Entries Tagged 'News' ↓

If you are a fan of The Wire as I am, then perhaps you are still in mourning over the end of this great series. I watched the re-airing of the final episode on Monday night and will probably catch it at least once more before saying my final good-byes. That is until I purchase the DVD.

Producers of the program know what an impact it has had not just on the television industry but on our social consciousness. So show creator David Simon has posted a thank you letter to fans on the HBO website. You can also leave your own comments about the show, the characters and the actors who played them, on a site they’ve created called The Wire: The Public Record.

Now, if there was one thing Detective Lester Freamon always preached on that show, it was “Follow the money.” Apparently the federal government was watching because that’s exactly what they did in tracking New York Governor Eliot Spitzer to the Emporer’s Club VIP escort service where he spent some $10,000 on prostitutes over the last year.

As of this writing, the Governor has yet to officially resign from office, although politicians on both sides of the aisle are calling for him to do so. But just this evening, I received an email from an organization identified only as “democrats.com” asking for people to sign a petition in support of Spitzer and claiming the whole episode is a witch hunt by the Bush Administration.

Sign the petition: http://savespitzer.com

Dear Governor Spitzer,

Don’t let the Republicans and the rightwing media drive you out of office!

You made a lot of powerful enemies in your career because you took on the most powerful crooks on Wall Street. Now your enemies are trying to get even by destroying your career and your life. Don’t let them!

The whole investigation by the Bush Administration stinks to high heaven. This isn’t a case of “structuring” or “money laundering.” The FBI never investigates johns - so why are they investigating you?

The answer is obvious. George Bush and Karl Rove turned the Justice Department into the political destruction arm of the Republican Party. They’ve prosecuted 5.6 Democrats for every Republican.

That’s why former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman is rotting in jail, and that’s what they want to do to you.

As Americans, we are outraged by Bush’s endless abuses of justice. If anyone should be removed from office, it’s George Bush!

Governor Spitzer, please stand and fight against this outrageous and naked partisan Republican assault. We support you!

Sign the petition: http://savespitzer.com.

Stay tuned. This may drag on.

Proving that hypocrites aren’t just far-right Republican politicians or holier-than-thou conservative Christian ministers, New York State’s first-term Democratic Governor and former Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has been caught with his pants down.

According to a New York Times investigation, Spitzer has been linked to a joint FBI/IRS investigation into a prostitution ring known as Emperors Club VIP, that offered call girls to well-heeled clients in the US and Europe. The club was raided last week. Reportedly they have taped recordings of a customer, identified as Client 9 on telephone calls, who is alleged to be Spitzer. Client 9 arranged for a prostitute to travel from New York to Washington DC and meet him at a hotel on February 13. Those particulars correspond to a trip made by Spitzer, when he testified before Congress a day later.

In a Monday afternoon press conference where he took no questions and had is wife Silda at his side, Spitzer issued an apology to his family and the public, but called it a “private matter.”

This news comes with considerable embarrassment to a man who built his reputation while Attorney General as “the sheriff of Wall Street” going after misdeeds in the business community. Elected as New York’s 54th Governor in 2006, he came in promising to clean up Albany. In his first year in office however, he has been bogged down in partisan bickering with Republicans in the State Senate, and a sense of paralysis has hung over his administration ever since.

This story is still developing and may very well change as soon as I post this. Not surprisingly, Republicans are calling for Spitzer to resign and business leaders are openly mocking him. As a supporter of New York Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, he would have to be seen as a liability to her campaign, should he stay on.

If he resigns, Lt. Governor David A. Paterson would assume office and make history by doing so. Paterson would become New York’s first African American governor and the first legally blind governor in the United States. He would also be the second sitting African American governor. Duval Patrick currently serves in neighboring Massachusetts. (In a personal connection, Paterson is the former State Senator from my district here in New York and is married to someone I went to college with.)

Stay tuned for more on this story.

Former New Jersey Senator, one-time Democratic Presidential candidate and current Barack Obama supporter Bill Bradley, is raising issues about the murky nature of Hillary Clinton’s financial backing. On PBS’s The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, he speculated out loud about what they might expect to receive for their contributions in a Clinton administration. Bradley further suggested this made Clinton a weaker candidate against GOP nominee John McCain.

There’s a new HIV scandal brewing in the gay porn industry and while it again stems from barebacking, it is not the usual suspect this time but insteaed a producer in Great Britain. The BBC recently broke the story about a series of DVDs that featured footage from a week-long shoot during which eight British models had sex with each other in multiple combinations without condoms. Four of those who took part were diagnosed as HIV positive soon after.

US gay porn producer Chi Chi LaRue has been campaigning to stop the production of bareback videos and raising awareness of the risks some producers are making their models take.

Domestic violence doesn’t just affect married couples and now New York City residents are getting added legal protection in civil court.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn have introduced the Domestic Violence Civil Protection Act, expanding protection for domestic violence victims who are abused by their past or current domestic partners or live-in boyfriends or girlfriends.

The law would allow unmarried individuals who live or have lived with an abuser, pregnant women who live with the fathers of their unborn children, and LGBT citizens who are abused by their live-in partner, the right to get a civil order of protection in Supreme Court without having their current or former loved one arrested.

Finally, on a happier domestic front, I want to wish a happy 20th anniversary to two friends, Reggie and Mark. If Black men loving Black men is a revolutionary act, congratulations to a couple of revolutionaries.

Idaho Senator Larry Craig is looking for interns.