Author: Trish

Republican Cash MIA Over Slate of Drippy Candidates

Trish

Not only have Republicans told pollsters they don’t like their party’s candidates, they are also holding back donations.

First came the news that “none of the above” is increasingly the top choice among potential GOP voters.

The latest Associated Press-Ipsos poll found that nearly a quarter of Republicans are unwilling to back top-tier hopefuls Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, John McCain or Mitt Romney, and no one candidate has emerged as the clear front-runner among Christian evangelicals…

A hefty 23 percent can’t or won’t say which candidate they would back, a jump from the 14 percent who took a pass in June.

GOP Donor: ”It’s hard for some of us who have been loyal to one family for so long just to flip over to someone else… Ask yourself: Is it going to be the same as it was with Bush 41, with Jeb or with W?”

Now we hear that the big money in Florida, one of the deepest pockets for the Republicans, is missing in action.

Two-thirds of the top Florida donors to President Bush have yet to write a check to any Republican presidential candidate this year, reflecting a nationwide disquiet in the GOP that threatens to undermine its hold on the White House…

”We’re six months before the Florida primary. I would think at least half would be signed up with one campaign or another,” said Fort Lauderdale lobbyist Justin Sayfie, a top Bush donor turned fence-sitter.

The habit of giving to those lovable, whacky Bushes is hard to break, and harder to replace.

A Bush — the 41st president named George, the 43rd governor of Florida named Jeb, or the 43rd president named George W. — has appeared on seven of the last 10 general-election ballots in Florida.

”It’s hard for some of us who have been loyal to one family for so long just to flip over to someone else,” said Michael Hightower, a Jacksonville healthcare executive who served as the local GOP chairman. “I’m not saying we don’t have good candidates, but you ask yourself: Is it going to be the same as it was with Bush 41, with Jeb or with W? And the realistic answer is no, because we don’t have the same relationship.”

Excuse me while I gag.

Our team, of course, is doing fine.

Among Democrats, it’s a different story. About three-fourths of the leading fundraisers for the 2004 Democratic nominee, Sen. John Kerry, have put their money on a 2008 contender.

Those who really can’t find anyone they like still have a choice. The Committee Against Mediocrity in Politics (CAMP) is urging them to back an amendment that would let them vote for None of the Above.

CAMP is calling for Amendment XXVIII to the United States Constitution. This Amendment would add “None of the Above” to all federal election ballots, allowing voters to choose not to vote for a ballot of mediocre candidates.

Should the “None of the Above” option receive a majority of votes in any given election, then that election would yield no winner and the election would need to be rerun with new candidates on the ballot.

Ralph Nader should love it.

Romney: When al-Qaida Calls, America Answers

Trish
“We don’t care. We don’t have to. We’re the Bush Administration.”

Mitt Romney is too stupid to live.

“Our president, for all the criticism he receives, has kept America safe these last six years, and he has done it by: One pursuing the Patriot Act, which has given us the intelligence information we needed to find out who the bad guys were and get them out before they got us, and No. 2, when al-Qaida was calling America, he made sure someone here was listening,” Romney said. “And No. 3 … when terrorists were detained, were captured, he made sure we interrogated them.”

Cheney To Be President While Bush’s Ass is Probed

Trish

I was enjoying the thought of Bush’s impending colonoscopy and the discomfort it might inflict upon the world’s biggest ass’s ass. Then I realized with horrifying clarity that Cheney will be president while Bush is under anesthesia.

Snow says the president will hand over presidential powers to Vice President Cheney while he is under anesthesia.

White House press secretary Tony Snow says Bush will have the procedure at Camp David in Maryland.

Snow says the president will hand over presidential powers to Vice President Cheney while he is under anesthesia.

Bush did this before in 2002, at that time becoming only the second president in history to invoke Section 3 of the 25th Amendment. The first was none other than Ronald Reagan — again for a colon procedure — making Poppy Bush the first “acting” president in history.

Why the overabundance of caution? As Bush likes to persuade us, we’re at war. Whether an occupation really qualifies as “war” I’m not sure, but in a 2002 press conference he said it did.

Q Should we read anything into the fact that you are going to transfer the power, the length of time of this?

THE PRESIDENT: No, not at all. It’s just that I made the decision. We looked at the precedent. I’m the first President to have done so under this type of procedure and/or physical examination. I did so because we’re at war and I just want to be super — you know, super cautious.

And I informed the Vice President of this and he’s fully prepared to — he’s standing by. He’ll realize he’s not going to be President that long. (Laughter.)

The more cynical among us might wonder if he’s doing it so there can be no question of Dick’s authority.

Anybody up for a coup?

Why Fred Thompson’s Really Waiting to Announce

Trish

It’s all about bucks, baby.

Under the equal-time rule, if a network gives time to one political candidate, it is required to provide the same amount of airtime to his or her opponents. In other words, if Thompson appeared on a “Law & Order” episode for 10 minutes during prime time, NBC would have to give Thompson’s rivals for the Republican nomination 10 minutes of prime time each.

“The equal-time requirement applies when the person has legally qualified as an official candidate in a relevant state — for example, having his or her name formally approved to be on a state’s primary ballot — not merely when he/she declares his or her intent to run,” an NBC spokeswoman said. “If Fred Thompson formally announces his intention to run for president, NBC will not schedule any further repeats of ‘Law & Order’ featuring Mr. Thompson beyond those already scheduled, which conclude on Saturday, September 1st.”

Celebrity Dirt Goes Green

Trish

We welcome a new addition to our blogroll, er, sorry Jon, “web sites list.” This one was discovered by Buck during his live reporting from Florida’s “Serve to Preserve” global warming conference.

Ecorazzi bills itself as The Latest in Green Gossip, with current features on Rob Lowe’s testimony in Washington on behalf of hybrids, Courtney Cox’s line of global warming awareness t-shirts, and Madonna’s new movie on Malawi. At last, a way to waste time on celebrity scoop while feeling virtuous. Thanks, Ecorazzi!

Florida Lawmaker Linked to McCain Nabbed for Paying Men to Blow Him

Trish
Republican State Rep. Bob Allen

John McCain just can’t catch a break. And those Republican Florida lawmakers just can’t keep their hands off the boys.

State Rep. Bob Allen (R-Merritt Island) was arrested yesterday for soliciting prostitutes in the men’s restroom of a public park. Until his inconvenient nabbing, he was set to serve as co-chair for Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign in the Florida House of Representatives. Bummer.

According to police, the park was under surveillance today by a detail of undercover Titusville Police officers. Officers noticed Allen acting suspicious as he went in and out of the men’s restroom three times. Minutes later, he solicited an undercover male officer inside the restroom, offering to perform oral sex for $20. *

Officers realized he was a public figure after the arrest.

Allen, as he was taken out of the Titusville Police Department to be transported to Sharpes, called the situation “a very big misunderstanding,” in comments to WFTV Channel 9.

“This is disgusting,” Allen said.

Well he got that part right anyway. It really is disgusting for someone to be such a hypocrite and to exhibit so much self-hatred and denial.

Allen is a former Little League volunteer who also donated time to the Boys and Girls Club, serving on its board of directors. Allen is married and has a teenage daughter.

The good news is that Allen might not be in all that much trouble. He is only charged with a second degree misdemeanor, which is no biggie in a legislative body. Heck, everyone’s got a few of those.

Allen faces a maximum sentence of 60 days in jail.

* Editor’s Note: My research from all the available sources indicates that although this account makes it sound like Allen was offering to sell a blow job, he was in fact offering to buy one. Maybe that was the misunderstanding he alluded to?

If You Read This, You Probably Have a Mac

Trish

I’m not sure if it’s the Mac person or the marketer in me but I find this likely meaningless bit of trivia fascinating. It seems Mac users have an edge over Dell owners when it comes to “social participation” online, which would include sites like this one. Here’s what they found:

Apple Dell
Creators — Blog, publish web pages, upload videos 21% 12%
Critics — Comment on blogs, post ratings and reviews 25% 19%
Collectors — Use RSS, tag web pages 24% 14%
Joiners — Use social networking sites 26% 19%
Spectators — Read blogs, watch video, listen to podcasts 55% 30%
Inactives — Don’t participate in “social” activities online 34% 54%

Here at Pensito Review, one of us is totally Mac (hey, is that Uncle Tupelo on my Pandora station?), one of us is totally PC (Jon), and one of us goes back and forth, as expected from a registered Independent (Buck).

White House in Panic Mode as Iraqi Leaders Urge Citizens to Arm and Republicans Do the Same

Trish

You know it’s serious when Bush finally takes note. The last time something contrary to his dignitudish certitude penetrated the concrete and barbed wire around his shrunken brain was when Americans took Congressional control from Republicans in last year’s elections.

If he thinks he took a whuppin’ then, look out. Iraq’s chaos and Republicans’ inability to keep denying it have reached critical mass.

After a weekend that left hundreds dead and wounded, there’s one thing Iraq’s leaders agree on: their security forces are outgunned. They now suggest civilians take up the slack.

Isn’t the A.A. definition of insanity to keep doing the same thing and expect different results? We are like, so there.

Prominent Shiite and Sunni politicians called on Iraqi civilians to take up arms to defend themselves after a weekend of violence that claimed more than 220 lives, including 60 who died today in a surge of bombings and shootings around Baghdad.

The calls reflect growing frustration with the inability of Iraqi security forces to prevent extremist attacks.

Things are so bad that some in Iraq are ready to stop pretending that what they have is a government.

Another prominent Sunni lawmaker, Adnan al-Dulaimi, said Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had failed to provide services and security but he stopped short of saying his followers would seek to topple the Shiite-led government.

“The situation has become terribly bad,” al-Dulaimi told The Associated Press. “All options are open for us. We are going to study the situation thoroughly, and we are going to look into the possible measures which go with the interests of the Iraqi people. We will also consider whether to keep on with the government or not.”

Republicans in Congress are finally catching on. And they’re not happy.

ABC News has been told the White House is in “panic mode” over the recent defections of Republican senators on the president’s stay-the-course policy in Iraq…

The Republican defections are seen as “a crack in the dike,” according to the senior White House official, and National Security Adviser Steven Hadley is most concerned…

The source of all this concern is the reckoning about to come later this week, when Bush has to acknowledge just how bad things are, and how, even without Rumsfeld to blame, Bush just can’t get his Iraq act together.

A senior White House official told ABC News the report will be “mixed.” The White House does believe there has been progress on the security front in Iraq, but the political progress is obviously very bad.

One official familiar with the report said there are some bizarre categories under benchmark that say “satisfactory, nonsatisfactory and unsatisfactory”.

And yet, even with classifications like subsatisfactory, dissatisfactory, and freakin-bad-anti-satisfactory, Bush is unwilling to do anything different. Isn’t that the A.A. definition of insanity? To keep doing the same thing and expect different results? We are like, so there.

Despite the report’s mixed conclusions about the president’s policy, senior White House officials told ABC News not to expect Bush to announce any kind of changes or new strategy.

Nobody Wants to Join Bush’s Army

Trish

Like Bush’s poll numbers, the mystery is not why Army recruiting numbers are so low but how they manage to score at all. Who would sign on to this catastrophe?

Summer is traditionally the peak recruiting season. Army officials are now worried that July and August will be difficult as well, raising the possibility that the Army will miss its annual goal of 80,000 new recruits for fiscal year 2007

ABC News has learned the Army missed its recruiting goal in June for the second month in a row. It’s the first time in more than two years that the Army has missed recruiting goals for two consecutive months.

The figures are especially worrisome because the summer is traditionally the peak recruiting season. Army officials are now worried that July and August will be difficult as well, raising the possibility that the Army will miss its annual goal of 80,000 new recruits for fiscal year 2007, which ends on September 30…

The Army will officially release its June recruiting figures on Tuesday, but Pentagon officials tell ABC News the numbers are similar to May, when the Army recruited only 93 percent of its goal of signing up 5500 new recruits. The goal for June was 8,400. The last time the Army missed back-to-back monthly goals was April and May 2005.

The numbers will only get more difficult in the months ahead; to meet its annual recruiting goal, the Army will need to sign up more than 30,000 new recruits over the next three months.