Election Schedule for August 26th Primary (Really the Election for County Commissioners). By Geniusofdespair

Especially if you live in district 8 and expect to be away election day, here is all the information on Absentee Ballots. You can get one delivered to your vacation home.

Both of us have enthusiastically endorsed Daniella Levine Cava for County Commissioner in Miami Dade County District 8. The Sierra Club has endorsed Daniella Levine Cava and Clean Water Fund.

Lynda Bell just doesn't get it, does she? … by gimleteye

Lynda Bell posed for a Miami-Dade library poster with a book by Ayn Rand at the same time as Miami Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez, her booster, was axing the library budget. Plenty were offended.

Of all the writers whose books she might have held, why Ayn Rand? Lynda Bell might as well have her hand out for money.

There is extensive documentation how conservative foundations distribute Ayn Rand to libraries and schools at the time as seeding college economic departments with money provided those colleges exclusively promote Rand's anti-regulatory theses.

The extremist GOP embraces Ayn Rand as the anti-regulatory, pro-selfishness brand leading to improvements in the economy. So how does that work out in the real world? In "Ayn Rand Killed Sears", July 2013, Salon recounts how Eddie Lampert, a hedge fund investor, and Ayn Rand acolyte tried to use Rand's theories and in the process helped ruin the iconic retail giant.

At Sears, Lampert set out to create the Ayn Rand model of a giant firm. The company got a radical restructuring. It was something that had been tried at giant industrial conglomerates like GE, but never with a retailer. First, Lampert broke the company into over 30 individual units, each with its own management, and each measured separately for profit and loss. Acting in their individual self-interest, they would be forced to compete with each other and thereby generate higher profits.

What actually happened is that units began to behave something like the cutthroat city-states of Italy around the time Machiavelli was penning his guide to rule-by-selfishness. As Mina Kimes has reported in Bloomberg Businessweek, they went to war with each other.

It got crazy. Executives started undermining other units because they knew their bonuses were tied to individual unit performance. They began to focus solely on the economic performance of their unit at the expense of the overall Sears brand. One unit, Kenmore, started selling the products of other companies and placed them more prominently that Sears’ own products. Units competed for ad space in Sears’ circulars, and since the unit with the most money got the most ad space, one Mother’s Day circular ended up being released featuring a mini bike for boys on its cover. Units were no longer incentivized to make sacrifices, like offering discounts, to get shoppers into the store.

In May 2014, the Ayn Rand acolyte tried to paper over the company's hideous collapse. "Most retailers are trying to come out with predictable numbers that appeal to the largest possible audience, both in terms of shoppers and Wall Street. Dick’s Sporting Goods (DKS) does under $7 billion in sales per year and is followed by 27 different Wall Street analysts. When the company missed earnings estimates by $0.02 earlier this week executives spent more than an hour explaining precisely why. Sears, with nearly five times the revenues of Dick’s is almost totally ignored by Wall Street. The two analysts bothering to publish estimates for Sears Holdings expected the company to lose $1.87. The company came in with a surreal $3.79 loss." Lampert, the Ayn Rand hedge fund operator said, "“Sears is undergoing a significant transformation, and we fundamentally are changing the way we do business."

I doubt Lynda Bell has a clue when she shops at Sears that Ayn Rand's teachings -- straight out of the book she holds in her hands -- is a real life example of conservative ideology harming Americans.

In "Zombie Politics and Culture in the Age of Casino Capitalism, Henry Giroux writes": “The United States is a country that is increasingly defined by a civic deficit, a chronic and deadly form of civic illiteracy that points to the failure of both its educational system and the growing ability of anti-democratic forces to use the educational force of the culture to promote the new illiteracy. As this widespread illiteracy has come to dominate American culture, we have moved from a culture of questioning to a culture of shouting and in doing so have restaged politics and power in both unproductive and anti-democratic ways.” (The shocking numbers, Americans are dangerously ignorant on politics, Salon, June 18 2014)

This describes Lynda Bell, incumbent county commissioner, facing Daniella Levine Cava in an August election for Distrit 8 in Miami-Dade County. Too busy to pay attention, too invested in her own political fortunes to care about the mess she helps to make. Lynda Bell just doesn't get it.

Let the Attack Ads Begin in the LYNDA BELL race. By Geniusofdespair

The attack ad against Daniella - I took Daniella out and put Lynda in!

The signs aren't even up but there is an attack ad or video against Daniella. I photoshopped this one and made a few changes.  Without seeing the whole thing I suspect it is a carpetbagger attack.  It mentions Daniella grew up in New York, no mention is Lynda Bell growing up in Broward County. I come from New York, like Daniella, my children were not born and raised here, unlike Daniella. I DO NOT live in District 8 but I know that I KNOW  more about District 8 than 95% of the residents. I ask all the time in District 8 who is your commissioner and the residents don't even know. This is a countywide office with local district voting. Lynda took all the challengers out of the district during redistricting by giving Pinecrest and other areas to Xavier Suarez. So we have Daniella willing to move into the district to run. Thank you Daniella. And, as a resident of the county most of her life, dealing with countywide issues, I think Daniella Levine Cava knows every district like I do.

The ECO that paid for the attack ad against Daniella Levine Cava has Wayne Rosen and Shoma Homes money in it and FPL money.  Here are ALL the donors (looks like she was rewarded to the tune of $10,000 by the luggage wrap company for her vote):

	4/17/2013	Akerman Senterfitt 495 N. Keller Road Suite 300 Maitland, FL 32751	Business	law firm	Check			$2,500.00
2	4/24/2013	David R. Guenther 9313 N.W. 24th Place Pembroke Pines, FL 33024	Individual	landscaper	Check			$500.00
3	4/24/2013	Charles Gonzalez 4155 E Mowry Dr. Homestead, FL 33033	Individual	landscaper	Check			$500.00
4	4/24/2013	Brian Tight 608 NE Venezia Lane Boca Raton, FL 33487	Individual	propertymanager	Check			$500.00
5	4/24/2013	Masoud Shojaee 515 Casuarina Concourse Coral Gables, FL 33143	Individual	realestateinvestor	Check			$5,000.00
6	4/24/2013	Worldwide Pools Corp 6800 SW 40th Street, Ste 686 Miami, FL 33155	Business	poolcontractor	Check			$2,000.00
7	4/24/2013	Wayne Rosen Inc 277 Galeon Ct Coral Gables, FL 33143	Business	realestateinvest.	Check			$10,000.00
8	4/24/2013	Downrite Engineering Corp. 14241 SW 143 Ct Miami, FL 33186	Business	engineering	Check			$2,500.00
9	4/24/2013	Association Law Group, PL 1666 Kennedy Causeway, Suite 302 North Bay Village, FL 33141	Business	law firm	Check			$500.00
10	4/24/2013	Dixie Landscape P.O. Box 160328 Miami, FL 33116	Business	landscaping	Check			$500.00
11	4/24/2013	Capri Construction Corp 12331 SW 132 Ct Miami, FL 33186	Business	constructionco.	Check			$3,000.00
12	4/24/2013	Metrogas FL LLC 77 Harbor Drive Key Biscayne, FL 33149	Business	naturalgasservices	Check			$1,500.00
13	5/3/2013	Downtown Towing Company 2418 N Miami Ave Miami, FL 33127	Business	towing co.	Check			$2,000.00
14	5/3/2013	Cole & Boniske, P.L. Weiss Serota Helfman Pastoriza 2525 Ponce de Leon Blvd, Suite 700 Coral Gables, FL 33134	Business	law firm	Check			$2,500.00
15	5/3/2013	Capital Rentec, Inc. 135 San Lorenzo Ave, Suite 750 Coral Gables, FL 33146	Business	investmentco.	Check			$2,500.00
16	5/8/2013	Newslink Mav, LLC 6910 NW 12th Street Miami, FL 33126	Business	retail	Check			$2,500.00
17	5/14/2013	Leon Advertising & PR 11501 SW 40th Street Miami, FL 33165	Business	advertisingco.	Check			$5,000.00
18	8/16/2013	Florida East Coast Industries 4601 Touchton Road East Building 300,suite 3200 Jacksonville, FL 32246	Business	RealEstate	Check			$5,000.00
19	8/30/2013	HNTB Corporation 715 Kirk Drive Kansas City , MO 64105	Business	EngineeringFirm	Check			$5,000.00
20	9/12/2013	Cole & Boniske, P.L. Weiss Serota Helfman Pastoriza 2525 Ponce de Leon Blvd, Suite 700 Coral Gables, FL 33134	Business	return ofcontribution	Refund			$-2,500.00
21	9/13/2013	Monkey Jungle, Inc. P.O. Box 700246 14805 SW 216 St Miami, FL 33170	Business	Entertainmentcompany	Check			$1,000.00
22	9/20/2013	Enviro. Remedy & Recovery Inc 162 Golf Club Dr Key West, FL 33040	Business	environmentalservices	Check			$2,000.00
23	9/27/2013	Jeffrey Scott Bass 7801 S.W. 48th Place Miami, FL 33143	Individual	Attorney	Check			$500.00
24	9/30/2013	Biscayne Holdings Group Inc 9737 NW 41st Street Suite 135 Doral, FL 33178	Business	realestateholdings	Check			$500.00
25	2/27/2014	New Leadership Network PC 2655 LeJeune Road Suite 323 Coral Gables, FL 33134	Committee	PoliticalOrg.	Check			$5,000.00
26	2/27/2014	Phillips CI, LLC 1221 Brickell Avenue 9th Floor Miami, FL 33131	Business	consulting	Check			$3,000.00
27	2/28/2014	Trans Florida Development Corp 13960 SW 144th Avenue Rd. Miami, FL 33186	Business	developers	Check			$3,500.00
28	2/28/2014	Global Tel-Link Corp. 2609 Cameron Street Mobile, AL 36607	Business	communications	Check			$5,000.00
29	2/28/2014	Wayne Rosen Inc 277 Galeon Ct. Coral Gables, FL 33143	Business	realestatedeveloper	Check			$10,000.00
30	3/30/2014	Miguel B. Fernandez 121 Alhambra Plaza, Suite 1100 Coral Gables, FL 33134	Individual	healthcareexec.	Check			$10,000.00
31	3/31/2014	Ramsey Villalon 7501 Miller Drive Miami, FL 33155	Individual	luggageprotection	Check			$1,000.00
32	3/31/2014	Safe Wrap of Florida JV, LLC 4050 NW 29th Street Miami, FL 33142	Business	luggageprotection	Check			$10,000.00
33	4/30/2014	New Leadership Network PC (FPL) 2655 LeJeune Road Suite 323 Coral Gables, FL 33134	Committee	politicalcommittee	Check			$2,500.00