I'm at Natacha Sejas's Recall Hearing. by Geniusofdespair

This post was written on a cell phone from the proceedings, in installments, it is my impression of the hearing:

Natacha made a grand entrance, she was tardy. Ivy Korman is testifying for Natacha's side. She was paid $5,000 to testify. She worked for elections department before she retired. Attorney Cody tried to get her designated as an expert. Miami Voice attorney Ben Kuehne objected-and the judge agreed--no expert.

I can't believe Kendall Coffey is not questioning Korman. She is basically saying the notary didn't print their name under their signature. Very nit-picky in my opinion. I'm bored but the judge seems interested in what is going on. I am hungry. All I had today was cereal. If this is all they've got they will lose I'm sitting next to TV reporter Michael Putney. Putney and the Herald reporter aren't writing so I don't feel so bad. Oops now they are writing.

The judge wanted them to get to the legal arguments -- what they want the court to do. Thank God. Ivy has stepped down but she is not excused- she hasn't been cross examined by Miami Voice attorneys. Now Coffey is arguing the case. He is saying voter intent is not relevant to petitions only voting. He said there are no grounds to recall the vile one.

Kuehne is objecting that Harvey Ruvin is not part of the proceedings. He also is saying they are not arguing about the voters signatures at all. He said the public's voice should be heard at an election. The County attorney believes Ruvin, the clerk, should be brought in too. Coffey is saying recalls are punitive. We are adjourned.

Natacha came up to me and angrily warned me to stop taking pictures. In unison three union guys behind her (big, hulking guys) took my picture and the picture of the Miami Herald reporter who was standing next to me the whole time. I don't know, is it good form to threaten a witness in front of a reporter? I think it was in bad taste at a minimum. Natacha has bullied people for so long she doesn't even know when it is improper.

On sea level rise and climate change: Fox and Roger Ailes lead the disinformation campaign ... by gimleteye

Signs of climate chaos are all around us. A winter of bitter cold and spectacular storms in some areas is accompanied by breathakingly warm temperatures in others. But don't look to the nation's dominant source of information to Americans, Fox News owned by Rupert Murdoch, to explain how and why.

A rare expose on the dark genius of Fox News, Roger Ailes, offers insight into the antagonism of Fox to the environment. As detailed in The New Yorker Magazine's "Fox Among The Chickens" (Jan 31, 2011), Ailes and his wife, Elizabeth, triggered a tempest in a small upstate New York community, Garrison, where they own a second home, after buying the local weekly newspaper as a hobby. (Click, 'read more')
The town business, years ago, had become preservation after the community united to defeat a major electric plant planned by the region's super-power, ConEd. Ailes moved his family to Garrison for its natural beauty. He expresses his profound antipathy for environmentalists and "the outsized influence of nonprofit entities with green agendas. "The environmentalists always tell you it's for the greater good." Ailes and his family meanwhile benefit from the natural beauty those green agendas insured in Garrison.

Well yes, the urgency to prevent climate change from wrecking humanity is for the greater good.

The part of extreme weather patterns that the mainstream media seems so reluctant to engage is the simple connection to food production. Commodity prices for many food staples have doubled in just the past year. Rising demand in Asia is part of the reason. The other part, devastating losses in food crops due to climate disruption. But Ailes and his employees at Fox would never, ever acknowledge to audiences they have spent decades dumbing down, that altering investment and patterns of consumption through government policies are essential to reversing course. Instead, Fox has lead the way in inspiring voices and politicians in the opposite direction.

Nor is there any help from Republicans in the state legislature, like Scott Plakon, a representative from Longwood, Florida, who filed a bill that would scrap a program the GOP legislature had already approved but failed to enact; to create a state cap and trade program for greenhouse emissions. Plakon pulled out of his hat a pair of rabbits: that cap and trade would be "job killing" and that the science of climate change is unsound. He told the Florida Tribune, "Until we have a better grasp of the science, I don't think this belongs in the Florida statutes."

We have a plenty good grasp of science. What we don't have, are public officials willing to tell the truth to naysayers who are leaning for support on the polluters who are creating a chaotic climate. (File this, under Tea Party funded by Big Polluters like the Koch brother enterprises)

Harvey Ruvin, Miami Dade Clerk of the Court, has done his level best to raise climate change as an issue or urgent concern, only to be thwarted by the county commission. In 2010, Natacha Seijas -- the county commissioner now facing recall in Hialeah-- single-handedly prevented sophisticated mapping of low lying and flood prone areas to be included in projections of sea level rise.

Part of the truth is that although the science is inexact, the models predicting our current climate chaos events are dead on target. Fox News has paralyzed the national debate on the environment and, as a result, marginalized the United States. (For an interesting, if lengthy, explanation read "Can we trust climate models ? Increasingly the answer is 'yes')

The "funny" part about all the ignorance awash in states like Florida is that we presume the devastating consequences to be so far away that we can just wait a little while longer. "Don't impose government mandates to protect Americans from climate chaos!" That would be socialist! Communist! But let me put the response in terms that may be understandable, even to the Republican majority that controls the Florida legislature and the House in Congress: how many lost seasons for crop growing do you think world markets can endure before we have to share what is left?

Superbowl Wrap Up 2011: Too Much Yellow on the Field. By Geniusofdespair

My team didn't win. What can I say about the game? There was too much yellow on the field. The more I drank the worse it became.

I got bored quickly with the halftime show. Maybe it was a "you had to be there" event, like watching fireworks on TV. I only stayed to watch Slash during the halftime show, I am not a Black Eyed Peas fan. I like Christine Aguilera. Even though she flubbed the words a bit, she stayed with The Star Spangled Banner so most people probably didn't really figure out what was happening. I was thinking to myself, I don't remember that line in our National Anthem:

"What so proudly we watched at the twilight's last reaming..."


The best commercial was when Roseann got clobbered.

Barcelona beats Supebowl for most important sporting event ... by gimleteye

I'll be watching the Superbowl this afternoon, but for my money, the biggest game of the new year was yesterday, when football superstar Lionel Messi scored a hat trick to help his team deliver its record 16th straight victory in La Liga, Spain's major league. The diminutive Messi would be lost on a football field in America, dwarfed by lumbering sometimes and sometimes graceful giants. What Messi and his team-mates are achieving in Barcelona, though, is perhaps the closest to perfection in one hundred years.

The Premier League in Great Britain is often touted as the highest quality team football in the world, gathering stars from Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. In terms of quality of the top teams, that may be true. Although the top league in Spain falters in terms of quality, in comparison to other national leagues there is no single team in the world that can match Barcelona's caliber. Messi is a very rare genius at the top of his performance, and he is complimented by a group of players who are stars in their own right and legends, too; Iniesta, Xavi, Puyol, Danny Alves, and Villa to name a few. The core of the team, now in their 20's, have been playing together for nearly a decade, nurtured by the Barcelona's development squad. There is nothing comparable in US professional team sports and football especially, where players often seem interchangeable.

Watching Barcelona play its league matches on television, I tell my children to pay attention: you may never see a team as talented, as well organized, and as powerfully complete in your lifetimes. The Superbowl will have its moments of poetry this afternoon. But Barcelona is pure magic. Catch them while you can.

U.S. Congressman David Rivera in the News Again. By Geniusofdespair

The Miami Herald has a good installment in the David Rivera saga.

David Rivera's 'friend' Esther Nuhfer is really raking in the dough. The gambling PAC gave her about $120,000 in 2007. The Republicans gave her company $150,000 in 2010, with little accounting according to reporters Scott Hiaasen and Patricia Mazzei, and Rivera also gave Esther's company a bundle from his campaign.

It pays to be saddled on to the right people. Just an aside: Look at Rivera's fingertips in the photo at left...creepy? Maybe.

According to a 2009 St. Pete Times article:

"Consultant-lobbyist Esther Nuhfer earned most of her $201,000 from the campaign and political committee of her friend, Republican Rep. David Rivera of Miami."

Maybe someone should check out Rubio's campaign reports to see if Esther has that magic touch with other candidates.

Distractions threaten campaign to oust Seijas ... by gimleteye

It has been clear for some time that the best chance to remove Natacha Seijas from office will be under the condition in which her recall election is scheduled on the same ballot as the recall against Miami Dade mayor Carlos Alvarez. Seijas and Alvarez are certainly not natural allies. Alvarez has been on the receiving end of Seijas' scorn for many years. But on the principle that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, the Seijas and Alvarez camps could be pushed closer together. For Seijas, it is a delicate balancing act. She knows that Miami-Dade voters are likely to make Alvarez a scapegoat for higher taxes and inefficient government and that, also, her campaign financiers (from the land speculators, developers of platted subdivisions, and interests in erasing land use planning and the Urban Development Boundary) will not rush to Alvarez' defense as they will, to hers. Alvarez is at greater risk of recall, of course, in a county wide election. Over many years, Seijas has carefully cultivated the unions. (The unions are largely uninformed how their leaders support of her is to their own detriment.) If Seijas is able to de-couple her recall from the same date and ballot as Alvarez, she may be able to summon union political voters, like SEIU to the rescue. In that event, the Seijas recall could be a replay of Florida Hometown Democracy: the citizen movement to return control of big zoning decisions to local voters. Its fervent supporters had enough strength, motivation and money to bring the matter to the state-wide ballot last November, but were too ragged, exhausted, and poorly funded to make their case to the wider public by election time. If Miami Voice defeat Seijas, it will be a momentous event not just for Miami-Dade but for Florida politics. Between here and there is a very long distance. In the context of what it takes to traverse that distance, the lawsuit by Seijas to stop the recall is a tactical distraction.

Egypt: The South Florida Daily Blog takes on Right-wing Blog Babalu. By Geniusofdespair

A recent chapter in the ongoing dispute by SFDB of Babalu's content:

Rick over at South Florida Daily Blog is not letting Babalu blog get away with their right wing speak on Egypt. He says:

'The right-wing's latest talking point is that the unrest that is currently consuming Egypt is President Obama's fault because the Middle East doesn't respect President Obama like they did President Bush...or something like that. But because it's a talking point, you just know that Babalu Blog's Drillanwr is available to parrot it."

Get Subpoenaed And Earn Ten Dollars. By Geniusofdespair

In order to be subpoenaed as a witness you have to get paid. I never knew that. The pay is $10. Yes, that is all a witness is worth. Anyway, I have decided to donate it to Miami Voice.

Any better ideas?

VNS faces her second deposition at 9 a.m. Monday. It should be longer than the first one. Miami Herald reporter Matt Haggman will be there so look for an article online in the early afternoon...write fast Matt. The trial starts at 3:30 Monday at 73 West Flagler St., Courtroom 6-1. Come and watch. Also donate to Miami Voice the button is on the right at the top of this page.

Thugshots in Broward County. By Geniusofdespair

I liked this website of Broward Sheriff's photos because they separated the thugs' mugshots into categories. They have "Nice Hair" and a "Tattoo Gallery" among others. I will let you go to the link to see "OMG...LOL", and my favorites "Jail Babes" (some are attractive) and "Rough Night."

From "Nice Hair":

From the "Tattoo Gallery" (A word to the wise: When you tattoo your cheek with the word 'death' you might be limiting your marketability):

As The Stomach Turns in Miami Dade County: Alvarez Filed Suit to Stop His Recall. By Geniusofdespair

The Miami Herald reported a suit was filed by Mayor Carlos Alvarez:

Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez filed suit in Circuit Court Friday seeking to block his March 15 recall election, alleging numerous petitions gathered to seek his ouster should be tossed out because of various technical flaws.

The suit asks the court to declare that not enough valid petitions were filed to warrant a recall election. It asks the judge to order the mayor's name be stricken from March 15 ballot.

One of the allegations: "Among other things, the latest suit alleges 104,280 petitions are invalid because of a failure to print, type or stamp notaries' names below their signatures." Give me a break, talk about grasping for straws. Is this about the notary or about the voter's wishes? I think requiring notarized petitions in the first place is an outrage. Where is that conspicuously absent ACLU when you need them? Are they off helping skin heads instead of us regular folks whose right to petition our government is made an impossibility.

Breaking News: Judge Rules Natacha Seijas is Compelled to be Deposed. By Geniusofdespair

With good news, comes annoying news.

In a hearing today, the judge ruled that Vile Natacha Seijas must attend and testify at a deposition requested by Miami Voice in the recall lawsuit. "In her ruling, (Judge) Donner admonished Cody for walking out of the deposition without seeking a ruling from her right then and there, adding that if she was called, 'I pick up my phone.'"

The annoying news...I was subpoenaed today. Why is it annoying? I won't be able to watch the proceedings. (No, I did not doctor this photo it was taken the exact moment that Michael Pizzi's name was mentioned).

Natacha Seijas: IF LOOKS COULD KILL! By Geniusofdespair

This is such a pisser. I could not believe the daggers coming out of Natacha's eyes during this deposition Thursday. You have got to watch it, watch her eyes when she hears Michael Pizzi's name. I never saw this kind of venom out of anyone. After she gets up we get to look at Stephen Cody's belly for a while. There is one County Attorney present, Gerald Sanchez, representing VNS in her official capacity and there is another County Attorney Orin Rosenthal representing the County. Natacha's PAC is suing the county for certifying the petitions. That seems like a conflict to me. It is my opinion, you can't have two lawyers from the same entity taking different sides.
Link to YouTube for this video.

The video takes time to load but it is well worth it. See Miami Voice's attorney's statement on the aborted depo in post 2 below.

Natacha Seijas (VNS): running away from voters, full of bile and contempt ... by gimleteye

It is an incredible video: Natacha Seijas standing before history, staring bleakly at the camera in a recorded deposition related to her lawsuit contesting the upcoming recall election; "suspended but not completed". Who knows what is the heart and mind of the vindictive county commissioner but bile and contempt for those who would hold her accountable? Seijas has owned Hialeah's county commission seat through massive campaign cash from land speculators and the brotherhood that controls Miami Dade County. During this time, voters in Hialeah have been clueless about the way Seijas has failed them. With support of unions that lack courage and insight and leadership, Seijas has dominated any opponents. In the last recall, her bile billowed against "people who aren't Hispanic" from the Redland; the last rural enclave in South Florida that Natacha was determined to open up to the bulldozers and platted subdivisions of her campaign financiers. This time, Seijas can't use ethnic and racial divisions: her well-worn trump card. Seijas can't outrun the pace of the economic collapse that turned the edges of the county into sprawling ghost suburbs, higher taxes, a degraded quality of life, and joblessness. Seijas scorns the view that she is personally responsible. But she is and in more than a symbolic way. Her role as de facto chair of the county commission-- a role enforcing the political order of land speculators, lobbyists, rock miners and fraudsters-- is directly implicated in the sprawling land use that destroyed Miami's natural attributes, put our drinking water at risk, and shifted enormous infrastructure costs-- mandates costing taxpayer billions-- onto the backs of voters to the benefit of the Growth Machine. Just one example from 2010: Seijas intervened to stop any county planning for climate change from including specific maps using science and studies that had already been completed, that would demonstrate low lying areas most vulnerable to flooding from sea level rise. Her recall, the second in five years, is an indictment by voters who don't know anything about the way she meddles and terrorizes county staff. In the same way the Spanish language TV reporter who surprised Seijas, forcing her to turn against the wall rather than face the camera: even Seijas must be kept awake by the message. You can run, Natacha, but you can't hide.

Vile Natacha Seijas (VNS) Bolts Deposition and Attorney Kuehne was Pissed. By Geniusofdespair

Natacha went for her deposition Thursday in the recall lawsuit but left because Miami Herald reporter Matt Haggman was there. Above is a video of Ben Kuehne's response regarding Natacha Seijas refusing to be deposed. Yes, it is a worse quality video than any of mine (hard to believe) but it is worth watching! If it were better quality you could see the veins in his neck bulging, just above his signature bow tie.

Stephen Cody, Natacha's best bud and lawyer, wanted Matt Haggman removed from the depo even though the depo is a public record. Ben Kuehne, Miami Voice's Lawyer, refused Cody's demands so Natacha left without giving her much anticipated deposition.

I wish I were a fly on that wall. You can see how she responds to reporters in the photos below from a previous encounter.

For FPL Bigwig Jeff Bartel, corporate responsibility is whatever he wants ... by gimleteye

There is nothing more appalling in public life than the way electric utilities force ratepayers to pay for megaprojects costing billions, like new nuclear power at Turkey Point, that put the hammer on local government in ways that distort democracy beyond recognition. Care about wetlands protection, water quality, water supply in South Florida? FPL makes it up, on the spot.

Here is a specific demonstration how FPL executives act like royalty. Last week, FPL Vice President for Compliance and Corporate Responsibility Jeff Bartel strong-armed local city commissioners in Coral Gables to approve, on appeal, a variance for his home in Hammock Lakes. The affluent area has site-specific zoning, but Mr. Compliance got his variance from compliance and approval to double square footage. Most people never have a chance at any variance in the Gables. For me, I'd just like to walk my dog off leash once and a while.

So how did Bartel demonstrate his "responsibility"? He did it by putting five well-known attorneys/lobbyists in the front row at the city commission, facing two city commissioners who are up for re-election, including Greenberg Traurig's black hat land use lobbyist, Lucia Dougherty. Compliance is not in the eye of the beholder: it is in the eye of owner of the beholder. The oligarchy is alive and well in Florida.

Commissioner Lynda Bell's Final Campaign Report Is In - I Have More Questions Than Answers. By Geniusofdespair

There is a lot missing from the expenses on Miami Dade's District 8 County Commissioner Lynda Bell's report. She didn't really get additional money in the last reporting period she only registered $495 in donations although she amended her earlier report to add $3,500. No one that interesting is on it. In the last report she spent $11,178. Not very much considering all the TV commercials. It makes me believe she had Political Action Committees helping her just like Flinn did but I would like to know the PAC names so I can see who donated. Did she have Republican PAC's helping her? What about Right-to -Life groups? I looked at Gene's PAC and I know who donated there. So with these reports, it is what is missing that intrigues me. Where is the Get-out-the-Vote GOTV? That is the absentee umbrella -- she won the election on absentee ballots. Is that expense folded into another expense? She didn't pay her campaign advisers very much. Who supplemented their fees? Did they donate their time? No because you would see it as IN-KIND. They got paid by someone.

See for yourself what she spent money on...there are 3 more pages if you hit read more. I went from last backwards. (hit the graphic to enlarge it)

Miami Herald: You Suck at Full Disclosure. By Geniusofdespair

I take issue with the Miami Herald today on a PRO letter to the editor about Vile Natacha Seijas. The Miami Herald doesn't identify who the letter's author FRED FROST is, namely he was/is still? president of the South Florida AFl-CIO, one of the Unions funding her anti-recall PAC. I addition, a PAC controlled by Fred Frost gave VNS's PAC $25,000.

See a previous post on Frost when he spoke in support of Marlin Stadium - with photo of him.

Have You Contributed to the Vile Natacha Seijas Recall Yet? By Geniusofdespair

Come on people fork over some dollars for good government. This video is from the LAST recall effort of Seijas. It is a Jim DeFede classic, if you don't see video, this is the link.

Let Us Now Praise Famous Parking Lots ... by gimleteye

News arrives in the Herald of the latest but not last blow to the $190 million deal-- struck by Greenberg Traurig and its Herald executive pals-- at the height of the building boom to convert 10 acres of Herald real estate to condos/retail/parking. The busted deal to create a Times Square, squarely in the middle of nothing, stands for the hubris of the boom in more ways than one, but the one we have focused on at Eyeonmiami is how the parking lot deal distorted the editorial view from One Herald Square-- stripping from the city's only daily newspaper critical analysis of the housing asset bubble that might have tempered the boundless enthusiasms related to the boom that took root first, then rotted.

Credit the Herald for reporting its own embarrassing embrace, if not detailing who got paid how much and how many millions in compensation were distributed long ago to Herald executives based, in part, on benefits to shareholders of the imagined deal. That would make a far more interesting story than a collapsed promise. But the parking lot is also emblematic of a city that can't plan its infrastructure to save its life, and, a newspaper that can't report it because of internal conflicts.

Herald founders were right to place the newspaper's view and operations at the intersection of the main route from Miami to Miami Beach. At the time, Miami was a small city. Despite its ambitions, Miami in the mid 20th century was small minded and mean, with its share of bigots and racism. All that traffic flowed past the Herald, across the causeway to island homes; from which one could hop on a boat at lunchtime and return with a locker full of fish for dinner a few hours later. That Miami-- the Miami of John and James Knight and the rod and reel club-- is gone and vanished. All that remains are a few fish docks with cleaning tables whose purpose is all but forgotten.

The way the city filled in leaves another kind of view; a city cut off from itself. The tragedy of privatizing waterfront in downtown Miami cannot be rectified without tearing down Bayside Marketplace and refocusing the attention back to the bay. In the meantime, civic structures, a private arena, and condos have filled in; from the Miami Heat to the Performing Arsht Center and the empty Herald parking lot. Nothing on this stretch of Biscayne Boulevard makes sense. It is an unworkable landscape created with glad-handing, and former bubbly and coke in the VIP rooms of condo openings. The Herald sits, resolute, in the midst of this history and this disconnected landscape.

On evenings when the Performing Arsht Center is scheduled at the same time as the Miami Heat and the circus, the pathetic single lane Biscayne Boulevard exit from 395 causes traffic to backfill all the way to 95. I know it is easier to get downtown, if you live downtown or mid-town or uptown; but what the city fathers allowed to be built (and now we will have a science museum and art museum, in the same traffic vector) is an infrastructure mess no tout or public relations megaphone can explain away.

I know: Miami is a fantastic place to live and the winter weather makes the rest of the nation yearn to be in our shoes. This is the finest city in the world. It is the best place on earth. The water is clean and the Everglades are saved. And the Miami Herald also has a parking lot to sell you.

Natacha Seijas Ambushed By Spanish Language TV. By Geniusofdespair

This was one angry lady...She was at a ribbon cutting event with Hialeah Julio and then they started asking her about the recall. GenTV reporter was persistent. When Natacha wouldn't talk to her about the recall at the ribbon-cutting event, she went to her office and then to her house. It is all here!



Miami New Times has a translation.

The Florida Legislature: An Assembly of Polluters ... by gimleteye

If you are a member of the majority party of the Florida legislature these days, you are a Republican and you probably believe that creating jobs means polluting more. There is no other way to interpret the ignorance emanating through proposed legislation: the Pollute Florida More Act. Here's the short version: because the State of Florida failed to protect outstanding Florida waters from storm water runoff from urban areas and big agricultural operations (after more than a decade of dithering), the U.S. EPA has stepped in to impose pollution standards. This action by EPA is required by federal law. It is also a major advancement for a federal environmental agency that was hobbled during the Clinton and Bush terms by political pressures. Tea Party'ers and ordinary Republicans may not understand that the state-based legislative efforts is complemented in Congress, where GOP members and the Chamber of Commerce are plotting to finish off federal environmental laws with new riders and legislation. One long-time environmentalist called the current legislative climate "the worst in his forty year career". This is the direct result-- not of the economic crisis-- but the liberation of federal agencies from the iron grip of lobbyists representing polluters. President Obama said, in early 2009, that he was going to let science guide environmental policy: he didn't just say it, he acted. The polluters know 2012 is around the corner and they are making the most of their opportunities where they have political majorities, like the Florida legislature. The stinking GOP message from Tallahassee: we are too filthy to clean up our own mess.

Mayor Juan Carlos Bermudez is Running for Miami Dade County Mayor. By Geniusofdespair

The field is getting crowded. Don't know much about this guy but he has to be better than Hialeah Julio Robaina.

Meanwhile photogenic, former State Representative Marcelo Llorente is raking in the dough. He has $301,504. In December he took money from the Wren Group, Carlos Salman Realty, Manuel Alfonso-Poch, Ramon Rasco and CCS Strategies among others. A Chris Korge in Gainesville gave him $25? What is that about? And, why is he giving himself a $7,500 loan when he has all that dough?

Manny Luis, the guy I found holding up a fish on facebook, has withdrawn from the race. So now we have Bermudez, Llorente, Darrin Ellis (not a serious candidate), County Commissioner Carlos Gimenez, Lazaro R. Gonzalez (led the first recall against Carlos Alvarez, doesn't speak English well, can't win and he hung up on me when I asked him to support charter change), Joshua Larose (the nutty guy with a penchant for Political Action Committees) and Hialeah Julio. Speaking of Robaina, he is in the news again, see Miami New Times.

Cell Phone Overload. By Geniusofdespair

I don't know about you guys, but my meals lately are looking a lot like this comic strip. Either we are texting or doing searches about whatever we can't remember, i.e. words, movies, songs etc. It seems we can't just put those damn things away and communicate. My New Year's resolution? Love the one you're with.