He filed papers September 12th to run in District 2. Dorrin Rolle??? Really??? I couldn't make this stuff up. I thought we saw the last of him.Barf Meter alert.
Saturday, September 14, 2013
OMG! Dorrin Rolle is running again for County Commissioner...AGAIN. By Geniusofdespair
He filed papers September 12th to run in District 2. Dorrin Rolle??? Really??? I couldn't make this stuff up. I thought we saw the last of him.Barf Meter alert.
Is There LSD in The North Miami Mayor's Water Fountain? By Geniusofdespair
I always liked Lucie Tondreau, the new Mayor of North Miami, I wrote about her in 2010.
What happened Lucie?In the Miami Herald it said the North Miami police chief traveled to Haiti to protect Lucie while she was vacationing in Haiti. He traveled on the City of North Miami's dime ($2,800). She also had the police drive her daughter to school. You aren't the Queen Lucie, you are just the mayor of a stupid small Florida city. You don't get body guards on vacation.
I would think that Haitian Politicians who are just getting their feet wet in politics would want to make their community proud, not game the system. After-all, Lucie is the first Haitian woman to hold a Mayor office in the U.S.
The first Haitian Mayor of North Miami was Joe Celestin a flim-flam man to be sure. He was operating as an Engineer without a license. Among other things, he got his sister a car loan on loan papers saying she was working for him, when she never paid any income tax EVER. Then Mayor Andre Pierre was driving around in a $100,000 Porsche Panamera in 2010 but couldn't quite remember where he got it from.
Govern and stop with all this nonsense. If I were Haitian I would want someone to look up to not a self-serving huckster at the helm. You know better Lucie. Govern with integrity and be a role model. Make us all proud. You have a multi-cultural city, bring people together. The race card is a copout and pulls apart your community. Also it is unfair when you have no facts to make such blanket statements:
Tondreau was quoted in the Herald as saying, “The city car that was parked in my parking space was used by the police department since we have had threats to the city. Somebody wants to blow us out. Somebody does not like the fact that black people are in majority in this body. They don’t like it.”
Act like Jean Monestime. Be a gentleman/woman.
Kirk Whalum will be in Boca Raton in January. By Geniusofdespair
I have tickets to see Kirk Whalum who will be in Boca Raton at Jazziz. Lucky me, great birthday gift. Whalum was in Whitney Houston's Band and he performed this solo in honor of her.
Friday, September 13, 2013
In Remembrance, Clay Shaw ... by gimleteye
(Note: as president of the board of Friends of the Everglades, and previously a state leader for Sierra Club, I write the following with direct knowledge of the circumstances of a critical portion of Clay Shaw's legacy. I never exchanged more than pleasantries with Congressman Shaw but observed the outcomes described below.)
In obituaries, the late Congressman Clay Shaw has been noted as a moderate Republican and champion of the Everglades. There are no scores settled from the grave, and, as often said; what emerges as history often depends on who gets the last word. So in the interest of history and scores – or at least counting them – how Clay Shaw was a friend of the Everglades deserves a closer reading.
In June 2001, President George W. Bush visited the Everglades. Congressman Shaw was in the presidential entourage. According to a New York Times report at the time, "Mindful, perhaps, that the president was not seen as having lavished sufficient praise on Representative Shaw at the Everglades event, speakers went out of their way to pay homage to him here. Al Cardenas, the state Republican chairman, singled out Mr. Shaw for "special recognition" as "someone who fights so hard for Florida every day in Congress." ("Florida GOP sees Bush visit as latest slight", NYT, 6/14/2001)
The reputation of the Everglades as a political swamp could not have been lost on any of the participants. Democrats, including Al Gore, had been badly boxed in by the political weight of Florida developers and Big Sugar. Jeb Bush, who gained his first elected office as governor of Florida in 1998, had substantially benefited from the builder lobby and the sugar billionaires. Scarcely six months earlier, on the same day the US Supreme Court decided in favor of George W. Bush, Jeb signed with President Bill Clinton in the Rose Garden the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Bill.
Democrats in Congress, in Florida, and the Clinton White House wanted a bill – any bill – to settle decades of litigation. Republicans wanted a bill that would keep all the economic stakeholders and interests who depended on exploiting the Everglades – for cheap water, for limestone, for sugar – in play. While the distinction is actually blurred (only a Democratic sugar billionaire had the weight to get a phone call to President Clinton during one of his Oval Office trysts), Clay Shaw was one of the very few Republicans in Congress who understood and despaired the corrupting influence of the sugar subsidy in the Farm Bill. As such, while still a member of Congress he stood astride the achievement of federal legislation called CERP as a watchdog.
As a former mayor of Fort Lauderdale, Shaw's political career spanned the growth of urban Florida from small segregationist towns to sprawling metropolis and suburbs marching to the Everglades, filled with millions of new voters whose weak connections to a splendid wilderness just on the other side of the Florida Turnpike represented new political opportunities for the exploiters.
The Everglades restoration bill signed by Governor Jeb Bush on December 12, 2000 contained many trap doors, but two unavoidable facts of law that Bush’s Big Sugar supporters were determined to alter. The first had to do with the pollution standard for phosphorous: 10 parts per billion. The second had to do with a 2006 deadline for cleaning up its pollution. Both facts were established by a 1994 settlement agreement between two Democratic administrations as the result of years of federal litigation.
In 1993, at the very place in Everglades National Park where in 2001 President George W. Bush affirmed his commitment to America’s Everglades, a Democratic White House and the late governor of Florida Lawton Chiles, celebrated peace and progress on of the nation’s most enduring environmental challenges.
Governor Jeb Bush had different ideas. In 1994 Gov. Chiles defeated Jeb as a well-connected, first-time political candidate. Through his Foundation for Florida's Future, Jeb tinkered with conservative notions to unleash the power of profit as motivation for public good against "command and control environmental regulation". For industry -- the sugar industry --, those ideas mainly related to shifting the costs of pollution, or, cooking the books at the expense of the Everglades and the public.
For example, the biggest cost component of the original $7.8 billion price tag for CERP was a technology that was fiercely opposed by Sierra Club called aquifer storage and recovery (ASR, by acronym). Fully $3 billion of the price tag was aimed toward sinking 300 wells to store “excess” water in the hydrological equivalent of political sausage grinders. These wells, it was theorized, would replace the need for taking hundreds of thousands of acres out of sugar production. (The single federal agency qualified to judge the utility of applying ASR wells in Florida, the United States Geological Survey or USGS, was not consulted in the plan's formulation.)
For ASR to work, Governor Bush attempted a significant re-write of Florida water quality law. In April 2001, Sierra Club issued a state-wide alarm: “The Florida Legislature is now considering a law that would eliminate the standards for total coliform and other biological and chemical contaminants in our underground drinking water supply when water is pumped down from the surface. Our drinking water supply, the Florida Aquifer, would become a septic tank.”
The public outcry forced a rare policy retreat (one legislator in Georgia, when she heard of the Florida plan to store contaminated water in drinking water aquifers, trenchantly called the Jeb Bush plan “dumber than dirt”.) Bush was furious with environmentalists and never again acknowledged Sierra Club or its role in the hearts and minds of Florida voters. Nevertheless, ASR remained the “driver” of Everglades restoration plans for years within agencies like the US Army Corps of Engineers and EPA. Its leaders on the ground and in Washington knew better than buck political orthodoxies in Florida.
This was the swamp that Congressman Clay Shaw straddled, as a pragmatist who trusted that the federal court settlement in the Miami courtroom of Judge William Hoeveler a decade earlier, established the facts of pollution by Big Sugar and deadlines to fix the Everglades.
Those were exactly the facts that Big Sugar and its army of lobbyists sought to alter while the ink was still drying on CERP, through the agency of Governor Jeb Bush.
The legal avenue involved mobilizing the Florida legislature to re-write pollution standards for the Everglades without upsetting the 1994 settlement agreement. The effort that materialized scarcely two years after President George W. Bush’s appearance in the Everglades went along the lines of blurring deadlines and a de facto dilution of hard, fast numerical standards for fertilizer runoff.
The opening of this new attack on the Everglades, was rationalized as progress by Gov. Bush. In the 2003 session of the Florida legislature, Big Sugar flooded Tallahassee capitol hallways with its lobbyists. Environmentalists bitterly complained that there were more sugar lobbyists in Tallahassee than state senators: they were right.
"Now the sugar brigade has stormed Tallahassee to try to muck up the Everglades Forever Act, the very cleanup bill that has worked such wonders that Big Sugar pushed it through the Florida Legislature nearly a decade ago. In addition to moving the cleanup deadline back from 2006 to 2026, the industry's bill would have weakened the phosphorus standard from 10 to 15 ppb, prevented the state from converting any more sugar fields into artificial marshes, and basically eliminated any threat of enforcement. "An absolute betrayal," says Charles Lee, an Audubon Society lobbyist who has worked on Everglades issues for 30 years." (Sugar Plum, Michael Grunwald, The New Republic, April 24, 2003)
In the spring of 2003, Shaw was chairman of the Florida congressional delegation and point person for federal Everglades funding. Joined by fellow Republican Congressman Porter Goss, Shaw strongly objected to the draft bill supported by Gov. Bush, saying it was "inconsistent" with both the Everglades Forever Act and the 1992 court settlement, "creates significant ambiguity and diminishes the standard" for water quality, would "have negative impacts" on Interior Department resources, "limit the state's ability" to protect the Everglades environment and "does not reflect state intent to fully fund water-quality improvements." Shaw met with the leaders of the Florida legislature and spoke with Governor Bush. (Governor Must Veto Glades Clean Up Bill, Key West Citizen, 4/30/2003)
Bush accused Shaw in the press of being uninformed. (Bush: Sugar bill no Glades Threat, Miami Herald, April 8, 2003) Shaw ratcheted up his response. In a letter to the Florida legislature, Goss and Shaw called the legislation a potential "fatal error". "Only a few years ago, following months of negotiations, a diverse group of stakeholders reached a consensus that ensures the long term protection and habitat of the Everglades... " ("Congressmen warn state about tinkering with Everglades, AP, April 4, 2003)
In the middle of the legislative session, Judge Hoeveler called for a hearing -- at which Congressman Shaw testified -- , cutting through the criticisms leveled by Bush lieutenants like FDEP Secretary David Struhs in lockstep with sugar industry spokesmen who derided environmentalists for being "Chicken Littles" and "crying wolf".
On May 9th, Judge Hoeveler issued an extraordinary order:
On May 20. 2003 Gov. Jeb Bush signed the Everglades bill into law despite a massive outcry by civic leaders, environmentalists and every newspaper editorial board in the state. For The Palm Beach Post, Sally Swartz acidly observed, "... deluded officials, clueless legislators and a governor who won't admit a mistake intend to "fix" the bad law with a still-secret new one. Sure they will." ("Marketing the Everglades Bill, Palm Beach Post, May 21, 2003)
As Everglades Chair at the time, I penned a statement for Sierra Club: "... We understand that big money and big influence can buy just about anything in the state of Florida, including the redefinition of pollution so that polluters can continue to pollute and shift the cost to ordinary citizens." Sierra Club dubbed the Jeb Bush bill, “The Everglades Whenever Act”. A year later, Friends of the Everglades and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians filed federal litigation against the US EPA and Florida DEP for failing to abide by the nation’s landmark Clean Water Act.
The controversy over the Jeb Bush/ Big Sugar attempt to change the Everglades Forever Act had deep repercussions. David Struhs, the Bush lieutenant who misrepresented that federal agencies had "approved" the proposed changes, shortly resigned. After objections by Big Sugar, Judge William Hoeveler, one of the most respected members of the federal judiciary, was removed from Everglades litigation that remains the landmark of a storied career. The passage of the 2003 legislation lead to a new Clean Water Act lawsuit by Friends of the Everglades and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians. In 2013, that litigation finally resulted in a major win for environmentalists and a settlement requiring, ultimately, more than $880 million in water treatment marshes to protect Everglades water quality. Big Sugar and the state of Florida continue to appeal the ruling by Hoeveler's successor in Everglades related litigation, Judge Alan Gold.
In August 2003, Stephen Goldstein for the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel opined on Congressman Clay Shaw's role. ("Don't let deal sour project", Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel, August 20, 2003)
In the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel this week, former Governor Jeb Bush recalled Shaw, "... as being an an ally on Everglades restoration. "Politics doesn't have to be about elbows and knees and mean-spiritedness," Bush said. The record -- on both Jeb Bush and Clay Shaw -- shows otherwise, although Shaw was never mean-spirited.
The 26 year congressman was defeated by a Democrat, Ron Klein, in 2006. Klein benefited from the campaign support of Big Sugar. That year I wrote to a colleague, "I've seen Clay Shaw at work in federal court, defying Jeb Bush on the Everglades and it was a sight to behold. He deserves our gratitude: I can't think of another Republican from Florida who has taken as many real risks as Shaw in defense of the Everglades."
In obituaries, the late Congressman Clay Shaw has been noted as a moderate Republican and champion of the Everglades. There are no scores settled from the grave, and, as often said; what emerges as history often depends on who gets the last word. So in the interest of history and scores – or at least counting them – how Clay Shaw was a friend of the Everglades deserves a closer reading.
In June 2001, President George W. Bush visited the Everglades. Congressman Shaw was in the presidential entourage. According to a New York Times report at the time, "Mindful, perhaps, that the president was not seen as having lavished sufficient praise on Representative Shaw at the Everglades event, speakers went out of their way to pay homage to him here. Al Cardenas, the state Republican chairman, singled out Mr. Shaw for "special recognition" as "someone who fights so hard for Florida every day in Congress." ("Florida GOP sees Bush visit as latest slight", NYT, 6/14/2001)
The reputation of the Everglades as a political swamp could not have been lost on any of the participants. Democrats, including Al Gore, had been badly boxed in by the political weight of Florida developers and Big Sugar. Jeb Bush, who gained his first elected office as governor of Florida in 1998, had substantially benefited from the builder lobby and the sugar billionaires. Scarcely six months earlier, on the same day the US Supreme Court decided in favor of George W. Bush, Jeb signed with President Bill Clinton in the Rose Garden the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Bill.
Democrats in Congress, in Florida, and the Clinton White House wanted a bill – any bill – to settle decades of litigation. Republicans wanted a bill that would keep all the economic stakeholders and interests who depended on exploiting the Everglades – for cheap water, for limestone, for sugar – in play. While the distinction is actually blurred (only a Democratic sugar billionaire had the weight to get a phone call to President Clinton during one of his Oval Office trysts), Clay Shaw was one of the very few Republicans in Congress who understood and despaired the corrupting influence of the sugar subsidy in the Farm Bill. As such, while still a member of Congress he stood astride the achievement of federal legislation called CERP as a watchdog.
As a former mayor of Fort Lauderdale, Shaw's political career spanned the growth of urban Florida from small segregationist towns to sprawling metropolis and suburbs marching to the Everglades, filled with millions of new voters whose weak connections to a splendid wilderness just on the other side of the Florida Turnpike represented new political opportunities for the exploiters.
The Everglades restoration bill signed by Governor Jeb Bush on December 12, 2000 contained many trap doors, but two unavoidable facts of law that Bush’s Big Sugar supporters were determined to alter. The first had to do with the pollution standard for phosphorous: 10 parts per billion. The second had to do with a 2006 deadline for cleaning up its pollution. Both facts were established by a 1994 settlement agreement between two Democratic administrations as the result of years of federal litigation.
In 1993, at the very place in Everglades National Park where in 2001 President George W. Bush affirmed his commitment to America’s Everglades, a Democratic White House and the late governor of Florida Lawton Chiles, celebrated peace and progress on of the nation’s most enduring environmental challenges.
Governor Jeb Bush had different ideas. In 1994 Gov. Chiles defeated Jeb as a well-connected, first-time political candidate. Through his Foundation for Florida's Future, Jeb tinkered with conservative notions to unleash the power of profit as motivation for public good against "command and control environmental regulation". For industry -- the sugar industry --, those ideas mainly related to shifting the costs of pollution, or, cooking the books at the expense of the Everglades and the public.
For example, the biggest cost component of the original $7.8 billion price tag for CERP was a technology that was fiercely opposed by Sierra Club called aquifer storage and recovery (ASR, by acronym). Fully $3 billion of the price tag was aimed toward sinking 300 wells to store “excess” water in the hydrological equivalent of political sausage grinders. These wells, it was theorized, would replace the need for taking hundreds of thousands of acres out of sugar production. (The single federal agency qualified to judge the utility of applying ASR wells in Florida, the United States Geological Survey or USGS, was not consulted in the plan's formulation.)
For ASR to work, Governor Bush attempted a significant re-write of Florida water quality law. In April 2001, Sierra Club issued a state-wide alarm: “The Florida Legislature is now considering a law that would eliminate the standards for total coliform and other biological and chemical contaminants in our underground drinking water supply when water is pumped down from the surface. Our drinking water supply, the Florida Aquifer, would become a septic tank.”
The public outcry forced a rare policy retreat (one legislator in Georgia, when she heard of the Florida plan to store contaminated water in drinking water aquifers, trenchantly called the Jeb Bush plan “dumber than dirt”.) Bush was furious with environmentalists and never again acknowledged Sierra Club or its role in the hearts and minds of Florida voters. Nevertheless, ASR remained the “driver” of Everglades restoration plans for years within agencies like the US Army Corps of Engineers and EPA. Its leaders on the ground and in Washington knew better than buck political orthodoxies in Florida.
This was the swamp that Congressman Clay Shaw straddled, as a pragmatist who trusted that the federal court settlement in the Miami courtroom of Judge William Hoeveler a decade earlier, established the facts of pollution by Big Sugar and deadlines to fix the Everglades.
Those were exactly the facts that Big Sugar and its army of lobbyists sought to alter while the ink was still drying on CERP, through the agency of Governor Jeb Bush.
The legal avenue involved mobilizing the Florida legislature to re-write pollution standards for the Everglades without upsetting the 1994 settlement agreement. The effort that materialized scarcely two years after President George W. Bush’s appearance in the Everglades went along the lines of blurring deadlines and a de facto dilution of hard, fast numerical standards for fertilizer runoff.
The opening of this new attack on the Everglades, was rationalized as progress by Gov. Bush. In the 2003 session of the Florida legislature, Big Sugar flooded Tallahassee capitol hallways with its lobbyists. Environmentalists bitterly complained that there were more sugar lobbyists in Tallahassee than state senators: they were right.
"Now the sugar brigade has stormed Tallahassee to try to muck up the Everglades Forever Act, the very cleanup bill that has worked such wonders that Big Sugar pushed it through the Florida Legislature nearly a decade ago. In addition to moving the cleanup deadline back from 2006 to 2026, the industry's bill would have weakened the phosphorus standard from 10 to 15 ppb, prevented the state from converting any more sugar fields into artificial marshes, and basically eliminated any threat of enforcement. "An absolute betrayal," says Charles Lee, an Audubon Society lobbyist who has worked on Everglades issues for 30 years." (Sugar Plum, Michael Grunwald, The New Republic, April 24, 2003)
In the spring of 2003, Shaw was chairman of the Florida congressional delegation and point person for federal Everglades funding. Joined by fellow Republican Congressman Porter Goss, Shaw strongly objected to the draft bill supported by Gov. Bush, saying it was "inconsistent" with both the Everglades Forever Act and the 1992 court settlement, "creates significant ambiguity and diminishes the standard" for water quality, would "have negative impacts" on Interior Department resources, "limit the state's ability" to protect the Everglades environment and "does not reflect state intent to fully fund water-quality improvements." Shaw met with the leaders of the Florida legislature and spoke with Governor Bush. (Governor Must Veto Glades Clean Up Bill, Key West Citizen, 4/30/2003)
Bush accused Shaw in the press of being uninformed. (Bush: Sugar bill no Glades Threat, Miami Herald, April 8, 2003) Shaw ratcheted up his response. In a letter to the Florida legislature, Goss and Shaw called the legislation a potential "fatal error". "Only a few years ago, following months of negotiations, a diverse group of stakeholders reached a consensus that ensures the long term protection and habitat of the Everglades... " ("Congressmen warn state about tinkering with Everglades, AP, April 4, 2003)
In the middle of the legislative session, Judge Hoeveler called for a hearing -- at which Congressman Shaw testified -- , cutting through the criticisms leveled by Bush lieutenants like FDEP Secretary David Struhs in lockstep with sugar industry spokesmen who derided environmentalists for being "Chicken Littles" and "crying wolf".
On May 9th, Judge Hoeveler issued an extraordinary order:
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA
CASE NO.: 88-1886-CIV-HOEVELER
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ET AL., v. SOUTH FLORIDA WATER MANAGEMENT, ET AL.
ORDER
THIS CAUSE comes before the Court upon a hearing held on May 2, 2003 called by this Court to address state legislation concerning the Everglades restoration efforts which, as of the date of this Order, the bill in question had not yet been signed by the Governor into law. The Court now feels compelled to comment on the present situation, and take action, as described below.
During the hearing, the state parties repeatedly reassured this Court that the new state legislation, should it become law, will have no effect on the hard-won agreement reached by the parties more than a decade ago, and entered by this Court as a Consent Decree. To be clear, I wish to reiterate in the strongest possible terms that insofar as the new legislation, proves inconsistent with the Decree, the parties' obligations as yet forth in the Decree remain unaltered. The agreement embodied in that Decree remains binding upon the parties, and I intend to enforce it as it currently reads, unqualified.
This Court does not yet have cause to attempt to apply the legislation, and I sincerely hope I am never obliged to do so, for the bill is clearly defective in many respects. The loose language it employs in describing compliance with its own mandates, such as ""maximum extent practicable," robs it of meaning or binding effect. It opens the door to ten or more extra years with no showing that such a lengthy extension is necessary.
While I am deeply troubled by the content of the bill, I am dismayed by the process that led to its passage. The bill was moved quickly through the legislative process, reportedly at the behest of more then forty lobbyists for the sugar industry. There simply is no acceptable explanation for the speed by which this was accomplished, given the fact that the deadlines remain three and a half years off and given the State's assurances much of the cleanup project is proceeding on track. The important issues addressed, namely, the plan for funding and completing the restoration project, warranted serious consideration by Florida's elected representatives.
Moreover, the sponsors of the bill should have allowed time to consider input from the broad range of interests impacted. Yet the treatment of the bill seemed calculated to avoid federal participation or public scrutiny.
I am also concerned about the effect this turn of events will have on the partnership between the federal and state governments. Last tine we met, in October, the presentations her the United States and the state parties suggested a spirit of successful collaboration and shared optimism. The presentation by counsel for the United States at last week's hearing was cautious, to say the least. In a carefully worded statement, counsel for the United States described the bill as "Indeterminate" and "Puzzling." I agree.
I share the federal government's concerns that the state's commitment has been attenuated. And now, it is my understanding that the Governor intends to sign the bill. Apparently, he has been misled by persons who do not have the best interests of the Everglades at heart. It Is my fervent hope that he has the opportunity to compare the bill with the one it would replace, the Everglades Forever Act, and consider whether the derogation of its mandates and deadlines is necessary, or wise.
I and the parties have spent several years laboring over this process, during which I have heard from the best scientists on the progress of the Everglades restoration. Until now, most of the experts, with some exceptions, were satisfied that the work would be completed by December 31, 2006. While there was some caution expressed about that date, the hope was that we would make it. If not, I would think that additional time needed would not be great. Now, the proponents of the new Act talk about ten years, or more.
Because I fear the state's support has been withdrawn, I have decided to take action. Having delayed resolution of this issue some time now, I have decided to appoint a Special Master in this case, as I am convinced that further oversight over the administration of the Decree is necessary. I do not intend to entertain further discussion as to whether a Special Master is warranted, but I recognize the necessity of clearly defining the scope of the position's authority, and identifying the most appropriate candidate. When this issue arose previously, several parties requested additional time "to brief the issues raised, including authority and costs. To that end, I invite the parties to do so, and come prepared on June 10 with additional proposals for candidates.
In conclusion, as far as the federal lands are concerned, it is this Court's position that the new legislation, if passed by the Governor, will have no effect. The hearing set for June 10 will proceed as scheduled, and will address the parties' progress toward meeting the Consent Decree's interim deadlines, which are imminent. At that time, I will also hear argument on the proper role for the Special Master and the parties' positions on the most appropriate candidates.
In the words of Theodore Roosevelt, "Conservation means development as much as it does protection, I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop and use the natural resources of our land, but I do recognize the right to waste them or to rob, by wasteful use, the generations that come after us."
On May 20. 2003 Gov. Jeb Bush signed the Everglades bill into law despite a massive outcry by civic leaders, environmentalists and every newspaper editorial board in the state. For The Palm Beach Post, Sally Swartz acidly observed, "... deluded officials, clueless legislators and a governor who won't admit a mistake intend to "fix" the bad law with a still-secret new one. Sure they will." ("Marketing the Everglades Bill, Palm Beach Post, May 21, 2003)
As Everglades Chair at the time, I penned a statement for Sierra Club: "... We understand that big money and big influence can buy just about anything in the state of Florida, including the redefinition of pollution so that polluters can continue to pollute and shift the cost to ordinary citizens." Sierra Club dubbed the Jeb Bush bill, “The Everglades Whenever Act”. A year later, Friends of the Everglades and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians filed federal litigation against the US EPA and Florida DEP for failing to abide by the nation’s landmark Clean Water Act.
The controversy over the Jeb Bush/ Big Sugar attempt to change the Everglades Forever Act had deep repercussions. David Struhs, the Bush lieutenant who misrepresented that federal agencies had "approved" the proposed changes, shortly resigned. After objections by Big Sugar, Judge William Hoeveler, one of the most respected members of the federal judiciary, was removed from Everglades litigation that remains the landmark of a storied career. The passage of the 2003 legislation lead to a new Clean Water Act lawsuit by Friends of the Everglades and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians. In 2013, that litigation finally resulted in a major win for environmentalists and a settlement requiring, ultimately, more than $880 million in water treatment marshes to protect Everglades water quality. Big Sugar and the state of Florida continue to appeal the ruling by Hoeveler's successor in Everglades related litigation, Judge Alan Gold.
In August 2003, Stephen Goldstein for the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel opined on Congressman Clay Shaw's role. ("Don't let deal sour project", Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel, August 20, 2003)
"Big Sugar owns Jeb Bush and the Republican-dominated Florida Legislature -- but not U.S. Rep. Clay Shaw. So, when the industry unleashed some 46 lobbyists to get a sweetheart bill passed giving it carte blanche to pollute the Everglades, elected officials of both parties melted. It was politics at its most saccharine in Tallahassee -- but led to one of Shaw's finest hours.
"I never read a worse drafted piece of legislation in my entire life," says the Washington veteran, who ought to know good from bad after representing South Florida for nearly 23 years. He says it was full of "weasel-words," that turned previously negotiated timetables and standards holding Big Sugar accountable for Everglades clean-up into gaping loopholes allowing for the dumping of deadly phosphorous willy-nilly.
"No one will confess to authorship of this bill," Shaw adds, aghast at the machinations of members of his own party. "This legislation puts greater burden on the taxpayer. It's a new tax. It flies in the face of the mandate from the electorate that polluters pay. It's an incredible thing -- one industry's hold on Florida. I would never have believed it."
... He pledges that he'll "never give up on the Everglades"; it's his "passion": "As long as I live and breathe, I'll be devoted to cleaning up and preserving it." The River of Grass is "full of life"; "we've messed it up, but we have no right to change the cycle of life" there. He says he's "been around long enough to know you don't pick up your marbles and go home. You keep moving. The game is never over."
In the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel this week, former Governor Jeb Bush recalled Shaw, "... as being an an ally on Everglades restoration. "Politics doesn't have to be about elbows and knees and mean-spiritedness," Bush said. The record -- on both Jeb Bush and Clay Shaw -- shows otherwise, although Shaw was never mean-spirited.
The 26 year congressman was defeated by a Democrat, Ron Klein, in 2006. Klein benefited from the campaign support of Big Sugar. That year I wrote to a colleague, "I've seen Clay Shaw at work in federal court, defying Jeb Bush on the Everglades and it was a sight to behold. He deserves our gratitude: I can't think of another Republican from Florida who has taken as many real risks as Shaw in defense of the Everglades."
Miami Dade's Pollyanna and my Defense of Recalls. By Geniusofdespair
Former County Commissioner Katy Sorenson, in my view, is Miami Dade County's version of Pollyanna. Don't get me wrong, I love Katy and think she is a great person but I think she is wrong to be against recalls and unrealistic on finding candidates. She keeps telling me, instead of recall: "Find a good candidate to run against them." I can find the best candidate in the world, but when up against $600,000 in their campaign account (AND A PAC, Political Action Committee with as much if not more) and an absentee ballot machine (legal or not), my "great candidate" has no chance EVER.
No one will give money against a sitting commissioner. It is unrealistic to expect donors to raise the anger of the sitting commissioners. You can only find vendetta money (like Norman Braman's and that won't cut it, not enough).
Katy won her campaign because of the perfect storm. Larry Hawkins, the sitting commissioner she ran against, had issues...plenty of them.
Katy doesn't believe in recall. I love recall because it gives us a real chance to oust the offending politician. It is swift and clean. Money doesn't cut it like it does in a campaign.
So, Katy, I give you credit, trying to train these neophytes to be ethical and effective. And I love you for all your good work and your positive attitude but I disagree with you. What you say can't be done. As Carlos Gimenez said to me: "Money is the mother's milk of a campaign." Without money we get more of the same.
Meanwhile my method, I want to slash and burn. All we are doing is settling for mediocrity in local and county government anyway. What is to lose by giving a bad one an extra push out the door? We would never have gotten Seijas out without a recall. How many years did Dorrin Rolle rape the county and in the process destroy Jesca before we could get him out? And it was only because of Ron Book and others that he is gone. It takes a lot to swing the "money changers" of this era away from a sitting commissioner. Rolle is the only one I can remember. Even the lobbyists couldn't justify his candidacy anymore. Meanwhile, your win over Larry Hawkins in 1995 was seen as a fluke:
But for many people Sorenson's victory had far less to do with the quality of her candidacy than it did with the scandal surrounding her opponent. Hawkins had been dogged for months by allegations he had sexually harassed several of his aides. Sorenson was the only woman to challenge him, and she won by a margin of almost two-to-one.A failed recall is better than no recall. It taints the Commissioner.
Slapping Wrists, The Ethics Department. By Geniusofdespair
Nothing ever happens over at Ethics but here is their press release...lots of wrist slapping:
The Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust (COE) today issued an opinion (RQO 13-08) advising Doral Mayor Luigi Boria to refrain from voting on or participating in any official matters involving a private company seeking to develop 17 acres of land in the West Miami-Dade municipality. The mayor’s son and daughter used an estate gift from their father to purchase a combined 50% ownership in the firm, The Grand Floridian, but sold that and now hold a collateralized loan worth $8 million dollars from the company’s owner, Juan Carlos Tovar. Tovar also has a revolving line of credit with Mayor Boria’s international computer distribution company. The Conflict of Interest and Code of Ethics Ordinance prohibits an elected official from taking any official action directly or indirectly affecting an entity in which he, a debtor, or his immediate family members have a financial interest. In order to avoid any appearance of impropriety, the Ethics Commission also advises administrators and Doral city staff to apply consistent and objective standards to any requests brought by The Grand Floridian related to its development.
The Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust (COE) today issued an opinion (RQO 13-08) advising Doral Mayor Luigi Boria to refrain from voting on or participating in any official matters involving a private company seeking to develop 17 acres of land in the West Miami-Dade municipality. The mayor’s son and daughter used an estate gift from their father to purchase a combined 50% ownership in the firm, The Grand Floridian, but sold that and now hold a collateralized loan worth $8 million dollars from the company’s owner, Juan Carlos Tovar. Tovar also has a revolving line of credit with Mayor Boria’s international computer distribution company. The Conflict of Interest and Code of Ethics Ordinance prohibits an elected official from taking any official action directly or indirectly affecting an entity in which he, a debtor, or his immediate family members have a financial interest. In order to avoid any appearance of impropriety, the Ethics Commission also advises administrators and Doral city staff to apply consistent and objective standards to any requests brought by The Grand Floridian related to its development.
Thursday, September 12, 2013
The Final Slate in the Miami Beach Election. By Geniusofdespair
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My good friend Dan Kipnis endorses Philip Levine. Dan, who was on the Climate Change Task Force, said Levine understands that climate change and sea level rise could be the biggest problem that Miami Beach will face for the next 4 years and beyond. Former City of Miami Beach Commissiioner Nancy Liebman also seems to like Levine, saying: "Phil is the best thing to come along to run for Mayor or anything else on Miami Beach in a long time."
But you have to hand it to Mayoral Candidate Steve Berke, he has some pretty good photos floating around.
If you need a write-in candidate how about Lauren Silverman, Simon Cowell's baby mama and gal of the moment. I think she lives in Miami Beach. Even if she doesn't, who cares, write her in anyway. It is not like she is going to win.
Is it true we have two port directors? By Geniusofdespair
We have two port directors now?
Bill Johnson is making about $258,000 and the Seaport Director Designee Juan Kuryla is making $290,000.
Apparently Bill didn't get the Beacon Council slot so we have what amounts to over half a million in salary to run the port. And those damn librarians are making $70,000. Commissioner Audrey Edmonson asked in August:
I guess Audrey is right, until one of them gets canned.
Bill Johnson is making about $258,000 and the Seaport Director Designee Juan Kuryla is making $290,000.
Apparently Bill didn't get the Beacon Council slot so we have what amounts to over half a million in salary to run the port. And those damn librarians are making $70,000. Commissioner Audrey Edmonson asked in August:
“Do we have two employees over at the port who make over $600,000 a year?”
I guess Audrey is right, until one of them gets canned.
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Update on the Recall of Lynda Bell. By Geniusofdespair
My hopes are shattered...dashed...I knew it was too good to be true. Damn these people for offering us a string of hope and then yanking it away...
Statement by Miami Economic Sustainability Alliance on
The Recall of Commissioner Lynda Bell:
Why don't you recall her for voting to lift a 30 year deed restriction, or for other annoying stuff she has done like trying to throw DERM under the bus (Moss quote) or reviving the 8 1/2 square mile mess or for refurbishing a new office for over $100,000 that she didn't need.
The Recall of Commissioner Lynda Bell:
Before proceeding with the recall of County Commissioner Lynda Bell, the Miami Economic Sustainability Alliance (MESA) will wait to see that the Miami-Dade Public Library and fire rescue services are not cut when the County Commission adopts the final budget on September 19, 2013. “This budget process has been a disaster, and it is hard to believe what they tell us,” said Deborah Dion, President of MESA.
“We are immensely satisfied that a majority of the County Commission, without Lynda Bell, were willing to send a second tax notice to correct the problems created by Mayor Gimenez. Rather than spend $700,000 to correct the millage, as if by magic, the Mayor pulled millions of dollars out of his hat to balance the budget without cutting any services. Our participation in the recall effort is all about protecting basic services to the community,” said Fred Frost, Vice President of MESA.
We are waiting to learn the final results of the second budget hearing before we consider re-filing the recall petition.
Why don't you recall her for voting to lift a 30 year deed restriction, or for other annoying stuff she has done like trying to throw DERM under the bus (Moss quote) or reviving the 8 1/2 square mile mess or for refurbishing a new office for over $100,000 that she didn't need.
So much news to report ... by gimleteye
2) In a budget meeting last night, the county commission -- in the wee hours of the morning -- decided to keep the libraries in Miami-Dade County alive for one more year, defying the plan by Mayor Carlos Gimenez to cut back staff and services.
3) The Miami Herald reports on the downgraded bond ratings by Moody's for the Port of Miami. "Bill Johnson, director of PortMiami, dismissed Wall Street concern about rising debt payments and called the facility “the best investment in the world.”
... “When looking at the total seaport debt picture,” Moody’s wrote in its Aug. 27 report, “the port’s net revenues will not be sufficient to reimburse the county for the payment of debt service ...”
It is time for some enterprising reporter to examine anticipated local tax revenues against debt obligations including financing costs of the expansions undertaken for the public: the Performing Arsht Center, the stadiums, the airport and port.
Lynda Bell Recall Petition rejected by County Clerk. By Geniusofdespair
The petition was rejected over a technicality with language. They said they would resubmit it. Now that Bell changed her vote will this recall go on? I noticed she was on her best behavior last night. I hope it is a go.
City of Miami: Two Legislative Items To Allow Billboards on Buildings Facing Highways will be Voted on September 12. By Geniusofdespair
The two resolution items that pertain to an ill-considered attempt to legalize giant billboards, also known as mural ads, on the sides of buildings fronting the expressways are back on the agenda for:
Thursday, September 12, 2013
RE.17 and RE.18
What Can You Do?
It's easy to use Scenic Miami Inc.'s Take Action Alert to send email to your elected officials and tell them to Vote No by clicking on:
Take Action Here
Agenda and City Documents
The city maintains the online version of the agenda and relevant documents for this Thursday's meeting, so if you would like to see the most current version of the meeting agenda along with all of the documents relevant to RE. 17 and RE.18 please visit their website
Background:
Thursday, September 12, 2013
RE.17 and RE.18
What Can You Do?
It's easy to use Scenic Miami Inc.'s Take Action Alert to send email to your elected officials and tell them to Vote No by clicking on:
Take Action Here
Agenda and City Documents
The city maintains the online version of the agenda and relevant documents for this Thursday's meeting, so if you would like to see the most current version of the meeting agenda along with all of the documents relevant to RE. 17 and RE.18 please visit their website
Background:
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Why Do They Start Miami Dade County Budget Hearings at 5:30pm? By Geniusofdespair
Instead the droning on and on and on, OMG it is just awful. Especially Javier Souto. Get me a fork.
Miami Herald catches up to Eye On Miami: reports from Greenland ... by gimleteye
In mid July, Eye On Miami reported from Greenland, on the melting ice that threatens sea level rise and, in particular, coastal cities like Miami. The Herald sent staff to Greenland and reported to its readers a few days ago. Good for the Herald.
Since the Herald follows Eye On Miami (and other blogs), here's what the Herald ought to focus on: connect dots for readers between the net impact of government regulatory failures -- like county commissioner Lynda Bell's successful campaign against wetlands regulations by the county department of environmental protection (DERM) -- and the costs to taxpayers. Focus on the costs of zoning and permitting that allows hundreds of new coastal condo projects and more suburbs in wetlands to move forward, despite the real costs of sea level rise. Focus on the $25 billion plan by FPL to put two new nuclear reactors right in the path of sea level rise, and an economy that will fracture within the service lifetimes of those reactors if they are built.
It's part of what we try to do at Eye On Miami: two writers and many readers with valuable comments and points of view that reflect a diversity of interest and concern about the future of our communities, without waiting for the Miami Herald.
Since the Herald follows Eye On Miami (and other blogs), here's what the Herald ought to focus on: connect dots for readers between the net impact of government regulatory failures -- like county commissioner Lynda Bell's successful campaign against wetlands regulations by the county department of environmental protection (DERM) -- and the costs to taxpayers. Focus on the costs of zoning and permitting that allows hundreds of new coastal condo projects and more suburbs in wetlands to move forward, despite the real costs of sea level rise. Focus on the $25 billion plan by FPL to put two new nuclear reactors right in the path of sea level rise, and an economy that will fracture within the service lifetimes of those reactors if they are built.
It's part of what we try to do at Eye On Miami: two writers and many readers with valuable comments and points of view that reflect a diversity of interest and concern about the future of our communities, without waiting for the Miami Herald.
Pollution in Florida from the Lake Okeechobee Release. By Geniusofdespair
The tainted sugar water dumped into Lake Okeechobee is polluting the lake and it has to go somewhere else. The lake level is too high and the dyke needs fixin' bad. So to save the dyke from rupture the Army Corps releases mega amounts of water to both coasts, polluting them. Meanwhile, the sugar interests keep sending out post cards saying the Everglades is saved. Hallelujah! Only problem is, it isn't true. Look at these photos. I asked Dawn Shirreffs, Senior Everglades Policy Advisor for the Everglades Foundation what was the scoop with these lyin' flyers.
"No one believes that we are at the final stage of restoring America’s Everglades. It is disingenuous for the sugar industry to suggest otherwise. There is much to be done such as the implementation of the critical Central Everglades Planning Project which will help move water south from Lake Okeechobee. We also need funding for construction of the C-43 and C-44 reservoirs to help stem pollution in the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie Rivers.The vast pollution from Lake Okeechobee has had horrendous effects, again, on both coasts of Florida. The South Florida water management system, organized to protect suburbs and Big Sugar.
Water quality along Southwest Florida's shores may be starting to impact home sales and vacation rentals near the beach. That's the concern of at least two realtors who say they lost an out-of-state client when he saw the dark and murky Gulf of Mexico.
"We had a real shock this morning," said Mike Reeves of Reeves Family Team, part of Coldwell Banker. Reeves' prospective homebuyer, Terry Reid of Chicago, sent an email saying he was backing out of his Fort Myers Beach condo search because of the dirty water.
Monday, September 09, 2013
Want to get more involved in the Lynda Bell Recall? by Geniusofdespair
 |
| Lynda Bell |
Unless you live in district 8 you cannot sign this petition. However, you can either send a check to hire petition gatherers or you can take a trip down there to District 8 and gather signatures. I will probably do both. Even if Lynda Bell does get reelected after the recall, it does damage a politician, make no mistake. Ask Natacha Seijas who faced a recall petition twice.
Deborah Dion is the coordinator. Email dion.deborah@gmail.com for more information.
Syria is not as important as the choice of the next chief of the Federal Reserve ... by gimleteye
With Syria, President Obama will have succeeded -- whether Congress votes to approve a limited engagement this week, or not -- in pointing out the limits of American power in an increasingly small and dangerous world. These limits will be tested again by our adversaries. Having spent a few trillion dollars on wars without clear or achievable objectives, on Syria the American taxpayer and voter is the ultimate decider.
Moving the domestic economy is a much more complicated matter than the tangled, tragic Mideast. There are no obvious signals -- like the Assad regime chemical gas attacks on its own citizens -- as signposts for public consideration. The operations of the economy, through the US Treasury and Federal Reserve, are opaque.
It is an interesting contrast: the highly visible and stomach churning Youtube clips of gassed children and adults in Syria and the cloaked, mysterious interplay between the high chief of finance -- the head of the Federal Reserve -- and the high chiefs of Wall Street.
The loss of confidence by Americans in government and public institutions is arguably a bigger and more present danger than the murderous Assad regime or the Al Qaeda infiltration of rebel ranks. Along this line, with his choice of the next chief of the Federal Reserve, President Obama has a better opportunity to distance his administration and legacy from the emergence of bad policies and even disinformation campaigns waged by recent administrations, on the economy.
That's why the choice of a new federal reserve chief by President Obama is as momentous as the decision whether or not to drop bombs on Syria. Obama -- it is thought -- is leaning toward Larry Summers, a key member of group of advisors who Obama leaned on heavily, from the first days of his administration, as the White House struggled to contain the worst economic emergency since the Great Depression. But Summers is also associated with the origins, along with other hold-overs from earlier administrations.
With the Syria mess, President Obama can plausibly claim -- even if Congress repels a vote to unleash the bombs -- he has pinned the onus on Congress for any future transgressions of chemical attacks. With a choice of Summers instead of vice chair Janet Yellen, President Obama would be making his own irretrievable error. Conservatives and liberals alike would blame President Obama for a Federal Reserve chief who cannot plausibly distance himself or herself from so much economic carnage.
Peter S. Goodman, Executive Business Editor, The Huffington Post
GET UPDATES FROM PETER S. GOODMAN
Larry Summers Is An Unrepentant Bully
Posted: 07/25/2013 12:44 pm
In the fall of 2008 -- just after many of the nation's largest financial institutions teetered toward collapse, prompting the government to unleash a taxpayer-financed rescue -- I called Larry Summers at his Harvard office to ask him whether he had any regrets.
Specifically, I wanted to know how Summers had come to view his actions as Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, where he had joined then-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan to dismantle the government's authority to regulate trading in derivatives -- the very financial instruments then playing a central role in the crisis.
Summers immediately took charge, barking that we were off the record -- a directive that I rejected, prompting him to raise his voice. He accused me of conducting a "jihad" aimed at unfairly implicating him as a cause of the financial crisis.
Moving the domestic economy is a much more complicated matter than the tangled, tragic Mideast. There are no obvious signals -- like the Assad regime chemical gas attacks on its own citizens -- as signposts for public consideration. The operations of the economy, through the US Treasury and Federal Reserve, are opaque.
It is an interesting contrast: the highly visible and stomach churning Youtube clips of gassed children and adults in Syria and the cloaked, mysterious interplay between the high chief of finance -- the head of the Federal Reserve -- and the high chiefs of Wall Street.
The loss of confidence by Americans in government and public institutions is arguably a bigger and more present danger than the murderous Assad regime or the Al Qaeda infiltration of rebel ranks. Along this line, with his choice of the next chief of the Federal Reserve, President Obama has a better opportunity to distance his administration and legacy from the emergence of bad policies and even disinformation campaigns waged by recent administrations, on the economy.
That's why the choice of a new federal reserve chief by President Obama is as momentous as the decision whether or not to drop bombs on Syria. Obama -- it is thought -- is leaning toward Larry Summers, a key member of group of advisors who Obama leaned on heavily, from the first days of his administration, as the White House struggled to contain the worst economic emergency since the Great Depression. But Summers is also associated with the origins, along with other hold-overs from earlier administrations.
With the Syria mess, President Obama can plausibly claim -- even if Congress repels a vote to unleash the bombs -- he has pinned the onus on Congress for any future transgressions of chemical attacks. With a choice of Summers instead of vice chair Janet Yellen, President Obama would be making his own irretrievable error. Conservatives and liberals alike would blame President Obama for a Federal Reserve chief who cannot plausibly distance himself or herself from so much economic carnage.
Peter S. Goodman, Executive Business Editor, The Huffington Post
GET UPDATES FROM PETER S. GOODMAN
Larry Summers Is An Unrepentant Bully
Posted: 07/25/2013 12:44 pm
In the fall of 2008 -- just after many of the nation's largest financial institutions teetered toward collapse, prompting the government to unleash a taxpayer-financed rescue -- I called Larry Summers at his Harvard office to ask him whether he had any regrets.
Specifically, I wanted to know how Summers had come to view his actions as Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, where he had joined then-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan to dismantle the government's authority to regulate trading in derivatives -- the very financial instruments then playing a central role in the crisis.
Summers immediately took charge, barking that we were off the record -- a directive that I rejected, prompting him to raise his voice. He accused me of conducting a "jihad" aimed at unfairly implicating him as a cause of the financial crisis.
Sunday, September 08, 2013
Stiglitz on New Fed Chief: Spot On, for Yellen Not Summers ... by gimleteye
Eye On Miami wrote about the decision facing President Obama in his selection of a new chief of the Federal Reserve. We urged the president against supporting Larry Summers as the next chief of the Federal Reserve, and for good reasons. A 2006 profile in Boston Magazine, "Lawrence of Absurdia" briefs the early odd shape of Summers' meteoric rise. Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz adds to the chorus at the New York Times, calling for the appointment of Janet Yellen, current vice chairwoman of the Fed.
Read his online OPED from the NY Times, below:
SEPTEMBER 6, 2013, 9:11 PM
Why Janet Yellen, Not Larry Summers, Should Lead the Fed
By JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ
The controversy over the choice of the next head of the Federal Reserve has become unusually heated. The country is fortunate to have an enormously qualified candidate: the Fed’s current vice chairwoman, Janet L. Yellen. There is concern that the president might turn to another candidate, Lawrence H. Summers. Since I have worked closely with both of these individuals for more than three decades, both inside and outside of government, I have perhaps a distinct perspective.
But why, one might ask, is this a matter for a column usually devoted to understanding the growing divide between rich and poor in the United States and around the world? The reason is simple: What the Fed does has as much to do with the growth of inequality as virtually anything else. The good news is that both of the leading candidates talk as if they care about inequality. The bad news is that the policies that have been pushed by one of the candidates, Mr. Summers, have much to do with the woes faced by the middle and the bottom.
Read his online OPED from the NY Times, below:
SEPTEMBER 6, 2013, 9:11 PM
Why Janet Yellen, Not Larry Summers, Should Lead the Fed
By JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ
The controversy over the choice of the next head of the Federal Reserve has become unusually heated. The country is fortunate to have an enormously qualified candidate: the Fed’s current vice chairwoman, Janet L. Yellen. There is concern that the president might turn to another candidate, Lawrence H. Summers. Since I have worked closely with both of these individuals for more than three decades, both inside and outside of government, I have perhaps a distinct perspective.
But why, one might ask, is this a matter for a column usually devoted to understanding the growing divide between rich and poor in the United States and around the world? The reason is simple: What the Fed does has as much to do with the growth of inequality as virtually anything else. The good news is that both of the leading candidates talk as if they care about inequality. The bad news is that the policies that have been pushed by one of the candidates, Mr. Summers, have much to do with the woes faced by the middle and the bottom.
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