Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Howard Dean insists on violating the Voting Rights Act

Now Howard Dean from up in D.C. insists on disenfranchising Florida Democrat party voters, but denies it is a violation of the Voting Rights Act so he can go ahead and do it.
Dean, DNC answer Sen. Nelson's lawsuit
Bill Cotterell
Florida Capital News Political Editor
Tallahassee Democrat, Oct. 30, 2007
The Democratic National Committee today asked a federal judge to dismiss U.S. Sen. Bill nelson's lawsuit seeking to force recognition of the Florida presidential primary and seating of state delegates to the national nominating convention next summer.

DNC Chairman Howard Dean said the party is not a state entity, so it is not violating the Voting Rights Act...

Even if voters are disenfranchised by party rules, Dean's attorneys argue, the state party could remedy the situation by holding caucuses after the Jan. 29 primary to choose delegates.
Man, if that isn't arrogance, what is?

Bait and switch is ON. Take away the vote, then tell the people you rip off to organize a caucus. What the heck is a caucus, anyway? Well, one thing is for sure: it ain't a vote in an election. And the handy part if you're Howard Dean is that you have lawyers arguing it is all perfectly legal, just like the used car salesman.

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Governor Light-Fingers cuts water help, fleeces students

As this site has previously mentioned, Florida budget aces and a light-fingered governor have managed to shear the families of students for the high-dollar faculty at state universities and colleges. This week, something really needed, alternate water supply programs, feels the whisper of the blade, viz.
Crist signs $1.1B budget cut plan; OKs tuition increase
AP, Florida Times-Union
Oct. 27, 2007

Gov. Charlie Crist has made final $1.1 billion in state budget cuts - but he did so grudgingly and without fanfare.

Crist fixed his signature Friday to the budget revision bills sent to him two weeks ago by the Legislature. They enact tuition increases at public universities and colleges and cuts to the state's water supply projects, among other things...

An alliance of business groups and environmentalists failed to convince Crist to veto a $30 million reduction in the state's alternative water supply programs.

"I don't care what you cut in the budget, but it should not be water. We have drought, we have shortages, we have water wars starting," said Sen. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland. "This is the very last place we should cut."


Here is an article from the Times-Union about water supply trouble ahead.

Water needs could fog area's growth picture
DAVID HUNT, The Times-Union
Oct. 27, 2007

Northeast Florida is going to need at least 554 million gallons of fresh water every day to continue growing past 2030.

That's 180 million gallons more than the region is using today, according to projections prepared by the St. Johns River Water Management District. The additional need would be enough water to fill more than 270 Olympic swimming pools...

Utility managers are keeping watch as their counterparts to the south look for alternative supplies. The Floridan Aquifer as close by as Orlando is not expected to support growth past 2013, which has caused debate throughout Central and Northeast Florida over a controversial plan to draw up to 262 million gallons daily from the St. Johns and Ocklawaha rivers.

"Somewhere down the line, this is going to be a problem in North Florida and we have one of the best water supplies in the world," said Ray Avery, executive director of the Clay County Utility Authority.

It is amazing that Florida sits atop a huge aqifer yet always has a dry season that can go directly to drought if a few months are dryer than usual.

From my experience living out West, the water supply is the main limiting factor for populations of many wild species, and ought to be the limiting factor for "tame" bipedal primate species, as well. Every environmentalist who wants to be environmentally sensitive and move to the Rockies does so at the expense of elk habitat. Humans love to build vacation homes and live where elk live.elk refugeelk range, North America

A relative of mine wanted to move to the Rockies because she had money and didn't like California. I told her to find a place in California, that the wildlife she reveres would thank her.

Amazingly, Florida sounds like it will soon be getting population pressure on the water supply. But by then the governor will be retired and living by the Potomac River, if his ambitions pan out.

Democrat candidates punish Florida but still ask for Florida dough

Democrat politicians prove once again that they really love the Theresa LePore tradition: screw things up then blame GOPers. Exhibit D* is a report about the out-of-state Democrat candidates who keep their word to avoid the Sunshine State citizens who do not pony up the cash money.
Lack of presidential candidates looms over Democrats' convention
By BRENDAN FARRINGTON
AP, Florida Times-Union
Oct. 27, 2007

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. - Three thousand Democrats came here Saturday and rallied around their top politicians and party leaders, but the biggest impression was made by who wasn't there: Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards and other presidential candidates.

The candidates skipped the convention to honor a pledge not to campaign in Florida because the state violated party rules by setting its primary date before Feb. 5...

"The Republicans want you to believe that just because a few of our friends aren't joining us Florida Democrats are going to start voting Republican. Can you all believe that?" [Florida Democrat Chairman] Thurman said as the crowd jeered. "I will put one of our all-stars up against their benchwarmers all day long."
How does this link up with Theresa LePore?

Just re-read the words of Karen Thurman carefully: Democrat "all-stars" versus GOP "benchwarmers."

As amazing Spider-Man Peter Parker sometimes says, "What the--?!"

Thurman trash talks her all-stars against the other side's scrubs? No wonder Theresa LePore got the butterfly ballot into use in Palm Beach County.

Next on the schedule: after establishing Democrat footshooting, somebody blames the Republicans!

* Cf. recent LePore-isms, exhibits A, B and C here.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Republicans avoid LePore-style footshooting.

At least the Republicans have kept their honor in avoiding the "punish Florida now" movement that currently owns the Democrat party's national bigshots.


GOP candidates talk tough
John Kennedy and Jim Stratton
Sentinel Staff Writers
October 22, 2007
Orlando Sentinel

Republican presidential contenders battled in a nationally televised debate Sunday night...

"We're not going to keep Hillary Clinton out of the White House by acting like Hillary Clinton," said former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

Romney, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson and Arizona Sen. John McCain took the toughest shots -- at Clinton and one another -- as they sought to surge ahead in a crowded Republican field...

Also taking part in the debate were former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Reps. Duncan Hunter of California, Ron Paul of Texas and Tom Tancredo of Colorado...

The 90 minutes of verbal fencing did little to help Chris Hart make up his mind.

Hart, a former Hillsborough County commissioner, said he went into the debate favoring Giuliani and Romney. Both, he said, performed well, but neither did enough to push him off the fence...

...the primary path for Florida Democrats has proved rocky. Leading Democratic presidential candidates are boycotting next weekend's party convention because the Jan. 29 primary date violates a party rule allowing only the four early states to hold contests before Feb. 5.

With Republicans facing no such prohibition, McCain, Romney, Giuliani, and Thompson all spent the weekend courting Florida Republican activists at the Orlando convention.

Thompson also will launch a two-day bus trip across Central and South Florida today -- his second barnstorming tour in a month.

It's good to see that not every politician is as arrogant as Howard Dean and his footshootists.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Florida is bad and must be punished, but while we are here...

Now the national bigshots like Howard Dean, who want to punish Florida for disobedience to the national committee's primary election dictum, decide that campaigning in the Sunshine State is verboten but fund raising from Florida is OK.

Florida Democrats open wallets for '08 field
Tamara Lytle, Washington Bureau Chief
Orlando Sentinel
October 21, 2007

Ironically, the Democrats' edge has been achieved even though the candidates are coming to the state only to pick up checks. Because Florida's Jan. 29 primary is earlier than the national party allows, the major candidates have pledged not to campaign in Florida -- except to raise money.

That has angered some state Democrats. But even earlier in the year, virtually every visit by the candidates was to collect cash, not to meet voters....

Morgan said public financing would have to be total -- and compulsory.

"Make my day by making it all illegal and publicly financed," he said. "Till then I'm not going to let the prescription-drug companies and HMOs have their way. I'm going to elbow my way in to speak for people who don't usually have people who speak for them, like consumers."
Now we see the intentions of the noble politicians in Washington.

USE FLORIDA.

Florida Democrat and Republican politicians decided locally to hold a primary election on a certain day, and this must be punished. (Cf. "Status of Democratic votes undecided...again") So their delegates in the national convention are banned for life, but while we have your attention would you mind donating some cash money to Hillary, Barack or John Edwards?

USE FLORIDA.

And speaking of the handsome and talented poverty expert John Edwards, in keeping with the Theresa LePore tradition, there are plenty of Florida types willing to help out-of-staters have their way with the citizens of the Sunshine State. Exhibit A: John Morgan, wealthy trial attorney, probably AG if Edwards gets elected, or at least he ought to be if you ask Morgan's #1 supporter. This is the same John Morgan, the trial lawyer, who went on the radio in 2004 to advocate for handsome and talented John Edwards, and said that Edwards would even be a great president because he had won a big lawsuit concerning flameproof pajamas for children. Big credentials there. In this election cycle, he wants to "speak for people who don't usually have people who speak for them, like consumers."

Yeah, okay.

Abe Lincoln had a saying for situations like this: Whenever a politician tells you he is an honest man, check quickly that your wallet is still in your back pocket. Mutatis mutandis, whenever John Morgan speaks up for people, check quickly that your wallet is still in your back pocket.

Sunday, October 14, 2007

What the politicians don't want you to see.

The Miami Herald reports today, "Some Miami-Dade and Broward judges aren't following tough new rules meant to prevent the wrongful sealing of court records."

Boring? Not if you read the list of who benefits from sealed court records.

New rules on court records often ignored

Oct. 14, 2007
BY PATRICK DANNER AND DAN CHRISTENSEN
MiamiHerald.com

The cases include the divorce of a prominent Broward homicide prosecutor, a defamation suit against a Miami doctor, and a Fort Lauderdale law firm's fee dispute in a probate matter.

The Supreme Court unanimously adopted the rules after The Miami Herald reported that hundreds of civil and criminal cases in at least a half dozen counties were hidden from public view. Broward had the most concealed cases, and they often involved the divorces of judges, lawyers, politicians and businessmen.
Talk about the fox guarding the henhouse!

Considering that these professions especially, lawyers and doctors, have licensure boards that are hardwired for their own protection, not the protection of civilians, it is amusing to see them seduce the judges in South Florida, thereby inducing court orders for further obscuring and sleight-of-handing that benefits nervous lawyers, doctors et al.

And as the used car salesman says, "It's all perfectly legal."

Maybe.

Maybe not. Danner and Christensen quote another lawyer who smells a rat. "You always have to wonder if there's something more nefarious going on when the rules aren't being followed, and whether judges are ignoring them thinking they can get away with it," said Thomas Julin, an attorney in Miami who defends media organizations against defamation, including the Girls Gone Wild company, MRA Holdings. Hmmmm, another fox guarding another henhouse? Well, this time, I will agree with the counsellor. Keep an eye on those rascally judges!

Putin, government and media

Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice is worried about the health of the Russian government. Secretary Rice is a Russian speaker, an expert on Russia.

Rice worried by Putin's broad powers
Oct. 14, 2007
By MATTHEW LEE
Associated Press Writer
"I think there is too much concentration of power in the Kremlin. I have told the Russians that. Everybody has doubts about the full independence of the judiciary. There are clearly questions about the independence of the electronic media and there are, I think, questions about the strength of the Duma," said Rice, referring to the Russian parliament.

When Secretary of State Rice speaks of government institutions, she mentions media along with executive, legislative and judicial. I think that, even in America, the best country on Earth, many people act as if the media is a part of the government, yet they do not use the word "government" to describe the press.

Friday, October 12, 2007

Nobel Peace Prize and why I pity Al Gore



Theresa LePore (left); Al Gore (center); Jimmy Carter (right)
Al Gore, UN Panel Share Nobel for Peace
By DOUG MELLGREN and MATT MOORE October 12, 2007
Orlando Sentinel
OSLO, Norway - Former Vice President Al Gore and the U.N.'s climate change panel won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for spreading awareness of man-made climate change and laying the foundations for counteracting it.
...which expanded the Norwegian committee's interpretation of peacemaking and disarmament efforts that have traditionally been the award's foundations.


This has to be the most pitiful turn of events in Al Gore's history, being tagged with a Nobel Peace Prize. His previous claim to ill fame was the singlehanded demolition of the ordinary rules of courtesy nationwide when, with completely graceless lust for power, he took back his concession of the 2000 election to his opponent, pushing Theresa LePore into the global spotlight, underlining the ineptitude of Florida Democrat political action, and giving permission for Gore partisans everywhere to refuse their rabies shots and launch a global thermonuclear vendetta that destroys anything and builds nothing except bank accounts of political thug squads. One big notch in Al Gore's gunstock.

The reporters report that this event has "expanded the Norwegian committee's interpretation of peacemaking." That is their euphemism for "What the heck?"

Now former VP Gore joins the company of Jimmy Carter, recipient of a Nobel Prize for breaking the protocol of smiling and hushing up when tempted to criticize successor presidents publicly, something he did not have the gumption to do until 2001 or so. I voted twice for Jimmy Carter, never once for Ronald Reagan, but a few years ago I became embarrassed by Carter when his mouth lost its governing sense of ordinary courtesy.

People remember Carter for the Iran hostage debacle, and they forget the peace treaty he negotiated between Israel and Egypt, a peace treaty that still stands. But he did not receive anything for that - he was off the Nobel radar until he began trolling for the prize, trashing his successor, after Al Gore implicitly gave him permission to do so.

It used to be that there was some nobility in the Nobel Peace Prize: Martin Luther King, Jr., Albert Schweitzer, Mother Teresa, Lech Walesa, Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin. This last prize, to the two fighters who became peacemakers in Egypt and Israel, the two men who made me read the Bible for the first time, that year the prize did not also go to Jimmy Carter. Too bad: that would have been fitting and right. Now, the peace prize is nearly 100% joke.

That being the case, I have to feel pity for Al Gore who doubtless will now go around bragging about his shiny peace prize. Unfortunately, that is like bragging that you own a Mustang. 40 years ago, it would have meant something. In 1964 Martin Luther King, Jr. won the Nobel Peace Prize; good decision. In 1965, the Shelby Mustang came out: good car. In 2007, forget about it!

But the true mockery of the peace prize, which causes me to pity every other recipient, even Jimmy Carter and Al Gore, is that it once went to Yasser Arafat, a terrorist until the day he died. My dad the ACLU attorney taught me about Yasser Arafat, simply by his outrage that such a criminal would go to the U.N. and brandish a pistol. I remember him pointing out the photo in the evening paper to me. [Yasser Arafat carrying pistol in holster at UN in 1974; Kurt Waldheim upper left.]

Apparently, the Nobel committee cannot even blush. Jeremiah the prophet warned Israel as we should take warning today:
For from the least of them even unto the greatest of them every one is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even unto the priest every one dealeth falsely.

They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.

Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore they shall fall among them that fall...