Tag: Florida
Husband of Sonny Bono’s Widow Announces Run for U.S. Senate in Florida
Rep. Bono Mack is the widow of Sonny Bono of Sonny and Cher fame, which also makes her Chaz Bono’s stepmother. She represents California’s 36th District, which includes Palm Springs — a demographically odd stew of gays, Republican retirees, gay Republican retirees and, increasingly, Democrats. (And, for the benefit of non-Floridians, Connie Mack is a guy. His real name is Cornelius McGillicuddy IV.)
The story has a much different profile in Florida, of course. The most crucial difference is that the name Connie Mack is extremely well known there. Connie Mack’s great-grandfather, Connie Mack I, was a famous sports figure and his father, Connie Mack III, was a two-term Republican U.S. senator.
Here’s how the Orlando Sentinel, a newspaper that is notoriously in the bag for the GOP, reports Mack IV’s entry into the race:
Documents Suggest Sen. Marco ‘Anchor Baby’ Rubio Has Lied about Parents’ Immigrant Status
On May 18, 1956, Mario and Oriales Rubio walked into the American Consulate in Havana and applied for immigrant visas. The form asked how long they intended to stay in the United States.
“Permanently,” Mr. Rubio answered.
Nine days later, the couple boarded a National Airlines flight to Miami, where a relative awaited.
So began a journey that seems as ordinary as any immigrant story, but decades later served as the foundation of an extraordinary and moving narrative told repeatedly by their third child as he became one of the most powerful politicians in Florida and then a national figure.
U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio has come under fire for incorrectly linking his parents to the Cubans who fled Fidel Castro beginning in 1959. He insists they are exiles nonetheless and angrily denounced the suggestion he misled for political gain…
[The] visa documents cast clearer divisions between his parents, who came for economic reasons, and the Cubans who scrambled to leave their homeland but thought they could soon return. And the documents come to light amid new discrepancies since Rubio’s time line came under scrutiny last week.
Watch Republican Sen. Marco Rubio Lie and Lie and Lie about Being the Son of Exiles
From American Bridge 21st Century:
As reported in the Washington Post, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio was caught embellishing his life story. Despite numerous claims that his parents fled Cuba after Castro’s regime took power in 1959, documents show his parents came to the U.S. in 1956.
Rubio made the false assertions not just on his official Senate bio, but in numerous speeches and cable television appearances over the years. Watch a sampling of his embellished statements in a new video from American Bridge 21st Century
99% Advocate Shows How to Talk to FOX
Masterful job by Susannah Lindberg Randolph, activist and wife of Florida Rep. Scott Randolph (D-Orlando), in refusing to be run over by the FOX News anchor or the tea party representative. If you need talking points to defend the 99% movement, here’s your model.
One Florida Lawmaker’s Dream: To Make Executions Horrific Again
If you’ve ever wished there were some way to make state-ordered executions more violent, one Florida state representative feels your…
Well, anyway, Rep. Brad Drake has filed a bill in the upcoming state legislative session to do away with lethal injections and instead provide death by electrocution and firing squad. Yes, I did say, “firing squad.”
Drake, R-Eucheeanna, said the idea came to him after having a conversation with a constituent at a DeFuniak Springs Waffle House…
What, I ask you, could go wrong when a Republican representative brainstorms legislation with the guys and gals at the Waffle House?
Scott Gives Himself Do-Over on Jobs Promise
I could argue that I don’t have to create any jobs. I just have to make sure we don’t lose jobs.
Gov. Rick Scott (Fla. – GOP/Tea), explaining why he shouldn’t be held to his campaign promise to create 700,000 new jobs on top of projected growth in Florida. Scott has focused — like most tea party Republicans who campaign on jobs — on issues like drug testing applicants for public assistance, gutting environmental protections, restricting access to voting, and micromanaging public education.
Scott Favors Science, Technology Over ‘Liberal’ Arts
Part of the series, Assault on Florida.
I confess — I was an English major in college. Fortunately, I somehow parlayed that into a successful career as a journalist and PR guy or else Florida Gov. Rick Scott probably would have consigned me to one of his privatized re-education facilities to teach me a useful trade like welding or astrophysics.
OK, it hasn’t quite gotten to that point, but if Scott has his way, science, technology, engineering and math curriculums will receive more state education dollars and liberal arts courses will receive fewer. I think it’s the “liberal” part of “liberal arts” that sticks in the gov’s craw. Said Scott:
If I’m going to take money from a citizen to put into education then I’m going to take that money to create jobs. So I want that money to go to degrees where people can get jobs in this state.
A quick glance through the Miami Herald’s classified ads does reveal some positions available for computer techs, but nothing specific for scientists, engineers or theoretical mathematicians. Granted, an English degree qualifies one to discuss the French deconstructionist movement while flipping burgers at Micky D’s, but liberal arts also includes journalism and communications majors.
Florida’s Newest Democrat: Mrs. Charlie Crist
While the obvious question might be, “What took you so long?” the fact remains that even Carole Rome Crist, wife of former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, is now a Democrat.
Crist himself, of course, left the Republican party when it went all tea party crazy and lined up behind eventual winner Marco Rubio in the 2010 Florida Senate race. But Charlie simply dropped out of the GOP to become an independent while Mrs. Crist is taking the more active step of registering as a Democrat.
Which straw, we wonder, broke the camel’s back and turned Carole from red to blue?
- Was it the pro-dwarf-tossing bill which State Rep. Ritch Workman (R-Melbourne) introduced as a means of reducing unemployment among Florida’s “little people?”
- Was it Gov. Rick’s Scott continuing email problem, in which it has been revealed that he “accidentally” deleted public record emails once, twice, and now three times?
- Is it the ongoing drama surrounding Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll, whose office has been a Peyton Place of employee dismissals, fires set in trash cans, power struggles with her governor’s office, and general malfeasance?
- Or was it Carroll’s recent speech to the Faith and Freedom Coalition in which she declared that Christians are engaged in a war with scientists and the media and, “There is no gray area. Either you believe or you don’t believe.”
