Too late, on Brett Kavanaugh and his family's bankers ...

OCTOBER 5, 2018 | DOUG VAUGHAN
BREAKING: KAVANAUGH FATHER-SON CANCER POWDER KEG
from the blog, Who, What, Why

This article is based on a review of documents available at time of publication. In the public interest, we are releasing it now. We’ll continue to report on this issue. —Editor

If Justice Brett Kavanaugh is confirmed by the Senate, sooner or later he may be asked to weigh some damning evidence — that his own father advocated for a product that he knew was carcinogenic to both mothers and fetuses. Unless he recuses himself.

The ironies are piquant: While the son attended private, single-sex religious schools and adopted the traditional Catholic opposition to abortion, and even birth control, on the grounds the government should regulate women’s use of their own bodies and reproduction, the father made millions from the industry that marketed and sold female personal hygiene products — while keeping the government from guarding the consumers’ health and safety.

Florida Governor Rick Scott: Magician ... guest blog by Delaney Reynolds

The following, from Delaney's Blog: Miami Sea Rise


Sleight of Hand: Florida’s Magician Governor Rick Scott
October 5, 2018
Delaney Reynolds


I love a good magic show and have been fooled by some of the best. When street magician extraordinaire David Blaine made ¾ of a deck of cards disappear in front of my eyes just prior his show here in Miami last year, I was stunned. By any measure, David is an amazing artist and makes his craft look, well, like real magic.

But as wonderful as he is, you know that he’s an expert at deception, at sleight of hand, of making uncomfortable, often impossible things appear normal. Right before your eyes.

The longer I follow Florida’s Governor Rick Scott the more I become convinced that he’s also a world class necromancer, a magician of sorts (apologies to real magicians). In fact, David Blaine has nothing on our Governor and if you were to wonder why I think this, you need only to consider a few of the tricks he’s pulled on Floridians and our environment in recent years.

Houdini would blush at how Governor Rick Scott made our climate crisis and phrases like “climate change”, “sea level rise” and “global warming” disappear from state records and reports during his terms in office as was widely reported in the media and press (click here to learn more).

Rather than deal with the issue in a direct, decent way, the Governor has insisted that those who work for him should avoid using these terms and others as if the problem does not exist. You can learn more about his tricks and even see him perform by watching the short video produced by Ahead of the Tide entitled Chapter Three: The Political Climate.

Conjurer, I mean Governor, Scott pulled an especially big rabbit out of his hat in Broward County last month by making a long-expected vote in support of a gigantic new power plant disappear. Scott’s largest corporate donor (giving a reported $ 500,000 to his U.S. Senate campaign), Next Era Energy’s Florida Power & Light (FPL) plans to build the new power plant in Dania, a facility it describes as world class. Unfortunately, we’ve also learned that the planned “Dania Beach Clean Energy Center” plant will produce a “net increase from some pollutants”.

The Governor did not, of course, use his magic to require his friends at FPL make the pollution disappear. Doing that would have been rude considering the price they’ve paid ($ 500,000) for tickets to his “show”.

No, what he did was postpone the long-planned September 11th hearing to approve the plant until after the upcoming election, likely deciding it better that news of the plant, its vote, his support and especially the news that it will actually increase pollution disappear until after the polls close. It’s like watching that age-old trick where the magician asks you to find where the ball is hidden under a set of cups, reliant upon the notion that the hand is quicker than the eye.

And that leads me to this week’s long planned legal Hearing in Tallahassee for the climate change lawsuit that seven other Florida children and I have brought against the State, our Governor and others. We filed our case (Reynolds v. State of Florida) in April (you can read about it here).

Late Monday, just three days before the October 4th Hearing and many months after the Judge was assigned the case, Judge Cooper announced that he was recusing himself due to a conflict of interest, turning the case back over to the Chief Justice and, thus, requiring that a new Judge and Hearing date be set. You can read about the Judge’s recent decision in the article from Politico below:

This is Anonymous ...

Anonymous on Facebook, on Florida's toxic environment, to voters: "You've done nothing to stop it."

Florida voters and the most consequential November election in American history ... by gimleteye

Feel like you are getting information overload? You are not alone.

But hang on just a while longer: the most consequential election in modern US history is scarcely 30 days from now.

Meanwhile, Florida IS swimming in a sea of pollution.

Florida's big polluters -- who dominate the Florida legislature through the Republican majority -- perfected the art of pointing fingers in others' directions. It's "north of the Lake O" dairy farms, not sugar billionaires. It's septic tanks draining subdivisions along the Loxahatchee, not sugar billionaires. It's not just sugar billionaires, either. Rock miners. Phosphate miners. Developers of suburban sprawl. The interests of Florida's grifters intertwined with Fortune 500 companies. It's global warming and there's nothing we can do about it. All pulling the oars in the same direction.

No one exemplifies this phenomenon more than Gov. Rick Scott.

The Scott administration and key supporters (Jimmy Patronis, running for state CFO, Matt Caldwell, running for ag. commissioner, and Adam Putnam who expected to be next GOP governor of the state until upended by Ron DeSantis) sallied forth like crusaders against "burdensome environmental rules and regulations" as friction to "jobs!".

Rick Scott is busily trotting out state environmental officials whose missions he had defined -- for eight long years -- with a single purpose: dismantle environmentalism wherever it had taken root. Now Scott claims he's done more than anyone else!, or, "Florida's diseased waters are the fault of the federal government!"

In fact, Rick Scott and his team are in federal court arguing AGAINST the federal settlement of pollution in the Everglades. A settlement HE LITERALLY TOOK CREDIT FOR.

Let that sink in. Rick Scott and Big Sugar are on the same side in a federal appeals court arguing against "judicial overreach" because environmentalists had successfully sued the US EPA for failing to enforce federal pollution standards agreed upon as a result of ANOTHER federal lawsuit establishing without a doubt that Big Sugar farm runoff was killing the Everglades.

It is important to think about this fact, because it intersects with the Trump nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court.

One of the only GOP principles that is outlasting the Trump wrecking ball is this idea: the federal government should stay out of the business of regulating and enforcing against polluters. The reason this is the only principle left untouched is that the nation's biggest and wealthiest polluters, like Big Sugar in Florida, have a vise-like hold on state politics through campaign finance corruption (unlimited corporate money) and gerrymandering (locked districts). If they can keep the federal government out of environment regulation, they can more easily control their business models through state legislatures.

The point about Kavanaugh: he will represent an extreme right swing of the nation's highest court, assuring that big polluters who funded Republican majorities will have advocates for a hands-off approach to problems that appropriately belong to federal authority not the states. And if you don't believe me: ask yourselves the question, how is Florida going to compel states polluting the Mississippi River and killing the Gulf of Mexico? Florida can't and won't. Florida won't even enforce existing rules against polluters.

The bottom line: while Rick Scott rails on, how "it's the federal government's fault", his own Republican party is the chief culprit in knee-capping each and every federal agency charged with protecting human health, natural resources and the environment.

GOP candidates like Rick Scott spurned efforts by the federal government to regulate and enforce against pollution. They put their trust in "voluntary compliance" by polluters and other business-friendly measures that delivered a cesspool filled with dangerous air-borne toxins lifting off the state's diseased waters, right to your doorstep.

For chrissakes, the state of Florida won't even allow state regulators to crack down on the farming practices of specific polluters who -- data and science show -- are causing massive pollution overloads to our rivers and bays and streams downstream.

This is all provable. All true.

So in November, vote for clean water and clean air. Voters, this is your opportunity.


Check out the bullsugar.org voter guide for reliable information on candidates and endorsements in the upcoming election.

A Shattering, Historic New York Times report of a president's tax evasion and lies: if you haven't read it, you must ... by gimleteye

The President of the United States is a tax cheat.

For years, the President has derisively labeled the New York Times, as "failing". It took a while, but the Times' smack down is an moment epic in the history of the nation's most important newspaper.

In a Mississippi campaign stop last night President Trump unleashed a vituperative stream, raging at critics of his choice to be the next justice of the US Supreme Court. And against Democrats.

On the Opinion Page, NY Times OPED writer Tom Friedman drew bright lines under the severe trauma Trump and the Republican Party are inflicting on America.

When this stock market and economy correct -- and Trump's trade wars with China virtually assure that there will be a bumpy road ahead for consumers -- what will the enraged Trump base, most likely to be impacted by higher costs of basic goods, do then?

There is much to worry about this morning ... and even if you are a die-hard Republican, surely you must call for the release of Trump's tax returns: a broken promise.

Donald Trump and the Self-Made Sham
Now let’s see your tax returns, Mr. President.

By The Editorial Board
Oct. 2, 2018

This boast has long been at the core of the mythology of Donald Trump, Self-Made Billionaire. As the oft-told story goes, young Mr. Trump accepted a modest $1 million loan from his father, Fred, a moderately successful real estate developer from Queens, and — through smarts, hard work and sheer force of will — parlayed that loan into a multibillion-dollar global empire.

For the calm version of how Gov. Rick Scott and a Republican majority lead to Florida's destroyed environment, read Margaret Good ... guest blog

Miami, it is time for voters to rise up. Vote for electeds who will protect your drinking water and not protect polluters' profits. The following, from Florida's west coast ...

Water issues have long history
By Margaret Good
Guest Columnist

You can see it, smell it and feel the frustration mounting. Every day one of my constituents asks me what I am doing to help with the effects of red tide.
I get it. I am just as frustrated that my walks on the beach are limited and that businesses I frequent are facing economic hardships. I, too, feel a deep need to take immediate action to prevent more sea life from dying.

While I understand the urgency, our water issues were decades in the making and the course correction will take time and sustained effort. We cannot move forward until we have looked back and analyzed what brought us to this point.

Here is some of the harmful environmental legislation passed and decisions made in the last eight years: In 2011, the Legislature passed the Community Planning Act (HB 7207), which minimized state oversight of local governments’ comprehensive planning, essentially abandoning state oversight of landdevelopment decisions.

The Legislature that year also passed SB 2142, which limits the amount of revenue water management districts can collect through property taxes, crippling their budgets and resources. This undermined state monitoring of our water quality and our water supply.

2011 also saw Gov. Rick Scott’s appointment of new Department of Environmental Protection and water district heads. Both came from the private sector and have a history helping large companies get permits.

In 2012 the DEP laid off 58 employees, making enforcement of regulations more difficult. In 2010, the DEP had handled 2,289 environmental enforcement cases; that number plummeted to 799 in 2012.

Also in 2012, the Legislature repealed SB 1738, a 2010 bill that required septic tank owners to have their tanks inspected every five years to prevent sewage leaks.

In 2013 the legislature passed HB 999, which ratified the governor’s decision to continue 30-year leases of public lands in the Everglades to sugar companies. The bill also prohibited local governments from banning fertilizers, accelerated permitting for gas pipelines, and forbid environmental groups from suing to overturn the Everglades leases.

In 2015 the Legislature passed SB 552, The Florida Springs and Aquifer Protection Act. Don’t be fooled by its name. This bill eliminates many regulatory checks by allowing agricultural operations to self-monitor using “best management practices.” This bill also made it difficult for water management districts to deny consumptive-use permits.

In 2015 the governor instructed the DEP and other agencies to avoid the term “climate change.” More important, the South Florida Water Management District’s board voted against a deal to purchase almost 47,000 acres of U.S. Sugar land critical to Everglades restoration. Had the deal gone through, that land would have been used to store additional water from Lake Okeechobee.

In 2016, the Environmental Regulation Commission weakened standards on chemical dumping, resulting in 80-plus chemicals having less restrictive dumping standards than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recommends. Benzene, a chemical carcinogen used in fracking and linked to leukemia, had its dumping limit nearly doubled.

We stand astonished by what has happened to our shorelines, but when we look at the systematic deregulation of our environmental protections, the picture becomes clear: Our government has not protected our natural resources and we are all paying the price.

The losses of sea life and livelihoods are daunting, but change can happen. We must support septicto- sewer programs, better regulate pesticides and fertilizers, fully staff inspection agencies and fund land preservation.

Moving forward, we must make better choices and forge a path that prioritizes our land and water. We do this by holding our elected officials accountable — at the ballot box.

Margaret Good, D-Siesta Key, has represented Florida House District 72 since winning a special election on Feb. 13.

John Moran: "Remembering Rick Scott: Farewell, My Muse" ... guest blog

Remembering Rick Scott: Farewell, My Muse
by John Moran, Sept. 2018

As the Rick Scott era in Tallahassee winds down, I’ve been reflecting on the pivotal role the governor has played in my life.

Turning back the clock, the year was 2010. I was a photographer working the bliss and beauty beat, peddling my pictures of pristine Florida to audiences across the state.

Rick Scott was running for governor and riding high. Me? I was nagged by the growing awareness that my relentlessly pretty pictures of flawless Florida were feeding a false narrative.

I’d been watching our waters head south for years but I wanted nothing to do with bearing witness to the changes I’d seen. In the quiet triumph of denial, mine was a dysfunctional love affair with Florida.

Fortunately, when I needed him most, Rick Scott was there for me. The deal was sealed on Earth Day 2011.

That’s the day the new governor boldly put the federal government on notice and told the EPA to back off. To paraphrase, “We don’t need your stinking clean water regulations here in Florida.”

This was a shot across the bow, a powerful statement from our fearless new Deregulator-in-Chief, telling the bureaucrats that we’ve got this covered in Florida—no need for Washington’s meddlesome “numeric nutrient standards.”

The letter from Scott’s environmental protection chief, Herschel Vinyard Jr., continues: “As clearly demonstrated…the State of Florida, including its citizenry, local governments and businesses, is very committed to addressing excess nutrients pollution.”

The governor proclaimed, “Florida continues to lead the nation in developing innovative programs to ensure the health of our state’s waterways.”

Smelling a skunk on that fateful day, my life was transformed. Freed from the shackles of shooting only attractive pictures of my beloved Florida, I headed to the nearest spring and I dove into the task of photographing the ugly truth of the rampant slime I’d been avoiding for a decade or more.

I never used to think of my pictures of beautiful Florida waters as documentary moments frozen in time. Many were “protected” state waters and would remain forever so, or so I believed. Rick Scott’s arrival was my wake-up call.

Thus reborn with purpose and passion, I joined the growing community of dedicated Florida water defenders.

In fairness to the governor, he didn’t create Florida’s water problems. He just made them worse.

Rick Scott’s environmental legacy reflects a policy of purposeful neglect; the details of which have been much discussed in the public arena in this, our 2018 Toxic Summer of Slime.

Slashing and burning his way through the infrastructure of environmental protection four decades in the making, his record reveals a regard for Florida—the real Florida—as just another commodity to be exploited for profit.

And how has the governor responded when confronted with the slime-encrusted consequences of his actions? Can you say, Stand Your Ground? Rick Scott blames the Feds, and the man whose job he covets.

I ask you, tell me an issue more important to Florida’s future than protecting our waters. Look around. Do you see evidence of a state committed to getting the water right?

The governor offers the fig leaf that red tide is “naturally occurring.” But here’s the punchline: we have super-charged our toxic algae outbreaks with lifestyle choices and business practices that have sacrificed our public waters on the altar of personal choice and financial gain.

When it comes to Florida’s waters, fertilizer is Public Enemy No. 1. But have you ever once heard Governor Scott speak the word “prevention”? As in, “let’s stop this pollution at its source.”

Here’s what occurs naturally: We the people resist dealing with the hard stuff even when it’s clear the problems will only get worse.

That may be human nature but wise politicians don’t pander, and they don’t pass the buck. Wise politicians understand that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and they govern accordingly. It’s called leadership.

Thomas Jefferson cautions us from the grave, “The government you elect is the government you deserve.”

If you believe that Rick Scott is the governor we deserve, then the message to our children is they deserve no better than to inherit a state in which our pristine waters can be found only in old pictures and fading memories.

History will judge whether Rick Scott is the worst governor we’ve ever had. In the meantime, he’s earned my vote. The man has done serious damage to Florida—and the Florida brand—and it’s time to end the abuse.

We need our next governor to be Florida’s Cheerleader-in-Chief for real conservation and civic water education, delivered from the heart. For the measure of a civilization is not merely what it creates but what it refuses to destroy.

You can go home to Naples now, Governor. Your work here is done.

———

John Moran is a photographer and water advocate based in Gainesville.

Tallahassee court hears climate change lawsuit brought by the children ... by gimleteye

You may have read news this weekend that the Trump Administration buried its new acknowledgement of global warming in a massive transportation policy document. Basically, Trump says, the planet is going to be destroyed soon, so let's poison and party like it is 1984.

Believe it. We've never had a federal government and leadership as reckless as this.

For the generations who are going to struggle with an unimaginable shitstorm coming our way, we must do more.

Our Children's Trust and its youth plaintiffs are doing more; using state and federal law to hold government to account.

8 young Floridians need your support! Join @youthvgov in Tallahassee on October 4 to show your solidarity with youth plaintiffs in the climate lawsuit against the State of Florida. www.facebook.com/events/227994191383110/ #youthvgovFL

• 
  
• Eight young Floridians need your support. Join Our Children's Trust in Tallahassee to show your solidarity with #youthvgovFL! Gather at 1 p.m. to welcome the young plaintiffs in Reynolds v. State of Florida, the youth climate lawsuit. Rally outside the courthouse after the hearing to support the youth as they exit and to hear a few words from them and their attorneys. The hearing is open to the public.

Yes there is something more to say about Brett Kavanaugh and the US Supreme Court ... by gimleteye

David Brock

Too few are reading what David Brock has to say about the Brett Kavanaugh nomination. "The American ppl are now seeing the Kavanaugh I knew. 3 weeks ago he said of judges, “we stay out of politics”. Now these victims accounts/testimony are an “orchestrated political hit” and traced back to anti trump sentiment or revenge for Clinton’s. Case closed. Withdraw."

That's a recent Tweet from Brock who detailed his case against Kavanaugh, based on first hand experience, in an OPED at NBC News.

Brock was a die-hard member in the class of whip smart young Republicans who came of age in the first term of George W. Bush Jr. led by Karl Rove. Bush didn't actually call Rove "Rasputin". He called him, Turd Blossom because Rove relished shaping hard right outcomes from political shitstorms.

One of Rove's most audacious plans: support and cultivate young, ultra-conservative lawyers and prep them for appointment to the federal bench. The Federalist Society was their farm team. (Read this 2005 report from the LA Times, for more.) That is exactly how Kavanaugh pushed and was pushed forward.

Karl Rove with Brett Kavanaugh

Later, Brock fled the conservative camp and founded a progressive media center. His first-hand perspective is invaluable insight into the professionalism of the radical right.

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee and some newspaper OPEDs noted how Kavanaugh's indignation at this week's hearing was "intemperate." Indeed, Kavanaugh's monologue veered deeply into partisan territory. It was an extraordinary choice for him to make, pitting himself so clearly against Democrats, and discomforting to anyone contemplating that the role of the United States Supreme Court in an independent judiciary.

Bill Kristol, the conservative pundit who also takes direct aim at the disappearance of conservative values under the Trump Republican Party -- even to the point of urging Republicans to vote Democrat this November -- tweeted yesterday: "If I had to vote today, I think I’d be a No. This may be unfair to Kavanaugh; and it sets a bad precedent re unverified allegations. But given where we are, wouldn’t a future Court with a different constitutionalist justice be healthier for the nation—and for constitutionalism?"

Kristol and Brock get to the heart of the matter: the US Constitution is not served by intemperate ideologues whose partisanship is wrapped in the cloak of "originalism"; the belief that contemporary legal challenges should be guided exclusively by the US Constitution, exactly as the framers wrote it in the 18th century.

Donald Trump had many choices to nominate to the Supreme Court who could have passed through more easily, like Gorsuch. He chose Kavanaugh as a deliberate way to link his political fortunes to the the hard right turn of the GOP, fomented by funders like the Kochs and their billionaire network that adopted the Federalist Society as their own, to further their own interests.

The question of character -- what experiences shaped Brett Kavanaugh's choices to take a partisan warpath in last week's hearing -- will not be exposed by a FBI investigation lasting exactly one week, but depending on the outcome an answer could come into focus if the Republican majority in the Senate permits it.

Read David Brock's OPED, below.

"I knew Brett Kavanaugh during his years as a Republican operative. Don't let him sit on the Supreme Court. We were part of a close circle of cynical hard-right operatives being groomed for much bigger things."
Sep.07.2018 / 1:25 PM EDT
NBC NEWS.
David Brock

I used to know Brett Kavanaugh pretty well. And, when I think of Brett now, in the midst of his hearings for a lifetime appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court, all I can think of is the old "Aesop's Fables" adage: "A man is known by the company he keeps."

And that's why I want to tell any senator who cares about our democracy: Vote no.

Twenty years ago, when I was a conservative movement stalwart, I got to know Brett Kavanaugh both professionally and personally.

Brett actually makes a cameo appearance in my memoir of my time in the GOP, "Blinded By The Right." I describe him at a party full of zealous young conservatives gathered to watch President Bill Clinton's 1998 State of the Union address — just weeks after the story of his affair with a White House intern had broken. When the TV camera panned to Hillary Clinton, I saw Brett — at the time a key lieutenant of Ken Starr, the independent counsel investigating various Clinton scandals — mouth the word "bitch."

But there's a lot more to know about Kavanaugh than just his Pavlovian response to Hillary's image. Brett and I were part of a close circle of cold, cynical and ambitious hard-right operatives being groomed by GOP elders for much bigger roles in politics, government and media. And it’s those controversial associations that should give members of the Senate and the American public serious pause.

Call it Kavanaugh's cabal: There was his colleague on the Starr investigation, Alex Azar, now the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Mark Paoletta is now chief counsel to Vice President Mike Pence; House anti-Clinton gumshoe Barbara Comstock is now a Republican member of Congress. Future Fox News personalities Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson were there with Ann Coulter, now a best-selling author, and internet provocateur Matt Drudge.

At one time or another, each of them partied at my Georgetown townhouse amid much booze and a thick air of cigar smoke.

In a rough division of labor, Kavanaugh played the role of lawyer — one of the sharp young minds recruited by the Federalist Society to infiltrate the federal judiciary with true believers. Through that network, Kavanaugh was mentored by D.C. Appeals Court Judge Laurence Silberman, known among his colleagues for planting leaks in the press for partisan advantage.

When, as I came to know, Kavanaugh took on the role of designated leaker to the press of sensitive information from Starr's operation, we all laughed that Larry had taught him well. (Of course, that sort of political opportunism by a prosecutor is at best unethical, if not illegal.)

Another compatriot was George Conway (now Kellyanne's husband), who led a secretive group of right-wing lawyers — we called them "the elves" — who worked behind the scenes directing the litigation team of Paula Jones, who had sued Clinton for sexual harassment. I knew then that information was flowing quietly from the Jones team via Conway to Starr's office — and also that Conway's go-to man was none other than Brett Kavanaugh.

That critical flow of inside information allowed Starr, in effect, to set a perjury trap for Clinton, laying the foundation for a crazed national political crisis and an unjust impeachment over a consensual affair.

But the cabal's godfather was Ted Olson, the then-future solicitor general for George W. Bush and now a sainted figure of the GOP establishment (and of some liberals for his role in legalizing same-sex marriage). Olson had a largely hidden role as a consigliere to the "Arkansas Project" — a multi-million dollar dirt-digging operation on the Clintons, funded by the eccentric right-wing billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife and run through The American Spectator magazine, where I worked at the time.

Both Ted and Brett had what one could only be called an unhealthy obsession with the Clintons — especially Hillary. While Ted was pushing through the Arkansas Project conspiracy theories claiming that Clinton White House lawyer and Hillary friend Vincent Foster was murdered (he committed suicide), Brett was costing taxpayers millions by pedaling the same garbage at Starr's office.

A detailed analysis of Kavanaugh's own notes from the Starr Investigation reveals he was cherry-picking random bits of information from the Starr investigation — as well as the multiple previous investigations — attempting vainly to legitimize wild right-wing conspiracies. For years he chased down each one of them without regard to the emotional cost to Foster’s family and friends, or even common decency.
Kavanaugh was not a dispassionate finder of fact but rather an engineer of a political smear campaign. And after decades of that, he expects people to believe he's changed his stripes.

Like millions of Americans this week, I tuned into Kavanaugh's hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee with great interest. In his opening statement and subsequent testimony, Kavanaugh presented himself as a "neutral and impartial arbiter" of the law. Judges, he said, were not players but akin to umpires — objectively calling balls and strikes. Again and again, he stressed his "independence" from partisan political influences.

But I don't need to see any documents to tell you who Kavanaugh is — because I've known him for years. And I'll leave it to all the lawyers to parse Kavanaugh's views on everything from privacy rights to gun rights. But I can promise you that any pretense of simply being a fair arbiter of the constitutionality of any policy regardless of politics is simply a pretense. He made up his mind nearly a generation ago — and, if he's confirmed, he'll have nearly two generations to impose it upon the rest of us.

What is wrong with the massive highway extension is our political status quo ... by gimleteye

Never mind what Mayor Carlos Gimenez promised. As the Herald reports, there is no precise place for the location of the massive SR 836 extension into the wetlands, last remaining farmland, and open space of Miami-Dade. Yet, tomorrow the Miami-Dade county commission may give this black hole its blessing to move forward.

How did it happen that the county commission is set to a final vote, tomorrow, on a plan for a roadway whose precise location no one has seen?

Before answering, rest assured that MDX and its spokespersons and advocates have covered their bases well; they've done the bare minimum (with costly powerpoint studies and robo calls to Kendall residents) to plausibly claim the time for voting is now.

But, as any citizen who pays attention to civic affairs, the devil is always in the detail and when the detail goes AWOL, you don't have to stray far from the story-line of our political status quo.

Here is the rub: once upon a time, before the governorship of Rick Scott, there was a state planning agency whose legitimate and important purpose was to reconcile economic growth with laws to protect the environment. The big builders, big agriculture, Florida's utilities all despised the Florida Department of Community Affairs. They claimed it represented "burdensome regulation", a "drag on growth and jobs". DCA, over time, rotted from within; dominated by special interests.

For many years, both political parties took pot shots at the Department, staffed by top ranked planners who did their level best to protect the agency's mandate.

Gov. Rick Scott and the Republicans, though, finished the job started by earlier leadership including Lawton Chiles in the 1980's: he killed the one state agency whose mission was to dive into the details where the devil lives.

So there is no state agency, today, with the budget, staff and power to counter Miami-Dade's transportation plan, including the extension of SR 836 into the last developable private property in the county. There is nothing new in politics following cash, but the vote on the extension of SR 836 shows what happens, exactly, when there is no countervailing force of common sense and expertise.

The death of DCA (it exists as a shell of its former self, advisory and in name only) allowed Florida's counties free reign so long as they generally adhered to growth plans approved by the state. To informed civic observers, this did not bode well and it hasn't. Jockeying by the lobbyist class delivered the shipwreck that DCA meant to protect taxpayers from.

The political status quo in Miami-Dade pats itself on the back for digging a very deep hole for taxpayers in respect to transit deficits. Many of the incumbent county commissioners are part of the Unreformable Majority that Eye On Miami has ranted about, for more than a decade.

Unless the county commission votes, tomorrow, to defer pending further study and evaluation, it will have just dug that hole a lot deeper for every resident and visitor; everyone except rock miners, property owners, and land speculators at the proposed new highway's exit and entrance ramps.

NO for Matt Caldwell, Florida Agriculture Commissioner ... by gimleteye

Florida voters should pay attention to the importance of the agriculture commissioner.

During the terms of Gov. Rick Scott, the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services  assumed more influence and authority as budgets, rules and enforcement by state environmental and planning agencies were slashed.

Eye On Miami published extensively on the current ag commissioner Adam Putnam, who big polluters lined up to be the next Republican governor of Florida, Rick Scott, chosen by special interests to be the next US senator from Florida (to unseat Bill Nelson), and Matt Caldwell, the Republican legislator who is running as the GOP candidate for ag commissioner to replace Putnam.

It is a ladder carefully built by special interests. Each of the Toxic Trio was groomed to move up a rung.

In the recent GOP primary election, Putnam was upset by Congressman Ron DeSantis, who pledged to take no money from Big Sugar but is supported by mega political action committees funded by Big Sugar.

For the general election, "Red Tide Rick" is hobbled by serial algae blooms coating the coasts while championing lower environmental regulations.

In 2012 Caldwell helped run a political hit job against the one Republican elected official, Ray Judah -- then a Lee county commissioner -- willing to challenge Big Sugar.

Judah offered the following recent assessment of Caldwell's record in the State House:

The Miami Herald today published a puff piece on Caldwell. While the Herald did note his connections to Big Sugar, the newspaper let Cadwell slide on bland assurances that he treats Big Sugar just like everybody else.

But Caldwell was a major supporter of the 2017 Everglades Reservoir bill; a Trojan Horse that increases benefits to Big Sugar. At the beginning of the session, Caldwell opposed the bill, but as soon as Sugar inserted its poison pills into the bill, Caldwell was on board.

Poison pill #1: the elimination of eminent domain in the Everglades Agricultural Area. The prohibition occurred at the very moment more than 200 qualified scientists were pleading with the GOP led legislature to increase the extent of storage and treatment marshes to effectively cope with pollution from sugar plantations and Lake Okeechobee.

Matt Caldwell was the de facto House Whip, and all the Herald had to do was dig a little deeper to find out.

If you don't care whether you are sickened by drinking water or rivers where you swim, vote for Matt Caldwell whose main allegiance -- demonstrated over time -- is to Florida's wealthy and secretive polluters.

Otherwise, vote for Nikki Fried, Democrat, who is challenging to lead the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.