Hillary Clinton's Miami Stop! By Geniusofdespair

Okay, I am super bored already. That was about 11:30.

By 1:30 I tried to steal the food of the out of State reporters. They were a nasty bunch, "Hey we paid for this". They were all busy writing. What the hell were they writing about? They weren't talking to any people and nothing whatsoever was  going on.

Well anyway I took a few photos. When Hillary finally came out she was wearing this grandma, pastel pants suit. Will you throw out those pants suits please Hillary. Get some nice custom fitted ones and no pastels. Ick on pastels. Get a stylist too.

I googled ugly grandma pants suits and got the picture at right. Hillary, buy better stuff like the one on the left I found (I fattened up the model. It is so much more modern. Have them custom fitted, just look better dressed please.

Anyway, I was exhausted from doing nothing, eating nothing and drinking nothing so I left soon after Hillary mounted the stage. I liked the protesting Trump supporters outside they were pretty entertaining. One lady said she was afraid of Democrats because they attack people. She was the scariest of them all. Let me dig up a photo of her. Watch out for her she is deathly afraid, I had to assure her I was the press and not affiliated with any party.

My Rick Scott Video Violates Copyright Law. By Geniusofdespair

Now I ask all of you, if Govenor Rick Scott is presiding over a meeting, how could I be violating copyright law? If it is on the internet how can I not be able to copy it?  It is a public record if that asshole Governor and the Cabinet of Florida is in it wouldn't you think that?? What are they trying to hide?

My original video in Gimleteye's post is gone.

Most curiously, the ORIGINAL VIDEO THAT I PULLED MY FOOTAGE FROM IS STILL UP AND YOU CAN SEE WHAT I PULLED OUT at 51 minutes.
So let's get the facts on Gov. Rick Scott's pardon of one William White on June 24, 2015 (see: minute 51:00)

HERE IS WHO MADE SURE YOUTUBE TOOK DOWN MY VIDEO:

"William S. White Chairman U..." This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Florida Legislature/WFSU-TV, agent for copyright enforcement. 

This is the video they took down. It takes a long time to load. Doesn't work on a phone. I had a copy. NOTE WE DO NOT KNOW THE CHARGES BECAUSE RICK SCOTT INTERRUPTED THE ATTORNEY AND DID NOT LET HER READ THEM INTO THE RECORD.  SHE SEEMS SURPRISED.  COVER-UP??

Eminent Domain And Big Sugar: Time to Get Started ... by gimleteye

Back in March, I wrote about eminent domain for Huffington Post: "Oligarchs In Florida: How An “Arab Spring” Could Make Big Sugar Even Wealthier But Save The State". The case for eminent domain in the Everglades Agricultural Area is on the table in Florida, thanks to Florida Senator Bill Nelson who recently endorsed action by federal agencies to initiate eminent domain proceedings, starting with a rigorous analysis to identify the most suitably located lands in sugarcane production to convert to water storage and treatment marshes for the critical public purpose of relieving Florida's estuaries and bays from their role as Big Sugar's sacrifice zones.

The EAA plus surrounding public lands including Everglades National Park comprise a total of about 2 million acres — historically, natural wetlands — but Big Sugar’s hammerlock on water management infrastructure and flood control practices ensure that the entire state dances to its tune.

Big Sugar gets what it wants, when it wants it. This turns into a problem during times of drought and flood; more the norm than the exception in a rapidly changing world where the state’s population growth collides with the impacts of climate change.

The chorus is rising: buy Big Sugar lands, send clean, fresh water south. What this means is taking about 100,000 acres out of sugarcane production to the purpose of storage and cleansing marshes so that Lake Okeechobee stormwater runoff doesn’t destroy property values, tourism-dependent businesses, and natural resources around the southern rim of the state.

The refusals from Big Sugar (“We are just ordinary people and good citizens who care” and “we’ve already done our fair share”) cannot stand up to fact and science.

For Huffington Post, Jane Kleeb takes up the eminent domain theme: "Keystone XL and Eminent Domain Embody the Republicans' Crisis of Identity."

The Republican Party is facing a serious crisis of identity. On the one hand, they stand up for property rights in their Platform, which would be music to the ears of rural voters and urban folks on the front line of pipeline fights if the GOP were not also Keystone XL’s biggest cheerleader. Not only do they praise the foreign pipeline in their Platform, but also using it as a proxy for their energy policy: drill anywhere and everywhere, no matter the risk.

The Republicans’ stance on ending eminent domain abuse while supporting the Keystone XL pipeline is the perfect case study of how the GOP can’t seem to find its identity.

The Republican Platform says, “The Framers of our government knew, from history and experience, that when private property is not secure, freedom is at risk.” Then, later in the Platform document, they go on to say that they support the Keystone XL pipeline and the only reason the pipeline was rejected was President Obama caving to “environmental extremists” clealry ignoring the threat the pipeline posed to landowners’ property rights along its route.

There is no question environmentalists helped stop the pipeline, but it was the unlikely alliance of climate advocates, farmers, ranchers, and Native communities who were on the front lines of the fight. Landowners went to court battling eminent domain, which ultimately was a huge factor in stopping the risky pipeline.

In fact, eminent domain has a routine, not an exceptional, place in U.S. legislative and judicial systems. When utilities need right of ways or local governments need roadway expansions, eminent domain is a powerful tool. It is a tool that also gives private property owners a means to be equitably compensated for loss of land.

The central question about eminent domain is whether it serves an important public purpose. For the fossil fuel industries, driving the Keystone pipeline through eminent domain, was a very important purpose. But it was a narrow purpose for industrial (and polluting) profits. On the other side of the ledger, it is very clear that using eminent domain to perpetuate the risks of climate change made the Keystone XL a very damaging project to the public interest.

Using eminent domain to negotiate conversion of Big Sugar lands into storage and cleansing marshes promotes another public choice. The domination of this polluting industry (involving a crop that benefits from the most egregious form of corporate welfare and subsidies) is already, in situ, a bad decision. Algae blooms now surrounding the southern half of the Florida peninsula demonstrate what a poor decision it has been to turn over water management to users like Big Sugar.

Eminent domain in South Florida, unlike Keystone XL, advances and does not subtract from the public choice do support clean water, coastal real estate values, and a vibrant tourism-based economy.

Vote for Mucarsel-Powell in District 39! Good Letter in the Miami Herald on Aniterre Flores and FPL Ties. By Geniusofdespair

Debbie Mucarsel-Powell

Anitere Flores, State Senator from District 39, wrote on July 7th, (“Protecting our water supply, economy") that she wants to protect consumers from environmental harm and Florida Power and Light’s (FPL) Turkey Point nuclear reactors. That is absurd.

Over time, Flores has been a friend to FPL. She has taken campaign contributions from the company and its executives. Flores has also taken over $10,000 from sugarcane producers; polluters whose discharges helped create the toxic algae nightmare threatening our state.

Flores’s “newfound environmentalism” is one benefit of redistricting, but it doesn’t change the fact she voted to raid environmental trust funds, taking $172 million intended to protect shorelines water and air quality.

Flores November opponent is Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a non-profit executive and community activist. While Flores sides with her campaign contributors over what’s best for our community, Mucarsel-Powell actually worked for our communities. She stated that she will refuse money from FPL, the utility company contaminating our drinking water aquifer and polluting a national park, and also from sugarcane producers.

Those who prioritize profits over the health of our citizens, environment, and our economy should not be in elected office.

I hope voters aren’t fooled by Flores and her foxhole conversion.

- Suzanne Ferreira

Donald Trump In Context: The Cultural Revolution ... by gimleteye

"I am your voice", Donald Trump proclaimed to the world from a stage last night, the final night of the Republican National Convention. His dark, apocalyptic speech was from the grammar of a cult and evoked memories of another time and revolution: China under Chairman Mao.

The words that follow, "I am your voice", are: "If you don't listen to me, you will be punished." Mao, the autocrat, feared attack from all directions. The Little Red Book, filled with his aphorisms, served as a way to congeal ideology like a hardened shield.

The GOP has devolved into a political party that uses the Constitution as the same hardened shield as the Little Red Book: to rigidly enforce orthodoxies that guarantee corporate power under protections of individual freedom. Trump had the gut instinct to take the shield and make it his own.

Mao fit the mold of empire. And Trump does, too, in the unacknowledged change of the American experience. Still, we never had a candidate from a major political party so unqualified to be president. Trump has no experience in formation of public policy, he has never served in public office, and his record in business is mainly successful by gaming contractual relationships.

His was an narrow way to wealth, but it fits the thin keyhole that is today's Republican Party.

American voters will punish a party whose ideas have run out of gas except as a vehicle for the nation's largest polluting industries. The United States will not vote the cult of Donald Trump for president.

Proposed Changes to Pollution Limits of Toxic Substances. By Geniusofdespair

More Florida citizens might develop cancer with these new exposure limits, using a carcinogenic "Chemical Risk Calculation" that is 10 times (or sometimes 100 times) higher than the current rule allows. - Rachel Silverstein, Miami Water Keeper

Dear Secretary Stevenson - Florida DEP - July 21st

Coming around again. by Geniusofdespair

I switched my political party so I could vote against Daphne Cambell in the State Senator primary.

I am a Democrat, once again! I had a good run as a Pub. Love the Donald (cough, cough) but I heard God calling me back to the only party Jesus would join: Democrat.

Hallelujah: Roger Ailes is gone! ... by gimleteye

Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch did great harm to public discourse in America. Ailes is gone. Finally.

The headline from Reuters reads, "Divisive Ailes gave conservatives a TV home at Fox News". Not exactly. Ailes gave corporate power and authority -- and advertising revenue to support editorial content -- a safe home at Fox.

He built an empire based on stirring fear, and he will be remembered for sexually harassing women less powerful than him. Had Ailes been bought off early, an Ailes-free Fox would have been worth a hundred times the cost of his severance package.

Good riddance.

Roger Ailes has reached an agreement with 21st Century Fox to leave his post as chairman and chief executive of Fox News. (Fox)
Stephen Battaglio

Rupert Murdoch had long been the staunchest supporter of Fox News chief Roger Ailes. Now he is replacing him, in the wake of sexual harassment charges that led to Ailes’ abrupt departure.

In a move aimed at calming the cable news powerhouse - and a tacit acknowledgment that there was no obvious successor to Ailes – Murdoch assumed the role of acting chairman and chief executive of Fox News, in addition to his role as executive chairman of 21st Century Fox.

We are a better nation than Republicans believe us to be ... by gimleteye

I, along with legions of pundits, haul ourselves dispiritedly in rows of tired scribes and observers; drudging soldiers from the penultimate night of the Republican convention.

We walk in lines to word processors, on blogs, in newsprint, to TV studio sets and mail chimps; we walk quietly, tired, barefoot in pajamas, dirty socks, or Sunday best; throwing unusable fonts from our rucksacks, checking to see if any sweat drips from our brows or pancake make-up covers the mole, the bald pate. Whether virtual participants or walking amidst citizens expressing their freedoms with AK 47s strapped to their backs, we depress the keys on our keyboards or step heavily away from the Cleveland convention center, the Republican National Convention, to make sense of the world; yelping alarmists, channelers of the public mind, pimps and prostitutes, agile minds and purveyors of canards.

The sage sit at home. TVs turned off. They meditate in the quiet dark like Jeb Bush.

There must be thousands of us in the army of pundits, soldiers in the 24/7 news cycle squinting to count change distributed by barristas -- "No I don't need a copy of my receipt! -- pinging words from wireless networks, through routers God knows where, into the interweb, hoping that something will stick to the velcro'd brain of America. Is Roger Ailes the only man who knows how to do this? Groping. Feeling for the spirit of America beneath her dress? Conveying the electric touch of, what? Clarity.

So this morning I come to task of oracle or at least writing lines for a chorus in a Greek tragedy. Tempted as I may be, to write as if for Mel Brooks an updated version of the hit song in The Producers: "Springtime for Hitler In Germany".



I rest my wrists on the metallic pad of the laptop and my fingers on the keys, and begin: Last night the worst governor in the history of Florida, Rick Scott, made his appearance on the stage of the Republican convention.

Scott -- whose unpopularity in his home state had not penetrated the Cleveland audience that preferred to seethe than understand -- said that the November election will be about "jobs and terrorism". Radical Islamic terrorism!

How many times must this be said: terrorism is a condition. There is no war against a condition. ISIS is an army. Yes, we can and we are fighting ISIS! It's happening right now!

By harping on "radical Islamic terorrism" we play into the hands of those who use fear and suspicion to enforce orthodoxies in Islamic states. We can't dictate from our comfortable aeries in Trump Towers or the suburbs of Cleveland: "Moderate Islamic states, root out the radicals in your midst!" any more than Sunnis in Bagdhad can dictate to ours, "Root out your Jerry Falwells, your Pat Robertsons, and evangelist Christians!"

Calling names is a technique of schoolyard bullies. First they call names, then they rally weaker allies to their cause, then they slap and target "the other". Like Barack Obama. Or women. Like Hillary Clinton.

I can't help watch the proceedings in Cleveland and believe that the screamers and the shouters are a fringe. They do not represent my America.

My America not only tolerates dissent. My America encourages and embraces diversity. Racial diversity. Ethnic diversity. Religious diversity. My America leaves people to be free as free in their own bedrooms as they are anywhere else in the United States. My America doesn't wear patriotism like button lapel flags but expresses it quietly in acts of kindness and compassion. My America abhors extremism in any form but especially the notion that we must be driven to the practices of our enemies. My America will not vote for Donald Trump or the cult of personality that is filling the vacuum in GOP ideas.

Lastly, to monied interests and corporations funding this Republican convention but refusing to show their faces: shame. Shame. My America deserves a Republican Party reshaped away from those appeals -- like Rick Scott's -- that are designed to trigger fear and anxiety.

In November, American voters will prove we are a better nation than Republicans believe us to be.

Moving South. By Geniusofdespair

I have lived in the North end of the County since 1992. I am moving South. No, not to Hudstead. But South of North. This is like the mosquito Zika crap, isn't it: We found a case of Zika in Miami Dade County but we can't tell you where.

The Florida Department of Health will distribute Zika prevention kits and mosquito repellent in the affected Miami-Dade neighborhood — the location has not been disclosed by the state — and make those resources available to county residents.

So give us the scoop someone, where is Zika Ground Zero? Wouldn't it be easier if we could avoid the area? We all know all mosquitos stay local. I am moving South to where Zika probably is and I am going to Nice as well. Death Wish? I think I am going to wear this T Shirt around the County and see what happens.

From Elizabeth Kolbert in The New Yorker: "How Redistricting Turned America From Blue To Red"

BOOKS JUNE 27, 2016 ISSUE
DRAWING THE LINE
How redistricting turned America from blue to red.
By Elizabeth Kolbert

Sometime around October 20, 1788, Patrick Henry rode from his seventeen-hundred-acre farm in Prince Edward, Virginia, to a session of the General Assembly in Richmond. Henry is now famous for having declared, on the eve of the Revolution, “Give me liberty, or give me death!”—a phrase it’s doubtful that he ever uttered—but in the late seventeen-eighties he was best known as a leader of the Anti-Federalists. He and his faction had tried to sink the Constitution, only to be outmaneuvered by the likes of Alexander Hamilton and James Madison. When Henry arrived in the state capital, his adversaries assumed he would seek revenge. They just weren’t sure how.

“He appears to be involved in gloomy mystery,” one of them reported.

Republican Party Test Drives "Hunger Games" For American Politics ... by gimleteye

Before the festivities began, Late Show host Stephen Colbert -- channeling Johnny Carson's clairvoyant, The Amazing Kreskin -- stole the podium and gaveled the start of "The Hungry for Power Games". Funny made sharp with a shard of truth.

Last night's Republican convention drew heavily (not plagiarized, as Melania Trump's speech) from "The Hunger Games": the 2012 dystopian sci-fi film that must be looped into Donald Trump's home theater: hu-uge and maybe even the greatest movie ever made.

The Cleveland audience was eager to be ginned up. Their upturned faces were filled with grievance, anger, and conviction. The early speakers were drawn from characters harmed in real life. Policy? Where America is headed? That is a void filled by fear mongering and awe.

In "Hunger Games", the hero navigates a series of deadly challenges that pit character and strength, good versus evil, while an audience watches an intimate video of battlefield simulacrums. Survival is a test, we all know! The games are supervised by a political cult savvy to the attractions of the colosseum. The masses need entertainments, diversion and distractions.

That's what it felt like to watch the Republican convention in Cleveland last night. "Hunger Games" brought to life.

One has to admire Donald Trump's huge success in overlaying a reality television template on Republican Party canards. It got him pretty darn far.

Trump found the lowest common denominator of conservatism with the unerring accuracy of a diviner holding a fork branch to PT Barnum's gold. America's 19th circus impresario, Barnum was also a successful politician. Trump wiped out his competition -- low-energy Jeb Bush, small Marco Rubio, John Kasich, Chris Christie and the rest because substance is for losers, and he guessed -- correctly it turned out -- that even Republican voters are sick and tired of what passes for substance in their own political party.

With Trump, beyond the bluster, there is nothing but empty space. It is how he did business and how he does politics. Everything will be decided later when he gets to sit down across the table with the Mexicans and the Chinese. Trust me, shit is even worse than Fox News says it is.

The Trump convention began the same day that the inter web lit with rumors of the imminent departure from Fox News of its long-time chief; Roger Ailes.

If Trump is our generation's PT Barnum, Ailes is the Wizard in the "Wizard of Oz". But malicious. The network has made billions for the Murdoch family empire by exploiting human frailties and weakness. Trump is the purest distillation of Fox in its appeal to anger, grievances of history, distortion of fact and the "everything is bad" faction of the Republican Party.

The convictions and certainties that Ailes crafted through his programming and TV personalities, are similarly built on bluster, conspiracies, and a willingness to bind truth to single-step epoxy of corporate profits. "Fair and Balanced" has been a hu-uuge success, maybe the greatest in the history of mankind.

Lee Atwater -- the progenitor of modern GOP politics and late mentor to Roger Ailes -- promoted the idea of the GOP "Big Tent" in the run-up to Ronald Reagan, of inclusiveness and respect to diversity but he knew it all to be a lie; the same big tent PT Barnum used to lure 19th century circus-goers and the same lie as the cult leaders in "Hunger Games".

As a meme for the Republican Party, "Hunger Games" will have a short shelf life. The world need not worry. There are enough Trump supporters to fill an auditorium in Cleveland, but the Republican Party can't sell fiction to a majority of American voters. Some day perhaps, but like the good ole boys say, "This dog will not hunt." Not in 2016.

Anti Donald Trump Ad in the Miami Herald. By Geniusofdespair

Since I am a dying breed who still gets the paper Miami Herald, here is a full page ad trashing Donald Trump (comparing him to a scorpion) put in by Michael B. Fernandez, a billionaire with money to burn, who is also a loyal Republican.

You will have to hit the Michael B. Fernandez full-page ad to read it.

 Michael, unfortunately the only way to stop Trump is to help Hillary Clinton. Haven't you figured that out yet? You loyal Republicans are all alike. You would rather live with the "scorpion" then accept the lesser but predictable evil. Stupid man!

I am supporting David Rivera in the Republican primary over Lynda Bell. How is that for choosing to be realistic? I hate them both, but one is better than the other. Here is homework for you Michael B. Fernandez, watch the 11 hours of the Benghazi Hearings just like I did (not what Fox News tells you). After that watch marathon, I bet you will be giving to the smart, measured, articulate presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Call me when you finish watching. Better yet, do the right thing for the country: Hold your nose and support Hillary Clinton.

Palmetto Bay Vice Mayor John Dubois "Bagel Boy" Sues the Ethics Commission of Miami Dade County. By Geniusofdespair

I have given up trying to figure out John Dubois's many, many lawsuits. I think this is his beef but what do I know. I don't think he is calling Joe Centorino a liar but you can make your own Conclusions.

Dubois Complaint

Florida Crystals Principal Pepe Fanjul - The Body Language. By Geniusofdespair

I was very interested in the body language in these photos of Pepe Fanjul of Florida Crystals and two politicians. Hillary Clinton has a big smile - a political smile. Some say she looks coy. But if you look at her body it says something else. Her hands are otherwise engaged so his attempt to shake her hand is thwarted. She grabs her own thumb tightly. I am pretty sure that is not a fist bump.  Pepe leans in with his body into her space. She leans back, her body closely guarded, her arms could not be pulled in any further, she is completely separate from his space. Yes her face says something different, but bodies don't lie. She might take his money but she doesn't appear to like him from this photo.

Then we have Marco Rubio with the same Pepe Fanjul of Florida Crystals. Both men lean in and embrace. Marco Rubio is doing a lot of the leaning. No mistake here that these guys like each other.

I tried to get one of Pepe and Donald Trump since Pepe Fanjul was part of a host committee for the Trump and RNC fundraiser at billionaire investor Wilbur Ross’ home in Southampton this past July 9, according to a copy of the invitation. Couldn't find any photos but I did run across this one of Donald Trump with Governor Rick Scott. Don't know what to make of this one. Do your own analysis.

Florida: A Political Problem Requires A Political Solution ... by gimleteye

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio is carefully scheduling events in Florida this week, as though he is concerned about the water quality catastrophe caused by his and other top officials, including Rick Scott and Adam Putnam, indifference. Marco Rubio reversed his well-publicized decision to leave the Senate when GOP leaders implored him to stay, to protect a GOP majority that holds among its key objectives the destruction of federal authority to protect the environment.

Rubio, himself, lead the charge to diminish the authority of the US EPA to involve itself in rule-making to prevent nutrient pollution because it served his most influential campaign contributors: Big Sugar. Nutrient pollution is the cause of massive algae blooms that Rubio now professes to care about.

What Marco Rubio cares about is political power, and the political power Marco Rubio cares about is aimed at keeping Florida ringed by a circle of polluted water while his biggest funders squeeze the last dime of profit from the Everglades Agricultural Area.

It is time to buy the land, and send clean, fresh water south. That won't happen until Florida's Arab Spring -- the energizing of citizens against the political status quo -- materializes at the voting polls. Now is the time to turn back Rubio, Scott, Putnam and Caldwell and their shills in the county commissions. Vote for clean water.

Be part of the solution. Sign up for updates from Bullsugar.org, here, by clicking this link, and adding your name.

Guest Blog by Larry Fink: "We are not the rest of the world and the rest of the world is not us"

We are not the rest of the world and the rest of the world is not us.

We set the standards, and the rest of the world's tourists come here to visit our undeveloped national parks and the world's best brains drain here to enjoy the balance we have achieved between growth and development on the one hand and our ability to have safe drinking water, consumer products and food and drugs manufactured in clean and safe work environments with waste emissions treated to safe levels on the other hand.

Algae blooms virtually ceased in the Great Lakes after phosphate was removed from detergents and wastewater treatment plants were required to remove phosphorus using best available treatment technology.

Algae blooms have returned to Lake Erie as a result of farm runoff mismanagement as a consequence of the exemption of farms under the Clean Water Act.

We can adopt fatalism, give up the struggle for enlightened self-restraint, and embrace the inevitable decline in the quality and quantity of our lives as voodoo economics fails to deliver on its promise that we can have our cake and eat it too or we can continue to advance our efforts to use sound science to match growth and development to the solar-powered carrying and assimilation capacities at every scale from the watershed to the world.

We have the scientific knowledge both to define those carrying and assimilation capacities and to meet them with green technological advancement. What we lack is the political will, and that is no accident.

http://billmoyers.com/content/the-powell-memo-a-call-to-arms-for-corporations/
http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/bernprop.html

BARF SUNDAY. By Geniusofdespair

I have never been in such despair over politics.

$33 a bottle. It flopped.

County Government: Joe Martinez might sail back on to the County Commission In District 11 unless Felix M. Lorenzo can pull off a miracle with his $2,100 campaign fund. Juan Zapata left the race too late for a credible candidate to enter. Joe Martinez was poison on the Commission. It was a happy day when County Commissioner Joe Martinez ran for Mayor because it got him off the County Commission. He lost that, so he tried for Congress. He lost that now he is back running for the County Commission. He is so clueless and egocentric he actually produced a cologne called THE COMMISSIONER. Really!

The only good thing about him being back, I will have a lot to write about. Without Natacha Seijas and Joe Martinez, the pickings have been slim for me. How many times can you write about Pepe Diaz or a rant by Javier Souto?

Everyone in District 11: Vote for Felix M. Lorenzo not the little dictator.

Little dictator's Congressional campaign was a big bust.

Then on the Federal Level we have Donald Trump. Not much else to say on that: Just ick.

Walls! Borders! Hate Muslims! Bla Bla Bla!!! Have you seen my Poll Numbers?

And, we have the threat of the worst Governor EVER Rick Scott running for Senate and the reality of Marco Rubio running for Senate. Woof!

On the County Mayor race, Columnist Fabiola Santiago suggests that Mayor Gimenez should wear a body camera because of his back-room deals. Really a very good idea, she claims (rightfully):

Yet, when it comes to potential conflicts of interest and back-door dealing, the mayor has a blind spot.He delivers done-deals like the megamall-theme park boondoggle in Northwest Miami-Dade to a spineless county commission that rubber stamps instead of properly vetting community-altering projects. His developer friends line up for tax incentives (aka corporate welfare) and get them despite promises to voters that there aren’t any, as in the SkyRise Miami giant steel hairpin.

But nothing quite captures the mayor’s peculiar sense of what’s fair game as well as the richly textured portrait of Gimenez’s relationship with his re-election finance chairman, Ralph Garcia-Toledo, a veteran county contractor, by Miami Herald county hall reporter Douglas Hanks. It’s a classic, required reading on how county government operates behind the scenes.

So it goes another Sunday of barfing as you voters vote again and again for the unthinkable, the worst of the worst.

More on Felix Lorenzo....

Obama to Gov. Rick Scott: this toxic water emergency is yours, own it ... by gimleteye

When Gov. Rick Scott recently asked President Obama to declare a federal emergency over the toxic algae catastrophe coating South Florida's shoreline, my head nearly exploded.

It is the zenith of hypocrisy for Gov. Scott to plead for federal assistance on the algae bloom catastrophe when his entire record is hacking, whittling, and chopping federal authority into little, little pieces. And not just any federal authority; specifically federal rules to regulate fertilizers and specifically federal actions to hold Florida accountable.

Many decades ago, the U.S. EPA "delegated" full responsibility to Florida to manage the state's water pollution regulations while preserving the federal right to protect all Americans' air and water quality.

Tight control of pollution, it turns out, is the last thing that top campaign funders -- like Big Sugar -- want. As a result, the Republicans war against the U.S. EPA has been unremitting. Florida's GOP has been on its own jihad against federal authority, claiming states' rights in favor of local jurisdictions except -- of course! -- when it comes to the threat by local jurisdictions to clamp down on fertilizer pollution by Big Ag. Then the state steps in!

Then, all the little piggies have their hands out to the federal government. If I were President Obama, I would be livid.

Governor Scott blames the president, but wake up Florida: Scott's six years as governor is defined by branding his bona fides; a) rejecting federal authority, b) spurning federal assistance (think Obamacare), c) knee-capping state environmental agencies and especially science staff, d) cutting regulations specific to forms of pollution causing the algae blooms and e) lobbying against rule making by the U.S. EPA to regulate fertilizers.

One can almost hear President Obama saying: Florida, you have to figure this one out for yourselves. You want me to come to the rescue for your governor's fuck-ups?

President Obama, of course, is well aware how Florida works. It takes two seconds to understand the GOP practice of maintaining, buffing and shining polluters' privileges through gerrymandered districts. Just like the way one can trace the algae bloom back to excess phosphorous and nitrogen used by Big Sugar, one can trace the deformation of districts to outsized campaign contributions by polluters intent on maintain control legislatures whose pollution-control laws affect their profits.

If I were President Obama, and you -- the reader -- were Florida Governor Rick Scott, and you asked me to declare a federal emergency of counties afflicted by toxic algae blooms, I’d be tempted to say:

“Really? You and the Florida legislature worked like mad dogs to reject, refuse and to deny the ability of the U.S. EPA to regulate fertilizers including nitrogen and phosphorous, the cause of the algae blooms. And you want the federal taxpayer to rescue you because of your own stupidities? When the federal government offered to assist in regulating fertilizers, you said 'no thanks'. Then you set the Florida Chamber of Commerce and Associated Industries of Florida loose on Congress. When we have tried to move Everglades restoration forward, your administration has pushed back against any efforts to put tighter restrictions on phosphorous and nitrogen flowing from sugar fields owned by your buddies, the Big Sugar cartel. So who are you kidding with your complaints about the federal government not stepping in and being active? We tried. You denied. We promoted the U.S. economy and environmental stewardship and you demagogued against pollution control laws because they "kill jobs". You kicked us out and then you cut your own agencies’ science staff to the bone. Next time you call, give me some good news; like you support buying enough land in the Everglades Agricultural Area to stop the use of Florida waterways as sacrifice zones for Big Sugar." 

This emergency is yours, Governor. Own it.