Tag: Florida

Florida Republicans’ Grievance Committee Smells Like a Purge

Buck Banks
RPOF Chair Jim Greer maintains length, not girth, counts.
RPOF Chair Jim Greer maintains length, not girth, counts.

Not satisfied with losing a bunch of elections last November as well as a whole bunch of formerly loyal members from every level, the Republican Party of Florida (RPOF) appears to be trying to finish the job through what looks from the outside like a purge of, gasp! — Libertarians. At least that’s what one of Trish’s correspondents alleged was happening last Friday.

That day the RPOF’s Grievance Committee met in Orlando to do something — it’s not clear exactly what, even after they explained it in another one of their famous press releases where every paragraph is quote-marked — that was so heinous that Chairman Jim Greer stayed far away from the meeting, geographically distancing himself from something that morally he couldn’t actually wipe off.

It’s worthwhile to note here that Greer was handpicked by Gov. Charlie “One Term Wonder” Crist to lead the state Republican Party. Both men are coming under fire for what seems to be a party that is rapidly becoming as irrelevant as Sarah Palin.

Let’s let the RPOF tell us what the Grievance Committee does, according to its chairman, Tony DiMatteo (superfluous quote marks retained):

“The Grievance Committee is comprised (sic) of members of the RPOF State Executive Committee. Our involvement with the RPOF is in a volunteer capacity. Grievances are a formal complaint from one member of the Republican Party of Florida’s county leadership structure to another member of the county leadership structure. All grievances originate at the county level and are filed with the State Party and then referred to the Grievance Committee.

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Florida Sen. Jim King Dies

Trish
Florida State Sen. Jim King

Florida lost a great one today. State Senator (and former Senate President) Jim King died of pancreatic cancer. And even though King was a Republican, I found him to be fair, thoughtful, and always humorous. He shared a trait that any good legislator or public servant has: when you came to him for help, he never asked — or particularly cared about — your party affiliation.

I only have a couple of personal memories of the man. One was when he was running for re-election and addressed my Tiger Bay club. King was a massive man, and by that I pretty much mean fat, but he told us that day he felt like a buck in rutting season.

The other was when I was leading a delegation of Florida advertising professionals on their annual pilgrimage to the state capitol to ask that advertising not be taxed. King was senate president at the time and we requested a meeting with him on the day of a critical vote. He kept his appointment with us and even though he was wanted on the Senate floor, and his assistant stuck her head in periodically to see if he was done yet, he treated us as if he had all the time in the world.

King also bucked (so to speak) Jeb Bush and his own party over the Terri Schiavo debacle. He passionately spoke out against Jeb’s foray not just into his constituents’ bedrooms but in this case, their death beds. More recently, the country might remember King as the Florida legislator who championed “truck nutz,” as an expression of “truckliness” and claimed to have a pair on his own SUV. I can easily believe that.

Grading the RPOF’s Obama Report Card

Pensito Editors

As its lead-up to President Obama’s prime-time press conference Wednesday, the Republican Party of Florida (RPOF) issued a report card on Obama’s performance to date. It’s reproduced below just as it was sent out in another of the RPOF’s press releases, or as we like to think of them, failed attempts at snark.

Read the report card, then see how we graded the graders below.

obama_report_card

Here’s how we graded the RPOF’s performance:

SUBJECT: Statistics. COMMENTS: RPOF assessed Mr. Obama’s math skills by using unattributed statistics to make its point, and for extra credit, threw in the technique of using truncated statistics by starting the clock on job loss (and economic troubles in general) on Jan. 20, 2009. In its health assessment the RPOF attributes its statistics to bolster its illogical argument. In assessing his finance performance, the RPOF eschews statistics completely — a masterful use of the dismal science. There are lies, damned lies and statistics, and nobody lies as well as the Republican Party. GRADE: A+.

SUBJECT: Rhetoric. COMMENTS: While assessing Mr. Obama’s history performance, the RPOF deftly moved the focus from his domestic cabinet-level “czar” appointments to connect them to the spread of communism across Europe in the 20th century. In dwelling on the easily ridiculed word, “czar” and ignoring the fact that Obama is not the first president to appoint them, they employ a cheap shot. Such skillful use of what appears on the surface to be logic deserves the highest marks. GRADE: A+

SUBJECT: Civics. COMMENTS: By portraying Mr. Obama as never missing a basket when playing basketball while being totally uninformed about North Korea, the RPOF uses two tried and true racist assumptions about African Americans — they are intellectually inferior, yet physically superior, to whites. For the added underlying message that Obama’s race and inexperience pose a threat to national security by invoking the specter of North Korea, they get extra credit. GRADE: A++.

SUBJECT: English. COMMENTS: The RPOF, FOX News and most talk radio hosts fail to understand usage, and don’t know when to employ “Democrat” versus “Democratic.” We suspect they’re misusing “Democrat” on purpose, a practice that began recently under President Bush, but as Jon noted, goes back at least to Sen. Joseph McCarthy. For pushing the envelope of the English language by delving deeply into reverse semiotics and the power of thematic repetition, as well as for their robust explorations into the tenuous relationship between truth and meaning, the RPOF deserved an A, but turned in a term paper late. GRADE: B.

Only In Miami — Shark? What Shark?

Buck Banks
CSI Miami — a very dead shark.
CSI Miami — a very dead shark.

A few years ago Miami cracked down on the number of chickens running free on city streets. A special squad was formed that spread out across mainly ethnic neighborhoods to round up errant poultry and hand out tickets, since it’s illegal to raise fowl within city limits.

The natural question once a bird was spotted in someone’s yard was, “Is that your chicken?” The almost universal answer, in English, Spanish and Creole, was, “What chicken?”

A similar kind of only-in-Miami story occurred downtown yesterday as two men carried a 90-pound nurse shark around the streets, at one point boarding the Metromover, a free monorail that circulates downtown — while the fish was still alive. You can read the Miami Herald coverage here, but I wanted to focus on highlights of the story that are characteristically Miami.

For instance, the quotes of the shark’s fellow Metromover passengers:

“The door opened and the shark was sitting by the front of the door,” said Mae Singerman, a 24-year-old musician who was practicing for a show on the Metromover platform. “I didn’t see a reason to call police,” Singerman said. “It’s Miami. Stranger things have happened. The doors shut, and then we forgot about it.”

“We looked at him; he didn’t really say anything,” Sandy Goodrich, a Miami legal secretary, said of the man clutching the shark. “I was just so freaked out about the shark on the floor.”

The two men were seen carrying the shark in the direction of the Miami River, apparently with the intention of selling it to a fish market for the recession-era sum of $10.

Casablanca Fish Market owner Jorge Sanchez was unimpressed with the walk-in offering. “It was full of flies,” he said. “It was still alive. It was dry.”

“I do buy shark,” Sanchez said, “not this kind of crazy stuff.”

Unable to sell the fish, the men simply dumped it on a downtown street and left. The next morning workers at a nearby auto body shop tried to get sanitation workers to dispose of the now extremely dead shark:

“When the garbage is coming, we tell them, pick it up,” said Eduardo Perez, who works at the shop. “They tell me no. All day long the shark was there …. This was only in Miami.”

Finally, someone called the police, who arrived at about 9 p.m. and took crime scene photos, since what those guys did to that shark constituted misdemeanor animal cruelty.

Then the cops took the corpse and consigned it to a watery grave in Biscayne Bay.

Only in Miami.

Republicans Can’t Proofread

Buck Banks

At least the ones in Florida apparently are incapable of distributing a press release without grammatical or spelling mistakes, or in this case, missing copy. I have not altered this text. I copied it directly from the Republican Party of Florida’s press release. If it weren’t for the headline, that first sentence, although factually accurate, would make even less sense:

Carrie Prejean to Speak at DTD Exchange ‘09

Tallahassee-–The Republican Party of Florida today announced Carrie Prejean is a model and former beauty queen from Vista, California. She held the title of Miss California USA 2009, and placed first runner up in the Miss USA 2009 pageant. Prejean gained nationwide attention over her answer to a question about same-sex marriage during the Miss USA 2009 pageant.

Drive the Discussion Exchange ’09 will be a gathering for young people from across the State of Florida to discuss the future of the Republican Party. The event is open to all ages, but will focus on young voters, 18 – 35 years of age. The Exchange will include a keynote address by Bruce Jenner, special guest speaker Jonathan Krohn, panel discussions on “the benefits of social networking” and “What does the Republican Party mean to me,” as well as a trade show. Additional speakers will include technology professionals, elected officials, and professional athletes between the ages of 25-40.

The RPOF is really onto something here, with ancient athlete Bruce Jenner and homophobe Prejean, because they are likely to apeal to the 15 to 35-year-old demographic of potential Republicans.

Wonder if there’s a swimsuit competition.

A First: Florida Democrats Outraised Republicans in Second Quarter

Trish

For the first time in the history of the world, the Florida Democratic Party (FDP) out-fundraised the Republican Party of Florida (RPOF) in the second quarter of a year. The FDP shows $1,196,530 while the RPOF had over $35,000 less, with $1,160,064.

How the money was raised tells a more accurate story of the condition of the two parties. The phrase “rich Republican” means something different in Florida than in say, Iowa or Kentucky. That’s clear from the fact that only 224 donors were responsible for the RPOF’s total. A mere 71 donated $100 or less, meaning the bulk of the purse was given by 153 people. By contrast, it took 1,740 Democrats to cough up their nearly $2 million. Of those, 1,371 gave $100 or less, leaving 369 who were able to give larger amounts.

But the real money isn’t flowing to the parties. Gov. Charlie Crist raised $4.3 million, compared with $1.2 million by U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, his Democratic challenger. That’s assuming Crist wins in the primary against former state House Speaker Marco Rubio, who raised only $340,000 but is young, handsome, Cuban, not metrosexual, and has the gleam of the zealot in his eye, along with the backing of Jeb Bush and Mike Huckabee.

Money, in other words, isn’t everything when it comes to politics — even though most cynics think it is.

RPOF Brags About ‘Pay to Play’ with Black Media

Buck Banks

This is just an amazing thing. The Republican Party of Florida issued a press release Saturday that republished an Orlando Sentinel story about meetings RPOF Chairman Jim Greer had with African American media representatives recently. I understand that the RPOF is trying to reach out to blacks, but I’m just not certain how to take this story. I mean, I think everybody comes off looking pretty bad here.

This is another step in how we’re going to open a dialogue with the African-American community …
— Jim Greer

Black-owned media tell GOP that money talks
By Mark Schlueb, Orlando Sentinel
Florida Republican leaders are trying to capture ground they’ve historically ceded to the Democratic Party — the black news media.

Friday, managers of black-owned newspapers and radio outlets told Florida GOP Chairman Jim Greer there’s a simple way to get more attention for conservative issues and candidates: money.

“At the end of the day, it’s about money. If you buy advertising, you’re more likely to get coverage,” said Johnny Hunter, president of the Florida Association of Black Owned Media and publisher of Sarasota’s Tempo News.

Greer invited black-media news executives from across the state to a downtown Orlando hotel to hash out how the party can make inroads in the black community, which traditionally votes Democratic.

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Crusty Lawyers Get All the Best Lines

Trish
William “Willie” N. Meggs

“Since the legislature is building airport hangars instead of funding FDLE, they’re a little behind.”

— Florida State Attorney Willie Meggs, when asked when the Florida Department of Law Enforcement would finish its examination of the computer used by former State House Speaker Ray Sansom (R-Destin). Sansom was indicted by a grand jury and forced to resign as Speaker for using the position to win a high-paying job at a community college and to build an aircraft hangar for a political patron at taxpayer expense. Full background story.

Evolution of a Rightwing Tweet

Trish
Rubio’s twitter profile pic

Love twitter, hate twitter, or just wish people understood the difference between status updates on facebook and tweets, and didn’t post the identical thing in both places. But. Whatever you feel about twitter, you have to admit that something very brief can provide huge insight.

Take Marco Rubio for example, or should I say marcorubio? The only guy not scared of running against Charlie Crist in a Republican primary in Florida for U.S. Senate is exploring his inner Iranian freedom meme on twitter. In successive posts on Father’s Day, you can watch him home in on how best to slam Obama, strike the proper note of patriotism and far rightwing zealotry, and applaud fatherhood. It’s not an easy job, but I think he’s done it.

First, there was this.

#May God bless those fathers in Iran who are speaking out in order to protect their childrens future. #iranelection #tcot #sayfie44 minutes ago from TwitterFon

A good start, but we’re missing the “terrorists have won” sentiment that Republicans so enjoy.

#An American govt afraid to speak out for freedom is exactly what the terrorists wanted to accomplish. #sayfie #tcot #iranelection #tehran36 minutes ago from TwitterFon

That’s better, but not overtly insulting to Obama and the Democrats.

#American govt may be afraid to speak out in support of Iranian freedom but the American people are not! #sayfie #iranelection #tehran #tcot32 minutes ago from TwitterFon

Almost perfect. Let’s just think about it a little more…Hey! Guns!

# I have a feeling the situation in Iran would be a little different if they had a 2nd amendment like ours. #sayfie #tcot #nra20 minutes ago from TwitterFon

Now you’re tweeting, Marco! Way to make that Charlie Crist guy look like a wuss!

Clueless Florida Republicans ‘Celebrate’ Juneteenth

Buck Banks

The Republican Party of Florida is at it again, showing its stupidity and insensitivity toward African Americans. How? By trying to morph into a celebration what was actually a crime against slaves. At the same time, they are trying to align themselves with the Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln, a radical band of reformers and abolitionists whose Congress overrode the veto of white supremacist President Andrew Johnson to pass civil rights laws only to see them overturned by an “activist” Supreme Court.

Is Juneteenth something to celebrate? Certainly not. However, it is absolutely something to acknowledge

Here’s another example of the Republicans trotting out a black party member to show America that Mr. Lincoln’s party is still a great place to be black. Hey, Michael Steele, how are you celebrating Juneteenth?

Here’s the latest product from nimrod Jim Greer and his merry band of dolts:

Representative Jennifer Carroll, Chairperson of the Republican Party of Florida’s African American Republican Leadership Council, and RPOF Chairman Jim Greer today released the following statement regarding “Juneteenth,” a celebration recognizing June 19, 1865, the day the last American slaves learned that they were free:

“‘Juneteenth’ is a celebration of the day when the last remaining slaves received word that President Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation, resulting in their freedom. As the Party of Abraham Lincoln, the Republican Party of Florida is built on the foundation of freedom, and this principle is as important to us today it was so many years ago, when President Lincoln helped to found the Republican Party as the anti-slavery party,” said Representative Carroll. “Over 140 years, we have championed these convictions. From the Civil Rights laws of the 1860s to the landmark 1954 decision in Brown vs. the Board of Education, which called for the end of segregation in public schools, the Republican Party has always been an advocate for civil rights.”

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