Who is Ron Book Lobbying for in 2011? By Geniusofdespair

(Photo: Lobbyists Jorge Luis Lopez and Ron Book)

According to Jacksonville's Daily Record Ron Book's lobbying firm was among 4 making the most bucks in the second quarter of the year. Book reported over $1 million dollars of lobbying money. Overall, in this same quarter, lobbyists made over $53 million to lobby our Florida legislature. From the Daily Record:

“It is as critical a time to be engaged in the process as it is in good times,” said lobbyist Ron Book, who represents 67 clients at his small firm, which employs just two other lobbyists.

Who is Ron Book lobbying for? He has 18 municipalities including Miami Dade County. Hit read more to see the entire list of 67 clients:

The Miami Herald Mystery: how did the paper fumble the UM football scandal to Yahoo! Sports? by gimleteye

It could turn out to be the most serious violation of NCAA prohibitions in college sports history. When all the questions are answered there will remain one: how did The Miami Herald lose its coverage in the secondary? Yahoo!-- not a news organization known for in-depth investigations-- considers it, "an endlessly fascinating story".

"How Yahoo! Sports broke the Univ. of Miami college football story" is fascinating. Earlier this week I wrote that The Miami Herald simply missed the tackle. (Who could expect local TV sports news to do critical journalism of the University football program?) That is not what happened, at first.

Yahoo notes that on August 29 2010 The Herald published, "New book to allege violations made by University of Miami football." Almost exactly a year ago Writer Barry Jackson and Herald editors provided the general outline of allegations made by Nevin Shapiro. But a careful reading shows editors hedging Shapiro's accusations against illegal business dealings that landed him in prison. Did the newspaper feel it had to give the benefit of the doubt to the city's august educational institution against the words of a dirty scoundrel? It wouldn't be the first time The Miami Herald editors filed the hard edges of a major news story to a dull nub. But why didn't the Herald follow up? Here is a wild guess: Nevin Shapiro and his attorney decided, based on that article, he would never get a fair shake with the Herald.

The Herald report in August 2010 ends with the implication that the allegations will fizzle out, too, melting with other common NCAA compliance traffic: "The NCAA continues to investigate UM for recruiting-related text messages in football, women's track and baseball. But one UM official said those violations are considered a 2.5 on a scale of 1 to 10, and major sanctions aren't expected."

Facing 20 years in federal prison, Shapiro has time to stew. "The Herald wrote about my thousands of allegations in the context of women's track. Women's track!" In the Yahoo! report, Shapiro acknowledges his crimes and says that he just wanted a fair shake. So Shapiro paces in his jail cell and decides not to reveal to The Herald. "Screw them!" Miami's daily newspaper misses the biggest sports scandal in college football history. Yahoo! gets more than 100 hours of jailhouse interviews. It still doesn't explain why Herald sports reporters didn't sniff out what would build to a "five alarm fire". The Miami Herald fumbles a Pulitzer prize in its own backyard. In the immortal words of that cwaaazy wabbit: "That's all, folks!"

Courtney Nash's Last Swim: Florida's Lethal Waters

I have been writing about toxic algae blooms in Florida waters for many years. As an economic matter, the loss of water quality in Florida is a tragedy: billions of dollars of coastal real estate values are at risk, not to mention tourism revenues and commercial and recreational fisheries. Politics have always been to blame. Environmentalists have been tilting at those windmills for decades. But the way the economic crisis has been exploited by the radical right to inflict more damage casts new waves of revulsion: big polluters determined to use the economic crisis and tout "job creation" while blithely skipping over how so much money and how many jobs have been lost because of pollution.

The death of Courtney Nash, from a rare bacterial infection, should knock the wind out of the Republican Congress' effort to gut the US EPA. In a recent blog post, widely distributed on Counterpunch, I suggested a new law -- the Courtney Nash Act-- to require the children of GOP opponents of the EPA to send their children swimming in the same area where Courtney Nash contracted her infection. The state of Florida has refused, over decades, to impose strict pollution control laws in Florida waters, succumbing to the influence of polluters. Now the polluters are using the economic crisis to blame EPA-- the agency under federal court order to enforce the Clean Water Act. One high brow critic accused me of "intellectual dishonesty" and "stooping low" in wishing harm to the children of GOP legislators.

This morning, one scientist wrote, "... Naegleria fowleri may have some linkage to nutrient levels. I believe that it has been suggested that low nutrient levels may induce the organism go
into its cyst stage, which is non-pathogenic, and high nutrients may induce formation of the
trophozoite stage, which can be pathogenic. Obviously, there likely are other factors like temperature, but nutrients may play a role."

I confess to reaching for the lowest denominator because that is the only place our national conversations are taking place. It is useless to pretend calm, rational argument prevails when we are being beaten by brick bats. Environmental laws are based on calculations of risk, benefits and costs. From the agency's first moment, decades ago, it has been under continuous attack by commercial interests whose profits suffer when regulations are imposed that protect public health, the environment, and quality of life at their expense. In my OPED, "Courtney Nash's Last Swim", I suggest that if legislators knew that their children were at risk, that they would change the laws to protect them. Why shouldn't legislators -- who are intent on preventing EPA from enforcing the Clean Water Act-- be required to bear the same risks as Courtney Nash and her family? Here is a reprint of the blog recommending a new law requiring legislators to send their children into the same toxic waters that killed Courtney Nash. Also read: "Bashing EPA is new theme in GOP race", NY Times August 17, 2011.

Courtney Nash's Last Swim: Florida's Lethal Waters
By ALAN FARAGO
August 17, 2011

Better than a torrent of words, an unnecessary death can spark new legislation protecting children. Such was the case in Florida of the Ryan White Act, approved by Congress to protect children with HIV/AIDS and Megan's Law, a Florida law meant to protect children from sex predators. In a perfect world, this would also apply to the tragic death of Courtney Nash, who died as a result of swimming in the polluted St. Johns River. The St. Johns is polluted because Florida legislators-- and now the Florida GOP congressional delegation-- refuse to allow the federal government to establish rules to fix severe water pollution where the Florida has utterly failed.

With Gov. Rick Scott: it just gets worse ... by gimleteye

The Herald reports today that documents related to the election and transition of Gov. Rick Scott were "accidentally" deleted, a distortion of executive power in government that defies belief. On this point, the facts are clear: no one in the Rick Scott campaign including the candidate had a clue about service in government. Hitting the "delete key"? That is not so difficult to figure how to do, but what will be the penalty?

"The email accounts of Rick Scott and most of the governor-elect’s transition team were deleted soon after he took office, potentially erasing public records that state law requires be kept." I am afraid there will be no penalty. None at all. We can't get rid of Rick Scott fast enough. Getting away with breaking the law gives new meaning to "scott-free".

This is where we are headed as a country; electing centimillionaires-- because who else can afford to run for public office; either centimillionaires or their proxies? -- to lead our government and legislatures, ignore the rule of law, and defy citizens to challenge their versions of reality based on command of budgets and control of the judiciary. This nation's lost decade and real unemployment edging up past 15 percent keeps me up at night, but I worry more about what is happening in Florida where the public disarray helped elect Rick Scott to governor. What next?(click 'read more' for full story)

University of Miami: A Season Tickets Tale. By Youbetcha'

I see my experience with UM a prime example of what's going wrong in our communities and indeed, the world. What is in play is the emergence of the corporate mentality at all costs.

As someone who was a season ticket holder for a zillion years (actually 25), the university’s greed eventually made me tell them to keep five season tickets... First we were told to give them $10,000 a seat for the seats they decided to convert to box seats; those were seats we had since college.

So UM moved us; we paid more for our new seats and 5 years later, they take away our parking passes that came with the tickets (that they blamed on the city). Then they offered the parking pass back to us for an extra $500.00 a year.

Within 2 years after that, we were forced to buy an extra ticket because UM seated an oversize bully next to us who would press his body against whoever was there (not a great experience for business clients and scary for our kids). He then decided that the extra seat was his, so he would drape his sweaty body parts on it and the UM athletics director didn't give a crap. It was an embarrassment to have to ask the police make the man stop and should have been unnecessary.

In the end, UM decided that they would nail us for an extra $2,000 per seat to sit in seats that we had sat in for 15 years.

It was over. No more fighting traffic, no more parking at the hospital overpasses and walking a mile, no more eating dog meat from the street-side vendors, no more having our cars broken into... no more. Our love affair with the big U was gone.

The saddest thing was that our “stadium section” all dated, got married, pregnant (divorced?) and watched our kids grow-up with the same rows of strangers over those years. As we grew-up together, our section became business owners, school board executives, college graduates, a county elevator maintenace guy and even community activists. We even launched a politician or two. The younger people that transitioned into the section repeated the dating/marriage/baby pattern and we proudly watched the process as their lives changed.

That was UM. That was the UM tradition.

As the UM's Board of Trustee's egos grew and as they encouraged an environment of greed, their management process became the death knell for our amazing 4 month-a-year community. We were forced to scatter and many of us gave-up season tickets because we were finally tired of giving more to UM and actually getting less.

By the way, for our section, it was not a winning team that kept us buying tickets – we were there before they were national champs --- it was the community and common bond of the Orange Bowl that united us.

I would shrug it off, except I see my experience with UM a prime example of what's going wrong in our communities and indeed, the world. What is in play is the emergence of the corporate mentality at all costs.

The UM Board of Trustees is a dismal failure in exhibiting good business sense and ethics to their alumni, their community and the world. What were they thinking?

Seriously: legalize paid college athletes ... by gimleteye

Maybe it is heresy to say so, the latest scandal involving the football program at the University of Miami is the opportunity for college sports to completely re-evaluate its positions: require compliance with academic standards but legalize payment. Why not? The public isn't demanding more meetings between university presidents with NCAA compliance staff and powerpoint presentations, just to come up with ethics programs that are routinely violated.

Yesterday in a Sports Illustrated report, NCAA president Mark Emmert said, "If the assertions are true, the alleged conduct at the University of Miami is an illustration of the need for serious and fundamental change in many critical aspects of college sports." Yes, change. But no, to the charade of big-time college sports.

What would that change be, except more rules that will be violated. If a NCAA Division I school like the University of Miami can't police its players behavior, even after the near-death of the football program scarcely more than a decade ago, what more can be done? Put this in the category of marijuana and prostitution: activities that laws cannot stop. We have much more pressing problems and limited resources to solve them. Who is hurt, if the NCAA regulates paid college athletes?

FPL turning the screws on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission ... by gimleteye

Why isn't the public more engaged on the spectacle of FPL trying to ram two new nuclear power plants at Turkey Point? FPL is arguing before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that the facts of the disaster at Fukushima should be disqualified from consideration of new permits at Turkey Point and is dismissive of the evacuation crisis that would quickly materialize, in the opinion of sound thinkers like South Miami Mayor and FIU scientist Philip Stoddard, should a disaster occur.

It took five days for the NRC to release a report on the recent inadvertent shutdown of one of the existing reactors at Turkey Point. The most relevant information from Fukushima is that both the Japanese government and the power plant owner failed to accurately inform the public of the risks as the disaster was unfolding. Given the track record of FPL and the inability of local government to stand up for the public, it is guaranteed that people will be collateral damage in the event of a nuclear emergency at Turkey Point.

Although it is longish and somewhat technical, consider reading the recent submittal by Citizens Allied for Safe Energy. The document makes the argument why the Fukushima experience is relevant, particularly in relation to the unique factors involving Turkey Point: Revised CASE Motion To Reconsider.

My Summer Vacation in Pictures. By Geniusofdespair

Yes, these are the odd stops and/or highlights of my vacation:

This is the way most of the Shenandoah Valley looks (without the sprawl):

And again the Shenandoah Valley's changing landscape:

As far as my vacation goes...You can't always get what you want but if you try sometimes, well you might find, you get what you need.

What is Little Bully Joe Martinez Up To? By Geniusofdespair

County Commissioner Joe Martinez sent out this email. I think it is very odd. Is he paving the way for his Mayoral Campaign? I think so, he is mining emails and increasing his countywide name recognition. Look at the way he signed this email. He was elected as chair by the rest of the County Commissioners. It usually means they pick the one one who they think will do right by them. WE, THE VOTERS, DO NOT PICK/ELECT THE CHAIR. To us he is just the District 11 Commissioner. Anyway, Joe signs this email as CHAIRMAN OF MIAMI DADE COUNTY, when he should have signed it, County Commission Chair. Delusions of grandeur fella? I think so. You are not Chairman of the County, you are only Chairman of that Godawful County Commission. All the "I's" (5) in this memo should have been "We". Joe, we only have ONE* countywide elected official governing us: Carlos Gimenez, the Mayor. Get off of his turf.

(*We do have the Countywide elected Clerk and Property Appraiser but they do not Govern us.)

I shot the sheriff, but I didn't shoot no deputy. (I have decided to end my posts with song references for awhile, till I get bored)

UM Football: another symptom of the decade of decadence ... by gimleteye

Right under the nose of Miami media lurked the worst scandal in college football history. Today-- thanks to the internet-- it is all over the front pages of newspapers, including The Miami Herald. The story broke through Yahoo! Sports. If the allegations prove true-- thousands of impermissible violations over an eight year period, 2002 through 2010--, it will go down in the record books. Today the Herald calls the conflagration a "5 Alarm Fire", and the sordid details involving a gamut of NCAA violations from A (yes, abortion) to Z (payoffs and prostitution) kind of make you sick of Miami.

There are lots of questions, including that the story was either missed or buried by the anemic, soul-less local press. "Scooped by Yahoo! Sports", the headline should read. While it is plausible that UM President Donna Shalala knew nothing of the conduct of the players off-field, we are not talking about one or two bad apples violating NCAA rules: 72, count them, seventy two players we know about were named by Nevin Shapiro, the pretend centi millionaire who delivered the blow. President Shalala --a woman I admire-- is the programs biggest fan, but really. One could ask where was the Dade state attorney? The answer would be, sitting next to Donna Shalala.

Once one of the strongest programs in the nation, UM football was brought low by NCAA violations in the not-so-distant past. Now, what?

The real indictment here is of Miami, itself, in the decade of decadence when looking the other way was endemic of economic and political interests driven by speculation and fawned over by the mainstream media. This is how a convicted Ponzi schemer, doing 20 years now in federal prison, could worm his way to the heart of UM's reputation. Glitz and hype is the heart of Miami. So a young businessman shows up, who looks a year out of college himself, with millions to throw around and fuel the party: we all need a little help from our friends, if only to maintain appearances. Remember we are the 305. Could it have happened anywhere else in America? Not to this depth. We are talking about (or Yahoo! Sports, is) an atmosphere of sex, drugs and rock and roll that even the neighbors could hear. “Put it this way: there were times I’d be on my way home and I’d roll by the house and the whole thing, and there was a lot going on there. A lot,” a neighbor told Yahoo. “Players and cars and all that.”

The UM board of trustees has soul-searching to do. Where does this chapter fit in the narrative they wants to tell the world? They better find out fast. Bio-tech center, medical school powerhouse, emerging law school great, best party school in nation with plenty of chances for star amateur athletes to be with prostitutes where the girls in the cafeteria won't do. Sigh.

Nevin Shapiro got busted. I often wonder why so many other of Miami's fried fish, from the biggest like R. Allen Stanford-- who stole billions while embraced by the GOP hierarchy in Florida-- to Scott Rothstein, Tony Masilotti, James Burke and other losers who broke laws influencing city and county government, don't do more squealing. The truth can set us free. I guess the answer is, they didn't have Yahoo! to talk to.

Governor Scott Shot Down By The Florida Supreme Court. By Geniusofdespair

In a nutshell, the Supreme Court decided the Governor could not suspend rulemaking by Executive Order, unconstitutional. Court said in part:

II. DISCUSSION
Our precise task in this case is to decide whether the Governor has overstepped his constitutional authority by issuing executive orders which contain certain limitations and suspensions upon agencies relating to their delegated legislative rulemaking authority and the requirements related thereto.

(I Left out a lot, there were 19 pages between II and III.)

III. CONCLUSION
We distinguish between the Governor‘s constitutional authority with respect to the provisions of the executive orders pertaining to review and oversight of rulemaking within the executive agencies under his control, and the Legislature‘s lawmaking authority under article III, section 1 of the Florida Constitution. The Legislature retains the sole right to delegate rulemaking authority to agencies, and all provisions in both Executive Order 11-01 or 11-72 that operate to suspend rulemaking contrary to the APA constitute an encroachment upon a legislative function. We grant Whiley‘s petition but withhold issuance of the writ of quo warranto. We trust that any provision in Executive Order 11-72 suspending agency compliance with the APA, i.e., rulemaking, will not be enforced against an agency at this time, and until such time as the Florida Legislature may amend the APA or otherwise delegate such rulemaking authority to the Executive Office of the Governor.

It is so ordered.

Read the entire opinion.

Grandfather Jeb Bush ... by gimleteye

Congratulations to Jeb Bush Jr. and wife, Sandra, on the birth of their baby girl. And, congratulations to grandfather and grandmother, too.

Speaking of Jeb....by Geniusofdespair

Best video on the Indiana stage collapse.

The Courtney Nash Act: Force children of Florida legislators who oppose EPA, to swim in Florida's St. John's River ... by gimleteye

Better than words, an unnecessary death-- the tragic loss of a teenager for example -- can spark new legislation protecting children. Such was the case of the Ryan White Act and Megan's Law. In a perfect world, this would be the case of Courtney Nash, the 16 year old who died as a result of swimming in the polluted St. John's River. The St. John's is polluted because Florida legislators-- and now the Florida GOP congressional delegation-- refuse to allow the federal government to fix pollution laws where the state has utterly failed.

I have an idea to change the minds of Florida legislators who aim to cure the state's ailing economy by killing the federal EPA. A federal judge-- upheld by the 11th circuit court of appeals-- ruled that EPA had succumbed to the influence of Florida's polluters. The court compelled EPA to write and enforce pollution standards for Florida's filthy waterways. In response, Florida Republicans passed legislation to block the EPA. In its own legal analysis, the EPA writes that the proposed legislation would "overturn almost 40 years of of Federal legislation by preventing (the agency) from protecting public health and water quality." It is up to the Senate to stop the madness.

My idea to make converts of Republican legislators: compel their children to go swimming in our polluted waterways. Let them experience the consequences just like an unsuspecting Courtney Nash.

From my point of view, clean fresh water is a right. When polluters contaminate our rivers, streams and Everglades -- like Big Sugar does -- with nutrients from fertilizers or any other source, they must pay 100 percent of the clean up costs. Of course they don't. Not even close. From my point of view, when lobbyists succeed in forcing environmental agencies to back down and away from protecting public health, they should be put in jail for 10 to 20 years. Lobbyists like Associated Industries of Florida and Barney Bishop, its "Jack-Ass-In-Chief", who derides citizens who want to protect our quality of life and waters as "radical left-wingers". It is a classic Karl Rove diversionary tactic and unimaginable; 30 years after the Wise Use Movement dragged the American public through its nonsense, they are at it again.

Then, Florida's waters were dirty. Today the state's waters are filthy to the point of deadly. Ask Courtney Nash's parents how they feel about the difference. The history is clear. Florida's polluters succeeded in commandeering the legislature through the decades with pro's like the late Wade Hopping, "Mr. Big Sugar", and the whole gang in Tallahassee and in county commissions.

So here is the idea for new legislation: compel the legislators' children to swim in the St. John's River, where recently a Courtney Nash recently died from a terrible bacterial infection. According to a Reuters report, the 16 year old was attacked by a microscopic amoeba while she played. The report neglected to amplify that like other forms of toxic algae contaminating Florida's waters, the amoeba thrives in pollution fed by nutrients. It "... typically enters a swimmer's nose and invades the brain causing an almost always fatal infection, according to Jonathan Yoder, an epidemiologist at the CDC in Atlanta."

Since the GOP's hatred of the EPA is based on a difference of opinion about the risks and costs associated with pollution, my idea is to require a law that requires state legislators to put their children in the same water where Courtney Nash contracted the infection that killed her. These would include State Rep. Paige Kreegel, R-Punta Gorda, who opposes the EPA’s proposed numeric nutrient criteria. Kreegel voted for a bill, sponsored by state Rep. Trudi Williams, R-Fort Myers that eventually died before being voted on by the state senate. As reported by the Florida Independent, Kreegel opposed tighter standards even though his own district had just endured a nasty bout with a toxic algae bloom on the Caloosahatchee, disrupting the small town of Alva. "Residents there say the bloom was not only noxious, but was killing dogs and making people sick."

Other Republicans whose children should be forced to swim where Courtney Nash contracted the infection that killed her would include Congressman Cliff Stearns, whose district partly encompasses the St. Johns River, and who initially supported the EPA but recanted and recently chaired a field hearing in Orlando, entitled, "EPA's Takeover of Florida's Nutrient Water Quality Standard Setting: Impact on Communities and Job Creation", and Republican Tom Rooney, hand-maiden to Big Sugar, who proposed H.R. 2018 to prevent EPA from enforcing the Clean Water Act in Florida.

Hopefully the US Senate will squash Rooney's bill. Of course we need a stronger, full funded EPA to fight the polluters of Florida's waterways and Everglades. In a recent interview, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a friend of Florida Gov. Rick Scott and GOP presidential candidate, said that "he prays for the president to “ask that his EPA back down these regulations that are causing businesses to hesitate to spend money.” What nonsense. Taxpayers may want to know, the agency's budget comprises .3 percent of monthly federal expenditures. So make their children swim where Courtney did. "They were having fun just like any other kid would out in the water," her uncle told Reuters. Call it, "The Courtney Nash Act", so one kid's life won't have been in vain. (for the full Reuters story, click 'read more')

US Century Bank: more details, please ... by gimleteye

We get some interesting comments on our blog, relative to US Century Bank; the insider piggy bank that wrapped up so many Miami-Dade political influences, it is difficult to keep track. To the following commenter: I spent seven years hard labor fighting the HABDI plan to convert the Homestead AFB to a privatized commercial airport, and so I know very well the connections and insider dealing that squandered tens of millions of taxpayer moneys by deploying county staff in that exercise. But to say that the HABDI plan was fruitless is wrong. HABDI may not have been planned this way, but it successfully organized economic interests around their secondary goal: building platted subdivisions throughout South Dade and West Dade.

One reader commented on a recent post: "When I was within the inner circle of this group, I asked for a loan from a board member. I was told to go to a branch and see a specific person there. I went that day sat down and was given the amount I wanted; no questions asked. Am I thankful? Yes. However, everyone in the inner loop at County Hall did this. Or sold themselves for campaign contributions. You should have seen them--all parties all candidates goveling at the trough. What is sad, is that the bank was started with a semi-private subscription by among others secretaries at US Century, Plumbers, and Rasco et al.

Hopefully, some of our readers will amplify on this comment; if not in the comments section here, then, at gimleteyemiami@yahoo.com I would be very interested to know specific stories and details, especially from the "semi-private subscriptions" and how the bank was hyped at County Hall. Also, details about Ready State Bank would be interesting to hear about, too. Here is the rest of the comment:

Here is one commenter: "I usually comment on the US Century Bank Articles on this Blog. I compare them with the now defunct Bank of Int'l Credit and Commerce by Agnan Khashogi. That being said, this bank and its relationship to insiders was insidious. One aspect missing from this blog and the Herald (the Miami Today was toting this Bank this week, what crap) is their connection to HABDI, the Homestead Airforce Base Development. This group wanted to buy out the AFB and turn it into a megalith for bulk cargo. Thankfully the AF after being prodded by Cong. Lehtinen said Thanks, but no. When I was within the inner circle of this group, I asked for a loan from a board member. I was told to go to a branch and see a specific person there. I went that day sat down and was given the amount I wanted; no questions asked. Am I thankful? Yes. However, everyone in the inner loop at County Hall did this. Or sold themselves for campaign contributions. You should have seen them--all parties all candidates goveling at the trough. What is sad, is that the bank was started with a semi-private subscription by among others secretaries at US Century, Plumbers, and Rasco et al. Those are the victims here. They will never see their $10,000.00 investment. Pino, Agnones, Rasco et al will not feel any pain. Hey they did the same with Ready State Bank, but hey who's counting. As for Cathy, forget about it other commentators. Remember she nolle prosed Sergito's daughter's possession charges. I am sure they are thinking: "See you suckers in another ten years."

Location of Miami's Airport Doesn't Make A Lot of Sense. By Geniusofdespair

Miami International Airport:

Hollywood Fort Lauderdale Airport:

Miami's airport affords residential homes little buffering especially where there are noisy take-offs to the East. Ft. Lauderdale's airport, on the other hand, is more neighbor friendly. On its East side there is no residential, it is only industrial and then the ocean. The West side of this airport also has a lot more industrial, unlike Miami, before residential areas begin. On the North side of Ft. Lauderdale Hollywood airport is the port and some housing. Miami has some warehousing but more residential. (If you hit photos they will enlarge)

Mayor Gimenez wants to end County Commissioners' excess funds. By Geniusofdespair

Mayor Gimenez wants to stop County Commissioners from carrying over the excess funds in their office budgets. They have a few million in their slush pot now. It was worse a few years ago. They each had an additional $300,000 plus besides their "office budget" of over three quarters of a million each. The office monies comes out to about $10 million dollars of our hard-earned tax dollars. Commissioner Heyman has about $800,000 she is carrying over. In other words, she didn't NEED that much to run her office but she has it saved up anyway. Gimenez is not a miracle worker so I don't expect any changes to this policy but we can hope. Joe Martinez, the Commission Chair, might make believe he supports it because he wants to be mayor. The Miami Herald says:

“The practice of discretionary funding, it needs to stop,” Gimenez said. “You can fund services through a normal budget process.”

Two years ago, a Palm Beach County grand jury — charged with addressing a “crisis of trust in public governance” after a string of public corruption convictions — called for a slate of reforms. Topping the list: ending county commissioners’ discretionary funds.

The report said most of the money went to laudable efforts, including worthwhile community groups and nonprofits, but the process of commissioners individually handing out the funds smacked of unseemly political patronage that “at a minimum, politicized the manner of funding” and created a negative effect “in both fact and perception.”

Michele Bachmann: how should we then live? by gimleteye

The radical right believes that if only enough of us pray hard enough to Jesus Christ, that America's sins will be washed away, rainfall will return to Texas and the parched Southwest and Florida, and that a single wage earner-- a husband not wife -- will provide once again for families that are never ripped apart by low cost labor nations or crimes linked to the Renaissance and secular humanism.

Sadly, placard politics of the GOP are so thoroughly vetted through fringe Bible study groups that it is nearly impossible to disentangle views of the party's decline from its overgrown weeds or candidates presumably blazing trails for the rest of the nation. Texas Gov. Rick Perry is the latest entry, but there is Sarah Palin in her ever-present holy carriage (i.e., luxury bus plugged into Walmart parking lots for free electricity), and every other God fearing bearer of the truth including Michele Bachmann. (Palin, who now makes more money than she ever dreamed possible is already a parody of herself; buffed and polished to be a media icon for a nation reflected in the mirror of reality TV. She is the Republican John Edwards without a law degree.)

Thanks to the LA Times, I know now more about Bachmann than I ever imagined. That, for example, she is among the religious right who track our societal ills to the misguided genius of the Italian Renaissance. That's right: the glorification of man by Leonardo Da Vinci and Michaelangelo, homos whose masturbatory fantasies incorporated in religious images planted the seeds of cultural decline in the United States (before it was ever dreamt!) and that the weakness in our national vigor is more to do with obsessive fondling of what is between David's legs than industrial policies. Of course, I've just put a crude face on what is a carefully reasoned position by the radical right and excuse me for that.

This religious nonsense on a grand scale takes us back to the carnival barkers in the 19th Century, dragging around dog-eared Bibles and jars of intestinal worms to be cured with one or another elixir derived from filings from the nails of St. Peter's coffin. Or Paul.

There is no end for GOP plans to cure homosexuality and every other humanistic ill that emerged, as Bachmann believes, from the wrong turn made by Western civilization at the end of the dark Middle Ages. Log Cabin Republicans can be trusted as much as heretics in "True Blood" burned at the stake in the Spanish Inquisition only to return, now, dressed like Young Republicans but possessed by the devil. My unanswered prayer (title of a novel by that homo Truman Capote) is that before too long, Michele Bachmann's husband will reemerge from self-imposed exile and explain to 60 Minutes or Nightly News how he would "cure" Michaelangelo or Leonardo Da Vinci at his intake rehab facility of their gay-ness and secular humanism. Let the world see what we are capable of!

Although this is unlikely to happen within the 2012 election cycle, I still pray for the emergence of a splinter group within the GOP that will throw off the insanity residing within the heart of the party and return to principles of conservativism that don't mirror the wish list of the US Chamber of Commerce or Associated Industries of Florida. Will a GOP candidate emerge for national office who I can praise to high heaven, or, will it rain in Texas first?