius PoHo contributor and R-LAND activist
A piece in the Timesfrom Senator Mike Bennett-R who spawned SB 360 (a bill that dismantles growth management), shares his idea of smart growth as it is titled For smart Fla growth. OK, Mr. Bennett, I guess that depends on what your definition of smart is. He says in part:
The bill promotes growth in dense urban areas by removing the state required costs of transportation concurrency and the duplicative development of regional impact (DRI) process within those areas.
(Nimby translation: Developers shouldn’t have to foot the bill for more growth by having to pay for infrastructure; that is what you taxpayers are for.)
By Mitch Perry
PoHo contributor Mitch Perry is the anchor of the WMNF Evening News on 88.5 FM community radio.
D.C. reporters were disappointed last Friday when Nancy Pelosi refused to answer questions regarding her current contretemps on the CIA and waterboarding.
It came right days after her disastrous news conference where she alleged that the CIA misled her in a Sept. 4, 2002, secret briefing about torture.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on May. 24, 2009, at 6:00 am
Editor’s note: Weekend Rewind is a new feature of PoHo, republishing the best, longer posts about politics and public affairs from my blog and Daily Loaf as well, in case you might have missed them the first time around. Think of it as my version of a Sunday/weekend newspaper.
So it’s come to this? “Global warming” is out and “climate change” is in? We are no longer looking for a “silver bullet”, but rather seek “silver buckshot”?
Based on a recent article in the NYTimes, linguistic battles are shaping as PR firms and lobbyists look to shape the language of debate over climate-change legislation working its way through the halls of Congress. Though, navigating this new lexicon may help to improve the image of this most important social, environmental, and geo-political issue. Perhaps when renamed, “global warming” will climb from its last-place position of twenty important voter concerns (based on a recent Pew Research poll). Read the rest of this entry »
Iran’s missile launch on Wednesday is not making President Barack Obama’s diplomatic efforts in the Middle East any easier. This demonstration, however, could be seen as more of a reason for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to embrace the two-state solution.
Netanyahu has made it clear that he sees Iran as a threat. On Tuesday, after meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, he said:
“[Iran] is a great danger to all of us, to Israel specifically and to the moderate Arab regime, and to America. Especially if this regime were to arm itself or arm terrorists with nuclear weapons, the consequences could be unimaginable.”
Here’s video of the Israeli leader in Washington, after the jump.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on May. 20, 2009, at 12:26 pm
Here’s the latest tweak of our enormously popular governor, from his friends across the aisle in the Florida Democratic Party. It’s the first online ad with the “Cut and Run Crist” theme that the party has been drum-beating since Crist announced his Senatorial bid last week.
Posted by Wayne Garcia on May. 20, 2009, at 6:51 am
Continuing in our series of summer vacation videos, shot for our Summer Guide 2009 being released on newsstands today, here is Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio on her plans, or more accurately, lack of plans:
“Unfortunately, I don’t have a summer vacation planned for ‘09, I think based on your question I’m going to go home and plan one right away.”
Posted by Wayne Garcia on May. 18, 2009, at 1:05 pm
St. Petersburg mayoral candidate Jamie Bennett — his campaign wounded by two weeks of revelations and accusations about dirty tricks, not to mention the firing of his campaign manager Peter Schorsch — has issued a statement today saying he is NOT going to quit the race and has hired a new campaign manager.
“In the days since I learned of Peter’s outrageous conduct, I have reflected and consulted with family, friends and political supporters about what I should do,” Bennett said in a statement he e-mailed to the press. “I care about our community far too much to be disheartened or discouraged by this personal and political setback. I simply will not allow the irresponsible actions of one individual to deny our community the vision and leadership we all deserve in our next Mayor.”
Posted by Wayne Garcia on May. 15, 2009, at 9:30 am
It may have been the worst news conference performance by a sitting Speaker of the House ever. Yesterday, Nancy Pelosi harmed her own cause and ratcheted up the torture debate in a newser in which she parsed her knowledge of CIA waterboarding briefings and accused the spy agency of lying to Congress.
Even Florida’s former Sen. Bob Graham (and his infamous lil’ notebooks) has leapt to her side, telling HuffPo that he, too, was lied to by the CIA about torture tactics and use. From that interview:
“When this issue started to resurface I called the appropriate people in the agency and said I would like to know the dates from your records that briefings were held,” Graham recalled. “And they contacted me and gave me four dates — two in April ‘02 and two in September ‘02. Now, one of the things I do, and for which I have taken some flack, is keep a spiral notebook of what I do throughout the day. And so I went through my records and through a combination of my daily schedule, which I keep, and my notebooks, I confirmed and the CIA agreed that my notes were accurate; that three of those four dates there had been no briefing. There was only one day that I had been briefed, which was September the 27th of 2002.”
The sailor, August Provost, kept his private life quiet for the most part, but trusted that his friends knew, according to an interview with his partner in the San Diego Union-Tribune. His family had encouraged him to report the harassment to a supervisor. It’s not clear whether he did, or whether he even could have; admitting that he’d been harassed could have led to admission that he was gay, which is grounds for dismissal from the Navy. In an online article for San Diego’s Gay and Lesbian Times, the chair of the San Diego Human Relations Commission, openly gay City Commissioner Nicole Murray-Ramirez (pictured right), refers to sources on the base that say the harassment was in fact gay-related and that Provost had been facing a possible discharge based on his sexual orientation.
