New Candidate Running for County Mayor: Tony Garcia. By Geniusofdespair

His full name is Antonio H. Garcia-Martinez, but he goes by Tony Garcia. He gives a post office box as his address so we don't know much about him. The zip code of the post office box he is using is near Krome and SW 8th Street right by the UDB line, so is his bank. His treasurer is Raquel Padron of Sunny Isles Beach. I tried to call him but there was no answer, didn't even get a voice.

We have 15 candidates running. One candidate, Jose Pepe Cancio, has $160,000 now, he made a loan to himself. He must be loaded he is the CEO of Supermix Concrete.

What is with Luther Campbell using a mail drop address and this guy Garcia using a post office address? If they can't give a home address they shouldn't run. Hialeah Julio Robaina is using the address of the building in the photo of above. I take it he doesn't live there. Carlos Gimenez uses an address in a residential neighborhood.

Congressman David Rivera at war with Wikipedia ... by gimleteye

Politico reports that Congressman David Rivera has sent his staff to "erase" his record as reported on Wikipedia. It's a story that speaks to the desperation of the GOP effort to dodge public scrutiny of ethics violations and, possibly, worse.
Rep. Rivera's war with Wikipedia
By: Marin Cogan
April 7, 2011 04:37 AM EDT

It’s not easy policing the image of a member of Congress — especially when your boss is Rep. David Rivera, the Florida Republican freshman beset by so many public controversies that Majority Leader Eric Cantor declined to meet with him when he visited Miami last month.

So, on March 16 at 6:40 p.m., a Wikipedia editor with the handle “Lmveiga” decided to do some maintenance to Rivera’s Wikipedia page. First, Lmveiga removed a précis of the congressman’s legislative career, replacing it with a six-point list of “Rivera’s Legislative Accomplishments,” taken directly from his campaign website.

Then, Lmveiga removed the entire “controversies” section.

The deleted text included accusations that a David M. Rivera was named as the defendant in a domestic abuse case in 1994 (both the congressman and the victim have said he was not the defendant named.) The entry also included an allegation that Rivera was involved in a 2002 traffic accident with a truck that was moments from delivering fliers detailing the domestic abuse case. (Rivera said he was meeting the truck to pick up his own fliers.) The section also said Rivera amended his state financial disclosure forms after one of his primary listed sources of income, USAID, said it had no record of working with him. (Rivera said he had worked for subcontractors to whom he had promised anonymity.) And it said state law enforcement agencies were investigating $500,000 in payments to Rivera’s mother for work with a dog track for which Rivera, then a state lawmaker, had lobbied.

Wikipedia editors quickly restored the controversies section. And “Lmveiga” again deleted it.

Lmveiga is the twitter handle of Rivera’s press secretary, Leslie Veiga.

“My only interaction with Wikipedia editing, which has been personal interaction on my own personal time, has been to add factual, documented information and remove false, undocumented allegations,” Veiga said in response to an inquiry from POLITICO. “The information I added was well sourced and linked to legislation on the Florida House website that the congressman sponsored during his time in the state Legislature, as well as current information about his committee assignments and subcommittee assignments in the U.S. House.”

Wikipedia experts said Veiga has an uphill climb against the army of volunteer editors of the highly trafficked site, who will keep putting the controversies back into Rivera’s entry.

“You are never going to find success by trying to whitewash the details of the biography you don’t like,” said William Beutler, an enthusiast of the open-source encyclopedia who writes the blog The Wikipedian. Beutler has developed a “best practices” strategy for editing articles in which there might be a potential conflict of interest. “All Wikipedia aims to do is reflect what is public knowledge and has been widely reported, and [it] is a well of information about a public official’s career. Anything publicly reported about their career is fair game for a Wikipedia article,” he said.

That meant that for the Wikipedia editors, the links to the Miami Herald, St. Petersburg Times, CBS and POLITICO were enough of a citation to include in the entry.

Beutler said it’s not all that uncommon for staffers to edit congressional entries. On Capitol Hill, the habit of polishing an elected official’s online encyclopedia reference became a trend in 2006, after Reps. Marty Meehan, Gil Gutknecht and David Davis and Sens. Norm Coleman, Joe Biden, Tom Harkin and Dianne Feinstein were dinged when their staffers’ flattering alterations showed up in their bosses’ Wikipedia edit history. In early 2006, Wikinews, a news source linked to Wikipedia, investigated all edits coming from the House and Senate offices and found most Senate edits to be helpful. House edits were more difficult to trace.

During the 2008 election, Wikipedia’s online guardians often refereed, and sometimes waged, fierce battles over the pages of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton — removing a photo depicting the current secretary of state as a walrus, for example, or references to the president as Kenyan-American.

The House IP address, 143.231.249.141, frequently shows up in the edit histories of members, committees and constitutional amendments. Wiki editors repeatedly blocked the House IP for limited periods of time until 2009, when they apparently gave up the effort.

In Rivera’s case, the edits were quickly caught.

At 7:17 p.m. on the day of Veiga’s original edit, she deleted the controversies for a second time. On Veiga’s personal page, one Wikipedia editor wrote, “I notice that one of the first articles you edited appears to be dealing with a topic with which you may have a conflict of interest. In other words, you may find it difficult to write about that topic in a neutral and objective way, because you are, work for or represent the subject of that article.”

The efforts of Rivera’s press secretary are just the latest in an intense few months of scrutiny of the lawmaker.

Cantor recently fueled speculation about Rivera’s future when he told reporters he was “very concerned” about the investigation into Rivera’s finances. This came after the House leader declined to meet with the congressman when he attended a Miami fundraiser earlier this year. A GOP source told POLITICO last month that Rivera was left off the invitation list for a Young Guns meeting organized by House Republicans.

Democrats continue to hammer the Republican daily, in hopes that the ethical imbroglios will result in a resignation before the next election. “David Rivera has a long history of being ethically challenged,” said Dave Patlak, operations director for the Miami-Dade Democratic Party. “We need to help him, and the first way is for him to recognize that he has a problem, and he needs to resign before he gets indicted.”

As for Rivera’s Wikipedia page, as of Wednesday night, the “controversies” section still includes the ethical allegations Rivera has faced in the past few months.


© 2011 Capitol News Company, LLC

Environmental Groups: Told you so! By Geniusofdespair

Today in the Miami Herald Audubon Lobbyist Charles Lee and 1000 Friends of Florida Director Charles Pattison complained about the impending overhaul -- gutting -- of growth management regulations and the Department of Community Affairs. February 11, 2010 I wrote about Florida Hometown Democracy and mentioned both groups that stubbornly refused to support the effort that would have put in the constitution the right of voters to have a say in development decisions. Well, now look what the legislature is doing guys. Would have been better to have something instead of nothing. 1000 Friends of Florida did come around somewhat at the end with a neutral statement but it was too late and, frankly, too odd. Pattison in today's article said:

...any changes must preserve the right of citizens and agencies to challenge “inappropriate” local planning decisions. As written, the bills also would narrow the ability of other state agencies, such as water management districts, to review projects.

The failed amendment Florida Hometown Democracy would have preserved the right of citizens...it would have been in the State constitution that Citizens get TO VOTE on developments so the Legislature and the Governor wouldn't have been able to meddle with our vote. Charles Lee is saying now about the legislature's move to adopt changes to our growth management law written by development groups:

“We’re not only throwing the baby out with the bath water, we’re literally ripping the bathtub out of the floor and throwing that out the window, too..."

And, speaking of throwing the baby out with the bath water, the 2.4 billion rejected by our Governor for high speed rail is being bid on by other States. Our loss is their gain. Building the rail would have brought more jobs than dismantling our growth management laws (yes they are saying growth management is a job killer). Vice President Biden said about Scott's move:

"Even if you were doubtful, I don't understand how in this economy in Florida you could walk away from 24,000 high-paying jobs."

Looks like California will probably get the money, maybe Missouri, North Carolina, New York, Maryland, Washington State or Wisconsin. To those States that get OUR earmarked money, I say: Your welcome!

Glenn Beck meltsdown and Fox News leaves America in ruins ... by gimleteye

Motor mouths, pill addicts, and Glenn Beck. An economic implosion on the scale of what is occurring in America today inevitably breeds demagogues. Beck, Rush Limbaugh et al. are from a long line of snake oil salesmen who prey on peoples' fear of the unknown, materializing as slithering creatures waiting in the weeds to rob you. Fox News and Roger Ailes roll in the gurney to take out one of their injured soldiers and will fill the space with another. On "The Daily Show", Jon Stewart was the first to pick up on the inevitable parody that Beck would become. Well you won't have Glenn Beck to kick around any more, Jon Stewart. A certain segment of American Idiot loved Beck and his delusions. Beck will fade away, perhaps to take baths in a sanitorium, engage in a private 12 step program, and eventually write a book renouncing his delusions. More advertisers should abandon Fox News: it is the only poke that will turn Ailes and Murdoch's hooded eyes.

Meltdown: not just a metaphor ... by gimleteye

Since we are on the topic of meltdowns, Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz draws a parallel between the financial meltdown and the nuclear disaster unfolding in Japan. The FPL lobbyists and executives who read our blog may believe it from Stiglitz if not from me: "Meltdown: not just a metaphor: Vested interests cause both our financial system and the nuclear industry to compulsively underestimate risk. This is an excellent OPED, I urge you to read it. (Click, read more)
Wednesday 6
April 2011

The consequences of the Japanese earthquake – especially the ongoing crisis
at the Fukushima nuclear power plant – resonate grimly for observers of the
American financial crash that precipitated the Great Recession. Both events
provide stark lessons about risks, and about how badly markets and societies
can manage them.

Of course, in one sense, there is no comparison between the tragedy of the
earthquake – which has left more than 25,000 people dead or missing – and
the financial crisis, to which no such acute physical suffering can be
attributed. But when it comes to the nuclear meltdown at Fukushima, there is
a common theme in the two events.

Experts in both the nuclear and finance industries assured us that new
technology had all but eliminated the risk of catastrophe. Events proved
them wrong: not only did the risks exist, but their consequences were so
enormous that they easily erased all the supposed benefits of the systems
that industry leaders promoted.

Before the Great Recession, America's economic gurus – from the head of the
Federal Reserve to the titans of finance – boasted that we had learned to
master risk. "Innovative" financial instruments such as derivatives and
credit default swaps enabled the distribution of risk throughout the
economy. We now know that they deluded not only the rest of society, but
even themselves.

These wizards of finance, it turned out, didn't understand the intricacies
of risk, let alone the dangers posed by "fat-tail distributions" – a
statistical term for rare events with huge consequences, sometimes called
"black swans". Events that were supposed to happen once in a century – or
even once in the lifetime of the universe – seemed to happen every 10 years.
Worse, not only was the frequency of these events vastly underestimated; so
was the astronomical damage they would cause – something like the meltdowns
that keep dogging the nuclear industry.

Research in economics and psychology helps us understand why we do such a
bad job in managing these risks. We have little empirical basis for judging
rare events, so it is difficult to arrive at good estimates. In such
circumstances, more than wishful thinking can come into play: we might have
few incentives to think hard at all. On the contrary, when others bear the
costs of mistakes, the incentives favour self-delusion. A system that
socialises losses and privatises gains is doomed to mismanage risk.

Indeed, the entire financial sector was rife with agency problems and
externalities. Ratings agencies had incentives to give good ratings to the
high-risk securities produced by the investment banks that were paying them.
Mortgage originators bore no consequences for their irresponsibility, and
even those who engaged in predatory lending or created and marketed
securities that were designed to lose did so in ways that insulated them
from civil and criminal prosecution.

This brings us to the next question: are there other "black swan" events
waiting to happen? Unfortunately, some of the really big risks that we face
today are most likely not even rare events. The good news is that such risks
can be controlled at little or no cost. The bad news is that doing so faces
strong political opposition – for there are people who profit from the
status quo.

We have seen two of the big risks in recent years, but have done little to
bring them under control. By some accounts, how the last crisis was managed
may have increased the risk of a future financial meltdown.

Too-big-to-fail banks, and the markets in which they participate, now know
that they can expect to be bailed out if they get into trouble. As a result
of this moral hazard, these banks can borrow on favourable terms, giving
them a competitive advantage based not on superior performance, but on
political strength. While some of the excesses in risk-taking have been
curbed, predatory lending and unregulated trading in obscure,
over-the-counter derivatives continue. Incentive structures that encourage
excess risk-taking remain virtually unchanged.

So, too, while Germany has shut down its older nuclear reactors, in the US
and elsewhere, even plants that have the same flawed design as Fukushima
continue to operate. The nuclear industry's very existence is dependent on
hidden public subsidies – costs borne by society in the event of nuclear
disaster, as well as the costs of the still-unmanaged disposal of nuclear
waste. So much for unfettered capitalism!

For the planet, there is one more risk, which, like the other two, is almost
a certainty: global warming and climate change. If there were other planets
to which we could move at low cost in the event of the almost certain
outcome predicted by scientists, one could argue that this is a risk worth
taking. But there aren't, so it isn't.

The costs of reducing emissions pale in comparison to the possible risks the
world faces. And that is true even if we rule out the nuclear option (the
costs of which were always underestimated). To be sure, coal and oil
companies would suffer, and big polluting countries – like the US – would
obviously pay a higher price than those with a less profligate lifestyle.

In the end, those gambling in Las Vegas lose more than they gain. As a
society, we are gambling – with our big banks, with our nuclear power
facilities, with our planet. As in Las Vegas, the lucky few – the bankers
that put our economy at risk and the owners of energy companies that put our
planet at risk – may walk off with a mint. But on average and almost
certainly, we as a society, like all gamblers, will lose.
That, unfortunately, is a lesson of Japan's disaster that we continue to
ignore at our peril.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/apr/06/japan-nuclear
power

Attack ads against Carlos Gimenez. By Geniusofdespair

Some nasty attack ads against Candidate for Mayor Carlos Gimenez have surfaced from the Accountability Project, Inc. They are put out by The Accountability Project, Inc. (repetition is good for search engines). The Chairperson is Keith Donner and Treasurer is Keith Donner, one of those do-anything-to-win campaign consultants. Anyway, it is shitty politics. Ignore anything you get from the Accountability Project.

Keith Donner worked on Eugene Flinn's campaign. He hardly attacked Lynda Bell there, maybe he was a double agent? Did Donner graduate from the Prince of Darkness, Randy Hilliard campaign school?

See message from Vanessa Brito in comments, she was briefly working for this Political Action Committee.

Alex Penelas for County Mayor? That's an April Fool's Joke ... by gimleteye

There is an April's Fools joke making the rounds. It ended up in The Miami Herald this morning, suggesting Alex Penelas, the former county mayor, "confirmed after weeks of speculation, that he's seriously considering a run" for county mayor. Penelas' running for county mayor is outlandish as his joke campaign of running for the US Senate. If Penelas were to run, Eyeonmiami will be there. Cue, the rewind button. This won't be difficult. Promise.

What's the GOP shut down of federal government really about? by gimleteye

Here is a report from the Center On Budget And Policy Priorities: "Chairman Ryan Gets Roughly Two-Thirds of His Huge Budget Cuts From Programs for Lower-Income Americans". Chief Economist, Robert Greenstein, writes, "GOP House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s budget plan would get about two-thirds of its more than $4 trillion in budget cuts over 10 years from programs that serve people of limited means, which violates basic principles of fairness and stands a core principle of President Obama’s fiscal commission on its head.”

The $2.9 trillion — or about two-thirds — of the cuts includes the following three categories of cuts:

$2.17 trillion in reductions from Medicaid and related health care,
$350 billion in cuts in mandatory programs serving low-income Americans (other than Medicaid), and
$400 billion in cuts in low-income discretionary programs.

View the full report here.

Go Check Out "Pink Slip Rick " and Quinnipiac Florida Poll. By Geniusofdespair

Pink Slip Rick (Scott) is a welcome new addition to the web. It doesn't do very much except giving you something to add to your Facebook page or your Twitter account. But, if they ever come up with something meaningful - like a petition drive - they will have your email or facebook page link so you can jump on board.

Some highlights from an April Quinnipiac poll of Florida Voters:

Scott disapproval rate is at 48% up 22%. He has a steadfast 35% approval rating, appears it doesn't matter what he does to them. Legislature also has a 47% disapproval vs. 35% approval. More on the poll released today:

April 6, 2011 - Florida Voters Turn Thumbs Down On Gov. Scott, Quinnipiac University Poll Finds; Voters Back Drug Tests For State Workers Almost 4-1

The number of Florida voters who disapprove of Gov. Rick Scott has more than doubled, pushing him from a positive 35 - 22 percent job approval February 2 to a negative 35 - 48 percent approval in a Quinnipiac University poll released today. Voters also say 53 - 37 percent that his state budget proposals are unfair to them.

Gov. Scott's proposed budget cuts go "too far," 47 percent of voters say, as 16 percent say they don't go "far enough" and 29 percent say they are "about right," the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University survey finds.

By 78 - 20 percent, voters say Scott's order that newly-hired state government workers undergo drug testing and that those already on the job be spot-checked is a good idea.

A proposal working its way through the Legislature that would end the government's practice of collecting union dues from state workers is a bad idea, voters say 47 - 43 percent. But voters support 74 - 22 percent the provision of that same bill which would require unions to get individual members' approval before using dues payments for political purposes.

Voters disapprove 57 - 39 percent of a new law that will tie teachers' pay to student performance on standardized tests, and split 47 - 47 percent on the part of that law that would eliminate tenure for public school teachers hired after July 1.

"While his approval rating is unchanged, Gov. Rick Scott's disapproval rating has jumped from 22 percent to 48 percent, perhaps not surprising given the magnitude of the changes he is proposing," said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. "Today, Scott is a four-letter word to many Florida voters, but political popularity can change with time. The experience of Scott's predecessor, Charlie Crist, who had 70 percent approval ratings at this point in his tenure, shows how fickle public opinion can be."

"Nonetheless, the fact that Scott is as unpopular as the State Legislature, which has a 47 - 35 percent disapproval rating, is evidence of the depth of his problem. It is exceedingly rare for an unindicted governor or president to ever be seen as poorly by the electorate as his legislature or Congress," said Brown.

Voters disapprove 55 - 36 percent of the way Scott is handling the budget. They say 52 - 41 percent that Scott should not have pledged to balance the budget without raising taxes and by 64 - 24 percent they say he will not be able to keep that no-tax pledge.

Voters prefer 65 - 29 percent not raising any taxes and balancing the budget only through spending cuts, rather than raising some taxes in order to reduce the number of spending cuts.

"The one piece of good news for Gov. Scott seems to be that voters agree with his no- new-taxes strategy," said Brown. "Actually, there's another piece of good news: He has almost four years left to turn around public opinion."

Scott's problems run deeper among women, who disapprove of the job he is doing 55 - 26 percent, than among men who approve 45 - 41 percent. He gets a 58 - 25 percent approval among Republicans, but Democrats disapprove 74 - 12 percent and independent voters turn thumbs down 48 - 33 percent.

By 49 - 44 percent, voters say Scott's plan to cut $2 billion in property and business taxes is a bad idea.

"One key metric that Scott will need to turn around if he is to be successful politically is voter perception that his proposed budget is unfair to them," Brown said. "Men are split, saying 46 - 44 percent it is unfair but women find it unfair by 59 - 30 percent."

Genius said: Women are smarter than men in this case!

Legal System Under Siege. By Geniusofdespair

These notes were written in February so some of these bills might be heading down the pike already. They say "the business community is engaged in a feeding frenzy" and that bills that hurt people are being presented as job killers. Let me clue you in, you don't want to curb court awards. You may someday be injured badly by the negligence of others. (Hit on images to read them)




We have the lawyers mad as hell now--(at least read the first paragraph). The unions are already there and every environmental group in Florida is up in arms...now what are we going to do with them all? I say: We need an action!

Scott's 7 steps taking Florida to the abyss. By Geniusofdespair

No that is not my original title but it could have been (it is the Heralds). Daniel Shoer Roth wrote a column in the Miami Herald about Governor's Rick Scott's seven-step plan to create 700,000 jobs in 7 years (God forbid he is in that long). Shoer-Roth says:

"Yet, judging from the winds now blowing in the state capital, his slogan should have been: “Let’s work for business” — a seven-step plan to leave 700,000 Floridians in poverty in seven years."

He then goes into the 7 steps Rick is actually doing to get those 700,000 into poverty. I like his step 2:

"Get $1 billion from consumers to return a favor to FPL."

Here is the comment I left on the Herald site:

Rick Scott is the worst thing to every happen to Florida and his willing ultra-conservative legislators will make his insane agenda happen. Our only hope is if the few moderate Republicans left get a backbone because the Dems are outnumbered. If electric and insurance bills go up...that tax reduction he was promising won't mean a thing. And, the tax reduction wouldn't help you and me anyway - tax reductions only go to the rich in Publand. All the business perks Scott is working on will hurt us all in the long run. Haven't we learned from giving Wall Street free reign?

Sadly, just as is happening nationally, union members are the new State scapegoat. That is a ploy to turn us against each other as business's rake in the extra dough and we are diverted. Guess what, businesses don't want to pay pensions so they turn it into a dirty word. The only beef I have with unions is they support bad candidates but they had enough sense not to support Scott.

The Point About FPL Turkey Point Nuclear? It is on top of a sponge ... by gimleteye

An uncontrolled flow of highly radioactive water is seeping into the sea and groundwater surrounding the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Over the weekend, Japanese workers tried to plug a crack around the concrete base of a storage facility at Unit 2 where radioactive water had pooled, with no success. This morning's news: radioactive iodine has been detected at 7.5 million times the legal limit in a seawater sample taken near the facility. What would happen if radioactive water were spilled from crippled nuclear reactors at Turkey Point or its external storage pools for spent fuel? We know the answer. (Please click, read more)

In 2007 we reported on the impact of 1992 Hurricane Andrew on the two nuclear reactors, Unit 3 and Unit 4. The NRC wrote in its 1993 summary, "Hurricane Andrew is historic because this is the first time that a hurricane significantly affected a commercial nuclear power plant. The eye of the storm, with sustained winds of up to 233 kilometers per hour (km/h) [145 miles per hour (mph)] and gusts of 282 km/h (175 mph), passed over the Turkey Point site and caused extensive onsite and offsite damage. The onsite damage included loss of all offsite power for more than 5 days, complete loss of communication systems, closing of the access road, and damage to the fire protection and security systems and warehouse facilities. However... the units remained in a stable condition and functioned as designed."

But what if the storm had been sprawling and the storm surge knocked out roadways and infrastructure surrounding the plant, and what if the backup power generation failed and sufficient cool water could not be supplied to the reactors or the spent fuel rod pond? Hurricane or black swan event: we know what would happen if radioactive water was released in significant quantities at Turkey Point.

We have the answer because Turkey Point is releasing highly saline water, the byproduct of steam generation, that has been pushing westward for many years. According to its 1972 license and subsequent amendments with the state, FPL is obligated to contain its superheated outflow water within a system of cooling canals, 168 miles long and compressed into a serpentine formation within its 11,000 acre facility in South Dade. Neither FPL nor the state of Florida, through the South Florida Water Management District, can live up to its legal commitments with respect to this issue.

At the Fukushima nuclear plant, cracks in concrete armor are providing a direct convection route to the sea. There would be no such struggle to contain a leak at Turkey Point with a radioactive spill because the rock bed underneath Turkey Point, called Karst formation limestone, and the entire region is full of holes as a sponge. Radioactive water would follow the same path that the highly saline water is demonstrably following now: westward into the porous aquifer underlying farmland, industrial rock mines, and suburbs. (In fact, it is through the release of trace amounts of a radioactive isotope called tritium. FPL calls the issue "harmless" and is otherwise silent on this subject, too.)

FPL is pushing forward two new reactors through a permitting process that the Miami Dade county commission should have held up until important safety questions including coolant water supply were answered. When the unreformable majority had a chance to hold up the application, it rolled over like a spayed spaniel.

Draw that exclusion radius around Turkey Point. In Japan, the radius for evacuation is 20km or 30km depending on who you trust. Here, a whole number of FPL executives and lobbyists live within that radius and are paid big bucks for gambling that everyone else can live with the risk they have imposed. The final nature of that risk was well described in an Orlando Sentinel editorial last weekend by a retired chemist living in Gainesville, Lee Bidgood. "Even more ominous than the cancer is the threat to future generations — that's what you ought to be really afraid of." The problem, of course, is that future generations don't show up on 20 year depreciation schedules or in compensation plans for advocates and executives charged with nuclear power investments.

Bidgood is right: "It's the genetic damage, the possibility of sowing bad seeds into the gene pool from which future generations are drawn. There will be a buildup of defective genes into the population. It won't be noticed until it's too late. Then we'll never root it out, never get rid of it. It will be totally irreversible."

Recently, UK Guardian writer Thomas Noyes asked the question whether nuclear energy is being priced right. "The total costs of coal may be high, but the total costs of nuclear power are, in any meaningful sense, incalculable... I don't see why I or anyone should apologise for advocating developing energy resources that don't blow up and take their investors with them." Or grandchildren who will be saddled with the expense of decommissioning nuclear reactors built at sea level before the ratepaying base of FPL disappears from South Florida, entirely, under the pressure of climate change.

A disaster, they say, could never happen here unless it does in which case sitting on porous limestone will lead to questions: what were voters drinking when they elected officials who supported nuclear power in South Florida?

State Committee is GUTTING the Comprehensive Plan. By Geniusofdespair

The State Committee Substitute (CS) is making numerous changes to Florida's Growth Management Act. Here is one really bad change for us with protecting the Urban Development Boundary (UDB):

Section 4 amends s. 163.3167, F.S., to delete the role of the regional planning council in creating new comprehensive plans. The CS deletes the retroactive effect of the section. Under the CS, local governments may not have in place an initiative or referendum process in regard to any development order or in regard to any local comprehensive plan amendment or map amendment. The CS prohibits local governments from adopting a super majority voting requirement for the adoption of amendments to the comprehensive plan. And, here is some more toxic stuff:

The CS deletes:
the public schools facilities element and most portions of the schools interlocal agreement.
the optional elements of the coastal management element.
the requirement that the intergovernmental coordination element recognize campus master plans and airport master plans.
provisions related to visioning and urban service boundaries.

And:

Section 11 amends s. 163.3180, F.S., to remove requirement that local governments have concurrency for parks and recreation, schools, and transportation facilities. In order for a local government to rescind any optional concurrency provisions, a comprehensive plan amendment is required. An amendment rescinding optional concurrency issues is not subject to state review.

The bill CS/SB 1122 is 37 pages. There is more I have singled out:


Section 1 amends s. 163.3161, F.S., redesignating the "Local Government Comprehensive Planning and Land Development Regulation Act" as the "Community Planning Act". The CS revises the intent and purpose of act. (Does not include the part related to updating the comprehensive plan based on the EAR).

Section 2 revises s. 163.3162, F.S., related to agricultural enclaves to remove references to rule 9J-5.006(5), F.A.C., and to specify plan amendments are presumed not to be urban sprawl as defined in s. 163.3164, F.S.

Section 3 amends s. 163.3164, F.S., to revise and alphabetize the definitions section. A number of definitions are added from ch. 9J-5, F.A.C., including:

capital improvement
compatibility
deepwater ports
floodprone areas
goal
intensity
level of service
objective policy

Affordable housing is revised to include only s. 420.0004(3), F.S., which states that “Affordable” means that monthly rents or monthly mortgage payments including taxes, insurance, and utilities do not exceed 30 percent of that amount which represents the percentage of the median adjusted gross annual income. This definition is narrower than the definition in ch. 9J-5, F.A.C., which also includes affordable housing definitions that are prescribed by other affordable housing programs administered by either the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development or the State of Florida.

The CS creates a new definition of “new town.” Under the CS a new town is an urban activity center and community designated on the future land use map of sufficient size, population and land use composition to support a variety of economic and social activities consistent with an urban area designation. New towns shall include basic economic activities; all major land use categories, with the possible exception of agricultural and industrial; and a centrally provided full range of public facilities and services that demonstrate internal trip capture. A new town shall be based on a master development plan.

Urban sprawl is redefined as a development pattern characterized by low density, automobile- dependent development with either a single use or multiple uses that are not functionally related, requiring the extension of public facilities and services in an inefficient manner, and failing to provide a clear separation between urban and rural uses. This definition is different than the definition currently in ch. 9J-5, F.A.C., which would have discouraged “the premature or poorly planned conversion of rural land to other uses” and “[t]he creation of areas of urban development or uses which fail to maximize the use of existing public facilities or the use of areas within which public services are currently provided. Urban sprawl is typically manifested in one or more of the following land use or development patterns: Leapfrog or scattered development;

ribbon or strip commercial or other development; or large expanses of predominantly low- intensity, low-density, or single-use development.”
The CS includes the following new definitions:

“Antiquated subdivision” means a subdivision that was recorded or approved more than 20 years ago and that has substantially failed to be built and the continued buildout of the subdivision in accordance with the subdivision’s zoning and land use purposes would cause an imbalance of land uses and would be detrimental to the local and regional economies and environment, hinder current planning practices, and lead to inefficient and fiscally irresponsible development patterns as determined by the respective jurisdiction in which the subdivision is located.
“Internal trip capture” means trips generated by a mixed-use project which travel from one on- site land use to another on-site land use without using the external road network.

“Mobility plan” means an integrated land use and transportation plan that promotes compact, mixed-use, and interconnected development served by a multimodal transportation system that includes roads, bicycle and pedestrian facilities, and, where feasible and appropriate, frequent transit and rail service, to provide individuals with viable transportation options without sole reliance upon a motor vehicle for personal mobility.

“Transit-oriented development” means a project or projects, in areas identified in a local government comprehensive plan, which are or will be served by existing or planned transit service. These designated areas shall be compact, moderate to high density developments, of mixed-use character, interconnected with other land uses, bicycle and pedestrian friendly, and designed to support frequent transit service operating through, collectively or separately, rail, fixed guideway, streetcar, or bus systems on dedicated facilities or available roadway connections.

The CS revises the following existing definitions:
“Urban service area” to mean areas where public facilities and services, including, but not limited to, central water and sewer capacity and roads, are already in place or are committed in the first 3 years of the capital improvement schedule. Urban service area includes any areas identified in the comprehensive plan as urban service areas, regardless of local government limitation.

The “optional sector plan” (a pilot program, which is expanded in the CS) is changed to “sector plan” means the process authorized by s. 163.3245, F.S., in which one or more local governments engage in long-term planning for a large area and address regional issues through adoption of detailed specific area plans within the planning area as a means of fostering innovative planning and development strategies, furthering the purposes of this part and part I of chapter 380, reducing overlapping data and analysis requirements, protecting regionally significant resources and facilities, and addressing extrajurisdictional impacts. "Sector plan" includes an optional sector plan that was adopted pursuant to the Optional Sector Plan pilot program.

The definition of “financial feasibility” is revised to expand the timeframe that capital improvements must have committed or planned funding sources from 5 to 10 years.
The definition of “dense urban land” area is deleted.

Section 4 amends s. 163.3167, F.S., to delete the role of the regional planning council in creating new comprehensive plans. The CS deletes the retroactive effect of the section. Under the CS, local governments may not have in place an initiative or referendum process in regard to any development order or in regard to any local comprehensive plan amendment or map amendment. The CS prohibits local governments from adopting a super majority voting requirement for the adoption of amendments to the comprehensive plan.

Section 5 creates s. 163.3168, F.S., entitled "planning innovations and technical assistance" to encourage local governments use innovative planning tools. The CS authorizes the state land planning agency and other appropriate state and regional agencies to provide local governments with technical assistance.

Section 6 amends s. 163.3171, F.S., to clarify that joint planning agreements should be broadly construed, that courts have sole jurisdiction to interpret joint planning agreements, and that the validity of a joint planning agreement may not be a basis for finding plan amendments not in compliance.

Section 7 amends subsection (1) of s. 163.3174, F.S., to delete certain notice requirements relating to the establishment of local planning agencies by a governing body.

Section 8 rewrites s. 163.3177, F.S. This CS changes the format of the future land use element provisions to increase readability. The comprehensive plans must still include the local government’s goals and policies. The CS deletes the optional elements of the comprehensive plan, but specifically allows local governments to have optional elements. The comprehensive plan must be justified by professionally accepted data. The plan must accommodate at least the minimum amount of land required to accommodate the resident and seasonal population projections. Population data gives the minimum amount of land required except in areas of critical state concern.

The CS requires capital improvements to support the incorporation of either concurrency or a mobility plan into the capital improvements element. Local governments could amend the financial feasibility of their capital improvements element by ordinance rather than comprehensive plan amendment. The deadline to comply with the financial feasibility requirement is moved to December 1, 2013.

Specific requirements from rule 9J-5, F.A.C., have been added, including provisions relating to urban sprawl. Each map depicting future conditions must reflect the principles, guidelines, and standards within all elements and each such map must be included in the comprehensive plan. This CS requires the future land use element to clearly identify the land use categories in which public schools are an allowable use, but deletes language related to school citing. This CS also removes requirements relating to energy efficiency and green house gas reductions. Further, the

BILL: CS/SB 1122 Page 22

CS addresses population projections, the issue of identified need for future development, and highlights the need to address outdated land uses, such as antiquated subdivisions.

The CS allows different parts of the comprehensive plan to have different planning periods. The CS makes one of the goals of the future land use category the need to modify land uses and development patterns within antiquated subdivisions.
This CS incorporates, from rule 9J-5, F.A.C., the thirteen primary indicators that a plan or plan amendment does not discourage urban sprawl.

In addition, this CS adds eight indicators that a plan or plan amendment achieves the discouragement of urban sprawl. If the future land use element or a plan amendment achieves four of these eight indicators within its development pattern or urban form it will automatically be determined to discourage the proliferation of urban sprawl. These indicators are whether the amendment:

Directs or locates economic growth and associated land development to geographic areas of the community in a manner that does not have an adverse impact on and protects natural resources and ecosystems. Promotes the efficient and cost-effective provision or extension of public infrastructure and services.

Promotes walkable and connected communities and provides for compact development and a mix of uses at densities and intensities that will support a range of housing choices and a multimodal transportation system, including pedestrian, bicycle, and transit, if available.

Promotes conservation of water and energy. Preserves agricultural areas and activities, including silviculture, and dormant, unique, and prime farmlands and soils.

Preserves open space and natural lands and provides for public open space and recreation needs. Creates a balance of land uses based upon demands of residential population for the nonresidential needs of an area.

Provides uses, densities, and intensities of use and urban form that would remediate an existing or planned development pattern in the vicinity that constitutes sprawl or if it provides for an innovative development pattern such as transit-oriented developments or new towns as defined in s. 163.3164, F.S.

This CS revises and combines the multiple subsections of the transportation element into one subsection of law. This provision contains language promoting coordination of transportation planning between an MPO and the local government plan. The plan will also include mass- transit provisions and an airport master plan.

The CS revises provisions related to the sanitary sewer, solid waste, drainage, potable water, and natural groundwater aquifer recharge element, the conservation element, and intergovernmental coordination.

The CS deletes:

BILL: CS/SB 1122 Page 23

the public schools facilities element and most portions of the schools interlocal agreement.
the optional elements of the coastal management element.
the requirement that the intergovernmental coordination element recognize campus master
plans and airport master plans.
provisions related to visioning and urban service boundaries.

Provisions related to rural land stewardship are moved to s. 163.3248, F.S.

Section 9 amends s. 163.31777, F.S. to retain interlocal agreements between a county, the municipalities within, and a school board. However, the CS removes state oversight and review of the interlocal agreements while maintaining certain minimum issues that the interlocal agreement must address. If a local government chooses to maintain optional school concurrency within its jurisdiction, this CS specifies that the interlocal agreement must also meet further requirements.

Section 10 makes conforming changes to s. 163.3178, F.S.

Section 11 amends s. 163.3180, F.S., to remove requirement that local governments have concurrency for parks and recreation, schools, and transportation facilities. In order for a local government to rescind any optional concurrency provisions, a comprehensive plan amendment is required. An amendment rescinding optional concurrency issues is not subject to state review.

If local governments elect to have these concurrency programs, the CS specifies the framework of how concurrency is to operate. For example, local governments that implement transportation concurrency must:

Consult with the DOT when proposed plan amendments affect facilities on the strategic intermodal system. Exempt public transit facilities from concurrency. Allow an applicant for a development of regional impact development order, a rezoning, or other land use development permit to satisfy the transportation concurrency requirements of the local comprehensive plan, the local government’s concurrency management system, and s. 380.06, F.S., when applicable.

Calculate proportionate share according to a specific formula. Specifically, the CS modifies the calculation of proportionate share to specify that development does not pay for impacts on roadways that do not meet level of service standards or on roadways that are financed by tolls.

For those local governments that implement school concurrency, a local government may allow a landowner to proceed with development of a specific parcel of land notwithstanding a failure of the development to satisfy school concurrency, if all the following factors are shown to exist:

The proposed development would be consistent with the future land use designation for the specific property and with pertinent portions of the adopted local plan, as determined by the local government. The local government’s capital improvements element and the school board’s educational facilities plan provide for school facilities adequate to serve the proposed development, and the local government or school board has not implemented that element or the project

BILL: CS/SB 1122 Page 24

includes a plan that demonstrates that the capital facilities needed as a result of the project can be reasonably provided. The local government and school board have provided a means by which the landowner will be assessed a proportionate share of the cost of providing the school facilities necessary to serve the proposed development.
Section 12 reenacts s. 163.31801, F.S., relating to the burden of proof/standard of review for impact fees in response to ongoing litigation. To remove any doubt regarding whether this section is an unconstitutional mandate, this provision requires approval by each house of the Legislature by two-thirds of the membership.
Additionally, the CS creates a 2-year moratorium on impact fees. It does not affect impact fees pledged or obligated for the retirement of debt or impact fees for water or wastewater.

Section 13 amends s. 163.3182, F.S., to revise terminology. The CS then revises the definition of transportation deficiency to include areas where the projected traffic volume exceeds the level of service standard adopted in a local government comprehensive plan for a transportation facility. This makes the definition consistent with other places in statute.

The CS would revise language relating to the schedule for financing and construction of projects that will eliminate deficiencies as part of a transportation deficiency plan. Specifically, the CS language states that if mass transit is selected as all or part of the system solution, the improvements and service may extend outside the transportation deficiency areas to the planned terminus of the improvement as long as the improvement provides capacity enhancements to a larger intermodal system.

Section 14 amends 163.3184, F.S., to revise the definition of “in compliance” with certain growth management laws to eliminate reference to the state comprehensive plan and ch. 9J-5, F.A.C., but include consistency with the rural land stewardship program. The CS defines “reviewing agencies.” The CS deletes the expedited processes for community visioning, urban service boundaries, urban infill and redevelopment, and housing incentive strategy plan amendments because all plan amendments will be expedited under the CS.

Section 15 amends s. 163.3187, F.S., to delete the penalty for failure to adopt amendments in accordance with the evaluation and appraisal report.

Section 16 amends s. 163.3191, F.S., to create exceptions from the evaluation and appraisal reporting requirement and to relax the requirements generally. The following local governments would be exempted completely:

A municipality of special financial concern with a per capita taxable value of assessed property of $58,000 or less; or A municipality with a population under 20,000 with a per capita taxable value of assessed property of $46,000 or less; or Small counties.

THERE IS PLENTY MORE!

Let's get to work removing Rick Scott from office. By Geniusofdespair

You know how you go to a movie and you hate it after 5 minutes but assume it will get better so you stay, but it never does get better. That is our future with Rick Scott, I say let's cut our losses early. The Huffington Post calls Rick Scott a Grifter. They say "he has become the very face of buyer's remorse." Carl Hiaasen said in his Sunday column: "Today’s lackluster assemblage in Tallahassee is possibly the worst in modern times, and cannot fairly be compared to anything except a rodeo of phonies and pimps. It’s impossible to remember a governor and lawmakers who were more virulently anti-consumer, and more slavishly submissive to big business."

So what are we to do? There is no recall of a Governor in the Florida constitution, that is why State Senator Gwen Margolis is trying to put it in with legislation. But do we have the time for this lengthy process with all the damage this guy is doing and further, will the State Legislature even put it on the ballot? Tick, tick, tick, time is wasting.

I personally can't wait to find out. Here is my plan. We start a petition campaign to rid Florida of its number one tea bagger with a constitutional amendment. Here in section 3 of the Florida Constitution, it tells us the only legal channel citizens have to turn to:

Initiative — The power to propose the revision or amendment of any portion or portions of this constitution by initiative is reserved to the people, provided that, any such revision or amendment, except for those limiting the power of government to raise revenue, shall embrace but one subject and matter directly connected therewith. It may be invoked by filing with the custodian of state records a petition containing a copy of the proposed revision or amendment, signed by a number of electors in each of one half of the congressional districts of the state, and of the state as a whole, equal to eight percent of the votes cast in each of such districts respectively and in the state as a whole in the last preceding election in which presidential electors were chosen. (That means we only need 676,506 signatures as 8,456,329 voted in 2008).

I presume our petition can say something like: Do you want to remove Rick Scott from office? We would have to make it legally okay. Maybe it has to be specific, like "Any Governor who pleaded the 5th amendment 75 times be removed from office." Or "Any Governor whose company was fined in excess of 1 Billion Dollars be removed from office." I spoke to an attorney who tells me this would raise 'bill of attainder' issues. Ouch! I don't like the sound of that (and don't know what it means). He suggested that we instead simply amend the constitution to end the sitting governor's term 3 days (arbitrary) following the adoption of this amendment, with a special election to be held on date X, with the term of the interim governor to end at the time that the sitting governor's term would have ended.

Or we can wait for Gwen Margolis' legislation (Senate Bills 1688 and 1700 and House Bills 785 and 787) which would be slow because it is a two step process (and I don't think it will be well received by legislators). In Margolis's scenario first we have to get legislators to place the recall Statute on the ballot and then we have to vote for it. Second we have to put Rick Scott's recall on the ballot in a petition drive and then we have to approve that in an election. All that would take too long - about 2 or 3 years at a minimum. I think we can get rid of him with one carefully worded petition drive in a year if we get the unions to help. He has gotten enough unions angry at hi that is for sure. Let them flex their muscle with their numbers and their pocketbooks.

We would have plenty of money to mount a Statewide petition drive with union support, and also the manpower to collect signatures. So, LET'S GET TO WORK!

See Senator Margolis' Senate Bill:


35-01333-11 20111688__
1 Senate Joint Resolution
2 A joint resolution proposing the creation of Section 8
3 of Article VI of the State Constitution to provide for
4 the recall of the Governor, Lieutenant Governor,
5 members of the Cabinet, and legislators.
6
7 Be It Resolved by the Legislature of the State of Florida:
8
9 That the following creation of Section 8 of Article VI of
10 the State Constitution is agreed to and shall be submitted to
11 the electors of this state for approval or rejection at the next
12 general election or at an earlier special election specifically
13 authorized by law for that purpose:
14 ARTICLE VI
15 SUFFRAGE AND ELECTIONS
16 SECTION 8. Recall of governor, lieutenant governor, members
17 of the cabinet, and legislators.—
18 (a) Recall is the power of the electors to remove a person
19 from elective office before his or her term expires. The
20 governor, lieutenant governor, members of the cabinet, and
21 legislators may be removed from office by the electors in a
22 recall election. This method of removing persons from elective
23 office is in addition to any other method provided by this
24 constitution or general law.
25 (b) The recall of a public official under this section is
26 initiated by delivering to the Secretary of State a petition
27 containing the name of the person sought to be recalled and the
28 alleged reason for the recall. The sufficiency of the reason is
29 not reviewable. Proponents have 120 days to circulate and file
30 signed petitions, and the Secretary of State shall maintain a
31 continuous count of the signatures certified to that office.
32 (c) A petition to recall a public official other than a
33 legislator under this section must contain signatures from each
34 of the 67 counties in the state, and the signatures must equal
35 15 percent of the total votes cast in the last election for the
36 office. All electors of the state may sign the petition to
37 recall the official. If the recall petition is successful and a
38 recall election is held, all electors in the state may vote in
39 the recall election.
40 (d) A petition to recall a legislator must contain
41 signatures equal to 20 percent of the total votes cast in the
42 last election for the office. Only electors of the district the
43 legislator represents may sign the petition to recall the
44 legislator. If the recall petition is successful and a recall
45 election is held, only electors of the district the legislator
46 represents may vote in the recall election.
47 (e) Notwithstanding any other provision of this
48 constitution or law, if the petition to hold a recall election
49 under this section is successful, the election for a successor
50 to the office shall be held simultaneously with the recall
51 election. The election to determine whether to recall a public
52 official under this section and elect a successor shall be
53 called by the Secretary of State and held not less than 60 days
54 nor more than 80 days after the date of certification of the
55 number of sufficient signatures. However, if the next regularly
56 scheduled election is to be held within 100 days after the date
57 of certification of sufficient signatures, the Secretary of
58 State may schedule the recall election on the same date as the
59 regularly scheduled election. The public official who is the
60 subject of the recall may not be a candidate for the office.
61 (f) If the majority vote on the question is to recall the
62 public official, the official shall be removed and the candidate
63 who receives the highest number of votes cast in the election
64 held simultaneously to fill the vacancy in office shall be the
65 successor for the remainder of the term. If the public official
66 who is the subject of the petition is not recalled, he or she
67 shall be reimbursed by the state for any recall election
68 expenses that were personally and legally incurred and a
69 subsequent recall petition may not be initiated against the
70 official during the remainder of his or her term in office.
71 (g) Additional provisions governing recall under this
72 section may be provided by general law.
73 BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the following statement be
74 placed on the ballot:
75 CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT
76 ARTICLE VI, SECTION 8
77 RECALL OF GOVERNOR, LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR, MEMBERS OF THE
78 CABINET, AND LEGISLATORS.—Recall is the power of the electors to
79 remove a person from elective office before his or her term
80 expires. This proposed amendment to the State Constitution
81 provides for recall of the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor,
82 any member of the Cabinet, or any legislator at an election. The
83 recall process is initiated when a petition containing the name
84 of the person sought to be recalled and the alleged grounds for
85 the recall is delivered to the Secretary of State. The
86 sufficiency of the reason for the recall is not reviewable. The
87 supporters of the recall measure have 120 days to circulate and
88 file signed petitions with the Secretary of State.
89 This amendment also specifies who is eligible to sign the
90 recall petition and what percentage of the electors must sign
91 the petition for a recall election to take place. If the person
92 who is the subject of the recall petition is a legislator, only
93 electors from the legislator’s district may sign the petition.
94 If the person who is the subject of the recall petition is a
95 public official subject to recall under this amendment other
96 than a legislator, any elector of the state may sign the
97 petition. The same standards apply to who may vote if a recall
98 election is held.
99 Finally, this amendment provides that if enough signatures
100 are collected to require a recall election, the election for a
101 successor to the office, if vacated, will be held at the same
102 time as the recall election. The successor who is elected will
103 serve the remainder of the term. This proposed amendment
104 specifies when the Secretary of State must call the election and
105 provides that the person who is the subject of the recall may
106 not be a candidate for the office. If the person who is the
107 subject of the recall petition is not recalled from office, he
108 or she will be reimbursed for any recall election expenses that
109 were personally and legally incurred. Additionally, if the
110 person is not recalled, a subsequent recall may not be initiated
111 against the person during the remainder of his or her term in
112 office.

Cutler Bay and Palmetto Bay have bailed on the Powerline Corridor Issue. By Geniusofdespair

Shame on both Cutler Bay and Palmetto Bay for bailing on the coalition to site FPL lines in an alternate corridor/underground. Former Mayors Paul Vrooman and Eugene Flinn were strong advocates with Pinecrest and South Miami. The new mayors/council people in Cutler Bay and Palmetto Bay have folded on the issue. Piss poor leadership in my view. See letter from hero Mayors, Cindy Lerner and Philip Stoddard.

That 50 mile zone in Japan, here it is for Turkey Point. By Geniusofdespair

I added the 30 mile circle in the Miami Herald graphic above. I am in the thirty mile circle.

If you read the Miami Herald today you learned about Nuclear evacuation plans for Turkey Point. You didn't hear anything discussed about evacuation with trees blocking roads, or road destroyed by terrorist shelling, hurricanes or tidal surges. A catastrophe would leave us vulnerable in other areas (like Japan). According to the article, the U.S. is asking all U.S. citizens in Japan to evacuate within 50 miles of the 4 reactors. That would be all of Miami Dade County and almost two thirds of Broward County according to the graphic. Maybe Broward also need to be in the dialogue. Anyway, the dumbest people in our County are the ones living closest to the plant:

Clara Waterman Powell, who lives within two miles of the plant, said she reviews the pamphlets she receives annually from FPL and trusts safety measures at Turkey Point.

“Being so close to the plant, I really don’t have any chance of surviving’’ in the event of a serious accident, she said. But she also stressed: “I don’t worry about it.”

About the 50 mile radius in Japan:

NRC spokesman Roger Hannah said the 50-mile evacuation warning in Japan was based on “very conservative’’ calculations for a plant with four failing reactors and fuel pools — a much larger risk than posed by U.S. plants. Turkey Point, like most, has two reactors now but FPL expansion plans would double that.

First: Why would they be conservative in Japan and not conservative for their OWN people? Second: We will be at 4 reactors in 2013 - the same as Japan - if FPL gets their way. What a friggin' mistake. Mark my words.

On Miami-Dade politics and Marco Rubio ... by gimleteye

As though Marco Rubio has free will. The New York Times, in a shallow piece on Rubio, wrote this week, "The political advisers working for Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, had always envisioned that he would eventually speak out forcefully in Washington on the issues that animated his campaign: the debt, government spending, entitlements and taxes. They just didn’t think it would happen so soon."

"The sudden nationwide visibility immediately stoked speculation that Mr. Rubio, a 39-year-old star in the Republican Party, was positioning himself to be a vice presidential pick next year." Earth to New York Times' Michael Shear: Rubio is not "positioning himself" so much as being positioned, the same way that George W. Bush found himself positioned to be the GOP candidate in the 2000 presidential campaign. They were embraced long before they embraced the office.

Rubio was teed up for the US Senate just like Alex Penelas was, more than a decade ago, as the future of the Democrats in Florida. Like Penelas, Rubio is made-for-TV handsome, Cuban American, and carries a good sound bite. Somehow he glided through the slime of local Miami Dade politics to emerge as Jeb Bush's knight-at-arms in the walled castle of the state capitol. Somehow not even proximity at the time to David Rivera rubbed off. Somehow, an insider mortgage from US Century Bank was overlooked, buried in the crack cocaine of the housing boom. And somehow, Rubio had the massive fortune of being able to tag team his US Senate campaign behind the inchoate anger of the Tea Party (and the vanities of Kendrick Meek), avoiding the fallout of the housing crash and the economic catastrophe that Florida developers, homebuilders, and lobbyists who funded his campaign helped create. Poor Penelas got tangled up in the weeds of the failed Homestead Air Force Base fiasco. In the late 1990's, having won the position as Miami-Dade's mayor, Penelas was teed up to be Bob Graham's successor, drawing support from the same financial donors who flooded Rubio's campaign ten years later. Penelas (and Graham) pushed too hard on the air base (the plan was to turn the base into a privatized commercial airport, secured by Ramon Rasco, a founder and now chairman of US Century Bank, and board members of the LBA configured as HABDI, in a no-bid deal pushed by then county commissioner Natacha Seijas) figuring they could pin down Al Gore before the November election. They counted their chickens before the eggs hatched and when the whole farm blew up in the most spectacular presidential political fried chicken mess in US history, scattering bits and parts, feathers and gizzards all over the nation, Alex Penelas took a powder to Spain "for a business trip". Dick Armey's loafered GOP Anglos shut down the recount in Miami Dade, Greenspan snuffed out common sense at the Fed lighting the fuse on the housing bubble, and the rest-- alas!-- is history.

American voters are too dim-witted to even pick up the thread of the disaster. If we have proven anything, it is that orthodoxy serves the purposes of the powerful here the same way it does in Iran, or China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia to name a few places where strict interpretation of the law accrues to the few, the powerful, and the rich. Marco Rubio is following a script. Karl Rove and Kochs (the anti-Newt Gingrich's) have planned all along for Rubio to take the GOP brand of "fiscal responsibility" straight to Obama once he mastered those sound bites. The Times is wrong when it writes, "... even before Mr. Rubio’s victory in Florida’s three-way Senate contest last year, aides had mapped out a plan for Mr. Rubio to lie low in Washington." Marco is the annointed one. He has the Jedi warrior sword and we have the photo to show it.

The aides? Who are they, if not Rove et al? "They knew that getting used to the ways of the Senate can take a while." Baloney. These days of unrestricted campaign contributions and corporate welfare, learning the ways of the Senate for the GOP means getting the right haircut and media training. It means mastering sound bites to be the first on Fox News with the rest following, saying 'how smart that Marco Rubio is"; neat as pins, American flags on their lapels, and organized as synchronized swimmers.

That's how to understand Senator Marco Rubio when he is on your television set delivering with the earnest demeanor of a self-made man with practically zero net worth; calm and poised from the waist up while legs churn in the figurative water to the command of the coaches walking up and down the sides of the training pool. That's where you will find Jeb! these days, not with the whistle in his fingers, but his cell phone to his ear calling commands. Given the lasting damage to the Bush brand-- the only thing better than being King, is being the oligarch who tells the King what to do.

20 Second Tour of Downtown Miami. By Geniusofdespair

On a leisurely ride on a Scarab Sport in Miami's Biscayne Bay viewing the downtown skyline. It is a 20 second tour of the city and the Port of Miami -- you get a quick view of the Brickell Area, up to the American Airlines Arena then across to the Port of Miami, a look at three cruise ships and finally the port's gantry cranes.

No time to waste on this blog. Don't see video? This is the link.

What is wrong with Miami-Dade County Government? Guest Blog by Sergio

Sergio is back with some more advice:

In Part-One of my article, I quoted many of the scandals involving: misconduct; waste; corruption; ethical violations, not only at the County level, but also at the various City and government levels, including Jackson Memorial Hospital, the Airport, and many other entities.

In Part-Two of my article, I said that the problems we are facing can not be solved by simply replacing the Mayor and a commissioner. We need to drastically change the county charter and create a code of ethics contract with rules and regulations to make it very difficult for elected officials, and department managers to waste our taxpayer’s money. Also in Part-Two I gave some idea of what needs to be done to have an effective government.

HERE IS PART-THREE.

In order to find waste and corruption in our government you need to follow the money trail. For example: When Alvarez and Seijas fought to avoid their recall, they raised within days, thousands of dollars to fight back their removal from office. Alvarez collected over $300,000 and Seijas collected over $250,000, while Vanessa Brito from Miami Voice collected less than $25,000 to unseat these politicians. If not for NORMAN BRAMAN, who spent over a Million dollars of his own money, I do not think that the average person like you and me (receiving less than $25,000 in salary or pension) would have won against them.

Who were the people who contributed so quickly to stop the recall petition of Alvarez and Seijas? According to the newspapers, the main contributors were various County Unions, including the police, the Jackson Memorial Union, the Miami Marlin owners and many of the contractors doing work in the new stadium, the Transport workers Union, and most of the lobbyists who currently do business with the County.

We need to find out what type of audit controls the Inspector General currently has to stop waste and corruption. Before you change things, you need to find out what is in place, to see what needs to be changed.

For example: $5 million was given by the commissioners to the Police Dept. to crack down on environmental polluters, but the money went to buy flat-screen TV’s and other stuff unrelated to the purposes assigned for the money. Was this ever resolved?

You will remember that millions of dollars were raised to buy hundreds of new transit buses and lay down miles of new tracks, by increasing a half a penny in sales taxes. Of the 90 miles of new tracks only 3 miles were laid down, and very few buses were ever purchased. Where did the money go?

How about the millions of dollars also raised for Jackson Memorial by another sales tax increase. Over $1 million went into new furniture for the top executives. Do you know where the rest of the money went?

A City in Miami Dade County awarded a contractor $2 million for several miles of sewer pipe lines. The money was paid and the pipe lines never laid down.

How about the scandal of Millions of dollars awarded for Low income housing. The money was paid, and not a single house was ever built. How did this happened? Where are the controls to avoid this from happening again? Let us learn from these examples.

How about all the County projects with time delays and cost overruns costing taxpayer’s millions more. All general contractors doing work for the COUNTY over a certain amount, should be bonded and each contract should stipulate of a 10% hold-back on each draw requested, to be maintained by the County until the end of the job. Also, the contract should have large penalties for delays and the County should not be responsible for cost over-runs.

Furthermore, No draws and advance of funds, should be given, until 2 inspectors have certified that the work was done. The bonding company should be responsible for fraud, delays and cost overruns. This is the way it works in private business and dealings with banks. Who certified that miles of sewer pipes were installed, or buses were purchased, or apartment building were erected, before we paid for them? Apparently no one.

The new Mayor and the County Commissioners need to be able to answer the following:

1) What are the essential duties of the Inspector General, job description, functions and responsibilities? Do we have an internal affairs unit? Do we report only on cases of corruption, or do we report also cases of waste and mismanagement? What are the principal job duties and responsibilities of the auditors.

2) Principal problems and challenges: How do we avoid prior scandals of funding 100% of projects that were never completed? How do we supervise payments and funding?

3) Reporting relationships: To whom do the Auditors investigating fraud, corruption and waste report to?

4) Working environment: How could we put in place a comprehensive package of audits and controls to prevent future abuses by Commissioners, department heads, and employees? What plans are now in place, that evidently are not working, so we could change them?

5) How about public review of existing contract with the unions, to see how they were approved, so we could learn for the future, on what not to do?

So long as our commissioners and elected public officials continue to get most of their political contributions from the people they give contract to, and so long as we have no effective audit controls and code of ethic contracts in place we will never be able to stop waste and corruption. The Inspector General needs to be front and center. This is the department that investigates corruption. We need to fund the IG and make his department independent of County Commission control.

With regards to prior comments made. Not all counties in Florida have the same retirement age requirements and benefits for their employees. That is another point. We should ask the Miami Herald to request that information from the State and from Miami Dade County, to be sure that You and I get the correct information. Also the Police and Firemen do not get the same deals as others.

We must implement a series of audits and controls to prevent past scandals of waste and corruption to continue for another 20 years.


Last but not least, I am not interested in meeting with people who have been part of the problem for years, and not part of the solution. I am just a simple man, living on social security and barely making a living on less than a $25,000 a year pension. The Press, Norman Braman and so many attorneys, and CPA’s we have in this County should create a citizen committee to force politicians to do and implement some of the ideas I respectfully give you here.

So, Sergio has left us with some good advice for County government: Implement a system of strong oversight and auditing, write ironclad contracts, adopt impeccable ethical standards, learn lessons from past mistakes and put in place new policy so the mistakes don't happen again. Good advice for the county, I hope they listen.

Our Guest Blogger Makes the Miami Herald Opinion Page. By Geniusofdespair

I couldn't find it in the Herald online but our guest blog by Sergio is in the print version of the Miami Herald on the opinion page. Congrats Sergio. I have a part 3 from him which will be printed next week.

If you have a thoughtful guest blog, it does get play here at Eye On Miami.

Supreme Court is Under Attack. By Geniusofdespair

Hit on image to enlarge it.

What this bill will mean: They can stack the most conservative justices on the civil court branch and put the liberals on the criminal cases. The civil would given them the most influence over just about everything. Hopefully some of our legal readers will leave us insightful comments.

Shitty Tippers at the Sony Ericcson Tennis Match. By Tennis Fan

Here I am in beautiful Key Biscayne enjoying the lovely weather and I am sitting in Miami Dade County box seats in the exciting rounds of the worlds fifth most important tournament.

I've been chatting with the wait staff around here between matches, who tell me only a couple patrons tip in this box. Its so bad, in fact, that none of the staff want to work the county box because the guests are "shitty tippers" my words not theirs and they are rude to boot. There are 24 box Suites at the Sony Ericcson on Key Biscayne and the wait staff hate serving at the county box most of all.

Can you imagine the audacity of it all, you get free tickets, have indoor/outdoor access to the stadium court, you get all the drinks you could want and nice snacks to boot and you don't tip. Its just sad. Well I will be breaking the mold and giving a $5 tip. Come on Commissioners and your guests: Dig into your pockets and tip the staff. Stop being so notoriously cheap.

Genius said: Why are 13 commissioners getting 2 tickets each day? We should have a citizens lottery for those tickets.

What some people do in their livingroom. By Geniusofdespair

Scott in his NYC living room.

Lynda Bell: District 8 Voters, What Did You Do??? By Geniusofdespair

What a disgrace your Commissioner is District 8. How could a majority of voters let this witch follow Katy Sorenson? This is Lynda Bell's second piece of legislation:

RESOLUTION OPPOSING THE U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY’S PROPOSED NUMERIC NUTRIENT CRITERIA FOR FLORIDA AS SET FORTH IN THE “WATER QUALITY STANDARD FOR THE STATE OF FLORIDA’S LAKES AND FLOWING WATERS” RULING

This is evil stuff she is doing, She is indeed April's fool. Read the two posts below and send our link to all your friends in District 8.

Democracy For Sale in United States, where independence of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches is only aspirational ... by gimleteye

The subject deserves a book. If it were a book, the destruction of democracy in the United States by special interests could be told through the all-out war by the GOP to stop the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from waking from its decades-long sleep. This federal agency is a regulatory Rip Van Wynkle, jarred from hibernation (imposed by industry lobbyists placed inside the agency as political appointees) to find the world of regulations changed drastically from its formation in the 1970's by a Republican president.

The example I would use, in this book to explain to the American people, is the effort by the US EPA to reign in the ongoing, lethal pollution of Florida waters from nutrients. One of President Obama's greatest achievements-- and least noted-- is his insistence to base environmental policies on science not the marketing budgets of big polluters. In taking this firm stance, he has triggered the fury of funders of the Tea Party like the Koch Brothers; billionaires whose profits are maximized when regulations are lax and unenforced.

Most public attention to the EPA by the mass market media is focused on climate change issues. Big Oil and Big Coal are spending millions against the US EPA intention to regulate carbon dioxide emissions that are turning the atmosphere into an oven. The water quality issue-- pollution as a result of fertilizing farms, lawns, and tolerating unlimited runoff of roadways and from urban areas into canals, streams, rivers and bays-- is under the mass market media radar, but the Florida example proves the point that of all Obama's initiatives, including health care, foreign policy, and taxation, it is the effort to regulate polluters that generates the most instant push back from the big contributors to the conservative, extremist right.

In Florida, the polluters control the legislature through lobbyists. In the current session of the Florida legislature, they are using the economic Depression in Florida to eliminate every regulation that hinders growth, conveniently sliding by the fact that a desperately polluted Florida will be unattractive to any investor, except one who seeks out a state with the least regulations. That's right: the new GOP slogan could be, "Come to Florida, we're too poor to clean ourselves up or even care!"

On the issue of the executive and legislative branches of government taking on the US EPA in Florida, the record is clear: Governor Rick Scott and the GOP legislature have taken every opportunity to express their objection to new EPA nutrient rules. Never mind the fact it took environmentalists more than a decade and important federal litigation to get EPA to face up to its responsibilities under the Clean Water Act to tame the pollution of Florida's waters. We are too poor to be clean is one part of the message, reinforcing a key GOP tenet that you can only protect the environment to the extent that profits from exploiting the environment generate revenues to afford regulation of polluters. It is part of the mad, inchoate logic of the "free market" capacity to regulate itself better than punitive laws and rules.

Now, in Miami-Dade County a new county commissioner-- Lynda Bell-- is picking up the cudgel on behalf of her campaign contributors and lobbyists. On April 4th, she has sponsored a resolution from the County Commission to object to new EPA rules to limit phosphorous pollution. What Bell knows about this issue could fit on the head of a pin. But she is just doing the work of her prophet, Natacha Seijas the former county commissioner disgraced by voters in a recent recall election.

If Bell is the worm's eye view of legislative attack on the EPA, then the bird's eye view would be the organizers of anti-pollution regulation efforts in Florida: Big Sugar. Billionaires like the Fanjuls of Coral Gables and Palm Beach routinely invest tens and hundreds of millions in lobbying against laws that restrict their massive blanketing of the former Everglades, now sugar fields, with nitrogen and phosphorous. The fertilizer is needed to augment land that has been exhausted to the point of disappearance in order to grow one of the most heavily subsidized industrial crops in America: sugar.

You see: Big Sugar is FOR federal regulations that protect its profits, like the Farm Bill, and AGAINST regulations that limit its profits, like the 10 parts per billion nutrient standard; the kernel in the corn of state-wide nutrient standards opposed by the Florida Chamber and Associated Industries. (Let's see the Tea Party take on Big Sugar and Marco Rubio, strongly supported by Big Sugar.) The Florida Independent took a look at the Fanjuls yesterday in a well written if not ground-breaking, "The Fanjuls, the Koch Brothers of South Florida."

How do these predatory practices add up to the federal judiciary is a more complicated point to unwind in a short blog post. Suffice it to say; this is the most important part of the Fanjuls game and one their lobbyists know perfectly well. All the huffing and puffing by the GOP wolves on the EPA water quality issue in Florida take place in the context of twenty years of litigation in federal court on Everglades water quality. Think of the battle to force EPA to regulate pollution in the Everglades-- facts long-ago determined by federal courts-- as a template for state-wide nutrient pollution issues.

Environmental non profit groups (I am conservation chair of Friends of the Everglades) have struggled through this time to raise funds to initiate highly complex litigation against government agencies, including the EPA!, for its failure to enforce pollution limits and remedies against Big Sugar's pollution. Fighting on the other side are law firms founded by Ramon Rasco (Rasco, who is also the chairman of US Century Bank-- the region's zero ranked sprawl advocate also recently hired former Steel Hector's Joe Klock who has represented the Fanjuls for decades) and the State of Florida itself, taking marching orders from Gov. Scott and the legislature, to corner and box any federal judge who gets it in his or her uppity head that they can mess with the prerequisites of the powerful in the world's most outstanding democracy.

The polluters' trump card: GOP presidents who have approved federal judges who pass muster and meet the quality control standards of Big Business. Proxies of the president like Karl Rove understand perfectly well how federal district cases on the environment can be appealed and even end up crashing into the U.S. Supreme Court. It's all about politics.

The so-called judicial conservatives are "activists" on behalf of causes Big Business supports. If somehow a federal budget emerges in the next few weeks, with or without anti-environmental riders including one that would prohibit EPA from imposing pollution standards on Florida waters, no one will cheer the impending gridlock more than Big Sugar and its billionaires who know that for the foreseeable future, there have never been better conditions to buy the legislative and executive branches. Limits on campaign contributions have been thrown to the wind by the US Supreme Court. It's not just political offices that are for sale. In Florida, everything is for sale. Just look at what Miami-Dade's Miguel Diaz de la Portilla is proposing with SB1690 -- to remove limits on state campaign contributions-- for evidence that the doors to the prisons have been thrown open and the keys to the jail thrown down the sewer grate. (Click 'read more', for three important articles including the one on the Fanjuls, "The Koch Brothers of South Florida".)

The Fanjuls: The Koch brothers of South Florida?

By Kyle Daly | 03.31.11 | 10:59 am
The Florida Independent


Following revelations of their involvement in the war on public unions in Wisconsin, the once-anonymous Koch Industries Executive Vice President David and his brother Charles have in a short time become boogeymen of the left, the liberal answer to the man behind many conservative conspiracies: George Soros — something David groused about in a recent, fawning Weekly Standard profile.
Meanwhile, other billionaires and multimillionaires who have used their wealth to fund their agendas have managed to slip under the radar. Among them are the Fanjul family — Florida sugar magnates who also happen to be friends and neighbors of David and Julia Koch.
Like the Kochs, Alfonso “Alfy” and José “Pepe” Fanjul are two of four brothers who inherited a massive conglomerate from their father — in their case, Cuban sugar kingpin Alfonso Fanjul, Sr., who fled Cuba when Fidel Castro came to power. Unlike the Kochs, Alfy and Pepe are by all accounts still on good terms with their brothers, Alexander and Andrés, though Alfy and Pepe are higher profile and are the top executives at Flo-Sun, Inc., the family sugar empire.
Flo-Sun owns resorts in the Dominican Republic but gets most of its revenue through its American Sugar Refining division. American Sugar owns the C&H, Florida Crystals and Redpath Sugar brands, but its largest and best-known subsidiary is Domino Foods, Inc., producer of Domino Sugar. All told, Flo-Sun is estimated to pull in about $2.5 billion annually.
The Fanjuls, however, are not necessarily the easy liberal targets that the Kochs are.
To begin with, Alfy is a devoted Democrat. In the run-up to the 2010 election, he gave $37,230 to nine Democratic candidates for U.S. Congress. The biggest recipients of his largess were Kendrick Meek, who lost his Senate bid to Marco Rubio despite former President Bill Clinton’s vigorous campaigning, and Ted Deutch, the Broward County representative (and, given their Palm Beach headquarters, the Fanjuls’ own congressman) who overwhelmingly defeated Republican Ed Lynch in a special election in April of last year.
Despite Deutch’s party affiliation, based on his policies and his voting record in the Florida Senate prior to becoming a U.S. representative, Associated Industries of Florida gave Deutch an 80 percent “business friendly” rating, the third highest of any Florida Democrat analyzed, and the highest of any Democrat now serving on the national stage. His general voting record in U.S. office, however, has been overwhelmingly along party lines.
Pepe Fanjul, meanwhile, gave $40,100 to nine Republican candidates prior to the 2010 election. He gave the most to U.S. Rep. David Rivera, he of numerous ethics troubles. Should Rivera remain in office, he has pledged (.pdf) to oppose any legislation addressing climate change that would increase any amount of government spending. The pledge he signed was originated by Americans for Prosperity, a limited-government organization funded by the Koch brothers.
The second largest recipient of Pepe Fanjul’s campaign contributions was freshman U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, whose dedication to loosening environmental regulations on corporations like Flo-Sun has previously been reported by The American Independent.
Of course, for mega-corporations like the Fanjuls’, just giving to favored candidates may not represent the best Washington investment for their money. Lobbying is where the Fanjuls put in major cash.
Flo-Sun spent $695,000 (Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4) in 2010 alone lobbying the House, Senate and the U.S. Department of Agriculture on industrial waste regulations, food safety rules relating to sugar and elements of the Clean Water Act that affect the Florida Everglades.
Neither the Fanjuls nor their lobbying firms are required to disclose exactly what’s discussed in lobbyist meetings or which politicians have agreed to meet with them — though it would certainly strain belief to suggest that they’re spending almost a quarter-million dollars a year to argue in favor of deeper government regulation. Since 2005, Flo-Sun has spent $3.65 million lobbying the federal government.


orlandosentinel.com/news/politics/os-scott-maxwell-money-politics-0330120110329,0,2725932.column
OrlandoSentinel.com
Just what we need: More big money in politics
Scott Maxwell
TAKING NAMES
March 30, 2011
Florida lawmakers are among the most innovative pimps you'll ever meet.
Just when you think they've exhausted every possible way to prostitute themselves, they come up with something new.
The latest proposals have politicians trying to raise campaign-donation limits — by stratospheric proportions — and setting up political slush funds where they can accept unlimited amounts of cash.
Sure, our state is in a financial crisis. And yes, there's talk of de-funding everyone from veterans to the disabled. But darn it, if legislative leaders can't find an easier way for Big Sugar or the billboard industry to give them $50,000, what's the point of being in office?
We'll start with Senate Bill 1690 — the one to boost maximum contributions from $500 up to $10,000.
That's for the gubernatorial races, anyway. Donations would top out at $5,000 for other statewide candidates; $2,500 for legislative races; and $1,000 for local ones.
The bill's sponsor, Miami Republican Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, says his plan has nothing to do with wanting more money.
Of course it doesn't.
He says he just wants to free up legislators to spend more time with their constituents. If they can take big chunks of cash, they won't have to waste time chasing down all those pesky little $500 ones.
"What you'll see," Diaz de la Portilla told the News Service of Florida, "is candidates being able to spend a lot more time campaigning and being out there with voters…"
I see. You know what else might help you guys save time? If we just let you accept briefcases full of cash. Maybe some cars, boats and jewelry too.
I'm sure there are any number of companies — like a casino giant desperate for you to legalize gambling on South Beach, for instance — that would gladly fork over $250,000 in unmarked bills.
And think of all the extra time you hardworking public servants would have if you didn't have to waste time worrying about silly things like jobs or mortgage payments either.
(More on this bill in the newest installment of the Malarkey Meter at orlandosentinel.com/takingnames
The other big-money idea lawmakers love is leadership slush funds. So they're bringing those back, too.
They voted to do so just last week.
We're talking millions of dollars — unlimited donations to funds controlled by the incoming legislative leaders from each party. Future leaders, like incoming House speakers and Senate presidents, will now be allowed to take big checks from special interests and then redistribute the money to their friends' campaigns — in chunks as big as $50,000 each for legislative races and $250,000 for statewide ones.
How is the average Floridian supposed to compete with that?
You can't. In fact, this toxic combination of money and politics was such an obvious recipe for corruption that Florida lawmakers outlawed leadership slush funds more than 20 years ago.
On the day after the state House took action back in 1989, the Sentinel headline read: "HOUSE CLEANS ITS IMAGE BY PASSING BILL."
But we're now in a new era in Florida — one in which politicians seem to care a lot less about their image.
So I have an idea of my own. If we can't get them to clean up their act, at least we can make the money easier to follow.
My idea: Sponsorship patches.
You know, like NASCAR.
If a corporate interest cuts a sizable check to a politician — be it through increased campaign limits, leadership slush funds, political parties or third-party groups — then that politician would have to wear a patch with the donor's logo.
This way, if a lawmaker tries to ram through some surprise piece of legislation allowing oil drilling in our shallow waters, for instance, you can simply look at his suit jacket and say: "Oh, I get it! Senator Smith is sponsored by the Florida Association of Petroleum Patriarchs!"
Think about how much easier it would be for you to understand why a lawmaker was voting to cut school funding — so that he could give an extra tax break to high-end yachts — if his suit pocket is clearly labeled: "Sponsored in part by the Florida Yacht-Hawkers Association."
We may not be able to stop these guys from acting like prostitutes.
But at least we can make it easier to see who their johns are.
smaxwell@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-6141
Copyright © 2011, Orlando Sentinel


Florida Legislature proves once and for all that it is for sale
By Howard Troxler, Times Columnist
In Print: Sunday, March 27, 2011



These are harsh words for a Sunday morning, but the occasion screams out for them. I take them from the Bible; please forgive me.

The Florida Legislature proved this past week, once and for all, that it is the utter Whore of Babylon.

It is now legal in our state to pay off the Legislature directly. Who says so? The Legislature.

This is not a joke.

This is not satire.

This is Florida — where the laws of our democracy are now openly, officially For Sale.

On Thursday afternoon, with greedy lip-smacking speed, the Legislature voted to relegalize a bygone and corrupt institution, outlawed in this state for more than two decades, known as "leadership funds."

These "leadership funds" are campaign slush funds operated legally and officially by the leaders of the Legislature themselves:

The speaker of the Florida House and his chosen successor, the "speaker designate."

The president of the Florida Senate and his successor.

The leaders of the minority party in the House and Senate.

So now, just as it was in Florida's corrupt past, if you are an interest group that wants a law passed, you simply go to the leaders of the House and Senate …

And you pay them off directly.

I feel the need to repeat: This is not a joke.

This is now the law of Florida, as of Thursday — for they tripped over themselves to make it effective immediately.

And so this is our stewardship of the great nation birthed by Washington and Jefferson and preserved by Lincoln.

This is the American legislative process once practiced by Clay and Webster.

This is what we have come to.

"Lawmakers" walking around with open gunny sacks, selling the democracy, frankly, proudly, wickedly, shamelessly, amorally.

Good God.

• • •

If you tell yourself a lie, and if everybody around you tells the exact same lie, and it is vitally important that all of you believe it — then all of you will believe it.

Especially if you all profit from it.

And so every single person in Tallahassee who voted for this outrageously wicked law on Thursday will tell you exactly the same lie:

It's an improvement.

It's a reform.

Here is Tallahassee thinking. Here is how they rationalize it:

See, it will be better if interest groups can just pay off the Legislature directly. We will list the contributions in a separate report and everybody can see it. This will be more "transparent."

Yes, a nice, separate report! Makes me feel better!

Except for two tiny, teeny things:

1. The money is laundered anyway.

They turn right around and pour their ill-gotten money into local elections around the state to perpetuate their power. Local candidates Smith and Jones are still being bankrolled by corporations, or unions as the case may be, hidden through the leadership funds.

2. The second teeny, tiny problem is, in case I have not adequately mentioned it …

THE LEGISLATURE IS BEING PAID OFF

Good grief! Jehoshaphat! Are you kidding me? Are you kidding?

In what universe should the very writers of law in a democracy operate their own slush funds, into which those seeking favorable treatment can pour money?

Listen:

If you are personal friends with, or a fellow Rotary member of, a Florida legislator who voted for this — heck, if you are married to someone who voted for this — you will want to believe him or her. This is human nature. It is loyalty. It is understandable.

Ed Hooper of Clearwater. Peter Nehr of Tarpon Springs.

Jeff Brandes of St. Petersburg, who promised to take people to the "woodshed." (Did he mean, so they could give money there?)

Jim Frishe of St. Petersburg. Dana Young of Tampa. Will Weatherford of Wesley Chapel, the next speaker, whom I like tremendously.

I am sure that if you are among their friends or family, you will want to believe them. They will speak very smoothly about it.

But here is the reality. Here is the truth.

Legislators. Sworn to the sacred duty of writing the laws of a free people. Taking legal, direct payoffs from those seeking favorable laws.

If you can swallow that, then your moral relativism knows no bounds.

• • •

Here is who voted for this from our part of the state, and who voted against it.

Senators voting yes:

Dennis Jones, R-Treasure Island; Jack Latvala, R-St. Petersburg; Jim Norman, R-Tampa; Ronda Storms, R-Brandon.

Senators voting no:

Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey; Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland; Arthenia Joyner, D-Tampa.

House members voting yes:

Larry Ahern, R-Seminole; Jim Boyd, R-Bradenton; Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg; Rachel Burgin, R-Riverview; Richard Corcoran, R-New Port Richey; Jim Frishe, R-St. Petersburg; Rich Glorioso, R-Plant City; James Grant, R-Tampa; Shawn Harrison, R-Tampa; Ed Hooper, R-Clearwater; John Legg, R-New Port Richey; Seth McKeel, R-Lakeland; Peter Nehr, R-Tarpon Springs; Rob Schenck, R-Spring Hill; Jimmie Smith, R-Inverness; Greg Steube, R-Bradenton; Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel; Dana Young, R-Tampa.

House members voting no:

Janet Cruz, D-Tampa; Richard Kriseman, D-St. Petersburg; Betty Reed, D-Tampa; Darryl Rouson, D-St. Petersburg.

Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city!