Care to know who Paul Ryan really is? ... by gimleteye

The website, On The Issues, tracks Congressional votes by members. In case you want to dig a little deeper than the sound bites on TV news, here is Paul Ryan's record. The facts speak for themselves.

Michael Grunwald publishes, "The New New Deal: The Hidden Story of Change in the Obama Era" ... by gimleteye

From Slate: "Michael Grunwald, a Time magazine correspondent, this week publishes The New New Deal: The Hidden Story of Change in the Obama Era, a gripping account of President Obama’s stimulus bill. Grunwald writes that the stimulus has transformed America—and American politics—in ways that we have failed to recognize."

Buy "The New New Deal" from Books and Books here.

Grunwald documents how the GOP set out from Day One of the Obama administration to foil any stimulus plan for the economy, notwithstanding the fact -- acknowledged by the outgoing Bush team -- that the economy was on the verge of a second Great Depression.

Grunwald goes on to explain the significant political achievement -- only half of what economists believed could pull the economy out of a prolonged recession -- and explores how and why Obama, a brilliant campaigner, had so much difficulty communicating the positive role of the stimulus plan to the American people.

My view is that candidate Obama really wanted to bridge the divide and under-estimated the degree to which his opposition was willing to go, to destroy his presidency. Grunwald provides details for this scenario, and in doing so provides the reader with a clear picture of the playing field in the November 2012 presidential election.

Luis Garcia will be in a runoff with Bruno Barreiro. By Geniusofdespair

County Commissioner Bruno Barreiro was 12 votes shy of the 50% he needed to win his seat once again. He didn't pick up enough with the provisional ballot count today. Bruno Barreiro is now at 7,798 votes or 49.95%. Bruno is 9 votes short of reaching the required 50%. Give Luis Garcia some money in a few days (see if there is a recount first).

Romney's 13% Tax Rate is an Ugly Example of Mega-Millionaires' Tax Advantage. By Geniusofdespair

My relative (just out of college) with a first job is making about $11,000 a year. The total Federal deductions on his salary is at 15% (10% to IRS and 5% FICA, Medicare). I think Romney makes a bit more than $11,000 per year, so I find his 13% rate obscene.

If you are single making between $34,501 - $83,600, your tax rate is calculated at 25%. People should be angry at the pittance Romney pays. Even Vice President hopeful Paul Ryan is paying at a 20% rate.

Romney Does Florida ... by gimleteye

The following appeared in today's edition of the online journal, Counterpunch:

WEEKEND EDITION AUGUST 17-19, 2012
Romney Does Florida
by ALAN FARAGO
Mitt Romney ventured into Miami this week at a campaign stop at Palacios de los Jugos, only a day after introducing his running mate Congressman Paul Ryan.

Romney, without Ryan, did not mention “Cuba”, once. It was a check-the-box visit to a key constituency in a swing state. That the venue was owned by a federally convicted coke smuggler (reported by Miami New Times) serves to remind that when considering Florida politics, Miami is ground zero. It is where the 2000 presidential election was stolen. It is where the housing boom materialized. It is the mortgage fraud capital of the United States. It is where backstories deserve attention.

Drought Politics ... by gimleteye

Boy, have we dodged the drought bullet in South Florida. A few years ago, in 2004, I wrote a piece for a national magazine. The editors asked me to list the most important environmental issues in the presidential election cycle. I predicted that the destruction of the Ogallala aquifer would finally come to the fore. Boy, I was wrong.

The Ogallala stretches from South Dakota to Texas, and takes in parts of Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, and Oklahoma. The prehistoric water supply, deep underground, has been over-mined to service industrial scale agriculture. Where I was wrong is that voters in these key battleground states who depended on the aquifer, simply dried up along with the water. Oklahoma still keeps a US senator James Inhofe in place who believe global warming in a massive liberal hoax.

I wonder if voters will dry up the same way in states now afflicted by the 2012 drought. Everyone of standing in the radical right-- meaning, Rush Limbaugh, Jeb! Bush, Marco Rubio, the Koch Brothers and their devotees -- are in denial. Next year will be different. Well, what if it is not different? What if, over the next decade, drought becomes chronic over a wide swath of the food belt? Qualified climate scientists predict that will be the case.

Rush Limbaugh, Jeb!, and the Koch Brothers will be just fine. What about you?

The mainstream media is paying attention to this drought. Here is the latest from AP: "After months of record-breaking heat and drought, many rural Americans who rely on wells for water are getting an unwelcome surprise when they turn on their faucets: The tap has run dry."

In Miami, it has been a wet summer. But Lake Okeechobee -- tapped for Big Sugar and cities -- is at a low level notwithstanding the rains. I'm guessing about as many people understand the implications as vote at the polls. I hope I am wrong ...

The pure math of ballot fraud in Miami-Dade ... by gimleteye

One reader posted, "This is not democracy." Another reader noted, "Only half the electorate in Miami-Dade is registered to vote." I can't disagree with the implications of either, nor the readers who have long commented on EOM that that the state attorney (just returned to office in this week's primary), state and federal investigators have tolerated ballot fraud in Miami for a very long time.

For two years, this blog has highlighted absentee ballot fraud. My co-blogger, Genius of Despair, literally went to the elections department and asked whether signatures matched between voting records and absentee ballots.

This week, of the 8 percent of Miami-Dade residents who turned out to vote, 37 percent voted by absentee according to the Miami Herald. "Overall, less than half the votes in the primary were cast at the voting booth on Tuesday. In addition to the absentee votes, another 38,000 votes were cast during the early voting period; of the 248,496 total votes cast, just 117,591 were cast on Election Day."

What that means is that less than 4 percent of Miami-Dade residents decided who should advance through the primary election. No wonder absentee ballots play such an outsized role in the outcome or why the ballot collectors are like corner crack dealers in Miami-Dade.

But the underlying public attitude is even more disturbing: people don't care about the outcome because they believe democracy is a rigged game. With a governor who spent $80 million of a fortune made leading a company that exploited government reimbursements for health care, or another governor whose first consultant job after leaving Tallahassee was with Lehman Brothers, that sold the state hundreds of millions of bad debt into its pension funds, with the Tea Party -- funded by big corporations and polluters -- pushing its own virulent forms of madness, who can disagree? At the level of local public office, it's just as bad if not worse. The revolving door between regulators (ie. county commissioners and high paid staff) and regulated?

No wonder people don't register to vote and don't vote, if they are.

On the other hand, abandoning the ballot box empowers absentee ballot collectors. Call it a black market democracy and a black mark on the United States of America. It makes one wonder, of all those kids rallying and chanting "USA! USA!" when Osama Bin Laden was assassinated: how many of them were registered to vote and how many of them ever voted?

This is why I believe that on voting day, all businesses should be shut down and peoples' fingers should be inked to show that they voted and to highlight those who do not vote. It is how they do it in the world's largest democracy, India. I took the photo above, last spring.

In the meantime, the FBI -- that already considers South Florida to be the proving ground of fraud in the US -- should send in hundreds of agents to infiltrate the ballot rigging that is a standard part of elections in Florida's most populous county. It should have happened a long time ago, but truth be told: high officials in both political parties -- Democrats and Republicans -- have tolerated the corruption.

Make this a federal case because local and state law enforcement won't.

Joe Martinez Keep The Pressure On. By Geniusofdespair

It is ironic that Joe Martinez hired the absentee ballot queen Sasha Tirador to run his campaign and now he is contesting Mayor Carlos Gimenez's absentee ballots saying he won't concede until the fraud investigation is over. That will add pressure to the investigation. Good! Former (I am happy to say 'former') Commissioner Martinez: See it through to the end!

Maybe Joe has visions of the Xavier Suarez removal as mayor of the City of Miami dancing in his head. Could that happen again? Only in Miami.

Miami Dade Election Results ... by gimleteye

Notable results:

Ban pit bulls: yes.

Joe Martinez: no. (One member of the unreformable majority of the county commission removes himself. Who knows what the next one, will be.)

Alice Pena: no.

Bad results: There are some stinkers. What do you think?

The worst result: only 16 percent of registered voters participated in this election.

I support a law that would require all Miami-Dade businesses to shut down on election day. All those poll workers doing practically nothing: let them put an indelible stamp on people's fingernails who voted. If people have to vote, they might be compelled also to pay a little more attention. And if they would pay attention, they would be outraged. And if enough people are outraged, the pool of people who care about our government would widen and change might happen.

LATE NOTE: The Miami Herald reports that instead of nine votes on the plus side, that Unreformable Majority Member Bruno Barreiro "missed winning an outright majority by 11 votes". He will be forced into a November runoff with Luis Garcia. How sweet is that?

Miami Dade County Early Election Results in August 14 Primary. By Geniusofdespair

Early Voting Combined with Absentee Ballots Results, if the numbers aren't close you can figure out who is going to win without looking at the final numbers. After the finally tally is in I will up-date the numbers. Scratch that -- I am Las Vegas you are stuck with early voting/absenttee only. This election isn't that important to me to give up my whole night. You can tell a lot with the early numbers as everyone is cheating with absentees...the one who cheats the most will win.

Allen West in Republican primary has 71.51%. Lois Frankel has 63.81% over Kristin Jacobs' 36.19% (early voting and absentees).

Representative in Congress 

District 23: (Mostly Broward)
Karen Harrington 567
Ozzie DeFaria 280

District 24:
Frederica S. Wilson 8,519
Rudolph Moise 3,874

District 26: 
Joe Garcia 3,349
Gustavo Marin 341
Gloria Romero Roses 1,207

State Attorney:
Katherine Fernandez Rundle 17,431
Rod Vereen 9,080

State Senator, District 39:(ICK on this one, oops there is Monroe too)
Dwight Bullard 1,421
Ron Saunders 497
James Bush 2,104

State Representatives: (Broward too, don't have numbers)
State Representative District 100:
Joe Gibbons 978 (should get the Broward votes)
Sheldon Lisbon 1,049

State Representative District 103:
Renier Diaz de la Portilla 1,011
Manny Diaz, Jr. 1,428

State Representative, District 107:
John Patrick Julien 947
Barbara Watson 1,046

State Representative, District 108: FRAUD FRAUD ALERT
Alix Deslume 515
Daphne Campbell 1,774
Pat Santangelo 418

State Representative, District 109:
Cynthia A. Stafford 2,241
Bernadine Bush 1,313

State Representative, District 112: (Dems)
Jose Javier Rodriguez 580
Alex Dominguez 684

State Representative District 112: (Pubs)
Gustavo Barreiro 1,457
Alex Diaz de la Portilla 2,039

State Representative, District 113:
David Richardson 988
Mark Weithornn 886

State Representative, District  114: (brain dead district)
Erik Fresen 2,672
Amory Bodin 884

State Representative, District 115:
Michael Bileca 2,420
Eugenio Perez 856

State Representative, District 116: (More Brain Dead People)
Ana Rivas Logan 1,599
Jose Felix Diaz 3,998

State Representative, District 117:
Carmen Morris 330
Harold Ford 284
Kionne McGhee 774

State Representative, District  119:
Jeanette Nunez 2,640
Libby Perez 695

Property Appraiser:
Pedro J. Garcia 33,836
Carlos Lopez Cantera 41,249


Miami Dade County Commissioners:
District 1:
Barbara Jordan 2,564
Shirley Gibson 1,497

District 3: (predict runoff)
Audrey Edmonson 1,514
Alision Austin 690
Keon Hardemon 942

District 5: (predict runoff)
Bruno Barreiro 3,634
Luis Garcia 2,093
Calixto Garcia 646

District 9: FRAUD FRAUD ALERT
Dennis C. Moss 1,731 (surging ahead 9pm)
Alice Pena 1,334 (Spanish name...no other reason)

District 11:
Juan C. Zapata 3,097
Manny Machado 2,463

Mayor:
Carlos Gimenez 51,361
Joe Martinez 21,635

Repeal of County’s Pit Bull Dog Ban:
Yes 24,334
No 53,888

Judges - 11th Judicial Circuit:

Circuit Judge,  Group 8:
David C. Miller 36,582
Mauricio Padilla 32,522

Circuit Judge, Group 15:
Robert Coppel 29,476
Maria Elena Verde 39,421

Circuit Judge, Group 47:
Maria de Jesus Santovenia 30,083
Alix Jimenez Labora 36,;770

Circuit Judge, Group 49:
Teresa Mary Pooler 33,719
Victor DeYurre 36,396

County Judges:
County Judge, Group 10:
Diana Gonzalez 31,618
Ana Maria Pando 36,766


County Judge, Group 20: (loss on Non-Hispanic Name)
Fleur Jeanine Lobree 15,270
Michelle Alvarez Barakat 49,800

County Judge, Group 24:
Greer Elaine Wallace 15,339
Andrea Wolfson 35,530
Arthur Spiegel 17,749


County Judge, Group 27:
Jacci Suzan Seskin 17,725
Ivonne Cuesta 49,934

County Judge, Group 28:
Tanya Brinkley 34,727
Enrique Yabor 32,053


County Judge, Group 33:
Teretha Lundy Thomas 26,804
John Rodriguez 40,281


County Judge, Group 40: (Incumbant - The Non-Hispanic Name)
Don S. Cohn 29,585
Lourdes Cambo 38,365

(You are on your own on accuracy, I have to go and I am not double checking. This is such a crappy election.)

Election Day Wish in Miami-Dade ... by gimleteye

What is your election day wish?

Look For Elections Results Posted About 7-7:30 pm Tomorrow. By Geniusofdespair

Dennis Moss - District 9

When the early voting and absentee numbers are released I will be posting them tomorrow about 7-7:30pm.  They are not the final numbers, but if there is a clear winner with both these numbers...you can bet they will win the election without even seeing the election day numbers.

If it is close, you will have to again check in after 9pm.

Will you PLEASE ALL GO OUT AND VOTE especially if you have a County Commission race (odd districts except District 7 and 13 where there were no challengers). If you live in District 9, please vote for Dennis Moss. His loss would be catastrophic to the entire county.

Palacios de los Jugos: What Nixon did for China, Romney can do for Cuba ... by gimleteye

It is only a few hours before Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan visit Miami and a spirited event at Palacios on Coral Way. (I prefer the authentic Red Road location.) If Romney wants to shake things up in the presidential campaign, he will break with sodden tradition and voice his support for dropping the Cuba embargo -- a position his running mate, Paul Ryan, embraced.

Every day, long lines at Miami International Airport of Cuban American families headed to Havana deliver private and commercial goods. Even within the Cuban American business elite, embargo busting has become routine. The embargo serves no purpose other than enforcing political orthodoxies on both sides of the Florida Straits. It has succeeded only in creating a time capsule of hardship.

In a 2011 poll by FIU, 80 percent of respondents from the exile community believe the embargo has not worked very well or not at all. Last night on "60 Minutes", both Romney and Ryan exposed the vulnerabilities of focusing on the Ryan budget plan. Romney needs other policy points to secure the Hispanic vote. Dropping the Cuba embargo is the place to do it.

This is also the right policy to energize Florida's economy. In particular, Miami's fraud riddled, black market, and back door business climate needs to change. Pull down the embargo, Mr. Romney.

The instant benefit to Romney's campaign, should he reject the embargo, would be with swing voters in important electoral states in the West; independents and non-Cuban Hispanics who view the embargo and the special status of Cuban immigrants with resentment. And, in Florida?

A younger generation of Cuban Americans doesn't care about the embargo. And who will the older Cuban American GOP generation vote for this election? They are Marco Rubio voters who have nowhere to go but to Romney/Ryan. Why would Rubio go along with this massive change? Rubio's role has been as a facilitator for the business elite, earlier expressed through his mentor, Jeb! Bush. The play for Cuba is about control of access. There are certain promises that Romney could make to secure -- if not enthusiastic support, then at least tacit silence -- of Cuban American legislators.

Does Romney have the guts to advocate, this afternoon, for dropping the Cuba embargo? The obvious answer is, no. The obvious answer is that the vote in Florida will be too close. The obvious tactic is not to tamper with the GOP base in Miami. We will hear, soon enough, what kind of leader Mitt Romney is, on Cuba ...

For an analysis of Ryan's record on Cuba by American Bridge, click 'read more'

Miami Herald: History of Absentee Ballot Fraud. By Geniusofdespair

Myriam Marquez wrote a good history of absentee ballot fraud. I recommend you read it.

She thinks that Elections paying for postage would help. Maybe a little. For example, it sure doesn't stop the ALF managers who order absentee ballots for all the residents and then they intercept most of them and sell them to a campaign. Marquez's history is good, her fix needs work. We need a multi-faceted approach. Elections are being stolen. I truly believe that Lynda Bell should not be a sitting commissioner. She won on absentee ballots. In close elections the absentees rule and we also know many of them are tainted. Fair elections do not exist in close races.

Paul Ryan: it is OK for Mitt Romney to drop the Cuba embargo! ... by gimleteye

Mitt Romney decided on Paul Ryan as his VP selection to shake up his campaign that still can't gain traction in the polls. Many Republicans from Florida had been praying for Romney to select Florida Senator Marco Rubio, but there are very good reasons -- all disclosed by polling -- Romney decided against him.

When Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan visit Miami tomorrow, the smartest thing they could do to put Obama on his heels in Florida is to come out against the Cuba embargo; a position that Ryan has repeatedly endorsed.

What's the reasoning? Romney has Republican Cuban Americans in the bag. Repeating the thread-worn, legacy support for the Cuba embargo among a voting bloc that will not split for Obama, gains him nothing.

The embargo is a legacy litmus test only in Miami, increasingly to a segment of the vote that is aged and elderly. As EOM has written in the past, the embargo is being broken every single day to benefit Cuban American families and their relatives on both sides of the Florida Straits.

Coming to Versailles or Palacios de los Jugos is like checking a box in South Florida. The real contest is for independents and non-Cuban Hispanics. The entire election comes down to swing voters and Hispanics that view the Miami obsession with Castro as penalizing both sides of the divide.

Romney and Ryan can win Florida with an anti-embargo platform because both groups of crucial voters -- independents and non-Cuban Hispanics -- view the embargo with resentment.

Finally, if Romney comes out against the embargo tomorrow there will be a rainbow effect with large non Cuban Hispanics in crucial electoral states in the west.

The expression, "when the people lead, the leaders will follow", applies. On Cuba, the people are leading every day. Just look at the lines for the morning flights out of Miami International Airport; a better location for Mr. Romney's press conference tomorrow.

The people for Romney to pay attention to is not the crowd at Palacios de los Jugos. They are likely to view the embargo as a weapon mainly effective in enforcing political orthodoxies in Miami-Dade. But its logic has petered out. If Mitt Romney wants an immediate impact, he will take Paul Ryan's advice: drop the Cuba embargo.