The Political Whore

By Catherine Durkin Robinson
PoHo contributor

As we remember Stonewall and the beginning of the modern gay rights movement, the progressive community is understandably frustrated with the pace of our administration in bringing about real change.

They have a point.

Enough already with the military’s ridiculous “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

And it’s about time we legalize gay marriage.

Yet after the stunning parades this weekend and the first official recognition of the movement by a sitting working US President, I’m filled with more hope than ever before.

Which is why I didn’t allow my blood pressure to rise when WFLA/News Channel 8 aired an “it would be disturbing if it weren’t so silly” documentary infomercial Saturday night about wicked gays trying to silence Christians. I urged my fellow libs to take deep breaths and see this program for what it was — a spoiled brat stomping his feet and holding his breath in the hopes of getting attention and that last piece of cake.

“Their world is ending, Mary,” I said with a giggle. “It’s falling down around them and they can’t do a thing to stop it. Let’s not be so reactionary. Pass the Sangria and shut the fuck up. I want to hear what these freakshows have to say so I can make fun of them later.”

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By Manny Leto
PoHo contributor and editor, Cigar City Magazine

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 »

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By Ben Luongo
PoHo contributor

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.”

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By Ben Luongo
PoHo contributor

Local transportation agencies have been holding joint public outreach meetings in an effort to inform and involve the public on transportation issues. These agencies, which are the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), Tampa Bay Area Regional Transportation Authority (TBARTA), and Hillsborough Area Regional Transit (HART), have coordinated efforts forming a transportation task force which has held public meetings throughout the city.

The need for public transportation is growing, especially in Tampa, which makes these meetings rather important. Wednesday, I attended a meeting at the Community Center on 22nd Street. Thursday, I was able to chat with the MPO Executive Director Ray Chiaramonte.

Why is developing public transportation in Tampa important? Here is what we talked about:

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By Lorna Bracewell
PoHo contributor

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.”

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From this week’s Straight Dope column:

The astronauts trained at lots of sites in the U.S. and around the world, at least a couple of which humans had turned into wildernesses. According to Diamond, “Since human settlement began, most of [Iceland's] original trees and vegetation have been destroyed, and about half of the original soils have eroded into the ocean. As a result … large areas … that were green at the time that Vikings landed are now lifeless brown desert.” Similarly, much of the area around Sudbury, Ontario, was a moonscape in the 1960s due to nickel smelting.

In neither case, however, was environmental devastation the main draw for NASA. Instead it was geological features. Although the real purpose of the moon shots was bragging rights, the nominal goal was scientific exploration. One thing the moon had plenty of was rocks, and that meant geology training lest the astronauts wander right past the specimens they were supposedly there to study.

Read the full Straight Dope explanation.

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The anti-ObamaCare folks at Dick Armey’s Army, Freedom Works, have planned a Tea Party rally next Thursday in Tampa. Details after the jump:

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By Mitch Perry
PoHo contributor and anchor of the WMNF Evening News on 88.5 FM community radio

Health care reform in Washington is in peril.

In the words of Maryland Democratic Sen. Barbara Mikulski late last week, “Obviously this is not going to go as fast as we thought.”

The promise of reforming health care has been a singular focus of President Barack Obama — well, along with dealing with the banking crises, the foreclosure crises, and getting the economy recharged.

But now that crunch time is approaching, the various voices that comprise the debate in Washington are speaking up, and some groups previously considered as potential allies, (such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce) are now speaking critically of the legislation being discussed right now.

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Cross-posted from CL’s Green Community:

By Michelle Schenck
CL Green Community contributor

Everyone has a pet peeve or two. It is common to get slightly annoyed with a member of the human race every now and again, even if it is something small, like the way way a person slurps their cup of morning joe or the last person in the bathroom not replacing the toilet paper roll. It is the way that you confront and handle these matters, if at all, that turns these pet peeves into issues.

For example, when I was a little girl, I used to see a family member (they shall remain nameless) leave the water faucet on while doing the dishes. She or he would start to wash a dish, walk away to do something else, and then come back. I didn’t understand why they didn’t just turn the water off if they were going to step away for 15-20 seconds at a time? It seemed like such a huge waste of water even at a young age when the words “green” didn’t really mean much to me.

I would say time and time again to “Stop doing that!” It became frustrating and eventually became a pet peeve of mine. As I grew older, though, I was able to talk to that same person about this habit in a better, less screamy and immature way. I would talk to them about the importance of conserving water and to only use it when you are in need of it, not just because they can. They finally understood my point and, at least around me, has always made a conscious effort to turn off that faucet when they weren’t using it. It felt good to get a pet peeve off my chest so to speak while also instilling a green action in a family member.

Now days, I still get those pet peeve feelings but I feel a little more confident expressing myself in a mature manner about these peeves, at least if I have some form of relationship with the person. When I go to the beach, for example, if a friend just throws their water bottle or any trash for that matter on the sand and walks away, I will confront them about it. Nine times out of 10, a trash or recycling can is nearby and I just laughingly look at them and say, “Really?!” They usually laugh a little too and realize their mistake, pick it up, and throw it away. Sometimes people just need a little light-hearted reminder from their friends or co-workers about green actions.

As readers, what kind of green pet peeves do you have and what have you done to bring these peeves to light? Have you confronted anyone or groups of people about it? What kind of tactics do you think are acceptable to confront someone about green actions? Please post here.

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Photo: State of Alaska ADF&G

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 on Thursday to deny convicts a constitutional right to DNA testing. It wasn’t a surprise. While acknowledging that DNA can provide powerful new evidence, the majority distinguished between those presumed innocent at the onset of a trial and those already convicted during a trial. In District Attorney’s Office for Third Judicial Dist. v. Osborne, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, “A criminal defendant proved guilty after a fair trial does not have the same liberty interests as a free man.”

That may be true, but what if the verdict arrived at by the jury was wrong?  Roberts argument is a non sequitur. The purpose of DNA is to provide more certain evidence as to the party’s guilt or innocence. If DNA was not utilized in the court of first instance, how certain is the jury’s verdict of guilty in the first place?

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From The Plumline:

The Obama Justice Department has reached out to major gay rights organizations and scheduled a private meeting for next week with the groups, in an apparent effort to smooth over tensions in the wake of the controversy over the administration’s defense in court of the Defense of Marriage Act.

Tracy Russo, a spokesperson for Justice, confirmed the meeting to me, after I posted … that top gay rights lawyers were miffed that administration lawyers had rebuffed their requests to meet and discuss ongoing litigation involving DOMA.

At the meeting — which hasn’t been announced and is expected to include leading gay rights groups like GLAD and Lambda Legal — both sides are expected to hash out how to proceed with pending DOMA cases.

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The file-sharing battle against industry group RIAA is not going so well. The only person to take the RIAA to trial over its file-sharing crackdown has lost, again, and lost even bigger, in a retrial:

A jury ruled Thursday that Jammie Thomas-Rasset must pay fines totaling $1.92 million to the RIAA, as a penalty for violating the copyrights on 24 songs.

The trial was Thomas-Rasset’s second, after the first was declared a mistrial. Thomas-Rasset is the only defendant accused of violating copyright to go to trial. The decision was reported Thursday by the Associated Press.

Th fine works out to $80,000 per song.

“There’s no way they’re ever going to get that,” said Thomas-Rasset, a 32-year-old mother of four from the central Minnesota city of Brainerd, told the AP. “I’m a mom, limited means, so I’m not going to worry about it now.”

Read the PCMag story. And here is a fuller AP account.

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From Time magazine:

Of all the things that have changed in China over the past 30 years, transportation has undergone one of the most obvious of transformations. Where city streets once swarmed with bicycles, they are now full of automobiles. Cars clog intersection and expressways. Their exhaust clouds the sky and the air is full of the sound of horns. But zipping through the congestion is the vanguard of another transportation revolution: vehicles that use no gas, emit no exhaust and are so quiet they can surprise the unwary pedestrian.

In China, electric bicycles are leaving cars in the dust. Last year, Chinese bought 21 million e-bikes, compared with 9.4 million autos. While China now has about 25 million cars on the road, it has four times as many e-bikes. Thanks to government encouragement and a population well versed in riding two wheels to work, the country has become the world’s leading market for the cheap, green vehicles, helping to offset some of the harmful effects of the country’s automobile boom. Indeed, as engineers around the world scramble to create eco-friendly, plug-in electric cars, China is already ahead of the game. Says Frank Jamerson, a former GM engineer turned electric-vehicle analyst: “What’s happening in China is sort of a clue to what the future will be.”

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Photo: Amber Rhea/flickr.com

By Manny Leto
PoHo contributor

Most Tampa folks believe there are tunnels under the streets of Ybor City. People say they criss-cross 7th Avenue and were used by bootleggers in the 1920s to smuggle booze between establishments or stash cash in hidden vaults. Sounds sexy. I’m not sure whether it’s true. I met someone once whose family owned a grocery store on 7th. Apparently, she played in the tunnel under the family store when she was a little girl.

Maybe. After last week the only thing I know for sure is hidden under the asphalt in Ybor City is Augusta Brick.

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From Riptide 2.0:

Well, your bank account may already know this, but a new Wachovia report says that Florida was hit the hardest by the recession.

Here’s your depressing factoids:

* Florida went into recession nine months ahead of the rest of the country.
* Excess real estate is more abundant then the rest of the country, duh.
* The Unemployment rate in Florida is expted to reach 11%, a total loss of 720,000 jobs.
* Net household wealth dropped by $1.2 trillion, with 2/3 of that coming from financial assets.

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CL’s Straight Dope column examines the worst stock-market crash in U.S. history, the 1929 crash. Somebody must have made money in that down market, right?

An excerpt:

I recently discovered your site/column, and after spending days and nights reading, I’m convinced you are indeed the world’s smartest person and so best qualified to answer my question: Who made money during the 1929 stock market crash? I know being so smart, you’re probably laughing all the way to the bank during this one. –Bernard, currently in Accra, Ghana

Can’t complain, but smart didn’t have much to do with it. Forget to invest in your retirement account: if you don’t bet, you can’t lose. You can’t beat a system like that.

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By Lorna Bracewell
PoHo contributor

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.

Watch their pathetic attempts after the jump.

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Should local governments have spent your tax dollars in campaigns for referenda such as the Penny for Pinellas?

Senate Bill 216 is now law, and its top advocate, St. Petersburg state Sen. Charlie Justice is pretty happy about it. SB 216 bans local governments from spending tax dollars to educate voters about referenda, a process that is both defended by government as a necessary means of explaining tricky civic issues and criticized by those who say it is merely advocacy campaigning with taxpayer money.

I’ve got both sides of the issue on it. First, Justice, who issued this statement upon Gov. Charlie Crist signing the bill:

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Mitch Perry
PoHo contributor
Mitch Perry is the anchor of the WMNF Evening News on 88.5 FM community radio

The shocking assassination of late-term abortion doctor George Tiller on May 31 has brought back the volatile issue of abortion on to the national landscape.

Of course, it’s never gone away. But the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor by President Obama to the Supreme Court — and her relatively scant record on abortion issues — has elicited analysis that, perhaps unlike every previous Supreme Court nomination over the past few decades, her nomination won’t be heavily focused by her thoughts on Roe v. Wade.

Pro-choice advocates were stunned when Gallup reported last month that for the first time since it began asking the question, a majority of Americans now call themselves pro-life vs. pro-choice (although a review of other similar polls taken over the past year continue to reflect a majority pro-choice America.)

If that wasn’t at least a soft blow to those reproductive rights advocates, Tiller’s death by the hands of 51-year-old Scott P. Roeder absolutely was.

And for a portion of the public, upon learning of Tiller’s death, thoughts immediately turned to Bill O’Reilly, who focused relentlessly on the controversial doctor’s status as one of just a handful of M.D.’s in the country who continued to perform late term abortions.

Some liberal commentators and bloggers immediately blamed the cable news analyst for inciting Roeder to commit murder.  O’Reilly, predictably, pushed back, and used the opening moments of his show last week to argue that his foils, NBC News and company, were just as responsible for the murder of U.S. soldier William Long in Arkansas by a Muslim convert.

For many in the abortion rights movement, Tiller’s death brought back the dark days of the 1990’s, when doctors David Gunn, Bernard Slepian and John Britton were killed for their work as abortion providers.

Sarasota resident Sherry Svekis received a late-term abortion from Tiller in 1985. Not being a regular Fox News viewer, she was unaware of the very public campaign O’Reilly had wrought against Tiller over the years until his death.

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Big Oil’s offshore drilling scheme appears to be making a comeback. A start-up political group is looking to gather petition signatures and put the idea on the ballot, bypassing the politically sensitive Legislature.

From the Fort Myers News-Press:

Claiming that offshore drilling is the answer to the nation’s addiction to foreign oil, conservative activists are gearing up a constitutional drive to lift Florida’s 20-year-old ban.
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Sponsors of the drive, FloridaOil.org, are exploring a unique approach to getting around what has long been considered the third rail of Florida politics, one so charged that a last-minute attempt in the Legislature this spring quickly died when Senate President Jeff Atwater, a Republican from North Palm Beach, put his foot down.

“Atwater proved that we can’t rely on the Legislature,” said the group’s chief organizer, Dan Baldauf of Bradenton. “Legislators actually prefer that we do it this way, because it helps them keep their hands clean.”

This sounds like it is more about folks who want to procure some spending cash from the oil and gas companies than a legit movement with any legs. The story notes that the group has raised just $2,000 so far but expects a lot more once it attracts the attention of the oil-producing companies.

Although carefully worded polls will show support for offshore drilling, this is a big loser at the ballot box.

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Here’s an advance look at my print column that will run in next Wednesday’s issue of Creative Loafing:

Green in 2008: Gov. Charlie Crist when being green was easier, with Michael Rea of the Carbon Trust in the U.K. signing an agreement for Florida and that nation to “share expertise on low carbon innovation and investment and to jointly develop strategies to attract low carbon industries.”
Photo: Florida Governor’s Office

They were heady, green days for Charlie Crist in July 2008 as he flew to London to attend a global climate-change conference and hobnob with members of Parliament to discuss the planet’s growing environmental crisis.

Back in the day, Crist shared a national spotlight with the likes of movie star Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, gaining attention as a group of state leaders who stepped up for the environment when George W. Bush’s administration turned a blind eye to science.

It was zenith of his 2007 pledge to turn Florida green, lower emissions and grow a biofuel industry. Last year, he laid out a $200 million investment in his green vision. But today, as Crist is all but a lame duck governor running for the U.S. Senate, very few of those hopes and promises have come true. Blame the knuckle-draggers in the Legislature. Blame the recession. Or, if you are like some environmentalists in the state, blame Crist for not having the strength or guile to get his way on green.

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By Catherine Durkin Robinson
PoHo contributor, “feminist mother of twins” and political blogger, working under the title Out in Left Field

If I had a daughter, I’d want her to be a lot like Jem Lugo, a bright and funny senior at Springstead High School in Hernando County. As valedictorian, she was tasked with writing a speech to deliver at her school’s graduation ceremony.

I’ve been to several commencement exercises and the speeches given by the smartest kids in class are usually devoid of humor and almost always ignored by the audience. After five years in education and countless ceremonies, not one speech stands out.

Jem is a bright girl. She’s heading to Harvard, after all. She researched speeches online and found they were boring and uninspiring. So she decided to be different.

For my readers, the story is a familiar one.

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Architect sketch of the new HCC Student Services Building

By Manny Leto
PoHo contributor

It’s 8 a.m in Ybor City, and there’s not a construction worker in sight at Hillsborough Community College’s new Student Services building on Palm Avenue. Pillars for the fourth floor reach skyward, while exposed rebar twists in the wind.

For weeks now, a group of influential Ybor City property owners, the Barrio Latino Commission, the city’s Office of Historic Preservation and the Cuban Club has battled HCC over the design of it’s new Student Services Building which by anyone’s standing is clearly out of place along the brick streets of Old Ybor.

There’s a reason why the architecture of HCC’s Ybor Campus, including the design for the new Student Services building, has never really jibed with what the Barrio Latino Commission considers the “historic patterns” of Tampa’s National Historic Landmark District: It doesn’t have to.

At least, that’s what college officials say.

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By Lorna Bracewell
PoHo contributor

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:

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From The New York Times:

The New Hampshire Legislature approved revisions to a same-sex marriage bill on Wednesday and Gov. John Lynch promptly signed the legislation, making the state the sixth in the nation to let gay couples wed.

The bill had been through several permutations in an effort to satisfy Mr. Lynch and certain legislators that it would not force religious groups that oppose gay marriage to participate in ceremonies celebrating it.

Mr. Lynch, who previously supported civil unions but not marriage for gay couples, said in a statement that he had heard “compelling arguments that a separate system is not an equal system.”

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The old saw that you heard from Mayor Rick Baker and Police Chief Chuck Harmon was that despite perceptions and neighborhood leaders’ unhappiness, the crime rate in St. Petersburg was actually going down.

Not any more.

The Times is reporting that in the first four months of the year, crime is up:

Crime is on the rise in the city, jumping up 7 percent the first four months of this year.

The rise is fueled mostly by an increase in property crimes, which have risen 8 percent from January to April, according to police department statistics. Violent crime is up 3 percent.

The most serious jump may be in Midtown, which has seen a 16 percent rise in property crimes, including a 39 percent leap in auto thefts.

And here’s the obligatory “No shit, Sherlock” quote from Harmon:

“This is only four months of data, it’s early,” said Police Chief Chuck Harmon. “But these are trends you don’t want to see continue.”

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By Lorna Bracewell
PoHo contributor

In a presidential proclamation issued on Monday, President Barack Obama officially recognized the month of June as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month.

LGBT Americans have made, and continue to make, great and lasting contributions that continue to strengthen the fabric of American society. During LGBT Pride Month, I call upon the LGBT community, the Congress, and the American people to work together to promote equal rights for all, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.

The president’s call for equality and his acknowledgment of the many contributions LGBT people have made to America’s culture, society and politics despite being culturally, socially and politically marginalized are truly moving. However, I can’t help feeling slightly ambivalent about the whole thing. Here’s why:

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Sonia Sotomayor with her kids nephews at a ballgame. She certainly will have to be alert for foul balls in the confirmation process. (photo courtesy of whitehouse.gov)

This week’s podcast breaks down the Sonia Sotomayor Supreme Court nomination with Tampa media lawyer David Snyder. We talk about her race-based rulings, her temperament, Rush Limbaugh and Tom Tancredo’s charges of reverse racism and whether judges really do/should make policy or not.

Download or stream the HoCast after the jump.

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Vatican Ambassador nominee Miguel Diaz

By Peter Schweitzer
PoHo contributor

President Obama must’ve been in the mood for breaking new ground in Presidential appointments this week. First, he chooses a Latina, Sonia Sotomayor, for the Supreme Court, and then taps another Hispanic as his ambassador to the Vatican.

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By Grant Rimbey
Green Community contributor

The term “sprawl” was coined in 1956 and is defined as unplanned greenfield (undeveloped land) development on the periphery of urban areas that is generally single-use, single-story, low density, inexpensive to build, and requires little knowledge or expertise to create. Sprawl gobbles up our farmlands and woodlands while increasing dependency on fossil fuel, fosters obesity because you have to drive everywhere, diminishes the natural environment, decreases the feasibility of mass transit, all while failing to create a “sense of place” or build community.

There was once a time in America (before the second World War) when sprawl didn’t exist. The ascent of sprawl to the predominant development form in the United States is based on many criteria: Read the rest of this entry »

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By Ben Luongo
PoHo contributor

The Marion County School Board has ruled on the Code of Student Conduct, which now requires students to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, after a meeting last week. For months, the school board debated the proposed change to the code which wouldn’t require students to stand. Veterans from the area attended the meeting to protest the proposed change arguing that not standing for the pledge is disrespectful. The only leeway in the code allows students not to stand as long as they have a note from their parents.

The school board decided to remove the “standing clause” last year after a federal court ruling did not require students to stand. However, this change was met with pressure for the past couple of months from local veterans and possible lawsuits.

Are we comfortable with requiring our students to stand?

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By Jim Johnson
PoHo contributor and founder of The State of Sunshine

In case you missed it, Gov. Charlie Crist made a slight step this week that could help in his Senate race. Especially when you add it to a measure from the 2008 session.

This week, Crist signed the 2009-2010 budget for the State of Florida. Florida’s governor has line-item veto power, a tool many governors use to nix budget provisions with which they disagree. This year, Crist vetoed two items: the first veto restored state workers salaries to current levels, undoing the 2 percent pay cut passed by the Legislature.

The second veto, however, was a bit more important to Crist’s political future.

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By Peter Schweitzer
PoHo contributor

Let’s hope for his sake Barack Obama’s vetting team asked Sonia Sotomayor if she has paid her taxes. Let’s hope they asked her if she’s ever hired, employed, otherwise used undocumented folks for laundry, housekeeping, garbage pickup, whatever. Also, she damn well have been kidding about the impact a judge’s ethnicity and sex have on the decision-making process. She better downplay her comment about a Latina woman (isn’t that redundant) making better decisions than a white male considering the folks asking her questions are predominantly white males, and old white males at that.

Now, for the hard part… Read the rest of this entry »

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By Manny Leto
PoHo contributor

Kiley Gardens, the hotly contested riverfront park nestled between Kennedy Boulevard and the new Tampa Museum of Art off of Ashley Street, will be saved after all.

Well, most of it will be saved.

Locals have fought for years to restore the park, designed by world-renowned landscape architect, Dan Kiley. Completed in 1988 and neglected almost from the beginning, when plans for the new art museum were announced back in 2000 during the Greco administration, Kiley Gardens was scheduled for demolition. It seems that in Tampa, to create art, you must destroy art, which is, I’m sure, exactly the postmodern statement city officials were trying to make. Irony notwithstanding, local architects and others began to speak out. After what is now nearly a decade of debate, studies and grass roots activism, which reached a highpoint in 2005 and 2006, the Downtown Partnership hosted a forum this morning to assess the current plans for Kiley.
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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.

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