Gimleteye: Miami Herald endorses President Obama

President Obama is endorsed by The Miami Herald. The Herald and blogs like ours point out certain facts that the Obama campaign cannot. For example, President Obama can't run against Congress and he can't run against the miserable circumstances that drag on jobs and the economy.

Romney can say that he will lead Congress in a new direction because under President Obama, Congress has been unmoveable. But if the nation wants to see change, it is clear that the radical extremists in the GOP who control the House and could control the Senate are highly unlikely to move the country in a positive direction.

The Herald points out that Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell, from Kentucky coal country, is not exactly a good dance partner for Obama. That is the understatement of the year. It is hard to prove a hypothetical in politics. Romney is trying but the radical extremists in the GOP stand in his way.

On the other hand, Obama can't run against McConnell because McConnell won't be moved. The Romney camp would have voters believe that he can bring Congress together; that he won't have to deal with the politics of nope. Anyone with a memory of what two terms under George W. Bush were like, or even has a memory of what Paul Ryan stood for in Congress, knows that Romney is blowing smoke rings.

The dismal economy is another matter. Romney and Obama both know that presidents can't create jobs, but it doesn't stop them from saying so because to say otherwise is political hari-kari. You can't campaign on the facts that structural changes in the US economy are largely influenced by policies US politics embraced twenty and thirty years ago is also not a winning argument with voters.

Running against the economy is where Romney has traction, even though the economy gives him an unearned handicap and even though his promise of 12 million new jobs has no more connection to reality than Gov. Rick Scott's promises on jobs.

I credit President Obama for running an excellent campaign. I wish he had started earlier, the way Republicans did on his first day in office. On balance, who would you rather have appointing the next justices to the US Supreme Court? One beholden to radical extremists in the GOP?

That is what your vote means in this election.

Response to radical GOP extremists

"You Don't Own Me" PSA from You Don't Own Me on Vimeo.

My Signature on the Absentee Ballot. By Geniusofdespair

I was on my way to the post office with my absentee ballot.  On the way out the door I took out my license and compared it to the signature on the ballot.  It was clearly different. Was it different enough for them to toss it? Maybe.

I isolated my middle initial from 3 examples of my signature to show you in the box at the left. The rest of the signature was similarly unmatchable. The first "A" was from my Absentee Ballot. Would you reject it?

I didn't go to the post office. They routinely toss out enough absentees for bad signatures to have made Al Gore President. I might vote early. I don't want to drive to Doral and park a mile from the front door (not enough parking there).  I wish I could cross out the signature and do it over.

Different topic: If you are voting absentee, check every page. I left one bubble out, you might have too.

This is a link to Eye on Miami's election endorsements...

Observations on the November election ... by gimleteye

On PBS Nova I watched a documentary about a Stone Age man extracted from the melting ice of a glacier. Survival, more than five thousand years ago, took a considerable amount of organization and skill. I wonder if all the accomplishments that carried humankind to the 21st century have created safety from the elements, made us rich in possessions, technologies and information but left us unqualified in essential aspects to prioritize risks and danger.

US Century Bank: Here is how you can complain to the federal government about the special treatment afforded US Century Bank, Miami-Dade's insider piggy bank

It's not right for US Century Bank, Ramon Rasco, Sergio Pino or its successors to walk away from repaying $50 million it owes federal taxpayers. Especially, when some current bank shareholders could emerge as shareholders of the new bank, C1 Bank. When you write your complaint, please send a copy to your elected member of Congress and the US Senate:

Office of the Comptroller of the Currency
Customer Assistance Group
1301 McKinney Street
Suite 3450
Houston, TX 77010

FAX: 713-336-4301
TOLL-FREE PHONE: 1-800-613-6743 (available Monday – Friday, 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Central Time)
EMAIL: Customer.Assistance@occ.treas.gov
WEBSITE: http://www.occ.treas.gov/customer.htm

Daily Show explains it all for you

The Daily Show explains it all for you:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Be Careful With Public Records. By Geniusofdespair

I read John Dorschner's article in the Miami Herald about reducing the number of members of the Public Health Trust from 17 to 7. Dorschner left out how each member of the commission voted. That information is very important to me.

How the Commissioners stack up is my shortcut to figure out how good or bad an item is when I don't know the issue. I see which side the REALLY BAD commissioners are on. In this case, the way the commission voted tells me nothing. You have some of the worst and best on both sides.  I have to assume it is bad with Bell, Martinez and Diaz. But why is Sally Heyman and Rebeca Sosa voting with them? And why is Barreiro on the other side? Maybe he is voting right because he is up for reelection? Anyone have an opinion on the Public Health Trust Membership? I don't want to have to watch the video of the meeting, that is always self-torture.

Anyway, when I went to check the County Website because of Dorschner's omission,  I found it interesting that the draft minutes yesterday are so different from the draft minutes of today on this item. Had I not double-checked today, I would have given you bad info. Here are screen shots of both:

Screen shot I took yesterday County Commission draft minutes.

Screen shot from this morning same website.

How could yesterday's entry be so wrong? even the seconder is incorrect.

Romney can't tamp down the extremists in his own party ... by gimleteye

Rabbi Harold Kushner, author of the best-selling book “When Bad Things Happen to Good People,” offered criticism of Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock’s remarks about God's will and rape; "I continue to be bemused by the ultraconservative lawmakers who say they want smaller government and less government intrusion into people’s lives, except when it comes to who you can marry and how many children you should have." The problem with these ultraconservatives is that, despite candidate Romney's effort to portray himself as a reasonable leader who would represent all Americans, he has shown no ability to differentiate from the extremists who control the GOP.

One of the distinguishing characteristics of the GOP radicals: they know what's best for you. In their world view, doubt belongs to moral relativists. Romney's endorsement of Mourdock speaks volumes about the extremists in the GOP willing impose their "reality" on the rest of America without question or willingness to accept diversity, unless it conforms with their world view.

According to the investigative journal, Mother Jones, here are some of the big thinkers who have Romney's ear:

Gimleteye: A better way for Republicans to understand this election

The way to achieve a return to the center and away from extremism that characterizes the heart of the GOP is for Republicans to either vote for Barack Obama and Democrats, or, not to vote at all.

There has been considerable attention to GOP efforts to suppress the Democratic vote, through various legislative attempts to make it more difficult for core Democrats to vote. There has been comparatively less said about the positive effect on the future for Republicans, if enough common sense members of the GOP deny the radicals what they are attempting to do: use the massive advantage of unlimited corporate donations to advance an agenda through activated extremist groups.

A recent article in the Orlando Sentinel, Special-interest money is sweet for House candidates, shows exactly how this works out. "The Republican candidates in Orlando's close races for seats in the state Legislature have found a sweet ally in U.S. Sugar Corp. Records show the Clewiston-based agribusiness has donated $5,000 each to the re-election campaigns of state Reps. Chris Dorworth, R-Lake Mary, and Scott Plakon, R-Longwood, both of whom face tough Democratic challengers this fall. The company has given another $2,500 apiece to Republicans Bob Brooks and Marco Pena, each of whom are in tight races for open seats in the state House. On the other side of the spectrum, the Florida Education Association and more than a dozen local teachers unions have together steered $13,400 to Karen Castor Dentel, the Democrat running against Plakon, and $5,000 to Mike Clelland, the Democrat challenging Dorworth. And they have donated $4,250 to Linda Stewart and $2,750 to Joe Saunders, the Democrats seeking the open seats. Thanks largely to donations from businesses such as U.S. Sugar, the four GOP contenders have together raised more than $1.3 million — close to triple the $470,000 raised by the union-backed Democrats.

The Florida Chamber of Commerce, for instance, asked candidates seeking its help to first answer a 68-question survey. Among its questions: Whether candidates would support restricting the number of issues on which the teachers union can collectively bargain, limiting lawsuits against insurance companies and making it easier to build nuclear power plants. The business-backed chamber, through its various affiliates, has given $5,000 each to Plakon and Pena, plus $3,500 to Brooks and $1,500 to Dorworth. U.S. Sugar is one of the biggest donors to the Florida Chamber."

The report ends, "I think it's absolutely critical voters learn where these candidates are getting their funding from," said Ben Wilcox, research director with Tallahassee-based Integrity Florida. "Because people that are funding these campaigns aren't doing it in the interest of good government. They're doing it in the interest of government being good to them."

The "them" in question is not just large corporations with their agendas, like Big Sugar, seeking control through the Republican Party. It is the clear ambition of corporate money to use extremist grass roots groups to advance an agenda that is deeply harmful to America: advancing concentrated wealth and power of corporations, reinforcing economic dislocation, income inequality and divisions within our society, and fostering conditions for social unrest.

We need a strong Republican Party, but the one visible today is extremist at its core. Although Mitt Romney has retooled his message to appeal to a wider universe of voters following a miserable primary campaign, voters should cast their attention to the spectacle of extremism on display during the GOP primary. That is the energy that Republican voters will be endorsing, unless they withhold their vote.

Soul-searching within the GOP will arrive only through a rebuke at the polls by mainstream voters who reject the extremism in our midst.

Absentee Ballot Fraud, Don't Miss "Mock the Vote". By Geniusofdespair

Best in depth Absentee Ballot Fraud article that I have read.  Thank you Frank Alvarado and Miami New Times for "Florida Republicans' Ballot Fraud 2012: Mock the Vote." Great job!

Herald coverage of debate: how far off is Marc Caputo? ... by gimleteye

Marc Caputo is a very good reporter. But as a Herald reporter with conservative views, I'm not sure what the newspaper is doing by allowing Caputo to editorialize on the front page of the paper.

Caputo writes on the debate last night, "... the president probably won, but he probably needed a far bigger win to change the trajectory of the race."

What kind of journalism is that? The answer is, it's not. It's an opinion that belongs on the opinion page.

I have a different take.

President Obama did win. For most of the debate, Romney was out of his league. The president was precise and on point. Romney was just on the fair side of disheveled. President Obama "probably" won the way the sun "probably" rises in the morning.

As to the "trajectory of the race", the race for president hasn't wavered from being tight, but the media is making it tighter than it is to gin up its audiences.  Obama is the likely winner. So far as trajectories, I would spend more time reviewing Nate Silver (538 blog) statistics than Marc Caputo's opinion.

BTW, Mitt Romney's direction if he were president would come from the radical extremists who control the GOP. President Obama is right: we've already seen what the extremists are capable of, in two terms of George W. Bush.

Voters should remember that the extremists who were visible in the Republican primary are now hidden in the weeds, allowing the retooled version of Mitt Romney to color the general election.

Romney makes a big deal of how much bipartisan consensus he was able to create in Massachusetts, but he didn't have to deal with the likes of radicals within his own party like Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who set out from President Obama's very first day in office to ensure that Republican obstructionism would dominate over the next four years.

The best message moderate Republicans can send is to support President Obama with a vote whose outcome would be to energize the GOP's return to the center. We need a strong, reasonable GOP, not the one hiding in the weeds.

US Century Bank: reward for failure ... by gimleteye

The absence of accountability for the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression is appalling. No investigations. No jail for the perpetrators. Even now, five years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, top executives at the "too big to fail" banks are walking with hundreds of millions of dollars of compensation. At a more granular, local level, the same reward for failure is occurring at smaller banks. The preeminent example is Miami's US Century Bank.

It's been a year since ProPublica's piquant expose of U.S. Century Bank: the piggy bank used by political insiders to help spread suburban sprawl like a noxious weed into West and South Dade. The toxic story of US Century Bank is not just sprawl: a land use pattern that strips communities and civic life of vitality while remaining agnostic and pure as driven snow on a bank balance sheet.

According to US Attorney Alex Acosta, Miami is the "graduate school of fraud". The pedestrian forms of prosecutable fraud -- from Medicaire scammers, to mortgage fraudsters, to local Ponzi schemes -- would not be so prevalent if not for the tolerant atmosphere for legal forms of exploitation that pervade downtown Miami and the insular, parochial community of lawyers and bankers and lobbyists who control the political levers. These excesses rarely are discussed or brought up for scrutiny by the maintream media (Tom Wolfe missed this story), until something spectacular occurs. Something like the phenomenon of US Century Bank.

Gimleteye: More on American Exceptionalism

There is a series of billboards leading into downtown Miami, paid for either by the Romney campaign or Karl Rove's superPAC. One side shows a gas pump with the price of gas when President Obama took office. The other side shows the price of gas today. There is no commentary otherwise. I'm sure that the Romney camp focus-grouped the ads among Miami commuters and that this one came out on top.

It is possible that the price of gas will influence enough voters to swing the election to Romney. There are all kinds of angles to victory -- through likely women, through Hispanics, through independents -- the candidates are angling toward.

I loathe the energy angle. Yes, people feel the price of gas in their lighter wallets. At least President Obama has had the guts to say that we can't drill our way out of our energy problems. Part of the myth of American exceptionalism is that we can find simple solutions to complicated problems. It is not true, but as Scott Shane suggests in the New York Times, no candidate for president ever was elected for saying so.

If you missed it; here is Shane's recent OPED:

The New York Times, October 19, 2012
The Opiate of Exceptionalism
By SCOTT SHANE
Washington

IMAGINE a presidential candidate who spoke with blunt honesty about American problems, dwelling on measures by which the United States lags its economic peers.

Candidate John Dubois's Mangroves: The Progression

John Dubois is running for Vice Mayor of Palmetto Bay and he recently sent out an environmental mailer, to my disgust. Here is why there is an environmental lawsuit against him (not including the fill he also is accused of putting on wetlands):

I traced the outline of the mangroves and trees in a photo taken of John Dubois mansion from the water 06/21/2009 (I had previously dated this photo as 12/27/09, Corrected April 12, 2013).

 This photo was previously taken 5/2009. You can hardly see the mansion.

Both photos superimposed. You can see the older tree line in transparency.

I took just the red line from the newer photo and superimposed it on the older photo. You can see trimming has been done

Now we go to 12/22/10 same mansion:

Now how did that happen?

 Of course all these photos are taken at slightly different angles and I tried to resize them as best I could based on the corner of the house visible. This isn't a scientific rendering, just a sketch. But it does appear that over the years the mangroves have been trimmed back at the mansion of Mr. John Dubois.

Utah's Biggest Newspaper Endorses Obama

Opinion
Salt Lake City Tribune Endorsement: Too Many Mitts
Obama Has Earned Another Term
Oct 19 2012

Nowhere has Mitt Romney’s pursuit of the presidency been more warmly welcomed or closely followed than here in Utah. The Republican nominee’s political and religious pedigrees, his adeptly bipartisan governorship of a Democratic state, and his head for business and the bottom line all inspire admiration and hope in our largely Mormon, Republican, business-friendly state.