Dirty Hair...Never My President. By Geniusofdespair

I spoke to a relative I love who is a registered Democrat. She said, I would never vote for Hillary so the only choice was Trump.

How did this dislike of Hillary evolve?

We all like to laugh at Trump's hair. It looks to me like a Cheese Doddle all puffed up. I don't feel his hair affected my vote one way or another. He just has funny looking hair. But apparently dirty hair does influence a woman's votes.

My relative said: Hillary has dirty hair (meta-message she is unclean). I thought to myself, that is a new one on me. Dirty hair. I look at my hair in the mirror and it looks like mice could be living in it. I live near the water and the hair gets big and frizzy.  But I never thought about Hillary having dirty hair and I doubt that it would have occurred to my relative if she wasn't watching Fox news all day. I decided to google "Hillary Dirty Hair" to see where this notion started from.

Apparently not only is Hillary's hair unwashed but she smells too and has fat ankles. Granted I hated her pastel pantsuits but: That would not be a reason to vote or not to vote for someone.

From the dirty hair speech. Tried to cover up grey but that is all I see. But I did see a lot of photoshopped versions of this photo, and her hair did look more stringy.

So they USED WOMEN'S VANITY to attack their own. I stood next to Hillary Clinton in the hot sun in Bayfront Park. She really wasn't smelly. I promise you. Women: You were manipulated and you fell for it. There is far too much brain washing going on and plenty of hair washing too. As Donald Trump would say: Sad. As I would say: Dumb, letting men manipulate your thought with buzz words.

My mother died by a surgeon's hand and he said, attempting to lighten the moment of the death announcement: "I was having a bad hair day". And we are so brutal we don't allow a woman one?

She lost because she is a woman ... by gimleteye

From the outset of the Hillary Clinton campaign, she faced a rip tide of negative messaging accumulated through decades of life in the spotlight. The efforts to discredit her started when Bill Clinton appointed her to be health care czar. No candidate for president in the modern era experienced a similar brutalization by the right wing.

To be sure, Hillary's campaign was plagued by self-inflicted wounds. The private email server. Defensiveness on Benghazi. The recklessness of the Clinton Foundation. Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch. But none of these deficits, individually or in total, add up to Donald Trump's.

Hillary lost among uneducated, threatened white male voters from the Rust Belt, but she lost among white, educated women too. Hillary Clinton lost because she was a powerful woman.

In the U.S., it is not fair to say that Hillary was the "wrong" woman or through relentless vilification, women voters were persuaded Hillary was a woman they couldn't trust.

By many metrics, Hillary was the most qualified candidate we've ever had to be president of the United States. Instead, Americans elected the least qualified and one of the least respectful towards women.

The question has to be asked: what is it about American culture that caused women to abandon Hillary?

The answer has something to do with a primitive response to threats as a matter of sex and the protection, in return, offered by men. We are living in an extraordinary moment of history, where American exceptionalism and the middle class is under massive threat: from global trade, to global terrorism, to global warming.

Voters in 2016 felt these threats -- pumped up by the right-wing message machine -- and the extraordinary ability of Donald Trump to tap into the fear: "Make America Great Again!"

The primitive, pre-historic reaction to threat seemed to propel many educated, white women voters into the arms of their husbands or fathers, who voted for Trump. It didn't matter that Hillary Clinton had all the experience in the world. "I will protect you" and restore the glory of America is the deal Donald Trump offered.

In Europe, the patriarchy is not so strong. The bonds of sexual roles for women are no so fixed. Up to this point in time, the reaction to threats has not been a retreat toward right-wing, illiberal fundamentalism or opposition to women on top. On the continent and in Great Britain, women are regularly elected to top political positions.

With Trump, the rigidity of autocratic tendencies stands in marked contrast to engage women sexually as though it is a right. The prosperity doctrine, embodied by Norman Vincent Peale, meets religious opportunism: as a man you can be a paragon of religious virtue, a public official, have sex with women whenever you want. Divorce. Re-marry and never be subject to scrutiny. "That's just what boys do." But in the U.S., God forbid a woman to act the same.

It is going to be a long, four years.

The Echo Chamber: How The Internet Is Loosening Our Grip On The Truth ... by gimleteye

By any standard, Eye On Miami has been blogging a long time. Soon we will have been at this for a decade. In November 2006 we two bloggers began this daily, quixotic exercise to expand awareness on issues that matter deeply to us: the state of Florida, the state of Miami-Dade, and corruption; of politics, of the environment, clean water and the Everglades. Look at our archive, how the blog posts accumulated like snowflakes into drifted man-made snow.

Along with us, over the past decade, the entirety of the Fourth Estate poured into the internet; now including Twitter feeds, Facebook pages, and a million billion blogs. Journalism is still grappling with the question; how to pay content providers (writers, news reporters, producers) when the content on the web is virtually free.

We do this blog for free.

For the NY Times, Farhad Manjoo writes "How the Internet Is Loosening Our Grip on the Truth". His point of view is one I share. Manjoo doesn't explicitly mention the unmentionable in his opinion: Donald J. Trump and his creator, the GOP.

The web has proven incredibly adept at reinforcing ideological silos in which facts are elements that aren't valued by how much they sink in so much as how they do the opposite: ricochet in the echo chamber.

Throughout our blogging, it has been clear to us that the echo chamber is the enemy and that words alone are not enough to tear down its walls.

Fingers crossed that next Tuesday, enough Americans will be shocked by this election cycle to grapple, themselves, with hard truths and not retreat back into their echo chambers.


How the Internet Is Loosening Our Grip on the Truth
NY Times
Farhad Manjoo
STATE OF THE ART NOV. 2, 2016

Next week, if all goes well, someone will win the presidency. What happens after that is anyone’s guess. Will the losing side believe the results? Will the bulk of Americans recognize the legitimacy of the new president? And will we all be able to clean up the piles of lies, hoaxes and other dung that have been hurled so freely in this hyper-charged, fact-free election?

What's in the Donald Trump campaign, for you and for me ... by gimleteye

The Miami Herald reports that Florida's utilities are spending more than $40 million on a single ballot referendum called Amendment 1: to trick voters -- if 60 % of Floridians are gullible enough to vote for it -- into putting solar panel installations under the lock and key of big utilities.

This demonstration of rigging a system has gotten widespread attention in Florida, but not in terms of what matters to voters: under a Trump presidency, the riggers come out way, way on top. Here is an example.

The nation’s utilities are among top campaign contributors to candidates, PACs controlled by candidates and dark money pools where tens of millions of dollars are shunted.

Put another way, the grid that supplies your electricity is rigged by definition: in Florida it is organized to push electric current and profits into monopolies like Florida Power and Light.

GOP candidates and elected officials are the main beneficiaries of the utilities' rigged system in Tallahassee; they control the state legislature and, through FL Gov. Rick Scott's agencies and appointees; the utilities control the Public Service Commission, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, and the state water management districts. (FPL’s Turkey Point nuclear facility is the largest private water user in Miami-Dade County and rivals Miami-Dade County, itself, for primary allocation of water resources.)

When Donald Trump talks about a "rigged" system favoring Hillary Clinton, bear in mind that the rigging begins with the massive dis-information of voters by special interests and money spent to protect their subsidies and monopolies.
In Florida Amendment 1 (the right vote, is NO: "Amendment One Blocks The Sun") is a prime example of a "rigged" system.

If passed, it would shift the Sunshine State’s solar future straight into the bank accounts of top executives and energy shareholders. There will be no "clawing back” by citizens of our shared energy future.

I have been fighting for Florida's Everglades, clean water and good government for a quarter century. There has been tremendous back-sliding during this time, as insiders and lobbyists and government hacked away at broad bipartisan consensus that formed the nation and the state's main public interest laws in the 1970's and 1980's.

Based on my experience the last twenty five years -- and the "riggers" who made durable deals in county government, in Congress and in the state legislature -- a Trump presidency would lock down the privileges that protect a "rigged" system for the foreseeable future.

With Hillary and a Democratic Senate, we have a fighting chance. That should matter. That's what I will be fighting for, the day after Tuesday’s election.

Scarcely Mentioned In This Presidential Campaign: Climate Change Impacts And What We Can Do To Reverse Them ... by gimleteye

Not so long ago! I thought along the lines of a former director of Friends of the Everglades, Joe Podgor, "Restoring the Everglades is a test. If we pass, we may get to keep the planet." He made that comment in the early 1990s.

It is hard to admit, 30 years later, that common sense has been steamrollered by short-term profit and the gaming of governmental systems. "Rigged" is the right word to describe how Big Sugar and related industries dominate Florida.

As far as the planet goes -- the other side of Joe Podgor's equation -- the results are arriving much, much faster than any expected.

There is no safety net from climate change impacts, which means we should be scrambling from danger right now.

The bottom line this election cycle: if candidate does not believe climate change is an existential threat: VOTE THEM OUT. In Florida that begins with Marco Rubio.

If you care about protection of our food supply, our water and air, read the following UK Guardian guest OPED by Jules Howard.

Imagine a world without animals. You’ll soon see how much we need them
Jules Howard
Hand-pollinating crops, growing meat in labs and dealing with the stench of scavenging fungus – this is the future we face

A couple of years ago we heard news that 50% of all vertebrate species had disappeared in 40 years. On Thursday, we were greeted with news that by 2020 the figure is likely to rise to 66% of all vertebrates. It is no wonder that the conservationists are shouting. It is no wonder that they are so desperate to get their message heard. Animals, it seems, are on the way out. And no one appears to much care.

Florida Voters Have Another Chance To Show Nation: We are aware, we are woken, and we are not going to take it anymore ... by gimleteye

The GOP has had the run of Florida for decades, notwithstanding victories by President Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. Yet in the March GOP presidential primary, Republicans roundly rejected the status quo.

Donald Trump won; the "burn-the-house-down" answer for Florida GOP primary voters in Florida.

In this shambolic election, Hillary Clinton made an excellent case to be president of the United States. Moreover, Florida voters could show that Republicans incumbents lost their mandate in both Congress and state legislatures.

In Florida, the GOP held people hostage through opposition to popular votes like Fair Districts. (Vote NO on Amendment 1: it blocks the sun.)

The party that says government should not be in the business of choosing winners and losers is exactly in business to protect winners and damage the chance for losers to gain advantage.

The Republican vision for America claims to protect individual liberties but in Florida as elsewhere it has proven a friend to the concentration of wealth and power at the top. The more pure the orthodoxy, the more benefits will trickle down to the common man and woman.

Bullsugar.

Through its own actions, the Republican Party has lost its mandate to govern except among the percentage riled or anesthetized by reality television and Fox News.

There will be plenty of time to level criticism against the Democrats, but not now. Donald Trump deserves to be defeated by 10 points in the popular vote. He should bring down GOP control of the Senate and state legislatures as well.

Those Americans interested in the exercise of democracy, of fairness and of equity for all citizens -- irrespective of ethnicity, race, or creed -- should reject Donald Trump and incumbent Republicans.

Floridians not only have a choice in the outcome, two weeks from now, we can show what it means to say, enough is enough.

How The GOP Practices Psychological Warfare On Its Own Voters: Florida's James Madison Institute ... by gimleteye

How Florida's Amendment 1 Blocks The Sun

On its website, the James Madison Institute, a Tallahassee-based conservative foundation, calls itself "a beacon" and “Florida’s free-market think tank”. Now that one of its senior staffers has been caught on tape fronting for a constitutional amendment that inhibits solar power unless it is funneled through Florida's large electric utilities, the James Madison Institute reveals what’s wrong with today’s GOP.

Here is the James Madison Institute's mission:

"Although we work through complicated policy issues, our approach is simple. Focus on policy, not politics – and keep our principles of limited government, personal responsibility and economic freedom front and center. Throughout the years, we’ve remained tried and true -- a constant conscience of Florida’s leaders and a champion for hardworking Floridians who have made this state what it is today. While you pursue your dreams, we work to protect them.”

Protect your dreams? The James Madison Institute has now scrubbed its website and Twitter account of any mention of the fake solar amendment like Lady McBeth compulsively washing her hands after turning her husband into a murderer.

Leaked audio offers new evidence how the James Madison Institute shilled for Florida utilities, misrepresenting the utility-funded Amendment 1 ballot initiative: not only is the constitutional amendment anti-solar, James Madison Institute boasted about its strategy.

Audio obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) and the Energy and Policy Institute captures James Madison Institute's Vice President Sal Nuzzo explaining how JMI and other Amendment 1 backers successfully misled the public into believing it was pro-solar.

Speaking to other State Policy Network member organizations, Nuzzo, JMI's vice president of policy and director of the center said:

The point I would make, maybe the takeaway, is as you guys look at policy in your state or constitutional ballot initiatives in your state, remember this: solar polls very well. To the degree that we can use a little bit of political jiu-jitsu and take what they’re kind of pinning us on and use it to our benefit either in policy, in legislation or in constitutional referendums if that’s the direction you want to take, use the language of promoting solar, and kind of, kind of put in these protections for consumers that choose not to install rooftop."

So who exactly are the liars at the James Madison Institute, because Vice President Nuzzo was only saying what his board members knew to be true. The board of JMI is loaded with Florida utility executives.

Start with Board Chair, Allan G. Bense. 

Bense was Republican Speaker of the House from 2004 through 2006. He is now on the board of Gulf Power Company that has been eye-ball deep in James Madison Institute for many years. Bense is also chairman of the board of the Florida Chamber of Commerce.

The Chamber of Commerce does not represent the interests of small businesses in Florida. It is a political heavyweight that directs enormous campaign contributions through a Russian doll network of political action committees that serve to cement the privileges of large scale enterprises in Florida. The lessons in Florida's recent political history are clear: when you see the Florida Chamber of Commerce advocating for a constitutional amendment, run for the hills. Conversely, when the Florida Chamber stands in opposition, it is because the proposed constitutional proposal bends towards the interests of voters.

The Florida Chamber is conjoined with Associated Industries of Florida, also run by GOP insiders. Both for example are regular recipients of six figure largesse by special interests like Big Sugar -- whose profits through corporate welfare have been tagged by tax advocate Grover Norquist as "cronyism in its undiluted, inexcusable majesty".

Bense is a trustee of FSU he is a board member of Foundation for Florida’s Future, the Jeb Bush think tank supporting his cratered presidential bid, and serves on the boards of both the Florida Council of 100 and Enterprise Florida, Inc. The Florida Council of 100 and Enterprise Florida are organized to advance the privileges of Florida's GOP elite.

Florida is one of five states that do not allow a property owner to have a third-party installer put solar panels on their roof and sell the power back to them.

If it sounds like the James Madison Institute is against free-markets when they level the playing field and for free-markets when they can be tipped in favor of Big Business, you would be close to understanding how the GOP practices psychological warfare against its own voters.

Amendment 1 is not just a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” to deceive Florida voters. It is embraced by the Florida think tank that advocates limited, free-market policies while cynically supporting centralized, picking-winners-and-losers by insiders.

These are the same forms of misdirection and deception that enraged Florida Republican voters who vaulted Donald Trump above two native sons favored by the political insiders at James Madison to be the next GOP presidential nominee: Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio.

Against this backdrop, it is easy for voters who are paying attention to see that the JMI claim of support for the free market and limited self-government are as fake in Florida as Amendment 1. Republican voters, in particular, ought to be outraged against a rigged system that turns bedrock conservative values into a catch-basin for special interests.

The Miami Herald reported: "According to federal tax documents, JMI has received more than $120,000 from the Charles Koch Institute and Charles Koch Foundation, and Stan Connally, the CEO of Gulf Power, sits on JMI’s board of directors. Gulf Power and its affiliates have contributed more than $2.3 million to the utility-backed amendment, which also has received funding from Florida Power & Light, Duke Energy, Tampa Electric Co., and non-profit groups primarily funded by Exxon and the Koch brothers.”

In November, voters will have a chance to deny Florida's utilities the lock and key to a solar future precisely because if the amendment passes by 60% of the popular vote, it is their lock and key.

If the GOP hopes to regain the trust of Florida voters, it will need to reform policies and practices including think tanks supporting a rigid status quo and pretending to be what they are not.

That "beacon of liberty" on the James Madison Institute website is really a false light set by reef wreckers to lure ships to be smashed, the easier for pirates to plunder and loot.

Allen G. Bense should resign from the James Madison Institute. However, he is doing what big business wants: concentrate power to deform the values, ideals and essential principles of conservative, limited government.

Republican voters have a lot to be dismayed about this election cycle, and the dismay only starts with Amendment 1.


Read more, here:

http://www.energyandpolicy.org/press-release-utility-funded-pac-caught-attempting-political-jiu-jitsu/
Sourcewatch: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/James_Madison_Institute
Bridge Project: http://bridgeproject.com/research/koch-impacts-florida/the-james-madison-institute-has-very-deep-ties-to-the-koch-network/
New Yorker investigation into State Policy Network: http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/is-ikea-the-new-model-for-the-conservative-movement
Sourcewatch: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/State_Policy_Network

Care about your job? Vote for the candidate who recognizes the threat to your job by climate change ... by gimleteye

Astoundingly, the televised debates for the next president of the United States failed to probe federal responsibilities to address global warming impacts.

As the King Tides in Florida just demonstrated, there is reality to contend with even if the moderators won't. For the New York Times, Dave Leonhardt aptly wrote:

Tonight wrapped up three weeks of presidential campaign debates. It was also a three-week period in which cities in at least 34 states reported record-high temperatures. New York reached 80 degrees today, and Nashville nearly hit 90.

This year is all but guaranteed to be the planet’s hottest on record, just as 2015 and 2014 were. The damage from climate change is now speeding up.

And how many questions were Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Tim Kaine and Mike Pence asked about climate change over the six hours of their four combined debates?

Zero.

Sir Nicholas Stern, Chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics (LSE), and President of the British Academy, recently said that the global economy could “self destruct” if the fossil fuel, carbon economy was not quickly reformed.

That's your job he is talking about. So when panderers like Senator Marco Rubio say he's more concerned about the economy than climate change, the bottom line is that he pretty much as clueless as the presidential candidate he supports, Donald Trump.

In a determined effort to enlighten, New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert focused this week on Greenland's melting ice cap. Here are a few excerpts:

... Just in the past four years, more than a trillion tons of ice have been lost. This is four hundred million Olympic swimming pools’ worth of water, or enough to fill a single pool the size of New York State to a depth of twenty-three feet.

... As moulins form at higher elevations, more water is carried from the surface of the ice to the bedrock beneath. This lubricates the base, which, in turn, speeds the movement of ice toward the ocean. At a certain point, these feedback loops become self-sustaining. It is possible that that point has already been reached.

... “What concerns me the most is that this is the kind of experiment we can only do once,” Rignot said. “A lot of people don’t realize that. If we start opening the floodgates on some of these glaciers, even if we stop our emissions, even if we go back to a better climate, the damage is going to be done. There’s no red button to stop this.”

... the problem with global warming—and the reason it continues to resist illustration, even as the streets flood and the forests die and the mussels rot on the shores—is that experience is an inadequate guide to what’s going on. The climate operates on a time delay. When carbon dioxide is added to the atmosphere, it takes decades—in a technical sense, millennia—for the earth to equilibrate. This summer’s fish kill was a product of warming that had become inevitable twenty or thirty years ago, and the warming that’s being locked in today won’t be fully felt until today’s toddlers reach middle age. In effect, we are living in the climate of the past, but already we’ve determined the climate’s future.

What do Florida’s Congressional challengers and incumbents believe about climate change? A website, Earth Forum, answers that question here. We know what Marco Rubio thinks, because we heard his answer in the presidential primary: oh it's just like flooding in West Dade, we'll engineer around it. Pathetic and ill-informed.

Climate change is not some future, hazy concern on the horizon. It is here, now. We can't afford a single elected office holder who denies climate change or the urgency to change our energy future.

The clearest signal Floridians can send is to elect Hillary Clinton and Patrick Murphy to the US Senate.

A Letter To Millennial And Independent Voters ... by gimleteye

Dear Millennials and Independent Voters,

During the 2000 presidential campaign, millennials and independents were angered how Al Gore and his campaign advisors decided to proceed in the final months, avoiding issues like the environment. The Gore campaign reckoned such a bright line delineated their candidate from George Bush, that there was no need to emphasize his core positions. When pressed on local controversies like the redevelopment of the Homestead Air Force Base, they snarled, “Get a life!"

Perhaps they worried that the environment would be used to gin up Bush campaign donors and jeopardize — in a narrow election — battleground states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida with voters who viewed environmental protection as something other people could afford. Whatever the case, Gore was silent.

Ralph Nader, the choice of millennials and independents at the time, filled the breach. Al Gore lost the presidency by an impossibly slim margin.

Today's generation of millennials and independents may find Hillary Clinton “unlikeable", they may view her as “untrustworthy” or part of an old guard that does not represent their interests in reform and real change. If so, listen to history.

Whatever one thinks of George W. Bush, Jr., whether “incurious” or a good guy misled by advisors, those in his inner circle pushed the United States to terrible outcomes. A majority of American voters would take them back if we could.

Dick Cheney, Bush's vice-president, and Donald Rumsfeld, his secretary of defense, lied to the American public when they steered the US to a war in Iraq that cost trillions. Cheney, also, diverted environmental policies to fossil fuel industry lobbyists, costing precious lost time in the battle against climate change.

Consider Trump's inner circle as an indicator of what a Trump presidency would hold for America. The candidate whose sexual groping on live television sent his poll numbers into a spiral is being advised by Roger Ailes, the former Fox News chief brought down by multiple allegations of sexual misconduct. Trump advisors include NJ governor Chris Christie who used a commuter disaster on the George Washington Bridge to punish a mayor who would not support him and laughed about it. Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of NYC, actually blamed President Obama for 9/11. Business leaders for Trump are mainly tied to fossil fuel industries.

Donald J. Trump would deliver the White House to conspiracy theorists. His rise to the top of the Republican Party has already eroded the credibility of the United States as leader of the free world.

There are some voters who lament both candidates — Hillary and Donald — just let the bull-in-the-china shop. This is no time to stand on principle when one candidate, Donald Trump, knows so little, demonstrates such vanity and volatile connection to reality.

Millennials and independent voters, here is the bottom line: on election day, leave your angst at home. Vote for Hillary Clinton and send Donald Trump back to self-branding hotels, neck ties and Vodka bottles.

“We are strong enough to survive Donald Trump”, the magical thinking goes. We were young once, too, survived the 2000 election, and say to you in 2016: don't go down that road again.

Putin's game with the November election: his patsy is Donald Trump ... by gimleteye

Vladimir Putin lives by the power of disinformation and misdirection. Putin stole billions. He is ruthless and unchallenged in Russia.

Donald Trump has the inclination of a dictator. His net worth is questionable. Trump has an eye for weakness but is clueless about diplomacy, history, and context. Putin has no respect for rule of law. Trump doesn't even understand the US Constitution. He would be, in a word, Putin's patsy.

Vladimir Putin can read the US polls. Why would he push so hard from Trump's corner with such a small chance of Trump winning in November? Already the international nervousness and turmoil the Trump camp created has served Russia's interests. For Russia today, stirring the pot is its own reward.

Since the end of World War II, the Soviet Union/ Russia has had a single objective: to erode US power wherever possible. With international turmoil, its possibilities increase. Trump -- with pledges to upset NATO and other signposts of international cooperation -- is Putin's way in.

As a historical matter Russia has never operated from the center of international power, because its aims are so clearly transparent and hostile to the Western world and industrialized nations. Trump threatens to upend the cardinal rule of post-war diplomacy: contain Russia.

The chip on Putin's shoulder is Russia's eternal grievance: that it always operates from the margins toward the center.

In the era of globalization and technology, Russia is still minor partner even compared to China, the behemoth at its border. Putin detests Obama exactly for this reason: a minority has more power and influence than he has. With Trump, Putin sees how the tables could turn. The volatile non-politician Trump, who lacks the character and stability to be a leader, would be an easy trophy.

Hillary, on the other hand, stands for diplomatic centeredness and cultural diversity that is an anathema to Putin.

Putin views Trump as his Trojan Horse. Putin has already taken clear advantage of US policy disasters in the Syria, where Russia can wage war on behalf of another dictator, Assad, without a single concern in the world.

American voters are right to worry there is something in Donald Trump's tax returns that show indebtedness to Russia. By withholding his tax returns, Trump wins. If he loses the election, with Russian businessmen and with Putin, he still wins.

As for Russia meddling in US elections, why wouldn't it if the means were available and its opportunity in Donald Trump so near at hand.

What if the 2016 race had been about policy: Mike Grunwald in Politico ... by gimleteye

Miami author and Politico senior writer Mike Grunwald attended the recent Hillary/Gore appearance in Miami, and here is what he had to say about it.

Al Gore lost the 2000 presidential race in Florida where he was poorly served by advisors, some of whom are still on the Democratic scene like Mitchell Berger and Chris Korge.

Al Gore was right about climate change, then, and he is now. If there is an iota of your being that believes climate change is a real and present danger to the economy and to US national security, you must vote for Hillary Clinton in November. Her opponent still believes climate change is a hoax perpetrated by China, and by the way, Trump's proxy in Florida -- Marco Rubio -- is on the same page.

For the second presidential debate, Trump brought the only game he has: savagery ... by gimleteye

There will be plenty of time for the Republican party to self-admit to a psychiatric ward or at least to answer the question: what went wrong in 2016, that Donald S. Trump became its candidate to be president of the United States?

For the time being, there is really only one solution to this Frankenstein-ish invention: to defeat Donald Trump at the polls in November so soundly, he never comes back to haunt U.S. politics.

Trump needed to show a measure of contrition, an iota of wisdom, a trace of humility at last night's presidential debate. He brought the only game he had, doubling-down on his liabilities.

Trump didn't grab Hillary by the pussy -- his inclination toward women caught on videotape eleven years ago that he now dismisses as "locker room talk". He did guarantee if elected president to throw her in jail. He was a wounded political animal lurking on stage from one canard to another.

If there are voters who are just now tuning in to the presidential election and genuinely undecided or willing to be persuaded, I highly recommend viewing (available, online) the PBS Frontline documentary, "The Choice 2016".

Frontline compares the different career paths of Trump and Hillary. What surprised -- perhaps I betray my age, here -- is how much we knew and forgot about Trump's well-publicized financial problems in the 1980's and 1990's.

The point is that Trump's business career was a disaster until he discovered he could make more money marketing his name than owning real property.

When Trump's real estate empire collapsed, allowing him to take deductions totaling nearly a billion dollars, the banks who held his debt decided he was too big to fail. Don't confuse that with success. As the documentary describes, the banks kept him alive because Trump's devalued assets were worth more if he was out fluffing their value up, than if they foreclosed on his mortgages and debt and had to find new suckers to buy them.

Last night, the only question was whether Trump would self-destruct on camera, and if he did -- what would that look like. What he accomplished was to turn the "Town Hall" into a reality TV-like cage where political and rhetorical savagery was on full display. I hope it is something we never have to see again.

A Big Reason To Vote For Hillary Clinton and Patrick Murphy for US Senate in Florida: It is possible to be too late on climate change ... by gimleteye

To call the stakes in the climate change battle, as Betsy Kolbert does in a recent edition of her outstanding coverage of global warming, "a legal thriller" is to know that there are real, hard consequences to the posture -- amongst leading Republicans like Marco Rubio -- that climate change is a hoax.

The stakes for Florida in the upcoming senate and presidential election are that clear. Republicans and independents who fear a Hillary Clinton presidency should pause and consider just how much there is to lose if Donald Trump were to win. Also, consider how Marco Rubio is a barrier to policies that could protect taxpayers and voters.

A Trump presidency is a virtual surrender to a world in which it will be every man and women for themselves. That is, in fact, precisely how Trump sells his "success" in the world of business. He is not about lifting people up, he is about lifting himself and his family up at the expense of those who made legal agreements that he broke. Rubio is just a weathervane pointed in the direction of his biggest campaign contributors.

The window on protecting us from accelerating impacts of climate change is closing fast. President Obama is right: it is possible to be too late.

On that basis and issue alone, Hillary Clinton is the only choice in the upcoming election. By electing Patrick Murphy to the US Senate and defeating Marco Rubio, Floridians could point to the rest of the nation that climate change impacts are so serious we can no longer pretend the GOP has earned the confidence of Americans to control the US Senate. Betsy Kolbert won't say so, but I can.

The New Yorker Magazine
DONALD TRUMP AND THE CLIMATE-CHANGE COUNTDOWN
By Elizabeth Kolbert , 12:01 A.M.

In August, 2015, when President Obama announced the final version of the Clean Power Plan—the centerpiece of his effort to combat climate change—he quoted a speech that Martin Luther King, Jr., gave at Riverside Church, in April, 1967, opposing the Vietnam War. “I believe ‘there is such a thing as being too late,’ ” the President said, in a ceremony in the East Room. He liked the line so much that he repeated it, a few months later, at the opening of the international climate negotiations, in Paris: “For I believe, in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., that there is such a thing as being too late. And when it comes to climate change, that hour is almost upon us.” Speaking about climate change this past summer, in Yosemite National Park, he invoked it a third time.

The line came to mind yet again this week, when oral arguments against the Clean Power Plan were heard in the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Twenty-seven states, led by West Virginia, together with a passel of oil and coal companies, have sued the Environmental Protection Agency to prevent the plan from going into effect. There is, indeed, such a thing as being too late, and the plan’s opponents—who were the very folks who made the plan necessary—seem determined to delay until that point, and perhaps beyond it. As Dr. King observed, in a context that was at once very different and not so different, procrastination is “the thief of time.

The Debate: Hillary ... by gimleteye

At the end of last night's debate, Hillary was composed. Unfazed. She did not stoop low to Donald Trump's interjections and rambling. She was prepared and at least twice, all she had to say to her audience of millions: "Just listen to him". We did listen. Trump was channeling Sarah Palin: all sound and no sense.

A couple of highlights. Trump kept returning to his talking point on trade deals and jobs: "we are going to bring those jobs back" and "we are going to stop American jobs from leaving, trust me".

On this fundamental Republican point -- that the free market should determine goods, services and jobs -- Donald Trump's brain has left the room. How is China going to stop sending cheap goods that fill our shelves? Trump taxes on Chinese exports? Who is that going to hurt most? Everyone! Starting trade wars is not a Republican Party platform. That's not a position I've even heard about since the 1960s.

Starting a trade war with China and with Mexico -- which Trump wants to do -- is just goofy talk. It is not only a uniquely bad idea, it is an especially bad idea to be poking China in the eye because China has its own contingent of hawkish wackos.

Making goods for Americans more expensive would trigger a global economic crisis, not just instantly drain away a quarter of American savings through a runaway panic in stock markets.

Last night Donald Trump sounded like the national security crisis he is. Think NAFTA was bad for the economy: just wait for this guy who doesn't even run a normal business where, as Hillary pointed out, an honest contract underlies the exchange of goods and services.

By refusing to disclose his tax returns, Donald Trump left himself wide open. Hillary walked her audience through that opening, reasonably listing the likely reasons Trump is refusing to make his returns public.

The passive expression on Trump's face while she did so sent the unmistakable signal that Hillary is right: Trump pays no federal income tax. Trump has claimed charitable contributions that don't stand up to his claims. Trump is in debt, perhaps, to the wrong people.

Trump doesn't have policies. He has phrases. Bits of illogic that fit no pattern except grievances. Trump has the grievance part down, pat.

Hillary was prepared. She was presidential. Trump was, well, a weight the GOP may not survive.

Florida: The Sinkhole State ... by gimleteye

Most Floridians are in the dark about one of the state's most secretive, regulated and wealthy industries: mining. In other states, mining is defined by mineral extraction. In Florida, mining involves scraping the surface layer of the earth; excavating ancient fossil bedrock for limestone, to make cement, asphalt and concrete, and phosphate derivatives, for agricultural fertilizer.

Mosaic is the nation's largest producer of the latter. Its multi-billion dollar revenues in Florida are focused on an area to the east of Tampa/ St. Petersberg where one mine recently drained over 200 million gallons of "slightly radioactive" water through a sinkhole that opened beneath a retention lake. Here is how large the operations are in the region: the mining area is 3/4 the spatial area of Rhode Island.

Recently, Jaclyn Lopez wrote an OPED for the Tampa Bay Times: "It's time to rein in Florida's phosphate strip mining". "Florida is starting to wake up to its massive phosphate mining problem," she begins.

Mosaic's public relations, like Big Sugar in its battle to retain the industry's privileges to pollute both Florida coasts, is trying to calm the public, claiming no threat to drinking water supplies from the disappearance of 200 million gallons (plus whatever volume is vanished through rainfall now pouring slightly radioactive and acidic tailings into the earth). It is a problem like FPL's at Turkey Point, where massive failure of its cooling canal system is radiating pollution beneath populated areas of south Miami-Dade and a national park.

The Mosaic problem is also like Japan's Fukushima. There, public confidence in government and corporate authority has been shaken to its bones by the fact that the nuclear reactor's fissile materials have "disappeared" into the earth.

All these problems point to hubris. All these problems -- byproducts of ingenious ways to accumulate wealth and power -- could have been prevented by effective government regulation.

It is precisely the environmental regulatory function of the federal government that has been under continuous attack since the nation's foundational laws were passed in the early 1970s.

Since at least the early 1990's, Florida environmentalists pleaded with the US Army Corps of Engineers -- the nation's permitting authority for wetlands destruction, and chief agency responsible for regulating mining activities in Florida -- to conduct a regional aquifer study in exactly the area where the massive sinkhole has now exposed Florida's drinking water to pollution.

In other words, we knew what was bound to happen in North Florida as water supplies were drained from sandy aquifers. The science of sinkholes is not complicated. Dr. Sydney Bacchus, who offered expert witness testimony for many civic and conservation groups during these decades, is the unsung hero and sentinel of mining's threats to North Florida's aquifers.

The US Army Corps of Engineers, under pressure from state and federal lawmakers who are quick to bend to the will of lobbyists and campaign funders from the mining industry, has denied and obfuscated the scale of the problem much like the Japanese government with Fukushima.

Groups like Ms. Lopez' Florida Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Club, NRDC and Friends of the Everglades have tried to use federal courts to bring polluters to justice.

These issues -- of regulatory failure -- are critical to the question; who will Florida choose to be the next president of the United States? Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump? Voters also have a choice with state leaders, so we don't have the earth pulled out from under our feet.

Today's Health Standards Could Have Robbed Us of One of Our Greatest Presidents. By Geniusofdespair

Four term President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had Polio. He died while still in office. Roosevelt was diagnosed with Polio at 39 years old. He learned to use iron braces and a cane and was careful not to be seen in a wheelchair. but the public did know of his illness before and during his presidency.

Could Franklin Delano Roosevelt be elected today? I doubt it.  Same with, John F. Kennedy. He took pain killers and steroids, he had Addison's disease among other ailments.

All those who are talking about Hillary Clinton's brain function should watch the 11 hours of the Benghazi hearings. Or those with shorter attention spans, should watch the 1/2 hour Matt Lauer interview. I don't care about her health unless it affects her brain function. Although her brain function is impaired to be giving those horrific stump speeches.

Notable Quotes by FDR:

Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country.

If civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships - the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together, in the same world at peace.

News flash: George Washington used brown mare to deliver messages to generals at front! ... By gimleteye

In September 1781, disgruntled citizens discovered General George Washington used a brown mare to deliver secret messages to commanders at the front. When protesters in Boston and Philadelphia demonstrated against the General for not using a white steed, they were pelted with eggs.

Hillary Clinton favors purchase of Big Sugar lands in Everglades Agricultural Area? ... by gimleteye

Hillary Clinton wrote an important OPED, published in the Treasure Coast Palm yesterday.

In it, she endorses purchase of Big Sugar lands in the EAA. . Hillary appears to accept the Now or Neverglades Declaration. The Declaration is rippling across the Florida political front and proving a litmus test from county commission to state legislative and the US Senate race. Clinton ought to sign the declaration now.

Otherwise, words are cheap. Hillary Clinton writes: "One of my husband's proudest accomplishments was signing a bipartisan bill in 2000 that finally committed to restoring the flow of fresh water through the Everglades and securing reliable clean water supplies for agriculture, businesses and families." Wait.

The 2000 Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan was a work-around of Big Sugar. Its foundation was a ridiculous notion that 333 wells could be scattered around Lake Okeechobee, providing a way to store water underground in order to eliminate the need for surface water storage. Billions have been spent and decades lost because Big Sugar got its way with Bill Clinton.

This year's water quality catastrophes in the St. Lucie, in the Caloosahatchee, and in Florida Bay are all the result of kicking the can down the road with CERP.

Candidate Hillary Clinton needs to sharpen up her message: start by signing the Now or Neverglades Declaration, return the money her campaign has taken from the Fanjul billionaires, and commit to tough enforcement of toxics regulations in America's diseased waterways, starting with South Florida because Gov. Rick Scott -- Donald J. Trump's campaign finance chairman -- can't and won't.


GUEST COLUMN
Floridians deserve clean water
By Hillary Clinton
August 17, 2016
_________________________________________________

Editor's note: Hillary Clinton wrote this guest column for Treasure Coast Newspapers and its digital editions, TCPalm. We contacted Republican nominee Donald Trump's campaign, extending an offer to publish a guest column from him on this topic, but did not receive a response.
________________________________________________

Water is life. Clean water sustains our health, our families, our agriculture and our businesses. Clean water is a basic right of all Americans, and Floridians deserve for their water to be safe to drink, their beaches to be safe to swim and their waterways to be safe to fish.

Hillary Clinton Has A Sugar Problem And She Can Solve It Right Here, Right Now: Sign The Now or Neverglades Declaration ... by gimleteye

Hillary Clinton didn't help her case with the public, by attending a fundraiser in Miami last night hosted by Alfie Fanjul, one of the Big Sugar billionaires. At $50,000 per, ordinary voters might wonder what influence the Fanjuls want to exert with a Clinton presidency. Wait. We already know.

Last month I wrote:

Hillary supporters are hoovering campaign cash from South Florida. This strange election cycle issues have taken back seat to the cult of personality. That will change once the party conventions are over, and when it does change, there is one issue where Hillary will have to take a stand. Hopefully, Hillary won't screw it up like Al Gore did with Homestead Air Force Base.

The Bill Clinton affair with Big Sugar is a strong enough factor to sway a significant part of the Florida electorate: taxpayers outraged how Big Sugar uses corporate welfare to buy off Congress and the state legislature while dominating water management practices and policies and enforcement in the state.

In Florida, Big Sugar -- the Fanjul billionaires and U.S. Sugar Corporation, controlled by the Charles Stuart Mott Foundation based in Flint, Michigan -- gets what it wants, when it wants it. Coastal real estate property owners, tourism-related businesses, and anyone who treasures the state's estuaries, rivers, Everglades and bays, are Big Sugar's sacrifice zone.

Last week, U.S. Senator Bill Nelson called for agencies to start eminent domain proceedings to legally take significant acreage in sugarcane production for the purpose of storage and treatment marshes that would eventually stop the toxic discharges from Lake Okeechobee and deliver clean, fresh water south. Nelson's statement was extraordinary. It was the first time a senior Florida politician had uttered the words. Nelson's 2018 reelection campaign is likely to include a challenger -- Gov. Rick Scott -- who is fully bought and paid for by Big Sugar.

Where does Senator Nelson's support for eminent domain in the EAA leave Hillary in Florida this November? We don't know. What we do know is that the Fanjuls have courted the Clintons over many decades.

Yesterday, Senate President Joe Negron -- under merciless attack from Republican voters in his district for failing to adequately address major toxic algae blooms -- announced his support for buying lands now in sugarcane production south of Lake Okeechobee; a major about-face for a political status quo that has sheltered Big Sugar while turning millions of voters into the industry's sacrifice zone. What the news reports made clear, however, is that little can happen without Gov. Rick Scott and the legislature's support. In other words, AFTER the November elections.

It is critical for groups like Bullsugar.org, SWFL Citizens for Clean Water, Captains for Clean Water and others to keep a full-court press on every point of contact with candidates who have been so deep in Big Sugar's pocket, you can't see the tops of their heads.

What advocates can expect in the coming months: the Fanjuls and US Sugar Corporation, whose campaign cash litters the Florida electoral landscape, will continue to try to control the narrative to turn public attention away from their culpability in Florida's toxic water quality catastrophe.

Hillary Clinton can do better. Take the money and run, but not before signing the Now or Neverglades Declaration right here.

Hillary Clinton are those Thyroid Eyes? By Geniusofdespair

No! No! No!

I have thyroid eyes so I know how annoying that is when a photo is taken because you always look like you have crazy eyes. Remember Barbara Bush? Well you can control that Hillary: Squint and stop looking to the top of the stadium all the time.

I suspect that isn't the case for Hillary Clinton because of the Benghazi Hearings. She looked normal. For her to seem more authentic she has to stop that insane pointing at the audience as if she has so many friends she can see and the fake mouthing: "Hi". It is so false and rehearsed because with the lights you can't really see the audience . We don't care if you have friends in the audience anyway. In fact, stop pointing altogether Hillary. You can't pull it off. Bill could, you can't.

As for the eyes, you can control the over the top smile and crazy-eyed angry look, you did it for 11 hours at the Benghazi hearings. Your over the top expressions come across as false. I want you to win but if you are irritating a supporter to this extent, think of what you are doing to others?

Watch the Benghazi tapes. Be that Hillary and stick to her. I love that Hillary. That is the Hillary I trust: No wild eyes, serious, attentive: Presidential looking. Yes!

Benghazi Hearing Hillary

Yes! Yes! Yes! I love Benghazi Hearings Hillary