Posts by Trish

Trish is a regular blogger for the Pensito Review.

Obama Moves DNC to Chicago
Posted by Trish , Pensito Review on June 13, 2008 at 9:12 AM.

A recent move shows how breathtakingly different a Pres. Obama would be from the Current Occupant, or even the Current Occupant Wannabe. Obama is reorganizing the DNC. Hello, Chicago!

In a major shakeup at the Democratic National Committee — and a departure from tradition — large parts of the committee’s operations are relocating to Chicago to be fully integrated with the Obama campaign.

The DNC’s political department, housed in Washington, D.C., will be dramatically rebuilt, with staffers offered a choice of moving to Chicago, joining state operations, or staying in Washington, DNC spokeswoman Karen Finney said…

The move reflects Obama’s desire to maintain an unusually streamlined campaign, as well as his swift and complete takeover of a Democratic Party that isn’t always known for its unity. The move may also save the campaign money, as the Obama campaign can use DNC salaries and staff to pay for elements of its organizing campaign and avoid some of the duplication that has often dogged presidential efforts.

It could also help avoid the John Kerry-tastrophe of 2004.

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Minnesota Teens Banned From Graduation After Flying Confederate Flag
Posted by Trish , Pensito Review on June 6, 2008 at 4:26 AM.

Three Minnesota teens learned a big life lesson on graduation day. They weren’t allowed to march with their classmates after sticking a huge Confederate flag in everyone’s face in the school parking lot.

Seniors Dan Fredlin and Justin Thompson, both 18, and Joey Snyder, 17, were suspended and restricted from the diploma ceremony after arriving at John F. Kennedy High School in Bloomington, Minn., Tuesday with the flags affixed to their cars. One of the teens had a flag hoisted on a 20-foot flagpole attached to his truck…

The school’s principal, Ron Simmons, who is black, made the decision to suspend the trio and ban them from the commencement, a decision school district officials affirmed.

“What is not acceptable is driving through the parking lot and waving the Confederate flag for the purpose of inciting a response,” Rick Kaufman, a spokesman for the Bloomington Public School district, told ABC News.

Kaufman cited a pair of state laws to justify the discipline decision, including the students’ willful disruption of the rights of others to an education and their endangerment of students and school property.

At the same time, as Jon reported, plans were unveiled for a huge Confederate flag to be flown by the Sons of Confederate Veterans along the I-4 corridor near Tampa.

The modern-day symbolism of the Confederate flag is a hard concept to express. Jon ended his post, “Time to find a new logo for pride in the South” but the Minnesota teens were hardly demonstrating that. They say that see something non-regional — and much sexier.

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Former President Carter Winks, Nods, Blows Kiss at Obama
Posted by Trish , Pensito Review on April 4, 2008 at 8:26 AM.

He was a little cagey about it but former Pres. Jimmy Carter used the name "Obama" four times when asked who's getting his super delegate vote.

Speaking with a Nigerian paper while in Abuja, Carter noted several reasons why he might be leaning toward the Illinois senator.

"Don't forget that Obama won in my state of Georgia," Carter said. "My town, which is home to 625 people, is for Obama, my children and their spouses are pro-Obama. My grandchildren are also pro-Obama."

"As a superdelegate, I would not disclose who I am rooting for but I leave you to make that guess," Carter added.

The Carter Center confirmed to CNN the newspaper did quote Carter accurately.

Perhaps the best way to tell if Carter was saying he's voting for Obama was the reaction of the Clinton campaign. Can you say, "frosty?"

Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson said Thursday, "Both Senator Clinton and President Clinton have a great deal of respect for President Carter and have enjoyed their relationship with him over the years, and obviously he is free to make whatever decision he thinks is appropriate with regard to presidential choice."

AlterNet is a nonprofit organization and does not make political endorsements. The opinions expressed by its writers are their own.

"Million Fag March": Anti-Gay Hate Church Gets Taste of Its Own Medicine [VIDEO]
Posted by Trish , Pensito Review on April 1, 2008 at 12:01 PM.

Here’s a follow-up to our previous post on the Million Fag March, held recently in Topeka to protest Westboro Baptist Church. You guys looked great! Good job! Click on the video to your right for more.

The Consequences If Hillary Clinton Doesn’t Stuff a Sock in It
Posted by Trish , Pensito Review on March 25, 2008 at 11:27 AM.

The New Republic’s Norm Scheiber sums up the current state of the election.

The problem is that each day Clinton and Obama spend consumed with the other is a day that moves John McCain closer to the White House. McCain’s biggest asset is his political brand, which evokes a straight-talking, party-bucking reformer. Among his biggest liabilities is the suspicion he inspires among conservatives thanks to these same attributes. McCain apparently plans to spend the next few months making nice with his base. But anything he accomplishes on this front clearly diminishes his swing-voter appeal and, therefore, his chances in November.

Ideally, the Democrats would be exploiting this tension like mad…

Instead, something close to the opposite is happening. McCain’s courtship of the lunatic right and his ties to K Street have largely been hidden from view, while the Democrats’ dirty laundry has been aired for swing voters.

…On March 12, Ferraro and the racially polarized Mississippi primary were A-1 news in The Washington Post. It wasn’t until page A-6 that you stumbled across a story about McCain’s ties to the parent company of Airbus, the Boeing rival to whom the Pentagon recently handed a lucrative contract. The second story could have muddied McCain’s reformist credentials, but it barely caused a ripple on cable or the blogosphere.

Schreiber all but says it: Hillary Clinton needs to get out.

If McCain winds up facing Obama, he’ll enjoy yet another advantage: a nominee weakened by attacks from a fellow Democrat…

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Cheney on 4,000 Dead American Soldiers: They Volunteered
Posted by Trish , Pensito Review on March 25, 2008 at 4:41 AM.

Somebody needs to slap this guy.

Dick Cheney will tell ABC’s Martha Raddatz -- who wrote The Long Road Home: A Story of War and Family about the sacrifice of service members after her assignment covering Iraq -- that Pres. Bush carries the greatest strain for the ongoing occupation. He will also point out that the 4,000 Americans killed so far chose to be there.

Noting the burden placed on military families, the vice president said the biggest burden is carried by President George W. Bush, who made the decision to commit US troops to war, and reminded the public that U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan volunteered for duty.

“It obviously brings home I think for a lot of people the cost that’s involved in the global war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Cheney said in the interview, conducted in Turkey…

“The president carries the biggest burden, obviously,” Cheney said. “He’s the one who has to make the decision to commit young Americans, but we are fortunate to have a group of men and women, the all-volunteer force, who voluntarily put on the uniform and go in harm’s way for the rest of us.”

Well isn’t that a convenient way to get out of taking responsibility. No doubt Cheney is still patting himself on the back all these years later for his cleverness in requesting and receiving five deferments from duty in Vietnam.

One problem with his logic, though, which Raddatz points out.

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Dean Under Fire for 48-State Strategy
Posted by Trish , Pensito Review on March 24, 2008 at 5:35 AM.

Dr. He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, as Jon has come to call Howard Dean around me and Buck, since just a mention of his name to Florida folks Gets Us Started, is taking well-deserved criticism. Time’s Tim Padgett asks all the good questions: Does Dean really plan to pursue a 48-State Strategy for victory, and if so, where is his leadership? More importantly, will Dean cost the Democratic candidate the votes of Florida and Michigan? We’ve been wondering the same things.

Florida’s famously feckless electoral system usually deserves the ridicule it gets. But not this time. Instead of the typical jokes about Flori-duh, the Sunshine State debacle currently gripping the Democratic Party has evoked reminders of the Dean Scream -- the notorious petulance of Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Howard Dean. He, along with the other sage bosses of the DNC, has left Democratic voters in what is arguably the nation’s most crucial swing state feeling dissed, disenfranchised and, it now seems, disinclined to back whomever the Democratic candidate is in November. And that could harm the party’s White House bid as severely as any butterfly ballot or hanging chad ever did.

According to a poll conducted this week for various Florida media, almost a quarter of Florida Democrats say they’ll be “less likely to support” the party’s nominee if their state’s delegates aren’t seated at the Democratic National Convention in Denver in August -- and by seated they mean counted in the final tally to choose the presidential nominee.

I don’t agree with those who would withhold their votes from the Democratic candidate over this. But I do understand where they’re coming from. Dean claimed it was of vital importance that states like Iowa and New Hampshire, with tiny homogeneous populations, get to go one-on-one with the candidates because this intimate voter contact is what makes democracy work. He then forbade any candidate to be heard or seen by Florida voters.

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Spitzer Kept His Black Socks on During Sex
Posted by Trish , Pensito Review on March 23, 2008 at 10:37 AM.

O.K., I have to admit I really don’t get strippers and prostitutes and lap dances and all that stuff, but I’m female so there you go. I mean, how do you pay for it and keep up the illusion in your mind that there’s anything but contemptuous nose-holding disdain going on in the mind of the payee? You know that this woman would not look at you twice if you weren’t giving her cash, so how much fun is that?

That said, wouldn’t you think that if you were in fact paying thousands and thousands of dollars to someone to have sex with you that you would at least be able to take off all your clothes -- socks included? Not if you’re Eliot Spitzer.

Almost four months before New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned in a sex scandal, a lawyer for Republican political operative Roger Stone sent a letter to the FBI alleging that Spitzer “used the services of high-priced call girls” while in Florida.

The letter, dated Nov. 19, said Miami Beach resident Stone learned the information from “a social contact in an adult-themed club.” It offered one potentially identifying detail: The man in question hadn’t taken off his calf-length black socks “during the sex act.”

“…The governor has paid literally tens of thousands of dollars for these services. It is Mr. Stone’s understanding that the governor paid not with credit cards or cash but through some pre-arranged transfer,” the letter said.

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Why America Can't Get Beyond Race
Posted by Trish , Pensito Review on March 20, 2008 at 6:48 AM.

Obama's speech on race made me think back to what I was doing five years ago. Archbishop Desmond Tutu was a visiting professor at the University of North Florida, and offered a class to non-students which I was lucky enough to attend.

It was the eve of war, and all his comments were filtered through that certainty. We had some slight hope that Bush would back down, that the U.N. might somehow stop him, but we knew what was most likely coming.

But that's another subject. The class was on Tutu's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which helped South Africa end apartheid without massive spilling of white blood, an alternative most South African whites never thought possible. The Truth and Reconciliation process involved first confronting what took place, allowing victims to speak their truth and requiring oppressors to hear it, arriving at punishments that acknowledge no one is beyond God's ability to redeem, and reparations that restore dignity and compensate for loss on the part of those who were mistreated.

American blacks and whites, who filled the room, listened to this description and avoided eye contact with people in the next seat. They wondered why race is just under the surface of everything in this country, and how this continues to be the case when slavery and reconstruction are so long past.

Someone finally found the nerve to ask Tutu why things are different here.

"In South Africa, we knew they intended to clobber us, and you had to deal with that and find ways to defend yourself and to survive. Here, there seemed to be a kind of conspiracy. And I have come to the conclusion that it seems to me that you are not going to be able to have normal relationships until you come to terms with the legacy of slavery and what happened to Native Americans. There seems to be a pain that is sitting in the pit of the tummy of almost all African Americans and Native Americans," Tutu said.

No, we haven't come to terms with it. Like Obama said in his speech, white people today, who never personally owned another person, can't understand why they should be held responsible for what was done in the past. And black people can't understand why we don't get their anger.

Obama's speech, even with all the attention it got, is underestimated because what people really wanted to hear was whether he denounced his pastor enough. They regarded everything else as just a backdrop for his anticipated but not delivered "apology." Instead, he gave us nothing less than the whole shooting match, folks.

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It’s Cheney's Turn to Make Things Worse in the Middle East
Posted by Trish , Pensito Review on March 17, 2008 at 11:13 AM.

People who know about this stuff don't expect much from Dick Cheney's trip to the Middle East.

Cheney will reinforce the message from visits by President George W. Bush in January and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice earlier this month, in a stepped-up diplomatic push for Israelis and Palestinians to move forward on peace efforts dealt a blow by violence in Gaza and Israel.

"The mood has deteriorated incredibly in the last six weeks since the president was there," Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said.

"From the outside it's very hard to see that Secretary Rice was able to even arrest the slide let alone get things moving forward. My guess is the vice president will be able to arrest the slide if not necessarily put things on track," he said.

Let's be honest. Our interest in the Middle East isn't about justice in Israel, for either the Israelis or the Palestinians. It is, and always has been, about one thing.

"I'm not sure he'll seek anything more than a good and thorough discussion about the current situation in the global energy markets," a senior administration official said.

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If the Times Square Bomber Came in from Canada, Is a Border Fence Far Behind?
Posted by Trish , Pensito Review on March 7, 2008 at 5:45 AM.

The new faces of terror

It appears the bomber who targeted a military recruiting station in Times Square came in this country via Canada, so you know what that means. Soon the Minutemen will rush north to construct a fence the entire 5,522 miles that separate us from the threat of Canadian extremists. Or not. Maybe they only want to protect our border singular. You know, the brown border. The one with Mexicans on the other side.

High-level law enforcement sources told ABC News that a border stop in Canada has yielded evidence that may be linked to the case, and that individuals are being sought in connection with the case.

Canadian authorities declined to comment on the matter.

Sources said the border stop took place about a month ago, but today U.S. and Canadian authorities were revisiting the incident because of circumstantial evidence noticed at the time of the stop and the behavior of one of four individuals in the car that was stopped.

At the time of the stop, one young man fled the vehicle on foot, law enforcement sources said.

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"Million Fag March" Turns the Tables on Homophobic Pastor Fred Phelps
Posted by Trish , Pensito Review on March 5, 2008 at 1:08 PM.

Finally, someone is protesting the world's most odious protester. The Million Fag March is set for Sunday morning, March 30 in Topeka, Kan., home of Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church.

Fred and his family (13 children and 54 grandchildren) show up at military funerals with signs reading, "God Hates Fags," "God Hates America," "Fags Die, God Laughs," etc. Fred apparently arrives at these insights after personal discussions with The Creator wherein He tells Fred that everything bad that happens in the world is His revenge for America "tolerating" gays.

Organizers say it's time to "show Phelps and his church that freedom of speech works both ways."

There are two big challenges with the march. First is the laws passed in Topeka to protect the other churches from Phelps. They prohibit the Freds of the world (of which, mercifully, there are few) from getting within 50 feet of a house of worship for a half-hour before or after services are planned. So the march might have to take place in Topeka but not too close to Westboro Baptist.

The second challenge could be even harder. Organizers are determined to keep the protest peaceful, but since Fred's whole goal is to whip up feelings of intolerance and hate, not responding in kind will be a toughie. Still, the expectation is clear.

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Florida Governor Gets Closer to Being John McCain's VP Pick
Posted by Trish , Pensito Review on February 25, 2008 at 6:57 AM.

The St. Petersburg Times' political writer, Adam Smith, launched the Charile Crist Veep-O-Meter and it's leaning toward the tanned one. Smith gives a bunch of reasons why John McCain might choose the Florida governor as his running mate, but the most compelling one is money.

McCain's Florida momentum in January paid off - literally. Not only did the Sunshine State and its governor help deliver him the nomination, but it pumped more than $1.28-million into his campaign, more than twice what McCain raised from Florida in the prior three months, and nearly a third of the $3.5-million he's raised from Florida to date. The Center of Responsive Politics reports that Rudy Giuliani all told raised $5.4-million from Florida, and Mitt Romney $4.4-million.

Another factor in Charlie's favor is that no one else seems to want the job. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-Tex.) turned it down cold on ABC's This Week, while Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-Minn.) is unpopular in his home state. Gov. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.) still looks like a possibility.

Charlie is said to be able to deliver the Sunshine State to McCain, based on the governor's own high approval ratings. Personally, I'm not feeling it. Crist is popular in Florida, yes, but in context. Democrats like me don't see him doing anything terribly wrong, in stark contrast to his predecessor Jeb Bush, and we do see him falling on the right side of some battles, like trying to get insurance companies to act fairly and turning around untenable environmental policies.

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The Secret of Obama's Success: He Listens to George Lakoff
Posted by Trish , Pensito Review on February 20, 2008 at 11:13 AM.

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank captured the angst foes of Barack Obama are feeling.

The Clintons in the past couple of weeks have done all they could to cook him up into an airy souffle, a candidate so light in substance that he collapses when speared. They exposed him as a guy who copies others' speeches and makes lofty pledges only to break them.

And yet: The Obama Souffle continues to rise.

Why that is has befuddled many Democrats, particularly Clinton followers. How can Obama score so many wins by offering so little -- just hope -- and yet everything -- hope?

I can answer that question. It's because Obama gets it. He's been reading the George Lakoff and Rockridge Institute playbook, Thinking Points and skillfully applying it. Lakoff rewrote the progressive strategy with the concept of framing. Had my guy, John Edwards, followed Lakoff's advice and like Obama, gone lighter on the policies and heavier on the values, he might be where Obama is today. Dennis Kucinich would have won a primary or two. John Kerry might be president now. Al Gore would not have needed the Supreme Court in 2000.

Richard Wirthlin, chief strategist for former president Ronald Reagan, made a discovery in 1980 that profoundly changed American politics. As a pollster, he was taught that people vote for candidates on the basis of the candidates' positions on issues. But his initial polls for Reagan revealed something fascinating: Voters who didn't agree with Reagan on the issues still wanted to vote for him...

Reagan talked about values rather than issues. Communicating values mattered more than specific policy positions. Reagan connected with people; he communicated well...It was not because all of his values matched theirs exactly. It was not because he was from their socioeconomic class or subculture. It was because they believed in the integrity of his connection with them as well as the connection between his worldview and his actions.

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Bush Appointed Judge Resigns After Cross Dressing DUI Arrest
Posted by Trish , Pensito Review on February 18, 2008 at 11:04 AM.

That I find this story so hilarious probably says more about me than the cross-dressing federal judge in question, but as they say these days, it is what it is. The punch line is probably the best part.

Somma worked in private practice for years in Boston before he was appointed to the bench by President Bush in December 2004.

Yes, the fact that Bush appointed him as a federal bankruptcy judge does crack me up, but let's start at the beginning.

Somma's Mercedes-Benz E320 sedan hit a pick-up truck from behind about 11:29 p.m. on Feb. 6, the police report said. No one was hurt.

Somma, who lives in Newbury, Mass., fumbled in his purse for his driver's license before handing it to the officer who later arrested him, the police report shows.

"He had a difficult time locating his license in his purse. He passed over it multiple times before removing it," officer Paul J. Thompson wrote in his report.

The officer offered no other details with regard to the judge's attire or accessories. Nor would representatives of the Manchester Police Department or the city solicitor's office, which worked out the negotiated plea agreement with Somma's lawyer...

But lots of other people did offer those details, of which Audrey Hepburn would have been proud.

When authorities removed him from the vehicle, they said he wore a black women's cocktail dress, fishnet stockings and high heels.

But in his mug shot, the judge appears to be wearing blue eye shadow. Way to wreck a really chic look, Robert.

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